1984 can still give Cubs the creeps

Mike Berardino
South Florida Sun Sentinel
Published Tuesday, October 14, 2003

Even now, 19 years after the meltdown, they still aren't quite over it.

The pain remains fresh. You can see it in their eyes, hear it in their nervous laughter.

They have tried to purge that miserable afternoon in San Diego from their memory banks but have long since realized they are powerless to do so.

"It's hard to forget," Ryne Sandberg says.

Gary Matthews, the former left fielder, works as the Chicago Cubs' hitting coach. This is his first year back in the organization he helped climb within one game -- one stinkin' game -- of the World Series in 1984.

Sandberg, National League MVP in 1984, is back in the fold as well. He's more visible than at any time since his playing days, traveling to South Florida last weekend to root on his old team in the National League Championship Series.

As a front-office assistant, Sandberg has embraced manager Dusty Baker's invitation to be around the team before and after games, to suit up for batting practice, to serve as a font of wisdom and a talisman of what, exactly?

Greatness? To be sure. Sustained excellence? Loyalty?

At this moment, however, having Sandberg around has a flip side, too. The old second baseman provides a visual reminder of what dastardly outcomes typically befall the woebegone franchise.

About the only way to make it more obvious would be to have Leon Durham sitting on the bench. Or perhaps to have Sandberg tip over the Gatorade container on Randall Simon's glove, as he accidentally did to Durham before his epic two-error Game 5 way back when.

What was the worst day of your professional life? How often do you think about it?

Every few months? Every few days? Every few hours?

What if that same day was the worst for your company as well? How often would your co-workers remind you what happened? Or would they simply avoid eye contact when you walked by?

And so Matthews and Sandberg find themselves talking about the '84 collapse far more than they would prefer. They will pass each other in the clubhouse or on the field or on the team bus and the subject will just ... materialize.

"Gary Matthews and I talk about it almost on a daily basis," says Sandberg, who calls Matthews his all-time favorite teammate. "We do think back on what happened. I still think about it today."

With the Cubs suddenly clinging to a 3-2 lead in the best-of-7 series, the comparisons have started raging again. The Cubs haven't been this close to the pennant since that lost weekend in San Diego.

They traveled west needing just one win out of three games to get to the World Series for the first time since 1945. A 96-win powerhouse, they lost all three games to go from a potential sweep to an excruciating collapse.

"With what's going on right now, either one of us could just say, Man, we were one game from being in the World Series,' " Sandberg says. "Something like that, and the next guy will jump all over it. Right back in the moment."

Says Matthews: "We just talk about what it meant and how close we were at that time, things that happened. It's not something where we're comparing it to this year at all. We don't sit here and tell these guys, This is what happened to us."

Dusty Baker chided the assembled media Monday for dredging up the past, for constantly reminding his players of how close the Cubs came in 1984. Up 3-0 in the sixth inning of the deciding game with Cy Young winner Rick Sutcliffe on the mound.

Still up 3-2 in the seventh, nine outs away, when Durham let Tim Flannery's grounder bound through his legs at first base. Four runs later, the Padres were on their way to a World Series sweep at the hands of the Detroit Tigers.

"That's what we've been fighting here all year long," Baker said. "Every time you lose a game, someone conjures up something negative that happened before."

To some extent this is true, but the parallels are undeniable.

The general manager of those Padres? Why, that would be Trader Jack McKeon, now the Marlins manager.

Eerie, huh?

"I don't believe in that stuff," McKeon says. "It's two different eras, two different teams, a different set of circumstances."


"I hope the hex stays on them."

And did you happen to see who died Monday? Former Padres owner Joan Kroc, McKeon's old boss in San Diego.

The billionaire philanthropist took over a controlling interest of the Padres after the death of her husband, McDonald's founder Ray Kroc.

Her first season at the helm?

Nineteen eighty-four.