A Shout-Out to Luis Salazar

     Former White Sox and Cubs third baseman Luis Salazar, currently a minor-league manager in the Atlanta Braves organization, suffered a horrific injury last week when a line drive struck him flush in the face as he watched a spring-training game from the dugout. Salazar was said to have been unconscious for 20 minutes, and some of the Braves feared that he had died.
     Salazar was airlifted from the ballpark in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, to a hospital in Orlando, and he seems to be out of danger. It's not entirely clear as yet how much damage was done or how arduous his recovery will be. Naturally, our best wishes go to Luis and his family.
     Below is a tip of the cap to Salazar's role in the Cubs' 1989 division championship, reprinted from the recent book Heydays: Great Stories in Chicago Sports.


     On September 8, 1989, one month to the day after the Cubs took over first place in the National League East, they opened a three-game series with the St. Louis Cardinals to determine whether they would stay there. Like any weekend series between the Cubs and the Cardinals, it was sold out well in advance, long before anyone knew that these would be the most important games of the year for either club.
     The Cardinals, who came into town only a game and a half behind the Cubs, rallied from a 7-1 deficit Friday afternoon to win 11-8 and reduce the margin to half a game. It was a horrendous defeat for the Cubs, who gave up four runs in the seventh inning and another five in the eighth as victory slipped away. Their collars were a little tighter when they took the field on Saturday, September 9, knowing that a loss would drop them into second place.
     It was a dark, drizzly afternoon, and Wrigley Field’s one-year-old lights were on from the first pitch at 3:05. Both starting pitchers, Rick Sutcliffe for the Cubs and Jose DeLeon for St. Louis, performed admirably. The Cubs pushed across a run in the first, and the Cardinals scored two in the sixth. That was all the scoring for the first seven innings.
     DeLeon maintained the precarious 2-1 lead into the bottom of the eighth. Dwight Smith led off with a single to right—a good start for the Cubs that almost turned disastrous when Smith took a wide turn around first base, then inexplicably stopped halfway to second. Cardinals right fielder Tom Brunansky hesitated to throw the ball back in, not sure whether Smith was headed to second or back to first. Finally, Smith bolted for second—and made it when Brunansky’s throw was off the mark. “I waited too long,” Brunansky admitted after the game. For his part, Smith justified the seemingly ridiculous risk he had taken. “If I screw up, I’m going to get a lot of questions for it,” he said. “But if you’re afraid to make a mistake, then you can’t win.”
     So Smith, representing the tying run, was on second with nobody out. But Mark Grace fanned and Andre Dawson grounded out, and suddenly Smith was on third with two outs. Enter Luis Salazar, a veteran third baseman who had been acquired ten days earlier to bolster the Cubs’ bench. Salazar’s line-drive single to left tied the score at two apiece.
     The game remained tied through the ninth inning and into the tenth. Grace led off the bottom of the tenth by popping out. Dawson coaxed a walk. And then Salazar stepped up to the plate again. With a count of 2-and-1, Cardinal lefty Ken Dayley threw a fastball well away from Salazar, who reached out and stroked it down the right-field line and up against the ivy. While Brunansky dug the ball out of the corner, Dawson ran for all he was worth. Dawson turned for home and kept on chugging as second baseman Jose Oquendo took the relay from Brunansky and fired it toward the plate—too late. Dawson’s aching knees had carried home the winning run.
     Shawon Dunston, the on-deck batter, leaped into Dawson’s arms behind the plate while the rest of the Cubs piled on top of Salazar. The unlikely hero had batted but twice, delivering clutch hits that tied the game in the eighth and won it in the tenth.
     “We were better than yesterday,” said manager Don Zimmer. “There were a lot of little things that happened in this ballgame.” It was a year in which a lot of little things added up to make the Cubs division champions. All season long, rookies and no-names like Smith, Jerome Walton, Joe Girardi, Mike Bielecki, Les Lancaster, Lloyd McClendon, Steve Wilson, and Salazar came through when it counted. The Cubs never looked back after the dramatic win on September 9. They won the division title going away, lengthening their margin to six games by the end of the season.

A Day of Sweetness and Sorrow

WALTER PAYTON

     October 7, 1984, was an unforgettable day for Chicago sports fans. It was the best of times; it was the worst of times (for White Sox fans, it was only the former). At dank, drizzly Soldier Field, Walter Payton became pro football’s all-time leading rusher. At sun-kissed Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego, the Cubs suffered one of the most heartbreaking losses in their 109-year history. The weatherman had it backwards.
     At Soldier Field, on the second play of the third quarter, Payton took a pitch from quarterback Jim McMahon and went around the left end for six yards. With this gain, the man who had personified excellence and dedication for a decade’s worth of mediocre Bear teams surpassed Jim Brown’s career total of 12,312 yards, which had stood as the NFL record since 1965. Payton finished the day with 154 yards on 32 carries (it was the 59th time he had gained 100 or more yards in a game, also a record). The Bears defeated the New Orleans Saints 20-6 to advance to 4-2 for the season; they were headed for their first division title in 21 years.
     As he had accepted everything throughout his brilliant career, Payton accepted the record with grace and humility. “The win means everything,” he said after the game. “If we would have lost this game today, the record would just be something in the past. Now, everybody here has something to talk about.” He dedicated his performance to three running backs who had died too soon to have their potential realized—David Overstreet, Joe Delaney, and Brian Piccolo: “What I did out there today is a reflection of those guys, who didn’t get the opportunity, because they made the sacrifices as well.”
     Then the phone rang in the media tent, and it was President Ronald Reagan on the line. “Good luck on your next 12,000 yards,” he told Payton.

     Half a continent away at Jack Murphy Stadium, the Cubs and Padres were engaged in the fifth and deciding game of the National League Championship Series. With one out in the bottom of the seventh inning, a routine ground ball skipped under Cub first baseman Leon Durham’s glove, allowing the tying run to score for San Diego. A check-swing single followed. Then Tony Gwynn hit a hot shot toward second baseman Ryne Sandberg that looked like an inning-ending double play. But the ball took a bad hop and bounded over Sandberg into the gap for a two-run double. A solid single by Steve Garvey scored Gwynn. With that, Cubs manager Jim Frey finally lifted pitcher Rick Sutcliffe, but the train had left the station. The Padres were ahead 6-3, and that proved to be the final score.
     The Cubs had lost three straight in San Diego when winning just one would have given them their first pennant in 39 years. Now the Padres were on their way to the World Series, and the Cubs were left to contemplate how their glorious season had so suddenly and sickeningly ended. Sutcliffe’s loss in the decisive Game 5 was just his second against 17 victories since he'd joined the Cubs in a June trade; he would soon receive the National League Cy Young Award. It was understandable, if regrettable, that Frey had trusted in the towering righthander's invincibility beyond the point of no return.
     A big man not only in stature, Sutcliffe bravely faced the media after the game. He refused to blame Durham for the ball that didn’t come up or Sandberg for the ball that didn’t stay down. “I take the responsibility for this,” he said. “It’s my fault. These guys have been great behind me all year.
     “This will hurt me for a long, long time,” Sutcliffe continued. “It will stay with all of us for a long time. It’s hard to deal with. Very hard.”
     Millions of Cubs fans knew exactly how he felt.