'Twas Thirty Years Ago: Chicago Sports Memories of 1981

    

     In 1981, the Chicago Sting (remember?) won the North American Soccer League title, becoming Chicago's first championship team since the 1963 Bears. Coached by Willy Roy, the Sting went 23-9 on the season and defeated the New York Cosmos in the Soccer Bowl for the championship. The title game was scoreless for 90 minutes of regulation and 15 minutes of overtime before the Sting prevailed 2-1 in a shootout. Rudy Glenn booted the game winner for the Sting. Other prominent players included Karl-Heinz Granitza, Pato Margetic, Franz Mathieu, Ingo Peter, and Arno Steffenhagen.
     Founded and run by the ebullient Lee Stern, the Sting played outdoor soccer from 1975 through 1984 (when they won a second championship) and indoors from 1980 through 1988.

     By the latter part of the 1980-81 season, Bulls head coach Jerry Sloan had seen enough of Larry Kenon, a silky 6-foot-9 scorer who was not interested in playing defense. Kenon went onto the bench, and off came Dwight Jones, a blue-collar type who was Sloan's kind of guy. With Jones and David Greenwood at forward, Artis Gilmore at center, Reggie Theus and Ricky Sobers at guard, and guard/forward Bob Wilkerson as sixth man, the Bulls won 12 of their last 14 games to finish 45-37 and qualify for the playoffs. They swept the New York Knicks in a best-of-three opening round series before bowing in four straight games to Larry Bird and the Boston Celtics, who went on to capture the championship.

     For the Blackhawks, head coach Keith Magnuson was just one year removed from the conclusion of his 11-year playing career. The rookie coach welcomed another rookie, 19-year-old center Denis Savard, who was destined to join him among the most beloved Hawks of all time. Having come to Chicago from his native Quebec hardly knowing a word of English, Savard was initially bashful off the ice. On the ice, he was a dazzling skater and electrifying playmaker who proved he belonged from day one. With 28 goals and 47 assists for 75 points, Savard was second to veteran center Tom Lysiak for the team scoring lead. Better yet, he compiled a superb plus/minus of +27. He was headed for the Hall of Fame.
     Another future Hall of Famer, Tony Esposito, led the league in minutes played by a goalie for the sixth time in the past seven seasons. He was between the pipes for all but two of the Hawks' wins, but (not coincidentally) missed ten of their losses. The Hawks went 31-33-16 for the regular season and made a quick exit from the playoffs, swept by Calgary in the first round.

     The White Sox were in the first year of ownership by Jerry Reinsdorf and Eddie Einhorn, while the Cubs were in the last year of ownership by the Wrigley family. A work stoppage sliced two months out of the season, from mid-June to mid-August. Standings were kept separately for both "halves," with the unfortunate result that the Cincinnati Reds missed the playoffs despite having the best overall record in either league.
     For the White Sox, newly acquired catcher Carlton Fisk made a big splash on Opening Day against the Red Sox, the team he had just left acrimoniously. The White Sox were trailing 2-0 in the top of the eighth when Fisk cracked a three-run homer, stunning the Fenway Park crowd and leading to a 5-3 victory. The future Hall of Famer remained with the White Sox for the rest of his career, retiring in 1993.
     The Sox were 31-22 before the players' strike, but they slid to 23-30 after the strike to finish at 54-52. Twenty-two-year-old southpaw Britt Burns was a bright spot, going 10-6 with a sparkling 2.64 ERA. The 1981 season marked the end of broadcaster Harry Caray's 11-year run on the South Side.
     The Cubs were an abysmal 15-37 before the strike, a less atrocious 23-28 afterwards, and finished at 38-65 overall. First baseman Bill Buckner had a solid season, hitting .311 and knocking in 75 runs (more than twice as many as any teammate). Starting pitcher Rick Reuschel was traded away in June, depriving the team of its heart and soul.
     After 60 years of ownership by three generations of Wrigleys, the franchise and ballpark were sold to Tribune Company for a reported $19.5 million. The new owners appointed ex-Phillies skipper Dallas Green as general manager after the season. Broadcaster Jack Brickhouse, a fixture for some 35 years, retired and was replaced by Caray. In Green and Caray, the Cubs had hired the two people who would do more than anyone else to ignite the coming explosion in the franchise's popularity.

     The Bears lost six of their first seven games and ten of the first 13. They won the last three games to finish at 6-10, but it was too little and too late to save head coach Neill Armstrong, who was fired after four years at the helm that featured a 30-34 record and one playoff appearance. The Bears ranked 27th out of the NFL's 28 teams on offense and 14th on defense.
     Running back Walter Payton had what was for him a sub-par season, gaining "only" 1,222 yards on 339 rushing attempts for a middling average of 3.6 yards per carry. He scored just eight touchdowns (six rushing and two receiving) and was left out of the Pro Bowl after five consecutive appearances. Fortunately, those who thought the 27-year-old Payton was on his last legs proved to be sorely mistaken. Safety Gary Fencik was the Bears' only Pro Bowler and a first-team All-Pro to boot.
     When Armstrong was let go, Bears owner George Halas made a surprising and controversial move by giving the job to Mike Ditka, a Dallas assistant coach who had starred for the Bears at tight end during the 1960s. As Bears head coach, "Iron Mike" soon became an iconic figure.

     The inaugural Arlington Million, the first million-dollar horse race in history, was won by six-year-old gelding John Henry. Ridden by the legendary Bill Shoemaker, John Henry was well off the pace for most of the running, then launched a stirring stretch drive that saw him nip The Bart by a nose at the wire. John Henry was voted Horse of the Year for 1981, and he won the award again in 1984 after capturing the Million for a second time.

     They passed away in 1981: Freddie Lindstrom, 75, Cubs outfielder 1935, Hall of Famer; Joe Louis, 66, won world heavyweight championship at Comiskey Park in 1937 and retained it until 1949; Steve Macko, 27, Cubs infielder 1979-1980.

Meyer and Mikan

GEORGE MIKAN and RAY MEYER

     When Chicago native Ray Meyer signed on as DePaul University’s basketball coach in 1942, he agreed to a one-year contract for the modest sum of $2,500. He turned down a three-year deal, he later explained, “because I didn’t know if I’d like the job or the profession.” His first agenda item was to turn the gangly, six-foot-10 freshman George Mikan into a basketball player.
     “I knew the value of the big man in basketball,” he wrote. “He gets more points by accident than a little guy [does] on purpose.” Every day after the team’s regular practice, Meyer put Mikan through a grueling regimen of skipping rope, shadow boxing, jumping over chairs, playing catch with medicine balls and tennis balls, and, almost incidentally, dribbling and shooting a basketball. In one drill, Mikan would stand under the basket and make a layup with his right hand, then rebound and make a layup with his left, rebound and layup with his right, etc., etc., etc. Known as the “Mikan Drill,” this routine has been used for virtually all big men ever since; among its adherents are Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Shaquille O’Neal.
     “Mikan was raw material with a little talent,” Meyer wrote. “His greatest asset was the desire to improve, which made him willing to listen and work. You can measure height and even talent, but not heart. Mikan showed me in the beginning he had the heart to be great.”
     Meyer’s patient tutelage transformed the Clark Kent look-alike into a Superman. Mikan learned to execute hook shots deftly with either hand and to rebound and block shots like no one else. In his first season at DePaul, he led the Blue Demons to a 19-5 record and an appearance in the NCAA tournament’s semifinal round (which hadn’t yet been labeled the Final Four).
     In 1943-44, Mikan and DePaul advanced to the championship game of the National Invitational Tournament, which was then equivalent to the NCAA in prestige, before losing to St. John’s to conclude a 22-4 campaign. Mikan was chosen national player of the year. The next year, DePaul won 18 of 20 regular-season games and marched through the NIT with awe-inspiring ease, crushing West Virginia 76-54, Rhode Island 97-53, and Bowling Green 71-54 to win the championship. In the semifinal game, Mikan nearly outscored the other team by himself, settling for a “tie” with 53. He was selected most valuable player of the NIT and repeated as national player of the year.
     Following the title game at Madison Square Garden, the Demons remained in New York for a contest with NCAA champion Oklahoma A&M and its six-foot-11 center Bob Kurland, Mikan’s only rival as the finest player in the country. Although the event was technically an exhibition to benefit the wartime Red Cross, it was hyped as a national championship game. DePaul had beaten the Aggies 48-46 several weeks earlier, and the rematch was expected to be a barn-burner. Unfortunately, it became somewhat anticlimactic when Mikan fouled out with six minutes left in the first half and three other starters soon followed. DePaul lost 52-44.

     After three seasons at DePaul, Mikan had become so outstanding that the rules were amended to diminish his dominance. It had been his custom to station himself under the opposition’s basket and simply swat incoming shots away or even catch them in midair and fling them ahead to teammates for easy fast breaks. Goaltending was outlawed prior to the 1945-46 season, but the change seemed not to bother Mikan, who continued to shine. He scored 555 points in 24 games (the previous year he had tallied 558 points, also in 24 games) and played superb defense. Rebounds were not counted in those days, but Mikan’s excellence in that area is well documented in contemporary accounts.
     DePaul rolled to a 19-5 mark in 1945-46, winning its final six games by an average of 20 points. Despite this, the Demons were snubbed by both the NCAA and NIT. Meyer suspected that his harsh comments about the officiating in the previous spring’s Oklahoma A&M game had gotten him and the Demons blackballed from both tournaments, but he never knew for sure. With no postseason opportunities forthcoming, the Mikan era at DePaul ended with a lopsided 65-40 victory over Beloit College in the regular-season finale on March 9, 1946.
     Meyer began to face life without the man who was later voted the greatest player of the first half of the 20th century. “While he was around,” Meyer wrote, “I was a great coach.” For his part, Mikan said of Meyer, “I’d be nothing without him.” The Demons had won 81 of 98 games in the four years and finished third, second, and first in their three postseason tournaments. Now Mikan was bound for greater glory in the pro ranks, while Meyer was destined for decades of obscurity. The 32-year-old coach would see his age double before he and DePaul returned to national prominence.

Excerpted from Heydays: Great Stories in Chicago Sports
(c)2009 by Christopher Tabbert.

Bill Mosienko's 21-Second Hat Trick

    

BILL MOSIENKO

     The end of the 1951-52 campaign couldn’t come soon enough for the lowly Blackhawks, who were headed for their third consecutive last-place finish and the sixth straight year in which they missed the playoffs. Only 3,254 fans showed up at the old Madison Square Garden expecting to see the New York Rangers and the Hawks go through the motions in the season finale on March 23, 1952.
     The small crowd was treated to one of the most incredible sequences ever witnessed in the NHL. It began at 6:09 of the third period, when Hawks right wing Bill Mosienko took a pass from center Gus Bodnar, faked a shot to the left of goalie Lorne Anderson, then beat Anderson with a low wrist shot to the goalie’s right.
     Mosienko, the Hawks’ leading scorer, raised his stick in the time-honored fashion of celebrating a goal, then skated back to center ice for the ensuing faceoff. Again Bodnar controlled the puck and got it to Mosienko, who sped in on Anderson and fired the puck past him for a second goal in 11 seconds. The time was 6:20.
     Mosienko accepted congratulations from his linemates, then returned to center ice for another faceoff. Bodnar won the draw yet again, and this time he flipped the puck to left wing George Gee. Anderson, a rookie who was understandably rattled by now, committed himself to Gee too soon—and when he did, Gee slid the puck over to Mosienko, who deposited it into a wide-open net.
     The time was 6:30. Mosienko had scored three goals in 21 seconds—a record that will probably never be broken. “Anderson might have stopped Mosienko’s first shot,” according to the New York Times. “But the second and third goals were neatly executed and could have fooled any goalie in the league.” While Mosienko collected the puck for a souvenir, Ranger fans saluted him by showering the ice with their hats. The Times also reported that “the crowd of 3,254 cheered Mosienko with a volume that seemed to come from twice that number when the record-breaking accomplishment was announced.”
     The Hawks outlasted the Rangers 7-6 for just their 17th win of the season, against 44 losses and nine ties. It was typical of Mosienko to provide a bright spot in this dismal era for the Blackhawks, who qualified for the postseason only four times in his brilliant 14-year career. Mosienko was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1965.

Once More Into the Cauldron of Sound

    

BABE RUTH, 1948

     Yankee Stadium, which opened in 1923, was called "the House that Ruth Built," because Babe Ruth did more than anyone else to make the New York Yankees popular and prosperous enough to warrant such an edifice. On June 13, 1948, a ceremony was held to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the house Ruth had built and to honor the man himself by retiring his uniform number.
     Although he was desperately ill with cancer, the Babe showed up. The 49,641 fans knew that they would be seeing him for the last time. It was a dreary day, which was strangely fitting. Ruth donned the Yankee pinstripes and waited in the visitors’ dugout for his name to be called.
     When Ruth was introduced, he grabbed a bat (which belonged to future Hall of Famer Bob Feller) and, as W.C. Heinz wrote unforgettably, "walked out into the cauldron of sound he must have known better than any other man." As Ruth ambled haltingly to the third-base foul line, using the bat for a cane, he received the longest and loudest ovation of his life. It was also the last. He died two months later.
 



MICHAEL JORDAN, 2011

     The United Center, which opened in 1994, has been called "the House that Jordan built," because Michael Jordan did more than anyone to make such a giant arena possible to sell out on a nightly basis. Last Saturday night, a ceremony was held to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Bulls’ first championship. Jordan and most of his teammates from the 1991 Bulls showed up.
     Like Ruth, Jordan is the greatest player in the history of his sport. (Unlike Ruth in 1948, Jordan is still hale and hearty.) When Jordan was introduced, he walked into a cauldron of sound that must have been much like the one which greeted Ruth. The crowd’s response was so effusive that even Jordan, no stranger to ovations, seemed a bit startled.
     He smiled broadly, waving to the crowd and soaking it all in, as he stepped up to say a few words. Having already proclaimed Derrick Rose the NBA’s Most Valuable Player for this season, Jordan gave his assessment of the Bulls as a team. "You guys," he announced to the fans, "are in store for a lot more championships." That remark brought the house down.
     Bulls center Joakim Noah appreciated the significance of what he had seen and heard. "The energy in the building from the beginning was great," Noah said. "Hearing the reception Scottie [Pippen] and M.J. got, that’s deep stuff, man. It was special to see that. Twenty years later, [Jordan] can’t even get two words across without the crowd going crazy. To see those guys together, it shows what winning a championship is all about. That’s a beautiful thing."

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.