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Chicago Cubs: Looking back fifty years to the 1969 Cubs
The 1969 Chicago Cubs boasted seasoned veterans like Ernie Banks and rising stars like Ken Holtzman. To this day, it remains memorable to all Cubs fans.
I was seven years old when the most legendary Chicago Cubs team in the last 50 years took the field in what turned out to be quite a memorable season. The 1969 Cubs boasted four future Hall of Famers: Ernie Banks, Ron Santo, Billy Williams and Fergie Jenkins. Their entire infield made the All-Star Game, though unlike 2016, not all were starters. Catcher Randy Hundley also made the 1969 All-Star squad but curiously Billy Williams did not.
Like the 2016 Cubs, the ’69 squad launched into the season posting a 16-7 mark in April. In fact, they lost just one game in the first two weeks of the season, going 11-1 through April 20. The season was sparked many believe by an 11th inning walk-off HR by Cubs centerfielder Willie Smith. They started the season in first place, a spot they would not relinquish until five months later.
However, at the end of April, it wasn’t the Mets chasing the Cubs, but rather the Pirates. The Cubs’ lead stood at just two games. Like the Cubs, the Pirates team was a near perfect mix of veterans like Roberto Clemente and Jim Bunning and young talents like Richie Hebner and Manny Sanguillen. The Chicago lead was down to a half-game at one point before the Cubs took three of four from Mets in New York.
By the end of May, the Cubs lead over the Pirates had grown to 7 1/2 games. The Cubs went 16-9 that month and It was clear as I watched the games in front of my parents’ Zenith black and white television that this was a special season. The Cubs were at or near the top of most offensive and defensive categories. Pitchers Fergie Jenkins, Kenny Holtzman and Bill Hands were having solid years.
At the halfway mark, the Cubs’ division lead remained at 7 1/2 games after peaking at nine games on June 15. After being swept by the Pirates on June 16-20 in Pittsburgh, which dropped the Cubs lead to five games, the Cubs returned the favor in Chicago a week later.
Chicago Cubs: Can they keep up this torrid pace?
But something else was happening. The Cubs had not faced the Mets since they split a four-game series in Chicago at the beginning of May. No one had paid much attention to the Mets who seemed stuck in third place behind the Cubs and Pirates. But quietly the Mets had overtaken the slumping Pirates for second place in the NL East.
The Cubs at the end of June were 50-27 and had amassed a run differential of +122. The Pirates had fallen to .500, the Mets were 7 1/2 games back, right where the Pirates were at the end of May. Ron Santo was clicking his heels, 38-year-old Ernie Banks was looking like he could play two all season long. Santo, Banks, Williams and Jim Hickman had all hit twenty-plus HRs a piece, and Hundley wasn’t far behind at 18. All seemed well indeed.
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The first signs of trouble
The first inkling that trouble was on the horizon came in July. After powering out 161 runs in June, the offense went quiet. And Cubs pitching, while solid, couldn’t reprise their early season stinginess. The month got off to a terrible start, with Cubs losing back-to-back series against the Cardinals and Mets three games to four. They rebounded against the Phillies then lost another three-game series to Mets. The division lead stood four games. A disquieting unease crept into my otherwise buoyant hopes.
But the Cubs fought back at the end of July to regain a 6 1/2 game division edge. The feared Pirates continued to fall as the Cardinals surged into third place. Just two months to go. August loomed.
But August calmed the fears. The Cubs reprised their season start by winning nine of the first eleven games that month. The division lead spiked to nine games and the Cubs stood at 30 games over .500, 73-43. A dismal 15-14 July was in the rearview mirror now. They would hold that high point for five days.
On August 18, they sat at, 77-45, 33 games over .500 and eight games up in the division.
Chicago Cubs: The tipping point
And then it began. A trickle at first…the three losses to Atlanta when the bats went quiet again, scoring only five runs in three games. A three out of four series loss to the Reds followed as the pitching gave up 23 runs in three games. The lead shrank to just three games. Then a burst of fight hit, as they won the last four games, sweeping Atlanta. An 18-11 August seemed worse.
The end of August winning streak carried over to one game in September, and then things came crashing to the ground. A three-game sweep by the Pirates, cut it to just 1 1/3 games. Then, at Shea Stadium, in the fourth inning with Glenn Beckert on second and Billy Williams up and Santo on deck, the metaphor of metaphors happened. The black cat.
Now, I don’t how animals other than birds end up in an MLB ballpark, and I certainly have no clue how a cat, much less a black cat, ends up in the grandstands of Shea that evening. But it didn’t cause Don Young to drop a fly ball in center field, or Ron Santo to chew him out afterward, or all the rest of losing that went on that season.
The Mets caught the Cubs the following day and the 84-59 Cubs would go onto to win just eight of the last nineteen games, finishing the month at 9-18 and the season at 92-70.
dark. Next. Chicago Cubs: An appreciative look back at the lowly 2012 Cubs
For me, it’s been, at times, a long tough road of Cub fandom from there to 2016. Along the way, we have lost many of the legends of that team, but a few remain. The 2016 Cubs were a special team, with tons of young talent. But the ’69 team will always be in my mind the best team the Cubs have fielded in my lifetime.