Chicago Cubs: Why Kerry Wood’s 20K game stands out

Chicago Cubs: The historic game took place during the final chapter of one of the greatest sports dynasties in history

The summer of 1998 will be remembered for the Sammy Sosa vs. Mark McGwire in the sports world, but Wood’s 20K game took place early in the season. Why is this significant? Because the spring of 98′ had Chicago’s attention focused on the sixth and final championship run by Michael Jordan and the Bulls.

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In fact, the same day Wood struck out 20 hitters; the Bulls took on the Charlotte Hornets in game two of the second round of the NBA playoffs. The city was Bulls crazy, and they were far and away from the biggest talk of the town. Meanwhile, the Cubs spent most of the decade being irrelevant and bad, especially heading into 1998 as seven of their previous eight seasons were losing seasons.

Early 1998 was also a time when some baseball fans around the world were still soured by the infamous strike of 1994. The magnificent home run race between Sosa and Big Mac helped bring baseball back to life, but the hype began to pick up later in the summer. Wood’s performance put what had been a bad team for a while in the national sports news and was nice for the sport.

“Hey, I know the Bulls are playing tonight, but did you hear what happened at Wrigley Field?” was not something said very often in the 90s.

Chicago Cubs: The crowd at Wrigley Field on May 6th, 1998 is not like one we are used to seeing today

One thing most classic Cubs games that happened at Wrigley Field the past 40 years have in common is 38,000+ fans in the stands. Whether playoffs or regular season, Wrigley has been more often packed than not the past few decades.

This was not the case at Wrigley for Wood’s 20K game. The ballpark was pretty empty, with attendance recorded at 15,758, according to baseball-reference. This was likely due to the fact it was a day game on a Wednesday early in the season with bad weather in the area. Most of the crowd was either in the lower level of the grandstand or the left/right-field bleachers. The upper deck of the grandstand was virtually empty, with maybe a few hundred spectators.

However, the few people that were there made the most of the experience. A group of fans in the left-field bleachers held up all the “K” signs after each strikeout got a lot of attention on the broadcast. The rest of the crowd cheered louder with each strikeout and started getting on their feet in the middle innings each time Wood got to two strikes.

Pat Hughes, on the radio, said, “It feels like a World Series game” in the ninth inning regarding the energy in the ballpark. A stadium filled under half capacity creating such a memorable atmosphere made the game very special, especially for those who attended or watched live.

Chicago Cubs: It was a tough day for anyone to pitch in weather-wise.

How many historic pitching performances do we see happen in the pouring rain? It does not happen often, but it happened for Kerry Wood. It is one thing for a 20-year old pitcher to dominate the most feared lineup in the National League, it’s another to do it on a muddy mound with rain pouring down.

The game began under very gloomy skies with the threat of rain in the forecast. It was in the middle innings when the rain started to fall. People in the stands either went under the upper deck or put on plastic ponchos to stay dry as Wood kept firing away. By the seventh inning, much of the field was pretty soaked.

It got to a point where some feared the game would either be delayed or called. Thunder began to rumble in the skies when Moises Alou was facing Wood in the top of the seventh. Even if there were just a delay, Wood would have been replaced when play resumed. No delays were called, and the rain held off from being too bad to play in. Regardless it was still impressive for the young kid to keep his command on a wet mound.

It is hard to believe it has been more than two decades since this historic game took place. There is a whole new generation of adult Cubs fans who were either not born or too young to remember the game. Luckily today, there are plenty of ways to re-watch the game.