The Chicago Cubs, March Madness and the Final Four

As we continue on through this new abnormal without baseball or any other sports in the foreseeable future, here’s our Chicago Cubs Edition of the Final Four.

Without any semblance of Chicago Cubs sports or normality in American society currently, it’s hard to be excited about the prospects surrounding much of anything right now. That being said, we’re here to keep you entertained and add some happiness to your day.

What better way to do such a thing than to give you a little bit of Cubs baseball history and a tie in to the best tournament of the year? March Madness. Even though it’s now well into April.

Regardless of your knowledge of the Chicago Cubs, this is an opportunity to get to know some of the greatest Cubs of all time. Their eras, their stats, and what kind of players they were. It’s also a way to pit modern versus old school players in an attempt to settle who is the GOAT in Cubs history.

When designing the first brackets, the parameters were pretty simple. Using career bWAR for all players, the bWAR is a total amount of bWAR garnered during a Chicago Cubs. Note that some of the players would be much higher if their career bWAR with different teams were used, but that may or may not come into play when we start having these players square off against each other to determine how they advance through the bracket.

With the Final Four portion of the Cubs tournament upon us, all the players left are household names for even the most fairweather of fans. For more significant fan input and to have your voice heard about who should win each matchup, please comment and make your picks on both the Facebook and Twitter links to this specific article. And, of course, check back as we progress through the bracket.

Chicago Cubs: Wrigley Region Championship

• 1 seed Ron Santo vs. 2 seed Billy Williams

To make it to the Final Four portion of the tournament, you pretty much need to be a Hall of Famer. You also are almost certainly were or are still a beloved player. Both prerequisites are undoubtedly accurate for the last two men standing in the Wrigley Region, Williams and Santo.

While neither Santo nor Williams helped their team to a pennant in the 1960s or 70s, they are (along with Ernie Banks and Fergie Jenkins) the stars of an entire generation of Cubs fans. They epitomized the faithful fans who came to see them and rarely disappointed.

Williams was the NL Rookie of the Year in 1961, a six-time All-Star, won a batting title in 1972, and was on the MVP ballot a whopping eight times. He finished his career with a .290/.361/.492 career slash line, 426 home runs, 1475 RBI, and 2711 hits.

Santo was a nine-time All-Star, five-time Gold Glove winner, and garnered MVP votes for seven straight years from 1963-1969. He put up a career slash line of .277/.362/.464 and played the best third base of anyone in his generation not named Brooks Robinson. Fun stat as well- he is the only third baseman in MLB history to drive in 90 runs in eight consecutive seasons (1963-1970).

While it was a next-to-impossible task to decide a winner between the two, Santo’s defensive prowess and continued work with the Cubs as a broadcaster until his death in 2010 puts him over the top as the Wrigley Region victor.

Chicago Cubs: Weeghman Region Championship

• 8 seed Greg Maddux vs. 3 seed Frank Chance

While Chance has something that no one else left in the Cubs Tournament has in a World Series ring (and he actually has two), there was just too much room between him and Maddux overall. Maddux continues his “underdog” domination in the Cubs March Madness Bracket. Or, maybe it’s more of a “Mad Dog” domination, as the soft-tossing right-hander’s not-so-professorial moniker would have you believe.

Coming into the tournament as a lowly eight seed due to the fact he split time with the Cubs and Braves in his career, Maddux finished his career with 355 wins, a 3.16 ERA, four Cy Young Awards, and an almost unbelievable 18 Gold Glove Awards. Known for his mastery of the strike zone, his command, and almost perfect fundamentals, Maddux gave hope to an entire generation of kids who couldn’t throw hard.

Today, his legacy lives on nearly every time a pitcher throws a great game without blowing it by every single hitter. As Cubs fans surely know, Kyle Hendricks keeps the comparisons and legacy of Maddux alive and well with his command, demeanor, and results (although many forget that Maddux actually threw harder (93 mph) than Hendricks to start his career).

Despite his loss in the Weeghman Regional Final, Chance was no slouch. He finished his career with a .296/.394/.394 slash line and was voted into the Hall of Fame in 1946 by the Old Timers’ Committee. He won those two rings in the famous 1907 and 1908 seasons, hitting a robust .421 in the Series in ’08. He also holds the distinction of playing in two centuries, as he started his career in 1898, some 122 years ago.

Chicago Cubs: Catalina Region Championship

• 1 seed Ernie Banks vs. 3 seed Mordecai Brown

While Mordecai Brown was a great pitcher and a great Cub, everyone who wasn’t stuck under a rock for the last 60 years knew that Ernie Banks was going to win the Catalina bracket. After all, if the guy named “Mr. Cub” didn’t at least make it to the Final Four, what kind of club and what kind of tournament would this be?

Mordecai Brown finished his career with 239 wins, a 2.06 ERA, and was part of the great Cubs teams of 1907 and 1908. “Three Finger” was also elected to the Hall of Fame in 1949, so there’s no shame in losing to Banks in this one.

Banks is widely assumed to be the greatest Cub ever, and his smile and penchant for “playing two” certainly made it easy for a generation of Cub fans to fall in love with the shortstop and later first baseman. The 1954 NL Rookie of the Year appeared on an MVP ballot a whopping 11 times, winning the award in back-to-back years in 1958 and 1959. In an era way before the juiced ball of 2019, Banks hit 40 or more home runs in five out of six seasons from 1955-1960.

He finished with a career slash line of .274/.330/.500, with 512 home runs, 1636 RBI, and 2583 total hits in 19 seasons (all with the Cubs). He is the career leader in games with the Cubs (2528), nearly two full seasons more than the next closest Cub, Cap Anson. No wonder Cubs fans love Banks- they saw him more than any other player in history.

Try and wait as patiently as possible for the final matchups in the Cubs March Madness Bracket as we’re down to the last four- all legends in their own right.