Chicago Cubs: The new ‘Daily Double’ of Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo

Will Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo be an all-time Cubs great leadoff duo?

First-year Chicago Cubs manager David Ross has not changed much of what he had originally planned for the team before the pandemic hit and derailed the 2020 season. Fortunately for fans, that includes his notion of who’s going to be hitting in the one and two spots in the lineup.

Ross still believes that Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant and first baseman Anthony Rizzo are the key to getting it started but he did add that he would have to take into account how all the other Cubs are hitting as well, coming off the lengthy break.

Here’s something some of the other sportswriters have failed to pick up on about pairing Bryant and Rizzo together at this time in their careers; it is uncannily extremely similar to the 1984 Cubs season when the two leadoff hitters were nicknamed the ‘Daily Double’ and the Cubs almost won it all.

You’ll be surprised how similar these four players are to each other and maybe it’s a clue to how they’ll perform during this year’s 60-game season. If Bryant and Rizzo can get the offense fired up like the original ‘Daily Double’, this year could end up end up being a treat.

Chicago Cub: Did Caray steal ‘Daily Double’ from his trips to Balmoral?

For those too young to remember the great outfielder Bob Dernier or Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg, than you might not be keen to what the ‘Daily Double’ was in 1984 and what it did for the Cubs that season and possibly what it can do for the Cubs in this short season.

Legendary announcer Harry Caray was on the microphone giving fans the play-by-play of the Cubs in 1984. Chicago Cubs games were still broadcast on WGN television, and there were only about 10 channels on all of television at the time. This was before cable TV really took off.

One of the channels, WFLD 32 or ‘Channel 32’ as it’s lovingly referred to by those of us that were subjected to the limited channels in the Chicagoland area during this period, used to host the daily Illinois Lottery drawings which were getting quite popular with television audiences in the state. The drawing looked like a cheap Hollywood game set complete with a horned-section music opener, an announcer and sometimes attractive female assistants. It was like Vegas in Chicago!

1984 was actually the tenth anniversary of the State Lottery in Illinois and so the game that was getting more popular to watch at home on television was also getting into the media for its anniversary year. Nearby Balmoral Park was also a popular hangout for Chicago’s rich and famous at the time and the Daily Double was always a bet at the park.  It’s not so far-fetched to think that Caray with an ear for cool jargon to use on the air, picked up on the gambling term either during his visits to Balmoral or from watching the popular televised lottery drawings nightly.

Either way, it didn’t take long for Caray to apply the term, ‘Daily Double’ to the highly productive 1984 Chicago Cubs number one and two batters, Dernier and Sandberg.

Chicago Cubs: The unstoppable duo reborn

The duo of Dernier and Sandberg was unstoppable in 1984, as the temperature of fans rose sensing they had a winning team on their hands. Fans and opposing teams watched in disbelief as the ‘Daily Double’ pushed themselves and others around the bases in offensive heaven that year. Sometimes it just takes a certain pairing, at a certain time in their careers and producing at a certain level to go beyond and win it all. It’s almost like lining up the stars perfectly to bring about a manifest destiny… if you believe in that sort of thing.

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Either way, there is no denying something special may about to be happen again. The similarity between these players is remarkable and it’s almost like the ‘Daily Double’ has been reborn. Here’s how the numbers line up:

In 1984, Dernier was playing his fifth season in the league. This is the first weird coincidence, as I am using Bryant’s 2019 stats from last season, Bryant’s fifth season as well.  If Bryant is going to lead off the season like Dernier did in 1984, Bryant would have to be fast. Dernier stole 45 bases in 1984 and Bryant stole only four last season and just 34 in his whole career.  In 1984, Dernier had 536 at-bats pretty similar to Bryant’s 543 last season.

For the 1984 campaign, Dernier had 149 hits, 94 runs, three home runs, 26 doubles, five triples and 63 walks. That gave Dernier a .278 BA with a .356 OBP, .362 SLG and .718 OPS. Last season, Bryant, by comparison, had a very similar 153 hits, 108 runs, 35 doubles and one triple. The big difference is that Bryant hit 28 more home runs last season than Dernier did in 1984.  But look how close the stats are between Bryant last season and Dernier: Bryant had a .282 BA and a .382 OBP.  Bryant’s big swings for all those home runs can’t be ignored though and he blows Dernier away with a .521 SLG and .900 OPS.

In his 1984 season, Sandberg had 200 hits scoring 114 runs for the Cubs. He hit 19 home runs, 19 triples and 36 doubles. The superstar second baseman pushed the speedy Dernier around the bases picking up 84 RBI that season.  Sandberg’s 1984 numbers included a .314 BA, .367 OBP, .520 SLG and .887 OPS.