Constable: '35 Cubs knew how to jump-start a season
For every other year of our lives, looking at the baseball standings on June 15 to discover our Cubs in the hunt for first place would inspire championship dreams.
"Wow! Only a game under .500 and in second place, the Cubs still could be in first place for Father's Day," we would note, marveling at the lack of a June swoon. "If that promising young player (Pete LaCock, Andre Thornton, Tye Waller, Mel Hall, Jerome Walton, Bobby Hill, Matt Murton, Ryan Theriot) lives up to his potential, the Cubs are going to win the division!"
But last year's World Series championship changed us. Our World Series T-shirts haven't even picked up their first mustard stain yet, and we're already booing our heroes and entertaining thoughts of dumping players and rebuilding the team after the Cubs blew a 4-1 lead and lost 9-4 Wednesday to the hated New York Mets.
As lifelong losers, we looked at a game or two gap as a minor speed bump on the road to a championship. As champs, we see that same deficit as a sign that the sweet ride is over. Perhaps fans need a history lesson from the 1935 Cubs.
The Cubs went to the World Series in 1932 behind solid players such as Gabby Hartnett and Stan Hack, and pitching ace Lon Warneke. But they were swept by a N.Y. Yankees team that boasted Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth. The Cubs had a couple of pretty good years after that, but weren't good enough to get back to the World Series. Many of those 1932 Cubs players were still on the roster for the 1935 season.
Fans probably were a little frustrated as the Cubs spent most of the season mired in mediocrity in the middle of the pack. In sixth place as April was drawing to a close, the Cubs put together a couple of winning streaks to pull into third place for most of May. But losing seven of 10 games dropped them into fourth as June began.
A four-game losing streak dropped the Cubs into fifth place, and you couldn't blame fans for thinking their World Series champs were back to being lovable losers.
After losing a July Fourth doubleheader to the St. Louis Cardinals at Wrigley, and dropping the first game of a road trip 4-0 in Pittsburgh, the Cubs were 38-32, in fourth place and 10.5 games behind the first-place New York Giants on July 5, 1935.
Only the most optimistic Cubs fan could envision a good end to the season. Not only did the Cubs need to make up 10.5 games, they would have to climb over three good teams ahead of them, including the defending World Champion Cardinals.
But the Cubs put together an eight-game winning streak to climb into third place. They got hot along with the weather in July to win 11 of their last dozen games and close July in second place, just a half-game behind the Giants. And you think the rest would be easy. But that Cubs team quickly disappointed fans. Still scuffling along, the Cubs dropped consecutive home games to the Cardinals and fell to third place, 3.5 games out of first on Aug. 10.
In some seasons, the playoffs are pretty set by Labor Day. After the Cubs split a doubleheader against the Cincinnati Reds at Wrigley Field on Sept. 2, the team was mired in third place with just 23 games left in the season and the powerhouse Cardinals having taken over first place. Any Cubs fans who gave up on that team were wrong to lose faith.
The Cubs beat the Philadelphia Phillies 8-2 on Sept. 4 at Wrigley. Then the Cubs won back-to-back 3-2 walk-off thrillers in extra innings the next two games. Something magical was happening. The Cubs won 4-0, 2-1 and 15-3. Their 11th straight win, an 18-14 slugfest against the Brooklyn Dodgers, moved the Cubs into first place. Another 10 consecutive wins gave the Cubs such a cushion that it didn't matter a whit when they fell 7-5 to the second-place Cardinals in extra innings and dropped the last game of the season 2-1.
The Cubs' record 21-game win streak turned a mediocre season into a World Series appearance. So if the current slump continues and the Cubs fall to 10.5 games back in fourth place by July 5, don't give up.