Constable: 'Bull' Durham recalls a bear of a Cubs postseason

With the Chicago Cubs clinching a postseason playoff spot, we media members open that Pandora's box of crushed dreams. Out trots the goat tabbed as the creator of the curse back in 1945. There's that black cat passing Ron Santo's path in the on-deck circle in 1969. There's the foul ball that transformed a fan into a pariah in 2003 and overshadowed an Alex Gonzalez error.

Then there's a baseball that rolled under the glove of Leon "Bull" Durham in 1984.

But you can't fit goat horns on this Bull. The nationally televised call of "Ground ball hit to Durham - Right through his legs!" might still haunt some Cubs fans, but it doesn't stay with Durham.

"I'm not fazed by it," says Durham, 58, who notes that the only time he thinks about the error is when the Cubs are in the playoffs and a reporter reaches out to ask him about it.

In the climactic game of that series, with the Cubs leading 3-2, Durham's error with one out allowed the San Diego Padres to score the tying run in the bottom of the seventh inning. You can never say what might have happened had Durham made the play, but the next Padres batter did single. Then came a double that took a hop over the head of Ryne Sandberg, and another single before the Cubs notched a second out. The Cubs lost 6-3 and five of those runs were earned off Cubs star pitcher Rick Sutcliffe. The only reason the Cubs had a lead to lose was because Durham smacked a two-run homer, his second of the five-game series.

His error was one play in a game where Cubs batters didn't get key hits, Cubs pitchers faltered, Cubs coaches made questionable decisions and the Padres made clutch plays. Durham hit two homers and drove in four runs in that five-game series. He won't make excuses for his error.

"I guess the good Lord felt I could handle it better than some," Durham says. "I forgot about the error. I forgot about the home runs."

Durham's focus these days is on the future. For the last 16 years, the ex-Cub has worked as the hitting coach for the Toledo Mud Hens, the Triple-A affiliate of the Detroit Tigers, preparing young hitters for careers in Major League Baseball. Before that, he spent six years as a hitting coach in the Angels' system. He says he's had offers to coach in the majors, but he likes being in his home state of Ohio because his 89-year-old mother, Helen, and his brother Curtis, 69, who was like a father to him growing up, still live in Cincinnati, where Durham and his wife live.

Many young players who make it to the big leagues, such as Detroit Tigers slugger Steven Moya, give credit to Durham.

"A lot of them call him in the offseason and come see him on their off days. He's very good," says Angela Golightly Durham, who has been married to the man she calls Bull for 32 years, a remarkable streak in a profession filled with late nights and long road trips. They met during Durham's rookie season with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1980.

"The first time we met, the Cardinals came into Cincinnati to play the Reds," she remembers. Her uncle, Cardinals outfielder Tony Scott, grew up in Cincinnati and was like a father to her. Durham was a rookie outfielder who also looked up to Scott. At a surprise party for her uncle, the couple got a chance to talk.

"My date stood me up and Leon didn't bring a date," she remembers. They married three years later.

"We got married on Feb. 19. Three days later, we went on our honeymoon, which was spring training," she says with a chuckle.

A first-found draft pick out of Cincinnati's Woodward High School in 1976, Durham moved to the outfield because the Cardinals had all-star Keith Hernandez playing Durham's natural position of first base. "It all started in St. Louis. That's where I learned the game, in the Cardinals organization," Durham says.

Before the start of the 1981 season, the Cardinals traded Durham, Ken Reitz and Ty Waller to the Cubs for future Hall-of-Fame relief pitcher Bruce Sutter.

"It was hard, but at the same time, I knew it was a business," Durham says of the trade. He soon warmed to Wrigley Field and Chicago.

Playing the outfield in 1982, Durham hit .312, smacked 22 homers and drove in 90 runs. He won the Silver Slugger award for the best offensive player at his position, and made the All-Star team. He made the All-Star team again in 1983 but his season was cut short by injuries.

The 1984 season was a love fest.

"We purchased T-shirts for the Bleacher Bums," Durham says, explaining how he and fellow outfielders Keith Moreland and Gary Mathews wanted to thank their fans. "They just liked the way I played the game."

In May 1984, Durham moved to first base, replacing Bill Buckner, who was so popular in Chicago that Durham was booed. Two years later, Buckner would commit an error more infamous than Durham's by letting a ball roll through his legs while playing for Boston during the 1986 World Series. Buckner, whom the Cubs traded for minor league infielder Mike Brumley and pitcher Dennis Eckersley, received death threats because of his error. He was released by the Red Sox before his cathartic return to Boston in 1990.

In 1984, Durham soon turned the boos into cheers with his play. By June 1984, a Sports Illustrated cover hailed Durham as the "Budding Superstar." The Cubs were hot, and Wrigley Field was rocking.

"Oprah Winfrey was at Wrigley and so was Lou Rawls," remembers Durham. "The whole city felt as one. A lot of people got married that year because of the Cubs."

The players had fun, too.

"Every game was a special game for me. We were family, and not only on the field," says Durham. He joined teammates Moreland, Sutcliffe, Jody Davis and Gary Woods to record a song, "Men in Blue," which raised $100,000 for charity.

"It was magical. That same year our daughter was born and I got gifts from all over the nation from Cubs fans," Angela Golightly Durham says, recalling presents that included everything from Cabbage Patch dolls to handmade blankets.

"They were some of the best fans in baseball. They had more love for the players and for the game than anywhere I've ever played," says Leon Durham, who ended his career with short stints in Cincinnati and St. Louis.

"Once, I left my purse at the ballgame. I had about $1,000 in my purse and all my credit cards," Angela Golightly Durham says. A Cubs fan called to say he found it. When the Durhams went to his house to get it, the fan accepted an autographed ball, but refused a reward until the Cubs player practically made him take $100.

Despite Durham's error in the final game of that 1984 National League championship series, he talked about the play immediately after the game.

"It was a routine ground ball and it stayed real low," Durham told the Daily Herald. "I was anticipating a hop. I have nothing to be ashamed of. That was my first fielding error (in the series). If it was meant to be, it was meant to be. I can't feel bad about it."

Teammates didn't blame Durham or pitcher Sutcliffe for the loss.

"Those guys are responsible for us being here in the first place. Those two guys literally carried us all year," shortstop Larry Bowa said after the game.

"It's not easy to take, but now I'm just going to go home and start working for next year," Durham said at the time. "I'm very confident that we can repeat this year, and we'll bring it home next year."

Before the bottom of the seventh inning when he made his error, someone in the Cubs dugout had spilled Gatorade on his first-baseman's glove, leaving it drenched in the sticky liquid.

"I just found my glove was wet," remembers Durham, who figures a teammate must have knocked over the beverage without realizing it. "It happened on the third out … I had to get my backup."

Using a different glove didn't cause the error, says Durham.

Unable to make it back to the playoffs in the following years, the Cubs traded Durham to his hometown Reds in 1988 to make way for Mark Grace at first base.

"You had a young guy behind me doing a heck of a job," Durham says, recalling how Grace replaced him the way he had replaced Buckner.

Injuries and substance abuse marked the end of Durham's career after a short stint with the Cardinals in 1989. Durham says he took off a couple of years to get healthy and spend time with his family, which includes daughters Kanica Hedges, 34, and Kristian Durham, 33, from a relationship before his marriage. Those daughters are responsible for six of Durham's seven grandchildren.

The Durhams have a daughter - Lauren Ashley, 31, who works for AT&T in Youngstown, Ohio - and sons Ian, 30, who was adopted from Angela Golightly Durham's sister and now works in Austin, Texas, and Lance, 27, who recently retired from baseball after a seven-year minor league career and now is a new father looking at coaching options in Cincinnati.

Leon Durham hasn't been back to Wrigley Field since his playing days ended. He said the Cubs did invite him to the Wrigley Field 100th anniversary party in 2014, but only gave him 24 hours notice, which wasn't enough time for him to alter his coaching schedule. He says he'd be happy to be invited to Wrigley Field this fall, maybe to throw out a first pitch at a playoff or World Series game on the team's way to a first title since 1908.

"I'd like to see the Cubs do it," Durham says, proving he still bleeds Cubbie blue. "I'm tired of seeing St. Louis. They've had their share."