Constable: Hendricks drops out, but Cubs school Samardzija, Giants
In Major League Baseball, where college diplomas are rarer than Cubs' home losses, Dartmouth College graduate and Chicago Cubs pitcher Kyle Hendricks brings his Ivy League education to ivy-covered Wrigley Field for Saturday night's playoff game. The San Francisco Giants counter with starter Jeff Samardzija, a Notre Dame graduate who used to pitch for the Cubs and the White Sox.
Samardzija, the most famous Notre Dame baseball player since Carl Yastrzemski, gives up more runs (4) to the Cubs in his two innings than points (3) scored Saturday by his Fightin' Irish football team, where Samardzija was a record-setting receiver. Hendricks, who drives in one of those runs, literally is knocked out of the game by a line drive in the fourth inning with his Cubs up 4-2 in a sloppy game.
Always one pitch away from ending their careers, it's a good thing these two pitchers have good backup plans.
"Education is important to me," says Cecile Marbella, a fervent Cubs fan and 1985 graduate of Northwestern University, who proudly wears her No. 29 Hendricks jersey in her bleacher seat. "I love the fact that Kyle went to Dartmouth."
Marbella, who lives in Evanston, says she went to a fundraiser where fans touted the young pitcher's high intelligence.
"The people were holding up signs with his IQ." she says. These days, it's Hendricks' MLB-low ERA that draws attention.
"I could see Kyle Hendricks being an executive at some point," Marbella says, adding that Hendricks might not look that part any more than he looks like a pitching ace. "He still looks like the guy whose mom fixes his hair."
Hendricks, who has credited Dartmouth for his "critical thinking" on the mound, pitches better than Samardzija.
"But he's a smart guy," says Marbella, who met Samardzija at several charity events. "When we heard him speak, he totally grew on us."
A 2012 survey by Fox Sports found that fewer than 5 percent of MLB players have a college degree.
"I just saw a list. I was shocked at how small it was," says Giants fan Matt Carnes, 35, a chemist who works in Aurora, got his Ph.D. at Columbia University in the Ivy League, and earned his undergraduate degree at the University of California in San Diego, where Cubs slugger Kris Bryant made the conference's all-academic team. Carnes' co-worker, Cubs fan Georgette Lorentsen, of Sandwich, says the education levels of Samardzija and Hendricks might be admirable, but she's more concerned with the play on the field.
A few years ago, when Samardzija was the Cubs' ace, his jerseys could be spotted all over Wrigley. Since then, he's pitched for Oakland, the White Sox and now San Francisco.
"We got rid of our last Samardzijas (jersey) halfway through last year," says Bradley S. Rosen, a partner in SportsWorld, the jersey shop across from Wrigley. "We had some of those Samardzija green Notre Dame shirts."
Somewhere on a back shelf, he still has jersey for Carlos Zambrano, who last pitched for the Cubs in 2011. Kim Hartnett, 57, of Vernon Hills, wears an outdated Zambrano jersey, a present from her wife, Karen Sims, 52. But Sims doesn't have any fond memories of Samardzija in Wrigley.
"I hated him. I'm glad he's gone, and I hope he pitches tonight like he pitched for the Cubs," Sims says, shortly before her wish was granted.
Hendricks and Samardzija are both expected to recover from Saturday's performances. But that won't always be the case.
"You can't play baseball forever. Education is important," Hartnett says.
"But not," Sims says, "when I'm watching baseball."
And then Hendricks' replacement, Travis Wood, a graduate of Bryant High School in Arkansas, hits a home run to give the Cubs a 5-2 win, and a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five series.