The Illusion of Contention: the '77 Cubs by Jeremy Harmon
Going into the '77 campaign, Cubs fans had no reason (other than wishful thinking) to expect their team to contend. The team had been below average for several years -- really, ever since Leo Durocher's contenders of the '60s; but that was three managers ago. Durocher was gone, Herman Franks was the latest manager. Billy Williams and Ron Santo and Ernie Banks and Fergie Jenkins were all but fond memories. Taking their places were Jose Cardenal, Steve Ontiveros, Bill Buckner and Rick Reuschel and a young reliever named Bruce Sutter. Philly and Pittsburgh were the powers in the NL-East with Schmidt and Greg Luzinski and Lefty Carlton leading the Phils. The Bucs were also loaded, with Stargell, Al Oliver, Bill Robinson and Dave Parker providing the power and John Candelaria and Goose Gossage leading the pitching staff. The Cards were occasional contenders as well. About the best a Cubs fan could realistically hope for was a .500 season -- maybe a couple of wins above, if they were lucky. So when the season opened with two shutout losses at home against the lowly Mets, who were years removed from their Miracle team, Cubs fans rolled their eyes and heaved a collective sigh of resignation. By May 1st, the Cubs were in last place and the Cards and Pirates were sitting pretty atop the division, with the Phillies waiting to get hot, as usual. Then, the darnedest thing happened: the Cubs started winning. They took two of three from Houston, swept the Braves, won another series against the Astros, swept four against the Expos, won two from the Padres; all of a sudden the Cubbies were 10 games over .500, in second place just 2 games behind the red-hot Pirates. And they stayed hot. They won a series against the Expos again and swept the Pirates at home to take over first place by the end of May. It was still early, but the Cubs were the talk of baseball. Rick Reuschel was 11-2, Bruce Sutter had 21 saves and an ERA below 1.00. Could this be the year? June came, and the Cubbies stayed hot: they won a series against the Dodgers at home, then swept four from the visiting Giants and took six of nine on a West Coast road trip, then finished the month by sweeping the Mets and winning two of three from the Expos. Suddenly the Cubbies were 25 games over .500 near the end of June and leading the division by 8.5 games. Then came the July 4th doubleheader. Not only did the Cubs lose both games to the Expos, but Bruce Sutter was knocked out for the first time all year, and complained of a knot in his right shoulder. He would miss the All-Star Game and be out until the end of August. After the All-Star break, the Cubs treaded water for a couple of weeks, entering the second week of August still 19 games over .500, but now a half game behind the now-hot Phillies. Then the boat started filling with water. The Phillies came to Wrigley and took four straight and after recovering somewhat against the Pirates and Dodgers, the Cubbies went on the road and lost eight of eleven to the same West Coast teams they had beaten up just a couple of months before. By Labor Day, the Cubs had fallen to third place behind the Phillies and Bucs, but were still a respectable 10 games over .500 at 72-62. And they kept on sinking. They lost to the Mets, Cards and Expos at home, then repeated the losses to those teams on the road before winning two of three against the Phillies, who were now 14 games up on the Cubs and 7 ahead of the second-place Pirates with two weeks to play. The season ended with the Cubs losing eight of nine to the Bucs and Phillies. The Cubs, who had been 25 games over .500 at one point, and well in first place, finished right at .500, 81-81, and right in the middle of the pack, behind the Phillies, Pirates and Cards, and ahead of only the Expos and Mets. To this day, those Cubbies are held up as one of the better examples of a team collapsing in the heat of a pennant race; in fact, they have the worst won-lost record ever after August 1st for a team that was in first place on that date, playing .333 ball over the last two months of the season. What happened? Well, they lost their closer for a key 6-week stretch, and that was a big hurt, but the fact is that they simply weren't that good. Aside from Sutter and Reuschel, their pitching was below average with Ray Burris, Mike Krukow and Bill Bonham filling out the rotation; and they didn't have much hitting by any standards, let alone Wrigley standards. Their only real power threat was former Yankee All-Star Bobby Murcer. Perhaps a more appropriate question might be: how did they ever get to be 25 games over .500 in June? It was a fluke of scheduling, plain and simple. The Cubs were, in reality, a .500 team and they performed exactly as one would expect a .500 team to perform, winning their season-series against worse teams, like the Mets, Expos, Braves, Padres and Giants, and losing their season-series to the better teams, the Phillies, Pirates and Cards. But timing was everything: when they went 21-7 in May, it was against the Braves, Astros, Expos and Padres. In June, they played the Giants, Padres, Mets and Expos -- and went 19-8. By mid-August, they were losing to the Phils and Pirates and, minus their closer and with Reuschel struggling, losing on the road to the West Coast teams, then losing everywhere to everyone once they were out of contention in mid-September; finally finishing the seasonn with losses to the Phils and Bucs, ending up right where they belonged -- at .500.