Mark Prior, sporting a graying beard and Dodger blue, leaned again within the leather-based chair as he thought again to the final postseason begin of his dazzling however injury-shorted profession.
“Twenty years went fast quick,” Prior instructed the Tribune earlier this 12 months. “You still remember things like they’re fairly fresh. Obviously, everything is magnified down to the last two games.”
Saturday marks the twentieth anniversary of Game 6 of the 2003 National League Championship Series when the Chicago Cubs fell aside 5 outs away from their first World Series look since 1945. One of essentially the most defining performs within the loss — or essentially the most, relying on whom you ask — is seared within the reminiscence of followers over 40: left fielder Moises Alou leaping over the wall in foul territory however unable to make the catch as fan Steve Bartman, amongst others, tried to catch the foul ball. An irate Alou slammed his mitt to the bottom at Wrigley Field, and the Cubs let the sport get away from them.
Prior couldn’t get out of the eighth because the Florida Marlins put up eight runs in an eventual 8-3 win. The subsequent evening, with Kerry Wood beginning the decisive Game 7, the Cubs overcame a three-run first inning because of the right-hander’s game-tying, two-run homer within the second. took a two-run lead into the fifth, then the Marlins scored six runs over the following three innings en path to profitable the pennant.
Two of the Cubs’ central figures within the drama, Prior and supervisor Dusty Baker, finally earned World Series rings: Prior with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2020 and Baker final season with the Houston Astros. The 74-year-old has the Astros vying for a repeat after advancing to the American League Championship Series.
But that Game 6 all the time lingers, particularly this time of 12 months.
During Prior’s mound go to within the eighth inning of the Dodgers’ NL Division Series elimination loss Wednesday to the Arizona Diamondbacks, TBS play-by-play announcer Bob Costas famous that “Prior knows about agonizing defeats, the one I’m about to mention maybe would rank ahead of this disappointment … ” earlier than spending the following 45 seconds rehashing the misfortune.
“Once you get on the other side of it, fortunately here we’ve been in the playoffs in the last (six) years, as a player sometimes you don’t realize all the things that go into it and how all the things that have to line up for you to win is the best way to put it,” Prior stated. “I don’t need to say it’s luck, however so many issues need to occur.
“You realize how much work goes into getting your team through the course of a year to get to the playoffs and then how much work goes into the playoffs to try to win those series and how quick things can flip.”
While there are apparent parallels to the 2003 NLCS and particularly Game 6, Prior has skilled the highs and lows of these postseason game-changing moments on the teaching facet too. He referenced two-strike pitches the Dodgers threw through the 2021 NLCS in opposition to the Braves that shifted the collection Atlanta’s means and a few flares the San Diego Padres hit within the 2022 NLDS, each collection the Dodgers misplaced to finish their season.
“One little thing can flip an entire series,” Prior stated, “and I don’t think I appreciated that as a player. They hurt. You remember them equally as painful whether they’re as a player or as a coach.”
Moe Mullins can’t keep in mind whether or not he and his fellow Wrigley ballhawks had been listening to the radio or had arrange a TV to observe the sport in 2003. But he remembers how he felt when Bartman went for the catch.
“Among the ballhawks, it was 100 %: He had done nothing wrong,” Mullins, 72, stated. “The disgruntled fans, when the Cubs end up losing the game, they want to put the blame somewhere.”
Pinning the loss on Bartman grew to become an excuse, he stated. There isn’t an individual on the planet who wouldn’t have reached for the fouled ball, Mullins stated.
But the self-identified “king ballhawk” — who has caught greater than 6,400 baseballs, 245 sport homers and 5 grand slams — did have one qualm with the notorious fan’s actions.
“The only thing Bartman did wrong was he didn’t catch it,” Mullins stated.
When Prior thinks again to the fateful 2003 NLCS, sifting via all of the little moments that in the end led to a nightmarish ending, the vitality the Cubs skilled in Chicago throughout that run nonetheless sticks with him.
Every pitch was pressure-packed due to how loud it was at Wrigley and the vitality coursing via the ballpark.
“The atmosphere was so intense to the point that you felt like you’re at the end of it, you had so much anxiety or anxiousness of what was going to happen like a thriller movie,” Prior stated.
So many “what ifs” might be revisited from Game 6 and the Marlins’ eight-run eighth inning.
What if Alex Gonzalez, who led the National League in fielding share that season, dealt with the routine grounder for an inning-ending double play to maintain the Cubs up two runs? What if Kyle Farnsworth, in reduction of Prior, didn’t let Mike Mordecai, who had a .213 common and 58 OPS+ in 65 video games for the Marlins, burn them with the bases-loaded, two-out, three-run double to place the Marlins forward 7-3? What if Baker or pitching coach Larry Rothschild made a mound go to to offer Prior an opportunity to regroup?
“I don’t question it, no,” Prior stated. “Things had been advantageous. It was a stroll and a single, and it occurred inside, like, eight pitches. I felt nice and pretty in management most of that sport, so it wasn’t something that was dictating, like, ‘Oh, he’s on a slippery slope your complete sport.’
Prior’s expertise as a big-league pitching coach, having simply accomplished his fourth season within the place with the Dodgers, provides distinctive context to the mound-visit debate.
“As a coach, I get the same way,” Prior stated. You get form of caught in between: Do you go or do you not go? Do you go and attempt to calm him down or does that disrupt his rhythm much more? Now that I’ve been doing it much more so, I don’t query it as a result of I nonetheless get caught in between.”
Two a long time later, an inescapable query stays: What if Cubs followers and the media hadn’t made Bartman’s life hell?
“I felt badly for Bartman. I did,” Baker instructed the Tribune. “I all the time stated, when he left residence that morning he was the largest Cubs fan on the planet and had no concept it was going to vary his life that day. That places life into perspective. You can go away residence immediately and get in a automobile wreck or something.
“That completely changed his life, that one day and that one play. I really wanted to win the next year, because we came close the next year too.”
David Strauss, who was virtually raised within the Sluggers Bar his father owned, noticed the Bulls win 5 championships on the traditional Wrigleyville ingesting gap. But the bar’s depth for these paled compared to the 2003 NLCS.
He noticed the wave of feelings as a 23-year-old bartender.
“At first it was confusion,” he stated. “No one knew what had happened. Then anger. People wanted to point their finger. Then just deflation.”
When followers noticed Alou get mad at Bartman, issues spiraled uncontrolled.
“Being a little drunk, everybody wanted to go kill the guy,” Strauss stated.
Still, Strauss wasn’t totally unhappy: The loss meant yet one more fan-luring playoff sport for the bar run by a household who’re “definitely Sox fans but also Cubs fans too.”
The Wood residence run early in Game 7 led to the loudest second within the bar’s historical past, Strauss stated. But when the Cubs misplaced, the gravity of the Game 6 gaffe and the blown 3-1 collection lead emerged.
“The hopes and dreams of generations of people were totally shattered,” Strauss stated, including it was the saddest he ever noticed the place.
Baker has been a part of lots of of video games at Wrigley between his 19 seasons in a major-league outfield and 26 years on the helm within the dugout. He stated he doesn’t keep in mind seeing many baseballs land close to the notorious spot, which has seen the seat quantity change over time due to grandstand renovations.
“It’s so close, most times it’s way up in the stands,” Baker stated. “They don’t have much foul territory there. I think they probably had the least foul territory of damn near anybody in baseball, especially the closer you get down in that corner.”
Baker’s restricted sightlines from the Cubs dugout prevented him from getting a transparent view of the Game 6 sequence on the wall. Alou had a shot at making the catch due to how shut he was positioned to the left-field wall close to foul territory, all due to the scouting report on the Marlins’ left-handed-hitting Luis Castillo, who was recognized for slashing singles and knocking extra-base hits down the road.
“You really shade him to the left,” Baker defined. “You shade him damn near on the line.”
The Cubs didn’t need the Marlins’ high two hitters within the lineup — Juan Pierre and Castillo — to get burned by their slashing swing sorts. Prior remembers Cubs outfielders enjoying them extra shallow to stop bloops from falling.
“The one thing about Moises is he always took live balls during batting practice, so he had a pretty good feel where guys were going to hit the ball or at least have a better idea of where to be positioned,” Prior stated. “(Castillo) was a kind of guys we’re simply hoping you attempt to get the ball up, attempt to get it a little bit bit extra elevated. We obtained that half. It simply didn’t keep within the stadium.
“Off the bat, I remember I didn’t know if it was going to be like 10 rows deep (foul) or if it was going to be on the foul line initially, but I thought, OK, we got him in the air, we’ve got a chance because I knew (Alou) was playing in.”
Baker didn’t see a replay of Alou’s tried catch till later that evening, and when he lastly noticed what transpired, Alou’s visceral pissed-off response when the ball went off Bartman’s palms was the very first thing Baker seen.
Prior isn’t certain whether or not a extra calm, routine response from Alou would have quelled fan response and a focus on the play.
“I guess if you didn’t react, maybe people don’t react,” Prior stated. “It’s hard with all the energy that was going through you as players, it’s hard to say, ‘Don’t react.’ It was a tough situation, but it was also weird because I don’t feel like we truly, at least I don’t remember, truly understanding the magnitude of what was going on.”
Although Prior heard concerning the scrutiny surrounding Bartman within the 10 days after the sport, he stated the magnitude of the whole lot that occurred within the aftermath didn’t hit him till he watched ESPN’s 30 for 30 documentary “Catching Hell” that aired in 2011.
“I mean, that was part of it (the reason they lost). Part of it was because I trusted my starters more than I trusted my bullpen,” Baker stated. “Who could I have brought in better than Prior or Wood or (Carlos) Zambrano? We were scuffling in the bullpen. The guys they got me in that (July trade) shot us into contention, and we only won like 88 games that year, and usually you don’t get there (with 88 wins).”
The July 23, 2003 commerce with the Pittsburgh Pirates goes down as probably the greatest in Cubs historical past: third baseman Aramis Ramírez and outfielder Kenny Lofton for infielder José Hernández, minor-league pitcher Bobby Bruback and a participant to be named later (infielder Bobby Hill). Lofton, 36, hit .327 with a 120 OPS+ in 56 video games, and the previous Gold Glove winner supplied plus protection in middle discipline. Ramírez grew to become probably the greatest to ever play third base for the Cubs, slugging 15 residence runs at 25-years-old over 63 video games in 2003. He completed with 239 homers and a 126 OPS+ in seven seasons in Chicago.
“I wanted them to trade for a top reliever,” Baker stated. “Jim Hendry was trying hard, too, and so was Andy MacPhail. But then everything had to be cleared by the Tribune. Jim Hendry had asked me about Joe Randa. I said I like Joe Randa, but I think we can get better. Then we ended up getting Aramis and Kenny Lofton and (later) Randall Simon. That really showed me how a late-season major move like that can really give a shot of adrenalin.”
The Cubs went 34-21 through the last two months to complete one sport forward of the Astros to safe their first division title since 1989.
Cubs superfan Ronnie “WooWoo” Wickers stated he knew Bartman. They even talked earlier than the fateful sport, he claimed.
“We talked, took a picture, said enjoy the game,” Wickers stated.
The bleachers at Wrigley Field erupted when it occurred, Wickers recalled: “Get outta here you bum!” he remembered folks shouting.
The tried catch was only a response, Wickers stated. But it was a response that in all probability value the Cubs a World Series look, he added.
But as Wickers shook palms with followers outdoors Murphy’s Bleachers in mid-September this 12 months, the person carrying a customized uniform shared a seemingly unshakable religion that the Cubs would proper historical past by making it to the World Series this 12 months.
“Let bygones be bygones,” he stated. “Enjoy today, enjoy this moment.”
Any World Series hopes had been dashed by a dreadful 7-15 stretch to finish this season, dropping the Cubs out of wild-card place and maintaining them residence once more in October.
How the Cubs’ 2003 season ended didn’t negate what that staff meant to followers and the town, with the promise of a brilliant future constructed across the younger trio within the rotation that in the end solely featured Zambrano the following time they reached the postseason in 2007.
With Prior (22 years previous), Wood (26) and Zambrano (22) to steer the pitching employees and Ramírez (25) in the course of the lineup becoming a member of veteran Sammy Sosa, the Cubs had key items to construct round. They received 89 video games in 2004 however misplaced seven of their final 9 and completed three video games out of the wild-card spot.
The Cubs completed underneath .500 the following two years, tallying 96 losses in 2006 to finish within the last season in Chicago for Baker and Prior. The Cubs nontendered Prior in Dec. 2007 after structural injury was present in his proper shoulder, inflicting him to overlook many of the season. Following a number of shoulder surgical procedures, Prior spent 2008-14 attempting to get again to the majors via unbiased ball and 4 major-league organizations, however Game 6 represented his last big-league postseason sport.
“Maybe I was naive to it, I was still pretty young, but I don’t remember us being, ‘Hey, watch out for this team’ (in 2003), so it was kind of cool,” Prior stated. “Obviously with Dusty coming in and started changing the way our mindset was about, let’s think more about how to win games and winning series and winning months and stuff like that. The team just started to come together.”
Time can change perspective. Ten years in the past, the Cubs had been two seasons into the Theo Epstein period and coming off a 96-loss marketing campaign as a observe as much as the group’s first season with at the least 100 losses since 1966.
Now, with the 2016 World Series title erasing 107 years of futility, that burden has been lifted for the Cubs.
“The longer the mystique of not winning, the more pressure builds up, but when all these long droughts or whatever are finally eliminated and they’re moved on, I think that’s good for everybody,” Prior stated with amusing. “I was happy for everybody involved.”
The Cubs received the division twice since their championship season and reached the postseason 3 times. However, the group has struggled to recapture the magic of their four-year run. Playoff appearances in 2018 and 2020 ended within the wild-card spherical. It’s postseason or bust in 2024 as supervisor David Ross enters Year 5, and the scrutiny will solely enhance on president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer if the Cubs fall quick once more.
As a lifelong Cubs fan, Jaye Weiss is well-acquainted with ache. She suffered via a long time of losses, all the way in which again to the black cat-bested 1969 staff — the one she nonetheless insists ought to have received the entire thing.
But none of it ready her for 2003. She doesn’t pin the NLCS loss on Bartman. She even feels dangerous for him.
“How would you like to be in his shoes? And was it his fault? No,” Weiss stated.
Regardless of the place the fault lies, her Cubs nonetheless misplaced. She was distraught. It broke her coronary heart.
“For nearly six months, I was in a daze,” Weiss stated. “I went on with my life, but I wasn’t really there.”
She withdrew from the staff, nevertheless it wasn’t as if she might cease being a fan. After all, there have been numerous reminiscences along with her dad and son tied to Wrigley. But she couldn’t let herself get harm like that once more.
She has attended an occasional summer time sport, all the time holding one thing again. Then in 2016, she felt a well-known knock on her coronary heart because the wins mounted.
“I was cautious, because, for me, it was very … I guess I don’t want to use the word, traumatic,” Weiss stated.
She went to some participant meet-and-greets, all of the whereas not letting herself totally go. She stored a cautious eye on the staff’s playoff progress however refused to say “World Series.” However, she was lured in sufficient for a conditional dedication: if the staff obtained the “The Big One,” as she referred to as it, she can be within the ballpark, no matter it took.
Weiss waited for 15 hours for a walk-up ticket to Game 3. She noticed the Cubs lose to the Indians. Five days later, they received the World Series in Cleveland.
An image of Anthony Rizzo is her cellphone’s display screen saver now. She proudly confirmed it off forward of a mid-September sport. She wore blue-red-blue “Go Cubs Go” tube socks, a “W” necklace, a “W” shirt and a blue fleece jacket.
After the World Series win, Weiss returned to Wrigley to jot down a chalk message on the ballpark’s brick wall.
She drew a coronary heart. “Dad, this is for you,” she wrote.Two days later, the chalk wall was cleaned.
The indicators of Cubs followers’ previous had been washed away.
Tribune “In the Wake of the News” columnist Paul Sullivan contributed.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com