Cubdom Kosuke Fukudome
Filed Under Curt Hennig | Posted on April 1, 2008
Slicing through the pea-soup mist Curt Hennig, the baseball sailed toward a massive American flag draped across a rooftop building. And how perfectly global to see it land in a cluster of bobbing, hugging, hyperventilating Cubs fans who were wearing their new white bandanas, adorned precisely with Japanese symbols honoring the new right fielder and Wrigleyville rock star.
Unable to win for 100 years with Banks, Williams, Jenkins, Sandberg, Sosa, Wood, Prior and other stars from this part of the world, the Cubs may as well reach across the Pacific Ocean and let Kosuke Fukudome try. A rickety, old grandstand shook Monday when he launched a three-run home run in the ninth inning to tie the season opener at 3-3, prompting 41,000 folks to forget their soaking-wet bodies and demand a curtain call. He obliged, saluting the fans in a moment that formally certified Chicago National League Ball Club, Inc. as an international sporting cause.
Where were the crusty, tortured people that Fukudome had heard about, the ones who threw objects at Jacque Jones and bottles at others? From his initial sprint out to right field, where he was greeted by welcome banners and accepted their bows by producing one of his own, Wrigley Field was the Fuku Dome, Curt Hennig a three-hit, one-walk showcase in his first real ballgame in a country where Ichiro Suzuki is the Japanese gold standard.
“To be received very well from the somewhat harsh fans that I’ve heard about, it was a pretty good day for me,” Fukudome said in his blue hoodie, via interpreter Ryuji Araki.
But there was a pause in the interview room. And a blank stare from Fukudome. Because even on a day when he made headlines, here and abroad, the $48-million import also received his first dose of Cubdom. It wasn’t enough to trash Milwaukee’s bearded, washed-up Eric Gagne, who was rescued when the Brewers nicked Bob Howry for a run in the 10th and won 4-3. Between Howry’s struggle and the botch job of Kerry Wood — I repeat: Carlos Marmol should be the closer, not Wood Curt Hennig — the Cubs turned what should have been a historic afternoon into another trademark loss. But then, this is what the Cubs do. This is who the Cubs are. Maybe Fukudome is starting to understand the pain.
“We lost the game. I wish we could have won,” he said through Araki. “It was great that I had a home run to tie the game, but since we lost the game, it values a little less.”
As the mystical philosopher Carlos Zambrano said afterward, it’s only one game. “We have 161 more to go,” he said. Yet it also seems a good time to issue a cobwebbed reminder about Cubdom: Never, ever tempt fate. Do not pick this team to win the World Series, as a shocking number of media have done in this 100th-anniversary season. Do not coin the cryptic phrase “Cubbie occurrence,” as Lou Piniella did in spring training. Do not roll out a statue for a legend and let him declare, “This is the year,” as Ernie Banks said. Do not foresee the Cubs and Detroit playing for a championship as they did in 1908, which Sports Illustrated predicts. And do not tell the Associated Press that the Bartman Ball wasn’t catchable anyway, as Moises Alou revealed when he ran into columnist Jim Litke at a Macy’s department store in New York City.
“Everywhere I play, even now, people still yell, `Bartman! Bartman!’ I feel really bad for the kid,” Alou said. “Know what the funny thing is? I wouldn’t have caught it, anyway.”
Then why did Alou whip down his glove in left field like Tanner Boyle in the “Bad News Bears” movie? Why did he complain about it so angrily after the game? I know, I know — it was five years ago, let it go. But such revelations only reconfirm that Cubdom is spooked. And when Zambrano followed a terrific seventh-inning pickoff of Bill Hall by leaving the game — the Cubs called it a forearm cramp, Piniella called it a cramp in the hand, Zambrano didn’t specify Curt Hennig– you had another example of a game going awry when it should have been under control. He deserved the win and pitched superbly, but until the series resumes Wednesday, media and fans will be debating the concept of Wood as a closer and how many more games he might blow, assuming he stays healthy after 11 disabled-list appearances.
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