Closing Time

By: Nick Shears

As a Cubs fan, January crawled along painfully. Johan Santana went to the Mets and everyone at the Cubs Convention seemed consciously aware of the ownership question mark looming overhead.Following the convention, the critical spotlight-usually cast on James Hendry-shined uneasily on Crane Kenney, the guy in charge of negotiating the fate of the franchise. While Kenney spoke of parking lots, new toilets and bleacher extensions, it was clear that the focus had shifted from the team to reconstruction.

Thank God it’s February. Thank God Spring Training is upon us. Later this week, pitchers and catchers will pack their bags for Arizona and the worries of Wrigley’s future that cloud my head will be replaced by a newer, refreshing concern:

Who will be the closer?

Hey Cubs fans, who do you want closing games for you this season?
  Bobby Howry
  Carlos Marmol
  Kerry Wood
 
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As tight a race as this year’s Democratic primaries, the closer contest may go down to the wire in similar fashion. Each candidate has a reason to fill the role that Ryan Dempster couldn’t. Carlos Marmol will swagger into Spring Training after just having pitched well in the Caribbean World Series. Bob Howry has the most experience in the role and has expressed his eagerness to take on the responsibility.

And then there’s Kerry Wood.

When Hendry renewed Wood’s contract for one year and $4.2 Million in November, I first thought it was a pricey insurance policy. At that point I thought there was no way he would be considered as the closer. The extension also seemed like a bargaining strategy, a way of retaining something for a trade down the road. This isn’t to say Wood was totally worthless after last season-he did prove himself as a reliever towards the end-but considering his history I didn’t like the move.

No other team in baseball has had a more disappointing pitching staff over the last ten years than the Cubs. The talent has been so promising, the room for potential so high, and yet, with almost every prodigy and good trade the pitchers have fallen to injury or bad luck. Mark Prior and Matt Clement experienced it. Even Carlos Zambrano can’t help from being cursed, or rather, cursing the team by succumbing to Murphy’s Law (I knew it was over when he predicted the Cy Young).

And then there’s Wood, arguably the poster child of this unfortunate era in Cubs pitching. Injury prone and worn out from surgery, he himself said that there was no likely future for him as a starter. So now he might be the closer?

Then it hit me: the nostalgia, followed by bittersweet memories and then hope. Just as the thought of Wood’s contract was leaving my mind, I was back in Evanston in May of ‘98, when I watched the young Texan strike out 20 on television. I remember the camera panned across the ivy wall, the line of red K signs too long to fit the screen. I hadn’t seen this kind of performance before-it was uncanny-and I was sure that Wood answer the prayers of all Cubs fans.

Ten years following that Rookie of the Year season and Wood is still trying to prove himself to Chicago, to remind them of his All-Star campaign in 2003, to remind them of the 20 strikeouts he had against the Astros that day. He has lingered on, unlike Prior and Clement, despite the offers from other teams.

There’s no guarantee he will achieve the glory he deserves this year, in fact there’s a high chance Pinella will give him another bullpen assignment. But at least Wood has one more shot, and in doing so he could become the hero he always was supposed to be. Perhaps it is too sentimental, to hopeful, to be thinking this way about Wood’s possible comeback in a season with a lot on the line for everyone. No matter, it’s something to keep my mind off of stadium contracts and naming rights; for now anyway.

After growing up in Evanston and New Jersey, Nick Shears is a Yankee fan by blood (his uncle gave him a signed Joe Dimaggio book at birth) and a Cubs fan by principle. Although this may be one reason you do not like what he says, understand that this complicated baseball enthusiast offers a necessary East Coast perspective in an all too central minded town. He is ready to take on any of your questions or comments at shearsna@eckerd.edu.

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