Miracle Collapse: The 1969 Chicago Cubs

by Doug Feldman. Unversity of Nebraska Press, 2006.

Fans of a certain age will recall some of the great collective let-downs in the game ‘s history: After cruising for most of the 1951 season, the Brooklyn Dodgers let the New York Giants catch them. The Philadelphia Phillies were running away with the pennant in 1964 before they fell apart spectacularly. Then there’s the Yankees-Red Sox comedy in 1978.

But perhaps the most disappointing, given their long World Championship drought has to be the Chicago Cubs in 1969. The team had not won the Fall Classic since 1908, a pennant since in 1945. Nor had they even been close since then. In 1966, they had the ignominy of finishing behind the New York Mets, who had been the doormats of the League since their debut in 1962.

Led by the fiery Leo Durocher (who skippered the ’51 Giants), the Cubs had a bevy of veterans in 1969: Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, Don Kessinger, Glenn Beckert and Randy Hundley, as well as a pitching staff lead by Fergie Jenkins, Ken Holtzman and Bill Hands. For a sizeable part of the season, they stood atop the newly-formed Eastern Division, only to disappoint their fans once again by floundering while the Mets were acting the juggernaut for the last six weeks.

Feldman follows a time-honored (and worn) method, following the fates of the team from spring training through the end of the schedule. He offers no new insight as he lauds the wins and individual performances and bemoans the lost opportunities. He sprinkles his tale with then-current events, such as the moon landing, Sen. Ted Kennedy’s fiasco at Chappaquidick, and the Manson murders, but such inclusions seems like he’s trying to fill some page quota rather than having a bearing on his topic.

Older fans know what’s coming: that Durocher’s steadfast reluctance to rest his regulars in the face of a season’s collected fatigue led to the team’s demise. This might be news to more recently-arrived Cubs fans, but Feldman doesn’t build any sense of suspense. In fact, the downfall is matter-of-fact and done quickly in the telling.

Even the epilogue is standard, as the author comments on the key players and how they fared in ensuing seasons, and chronicles Durocher’s dismissal as manager.

Feldman is an interesting hybrid: a professor at the College for Education at Northern Kentucky University, he is also a part-time scout for the Cincinnati Reds. Writing for a university press, as he does, the book should be an product of substantial research and scholarship, but, to this reviewer, neither particularly shines through.

If you like this topic, you might also enjoy:

• Durocher’s Cubs: The Greatest Team That Didn’t Win, by David Clearbaut. Taylor Publishing Company, 2000. Clearbaut, to whom Feldman refers in his own book, did a similar treatise on the team’s fates.
• The Cubs of ’69: Recollections of The Team That Should Have Been, by Rick Talley. Contemporary Books, 1989. Talley goes the interviw route, tracking down former members of the team to get their takes on what went wrong.