Yes, it's true, I'm not doing an update of EveryCubEver this season. On the other hand, I do plan on featuring every Hall of Fame Cub on or around their birthdays this year right here on this blog. And those entries will be from EveryCub Ever.
Three Cubs Hall of Famers were born this week. Joe McCarthy (April 21, 1887), Hack Wilson (April 26, 1900), and Rogers Hornsby (April 27, 1896). All of them were on the Cubs at the same time.
Joe McCarthy 1887–1978 (Cubs manager 1926-1930)
Joe McCarthy was given the nickname of “Marse Joe” by
sportswriters. “Marse” is a Southern English rendition of the
word “master,” and from the moment he took over the Cubs
in 1926, Marse Joe let it be known that he was in charge. He
led them to the National League pennant in 1929, and never
had a losing season as Cubs manager, but they fired him
after the 1930 season because they didn’t think he had what
it took to get to the next level. Unfortunately for the Cubs,
they never got to that next level without him, but Joe got to
the next level with the Yankees seven times. Two of those
times he beat the Cubs in the World Series. Marse Joe is in
baseball’s Hall of Fame.
Historical note: Joe signed the contract to become Cubs
manager, on the day Lenny Bruce was born in New York
(1925).
Hack Wilson 1900–1948 (Cubs 1926-1931)
Hack is still remembered for his record 1930 season when he
drove in 191 runs, but during his Cubs days he was known
for more than just slugging the baseball. He was known as
a notorious hellraiser. Wilson had several run-ins with the
law, his teammates, opposing players, and even fans. He
was arrested for violating the Prohibition Act in 1926, but
he was just getting started. Hack and his drinking buddy/
teammate Pat Malone got into a fistfight in a hotel because
they thought somebody was laughing at them. In 1928,
he was fined after charging into the stands to fight with
a heckler. Gabby Hartnett and Joe Kelly had to physically
remove him off the fan — and thousands of fans swarmed
the field. Hack once charged into the opposing dugout to
punch a Reds pitcher…after Hack hit the ball. He was tagged
out in the dugout. That same night he punched another
Reds pitcher in the team train. A famous story, which
may or may not be a legend, involved Cubs manager Joe
McCarthy and Hack. To show Hack the dangers of drinking,
Joe took a worm and dropped it in a glass of whiskey. The
worm quickly died. “Now what does that prove?” asked Joe.
Wilson thought about it for a while and replied, “It proves
that if you drink whiskey, you won’t get worms!” Through
it all, Hack was the most feared hitter in the National
League. Hack still holds Cubs career records for best onbase
percentage (.492), slugging percentage (.590), and OPS
(1.002). He led the Cubs in homers for the entire decade of
the 1920s (121), led the league in homers four years in a
row, in walks and RBI twice, and led the Cubs to the World
Series in 1929. For many years he held the single season
home run record (56), and he still has the single season RBI
record (191). But in 1931, things started to go south. Hack
and player/manager Hall of Famer Rogers Hornsby didn’t
get along and were constantly at odds. It got so bad that the
Cubs traded Hack to the Dodgers for Burleigh Grimes. Hack
had one more good year with the Dodgers, but the end was
near. He retired after the 1934 season. Near the end of his
Wilson’s life he appeared on a network radio show where
he spoke about the effects of “Demon Rum.” This was just
a few months before his death on November 23, 1948. He
was only 48. His body was unclaimed for three days before
National League president Ford Frick paid for the funeral.
The veterans committee named Hack to baseball’s Hall of
Fame in 1979.
Rogers Hornsby 1897–1963 (Cubs 1929-1932)
It’s hard to imagine that one of the greatest players in history
was not popular in Chicago – but Hornsby clearly was not.
Hornsby had one great season for the Cubs, their World
Series year of 1929, and he became the manager at the very
end of the following year. Despite managing a notoriously
rowdy team, he ruled with an iron fist. He didn’t just ban
drinking (which, of course, was illegal at the time), he
banned reading, movies, soda pop, smoking, and eating in
the clubhouse. He was so hated by his players that when the
1932 team won the pennant (after he was fired), the players
voted to give him zero cents of a playoff share, even though
he had been with the team for 4 months.
Their hatred of him went much deeper than his strict
rules. He was in deep debt to many of the players on the
team. The Commissioner of Baseball, Judge Kennesaw
Mountain Landis, became so alarmed by the reports he
was getting about Hornsby, that he sent letters warning the
team and the players about him. He also sent one to the NL
President demanding any and all information he had about
Hornsby’s gambling. Hornsby was defiant about it until the
very end: “Gambling’s legal,” he would say. He never bet on
baseball, only the horses. Probably influenced by Hornsby’s
star power, Landis chose not to punish him. But his letters
to the club led to an internal Cubs investigation. Team
owner William Wrigley and team president William Veeck
discovered that Hornsby had borrowed $11,000 from his
own players. That’s when they fired him and replaced him
with Charlie Grimm. Grimm led the 1932 team to the World
Series. Hornsby never experienced the playoffs again.
Later in life he was hired by Wrigley’s son Phillip to
become the team’s first minor league batting instructor.
The same prickly personality and inability to understand
why people couldn’t naturally hit as well as he did, however,
made him as lousy at that job as he was as a manager. As
a player Rogers Hornsby had very few peers. His lifetime
batting average is .358. He hit .400 three different times. He
narrowly missed it a fourth time (.397). He won two MVP
awards, two triple crowns, and seven batting titles. And
he did all that while gambling away nearly every dime he
earned.
