250 million gallons of water were flooding the basements of Loop office buildings and retail stores because workers doing rehabilitation work on the Kinzie Street Bridge crossing the Chicago River didn't know about an abandoned tunnel beneath the river, and drove a pylon into the tunnel wall. The city had to evacuate the area because they feared electrical wires would short out. Trading at both the Chicago Board of Trade Building and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange was stopped.
Workers attempted to plug the hole, by then about 20 feet wide, with 65 truckloads of rocks, cement, and mattresses. That odd vision of mattresses being thrown into the river is one that Chicagoans won't soon forget.
That Cubs team, however, was pretty forgettable.
Unfortunately for Sammy, his first Cubs season was a painful one. He missed most of June and July with a broken finger, and then returned only to break his ankle on August 6th. He missed the rest of the year.
At the time, the Sammy trade was considered so terrible by Cubs fans, that they speculated Cubs GM Larry Himes (a former White Sox GM) was actually a White Sox spy sent to infiltrate the Cubs organization. The player the Cubs traded away to get Sammy, George Bell, had a few very good years on the South Side while Sammy was struggling mightily on the North Side.
Those theories quickly vanished after Sammy hit 500+ home runs for the Cubs.
