Kerry Wood

I have to confess that I have never understood the Kerry Wood phenomenon among Cubs fans.  I mean, Wood seems like a nice guy and a talented pitcher who, largely because of injuries and colossal mismanagement of his career by the Cubs organization, never really fulfilled his potential.

Some of the idolatry was no doubt the result of Wood's abbreviated rookie year, especially the Kid-K game where he struck out 20 Astros in a single game.  That year Wood was hurt toward mid-season.  One of the dumbest things the Cubs and Wood did was to try to come back at the end of the season and for the playoffs.  He aggravated his injuries and had to have reconstructive elbow surgery.  As a result, he missed all of the 1999 season.

After that, the magic was really gone.  He came back to pitch pretty well for bad teams in 2001 and 2002, then very well for a good team in 2003.  After that, he was hurt again, tried to come back again, etc.  This time, after numerous tentative diagnoses, it turned out to be his shoulder.  He made another comeback, this time as a reliever and had a decent season in 2008 as the Cubs closer.

For what he accomplished - and I grant you that he had to overcome a lot of adversity - Wood was overpaid for most of his career.  He cashed in on a free agent deal with Cleveland in 2009, but he was plagued by injuries again.  In his career away from Chicago, he had about a month with the Yankees in 2010 when he was a dominant setup guy.  That's about it.  Unfortunately in his Yankees stint, he fell in love with the cut fastball and never stopped throwing it to the detriment of his live fastball and excellent curve.

He came back to the Cubs on a discount deal for 2011.  You cannot really say he was anywhere near consistently effective, on and off the DL, finally knee surgery in September.

This year, for reasons known only to Ricketts and Epstein, Wood was brought back to town in a blatant PR stunt at the Cubs convention.  Once the season started, Wood was just awful.

I have to say I was a little surprised that Wood threw in the towel.  Maybe there was a quid pro quo that if things didn't work, the team would provide him some kind of sinecure if he agreed to leave graciously.  Whatever it was, he decided to call it quits.

His departure, to my mind, smacked of the blatant PR mania that has dominated his career since his 2011 return.  I don't know what the point was in pitching to one more hitter in one more game.  It says more about the Cubs organization and the Cubs fans than it does about Wood's character or career.

Though maybe it does.  It smacks not a little of ego to do a final curtain call.  After his morning announcement, it was obvious that the only person who had his head in the game they incidentally played against the White Sox was Jeff Samardzija.  The Cubs saw all of 93 pitches all afternoon from four White Sox pitchers.  Everybody was itching to get into the media room for the post-game.

Wood, though, has always been lionized by the Chicago media and Cubs fans.  As I noted earlier, this says something more about that media and those fans than it does about their fallen heroes.  What it mainly says is that personality, sometimes an undeserved reputation, and effort count for more in their eyes than results.

The Cubs had the most dominant starting pitching in a long time in 2003.  Wood pitched really well, maybe not as well as he did in 1998, but he was good.  Mark Prior had a totally dominant season, and Carlos Zambrano was just starting to flash signs of his future stardom.  Plus they had Matt Clement as their #4 starter.

Of course, it all went awry.  For Cubs fans and media, Mark Prior became a selfish wuss when he complained about arm and shoulder trouble.  His career was essentially over the next year and he got precious sympathy for it.  Zambrano became a dominant force through several seasons, but, for the fans and media, his considerable abilities were always overshadowed by his temperament.  Arguably, he was a better pitcher than the other two members of that indomitable trio.  Sadly, he was pretty much run out of town.

Wood, however, endured, ceaselessly reinventing himself and shining like some sort of valorous but doomed knight in the eyes of Cubs faithful.  Sadly for him.  Sadly for us all.