The summer of 1969 and Cubs mythology

Last week, I blogged about this year’s list of long-ago players Major League Baseball’s Veterans Committee has trotted out as putatively worthy of the Hall of Fame.

First, let’s get rid of a myth, that of the “collapse of the Cubs.” The Cubs had back-to-back winning records in 1967-68 for the first time in more than decades. That said, their 92-70 record was the best in more than two decades.

Yes, the Cubs “slipped” in September. Did they choke? Probably not as much as the Mets, who won 100, got hot. (They went an incredible 39-11 in their last 50 games.)

If the Cubs had played the rest of their season based on their pace through Aug. 19, they still would have won just 101 games.

And, during the whole “swoon,” the Cubs only played the Mets four times, two of those times after the Mets had already clinched the division title. So, the Cubs didn’t totally have their destiny in their own hands.

So, the Cubs played over their heads the first five months of 1969, then slipped in September against a red-hot Mets team, and lost a number of their tough losses to a resurgent Pirates team that would win the World Series two years later.

Wikipedia notes that Chicago had a below-average summer, so all those day games did not cause the Cubs to “wilt.”

That said, how does this connect with Ron Santo?

More than any other member of that 1969 team, I think Ron Santo is its face.

Fergie Jenkins was just in his third full season with Chicago in 1969, and not a Cubs lifer. Ernie Banks, of course, was “Mr. Cub,” but he was near the end of his career.

I may be a little bit harsh in my psychoanalysis, but I do think Cub fans old enough to remember 1969 are trying to salve old wounds – either their own or Ron Santo’s – by getting Santo in the Hall of Fame.

That said, did Santo’s diabetes affect him, as a Type I/juvenile diabetic? I’m sure it did. But, unfortunately, we can’t take that into consideration.

On the original thread, for Kevin White to claim Santo was the second-best position player in the National League during the mid-1960s, behind only Mays but ahead of Clemente and McCovey, shows just how delusional the cult of Ron Santo can be.

If Bill James believes thast – and believes that Santo was a better 3B that Frank Robinson (he claims Santo is the sixth-best 3B of all time!!!) it shows that Bill James is either a Cubs “homer” like Kevin White, indoctrinated in the cult of Ron Santo, or worse.

It definitely shows he doesn’t practice what he preaches.