Tuesday Trivia: Before Ryne Sandberg
Ryne Sandberg
Chicago has been playing in the National League since the league forms in 1876.
No team has been around longer than the Cubs, who start off as the White Stockings before renaming themselves first as the Colts and then Orphans, and finally settling in 1903 with the Cubs.
In all of that time, the Cubs retire numbers for only six of their players.
Count ’em. Just six.
Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, Ron Santo, Ryne Sandberg, Fergie Jenkins and Greg Maddux.
All Hall of Famers.
Today’s installment of Tuesday Trivia deals with one of those six players.
Namely, Sandberg, whose 15-year career with the Cubs begins in 1982 after his trade to Chicago from the Philadelphia Phillies.
But that has nothing to do with today’s question.
This does: Who is the last player to wear No. 23 for the Cubs prior to Sandberg’s arrival there?
Take your time. We can wait.
And wait.
And then wait just a little longer until you come up with the name of Jim Tracy, the onetime outfielder who plays two seasons for the Cubs from 1980-81.
Tracy inherits the No. 23 from Karl Pagel, who wears the jersey in 1979 and strikes out as a pinch-hitter in his lone appearance that season for the Cubs.
Tracy does significantly better with the number No. 23, batting .249 with it over 87 games during the 1980 and ’81 seasons.
Tracy also is wearing No. 23 for all three of his homers in the majors – all coming at Wrigley Field – in a six-day span in late September 1980. All three come off high-end right-handers in Philadelphia’s Dick Ruthven, Montreal’s Bill Gullickson and Pittsburgh’s Jim Bibby, a trio that in 1980 combines for 46 victories.
Tracy, though, eventually finishes his time with the Cubs playing in Class AAA before Chicago trades him to Houston on Dec. 9, 1981 for outfielder Gary Woods.
The No. 23 in Chicago then goes 49 days without an owner before the Cubs acquire Sandberg from the Phillies on Jan. 27, 1982, along with shortstop Larry Bowa in exchange for shortstop Ivan DeJesus in, arguably, the best trade in Cubs history.
While his playing days in the majors are limited to parts of two seasons, Tracy actually enjoys quite a lengthy stay in the major leagues with six seasons as a bench coach from 1995-2000 first with Montreal and then Los Angeles before starting an 11-year career as a manager with the Dodgers, Pittsburgh Pirates and Colorado Rockies.
With the Dodgers, Tracy three times finishes in the Top Four for the Manager of the Year Award with the Dodgers before finally winning the award in 2009 with Colorado.
Jim Tracy during his time as the Dodgers’ manager