Glee Cub
This was deliverance, pure and simple, a 21-year-old purported savior of a city coming through with the goods, fulfilling unreal expectations and providing blessed release for beleaguered fans.
Mark Prior, less than a year removed from USC’s Dedeaux Field, won his Chicago Cub debut Wednesday night, striking out 10 Pittsburgh Pirates and giving up two runs in six innings of a 7-4 victory.
Rarely in an already disappointing season--heck, it has been a disappointing nine decades--has anything associated with the Cubs resulted in less than total disaster. Then along comes Prior, an implacable former Trojan business major with precisely trimmed sideburns and impeccable control.
“I felt as normal as could be, the same as I always do,” he said. “When I came out of the game and sat in the dugout and looked around at the fans, it was kind of surreal. It was an experience I won’t forget.”
The near-sellout Wrigley Field crowd anticipated this Prior engagement for weeks as the right-hander mowed down minor league hitters and moved ever closer to a Cub call-up.
Manager Don Baylor coveted Prior since spring training. And after a fitful 15-28 start, the Cubs needed him--for morale, for excitement, for a victory.
“There was a lot of pressure with all the fanfare,” Baylor said. “It would be tough for anybody, especially a young kid. It was a great game to be a part of. There was a lot of enthusiasm on the bench. We went after it.”
Prior’s first pitch is a called strike on the outside corner to center fielder Chad Hermansen. On a 2-2 count, Hermansen drills a fastball up the middle for a single. Jack Wilson bunts Hermansen to second, but Brian Giles and Aramis Ramirez strike out looking.
The Cubs give Prior a cushion in the bottom of the inning on Fred McGriff’s two-run double.
Headlines shouted across the Windy City for days, heralding Prior’s arrival: “Priormania,” “The Can’t-Miss Kid,” “Great Expectations.” Prior’s teammates taped to his locker a tabloid page that displayed a large photo of him below smaller shots of three pitchers whose exploits he presumably is expected to eclipse: Roger Clemens, Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson.
Longtime Cub followers can’t recall hype of this magnitude. Not in 1998 with Kerry Wood, who made his debut at 20, and not in 1971, with Burt Hooton, who came to the Cubs straight out of college.
For his part, Prior seemed oblivious to the 150 media members--three times the normal number--crowding the clubhouse before the game. He sat at his locker, his nose buried in the Chicago Tribune, reading not about himself, but about his former hometown.
This headline read: “L.A.’s Marriage to Valley Nears Rocks,” and the story detailed the San Fernando Valley’s attempt to secede from Los Angeles. Was he nostalgic about USC as his debut approached?
“No, it was just an interesting story,” he said. “I didn’t know the Valley was separating. I was staying in the moment and reading the paper.”
The only distraction came from Sammy Sosa, who danced past Prior’s locker to a salsa tune blasting from his boom box and said, “Hey, relax, man.”
Prior shot back a wry smile as if to say, “What, me worry?”
Prior appears nervous in the second inning, walking Rob Mackowiak and hitting Jason Kendall with an 0-2 pitch. Kevin Young bounces a changeup into a 5-4-3 double play, but Pokey Reese singles to drive in Mackowiak. Prior gets pitcher Dave Williams for his third strikeout.
Prior hit three home runs in 19 minor league at-bats and knocked a pregame batting-practice pitch onto Waveland Ave., but he takes a full-count fastball for strike three in his first at-bat.
Wood watched as reporters swarmed Prior after the game. He thought back to his own debut four years ago. If only he’d known then what he knows now.
“This is 10 times worse than when I came up,” he said. “I feel sorry for him more than anything else. But he has a good head on his shoulders.”
Wood poured champagne on Prior’s head, a time-honored ritual of rookie acceptance. He is excited that he and Prior will be in the same starting rotation for years.
“We aren’t going to win 25 in a row because he showed up,” Wood said. “But he’s going to make us more competitive on a daily basis. He looks at it that way too.
“Now the hype is over and he’s doing his job.”
Prior strikes out the side in the third. Sosa homers in the bottom of the inning to extend the Cub lead to 3-1 and Prior continues to sail in the fourth, retiring the side in order for the first time and getting his seventh strikeout.
Prior is a starter being counted on for saves. As in saving the jobs of Baylor and General Manager Andy McPhail.
The forever star-crossed Cubs have been more inept than usual. Eight players are batting below .200, creaky veterans McGriff and Moises Alou are not producing and second baseman Delino DeShields lost his job two weeks ago to rookie Bobby Hill.
Prior provides a ray of hope, a reason to come to the park for fans who haven’t seen their team in a World Series since 1945.
Lifelong Cub fans Clint Douglas and Ben Johnson, both 21, drove two hours from Princeton, Ill., to catch Prior’s debut. Wearing unbuttoned Cub jerseys and Cub caps on backward, they look forward to rooting for a dominant hometown pitcher their own age.
“It’s lively here tonight,” Douglas said. “That’s why we’re here, to watch Prior and say we saw his first game.”
Added Johnson: “This is history in the making.”
The fourth inning ends with Cub center fielder Corey Patterson chasing down a fly ball at the warning track and the fifth begins with Patterson making a running catch over his shoulder. Prior strikes out Williams, walks Hermansen and gets Wilson on a fly to right.
If Yankee Stadium is the house that Ruth built, Prior is the pitcher that House built.
Tom House once was best known as the Atlanta Brave reliever who caught Hank Aaron’s 715th home run, the one that pushed him past Babe Ruth. Now he is a San Diego-based PhD and pitching guru credited with taming the control problems of Hall of Famer Ryan and Arizona Diamondback ace Johnson.
Prior is his latest pet project. They met seven years ago after a 14-year-old Prior was shelled in a youth league game against House’s son’s team.
“Mark has been exposed to, and taken advantage of, the best research available,” House said. “He has been the poster child for what is, objectively, nontraditional baseball knowledge. He’s not going to fail.”
Despite his sizable investment of time and effort in Prior, House professes impartiality, pointing to science.
“It’s not my opinion,” he said. “With motion analysis, blood chemistry, mental-emotional makeup, he matches up statistically. Nolan Ryan had some of the pieces. Other guys have had some. Mark is the first to have them all. Objectively, he’s a can’t-miss.”
Prior is a house on fire after Brian Giles leads off the sixth with a home run, striking out Ramirez and Mackowiak to complete his 10-K run and getting Kendall to ground out. Sensing it is the rookie’s last inning, the crowd stands and cheers as he walks to the dugout.
By rights, Prior should be preparing to graduate from college. Instead, he signed a five-year, $10.5-million contract with the Cubs last summer and needed only nine minor league starts to reach the big leagues.
Debut in the books, the real learning begins.
“I’m already thinking about my next start,” he said moments after the game. “I was missing high with my fastball because of the adrenaline and had trouble spotting pitches where I wanted to. I’ve got a lot of work to do.
“I don’t think I’ll realize the magnitude of this game until the season is over. But it’s a big help to know I earned the respect of my teammates.”
Not to mention the respect of long-suffering Cub fans, who will hold the hope Prior brings with the tenacity of the ivy clinging to Wrigley’s outfield walls.
