Trip back in time to 1984 reveals plenty of great memories, but ultimate heartbreak, for Cubs fans

The front page of the Sun-Times painted a magnificent picture after Game 1 of the 1984 National League Championship Series at Wrigley Field, a 13-0 eruption by the good-guy Cubs against the Padres.

‘‘13-OH!’’ the headline roared. ‘‘Home, sweet homers — it’s a Cubs rout.’’

The dominant photo was of hulking starting pitcher Rick Sutcliffe with a meaty arm around the neck of left fielder Gary Matthews, a caption saying ‘‘the Sarge’’ had ‘‘acted more like a general,’’ belting two home runs and driving in four. Sutcliffe, the ‘‘Red Baron,’’ had gone deep, too, perhaps the most remembered shot of the season not counting Ryne Sandberg’s heroic pair against the Cardinals in the ‘‘Sandberg Game’’ in June.

By God, the whole thing was glorious.

Fans had poured out of bars and into the Wrigleyville streets when the Cubs clinched the NL East title in Pittsburgh, ensuring postseason baseball on the North Side for the first time since 1945. A thick pull-out section in the paper celebrated that moment on its front with ‘‘After 39 Years’’ in blue type and a giant ‘‘CHAMPS!’’ in red. The Picasso sculpture in Daley Center Plaza was festooned in Cubs colors. The lions out front of the Art Institute wore the world’s biggest Cubs hats.

The 96-win Cubs had won the East by 6½ games. The 104-win Tigers, American League super-heavyweights, loomed. But at this point, no one in Chicago was doubting anymore.

At playoff time, a Washington Post story observed, ‘‘Chicago’s local media has treated everyone to an example of the kind of tough newspaper competition for which the city is famous.’’ The Sun-Times, producing a 20-page daily playoff section wrapped around the rest of the paper, was fighting a ‘‘circulation war.’’ Speaking of glorious.

In 1984, WGN announcer Harry Caray was a not-the-least-bit-subtle version of George Orwell’s Winston Smith, rebelling with loud, unabashed ‘‘thoughtcrimes’’ against the idea that the cursed Cubs couldn’t be winners.

‘‘The good Lord wants the Cubs to win,’’ Caray assured viewers along the way, no less hilarious in retrospect as it was at the time.

When they clinched, Caray bellowed, ‘‘Now our lives are complete! The Cubs are No. 1!’’

But were they? For a while; not long enough.

In Game 2, starter Steve Trout pitched into the ninth inning, getting one out before walking Kevin McReynolds with a 4-2 lead. On came Lee Smith, who struck out Carmelo Martinez before Terry Kennedy took him to the ivy in left. But Henry Cotto squeezed it.

‘‘I think every fan in Chicago about had a stroke and thought the ball was going out,’’ Hall of Famer Smith says now.

The Cubs led two games to none in a best-of-five series that was heading to San Diego for its remainder. What could go wrong? A hell of a lot, but you knew that already.

Baseball’s “it” team

Has it really been 40 years since the Cubs fought the curse and damn near beat it?

Since Sarge and the Baron, since ‘‘Ryno,’’ ‘‘Zonk,’’ ‘‘Bull,’’ ‘‘Penguin’’ and ‘‘Rainbow’’? Since the Wrigley crowd chanted, ‘‘Jody! Jody!’’ with Jody Davis at bat and Caray sang about the catcher to the tune of ‘‘The Ballad of Davy Crockett’’?

Since Van Halen’s ‘‘Jump’’ played at the intros and outros of game telecasts on Channel 9 and when the Cubs took the field for the top of the first? And since the new song ‘‘Go, Cubs, Go’’ by North Sider Steve Goodman — a fan who would die of leukemia at 36 a few days before the Cubs clinched — became a staple of WGN Radio’s pregame shows?

Since attendance at Wrigley skyrocketed from 10th out of 12 in the NL in 1982 to second at, for the first time, more than 2 million?

Since the ballpark was surrounded by such long-closed spots as Yum Yum Donuts, the Wrigleyville Tap and the Yesterday memorabilia store? Not to mention a McDonald’s and a 7-Eleven that were meeting spots before and after games for so many but now are vestiges of a distant, far-less-commercial past?

Since Springsteen’s ‘‘Born in the U.S.A.,’’ Prince’s ‘‘Purple Rain,’’ flicks ‘‘Ghostbusters’’ and ‘‘The Karate Kid’’ and Wendy’s ‘‘Where’s the beef?’’ ad?

Yep. Since all that.

‘‘The note back then was that 39 years ago, the Cubs went to a World Series,’’ recalls center fielder and leadoff man Bobby Dernier. ‘‘We thought, ‘Wow, that’s a long time ago — World War II.’ Now we’re at 40 years since then. Kind of a long time ago, too, isn’t it?’’

The Cubs were anything but favorites heading into the season. Former Sun-Times scribe Herb Gould moved over to sports from the news side that year and remembers new manager Jim Frey saying in spring training that the Cubs could be a ‘‘powerhouse’’ with good starting pitching.

‘‘I was thinking, ‘What is he talking about?’ ’’ Gould recalls with a laugh.

But the players were confident, even though there hadn’t been a winning season on the North Side since 1972 and, well, there was the whole 1945 albatross.

‘‘I know it was talked about a lot by the fans and the media at times,’’ Davis says. ‘‘But we knew we were a new team and we knew we didn’t have any control over the past, and we felt like we could play with anybody. And that’s just the way we played all summer.’’

‘‘There was just a lot of expected ‘win’ in the room,’’ Dernier says. ‘‘We had a lot of guys from other teams who had been through it before, knew what winning looked like. We had a lot of ‘Do your job,’ and when we did, we were really hard to beat.’’

The Cubs trailed the Mets by a game at the All-Star break but pulled away steadily from there. They had traded for Dernier and Matthews, among others, in the spring. They traded in June for Sutcliffe, and all he did from there was go 16-1. Sutcliffe won the Cy Young, Sandberg the MVP, first-year skipper Frey manager of the year. The Tigers were sensational, but the out-of-the-darkness Cubs were baseball’s ‘‘it’’ team.

Crowds everywhere responded.

‘‘When all of a sudden we went [to Dodger Stadium], there were more Cubs fans than there were Dodgers fans,’’ Sutcliffe says. ‘‘And that blew me away.’’

The Cubs were jumping. Chicago sports were jumping. The Blackhawks and White Sox had won division titles the year before. DePaul’s men’s basketball team spent the last three months of the 1983-84 season ranked in the top five nationally. The Bears were trending up, and the Bulls had just drafted some dude from North Carolina.

‘‘We felt like we turned Chicago sports around a little bit,’’ Davis says. ‘‘We got into the playoffs there in ’84. Then the Bears won the Super Bowl the next year. And then, oh, yeah, there’s a guy named Michael Jordan that came to town about then, too.’’

Such great times.

One, two, three

The 1984 Cubs believed they had as much business winning the World Series as anybody, and why not? They scored the most runs in the NL. They had six players in the lineup with 80 or more RBI. They had Sutcliffe and three other good starters and some towering throwers in the bullpen who, along with the Baron, could’ve formed an intimidating offensive line. They had killer nicknames and charming theme songs and enough great mojo to last a decade.

The love affair with the fans really was something. Dernier still thinks often about a conversation with Caray in Montreal at — where else? — the hotel bar that opened his eyes to how good he suddenly had it.

‘‘I was going through a rough stretch at the plate,’’ Dernier says, ‘‘but Harry waved me over and said: ‘I gotta tell you something. Even when you stink, you look like you’re trying. You’ll never get booed at home, don’t you worry about that. They’ll be behind you all the way.’ I was a little stunned by the compliment — Harry was such a significant part of that whole scene — but he was right.’’

When the Cubs arrived in San Diego, it didn’t occur to any of them that it might not be on to the Tigers from there.

‘‘We just crushed them the first two games at Wrigley,’’ Davis says, ‘‘and then we go to San Diego and have to win one out of three? We didn’t believe that anybody could beat us three straight anywhere.’’

Yeah, well, you know.

The Padres, in the playoffs for the first time, won 7-1 in Game 3, with Ed Whitson outpitching Dennis Eckersley. Just like that, they had momentum. And with nearly 60,000 in the seats at raucous Jack Murphy Stadium, they had a stinkin’ song of their own — ‘‘Cub-Busters,’’ to the tune of the ‘‘Ghostbusters’’ theme — blasting through the public-address system. It was a series now.

In Game 4, Frey chose not to come back with Sutcliffe, a controversial decision that wouldn’t pay off. The Padres won 7-5 on a walk-off homer by Steve Garvey, who rounded the bases with his right fist in the air, making Cubs fans sick to their stomachs.

But in Game 5, Leon ‘‘Bull’’ Durham hit a two-run homer in the first and Davis followed with a solo shot in the second for a 3-0 lead with Sutcliffe on the mound. Things looked so very promising. Cursed? Forget that baloney. These were our guys, the good guys. Please, just don’t blow it . . .

A ground ball by Tim Flannery went through Durham’s legs. A smash by Tony Gwynn caromed off Sandberg’s glove. Goose Gossage shut the Cubs down late to send the wrong team to the World Series. That about sums it up.

‘‘I don’t take anything away from the way the Padres played,’’ Smith says. ‘‘I just knew we had a better ballclub.’’

That was some Cubs team 40 years ago.

‘‘When I talk to Gary or Sut or Ryno, any of the guys, it’s like yesterday,’’ Dernier says.

All in all, the memories are pretty damn wonderful.

Contributing: Maddie Lee

1984: Cubs' postseason of heartbreak