Chgo v. N.Y., Round 1; 2017 World Series preview, or baseball fluke?

The New York Yankees are making their annual trip to Chicago to play baseball, but it’s not the usual one.

For due to the quirks of interleague play, the Yankees will be headed to the North Side this weekend – taking on the Chicago Cubs in a three-game series beginning Friday.

GOING INTO FRIDAY’S game, both ballclubs are in first place in their respective divisions, which I’m sure will have some people getting all worked up into thinking this weekend is a potential preview of the World Series – Yankees vs. Cubs!!! – and a rematch of 1932 and 1938.

 

Not that any serious baseball fan of the Cubs wants to relive either of those seasons – the Yankees won both years in four-game sweeps. ’32 will forevermore be famed for that home run Babe Ruth hit that he may-or-may-not have called in advance, while the ’38 Yanks of Joe DiMaggio swatted aside the baby blue bears as though they were insignificant.

In short, there’s not a whole lot of history between the two ballclubs – the Chicago/New York baseball battles throughout the years have involved the White Sox; and as it turns out will occur June 26-29 at Guaranteed Rate Field on the South Side.

Historically, the White Sox were the ones that had something of a rivalry with New York and the Yankees (although the coming of modern-era divisions and an emphasis on local rivalries has diminished that), while the Cubs were the ones who engaged in their rivalry with the St. Louis Cardinals for Midwestern supremacy.

A RIVALRY THAT fits in perfectly with the modern-day divisional structure.

Not that any such rivalry would have been possible for the White Sox, since back in the days when St. Louis was a two-team baseball town, even at their low points the Sox could count on being better than the St. Louis Browns of old.

But this week will give us the one-time City Number One versus City Number Two, although there are enough players who’ve done double duty for both ball clubs.

Take the Yankees squad that will take the field at Wrigley. Starting shortstop Starlin Castro was once supposed to be a Cubs star of the future, while Cubs fans still remember the glories of relief pitcher Aroldis Chapman who was acquired in a mid-season 2016 trade from the Yankees, then skedaddled back to New York as a free agent once the season ended.

THEN, THERE’S ALSO Yankees manager Joe Girardi, the pride of Northwestern University who also was once a Cubs catcher and whom some Cubs fans are delusional enough to think fantasizes about the day when he’ll be able to leave New York to once again don a Cubs uniform.

Actually, it makes me wonder if the Yankees are now subject to the Ex-Cub Factor – three or more former Chicago Cubs on the roster is the Kiss of Death to any World Series-bound ballclub.

It even took down the Yankees in 1981 – which had pitcher Rick Reuschel, catcher Barry Foote and outfielders Oscar Gamble and Bobby Murcer. Even though Murcer played the bulk of his ballplaying career as a Yankee, it seems his Cubby stint tainted him in the eyes of the baseball “gods” and that wound up being the year a Dodgers team was finally able to defeat New York.

Of course, there also have been other Yankees who did stints in Cubby blue, including Hall of Fame-quality relief pitcher Rich Gossage, toupee-clad infielder Joe Pepitone (who looked stylish while he played) and even a guy who was a personal favorite ballplayer when I was a kid.

THE LOU PINIELLA who smashed water coolers to ease his temper (and making a game-saving defensive play in that 1978 tie-breaker with the Boston Red Sox) just always seemed out-of-place during that stint he was the Cubs manager.

I’m sure the hard-core fan of Cubdom can rattle off endless lists of people who did double duty for both ballclubs.

All I know is I have my ticket for Friday’s game; the first time since 2004 that I’ve set foot in THAT ballpark. I’ll be watching to see how Cubdom reacts when it is in the presence of a team that has enough on-field achievements to justify a haughty attitude, while wondering myself what the chances are this could be a World Series preview.

And I most likely will be giving the outside world – the part that actually thinks Donald J. Trump makes a credible government official – little thought.

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Sad to say, Castro not new situation, brings back memories of “Jungle” Jim

I’m curious to see how the fate of Starlin Castro – the Chicago Cubs shortstop whom some think could become the ball club’s next big star – plays out.

For there is a woman who is accusing the 21-year-old Dominican of rape – claiming she came to consciousness and found Castro on top of her.

AS OF FRIDAY afternoon, Castro had not been charged with anything – although the news reports indicate he spent his Thursday night into the early hours of Friday being questioned by police trying to figure out what really happened.

What has complicated this investigation is that the woman’s claim didn’t come out until after the 2011 baseball season was over and Castro had already returned home to the Dominican Republic.

So police had to wait until Castro voluntarily returned to Chicago before they could question him. For what it’s worth, Castro is back in town for this weekend so he can be on hand for the Cubs Convention – that annual winter gathering of Cubs fans that is taking place at the Chicago Hilton & Towers, 720 S. Michigan Ave.

In short, Castro isn’t behaving like a man who thinks he’s about  to get whacked with criminal charges. If he did, I’d think he’d have found an excuse to get out of returning here this week – even if it is to be surrounded by the most delusional of Cubs fans who will adore him.

AND WHO ARE the people who most likely are having feelings of resentment that this issue is even coming up this week. They’re the ones who probably wish it could have been now-former pitcher Carlos Zambrano who got hit with such an accusation so it could have been used as justification for getting rid of him without having to pay him $15 million more (the amount of his 2012 salary that the Cubs will pay, compared to $3 million paid by the Miami Marlins).

I’m wondering to what degree people are going to feel willing to look the other way at bad behavior by a ball player, just because of what he could do on the field.

For this isn’t exactly a new experience for Chicago baseball. In fact, Castro (even if he ultimately is hit with criminal charges and is someday found “guilty”) isn’t even the first local ballplayer to have such accusations made against him.

For all those people who want to claim that the “good ol’ days” were somehow more innocent, I say “Nonsense!”

BECAUSE ALL WE have to do is remember the tale of one-time Chicago White Sox outfielder Jim Rivera – who was the regular right fielder on that “Go Go” team that won the American League championship for 1959.

Being able to lead the American League in stolen bases in 1955, along with being runner up in several other seasons to teammates Minnie Miñoso and Luis Aparicio and playing with a certain ferocity is all that many people want to remember of the ballplayer known as “Jungle Jim.”

Many are more than willing to forget the fact that while serving in the U.S. Army, he was court martialed after an officer’s daughter accused him of rape. Those charges ultimately got knocked down to attempted rape, but he still did some time incarcerated.

It was only his athletic skills that ultimately got him out early, as a minor league ballclub in Gainesville, Fla., negotiated his early release so he could play professionally.

HE ULTIMATELY ROSE through the minor leagues to join the St. Louis Browns, and was traded to the White Sox in July 1952. Just a couple of months later, he got arrested in the White Sox clubhouse at Comiskey Park when the wife of an Army statistician stationed in Chicago claimed he raped her in her apartment.

Rivera claimed, at the time, that their contact was consensual, and in October of that year, a grand jury voted against an indictment. He was free and clear of criminal charges. I don’t have any evidence that a 60-year-old grand jury got it wrong.

But then-baseball Commissioner Ford Frick ultimately put Rivera on probation (within the context of baseball, not the law) for one year, with the White Sox being required to report any incidents involving their new outfielder and also being forbidden from trading him to any other team during that probationary period.

Not that it mattered much, from a baseball perspective. For Rivera wound up living up to team expectations and performing well for those teams that perennially finished behind the New York Yankees in the standings in the 1950s.

BY THE TIME Rivera finally was traded away in 1961 (to the Kansas City Athletics, where he played one season before retiring as a ballplayer), the fact that these allegations ever came up were made to seem like ancient history – so long ago that perhaps it was just our faulty memory and that they really didn’t happen.

Which, I’m sure, is exactly what Castro is hoping becomes the outcome of his own case. Considering that much of the rhetoric I have read surrounding this case focuses on how much this incident will distract from the ability of new baseball boss Theo Epstein to rebuild the Cubs into a serious ball club, he's not alone.

Some things just never change.

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