Cup of Coffee: Roe Skidmore

Every Thursday the JOBC blog features stories about players who only got a "cup of coffee" with the Cubs. If you'd like anyone featured, by all means, drop me a line at rick (at) justonebadcentury (dot) com.

Reed wrote the following e-mail to me:

"My favorite Cub short-timer is is Roe Skidmore. Look him up. He was the playground supervisor during the noon hour at my grade school when he was in college at Millikin. Nice guy. Great name, plus a 1.000 career MLB batting average. One game. One at bat. One hit. Moonlight Graham would have been proud."

Reed, I did look him up. I don't know if you ever saw this piece, but The New York Times wrote an article about one-game wonders in 1999, and one of the players they featured was your man Roe. This is what David Margolick wrote:

"Robert Roe Skidmore had been riding the bench for the Chicago Cubs for weeks when, in September 1970, Leo Durocher sent him up to pinch-hit. He hit the second pitch from Jerry Reuss over the head of Joe Torre, then the Cardinals' third baseman, for a single.

The ball was then retrieved -- the ball which still sits on his mantelpiece, the one on which his wife wrote ''1st Big League hit,'' not knowing she could have written ''last'' or ''only'' too. Why? He thinks Durocher had it right about nice guys finishing last. ''I didn't whine,'' said Skidmore, now a businessman in Decatur, Ill. Every spring training, he said, a certain hollow feeling grabs his gut. ''I'll go two or three weeks where I don't even want to pick up the paper,'' he said. ''I just kind of ignore the fact that it's starting.''"


Thanks for the suggestion, Reed. The whole fascinating article is here.

Fishy Cubs

Wednesday's "Tale from a Bad Century" is about the year the Cubs were actually run by a man who came from the seafood business.

Unfortunately for William Walker, he only got to run the Cubs for the 1934 season. If only he had run them when the following players were Cubs...

*Snapper Kennedy (1902)

*Bobby Sturgeon (1940-1947)

*Catfish Metkovich (1953)

*Riverboat Smith (1959)

*Steve Trout (1983-1987)

*Steve Lake (1983-1986, 1993)

*Antonio "The Octypus" Alfonseca (2003-2004)

Am I missing anyone?

West Side Grounds Monument

There's a great article in the Tribune today about a bunch of guys who are working hard to get a monument erected at the site of West Side Grounds, the home of the last Chicago Cubs team to win a World Series.

Read the article here.

It's hard to believe that there's nothing at all to commemorate this site, which now sits on the University of Illinois-Chicago campus.

Cup of Coffee: Darcy Rae Fast

There's an awesome "Cup of Coffee" Story in today's Chicago Sun-Times about 1968 Cubs reliever Darcy Rae Fast. Whatever happened to him?


He pitched ten innings, and had ten strike outs, and then suddenly disappeared. Neil Hayes tells the story in this wonderful article.

A letter from 1954

Jerry Pritikin is known to die-hard Cubs fans as the Bleacher Preacher. In 1947, he attended the first game Jackie Robinson played at Wrigley. (That game is featured today in "Tales from a Bad Century.") Jerry's memory of that day? "A lot of people brought binoculars to get a good glimpse of him."

In 1954 Jerry wrote a letter to the Cubs asking if they would ever get a Japanese player. Just read the letter they wrote back to him and you'll get a good insight into what the times were like. Remember, 1954 was the first full season that Ernie Banks played with the Cubs.


If you click on the letter you can read a larger version of it.

New feature: Cup of Coffee

I got this e-mail the other day, and I think it's an intriguing idea...

Rick,

How about a column about "somewhat known but maybe almost forgotten players from Cubs teams of the past" or a similar name. Contents to include, but not be limited to:

Ed Bouchee, Cuno Barragan, Elvin Tappe or any other backup catcher, any 3rd baseman between Santo & Cey.........insert your own name here!

Thomas Filip
Moorpark CA

I like this idea Tom. I'm going to feature one obscure player a week on this blog (every Thursday) in a feature called "Cup of Coffee."

Let's start with one of your suggestions...



Cuno Barragan's real name, by the way, was Facundo Anthony Barragan. On September 1st, 1961, the Cubs catcher became one of the few players in baseball history to hit a home run in his first major league at bat. He did it at Wrigley Field in front of 5,427 fans against the San Francisco Giants in a 4-3 12-inning loss. The pitcher was Dick LeMay, who later became his teammate. Among the Cubs starters that day; centerfielder Richie Ashburn, second baseman Don Zimmer, shortstop Ernie Banks, and a few youngsters by the names of Williams and Santo.

That home run turned out to be the only home run he would hit in the majors. He hung around with the Cubs for two more seasons as a backup catcher, and got a total of 163 at bats, before being traded to the Dodgers along with pitcher Jim Brewer in exchange for pitcher Dick Scott. Scott turned in a stellar 12.46 ERA in his 4 1/3 innings for the Cubs, while Jim Brewer became a star reliever.

Cuno never played in the majors again.


If anyone else has someone they'd like me to report on, let me know. E-mail me at rick@justonebadcentury.com

Kerry Wood's 20 strikeout game

Tuesday marks the 10 year anniversary of Kerry Wood's 20 strikeout game. I was there, sitting in my regular seats, freezing my butt off that day.

I must confess, I didn't recognize at first the magnitude of what I was watching. I remember thinking, "boy he's got a lot of strikeouts," but I had no idea he had as many as he did.

At one point I leaned forward and tapped the shoulder of the guy sitting in front of me. He was listening to the game on the radio.

"How many strikeouts does Wood have?" I asked him.

"12," he answered.

That's when I really started paying attention. The Astros, it should be noted, were in first place, and had a very formidable lineup that day including Craig Biggio, Jeff Bagwell, Derek Bell, and Moises Alou.

You could almost feel the ballpark catching on to what was happening, slowly but surely. With each successive strikeout, the cheers got louder and louder. This might have been the most dominating performance in baseball history. The Astros only managed to hit it out of the infield twice, two weak fly balls. Wood only allowed two runners, a squib infield hit by Ricky Gutierez, and a hit-by-pitch to Craig Biggio.

In the ninth, the few thousand of us who braved the really horrible weather conditions to stay, all rose to our feet as Wood struck out pinch hitter Billy Spiers for his 19th strikeout. We applauded when Biggio grounded out.

And we roared when Wood struck out Derek Bell to end the game.

20 strikeouts.

A game I'll never forget.


Listen to some of the audio highlights here