Cubs by the Numbers

ALL-TIME #7 ROSTER:
Player	Years
Gabby Hartnett	1932
Charlie Grimm (player-manager)	1933–34, 1936
Freddie Lindstrom	1935
Augie Galan	1937–41
Johnny Schmitz	1941
Dom Dallessandro	1942
Heinz Becker	1945–46
Bobby Sturgeon	1946–47
Dick Culler	1948
Emil Verban	1948–50
Frankie Baumholtz	1951–55
Don Hoak	1956
Bobby Adams	1957
Casey Wise	1957
Walt “Moose” Moryn	1958–60
Sammy Taylor	1961–62
Merritt Ranew	1963–64
Ron Campbell	1964
Roberto Pena	1965
Harvey Kuenn	1965–66
John Herrnstein	1966
Pete Reiser (coach)	1966–69
Peanuts Lowrey (coach)	1970–71
Rick Monday	1972–76
Bobby Murcer	1977–79
Bruce Kimm	1979
Cliff Johnson	1980
Jody Davis	1981–88
Joe Girardi	1989–92
Mike Maksudian	1994
Joe Kmak	1995
Tyler Houston	1996–99
Shane Andrews	1999
Eric Young	2000–01
Ramon Martinez	2003
Kenny Lofton	2003
Todd Walker	2004–06
Ryan Theriot	2006
Mark DeRosa	2007–08
Aaron Miles	2009
Rudy Jaramillo (coach)	2010–12
Brett Jackson	2012
J.C. Boscan	2013
Arismendy Alcantara	2014–15

Cubs fans of a certain age remember Jody Davis (1981–88) fondly. TV fans of a certain age remember a different Jody Davis, the little boy in the 1960s show Family Affair with Uncle Bill (cloyingly pronounced by child actor Johnny Whitaker as “Uncuw Biwl”), Mr. French, Cissy (it always seemed like a typo), Jody’s twin, Buffy (not the vampire slayer, but the child actor who came to a tragic end), and a bespectacled doll called Mrs. Beasley. It was watchable for kids under ten, but that still didn’t give the WB any earthly reason to re-make the show in 2002. First-hand reports claim the new show was harder to watch than the woeful, 95-loss, 2002 Cubs.

Jody Davis brought power and poise behind the plate as the 1984 Cubs turned the NL East upside down.

But Jody Davis the catcher was a productive Cub who called a good game and had some pop in his bat. Taken from the Cardinals in the 1980 Rule 5 draft, after a serious illness had nearly ended his career, he caught about half the games for the horrid 1981 Cubs (38–65 in the strike-shortened season). When Dallas Green and Lee Elia took over the following year, Davis was installed as the starting backstop. He produced immediately, hitting 12 home runs in 1982 and 24 the following year, becoming only the second Cubs catcher (after Gabby Hartnett) to hit 20 or more homers in a season. It was during that 1983 season that broadcaster Harry Caray helped Jody’s popularity by singing (in his inimitable way) “Jo-dee, Jo-dee Davis, Catcher Without a Peer”—to the tune of “The Ballad of Davy Crockett.” (It was better for everyone that he didn’t try to hum the Family Affair theme.)

Caray’s chorus led to chants of “Jo-DEE! Jo-DEE!” whenever he came up to bat. On September 14, 1984, with the Cubs still battling the Mets for first place in the NL East, Davis came to the plate with the bases loaded and the Cubs leading the Mets 2–0 in the sixth inning at Wrigley Field. He smacked a grand slam to seal the victory and put the Mets an insurmountable 8½ games out of first place. That season Jody became the first Cubs catcher to play in an All-Star Game since 1969—when Randy Hundley struck out in his only at-bat,—and the first Cub to catch a postseason game since Mickey Livingston in 1945. One of his most heads-up plays occurred on June 8, 1987 when, in a tie game in the top of the ninth, he picked off Barry Lyons of the Mets at second while Mookie Wilson was being issued an intentional walk (the Cubs won the game in the last of the ninth on a Manny Trillo walkoff home run). Davis was traded to the Braves at the end of the 1988 season and struggled in Atlanta, managing just 20 RBI over 90 games.

Apart from Davis, the best-known, and likely best, Cub to wear #7 was Rick Monday (1972–77). Monday played five seasons in Chicago as the regular center fielder, hitting 104 homers—peaking with 32 in 1976—and playing solid defense. He was the Cubs’ best player in the first half of the mediocre 1976 season and had 15 homers at the All-Star break, but catcher Steve Swisher got the team’s lone All-Star nod, primarily because the ’76 NL All-Star squad already had too many outfielders and not enough catchers.

Monday’s signature moment came on April 25, 1976 at Dodger Stadium, when, in the fourth inning, two protesters jumped on the field and tried to set an American flag on fire. Monday, playing center field for the Cubs that day, ran over, swooped up the flag and handed it to Dodgers pitcher Doug Rau. (The Cubs lost the game 5–4 in 10 innings.) A month later when the Dodgers came to Wrigley Field, the flag was presented to Monday by Dodgers GM Al Campanis. Monday shrugged off the praise he received, saying, “It’s the way I was brought up. You would have done the same thing.” He has worked for many years as a Dodgers broadcaster since his retirement, which explains why the Dodgers honored him with a 2013 bobblehead giveaway depicting him—in a Cubs uniform. The realistic bobblehead has #7 clutching a cloth flag in his right hand. Four decades later, Monday still saves the day.

There haven’t been many other wearers of #7 who have made their marks as Cubs. Don Hoak (1956), Harvey Kuenn (1965–66), Eric Young (2000–01), and Kenny Lofton (2003) all had their better years elsewhere. Hoak is part of Cubs lore in an odd way; between 1945 and 2001 only one team—the 1960 Pirates, where Hoak was the regular third baseman—won the World Series while having three ex-Cubs on the roster. Hoak apparently didn’t like it in Chicago. He hit only .215 and asked to be traded after one last-place season; the Cubs obliged by sending him to Cincinnati. The “Ex-Cub Factor” as described above also occurred in 2001, when the winning Diamondbacks had ex-Cubs Mark Grace, Luis Gonzalez, Miguel Batista, and Mike Morgan on their World Series roster.

It’s rare to give away a bobblehead of another team’s player, but it made sense for the Dodgers to hand out the Cubs Rick Monday saving the day in LA.

Walt “Moose” Moryn was a popular Cubs outfielder of the 1950s acquired along with Hoak before the 1956 season; he took over Hoak’s #7 in 1958 after sporting #43 his first two years on the North Side while a couple of nobodies, Bobby Adams (.251 in 60 games) and Casey Wise (.179 in 43 games), wore it in 1957. Moryn hit 84 homers in a little over four seasons as a Cub and helped to provide a signature moment during the 1960 season, when he made a running, shoestring catch on Joe Cunningham’s fly ball to preserve Don Cardwell’s no-hitter on May 15. Jack Brickhouse’s frenzied TV cry, “Come on, Moose!” is legendary in Chicago sports broadcasting annals.

Going back a little deeper in Cubs history, we find a #7 who became famous, but not for his play on the field. Emil Verban (1948–50) played in 199 games for three very bad Cubs teams, hitting only one career homer, a solo shot off Johnny “Double No-Hit” van der Meer at Crosley Field in Cincinnati on September 6, 1948. After a decent 1949 season, he got off to a terrible start in 1950 and was waived. And that would likely be the end of any Cubs fan’s remembrance, except that Verban had been a fan favorite for his hustle and positive attitude. In 1975, some expatriate Cubs fans living in Washington, D.C., decided they would honor the memory of this not-so-great ballplayer by creating the “Emil Verban Society,” for far-flung Cubs fans everywhere. Popularized by the political columnist George Will, the Verban Society counts among its members Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, John Cusack, Pat Sajak, Jim Belushi, and until his death, Ronald Reagan.

Most of the other #7s are a motley lot ranging from mediocre catchers (Sammy Taylor, 1961–62; Merritt Ranew, 1963–64; Bruce Kimm, 1979; Joe “Buy A Vowel” Kmak, 1994; and Tyler Houston, 1996–99) to mediocre middle infielders (Dick Culler, 1948; Ron Campbell, 1964; Roberto Pena, 1965; and Ramon Martinez, 2003) to mediocre outfielders (Dom Dallessandro, 1942, and John Herrnstein, 1966, who was acquired in the Fergie Jenkins deal); to infielder-outfielder Arismendy Alcantara, 2014–15, whose spectacular alliteration may yet overcome his .194 average. And then there was Cliff Johnson (1980), yet another past-his-prime player acquired in an attempt to rev up a dormant Cubs offense. Although Johnson’s primary position was catcher, he wasn’t very good there, nor was he very good at first base. His best position was DH, but since the NL didn’t and doesn’t have one, and since the 1980 Cubs had both a regular catcher and a regular first baseman, manager Preston Gomez tried him for three games in left field. It was a disaster. Johnson made two putouts and committed one error for a laughable .667 fielding percentage. After the 1980 season Johnson was shipped to the A’s for a minor leaguer, and he enjoyed several productive seasons as a DH in the American League.

Before we depart for #8, three other #7’s deserve mention. Augie Galan (1937–41), who also wore #31 and #51, was a starting outfielder for two NL championship teams (1935 and 1938), primarily playing left field. He scored 133 runs in 1935, leading the National League in his first full season, and finished ninth in MVP voting. After five solid seasons, injuries curtailed his playing time, and the Cubs, thinking he was done, dealt him to the Dodgers on August 26, 1941, for Mace Brown (irony: Brown was the pitcher who, three years earlier, had given up the “Homer in the Gloamin’” to Gabby Hartnett). Galan revived his career and put up several more good years for the Dodgers and Reds.

Frankie Baumholtz (1951–55) was a speedy center fielder who was said to always be out of breath for having to cover both center and left field, where the immobile Hank Sauer played. In 1952 Baumholtz hit .325 and finished 17th in the MVP voting; he finished second in the batting race to Stan Musial, so on September 28, 1952, with the batting race well in hand, Musial stepped to the mound to pitch to Baumholtz, who batted right-handed for the only time in his career. Baumholtz hit a smash that Cards third baseman Solly Hemus couldn’t handle; it was ruled an error, though Baumholtz maintained throughout his life that it should have been a hit. (Had it been so, his final average would have been .328.)

MOST OBSCURE CUB TO WEAR #7: J.C. Boscan (2013), a catcher who toiled all year at Triple-A Iowa as injury insurance, never made the active roster until September. He appeared in just six games, starting two of them, and went 2-for-9. His initials stand for two names that appear to be a strange amalgam of French and Spanish: Jean Carlos.

GUY YOU NEVER THOUGHT OF AS A CUB WHO WORE #7: Bobby Murcer (1977–79) was acquired when Bill Madlock’s contract demands angered owner P. K. Wrigley. Madlock and reserve infielder Rob Sperring were shipped to the Giants on February 11, 1977 for Murcer and Steve Ontiveros; the Wrigleys promptly signed Murcer to a more lucrative deal than the one Madlock had been asking for. And for a while, the five-time All-Star with the Yankees and Giants lived up to the contract. For the first three-quarters of the 1977 season, while the Cubs contended, Murcer produced. On August 22, with 39 games remaining in the season, Murcer had 24 HR and 83 RBI, had scored 81 runs, and was seemingly on his way to his first 30/100 season. And then he almost literally stopped hitting. From August 23 to season’s end he batted .216 with three home runs and six (yes, SIX) RBI in 35 games, and the Cubs stopped winning, going 11–28 the rest of the way. Murcer’s power had gone—he hit only nine homers in 1978, and, off to a slow start in 1979, he was shipped back to the Yankees for a minor leaguer. Once ballyhooed as the “next Mickey Mantle”—he and the Mick were both from Oklahoma—Murcer took Mantle’s number as a Cub. Murcer retired as a Yankee and spent two decades as a broadcaster for the team until his death from a brain tumor in 2008.

Bring ’Em Home: Most RBI by Number

While compiling the statistics for certain uniform numbers, sometimes the results make complete sense—such as #31 leading in most pitching categories. But then there are stat totals with no rhyme or reason, like #7 being the Cubs top RBI maker. Or at least it was.

When the first edition of Cubs by the Numbers was published in 2009, stats through the ’08 season had #7 at the top of the RBI heap. But what happens when a number is taken over by the likes of Aaron Miles, Brett Jackson, J.C. Boscan, and Arismendy Alcantara—plus coach Rudy Jaramillo spending three years in #7 talking about hitting? Well, that’s how #9 takes over this coveted crown. On paper, Reed Johnson, Chad Tracy, Blake DeWitt, David DeJesus, and Javier Baez—the last five Cubs to wear #9—don’t conjure up images of Cubs slugger Hack Wilson and his major league record 191 RBI in 1930. A figure, sadly, that came before the Cubs wore numbers. Otherwise that number might top the list. Or given the randomness illustrated above, maybe not.

Keep an eye out for #21, which is not that far away in third, even though it’s been a dozen years since RBI machine Sammy Sosa wore that number. But maybe it’s better to just cross home plate and not worry so much who gets the credit. We’ll be keeping score in any event.

Uni#	RBI
9	2,752
7	2,666
21	2,626
10	2,484
6	2,207
17	2,202
8	2,173
11	2,069
12	2,011
18	1,842
14	1,708
16	1,622
26	1,569
24	1,509
2	1,460
25	1,422
23	1,419
22	1,312
15	1,208
28	1,106