#8: THE HAWK
| ALL-TIME #8 ROSTER: | |
| Player | Years |
| Rollie Hemsley | 1932 |
| Harvey Hendrick | 1933 |
| Billy Jurges | 1934 |
| Charlie Grimm (player and manager) | 1935 |
| Johnny Gill | 1936 |
| Joe Marty | 1937–39 |
| Bill Nicholson | 1939–42 |
| Pete Elko | 1943 |
| Len Rice | 1945 |
| Rube Walker | 1948 |
| Smoky Burgess | 1949 |
| Rube Walker | 1949–51 |
| Bruce Edwards | 1951–52 |
| Clyde McCullough | 1953–56 |
| Charlie Silvera | 1957 |
| Dale Long | 1958–59 |
| George Freese | 1961 |
| Moe Thacker | 1961–62 |
| Vic Roznovsky | 1964–65 |
| Lee Thomas | 1966–67 |
| Bill Plummer | 1968 |
| Ken Rudolph | 1969–70 |
| Joe Pepitone | 1970–73 |
| Tom Lundstedt | 1973–74 |
| Rick Stelmaszek | 1974 |
| Ed Putman | 1976 |
| Dave Rader | 1978 |
| Barry Foote | 1979–81 |
| Tom Harmon (coach) | 1982 |
| Duffy Dyer (coach) | 1983 |
| Jim Frey (manager) | 1984–86 |
| Andre Dawson | 1987–92 |
| Mark Parent | 1994–95 |
| Todd Pratt | 1995 |
| Doug Glanville | 1997 |
| Sandy Martinez | 1998 |
| Gary Gaetti | 1998–99 |
| Joe Girardi | 2000 |
| Oscar Acosta (coach) | 2001 |
| Alex Gonzalez | 2002–04 |
| Nomar Garciaparra | 2004 |
| Michael Barrett | 2004–07 |
| Mike Quade (coach) (manager) | 2007–10 2010–11 |
| Jamie Quirk (coach) | 2012–13 |
| Alberto Gonzalez | 2013 |
| Donnie Murphy | 2013 |
| Chris Coghlan | 2014–15 |
Andre Dawson was born to play in an old-time grass field with reachable fences and adoring fans. Yet he played only a handful of home games on grass (as a twenty-two-year-old in the final days of Parc Jarry in Montreal) in his first decade in the major leagues. His knees paid the price. When Dawson finally became a free agent and wanted to play in a stadium where it didn’t hurt him to run, major league owners were in their “collusion” phase, secretly and unethically agreeing not to sign each other’s free agents. When Dawson showed up at spring training offering the Cubs his services, presenting GM Dallas Green with a contract with the dollar amount left blank, management relented. Green, after calling Dawson’s arrival “a dog and pony show,” filled in the blank with “$500,000,” and for that sum the Cubs got their best outfielder since Billy Williams.
Andre Dawson’s 49 home runs in 1987 were the most by a Cub since Hack Wilson set the club mark in 1930 with 56.
No one surpassed Dawson’s 49 homers and 137 RBI in 1987, and he became the first league Most Valuable Player to play on a last-place team. One of the best moments for that mediocre team occurred in the eighth inning on September 27, the final home game of the year vs. the Cardinals. It was a lovely fall afternoon and Dawson, in what all in attendance knew would be his final home at-bat of the year, received a loud ovation. It got louder five pitches later, when Dawson sent a Bill Dawley offering onto Waveland for his 47th homer of the year.
Dawson made five All-Star teams with the Cubs—he played in only three with the Expos—while surpassing 20 homers every year and driving in more runs than any Cub in five of his six seasons. Dawson remained one of the deadliest arms in right field and won two Gold Gloves as a Cub. The Hawk was beloved at Wrigley—right field bleacher fans created “Andre’s Army” T-shirts and would bow down to him when he would return to the outfield after one of his 174 Cubs home runs, accumulated over just six seasons on the North Side. The only year he played fewer than 143 games was 1989, when Don Zimmer’s army of super subs filled in amiably (Dawson still played 118 games and drove in 77). Dawson moved on to Fenway Park, a logical choice after Wrigley. He finished his career with the expansion Marlins—no classic park, mind you, but a grass field and in his hometown. No Cubs player has worn #8 longer than Andre, and he wore it every day with dignity and class.The Hawk was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2010, but the Cubs don’t appear likely to retire his #8, possibly because Dawson went into the Hall wearing the cap of the Montreal Expos. It wasn’t his choice of hat and wasn’t his choice to make, but he would have liked to honor the place where he was most beloved.
Recently, #8 has bounced around the diamond, with infielders Alberto Gonzalez and Donnie Murphy sharing the number in 2013 and former Rookie of the Year outfielder Chris Coghlan (2014–15) also donning it. But of the thirty-seven other Cubs players to wear #8, there have been twenty-two catchers. And #8 became not only a catcher’s number, but most of the backstops who wore it were fringe players or backups, from the 1960s until the 1990s. The roll-call of mediocrity began with Smoky Burgess (1949), who was actually a good player…for other teams. He’d originally signed with the Cubs in 1944, but as was the case with many talented players, the Cubs shipped him elsewhere to succeed, trading him to the Reds in 1951 for two players (Johnny Pramesa and Bob Usher) who had no impact with the Cubs. To be fair, several other teams also gave Burgess away before he became a premier pinch-hitter in the 1960s.
Rube Walker (1948, 1949–51) actually wore #8 both before and after Burgess, but he went on to more success as a backup in Brooklyn and later helped introduce the concept of the five-man rotation as pitching coach under Gil Hodges for the Mets. Reserve backstops Bruce Edwards (1951–52), Clyde McCullough (1953–56), and Charlie Silvera (1957) filled out the number behind the plate, followed by a couple of years of the interesting career of first baseman Dale Long (1958–59). Long once homered in eight straight games (as a Pirate), still the NL record, and he remains the last Cub to catch left-handed (two games in 1958). Among the other catching #8s: Moe Thacker (1961–62; Thacker apparently couldn’t make up his mind, as he also wore #19, #22, #23 and #25, five numbers all told in four Cub seasons); Vic Roznovsky (1964–65); Bill Plummer (1968), later a small cog in the Big Red Machine as Johnny Bench’s backup and eventually a major league manager in Seattle; Ken Rudolph (1969–70); Tom Lundstedt (1973–74); Ed Putman (1976); Dave Rader (1978); Barry Foote (1979–81), who hit 16 homers behind the plate in his first year as a Cub; Mark Parent (1994–95); Todd Pratt (1995), who earned Cubs fans’ ire when, on June 14, 1995, he reached third base in the bottom of the 11th inning with one out, but failed to score the winning run on a wild pitch (the Cubs eventually lost the game in the 13th); and Sandy Martinez (1998). Martinez, who caught only 33 games for the 1998 NL Wild Card Cubs, had one that we’ll all remember forever: he was behind the dish for Kerry Wood’s 20-strikeout game on May 6, 1998. The #8 catcher act even includes non-Cubs catchers who later became coaches: Duffy Dyer (1983) and Jamie Quirk (2012–13).
Jim Frey, who’d managed the Royals to the 1980 pennant, became the first to manage the Cubs to the postseason in 39 years.
A couple of better backstops took the #8 catcher list into the millennium—Joe Girardi (2000), who also wore #7 and #27 in various Cubs stints, and Michael Barrett (2004–07) , who took #8 after shortstop Nomar Garciaparra (2004) joined the team and took over the #5 Barrett had worn from the start of the 2004 season. There were even two pre-World War II catchers who donned #8—possibly because they hit eighth—Rollie Hemsley (1932) and Len Rice (1945). Hemsley was the first Cubs #8 and was traded to the Reds that winter as part of the Babe Herman deal, while Rice caught 32 games for the ’45 Cubs but didn’t appear in the World Series.
One crazy 8 who didn’t catch was first baseman Joe Pepitone (1970–73). Known for bringing the hair dryer into the major league clubhouse as a Yankee, Pepitone hit a career-best .307 in ’71 as Ernie Banks spent most of his final season on the bench. Pepitone and Lee Thomas (1966–67, .229 in 340 Cub at-bats) were the only non-catchers to wear #8 between 1961 and 1981, when the number was turned over to coaches and manager Jim Frey (1984–86), before the arrival of the Hawk.
MOST OBSCURE CUB TO WEAR #8: If you actually counted all the catchers to wear #8—well, if you did that you deserve a prize—the one catcher not previously mentioned was Rick Stelmaszek (1974). A Chicago native, Stelmaszek spent the last weeks of an 88 AB career as a Cub, but he had staying power aplenty in the Twin Cities. He spent thirty-two consecutive seasons (1981–2012) as a Minnesota Twins coach, among the longest tenures in major league history. His Cubs tenure, on the other hand, was brief. The Cubs acquired him from the Angels for reliever Horacio Pina (that may be among the most obscure trades in Cubs history, too). Stelmaszek hit .227 in 44 Cubs at-bats, including his only major league homer, a high, arching blast onto Sheffield on a windy August day against the Dodgers, off Hall of Famer Don Sutton. He drove in two runs, walked twice, and scored twice…in an 18–8 loss.
GUY YOU NEVER THOUGHT OF AS A CUB WHO WORE #8: Gary Gaetti (1998–99) spent most of his career in the American League with the Twins, Royals, and Angels. By 1998 he was with the Cardinals, and when the team he had grown up rooting for in Centralia, Illinois released him on August 14, 1998, Gaetti became a part of Cubs lore. Signing to play on the North Side five days later, Gaetti played just 37 games with the Cubs, but he was a monster. He batted .320 with eight homers and 27 RBI and showed the form of a four-time Gold Glove third baseman. (He had established a big league first when he started two around-the-horn triple plays in the same game as a Twin in 1990.) Gaetti helped put the Cubs in the postseason by hitting a two-run homer in the wild card tiebreaker game against the Giants on September 28, 1998, but like the rest of the Cubs, he stopped hitting in the Division Series against Atlanta (1-for-11). The next year Gaetti was the oldest player in the National League and he played like it (hitting .204 in 280 at-bats), earning his release after the season.
Be Patient; Take a Number: Walks by Number
The trite cry from Little League that a walk really is as good as a hit rings true at every level of the game. In some ways a walk is actually better, considering how a single can occur on one pitch, while a walk takes at least four. And with the importance of pitch counts in the modern game, every pitch you can get the other guy to throw—especially a starter—is to your advantage. So who are the all-time individual Cubs leaders in drawing bases on balls? Stan Hack (1,092) from the 1930s and Ron Santo (1,071) from the 1960s. That’s proof that the greats play the game the right way regardless of the era. In the last few years, Hack’s #6 has patiently worked its way into second place in this category, though Santo’s #10 has the perpetual take sign since it was retired at the end of 2003.
| Uniform # | Walks Drawn |
| 7 | 2,369 |
| 6 | 2,022 |
| 11 | 1,950 |
| 9 | 1,911 |
| 10 | 1,908 |
| 21 | 1,906 |
| 17 | 1,743 |
| 12 | 1,411 |
| 18 | 1,382 |
| 1 | 1,370 |
| 8 | 1,315 |
| 8 | 1,315 |
| 24 | 1,234 |
| 25 | 1,224 |
| 2 | 1,209 |
| 16 | 1,128 |
| 23 | 1,116 |
| 15 | 1,081 |
| 20 | 1,044 |
| 26 | 1,027 |
| 44 | 955 |