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The Spectacle Blog
Chicago Cubs pitcher Kerry Wood will apparently announce his retirement later today.
The announcement may come following this afternoon’s game at Wrigley Field against the crosstown rival White Sox as interleague play begins.
Wood, who turns 35 next month, has struggled this season. In nine appearances out of the bullpen, Wood has gone 0-2 with an 8.64 ERA surrendering eight runs in eight and a third innings pitched and has walked more than twice as many batters as he has struck out (11:5).
In a classy move by the Cubs, it looks like Wood will get to pitch one more time in front of Cubs fans before he hangs it up.
Wood was the Cubs first round pick in the 1995 MLB draft and would make his MLB debut in 1998. In his fifth big league appearance, on May 6, 1998, Wood set a National League record and tied a major league record held by Roger Clemens (and later Randy Johnson) by striking out 20 Houston Astros on a one-hit complete game shutout.
Wood won 13 games that season and was named NL Rookie of the Year as the Cubs won the NL Wild Card.
However, injuries would soon become Wood’s constant companion. He missed the entire 1999 season due to Tommy John surgery. In all, Wood would be placed on the Disabled List 16 times including earlier this season due to a sore shoulder.
His best season came in 2003 when Wood won a career high 14 games and led the NL in strikeouts with 266 as he and Mark Prior led the team to the NL Central Division title. Of course, the Cubs were five outs away from going to the World Series in Game 6 of the NLCS until Luis Castillo hit that ball down the leftfield line. What is forgotten is that there was a Game 7 which Wood started. He even hit a two-run homerun in the second inning to tie the game at 3-3. Unfortunately, the Marlins took the lead in the fifth and Wood was removed in the sixth having given up seven runs. There would be no joy in Wrigleyville and Steve Bartman had nothing to do with it.
The Cubs converted Wood into a reliever late in the 2007 season and in 2008 would record 34 saves for the Cubs who won another NL Central title before being dispatched by the Dodgers in the NLDS.
After more than a decade in a Cubs uniform, Wood signed a two-year deal with the Cleveland Indians prior to the 2009 season. However, Wood would be traded to the New York Yankees in mid-2010 where he pitched effectively as an eighth inning set up man for Mariano Rivera. But after the Yankees declined to sign him in 2011, Wood returned to Wrigley.
If not for injuries, Wood could have been amongst the all-time greats. But he certainly had flashes of greatness and never made excuses when things weren’t so great which made him one of the most popular players in Cubs history.
UPDATE: Wood came on in the bottom of the eighth to face Dayan Viciedo and struck him out on a curveball and bid baseball adieu. He was greeted at the dugout steps by his son and teammates amidst a standing ovation. Now that’s ending things on a high note. Well, not completely. The Cubs lost 3-2.
View all comments (12) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Aaron Goldstein
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/05/18/kerry-wood-to-announce-retirem
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Steve A| 5.18.12 @ 2:01PM
Kerry Wood , at his best, may have had as good a stuff as anyone to ever toe the slab. He was an elbow lifter (raised elbows above shoulder) & this is a formula for arm trouble.
Now his task will be to find something to occupy his retirement time (at 35 yo) that is remotely as thrilling & intersting as tossing the biscuit to big league hitters. Hint, it does not exist.
Mark MacInnis| 5.18.12 @ 2:06PM
Dusty Baker should be permanently and publicly pilloried for ruining the arms and careers of Kerry Wood and Mark Prior. Commonly during the 2003 season, Wood and Prior endured pitch counts into the 130's and 140's....(which few pitchers at that time were subjected to, and it would NEVER happen in the current era)....and were never, IIRC, granted extra rest. Baker just kept running them out there every fourth day, pitching them until their arms broke down. He is personally responsible for wrecking the potential career accomplishments and Hall-of-Fame prospects for two of the greatest pitching talents of all time. T'anks fer nuttin', Dusty.
JP| 5.18.12 @ 2:14PM
I suspect both Wood and Prior were on performance enhhancing drugs -especially Pryor. And 130 and 140 pitch counts not too long ago were not that unusual for big, hard throwing pitchers. If anything, the reliance on breaking ptiches are a sure way to shorten one's career. Just ask Steve Stone. He got his Cy Young in 1980, but his health was ruined.
Wood's strike out pitch was a hard slider. I wonder if his career would have been different if he developed a splitter.
Occam's Tool| 5.19.12 @ 8:25PM
Stone deliberately decided to go for the one year of greatness in exchange for a mediocre career, as opposed to a mediocre career with no signs of greatness. One of the best Jewish ballplayers ever,
Pete| 5.18.12 @ 4:02PM
Fergy Jenkins regularly ran into the 140s and 150s. Its not the pitch count by itself.
Occam's Tool| 5.19.12 @ 8:29PM
Pete: young prospects' arms (under the age of 25) can be ruined by excessive pitch counts. Fergie was also a super-brilliant talent and a HOFer. Prior and Woods, had they been healthy, might have also been, and the difference was no one knew this when Fergie played and it was known when Woods played. (Another reason Santo deserves the HOF---he put up his numbers, WHICH WERE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE HOF 3rd basemen, with type I diabetes and very poor, by today's standards, medical care.)
Cpm| 5.18.12 @ 2:09PM
The big controversy in Chi-town is old man Ricketts (father of Cub's owners) financing that Reverend Wright anti-Obama spot right in the middle of talks with the city about Wrigley expansion. Rahm-bo won't like that. Local media is aghast, like exposing the truth is some kind of treasonable act.
Al Adab| 5.18.12 @ 6:07PM
CPM:
Don't know if you saw my last re: McHenry County on the Wrigley story. Small world.
Amazing to see some honest news come out of Chi-town does the Trib still help?
JP| 5.19.12 @ 9:09AM
It seemed like only yesterday when the Cubs had the three best young studs in baseball, Woods, Prior, and Zambrano.
Kenny| 5.19.12 @ 11:07AM
Who cares?
Occam's Tool| 5.19.12 @ 8:25PM
They killed Kenny!