On Friday afternoon, outside of Wrigley before the 1:20 start time, the Cubs unveiled the newest statue. Yes, Fergie Jenkins will join Harry, Ernie, Billy, and Ron, immortalized with this piece of art that all Cubs fans can enjoy from now until forever. If any ex-Cubs player deserves a statue… certainly Fergie fits that bill.
When did teams start making statues of ex-players? Well, I took a quick look into the answer to this question; found a website called offbeat.group. The first baseball related statue was unveiled back in 1885; yeah, crazy. His name was Christian Von Der Ahe; he was not a player though. Quick peek at his story tells me he came from Germany, and ended up buying the St. Louis Browns… ugh! Yes, they would become the Cardinals. The Browns did well back in the American Association, so well in fact, that a statue of this dude was made; funny thing though… it was his doing! Nice… just making a statue of yourself, although being in the mix of folks who first sold hot dogs at the ballpark, and possibly coming up with the term “fan” (fanatic), maybe he deserved it? He died because he drank too much; his statue followed him to his gravesite. Next guy was Harry Wright, back in 1897. He actually was a baseball player; so he is the first one ever? A hot topic today in baseball is “the shift”, but back 150+ years ago, Harry was “shifting defensive alignments based on hitters’ tendencies” per Wikipedia; he was also credited with the whole backing up of infield plays from the outfield. This dude was from England btw. So much for America’s Game, with these two being so prominent in the early days of baseball. His statue is also by his graveside.
The next couple names you may recognize. There was one of Babe Ruth unveiled in 1934; nobody knows where this one is at though… sounds like a Ballpark Mystery to me… Honus Wagner got his in 1955; this statue stands outside of PNC Park today. Then there was Connie Mack in 1957; his statue also sits outside his ex-team’s stadium in Philly. Pretty interesting stuff. I think “Does any ex-athlete deserve a statue?”. For that matter, “Does ANYONE deserve a statue?” There’s been much talk about “statues” over the past couple years, especially this guy named Columbus. Thing is, nobody that has a statue is perfect… that is, of course, because we are all human. Not condoning or minimizing any of the bad stuff done by the folks these statues represent, but there must have been some “good” reasons why they were erected in the first place right? Unless of course that person made one of themselves… We could get deeper…
But no… this Friday was a celebration of Ferguson Jenkins. I usually say “arguably”, but not sure that applies to Fergie; I don’t think there is much question who the best Cubs pitcher of all time is. Of course, Maddux donned Cubbie blue, but he made most of his bones as a Brave. There is the famous Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown; he is definitely in that all-time starting rotation. But Fergie… some of his stats are just ridiculous. All those wins, all those strikeouts, all those innings pitched, all those complete games are a reminder of the way the game used to be played, before these pitch counts and deep bullpens. If there was one pitcher that you wanted on the mound from about 1967 to 1974, the range of years where Fergie won 20+ games 7 times, Jenkins was in the conversation. If the Cubs needed to win one game, certainly that choice was easy. I recently watched his story on Marquee; whew… some sadness there man. But today, today was a happy day. Congrats Fergie! Can’t wait to see the new statue in person. Go Cubs!!!
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