You can call it a farewell to arm. Or the end of an era. Or you can even categorize it as long overdue.
But when Chicago Cubs baseball begins the 2009 season and its 101st without a World Series crown, it will be without the lone remaining member of last century’s team. On Thursday, the Cubs unofficially cut ties with a part of its past with the signing of former Florida Marlins closer Kevin Gregg.
And with it, mercifully closed a chapter on the Kerry Wood book. For in reality, Wood’s career with the Chicago Cubs was a short story wrapped in a long period of time.
In his 10 seasons with the Cubs, Wood’s career could be capsulized as more promise than performance, more potential that possibility. He was the Chicago Cubs consummate “comeback kid,” spending time on the disabled list 12 times in 10 years.
Blame it all on that fateful 20-strikeout game against Houston in 1998 and that National League Rookie of the Year award that followed. For from that day and year forward that was where the bar’s height was set for Wood in the hearts and minds of the Cubs organization and its fans.
Thursday’s parting of ways with Wood leaves more of a taste of “sweet sorrow” than the bitter bite that ensued following last year’s release of another former Chicago Cub ace, Mark Prior. It speaks more of the differences of two men than the Cubs organization itself.
Prior packed his bags and headed home to San Diego, a soured prima donna who’s only resemblance to the city of Chicago was a hardened personality, equaled only its bitter winters.
Wood, meanwhile, was gracious in his exit, fully grasping the meaning of Chicago Cubs baseball as a former one-time member. He was a warrior for the team when his body would permit and the face of Cubs’ hope when it didn’t.
“It’s bittersweet,” Wood said Friday. “Obviously this is my first choice. I wanted to stay here and the best choice for me and my family. … But that’s part of baseball right now.”
And from this point forward Wood will be a part of Chicago Cub history. Fondly.
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