Cubs-Pirates rivalry brews hot
It’s hardly Yankees-Red Sox, Dodgers-Giants or even Cardinals-Cubs.
But suddenly we have a blossoming rivalry in baseball, and it’s starting to attract a whole lot of attention.
It’s the Pirates and Cubs, who created plenty of drama in each of their first two series this season, with the show coming back Friday to Wrigley Field in Chicago with a three-game series.
We’ve already had one manager ridiculing an opposing player for his flamboyant bat-flips, the other manager lashing back at his peer, a first baseman sliding in hard at home that’s ruled an illegal slide a day later, a pitcher sliding in hard at second that would have been called illegal if not for a technicality, and a couple of bench-clearing incidents.
“It’s been interesting seeing what’s going on,” said Giants outfielder Andrew McCutchen, who spent the first 12 years of his career in the Pirates organization. “When I was there, the Cardinals were always our big rivalry.”
Well, move over St. Louis, you have company.
Pittsburgh manager Clint Hurdle, who ended the Pirates’ 20-year losing drought with three consecutive playoff berths, also is being credited for heightening this intrigue. It began at Wrigley Field in April when he criticized Cubs infielder Javy Baez for an exaggerated bat flip and catcher Willson Contreras for constantly complaining to the umpires.
The next thing you knew, Baez and Contreras were defending themselves, Cubs manager Joe Maddon was firing back at Hurdle, leading to the benches clearing last week in Pittsburgh.
“I’m not here to create drama or add to any drama,” Hurdle said. “I’m not. I actually want to eliminate all drama out of my life. But at the end of the day, Joe doesn’t care what I think. Javy doesn’t care what I think. And I don’t care what they think. So we’re good.”
It all started innocently enough, with Hurdle answering questions in his office the morning after the Cubs’ 13-5 victory in which Baez hit two homers and angrily flipped his bat after an infield pop-up.
“Where’s the respect for the game?” Hurdle told reporters that April 12 morning. “The guy hits four homers in two days, so that means you can take your bat and throw it 15, 20 feet in the air when you pop up like you should have hit your fifth home run? I would bet that men over there talked to him, because I do believe they have a group over there that speaks truth to power.”
Hurdle also brought up Contreras’ actions, saying the young catcher was arguing balls and strikes far too often.
“The catcher, a talented young man,” Hurdle said, “there’s a day he would have been thrown. … Those are things you help your young players with, but that’s not respect for the game. That’s not the way we do things here.”
Word soon circulated back to the Cubs clubhouse. “I don’t understand why he did what he did,” Maddon told reporters, “I do believe in not interfering with other groups. ... I think most of the time when you hear critical commentary, it’s self-evaluation. ... It reveals you more than it reveals the person you are talking about.”
Here we are two months later, the Pirates are back in Chicago, Baez is having an All-Star season, Maddon has the Cubs playing their best baseball of the year, Hurdle is trying to keep the sinking Pirates alive in the NL Central, and huge crowds await this weekend in anticipation of what might transpire next.
“I’m not here to revisit what happened, to be quite frank,” Hurdle says. “I don’t rant. I don’t rave. I just try to share my observations. I can’t control how people think or feel about things I say. I just think there are things passionate to a guy who’s spent 44 years in the game, who’s managed, coached and played in the big leagues.”
It was no different from last week, Hurdle says, when the Cubs’ Anthony Rizzo slid hard into catcher Elias Diaz’s legs at home plate, trying to break up a double play. Hurdle argued that the slide was illegal. Maddon said it was perfectly legal. The umpiring crew agreed with Maddon. The next day, MLB agreed with Hurdle, saying it should have been called interference.
Two days later, Pirates pitcher Joe Musgrove slid hard into Baez at second, going past the base, while also trying to break up a double play. They exchanged words. And the benches cleared.
“We’re not trying to fight anybody here,” Musgrove told reporters. “We’re not trying to cause any problems. But you blindside our catcher when he’s got no chance to defend himself. … I could have wiped him out and really hurt him, but I didn’t. I was just trying to go in hard, just like they did, and break up the double play. I easily could have made a dirty slide, but I feel like I made a clean slide and went in hard.”
Certainly, back when Hurdle played, it was nothing more than old school, hard-nosed baseball. Yet with new rules designed to protect players at home plate and second base, the difference between hard-nosed and dirty no longer is black and white.
Hurdle, 60, knows there’s nothing he can do to change this new era of baseball. “I have the utmost respect for Javy Baez,” Hurdle says. “Oh my God, the skill sets he carries, there are days he’s the best player in the world. But I just want our focus to be on the field, that’s it. I just want to lead my team, respect my opponent and respect the game. That’s all I ever wanted.
“If this turns into an engaging rivalry, that’s great. I think anytime you get teams that are representative of good ol’ fashioned baseball, with a lot of new wave ideas and people are passionate about playing, it’s awesome. That’s what you want, right? It’s baseball.”