Chicago Herald-American

This is just not Jim Hendry's year.

Casey McGehee, who got an audition at third base for the Cubs as a September call-up last year, has hit .348 with six home runs and 26 RBIs in 36 games while Aramis Ramirez has been out with an injury. Only one catch: McGehee plays for the Milwaukee Brewers. Hendry cut McGehee last October. The Brewers, who seem to be able to scout and develop talent a little better than the Cubs -- they drafted six of their eight position starters, plus No. 1 pitcher Yovani Gallardo -- picked him up immediately.

Sure enough, the Brewers have gotten more out of McGehee than the Cubs ever did. As Ramirez continues a rehab stint with Class A Peoria, McGehee went 4-for-5 with five RBIs against Rich Harden and the Cubs on Saturday in the Brewers' 11-2 victory at Wrigley Field. McGehee is hitting .331. In seven games against the White Sox and Cubs this season, he's hitting .520 (13-for-25) with two home runs and nine RBIs.

What did the Cubs not see in McGehee? A 10th-round draft pick in 2003, McGehee hit .296 with 12 homers and 92 RBIs at age 25 at Class AAA Iowa last year. He only hit .167 (4-for-24) with the Cubs in September. Ironically, his best day came against Braden Looper, who beat the Cubs on Saturday -- an RBI single, a sac fly and a single against the Cardinals last Sept. 21. His other hits were a double against Johan Santana and an RBI single against Pedro Martinez.

McGehee is not the Brewers' third baseman of the future and might not be their third baseman for long. But already he's produced more than anybody the Cubs had to fill in for Ramirez. Hendry just can't catch a break.

Gordon Beckham wasn't even the best Beckham in the major-league draft last year. He wasn't even the best Beckham from Georgia. The Tampa Bay Rays took high school shortstop Tim Beckham from Griffin, Ga. with the No. 1 pick. Gordon Beckham didn't go until the eighth pick to the White Sox.

It's early, but right now it looks like there are going to be a few teams that will be regretting passing on Gordon Beckham, who looks more and more like he's going to be around for a long, long time. Beckham, a 22-year-old from the University of Georgia, hit his second career homer against the Royals on Sunday and is hitting .454 in his last nine games (15-for-33) and .365 (23-for-63) in his last 18 games since starting 0-for-13 (.000) and 2-for-28 (.071) since being called up to the White Sox after just 59 minor-league games.

And he's not picking on weak pitchers, either. In his recent stretch, Beckham is hitting .647 (11-for-17) against Cliff Lee, Carlos Zambrano, Carlos Marmol, Randy Wells, Aaron Harang and Johnny Cueto. He's 2-for-2 against Marmol, who is holding batters to a .163 average against him. And he hit a three-run homer off Cueto, who is holding batters to a .223 average against him. Not bad.

It was only a matter of time. Beckham is one of those players who looks good at almost anything he does -- even when he's 2-for-28. Sox announcers Hawk Harrelson and Steve Stone have mentioned more than once how much Beckham has "the look" of a big league star. And after watching him for a month, it appears there's plenty of substance to it. He reminds me of Paul Molitor -- though he has a different hitting style -- because of the way he hits to all parts of the field.

Beckham, a natural shortstop, isn't flawless at third base, but still does some things as well as a lot of big-league third basemen, like charging a bunt or roller, picking the ball up with his glove hand and still making the throw in time. And for a player who had a Georgia Bulldog-record 53 home runs in college, he's a textbook bunter -- squaring around, hands in good position, bat parallel to the ground and high in the strike zone. 

After buying the idea that Mark Prior would be less prone to injury because of his outstanding mechanics, I take almost any scouting report with a grain of salt. But Beckham has a meticulous approach to hitting mechnanics that could make him resistant to prolonged slumps. This is from Jason Grey of ESPN.com, who according to ESPN is a graduate of MLB Scouting Bureau's Scout Development Program:

"One thing that was apparent to me during Beckham's play in the Arizona Fall League last year was his ability to make adjustments and to make them fairly quickly, not just from game to game but from at-bat to at-bat. Initially, he struggled adjusting to wood bats as he began his pro career (as many college hitters do), but he figured out things fairly quickly.

"I had to adjust and tighten up my swing a lot," Beckham said. "It was tough, but I think I made the adjustments pretty well. I've got a lot of movement in my swing, but we tried to incorporate the movement into being a good load (which helps generate power), and that's a good thing. My whole body was moving back and forth like a pendulum, but I'm doing a better job of staying still, and my load is now my hands and my foot, and not a whole body load."

Beckham has a very good understanding of his own swing and his swing mechanics, which is a rarer trait than you might think among professional hitters, and I think that's going to be a key factor for his potential production this season. It's that understanding of his swing that can help him figure out big league pitchers quickly after being pushed aggressively to the big leagues. For example, during spring training, he talked about one of the adjustments, saying he "pulled my elbow in to free up my hands. When I let my hands work, I can do some good things, but I was kind of blocking up my hands by having my elbow out. It's always small adjustments for me. You try not to make it too difficult."

It remains to be seen whether the Rays picked the right Beckham -- Tim Beckham, still just 19, is hitting .281 at Class A Bowling Green, Ky. and made the Sally League all-star team. But none of the seven players drafted ahead of Gordon Beckham, including four other college players, currently are playing higher than Class AA:

1. Tim Beckham, SS, Tampa Bay -- Class A (.281, 42 RBI in 69 games)

2. Pedro Alvarez, 3B, Pittsburgh -- Class AA  (.156)

3. Eric Hosmer, 1B, Kansas City -- Class A (.255)

4. Brian Matusz, LHP, Baltimore -- Class AA (3-0, 0.49)

5. Buster Posney, C, San Francisco -- Class A (.317)

6. Kyle Skipworth, C, Florida -- Class A (.201)

7. Yonder Alonso, 1B, Cincinnati -- Class AA (.289)

8. Gordon Beckham, SS, White Sox -- White Sox (.267)

White Sox pieces not yet in place

Anytime the White Sox want to move Alexei Ramirez to center field and Gordon Beckham to shortstop to make room for either Josh Fields or Dayan Viciedo at third base is fine by me.

Ramirez continues to prove he's not a major-league shortstop almost as rapidly as Beckham keeps proving he is here to stay. When Hawk Harrelson is all over your case -- as he has been regarding Ramirez' lack of fundamental defensive play at shortstop this season -- it might be time to consider Plan B. 

Ramirez was chastised by Harrelson and Steve Stone for being out of position yet again in the sixth inning of the Sox' 6-4 loss to the Royals in Kansas City. He was playing toward the hole in a double-play situation and had to come from so far away to take a throw from Chris Getz that he couldn't get enough on the relay to first to complete the double play. I'm not sure if he would have gotten the DP even if he had been in position, but it was not the first time Ramirez has been called out for not playing his position correctly. That's not a good sign for a guy who plays for a manager who was a Gold Glove shortstop.

Actor Karl Malden was a native Chicagoan who, like Michael Jackson, grew up in Gary, Ind. Among his remarkable accomplishments was his 71-year marriage to his wife, Mona -- if that's not a Hollywood record, it's up there.

When he died at 97, last week, he was noted for his work with Brando in "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "On The Waterfront." But he also was famously paired with Brando in the vastly underrated 1961 film "One-Eyed Jacks."

"One-Eyed Jacks" was the only film Brando directed and no wonder: it took two years to make. Brando fired the original director, Stanley Kubrick and eventually hired himself as director. As meticulous a film maker as he was an actor, he supposedly shot more than 440 minutes of film, with 141 making it to the big screen (the remaining 300 reportedly were destroyed -- too bad.).

The film stars Brando and Malden, but also included standout peformances from Slim Pickens, Katy Jurado, newcomer Pina Pellicer and bad guy Ben Johnson (who played Melvin Purvis in the 1973 film "Dillinger," which also starred Warren Oates as John Dillinger and Richard Dreyfuss as Baby Face Nelson -- in a movie released a month before "American Graffiti.")

They don't make movies like this anymore.

Here's the thrilling conclusion to one of Karl Malden's greatest movies:

When you've pissed off the general manager of one of the teams you cover, the best way to make up is to play a little softball. The Sun-Times' Chris DeLuca usually doesn't miss a chance to take a shot at the Cubs and their futility -- many of those shots well-deserved and well done. But after infuriating Jim Hendry by publishing a comment a reporter overheard an irritated Lou Piniella make about Milton Bradley in the privacy of his office in May (''We pay the guy $30 million and nothing's ever his fault.''), DeLuca put away the machete and pulled out the 16-inch Clincher.

"Had someone told the Cubs they'd be the same distance from first nearly two months [after Aramis Ramirez' injury] ... would they have taken that?" DeLuca wrote in this sidebar in Friday's paper.

"Yeah, I would have taken that," general manager Jim Hendry said. "You take  the final result and the journey getting there, and it doesn't make you feel great, but collectively for how it's gone and how little we've hit with men in scoring position ... I think we are somewhat fortunate not to be behind farther."

It's a legitimate angle -- the Cubs were the same 2 1/2 games behind the Brewers after beating them Thursday night as they were when Ramirez got hurt. But if you really wanted to, you could have also focused on the missed opportunity:

• Since Ramirez went out, only one team in the NL Central played better than .500 baseball -- the Houston Astros, who were tied for last place (12-17) when Ramirez went out and were 26-22 since to move into fifth place.
• The Cubs are 23-25 since Ramirez was hurt, including an 8-12 stretch prior to the Brewers series where five of the eight wins were against woeful Cleveland and Pittsburgh.
• In virtually the same span without an even better player in Manny Ramirez, the Dodgers were 29-21.
• Only one player stepped up throughout Ramirez' absence -- Derrek Lee, who was hitting .209 when Ramirez went out but has hit .321 with 11 homers and 33 RBIs in 42 games since then to raise his average to .281.

Not that Chris didn't acknowledge the obvious reason for the Cubs' ability to "survive" Ramirez' injury. "Still, the Cubs have weathered the loss remarkably well thanks to stability in the NL Central," he wrote.

Stability? An interesting choice of words. I think "mediocrity" would be more accurate. But this was no time to be mean.

NL Central standings since Aramis Ramirez was injured:

Houston     26-22  .542     ---

Milwaukee  25-25  .500    2

Pittsburgh  25-26  .490     2 1/2

St. Louis     25-27  .481     3

CUBS          23-25   .479    3

Cincinnati   23-26   .469    3 1/2

For Cub fans of my generation, this was our "Sandberg Game." On July 2, 1967 Fergie Jenkins three-hit the Braves for a 4-1 victory that not only gave the Cubs six straight wins and 13 out of 14, but when the Cardinals lost the first game of a double header to the Mets, they were alone in first place in the National League. It was the first time they had been in first place that late in the season since 1945.

When it was announced that the Cardinals had lost, Ron Santo was at the plate and the spontaneous cheer from the 40,464 fans at Wrigley Field threw Santo for a loop. "I'm getting ready to swing and I hear this scream and I jump that high," he said at the time, holding his hands a foot apart.

And when Al Spangler caught Art Shamsky's fly ball for the last out of the game, all heck broke loose.

From the Tribune:

"Hardly had Spangler clutched the ball before youthful enthusiasts broke onto the field and it became a chasing game among them, the Andy Frain ushers, and the policemen. There were open field tackles, druing which both the demonstrators and the ushers hit the turnf in the left field sector, the path the  Cubs take from the dugbout to their dressing room."

"The crowd, almost as if transfixed, made no concerted attempt to leave.

"There was almost a solid wall of raving maniacs as Ron Santo, the Cubs' captain, moved thru the stands, escorted by several of Frain's finest and a couple of policemaen to keep a TV date upstairs. Meanwhie, bleacherites had sailed Dixie cups, newspapers, programs, and anything else handy, onto the field."

To put the event into perspective, the previous year the Cubs were 59-103 and finished last in the 10-team National League in Leo Durocher's first season as Cubs manager. In fact, the Cubs had not finished in the upper half of the NL since 1946, finishing ninth, seventh, eighth, eighth and 10th in the first five years of a 10-team league.

According to the Tribune, an estimated 10,000 fans were turned away at the gates from the Sunday afternoon "Family Day" game.

"Apartment roofs across the street from the right field stands and bleachers were weighted down with spectators, a sight reminiscent of 1929 and the 1930s when the Cubs were winning pennants."

Jenkins not only pitched a complete-game three-hitter (no walks, seven strikeouts), but had two hits, including a run-scoring triple off Reds starter Sammy Ellis in the Cubs' three-run fourth inning that broke a 1-1 tie. Randy Hundley had given the Cubs a 1-0 lead in the second when his single scored Lee Thomas.

The WGN cameras showed the "CHICAGO" flag being hoisted atop the pennants signifying the standings in the National League. For roughly three hours, the Cubs and White Sox -- who led the American League by 4 1/2 games after losing to the Tigers that day -- were alone in first place in July.

"The greatest sight in the world," Santo said in a Tribune sidebar from that game, in the aftermath of that game, "was when they put that Cup pennant in the first place spot on top of the scoreboard.

Meanwhile, Manager [Leo] Durocher was trying to compare yesterday's madhouse with the frantic days in Brooklyn's Ebbetts field.

"Well, for a world series or maybe one game we had crowds like this, but never three days in a row like here -- and in July. I've just one word for it -- won-der-ful," he said."

Alas, it was too good to be true. The Cardinals beat the Mets behind Steve Carlton to tie the Cubs for first place. The Cubs beat the Braves to stay tied for first for one more day, but then lost six straight. The briefly rallied to tie for the league lead on July 24, but faded again and finished 87-74 -- 14 games behind the pennant-winning Cardinals. Wait'll next year.