In an age of social media and the internet, true mysteries are sometimes difficult to come by. But trying to piece together events from the past can surface inaccuracies and contradictions. Some of these events can be important to history and to humanity and others can be completely meaningless.
I’d like to focus on a couple of the meaningless events.
While writing a post about odd injuries in the history of the Chicago Cubs, I came across two injuries that happened over 50 years ago. But when digging into these injuries, there are some discrepancies I’ve found in some of the details.
The “Sticky Eyes” Scandal
The first was an injury to Jose Cardenal in 1974. According to several sources, including Wikipedia, Cardenal claimed to have woken up one morning unable to close his eyes. They had crusted over while he slept making him unable to blink.
Here are a few articles mentioning this injury:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Cardenal
- https://web.archive.org/web/20120510133319/http://www.justonebadcentury.com/chicago_cubs_tales_09_27.asp
- https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/jose-cardenal/#sdendnote43anc
- https://calltothepen.com/2019/03/09/mlb-top-10-worst-reasons-players-missed-time/2/
- https://baseballhall.org/discover/card-corner/1972-jose-cardenal-topps-card
Almost all of these reference that Cardenal missed the opening day game of 1974, which occurred on April 9th. However, when looking at the box score of that game in Baseball Reference, Cardenal actually played in that game in right field, going 1 for 3 with a walk:
https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHN/CHN197404090.shtml
The final link above mentions it was in his first season with the Cubs that Cardenal missed a game, which would have been 1972. But he led off and played right field in that game on April 15th against the Phillies.
So what game did Cardenal actually miss with this dubious eye injury? He missed 31 games in 1972-1974, and then played all 154 in 1975. So I’m guessing it had to be one of those three seasons. But there are really too many dates in those three seasons to find the exact date. It looks like he first missed a game on May 5th of 1974 against the Reds, which is somewhat close to the start of the season. But I haven’t been able to confirm it.
It’s Just Like Riding a Bicycle
People fall of bicycles all the time, and sometimes can get injured when doing so. But it rarely happens to a professional athlete, causing them to miss a game. And even more rare is that it happens when someone is dismounting from a stationary bike.
But that is what we are led to believe happened to former Cubs pitcher, Steve Trout.
Trout is the son of former pitcher Dizzy Trout, and was a solid left-handed starter for the Cubs during the mid-1980s, including as part of the NL East division champions in 1984. Here is some video of Game 2 of the 1984 NLCS, which was started by Trout:
But, according to the internet, he is partially known for having one of the embarrassing injuries in baseball history – which also happened to impact baseball history.
The date is not is question this time, as all accounts, the injury occurred before a game scheduled for September 8th, 1985. Trout, reportedly, fell off a bike and injured his shoulder severely enough to have to go on the miss his start. Some reports say that he went on the disabled list, but as his game log shows him starting on September 3rd against the Astros and then again on September 13th against the Cardinals, that must not be true. Which calls into question the other reports of whether it was a stationary bike.
In fact, here’s an account from a UPI story (for you youngsters, that was a news service similar to AP that used to exist) in 1985:
“Cubs’ pitching coach Billy Connors said Trout was riding with his daughter Taytum when he fell off the bike, scratching his left elbow and shoulder.”
Here is a link to the full article:
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1985/09/09/Steve-Trouts-missed-start-marked-the-beginning-of-a/8995495086400/
An even bigger revelation in that article is that Reds’ Player/Manager Pete Rose was going to bench himself that day if the lefty Trout was pitching, but inserted himself back in the lineup with Reggie Patterson, a young right-hander who took Trout’s place.
Rose had two singles that day off Patterson, tying Ty Cobb’s all-time hit record, and carving out a small spot for Patterson baseball history.
But now, after baseball historians have taken a closer look, they subtracted two hits from Cobb’s career total, meaning Rose actually broke the record on that day, and not three days later at Riverfront stadium, as was believed at the time:
https://sabr.org/latest/posnanski-setting-the-record-straight-on-roses-chase-of-4191-hits/
Note: Unfortunately, links to the full Joe Posnanski article are no longer working.
Here is what was believed to be the record breaking hit:
So, instead of Eric Show being the man who gave up the record hit, it was actually Reggie Patterson. When initially reading this, I did not mind that it was still officially seen as Show giving up that hit, as it seems to have upset up quite a bit, and he will always be a villain in Cubs fans’ minds due to the time that he beaned Andre Dawson.
1987 was a magical season for Dawson, as he would go on to win MVP, but it was almost cut short by a fastball at his face. I did not see the game live, as I was in the midst of a surreal visit with my grandparents in Carbondale, Illinois, whose house had been hit by lightning during a terrible thunderstorm, and had burned down (we all got out OK). But while sleeping in their camper a couple of days later, I had read newspaper articles about the beaning, and my 14-year-old self vowed a lifelong hatred of Show:
But just like any story, there is always more than one side, and after reading more about Eric Show’s troubled life, it is very difficult to see him as a villain, but more of a victim of his own circumstance: https://www.espn.com/espn/otl/news/story?id=5543839
OK, so that was quite a rabbit hold of tangents and left turns. But the butterfly effect of Steve Trout falling off a bike, along with someone making a statistical error about the number of hits for Ty Cobb, ended up with Eric Show giving up Pete Rose’s record breaking hit is pretty fascinating.
But I haven’t answered the question of whether it was a stationary bike or a regular bike.
Here are several article that include it as an example of a historically embarrassing injury:
- https://bleacherreport.com/articles/763618-mlb-power-rankings-25-most-embarrassing-injuries-in-mlb-history
- https://www.npr.org/2024/07/12/nx-s1-5031498/opinion-from-dugout-to-dislocated-chicago-cubs-latest-injury-saga
- https://www.chicagotribune.com/2018/06/20/13-unlucky-ways-cubs-players-have-suffered-injuries/
But for an alternate take, here is an article by John Erardi, that quotes an excerpt from his book about what happened: https://www.wcpo.com/news/insider/pete-rose-broke-ty-cobbs-all-time-record-30years-ago
“Cubs pitching coach Billy Connors was one of the (first) ones to know. At 10:30 a.m. Sunday, he saw Trout in the Cubs training room. Trout’s left shoulder and elbow were badly scraped. ‘What happened to you?’ Connors asked. Trout explained that he’d been bicycling with his wife and daughter near home the previous night. His bike skidded on the gravel and he fell off, landing on his shoulder“
This explanation makes sense, and is backed up by the UPI article previously mentioned. But it’s also possible that he was covering a moment of clumsiness. And how did the stationary bike get started and spread? I suppose we will probably never know what kind of bike actually caused Steve Trout’s injury.
Just another Chicago Cubs Unsolved Mystery.
Cubs in 7 
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