PHILADELPHIA — It wasn’t White Sox slugger Munetaka Murakami’s swing that was off in the Home Run Derby, but rather his timing.
Murakami, whose nine homers weren’t enough to get him past the first round in an event won by the Cardinals’ Jordan Walker, would have been better off competing in 1990.
That year, the last time the All-Star Game was at Wrigley Field, a hilariously punchless Derby produced a grand total of five home runs — three of them hit by the Cubs’ Ryne Sandberg, who won it. Leaving every ball short of the ivy were Ken Griffey Jr., Jose Canseco, Cecil Fielder, Darryl Strawberry and Bobby Bonilla.
If you’re thinking the wind might have had something to do with it, you could not be more correct. Thirty-six years ago, after 30,000 fans witnessed next to nothing while ballhawks’ gloves on the streets beyond the bleachers stayed empty, the Sun-Times’ Ray Sons wrote that it was punishment from the baseball gods for the installation of lights at the North Side shrine.
If we’re lucky enough to greet July of next year without a fight between owners and players having hijacked the baseball season, the All-Star Game will finally be back at Wrigley.
“It’s going to be crazy,” Cubs star Pete Crow-Armstrong said. “Obviously, Wrigleyville is fun Monday through Sunday, so I’m interested to see how packed it is, how hard it ends up being trying to get around. But knowing [chairman Tom] Ricketts and our front office and the people that will probably have a big hand in planning that, I’m sure it’ll be great. Wrigley’s a beautiful ballpark, and I’m glad it’ll be on display for everyone to see.”
But there’s also a Derby to think about.
“I hope the wind is blowing out, though,” Crow-Armstrong said. “If we get a bad wind day, the Derby will be interesting.”
The Phillies’ Kyle Schwarber was runner-up Monday at Citizens Bank Park as well as in 2018 when, representing the Cubs, he fell just short in Washington D.C.
“The Derby at Wrigley? Man, hopefully the wind is blowing out,” Schwarber said.
Would he want to participate?
“I don’t know, we’ll see about that,” he said.
And Crow-Armstrong?
“Maybe I will, just with it being at home and everything,” he said. “But it is a tiring couple of hours, and I don’t quite know if my swing is built for that.”