CHICAGO — Surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his left knee will put Chicago Cubs starter Matthew Boyd out of action for six weeks, manager Craig Counsell announced Thursday morning at Wrigley Field.
It was another blow to the Cubs pitching staff, which already has weathered more than its fair share of adversity over the first six weeks of the season, and another chapter in the annals of freakish Cubs injuries.
Boyd suffered the injury while innocently playing with his kids, according to Counsell, though we’ve yet to hear the full story from the veteran left-hander, so it’s too soon to know just how freakish it was.
The Cubs beat the Cincinnati Reds, 8-3, after the news for their ninth straight win and 15th in a row at Wrigley, leaving them 19-3 in their last 22 games. So it’s an obstacle the team is eminently capable of overcoming.
As for the hardship of dealing with an unexplainable injury, Counsell said a meniscus tear can happen to anyone with one bad step and that Boyd was just another example.
“I actually think this is more normal than it sounds,” Counsell said. “It’s part of this thing. When you’re using your body for a living, you’re at risk.”
It’s easy to lump Boyd’s injury onto the long list of Cubbie Occurrences, and many already have in tweets and elsewhere. But that might be a premature diagnosis.
As a senior fellow at the Institute of Completely Useless Cubs Information (ICUCI), I’ve chronicled several incidents over the years that originally were labeled a Cubbie Occurrence but turned out to be random clickbait for Cubs fans. When I asked AI on Thursday to define the term, it called a CO “an unexpected, bizarre and uniquely unfortunate piece of bad luck or an exotic injury happening to the Chicago Cubs baseball team.”
Boyd’s injury is bad luck for sure, but until he explains the circumstances, we can’t say for sure if it’s truly bizarre.
For those new to the phenomenon, here are some of the facts and myths of Cubbie Occurrences:
— Fact: Former manager Lou Piniella coined the term in 2007 as a catch-all phrase for when something goes wrong to the Cubs.
The veteran manager once joked about an injury as though it could happen only to the Cubs, who were considered “cursed” at the time. Early examples included Kerry Wood’s rib injury in a hot tub, Ryan Dempster breaking a toe while jumping over the dugout fence after a win and Scott Eyre suffering from “itchy feet.”
Cubs fans later backdated legendary incidents from franchise history into the category, including Mike Remlinger injuring his pinkie finger by getting it caught between two recliners and José Cardenal getting his eyelids stuck in spring training.
Piniella eventually regretted coining the term when the media and fans constantly used it to describe anything bad or weird. When Triple-A Iowa call-up Ryan Freel arrived late for a game in 2009 because of a mechanical problem on his plane, someone asked Piniella if it was a CO.
“I’m done with the occurrences,” he replied. “They were funny at first. But, no, they’re not so funny anymore.”
The damage was done, and so too were the ’09 Cubs. Piniella banned the use of the term the rest of the season.
— Myth: The Cubs suffer more strange injuries than other teams.
Baseball has a long history of players getting strange injuries off the field, so the Cubs are not unique in that regard. Many players, for instance, have gone on the injured list after punching something in anger.
If not for Piniella’s joke, few would’ve pointed to the Cubs organization as Ground Zero for freak injuries. It only became a “thing” because of the team’s long drought, becoming another handy excuse for the losing, much like the Billy Goat Curse. The media are somewhat responsible, so apologies for beating a dead metaphor.
— Fact: Many alleged Cubbie Occurrences actually stemmed from something that occurred in a bar.
The Lodge and Tai’s Til 4 are just two Chicago hangouts where Cubs players reportedly were involved in some kind of shenanigans that resulted in an injury later covered up by the guilty parties to avoid the wrath of Cubs management. (I’m not sure about She-Nannigans, but it wouldn’t surprise me if something happened at that bar as well.)
Former reliever Kyle Farnsworth, who the Cubs told us was injured kicking an electrical fan, was rumored to have hurt himself at the bar. He once admitted to WSCR-AM 670: “I gave everything I had on the field and at Tai’s Til 4.”
With so many day games at Wrigley, players have a lot of nights to kill, and sometimes it leads to an untimely occurrence. Veterans remember a bar called Joe Pepitone’s Thing, owned by the former Cubs first baseman who proudly burned the candle on both ends.
— Myth: Any critical error or funny injury can be called a Cubbie Occurrence.
Sorry. The ball that went through Leon Durham’s legs in Game 5 of the 1984 National League Championship Series was just an unfortunate error. When Cardenal’s eyelids got stuck, they were just stuck eyelids. While a sneeze preceded Sammy Sosa’s stint on the disabled list in 2004, the back spasms probably would’ve happened anyway. Steve Trout never fell off an exercise bike, despite the legendary story.
People tend to look for something to blame for everything.
— Fact: Pinella once was involved in his own Cubbie Occurrence.
While driving from Chicago to Cincinnati for a series with coach Matt Sinatro at the wheel, Piniella and Sinatro wound up going on a long trip in the wrong direction. Piniella fell asleep and Sinatro misread Google Maps. Piniella blamed himself for nodding off, though he told the story to put the blame on his buddy, just for fun.
— Myth: A person can declare himself a Cubbie Occurrence.
When Cubs brass decided to find a Greek Orthodox priest to spread holy water in the dugout before Game 1 of the 2008 NL Division Series, the idea was to remove the Curse of the Billy Goat. After the Cubs lost, 7-2, to the Los Angeles Dodgers, Rev. James Greanias told the Tribune: “Now I guess I’m just another Cubbie Occurrence.”
But the Cubs were swept in three games, absolving the priest of any blame. And no one called Ted Lilly a Cubbie Occurrence after the pitcher flooded the dugout in L.A. after the Game 3 loss by taking a bat to a drain pipe, reportedly angered over not getting a start in the series.
— Fact: Piniella also coined the term “Cubbie Swagger.”
This is more relevant as the Cubs take their hot streak to Texas, with confidence growing daily. But for reasons unknown, the phrase never caught on. Maybe it’s time for a comeback.