This story was excerpted from Jordan Bastian’s Cubs Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
CHICAGO -- Kerry Wood will never forget the moment Cubs general manager Jim Hendry approached him with the news that the team was in a position to potentially swing a trade for Aramis Ramirez. Asked for his thoughts on the possibility, Wood was succinct with his reply.
“I said, ‘We should probably get him yesterday,’” Wood said with a laugh.
Twenty-one years after the trade that brought him to the North Side, Ramirez stood alongside Wood at Wrigley Field on Sunday as the newest members of the Cubs Hall of Fame. Wood was one of the all-time great pitchers in team history, while Ramirez served as an anchor at third base in Chicago for nine of his 18 MLB seasons.
The careers of Wood and Ramirez intersected with the Cubs from 2003-08 and again in ‘11. In that time period, they experienced three postseason runs together, bringing the franchise one win shy of reaching the World Series in the memorable ‘03 campaign. Now, they each donned the signature blue jacket awarded to inductees for the Cubs’ Hall.
“Man, I could not be more excited,” Ramirez said. “It couldn’t happen better for me. Me and Woody played together for [many years] here on the North Side. Great guy, great teammate, great pitcher. Just a great player. It’s great.”
Selected by the Cubs with the fourth overall pick in the 1995 MLB Draft, Wood spent 12 of his 14 seasons in the Majors with the ballclub. He captured the National League Rookie of the Year in 1998, when in his fifth career game (May 6 against Houston) the hard-throwing righty equaled a single-game nine-inning MLB record with 20 strikeouts.
Wood was an All-Star with the Cubs in 2003 and ‘08, finished with at least 200 strikeouts four times (1998, '01, '02, '03) and ended third in team history with 1,470 strikeouts overall. Wood reinvented himself as a closer later in his career and put the period on his brilliant Cubs tenure with a strikeout of Dayan Viciedo on May 18, 2012.
“It was just fun to play behind Woody,” said Ramirez, who ranks third in slugging percentage (.531) and seventh in home runs (239) in Cubs history. “Sometimes I felt like dropping my glove. He was striking everybody out.”
Wood led the Majors with 266 strikeouts in 2003, when Hendry pulled off his blockbuster five-player swap with the Pirates on July 23 that netted Ramírez and Kenny Lofton. The Cubs were .500 (50-50) on that date, but they then went 38-24 the rest of the way to climb from third to first place in the NL Central en route to the club’s first division title since 1989.
“The jolt to the clubhouse. The jolt to the standings,” Wood said. “It was such a huge trade for the city of Chicago, right? We were so on the verge, and we kind of changed the mindset of what it is to be a Cub.”
The Cubs cycled through 18 Opening Day third basemen in the 30 years following Ron Santo’s exit before Ramirez locked down the hot corner for the better part of a decade. He was an All-Star in 2005 and ‘08, took home the Hank Aaron Award as the NL’s top hitter in ‘08 and won a Silver Slugger in ‘11. Ramirez had 25-plus homers in seven seasons and drove in at least 100 runs four times with Chicago.
Asked for their favorite memories from playing with the Cubs, both Ramirez and Wood cited the playoff runs in 2003, ‘07 and ‘08. Ramirez brought up the grand slam he launched off Dontrelle Willis in Chicago’s Game 4 win over the Marlins in the ‘03 NL Championship Series. Wood mentioned the homer he hit in Game 7, even though it came in a crushing loss.
“The homer was short-lived, but it was a pretty cool moment,” Wood said. “There’s nothing like the atmosphere here at Wrigley when you get into the postseason.”
The environment at the Friendly Confines was buzzing again on Sunday, when Wood and Ramírez were celebrated as Cubs Hall of Famers.
“Never in a million years,” Wood said, “did I think that this would ever be a possibility, to be on a list with the guys that we’re joining. It’s obviously a huge honor and just humbling.”