Cubs position player pitchers: Gary Gaetti

Eight years have passed since the last Cubs position player to pitch, Doug Dascenzo, who pitched in four games for the team covering five innings.

There was great hope for the 1999 Cubs entering the season. And, in fact, the team started out well. After defeating the Diamondbacks June 8, they were 32-23 and just one game out of first place in the NL Central. Things seemed to be going well… until they didn’t. The team lost five straight and 10 of 11 and by the time they faced the Phillies in Philadelphia

in the second of a three-game series July 3, they had gone 5-17 since that 32-23 start and had allowed 10 or more runs eight times (and managed to win two of those games, both against the Rockies in Denver).

Kyle Farnsworth, in his first year in the big leagues, began as a starter. And he started that game. And he got hit really, really hard, facing nine batters and retiring only one of them, eventually being charged with seven runs in what was an eight-run Phillies first inning. Relievers Dan Serafini, Scott Sanders (not to be confused with Scott Sanderson) and Felix Heredia weren’t much better. Matt Karchner managed to throw a scoreless seventh, but heading to the bottom of the eighth the Cubs trailed 19-8.

And so, manager Jim Riggleman sent 40-year-old Gary Gaetti, who had started that game at third base, to the mound to face the Phillies in the last of the eighth.

And we have video!

The first out was routine, but then Gaetti served up a home run to Marlon Anderson. He then walked former Cub Alex Arias, followed by a strikeout of Kevin Sefcik. Another former Cub, Doug Glanville, then tripled in Arias to make it 21-8.

It was the first time the Cubs had allowed that many runs in a game in 12 years, and just the ninth time in franchise history any Cubs team had given up 21 runs in a game. It hasn’t happened since:

Rk	Team	Date	R		Opp	Result
1	CHC	1999-07-03	21	@	PHI	L, 8-21
2	CHC	1987-08-16	23		NYM	L, 10-23
3	CHC	1979-05-17	23		PHI	L, 22-23 (10)
4	CHC	1977-04-27	21		STL	L, 3-21
5	CHC	1975-09-16	22		PIT	L, 0-22
6	CHC	1957-09-02 (1)	23		MLN	L, 10-23
7	CHC	1957-06-01	22	@	CIN	L, 2-22
8	CHC	1949-07-06	23	@	CIN	L, 4-23
9	CHC	1922-08-25	23		PHI	W, 26-23

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Gaetti actually looked like he was having fun out there, though the runs were the first he had given up as a pitcher. He had scoreless pitching appearances for the Cardinals, one each in 1997 and 1998. The Cubs kept Gaetti for 1999 after he had hit very well for them for the last six weeks of 1998, but the results weren’t good, and the team went 35-72 after that 32-23 start, by far the worst record in baseball over that span. Their 6-24 August was one of the worst calendar months in franchise history.

At least they had some laughs.