The 2003 Chicago Cubs season was just about as memorable as any in my lifetime, full of extreme highs and extreme lows – and extreme oddities like Sammy Sosa’s corked bat.
One of the memories I could never shake from that season was sitting on my couch in college, watching a marquee national Cubs game, as they hosted the Yankees at Wrigley Field. Kerry Wood and Roger Clemens. Hype aplenty. It was a big one.
Yet, as I sit here typing this sentence, I can’t actually tell you who won that game. I’d have to check. (Cubs won it 5-2.)
The reason I couldn’t immediately remember the outcome of such a big-time match-up is because something happened that day, which made the actual game, itself, seem so small. If you remember the game, you know what I’m talking about: the Kerry Wood-Hee-Seop Choi collision.
On a 4th inning pop up into the sun, catcher Damian Miller couldn’t find the ball just in front of the plate. Wood and Choi both scrambled to make it to the ball before it dropped, and collided. Choi spun around and lost his legs, hitting his head on the ground as he came down. Choi was motionless as an ambulance was brought onto Wrigley Field to take him to the hospital. It was a dreadful moment that wiped away all other memories of that day from my mind.
Incredibly, Choi caught the ball and held onto it. Even more incredibly, Choi made it back to the Cubs later that same month. The 24-year-old former top prospect would later be traded to the Marlins in the Derrek Lee deal, where he played very well. He was then traded to the Dodgers at the deadline in 2004, but struggled thereafter. He wound up going to Korea to play, where he was a star for nearly a decade.
When you think about how badly things could have gone for Choi that day, I’m grateful his story turned out pretty well.