Most Cubs fans never heard of James Dowdle. Few individuals had a greater impact on the Cubs with just one move.
It was Dowdle, a Tribune Co. executive, who brought Harry Caray over to the North Side in 1981. Thanks to the WGN Superstation, Caray became a national icon with the Cubs. In the process, he made Wrigley Field the place to be for fans in Chicago and beyond.
Dowdle died yesterday at the age of 79. Chicago Tribune baseball writer Paul Sullivan did a column on his decision to hire Caray, and how it almost didn’t happen because of resistance within Tribune Co.
Sullivan writes:
As head of Tribune broadcasting, Dowdle made the best off-field acquisition in Cubs’ history after the 1981 season, hiring the popular Caray away from the Sox despite opposition from other Tribune Co. executives. It turned a boring, losing franchise into an interesting, yet-still-losing team in 1983, before that sun-kissed summer of ’84.
Suddenly, Caray and the Cubs became must-see TV.
Caray’s shocking switch from the Sox to the Cubs was front page news in Chicago. Hard to believe now, but some weren’t sure Caray’s shtick would go over on the North Side.
“Being born and raised on the South Side, I learned that you can move from south to north,” Dowdle told me in ’98. “You just can’t move north to south. Harry’s enthusiasm was overwhelming, and one thing Cub fans have is enthusiasm. How could you not like someone with so much enthusiasm?”
The saga began in 1981 when Caray, upset with Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf’s decision to move their broadcasts to pay-TV in the future, made a call to some people he knew with the Cubs, asking if Tribune Co. would be interested in hiring him to replace the retiring Jack Brickhouse.
Dowdle was intrigued, but knew hiring the “Mayor of Rush Street” would be a tough sell to board members. During negotiations, the two ultimately kicked the lawyers out of the room and hashed it out themselves.
Dowdle summarized their discussion in a ’98 interview with former Tribune baseball columnist Jerome Holtzman:
“I said, ‘Harry, you can’t be running up and down Rush Street. And you can’t be as controversial as you have been. This is the Tribune Co. You have to have a lower profile.’ And Harry said, ‘I haven’t got as far as I am today by not listening to the guy in charge. If you don’t mind, I might disagree with you and give you my opinion. But you have the last say.'”
Milo Hamilton has a decidedly different viewpoint on the whole thing, including Dowdle, that he expressed in his book. Not that I’m inclined to agree with what he says.
Needless to say Milo Hamilton wasn’t pleased about this at all. What was interesting about all this was that according to Steve Stone and others, Harry was offered more money to stay with the Sox for 1982 than the Cubs gave him.Such was the depth of his dislike for Reinsdorf and Einhorn.