page_title: Bill Buckner
section_title: Chicago Cubs (1977–1984)
hierarchical_section_title: Bill Buckner / Career / Chicago Cubs (1977–1984)
caption_attribution_description: English: I took this photo of Bill Buckner at Wrigley Field on June 11, 1981, during a doubleheader sweep by the Cubs over the Giants.
context_page_description: William Joseph Buckner was an American professional baseball first baseman and left fielder, who played in Major League Baseball for five teams from 1969 through 1990, including the Chicago Cubs, the Los Angeles Dodgers, and Boston Red Sox. Beginning his career as an outfielder with the Dodgers, he helped the team to the 1974 pennant with a .314 batting average, but a serious ankle injury the next year eventually led to his trade to the Cubs prior to the 1977 season. The Cubs moved Buckner to first base, and he won the National League batting title with a .324 mark in 1980. He was named to the All-Star team in 1981 as he led the major leagues in doubles. After setting a major league record for first basemen with 159 assists in 1982, Buckner surpassed that total with 161 in 1983 while again leading the NL in doubles, before feuds with team management over a loss of playing time resulted in his being traded to the Red Sox in the middle of the 1984 season.
  During the 1985 season, Buckner emerged as the Red Sox stalwart first baseman, starting all 162 games and shattering his own big league record with 184 assists.
context_section_description: Following the 1976 season, Buckner was traded with Iván DeJesús and Jeff Albert to the Chicago Cubs for Rick Monday and Mike Garman. He had suffered a staph infection in his ankle in 1976, so the Cubs shifted him to first base, the playing position where he remained for the final 14 years of his career.
  Whereas early indications seemed to lean toward the Dodgers getting the better end of this deal – with Monday becoming one of the key centerpieces of the Dodgers clubs that went to the 1977 and 1978 World Series – Buckner soon emerged as something of a star for the beleaguered Cubs. On May 17, 1979, in a famous slugfest at Wrigley Field in which the Cubs lost 23-22 to the Philadelphia Phillies, with three homers by Dave Kingman and two by Mike Schmidt, Buckner went 4–for–7 with a grand slam off Tug McGraw and a career-high seven RBI. But when manager Herman Franks resigned late in the season, he made negative comments about several players, including calling Buckner "nuts".
  In 1980 Buckner won the NL batting title with a .324 average. He also struck out only 18 times – once every 32 at bats – batting in front of Kingman. Keith Hernandez (.321) and Garry Templeton (.319) finished just behind Buckner in the race for the NL batting title. In the strike-interrupted 1981 season, he batted .311 while tying Cecil Cooper for the major league lead with 35 doubles; he was the Cubs' sole representative at the All-Star Game, where he grounded out to first base pinch hitting for Manny Trillo in the 9th inning of a 5-4 NL victory, their 10th consecutive All-Star win. In 1982 Buckner batted over .300 for the fourth time in Chicago, picked up a career-high 201 hits, drove in 105 runs – the first time he had topped 75 – and recorded 159 assists at first base, breaking Mickey Vernon's 1949 major league record of 155. In 1983 he again led the NL with 38 doubles, but saw his batting average drop to .280, his lowest mark in eight years.
  During the 1984 season, Buckner saw a loss of playing time at first base to Leon Durham. Because of his lack of playing time, Buckner was at odds with the Cubs management; in protest, he vowed not to shave until he played two games in a row at first base. Buckner finally shaved between games of a doubleheader on May 24, because he found out he was going to be traded the next day to the Boston Red Sox; the Cubs went on to win their division, reaching the postseason for the first time in 39 years. In eight seasons with the Cubs, Buckner hit .300 with 81 home runs, 235 doubles, and 516 RBI in 974 games.
caption: Buckner batting at Wrigley Field on June 11, 1981
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