John Swart/AP
Hall of Fame closer Lee Smith summed up the Cubs’ inauspicious start to the 1984 season with devastating brevity:
‘‘We were just trying to keep our head above water and not get embarrassed,’’ he told the Sun-Times in a phone interview.
Moments from that playoff-drought-breaking season are lodged in Cubs fans’ memories. Who could forget the ‘‘Sandberg Game’’ or clinching in Pittsburgh?
The Cubs’ bumbling start to the season, on the other hand, doesn’t always make it into retellings of 1984.