Twins Video
“Well, you should be!”1
Even as a youngster, Mike Cubbage likely knew the majors were closer to him than most. With cousins Larry (and eventually Chris) Haney etched into the pantheon of MLBers, a career in pro ball seemed certain for the young Cubbage; his mother had a glove on his hand at age 3 and bragged that “she taught [him] how to catch.”2
Despite his lineage, Cubbage eschewed an initial selection in the 1968 MLB draft so that he could enroll at the University of Virginia as both a football and baseball player. While he took over the reins as the Cavaliers' signal-caller as a sophom*ore, an elbow injury turned his focus solely to baseball, and he would be drafted again in 1971 by the same team that wanted him before: the Washington Senators.2
Cubbage joined the Twins thanks to one of the more infamous moments in Minnesota’s history: the Bert Blyleven trade. Always a feisty figure, Blyleven dominated MLB starting at the tender age of 19, but his eccentric personality—including multiple instances of him flipping a crowd the bird—undercut his persona. When he disputed with owner Calvin Griffith over his salary in 1976, the Twins decided the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze, and dealt their ace to the Rangers for a return including Cubbage and Roy Smalley.
The Twins of this era weren’t particularly notable. Outside of Rod Carew’s greatness and the perpetually underrated Dave Goltz, Minnesota was still wandering in its post-60s haze, unable to capture the magic of the previous decade. A Lyman Bostock here, a Larry Hisle there, and one of the greatest pitching seasons in Twins history from Jerry Koosman accentuated this period, keeping them usually above .500, but the postseason eluded them. Greatness never came to fruition.
Nonetheless, Cubbage played an important role. His defensive chops helped the team lock down third base for a couple of seasons, smoothing the transition from Eric Soderholm, who claimed the position in 1974 and 1975 but had suffered a serious knee injury; he would never play for the Twins again. In his wake, Cubbage manned the position for 433 games until he left the team in free agency to sign with the Mets in 1981.
Most of that time was fruitful. Cubbage put up 2.1 WAR in 104 games with the Twins in 1976, before turning in two more above-average years in 1977 and 1978, respectively. During that '78 season, Cubbage accomplished one of the rarer feats in baseball: the cycle. Even more rare, Cubbage somewhat tarnished his cycle by kicking it off with a botched attempt to earn a triple; he was thrown at third, but still credited with a double. He then homered in the 4th, singled in the 5th, and finally reached third safely in the 7th, giving him an atypical cycle, the team’s 5th in their history.
That season, or at least half of it, was the best of Cubbage's career. "I had a really good first half that year," he mused in a piece for theDaily News-Record. "At the All-Star break I think I was third in the league in hitting. Of course, [Rod] Carew was leading and then Fred Lynn (of Boston) and then Mike Cubbage. It was the best half I had. It seemed like I never put a full season together.”3 Indeed, his second-half OPS of .653 in 1978 was much lower than his first-half mark of .842.
Poor seasons in 1979 and 1980 pushed the Twins to let Cubbage walk in the newly founded free agency system. Before his final season in MLB, he signed with the Mets for $333,333.
His final season begat a move to coaching, where Cubbage arguably made his biggest mark on the game. He joined the A- A-level Little Falls Mets in 1983 before slowly working his way through the system, eventually becoming the 3rd base coach for the big league squad in the early '90s. Following Bud Harrelson’s dismissal near the end of the 1991 season, Cubbage took over as manager and finished the year with a 3-4 record. He would never manage in the big leagues again but stayed on the Mets’ coaching staff through the mid-90s despite rapid managerial cycling*.4
Cubbage moved to Houston for the 1997 season and stayed there until he joined Boston in 2002. Unable to survive the transition from Grady Little to Terry Francona, Cubbage narrowly missed earning a championship as the third base coach for the legendary 2004 team; instead, Boston was his final stop as a major league coach.
Scouting came calling. Cubbage spent some time in the Rays organization before moving to Washington, ironically the location of the team that originally drafted him. He was an assistant for the 2019 World Series-winning squad. Yes, he had the ring to prove it.
In 2022, the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame officially inducted Cubbage into their Hall of Fame (a few years too late, if you asked his mother.) Cubbage officially passed away on Aug. 11, in hospice, following a battle with cancer.
*Cubbage did serve as the interim manager for the Red Sox during spring training for a bit following Joe Kerrigan's firing in 2002.
Bibliography:
Virginia Sports Hall of Fame, "Mike Cubbage 2022 Induction Speech," YouTube Video, 18:02, May 5, 2022.
Barber, Mike, "Former Virginia player and Major League mainstay Mike Cubbage dies at 74," Richmond Times-Dispatch, August 12, 2024.
Driver, David, "BIG LEAGUE MEMORIES UVa. Product Cubbage Retires From Nationals," Daily News-Record, December 14, 2020.
Locker, Bradley, "Former Mets player and coach Mike Cubbage dead at 74," New York Post, August 12, 2024.
