Oh, Henry! Rodriguez is one of those guys that history will not remember all that well, but he was a very big deal during part of the 1990s. He made a name for himself originally with Montreal when fans would throw Oh Henry candy bars on the field after his home runs. The Cubs traded Miguel Batista in order to acquire Henry Rodriguez to be their new left fielder after trading away Doug Glanville for Mickey Morandini.
Those Oh Henry bars followed him to Chicago, and it was super fun as fans would shower the field with candy bars after he hit a home run, something he did 31 times in 1998 while knocking in 85 runs that year. Still, those 31 home runs all happened by August 20th as that was the last day he hit a home run that season. For the majority of the final month of the season, he was a pinch hitter, as the strongest man in baseball history, Glenallen Hill. He would finish the season with a line of .254/.334/.530 which ain't too shabby.
Despite that, he started two out of three games in the NLDS but was unable to make much of an impact as he drew a walk in game one and hit a double in game three but did not score any runs in the series.
He may have been the only Cubs player who actually improved in 1999 when he put up a .304/.381/.544 line that year. On the last year of his contract, the Cubs sent him to the Marlins at the trade deadline in 2000 where he would finish the year. He would play only 23 more games in the major leagues after that year, split between the New York Yankees and one last run with the Expos.
It's kind of odd that there wasn't more to say about Henry Rodriguez. There are no real video highlights of his time with the team which is kind of odd for a guy who hit about 80 homers in a three-year stint (baseball YouTube sucks). At the beginning of the year, you would have expected him to have nearly as big as an impact as Sammy Sosa that year, but by the end, I was praying he wouldn't start, because the coolest player ever also played left field for the Cubs by that point. The Oh Henry candy bars were cool, but he'll always be more associated with his time north of the border than on the north side.
In case you missed it:
Introduction
#47 - Matt Karchner
#46 - Jose Nieves
#45 - Rodney Myers
#44 - Justin Speier
#43 - Tony Fossas
#42 - Kennie Steenstra
#41 - Chris Haney
#40 - Bob Patterson
#39 - Pedro Valdes
#38 - Derrick White
#37 - Ben Van Ryn
#36 - Terrell Lowery
#35 - Don Wengert
#34 - Kurt Miller
#33 - Jason Maxwell
#32 - Kevin Foster
#31 - Mike Morgan
#30 - Felix Heredia
#29 - Jeff Blauser
#28 - Jason Hardtke
#27 - Dave Stevens
#26 - Manny Alexander
#25 - Marc Pisciotta
#24 - Kevin Orie
#23 - Sandy Martinez
#22 - Terry Adams
#21 - Matt Mieske
#20 - Amaury Telemaco
#19 - Tyler Houston
#18 - Geremi Gonzalez
#17 - Orlando Merced
#16 - Scott Servais
#15 - Mark Clark
#14 - Lance Johnson
#13 - Brant Brown
#12 - Jose Hernandez
#11 - Steve Trachsel
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