Author: aisle424

It’s Time to Stop Naysaying These Cubs

As most of you know, if you’ve spent any time around me or this site or my Twitter feed, my default setting is cynicism.  This comes from a long time spent being a Cubs fan.

I don’t need to rehash it all. You know why. Because some of you have lived through at least some of the years I’m referring to and some of you have lived through more.

But for me, it’s been different the last two years. And I have the Blackhawks and my friend Nancy to thank for that.

Nancy is a Blackhawks fan the way I am a Cubs fan. She grew up living and dying with them. She has an Al Secord sweater. I didn’t know who Al Secord even was.

Back in the 2010 playoffs, we went out to watch the Blackhawks/Predators Game 5 at a local bar. It was a pivotal game. The series was tied at 2 and Game 6 would be in Nashville. With the Blackhawks down 4-3 with about a minute left in the game, Marian Hossa was called for boarding and had to head to the penalty box for a 5 minute major. The Blackhawks were down and were now short-handed. That’s not good.

As a Cubs fan, I had seen stuff like this before. I had seen dreams torn away in pivotal playoff moments. We’ve all seen some shit.

So, naturally, I went to Nancy who was just staring at the TV and I put my hand on her shoulder and said, “I’m sorry, Nancy, they’ll get Game 6.”

She looked at me like I had just killed a puppy with my bare hands in front of her. “This. Game. Is. Not. Over. Yet,” she told me with ice in her eyes. It was clear she didn’t want to hear my Cubs fan-bred doom and gloom. I backed off slowly to watch what I was sure to be a crushing Blackhawks loss.

Lo and behold, Kane scored the short-handed tying goal with 13 seconds to go, and then in OT none other than Hossa himself came out of the penalty box to score the winner and put the Blackhawks up 3-2 in the series. The bar was going apeshit. I was stunned.

From that time on, I knew the Blackhawks weren’t the same old Blackhawks that always found a way to lose. They were young and talented and gave zero fucks about playoff pressure. It was amazing to suddenly have a team to have confidence in during the most stressful situations. Even before they had won a Cup, they had that air about them.

Sound familiar? Because that’s the Cubs now.

Cubs Twitter was melting down during most of the game last night. The words “collapse,” “choke,” “implode,” and “curse” were peppered through my timeline as people gave up hope while Matt Moore mowed Cubs batters down like he was possessed by whatever demon possessed Madison Bumgarner in 2014. If Cubs fans emotions could be summed up in one GIF, it’s this one:

Now, I wasn’t happy. And I won’t say I wasn’t worried or stressed. (My Cubs hat was flung across the room a few times, most violently after Moore’s 0-2 RBI single and Dex’s TOOTBLAN.)

However, I was not resigned to their fate until the game was over. Because, as Nancy said back then: This. Game. Was. Not. Over. Yet.

I even tried to inject a little of my oddly out-of-place positivity into Cubs Twitter:

Afterall, how many times have we seen this Cubs team snatch victory from the jaws of defeat? They were being no-hit through 7 innings on Opening Day. They won. They were down 4-3 with two outs and nobody on in the 9th of their last game of the regular season. They won.

Last year, Bryant got the walk-off HR after they had blown a lead to Colorado in the top of the 9th. They had given up the lead in Game 4 of the NLDS vs. the Cardinals, but Rizzo put them ahead and Schwarber crushed their spirits with his videoboard bomb. They’ve made a habit of pulling their own asses out of the fire.

Nevertheless, after my tweet, my mentions quickly became a dumpster fire of people explaining how done the Cubs were.

We know what happened next.

Bryant single. Rizzo walk. Zobrist RBI double. Contreras game-tying RBI single. An error on Heyward’s bunt. Go-ahead RBI single by Javy. They went from down 5-2 to up 6-5. Giants fans basking in the glory of their Even Year Magic bullshit were suddenly reduced to watching their season end through fingers over their eyes.

The Cubs rose from the ashes of certain defeat. The team that has all that talent and zero fucks to give grinded out a comeback for the ages and punched their ticket to their second straight NLCS.

Let’s think about that. The Cubs are going to the NLCS two years in a row, folks. It’s time we start giving them the benefit of the doubt. It’s time we stop looking for that anvil to fall on our heads. The Cubs themselves are clearly not letting the pressure exceed the pleasure and they’re the ones with the most pressure.

They may not win the whole damn thing, but they are not done until there are no more outs left.

It’s time we embrace that. If you start having doubts, ask yourself, “What would Nancy do?”

Photo via Chicago Tribune
Photo via Chicago Tribune

Saying Goodbye to the 2015 Cubs is Hard

As I sat and watched the second through ninth innings of Game 4 where the end of the Cubs 2015 season had pretty much already been decided after the first inning, I tried to appreciate the small moments we still had left with this team.

I clapped along to Starlin's walk-up music each time he came up, knowing we might never hear it again at Wrigley. Rizzo's "Bad Blood." Schwarber's "No Diggity." I even enjoyed David Ross' "Forever Young" in his at-bats.

They seemed to be doing their best to work the counts and get something good to hit. Even when they failed, the approach was still there more often than not. Right down to the last two batters as Montero worked a walk and Fowler got rung up on another bullshit, off-the-plate strike call that plagued the Cubs all series long, particularly in big situations. If they didn't strike out, they'd often hit the ball hard right at a Met. It was insanely frustrating.

But this was the 2015 Cubs. They hit homeruns. They take lots of pitches. They strike out. They don't play particularly great defense. The starting pitching can be an adventure outside of Arrieta and Lester. The ragtag bullpen of misfit toys was better than most people gave it credit. They were who they were and for this series against the Mets that wasn't good enough.

And now the 2015 Cubs are no more.

Sure, the team is young and a high percentage of this core will be back for many years to come. But it will never again be like this.

The 2015 Cubs were a phoenix rising from the ashes of a devastated organization that was rotted to the core until Theo, Jed and the Superfriends arrived in 2011 and started burning it all down to start over.

The organization's entire baseball operations were overhauled and enhanced at tremendous expense. If you haven't seen it yet, please read Brian Costa's excellent piece in the Wall Street Journal detailing how prehistoric the operations were when the Ricketts purchased the Cubs:

The office Tom Ricketts inherited when he took over the Chicago Cubs in 2009 was a windowless room beneath the upper deck of Wrigley Field. A closet just outside his door contained all of the team’s computer servers, which were covered by a cafeteria tray to shield them from the water that would leak through the ceiling when it rained.

The Cubs were still processing season ticket orders by fax machine. They kept up on trade news by employing someone to scan the Internet for articles and deliver printouts to executives’ desks. Some of their staffers were barely on e-mail. And space was so limited that half of them worked in trailers in the parking lot.

The bolded part is mine because HOLY SHIT THEY WERE LITERALLY MAKING SOME KID (probably) PRINT OUT INTERNET ARTICLES THEY FOUND IN ORDER TO STAY UPDATED ON TRANSACTIONS.

THIS IS HOW THEY RAN THEIR MAJOR LEAGUE FRONT OFFICE!

IN 2009!

I mean…. HOLY FUCKING SHIT!

Meanwhile, the culture of the Cubs wasn't exactly one of winning and positivity. You can bring in talent and that will be the biggest step, but if everyone in the organization is waiting for The Curse to kick in, or a #Cubes moment, or a Cubbie Occurrence, or whatever you want to call it, there's a pretty decent chance there's a self-fulfilling prophecy in there somewhere. As much as there is no mystical curse, the psychology of working for a team that is believed to be cursed has to be different than, say, working for a team like the Cardinals or Yankees where they believe God has pre-destined that their team will always triumph.

good is dumb 

So that was a whole other thing that needed to be changed on an organizational level. Have you ever tried to change a culture of an entire company? It isn't easy and it isn't fast. As Sahadev Sharma wrote for BP Wrigleyville, the Cubs new braintrust managed to change the Cubs' culture in less than 4 years:

When current Cubs first base coach Brandon Hyde was promoted to Director of Player Development towards the end of the 2012 season, the front office plucked the highly respected Tim Cossins from the Miami Marlins to fill the position Hyde left open as the team’s Minor-League Field Coordinator. In the duos first instructional league, Cossins came up with the saying, That’s Cub.

and

Jason Parks has worked in the Cubs scouting department for a little over 14 months now, but the positivity that’s been built in the organization and being ‘Cub’ was quickly ingrained in him as well.

“That’s so Cub is not a pejorative term,” Parks pointed out. “That so Cub means I’m gonna outwork you. I’m gonna polish my skills to beat your skills, and if our skills are the same, my heart will win out. When I go out to scout a guy, I’m going out to beat the other team, because that’s Cub. When I write my report, I’m going to write a more articulate report, because that’s Cub. When we get guys into the org, we look for guys who have Cub in them. And then the player dev takes that and they turn those guys into Cubs. That’s the way it is from top down in this organization. That’s Cub means something to us.”

This might actually be a more impressive feat than building the proprietary in-house data analysis system they dubbed Ivy. Turning "That's Cub" into something that means positive, winning things? Unpossible. But here we are.

So this was the 2015 Cubs. A Cubs team that was built on a foundation of advanced analysis and improved efficiency in scouting. A team that was built ignoring the colossal history of failure that has burdened the team for my entire lifetime. A team built with the idea that multiple chances at the World Series is better than singular chances. All of that combined with the 97 wins and the playoff eliminations of the two best teams in baseball all while maintaining one of the best minor league systems in baseball make for a wonderfully fantastic season.

But for me there is even more.

Joe started the tone for the year off by offering to buy the press a shot and a beer at his introductory press conference. He provided a basic theme for the season, "Don't ever permit the pressure to exceed the pleasure."

The clubhouse was loose. And when they started to tighten up Joe brought in magicians and petting zoos and had pajama parties. They celebrated every victory down the stretch like they had clinched something. And it made the actual clinching act less of an obstacle. It was just a thing that they do. They show up and they win or they die trying. I can count on one hand the Cubs teams in my life that even came close to that mentality.

And they are babies. 

Addison Russell is 21. Kyle Schwarber and Javy Baez are 22. Jorge Soler and Kris Bryant are 23. Grizzled veterans, Anthony Rizzo and Starlin Castro are 25. TWENTY FUCKING FIVE.

Miguel Montero looks like an ancient old fart on this team. He's only 31. 

David Ross looks like he is the grandfather of most of these guys. He's 38.

These guys, as a group, are going to get better. Yeah, Kyle Schwarber looked out of place in the outfield. He's played a total of 77 games there in his professional career. 43 of those games were this season at the major league level.

Yes, they tended to look lost against the Mets' elite pitchers as they threw offspeed pitches and breaking balls from hell to a very generous zone. In case you had stopped paying attention by the 8th inning, Theo noted in his press conference today that Kris Bryant's final HR of the season was off a changeup.

*whispers* They're learning.

This team isn't a bunch of veterans that will all get old in one year like the 1984 team. It isn't a bunch of young guys that nobody outside of Vineline had ever hyped like the 1989 team. It isn't a team built around one singular superstar like the 1998 team. It isn't a bunch of bitchy veterans like the 2003 team. It isn't a bunch of hired mercenaries that collectively shit their pants twice the moment the post-season started like the 2007 and 2008 teams.

This 2015 team was an unfinished product and they still damn near caught the two best teams in baseball for the division and they actually did eliminate both of them from the playoffs.

And they did it while rubbing their helmets…

 

Clapping away to Starlin's walk-up music…

 

 

Pissing off Cardinals fans…

 

Pissing off Cardinals players…

 

 

Walking off their opponents a major league leading 13 times…

 

Wearing pajamas…

pajamas2

 

Wearing dresses…

 

And just generally being adorable the whole damn year.

 

But 2015 is over now. It's time to let them go.

I'm still going to need a moment.

God, I loved this team.

Can’t We Just Enjoy This Season Without Being Stereotypical Cubs Fans?

We almost made it a whole season without too much bullshit popping up around the Cubs' unbelievable success this year.

But once that gap between the Giants and the Cubs got all but insurmountable, the dipshits started to come out of the woodwork to piss all over what should just be a fun time for everyone.

There is a GoFundMe campaign to send Steve Bartman to the Wild Card game. I'm not linking to it because it's stupid and I hope those people have heavy things fall on their heads, but Google it if you don't believe me. It's real and it's spectacularly stupid.

Nobody has even asked Steve whether he'd even want to be in the public's eye for a game of this magnitude again. How do I know that? NOBODY ASSOCIATED WITH THIS CAMPAIGN HAS TALKED TO HIM OR EVEN KNOWS WHERE HE IS BECAUSE THEY ADMIT IT RIGHT ON THE GOFUNDME PAGE:

If anyone knows where he is at, tell him we are looking for him. 

HOLY SHIT, RUN AWAY, STEVE! RUN FAR AWAY! DON'T EVEN LOOK BACK!

UPDATE

Steve Bartman does NOT want to go to the Wild Card game.

Earlier this month, a bunch of competitive eaters ate a goat really fast to try to break the curse. I don't even have a joke for that because I don't know how you make a bunch of competitive eaters eating a 40 pound goat as a way to break a curse on a baseball team more ridiculous. Maybe if they all wore silly hats?

Goats in general nshould probably watch their backs because this isn't the first time one has been killed in a quest to get the Cubs a World Series. A couple years ago someone sent a goat head to Tom Ricketts' house.

Dead goats were hung from the Harry Caray statue in 2007 and then AGAIN in 2009.

Another time a bunch of guys forced a goat to walk with them from Arizona to Chicago. How this was supposed to help the curse is anyone's guess, but at least these people raised some money for Cancer Research and the goat lived (as far as I know).

Meanwhile the team itself jumped into these shenanigans when Crane Kenney brought a Greek Orthodox priest in to bless the damn dugouts in 2008. And then lied about how it went down. 

So everyone just stop it. Stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it. STOP. IT.

This Cubs team isn't the 1945 team with the goat. It isn't the 1969 team with the black cat. It isn't the 1984 team with Leon Durham pulling a Buckner before it was called that. It isn't the 1989 or 1998 or 2003 or 2007 or 2008 teams either. Do you see a pattern here? None of that past shit matters. None of it.

Look, I've been guilty of being a pessimist about the Cubs as much as anyone. I've always waited for the other shoe to drop or, more likely, for the anvil to fall on my head. This is because for the bulk of my life the Cubs have always been Wile E. Coyote in pursuit of the Road Runner. All those playoff appearances were just when the coyote's Acme rocket was almost good enough before failing spectacularly and hilariously. The other seasons were the ones where the coyote never got two feet before the giant boulder fell off the catapult onto his head. But it was all flawed because the coyote kept going back to Acme over and over and deep down we knew we weren't going to catch that fucking roadrunner because Acme sucks.

But this is not the Cubs you grew up with. No matter how much the Nick Vlahoses of the world want to keep yelling how the Cubs need to prove it's different by winning a World Series, this team is different.

This team didn't get a Build-Your-Own-World-Series-Team Kit from Acme. 

This team was built with a purpose, and that purpose is to reach the post-season multiple times. The team was built to have long-term assets and not short-term expensive assets that may (Andre Dawson) or may not (George Bell) work out. This team was built with an organizational philosophy that is consistent at all the levels of development. There is no more Corey Patterson racing through the minors as a middle-of-the-order run producer and then reaching the majors and being shoe-horned into the lead-off position. There is no more variation in instruction on fundamentals depending on who the coach is at what level.

This team is built on a combination of scouting and statistical analysis that the Cubs organization has never seen, and I'm not just talking about the stats part. The Cubs completely rebuilt and re-organized their scouting department so Theo and Jed could have as much information as possible when making decisions. The Cubs have never ever done that.

So this is different. And it's just the beginning. And it has nothing to do with goats, black cats, curses or some poor guy who happened to touch a ball that was out of play.

And if they lose in the Wild Card game this year, nothing changes that. It doesn't suddenly mean the Cubs' processes are wrong. It doesn't mean that the current Cubs players "don't have what it takes." It doesn't mean that there are mystical forces at work that will never allow the Cubs to win a World Series. It just means it won't happen this year. And that's OK because Theo and Jed and their team of Super Friends in the front office aren't going anywhere. The talent in the front office is as impressive as the playing talent that now populates every level of the Cubs system.

Guys like Jason McLeod and Shiraz Rehman would be on short lists of many baseball teams needing GMs, but they're staying.

For crying out loud, Tim Wilken, who was highly respected around baseball and was considered to be a huge get for the Tribune Era Cubs, is now listed on the Cubs site as a Special Assistant to the President/General Manager between Kerry Wood and Ted Lilly. This would be like if the Cubs had a three-time All-Star shortstop that was suddenly squeezed into being a role-playing utility middle infielder… wait…

So put your butcher tools down and leave the goats alone. Just enjoy the ride. The players sure are. 

And for the love of God, please let Steve Bartman be.

Paul Sullivan is Pissy, Theo Rules All

The Cubs are about to clinch a spot in the post-season. They still have a shot at winning more games than the 1984 and 2008 teams that were the best teams of my lifetime. And they're doing it ahead of schedule.

Everyone should be in a pretty good mood, right?

Shockingly, Paul Sullivan has been stewing for 10 months and he's finally going to let us know what's been bothering him about Joe Maddon since his introductory press conference.

Paul never got his free shot and a beer that Joe offered when he spoke at that first media session. He claims none of the media did:

But we, the media, were too busy interviewing Maddon, Epstein, Hoyer and agent Alan Nero to partake. Maddon's kind gesture went nationwide, but the reality is he didn't buy us any drinks.

But didn't Theo tell Dan Patrick there was a "stampede" for the bar?

WHAT ABOUT THAT, PRETTY BOY?! WHY THE FALSE FLAG?!!

 

      B

      E

      Never

      Got

    sHot

      And

beerZ

       I

 

FREE SHOTS AND BEERS DON'T MELT STEEL BEAMS!!

Paul, in his own words, "confronted him" soon after:

Epstein: "You look miserable."

Tribune: "What about this story you told Dan Patrick that all the media was running to the bar to get the free drinks?"

Epstein: "Yeah, I used some creative license. I was mainly talking about you."

Tribune: "Did you see me take a drink? You didn't see any of us take a drink. Let's clarify that right now. It was taken as the truth."

Epstein: "Who cares?"

Tribune: "I just want you to fess up."

Epstein: "OK, Paul Sullivan is too stupid to take advantage of a free drink. There. It's on the record."  

(dying laughing)

(dying laughing)

(dying laughing)

Theo gives zero fucks and it's magnificent.

Meanwhile, Paul channels his inner Yellon even more when he continues:

I've kept quiet for 10 months. But now the Cubs are about to throw the party of the century, and we're still waiting on our shot and a beer.

Seriously, if you didn't know it was from the Tribune and Paul's name wasn't explicitly mentioned in the article, doesn't this read like a classic Alvin post when he's bitching about sale price bleacher tickets or some shit?

I honestly don't know why he ran this. Did he think people would feel bad for him? Is it tongue-in-cheek? It doesn't read that way to me.

I have a theory though.

6/18/15 Game Thread (Cubs v. Indians)

Here we go again. Our game thread may or may not have contributed to the 17-0 destruction of the Cleveland Indians last night. It’s hard to say. If Al’s hats have some sort of bearing on the fortune of this team, surely the 165th best and most discredited Cubs blog’s first game thread in ages could also be a factor.

So we’re doing another one.

Just in case.

Season Stats:

With OV Game Thread:

  • Record: 1-0
  • Win Percentage: 1.000
  • Run Differential: +17

No OV Game Thread:

  • Record: 34-28
  • Win Percentage: .548
  • Run Differential: 0

Lineups:

Cubs:

lineup 6-18-15

 

Indians:

  1. Kipnis – 2B
  2. Lindor – SS
  3. Brantley – LF
  4. Santana – 1B
  5. Murphy – DH
  6. Moss – RF
  7. Gomes – C
  8. Bourn – CF
  9. Urshela – 3B

Salazar SP

Paul & Deadspin, the Cubs Threw Out Your Crap Narrative

We all know the Cubs don’t have the most sparkling reputation. I’ve spent the better part of my internet life mocking the Cubs for both epic failures on the field and hilarious escapades off the field. I won’t even bother listing all the ways the Cubs have provided entertainment of an embarrassing nature and just say that if one was to list the foibles of even the last five years, you would need two separate line items just to cover issues involving pee.

So there has been PLENTY to laugh at.

Which is why it pisses me off when people have to invent things to make fun of the Cubs.

Enter the Pontiac Daily Leader and enterprising reporter, Paul Westermeyer, who wrote an article about some bricks from outside Wrigley that had turned up… wait for it… in the garbage. Oh boy. It’s never good when people go dumpster diving and find stuff the Cubs have discarded. Take it away, Paul:

Personalized pavers that once lined Clark and Addison streets near Wrigley Field, home of Chicago Cubs, have been found around Pontiac, purportedly coming from the nearby landfill. The bricks had been billed as “permanent fixtures” by the Cubs organization when they began selling them in 2006.

OH NO! WILL THE CUBS NEVER LEARN?!! HOW EMBARASSING!!

Apparently in his vast research of the article, Westermeyer relied on some info from the Huffington Post from almost a year ago:

However, one of the criticisms of the renovations concerned a lack of transparency regarding the fate of the pavers. Miles Zaremski, a blogger for the Huffington Post’s Chicago web edition, questioned the Cubs in June 2014 and their future plans for renovation and how that would impact the personalized pavers fans purchased.

“This writer phoned the front office on two separate occasions and asked the question, what does the Ricketts family plan on doing with those brick pavers as part of the renovation plans?” Zaremski wrote. “The answer I received both times was the same: WE DON’T KNOW. 

WELL, HOW DARE THE CUBS NOT HAVE AN ANSWER TO A QUESTION ABOUT A PROCESS THAT WOULDN’T BE RELEVANT FOR FOUR MONTHS AFTER THE QUESTION WAS ASKED?!

Seriously? This guy is finding sinister motives based off a blogger asking a question four months before the answer was relevant? I’ve been watching this renovation for roughly a billion years now and the one thing I’ve learned is that a whole lot of shit can change in four months. I doubt they spent much time thinking about the paver bricks in June of 2014, but Paul Westermeyer isn’t going to let something like a tiny bit of common sense ruin a perfectly good and potentially hilarious narrative.

To his credit, he keeps digging and actually quotes the Cubs’ Julian Green from a March press conference where he read a number of prepared statements, including this bit about the pavers:

“Our plan is to replace and relocate all personalized pavers following the 2015 season. We anticipate the new pavers will be in place by Opening Day 2016. The original pavers will not be available for distribution and we will communicate specific locations once the design lays are finalized with those personalized pavers.”

This didn’t get a ton of attention locally because the Chicago guys were too busy getting steamed about Julian being all attitudey while addressing unfounded rumors that there was no way Wrigley would be able to host a baseball game on Opening Day. So while this statement got lost initially in that noise, Westermeyer found it and it should have established that the pavers were being replaced because that’s what is explicitly stated in the first sentence of Julian’s statement.

But Westermeyer wasn’t going to let the Cubs off the hook so easily. He had a primary source. He had spoken to a person who was an owner of one of the pavers:

[Suzanne] Terrell recalled having received a letter from the Cubs organization about the replacement of the pavers, yet also recalled that the letter had stated that the original pavers would be kept in storage. She no longer possessed the letter and could not cite it verbatim, however.

So his big source basically knew she had received a letter and she kind of remembered the gist of it, maybe. Good source, Paul.

So now we have a half-baked story in a local newspaper, so who gives a damn?

Enter Deadspin.

How Deadspin got ahold of this obscure article is anyone’s guess, probably a random e-mail from some Nick Vlahos-type that just enjoys shitting on the Cubs. I don’t know and I don’t care. But they did and they ran a post called, “Nick, The Cubs Threw Out Your Grandma’s Personalized Brick,” tagged it LOLCUBS, and included this fun picture from the original post:

bricks

If possible, the Deadspin writer, Samer Kalaf, actually did less research or analysis about this than Westermeyer did and just decided to ratchet up the narrative with his opening paragraph:

Nick, my man, we have some bad news. Remember when your sweet grandma bought a commemorative brick to be placed outside of Wrigley Field, one that would stand as a testament to her love for you and the Cubbies forever? Well, the Cubs just made a sucker out of your sweet grandma, because they threw that brick in the garbage.

Fuck you, Deadspin.

You guys pride yourselves on getting at information that traditional journalists can’t get, but then you run this shit with zero follow-up.

I have news for you guys. I have zero credibility as a journalist. My list of “sources” is laughable. I break no news and I don’t even try to pretend that I do like some bloggers out there. *cough* YELLON! *cough*

Yet I reached out to the Cubs and they provided me the letter they sent the people who bought the bricks. It really wasn’t that hard. Shockingly, some of the language contained in it is almost exactly what was given the press in that March presser (emphasis is mine):

Dear <paver owner>,

Thank you for your continued support of the Chicago Cubs. As a follow up to the letter you received in October, we would like to provide you with an update on the status of your Wrigley Field personalized paver.

As you know, work continues in and around the ballpark to restore and expand the Friendly Confines. Due to ongoing construction, your paver was removed and will not be accessible during the 2015 season.

While working with our design team, it was determined the best long-term location for the pavers is outside the Budweiser Bleachers on Sheffield and Waveland avenues. Our plan is to replace and relocate all the personalized pavers following the 2015 season. We anticipate the new pavers will be in place by Opening Day 2016. Original pavers will not be available for distribution. We will communicate specific locations once design layouts are finalized.

If you have any questions, please contact Cubs Fan Services at 773-388-8270.

We appreciate your continued support and patience as we work to restore and expand Wrigley Field to ensure it remains a friendly, enjoyable place to watch a Cubs game for years to come. 

So I’m not sure where Suzie got the idea that the Cubs mentioned something about storage, but whatever. This isn’t on her. This is on the dipshit that ran with her half-memory as fact and then the clickbait assholes just waiting to pile on an easy target.

Also, the Cubs indicated to me that everyone who bought a paver originally received a brick they could keep as well. So there isn’t even a story about why the original pavers were disposed of. They provided a keeper version for the buyers already so the old broken bricks are just a bunch of old broken bricks. HOW COULD OLD BROKEN BRICKS END UP IN A LANDFILL?!!

It seems to me and literally anyone with two brain cells to rub together that the Cubs were pretty up front and clear about the plan that pavers outside the park would be replaced and unavailable for distribution. I’d guess that even people who may be confused about who owns the Cubs could get that straight.

It’s not as funny a story, but it’s a more accurate one.

LOLPONTIACDAILYLEADER

LOLDEADSPIN

Cubs Blogger Loses His Sandwich and Mind Over Cubs Latest Dick Move

The Cubs have finally pushed Alvin beyond the brink of what he can accept.

He can accept years and years and years of a sucky team with no real plan in place to ever change that.

He can accept that his seat 400 feet away from home plate now costs as much or more than seats that don’t require binoculars to tell the difference between players.

He can accept that he won’t even be allowed to sit in his seat of choice until a good third of the season is over.

But now they won’t let him bring his baloney sandwich into a Spring Training game. As you probably know, Al loves to bring his baloney sandwiches into the games with him. He doesn’t like to pay for stadium food. He views this as his right as a Cubs fan and he is going to let the Cubs have it and he is not going to be nice about it.

snack2

Take it away, Al…

al food 2

He goes on in some detail about how unprecedented this is and claims no other stadium in the world denies outside food, except for one that might be on “indian tribal lands” so the rules could be different. I don’t know, I stopped paying attention after the first few paragraphs. I really don’t care what his argument is and it has delighted me to see him this upset over a sandwich.

ross sandwich

But here’s the thing about Al’s little rant about the loss of his sandwich: He’s not totally wrong.

It is a dick move on the part of the Cubs. If you want families with kids to be able to afford to come to the ballpark and spend 3+ hours there watching your team, it is in your best interest to allow them to bring in some outside food. Al is focused on the loss of HIS sandwich and HIS ability to be a cheapskate when going to a baseball game, but the issue is larger than that if Al could get past his own self-serving anger.

The Ricketts have gone on at some length about how much they love families and want families to be able to enjoy Cubs baseball, as they did here in a letter to season ticket holders after the 2010 season:

My family is committed to providing ticket pricing that allows families to enjoy Cubs baseball. In so many ways, our children represent the next generation in the Cubs family. We want to invest in providing families with opportunities to experience Wrigley Field

Well, some families can’t pay the increasing price of admission plus an additional ~$20 per kid on crappy food from the concession stands. So while they SAY they want families to attend and become part of the “Cubs family,” moves like this make that harder for most families to plan a trip to Wrigley or Sloan Park or wherever they decide to enforce the new “no outside food” rules.

So while I am really enjoying the old, bitter Cubs fan furiously attempting to rally the internet to his cause:

al tweets

I’m hoping the Cubs think about the policy a bit more. They need young fans to be able to attend their games to fall in love with the game and team. If they make it harder for families to do that, they will lose out in the end.

Maybe they could change the rule so that only Alvin won’t be allowed to bring in outside food. Then everybody wins.

UPDATE:

The Battle of the Sandwiches has been won. Alvin has emerged triumphant. Long may he reign. For he is Alvin, King of the Dipshits and the First Sports Bloggers, Lord of the Cubs Nation, Father of Bleacher Bums, Breaker of Food Policies.

food update

Victory

2015 Cubs Baseball is Coming

Pitchers and catchers report for the Cubs in three days. Based on tweets from Carrie Muskat, it looks like quite a few players are already in Mesa:

Cubs baseball is coming.

And for the first time in forever we’re ACTUALLY LOOKING FORWARD TO IT!

for the first time

We’re expecting Baez and Soler to be on the team from the start. We expect Bryant within a couple of weeks after the season begins. The Cubs have assembled a pitching staff that is not designed to be traded by the July trade deadline.

THIS IS WHAT WE HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR!

This is why we have put up with the years of trading anyone who is worth anything not named Rizzo or Castro. This is why we have sat through season after season of having guys like Ryan Kalish, Ryan Sweeney, Donnie Murphy, and Cody Ransom get way more at-bats than any sane person should be able to view safely. This is why we didn’t kill ourselves every time someone like Edwin Jackson, Justin Germano, or Chris Volstad got start after start. (Fun fact: Chris Volstad started the third most games on the team in 2012. Holy shit! How did we not gouge our eyes out?)

We finally have a team that isn’t a complete embarrassment at the major league level! We don’t have only MiLB.TV and box scores from Tennessee and Iowa to cheer us up! Andy at Desipio (yes, he’s blogging  more regularly now and it is fantastic to have his voice back in the Cubs Blogosphere) ranked the NL Central players by position and THE CUBS WEREN’T LAST IN MOST OF THE CATEGORIES! In fact, there was some significant room for realistic improvement in some of his Cubs player rankings. It’s all happening!

So why the hell am I so nervous?

Because the planets have all seemed to line up in the Cubs favor this off-season and that is, uh, not something that happens to the Cubs.

Joe Maddon is somehow the Cubs manager. I still don’t even think that is real and I fully expect to wake up and it’s still October 2014 while the Cardinals are still alive in the playoffs and Patrick Duffy is in my shower and Suzanne Pleshette is in my bed.  OK, this got weird and extremely dated, but you catch my point. If I had told you during the playoffs of last season that Joe Maddon would be managing the Cubs in 2015, I would have won a lot of damn money in bar bets.

Jon Lester decided that the Cubs’ dumptruck full of money was more attractive than the Red Sox’s dumptruck full of money. Again, I still can’t believe this happened. Granted, the Cubs’ dumptruck was a decent amount larger than Boston’s but that in and of itself is very un-Cubs-like. Aside from the Soriano deal, the Cubs haven’t really been the kind to go balls to the wall to get the #1 Free Agent target of an off-season.

What is this sorcery?

The Cardinals haven’t really gotten significantly better since their main move was to replace Oscar Tavares, who died tragically in the offseason, with Jason Heyward. That’s a great move since all they really gave up was the corpse of Shelby Miller, but the rest of their roster will basically be the same as last year, only a year older (and that could matter since Molina, Holliday, Peralta, Wainwright, and Lackey are all on the wrong side of 30).

The Pirates lost Russell Martin, and as much as I didn’t want the Cubs to pay his free agency price, he was quite valuable to the Pirates and they have replaced him with Francisco Cervelli. Ew. AJ Burnett is somehow still pitching and will replace Edinson Volquez, so… yay? I guess? The real question marks will be where Korean infielder, Jung-ho Kang, will fit and whether Gregory Polanco will rebound from a rough rookie year. So maybe the Pirates are a little better or a little worse, depending on how things break for them. But they probably won’t be a ton better.

The Reds are meh and if Joey Votto doesn’t rebound and/or Johnny Cueto is traded, they will be pretty shitty. The Brewers are basically some halfway decent pitchers, whatever Ryan Braun has left, and Jonathan Lucroy and his torn hamstring.

So the NL Central has basically treaded water this off-season.

This all just seems to line up so perfectly for the Cubs to storm in and make some noise and that is what worries the hell out of me. Vegas is setting the over/under of Cubs wins at 82.5 and most of my Twitter feed, from the looks of it, is falling over itself to lay heavy money on the over.

People are dreaming about Jake Arrieta and the multiple no-hitters he can throw if Len Kasper would just keep his yap shut about it while he does play-by-play. People are expecting the Jason Hammel that started last season with the Cubs and not the Jason Hammel that was pretty much every part of his career. And we all talk about regression and Kyle Hendricks, but let’s face it, we’re not really prepared emotionally for him to, you know, actually regress.

The variables on this team are gigantic between the best and worst case scenarios and I’ve been a Cubs fan for too long to just brush those fears aside. I have to expect the other shoe to drop. On my head.

Now, don’t get me wrong, this is much better than the alternative and I’m still awfully excited that we’ll start having some of these questions answered, but I’m afraid the expectations have gotten out of hand at this point. Cubs Twitter, while entertainingly stupid when the Cubs are expected to be losing, is going to lose its shit completely when they go into a losing streak this year and I don’t know if I have the energy.

What happens when Lester blows out his elbow? When Arrieta starts walking everybody in the ballpark again? When the only wind blowing at Wrigley is provided by the whiffing of Cubs batters at record paces?

Sports talk radio in such scenarios will be so toxic all of The Score’s listening area will have to be cleansed by Hazmat teams and Dave Kaplan will probably straight up murder Javy Baez when he gets another golden sombrero. God help us all if Kris Bryant struggles like Baez did last year. BCB’s comment section will turn into the internet version of a George R.R. Martin wedding scene.

Cubs world is gearing up for armageddon, and it’s all going to start soon!

See you at Opening Day in 6 weeks!

What could possibly go wrong?

Cubs Nation Says Farewell to Mr. Cub

Ernie Banks’ career had just ended when I was born, so I never had the pleasure of seeing him play and I never had the pleasure of meeting him, but nevertheless he will always be the first player I think about when you say “Chicago Cubs.”

Ernie transcended his accomplishments on the field and that was not an easy thing to do. He didn’t get into the Hall of Fame just by having a good nickname and a catchphrase. He was a power-hitting shortstop when that wasn’t even a thing. He won back-to-back MVP trophies on two 5th place finishing teams in 1958 and 1959 while Willie Mays and Hank Aaron were in their primes.

But Ernie was Mr. Cub. There really could never be anyone else.

His positivity seemingly knew no boundaries. His enthusiasm for talking about baseball with anyone and everyone he met is legendary. And he loved the Cubs and their fans to the end.

Ernie was a big part of the reason that the Cubs could be so lovable, despite being perennial losers.

Joe Posnanski wrote a great post about Ernie almost exactly a year ago and this part is pitch perfect:

How could you not love Ernie Banks? How deep would your cynicism and disgust with life have to run to miss out on the wonder of Mr. Cub? Mr. Sunshine? He would take the dugout steps two at a time, and he would have this huge smile on his face every game, and he would famously say “It’s a beautiful day for a ballgame … let’s play two!”

Ernie was the heart and soul of the Cubs, both as a player and as the team ambassador. It was like Ernie was and always would be. How could he be gone? It just doesn’t seem possible.

It just isn’t fair that Ernie won’t get to witness a Cubs World Series. There was nobody who deserved to see it more.

Hopefully he’ll be able to see it where he is now, with Ronnie screaming “YESSSSS!!!” next to him.

ernie and ron

 

—————————————–

Here are more farewells to Mr. Cub from around the interwebs, I’ll update as more pour in:

 

Post-Convention Post

Another Cubs Convention is in the books and the Cubs did their usual nice job of building the embers of hope into an actual flame.

This is a time when Cubs fans get to speak and they did not disappoint. The first THREE questions from fans weren’t even questions, but statements thanking and praising the Ricketts more than they ever have since the the Ricketts’ first Cubs Convention when people were throwing rose petals at their feet and sacrificing first-borns under a gold statue of Tom in a Cubs polo. The first actual question was about how a woman had “heard” the brick walls and ivy were down and worried that they wouldn’t be back for Opening Day.

So while those of us who actually pay attention to what happens around the Cubs aren’t shocked by the renovation stories, this was an actual question so you have to give her points. Plus, the answer revealed something I don’t think many people know. Apparently, the ivy is carefully removed from the wall each year (leaving the base and roots) and laid down on the ground while the bricks are checked and those that need replacing are replaced carefully (because ivy tends to crumble bricks over time). Then the ivy is reattached to the wall with no harm done to the plant. Todd also interjected that they have done this process before and nobody has ever shown any concern about it. So there you go.

Joe Maddon did his part to get the optimism flowing as he handled questions from kids and lunatics alike (Prepared Statement Guy made another appearance in this session) with grace and wit that was impressive coming from someone who probably had no idea how bizarre Cubs fans can be until witnessing this convention for the first time.  One kid wanted to know who would be starting at third since there were so many options and Joe asked the kid back which option he thought should be the starter and they had a nice little back and forth about the merits of Kris Bryant and the kid probably went away with a story he’ll eventually be telling his kids and grandkids about.

Another guy was very upset about the scam of PowerBalance bracelets and wanted Joe to lay down the law with the team that they would not be allowed to wear those bracelets because they are a scam and won’t someone please think of the children? Joe again turned things around again by asking the guy if he should ban them even if players were superstitious about them. When the guy insisted he should, he gently talked about how players are creatures of habit and have superstitions and he doesn’t like messing with those.

Now, in both cases, Joe ended up giving answers the asker didn’t necessarily like. He was non-committal about the 3rd base question in the end, talking about how Spring Training sorts things out and he basically refused the premise of the PowerBalance guy’s question, but I think both people probably felt like there had been meaningful dialogue and so might not have walked away from the interaction overly upset. Maybe the PowerBalance guy was still upset, he was pretty worked up about the evils of those bracelets, but at least everyone else saw that Joe thoughtfully considered the question, which is all anyone can really expect from a session like those.

If Joe handles his players half as well as he handled screwballs at the convention, the Cubs players are going to love him and run through walls for him if he asks them to.

The worst thing about the panels I attended was the addition of “talent” from the WBBM broadcasting deal into the mix.

The people that have been to these things before like Len Kasper and Ron Coomer handled their moderating duties professionally and with just the lightest touch of humor to move things along. For instance, Len during the Ricketts session, followed the gushing thank you/non-questions of the fans with, “That’s it, thanks for coming everyone!” It was funny and then he moved on.

Coomer spent some time actually asking good questions to Shiraz Rehman and Randy Bush during the Meet Cubs Baseball Management session since none of the fans would ever ask them a question with Jed and Theo sitting there. So we actually got to hear Randy speak this year. It was historic.

Meanwhile, some dude whose name I didn’t catch from WBBM co-hosted with Coomer and was trying way too hard with the jokes and he was generally uncomfortable to listen to as he interjected repeatedly for no real reason.

But that guy was a damn pro compared to Lin Brehmer who moderated the Meet the Coaches session. This guy acted like everybody had paid their convention fee to see him. He hosted wearing a Cubs jersey unbuttoned over his t-shirt that made him look like any of the other fans that were there. He bragged about games he was at that nobody cared about. He talked far too long about his own baseball philosophies as he tried to prove that he belonged there because he was so knowledgeable. He didn’t know which jobs went with which coach as he introduced them and when they tried to correct him, he didn’t listen and he just bulled forward with his prepared questions. It was awful and hilarious and I wish to God I could have gotten a signal to tweet out the details as they happened because it was unbelievable.

Oh, and when the coaches were answering a question, he was breathing so heavily into his own microphone that it sounded like Darth Vader was in attendance.

So, WBBM folks, the thing to remember at these things is that nobody cares about you. They care about the people on the panel and nothing you do is going to change that, so just stop it. If this is what Cubs games broadcast on WBBM will be like, then I’ll join the group that pines for WGN. Especially if Lin Brehmer is involved. Holy shit he was terrible.

Other highlight/observations included:

  • The Opening Ceremony went down pretty much as it always does, except this year it was hosted by Len Kasper instead of Pat Hughes, who apparently just had some minor surgery (and will be just fine for the Spring by all reports). The biggest cheers were for Jon Lester, Joe Maddon, Anthony Rizzo, Kerry Wood, and, of course, Mark DeRosa. Then, as usual, they showed a video that had just about every single positive play the Cubs had last year. They even threw in some Logan Watkins plays for some reason.
  • They also unveiled their new slogan for 2015: Let’s Go. It’s… not too bad. Concise, positive, and not too syrupy or cheesy. I actually like it. SEE? I DO SOMETIMES ACKNOWLEDGE WHEN THE CUBS DO GOOD THINGS!
  • Watching Bleacher Nation Brett’s ascension to minor celebrity status as he was constantly approached by folks who were very excited to meet him. I’m hoping by next year, he’ll be big enough that people will want to buy ME drinks so that I might introduce them to him.
  • How Crane Kenney was really only about half a step ahead of Prepared Statement Guy in his interactions. He blatantly was reading from his notes while everyone else the Cubs gave a microphone to managed to talk intelligently without crib notes. Although, if the statements attributed to Kenney are true from the new law suit against the Cubs, Crane obviously has a problem when he’s allowed to wing it.
  • The hotel seemed unprepared for the masses of a sold out convention. This is the first one held at the Sheraton that has actually been sold out, so they probably didn’t realize what they were in for, fully. You can talk about it in meetings all you want, but until you experience that magnitude, it’s all just theory.  Lines for food and beverage were unbelievably long. They ran out of water. One hotel cafe was out of food before 10:30am on Saturday. We found it easier to leave the hotel and hit a local establishment within a block or two than to wait in the lines.
  • Can we get some damn wireless coverage in there? During most of the sessions, an internet connection through Verizon was almost impossible. AT&T was reportedly better, but there was no unlocked wireless at the hotel that we could even purchase, much less anything for free.
  • I got to meet and hang out with Dylan at the drinking fest on Friday at Lizzie McGuire’s, but I forgot to ask him to autograph a print-out of his legendary ACB Starfuckers rant. Maybe next year.
  • The cherry on top of the whole weekend was seeing former actual Chicago media member and all-around jagoff, Chet Coppock, reduced to standing in line behind ladies with pins in their hats to ask a question of Theo. I can’t think of something more hilariously embarrassing for his massive ego. (His question was about Javy Baez and whether he could spend some time in AAA this year. On the surface it’s not so terrible, but I just KNOW he was trying to set Theo and Jed up to say positive things about Javy now so he could burn them with the quotes later if/when Javy struggles early in the year.)