Author: aisle424

Race to the Top (of the 2014 Draft)

Race to top header

Welcome back to the 3rd installment of OV's annual Race to the Top series! This has become an extremely fun tradition where we flip the stadings upside down, reverse wins and losses and track the Cubs "progress" towards achieving the top draft pick in the next draft! We sure do know how to have fun around here!

In previous years, we put the standings somewhere on the blog itself and tried to keep it updated daily.  I think those of you who were around last year remember that we failed colossally in that endeavor, so we've scaled back our goals for this year.  Going forward, we'll post the updated standings each Monday and try to highlight any interesting tidbits (if any) from the week.

So here we go:

Race to top - 8-25-13

The last I had bothered to check prior to this morning, the Cubs had been in real danger of dropping out of the top ten picks. They were actually playing kind of well and their run differential compared favorably to the teams right around them in the standings. Well, that's all pretty much been shot to hell and they are about to crash back into a top three pick. If they had managed to lose even a couple to the White Sox this year, they'd even be in a decent position to challenge Miami for a back-to-back 2nd draft pick finish. (Nobody is catching Houston.)

Meanwhile, I found it interesting that the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim of Los Angeles, California and their roughly eleventy billion dollars owed to Josh Hamilton and Albert Pujols are looking at a protected pick, as are the defending World Series champions, the San Francisco Giants, and the Rant Sports pre-season pick as World Series contenders, the Toronto Blue Jays.

Other factoids of note:

  • The Cubs must finish 7-25 to improve on their 101 loss season of last year.
  • They must finish 8-24 to avoid 100 losses.
  • They will finish 13-19 if they maintain their .423 winning percentage pace.
  • They must finish 26-6 to finish .500.

Looks like it's going to be a fun race down to the wire to see who drafts after the Astros pick Carlos Rodon!

A PEDs Apology I’d Love to See, But Won’t

Well, Ryan Braun issued an apology. It was very apologetic. He apologized to everyone. Fans, teammates, the Brewers organization, sponsors, Bud Selig, the urine collector… anyone anywhere that has ever heard of Ryan Braun has now been apologized to. In a written statement.

Personally, I don't care how he delivered his apology. He could have done it in skywriting or spelled it out in rose petals and it wouldn't change the fact that the only reason he issued any sort of apology is because he was out of options.  This was all that was left to do. That's not understanding the error of your ways, that's just damage control. Personally, I would like Braun a hell of a lot more if he had stood behind a podium and said something like this:

Well, you got me. What can I say? I tried righteous denial… that was a bust.

I tried blaming the poor schmuck whose job it is to tote my piss around… that worked for a little while. But I probably went too far by calling him an anti-Semite Cubs fan. Nobody should ever be accused of being a Cubs fan. So, sorry about that, bubbe.

So now I'm going to take my suspension because I've run out of people on which to shift blame and I'm supposed to do a little song-and-dance that my handlers have dubbed Operation Fake Contrite Apology.

Well I'm not going to do that. I took steroids. I'm a competitor and I do whatever it takes to be better than everybody else. That's what made me who I am. If I have to bend the rules a bit to get around what are only meant to protect sacred cow numbers posted by some fat asshole in New York a million years ago, then so fucking be it.

You want an apology? You want the truth? YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!

Son, we live in a world that has homeruns, and those homeruns have to be hit by men with bats. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Commisioner Selig?

I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for the sanctity of the game, and you curse PEDs. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know… that the surpassing of homerun records, while "tragic," probably drove revenues. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, builds revenues.

You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you WANT me on steroids hitting 500 foot homeruns, you NEED me on steroids hitting 500 foot homeruns.

We use words like work, dedication, competition. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent trying to win games. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a media who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the games' popularity that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said, "Thank you," and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a bat, and get in the batter's box.

Either way, I DON'T GIVE A DAMN WHAT YOU THINK YOU ARE ENTITLED TO!

*drops mic*

At least that would be real.

George Ofman Doesn’t Like When You Draw Negative Conclusions About Him Based On Small Sample Sizes of His Work

Yesterday, George Ofman wrote a post about Alfonso Soriano. I don't have time to fisk the whole thing, and to be honest, I don't really even want to. Soriano has moved on back to New York far away from the meatball lunatics that would boo him based on George's writings, so whatever. But even though it bugged me, I was going to let it go. 

Then I saw a little Twitter conversation between George and Ronan O'Shea:

 

Well, then I just couldn't help myself.

 

 

That got George's attention.

 

We then went back and forth. He stuck with his "BUT IT HAPPENED IN THE PLAYOFFS!" angle and I countered with Andre Dawson and his 2 for 19. Then George came back and said Dawson's CAREER with the Cubs was much better than Soriano's. Then somewhere in there George tried to gloss it all over by saying it was just his opinion.

Of course, as Twitter skirmishes usually do, there were people piling on. Some jumped in on the small sample size argument, some name-called, some tried moving the goalposts themselves, and some pointed out that George has trouble with misspellings in his tweets. George ignored most of that, but seemed to get riled at the misspelling comments, insisting they were simply typos, which they probably were. But that's where I thought I could make a point he might be able to relate to.

George did not like that I had made an assumption about him based on a small sample of his writings and I tried to draw the parallel for him.

And that was the end of the Twitter argument.  Most likely, George just shook his head sadly at his laptop, wondering why I simply. Did. Not. Get. It.  Lord knows, that's how I walked away feeling about him after the back-and-forth.

But I find it hilarious that he took such umbrage at the mere suggestion that someone might, possibly, think about making an assumption about his ability to perform his profession well based on such a ridiculously small sample when he has absolutely no problem doing exactly that to Soriano.

What if I not only decided he wasn't terribly bright because of the typos? What if I decided that George Ofman has the POTENTIAL to be a truly great journalist, but he just won't ever reach that potential because he can't seem to stop making FUNDAMENTAL spelling ERRORS?

What if I started speculating that the reason George Ofman seems prone to making typos in his tweets is because he LACKS FOCUS due to too much time carousing the town, chasing women, and drinking to excess?

Suddenly we have a NARRATIVE!  And then I can start cherry-picking various situations that prove my assertions that George Ofman is a terrible journalist because he is lazy and doesn't care. I can ignore all of the words Ofman spells right and focus solely on the ones he misspells. What fun!

This is what the main stream media does time and time again to athletes, but we can see that when we apply the same type of methods to their own professions/reputations, we can see that George Ofman doesn't like it very much.  Based on this sample, I will also assume that every media member would react similarly and I can say that all media members hate to be treated the way they treat athletes.

I'll say this, it does make writing bold, declarative statements a hell of a lot easier when you can do that.

Crazy Uncle Phil Says the Cubs Care Not For IFA Spending Restrictions

Phil Rogers tweeted out a Sulia link, which I normally avoid on principle, but Bleacher Nation Brett insisted was interesting, so I clicked it.

Brett was right.

Phil is claiming the Cubs don't really give a damn that they are over their allotted pool money already and that they aren't necessarily done signing international guys.

The three most attractive guys still out there Taiwanese right-hander Jen-Ho Tseng and two 15-year-olds — Dominican third baseman Luis Encarnacion and Dominican center fielder Leonardo Molina. Encarnacion and Molina aren’t eligible to sign until next month, when they turn 16. The Cubs figure to blow so far past their spending allotment that they will be pay a 100-percent tax and suffer the most serious sanction in the rules — being limited to a maximum of $250,000 on any signing in the 2014-15 international class. The Cubs believe that the top guys in this year's class are much better than those who will be available next year.

I was starting to wonder if this might be the case as they have already acted as though they don't care of they are over.

In the last thread, I saw some comments that the trade for extra pool money was a waste, but if I'm understanding the rules right, they'll have to pay 100% of the overage (assuming they stay above 15% over the cap), so by trading for an extra million or so in pool space, that is one million less they don't get taxed at 100%. It may not seem like much in the grand scheme of things, but it's still basically a million dollars in savings for a guy they obviously don't believe in very much.

Where Is Our Breaking Point as Cubs Fans?

I went to the game last night to see the big Cingrani vs. Garza matchup that, while not exactly the pitching porn of a Verlander vs. Darvish or Wainwright vs. Kershaw matchup, I had hoped it would be at least a Cinemax softcore pitching porn display.  Unfortunately, it ended up being more of a pitching snuff film from the Cubs side as Garza got bound, whipped, and violated repeatedly by the Reds' bats.  (I don't have a good analogy for Cingrani's performance that allowed a HR to Cody Ransom. I attempted a self-taken dick pic analogy that wasn't crossing the line from disturbing to funny, so we'll just leave it at that.)

What I'm trying to say is that the game sucked. Barney had a couple of really nice defensive plays that actually saved Garza from getting pounded in the 5th instead of the 6th, but that's about it.  The plate appearances generally sucked. In the 3rd inning I noticed that Cingrani ended the inning with 31 pitches while Garza was over 60. The Cubs made 4 errors and came dangerously close to a couple more. Scott Hairston is awful. Garza, of course, fell down while fielding a bunt. If the game were a sound, it would be this:

Now, all of that being said, Harry Pav and I sat there for the whole game taking in the awfulness. God bless Harry, he actually kept score of the whole game. To me that seems like it would be like taking detailed notes of your own root canal, but he stuck with it.

As the game result became more evident as the night wore on, the crowd started thinning as it tends to do when the Cubs treat their fans to a shit show like that.  Most of the crowd stuck it out until the 7th inning stretch for reasons passing understanding because it featured Arsenio Hall for some reason.  But nevertheless, most fans sang along, some did a few dogpound woofs (though thankfully these people were an extreme minority) and then the mass exodus began. More people left after the Cubs did nothing in the bottom of the 7th. By the time the 9th rolled around, maybe 20% of the crowd remained.

At this point, Cody Ransom made his third error of the night and a young man in a Theriot shirsey a few rows ahead of us jumped up, declared, "I can't take any more of this shit," angrily tossed his Lemon Chill cup to the ground and gathered his friends to leave.  Harry and I couldn't stop laughing.  It was 12-2 in the 9th, the Cubs were about to fall to 12 under .500 and 16 games back in the division and THAT was what got Theriot Fan all pissed off?  This is a guy who presumably went out and spent actual money on the shirsy of a player who personifies awful baseball, but Cody Ransom's third error in an unwinnable game suddenly made him lose his shit and storm out.

It got me to wondering where our breaking point is. 

I think we all knew this would be ugly, but the idea of a god-forsaken awful team in the middle of a rebuild is a bit different when you are watching it every day. MB has talked about his lack of interest in the major league team. Josh barely ever summons the Hope Monster, AC, B and I hardly even make appearances on our own blog anymore (and by the way, GW, sitrick and Myles have been doing a great job and I'm thrilled they have found the energy to contribute).

We're also seeing an effect in the comments. Ryno, when he shows up, pretty much only talks about the football draft. MO, Melissa, Mish and I'm sure a few other former regulars have pretty much dropped off the face of our little world here. Hell, we don't even get Dick Cheese around to troll us anymore.

The Cubs announced 30,000+ last night but I doubt there was more than 20,000 there and 15,000 wouldn't surprise me. The ratings on TV have to be awful. This team is just bad, it isn't even fun bad and there aren't even any good villains.  People have gotten tired of dumping on Soriano and he's not the biggest problem anymore. Castro is starting to get it, but nobody really cares enough to vociferously boo him like they did Soriano or Ramirez or Lee. Ryan Sweeney, Cody Ransom, Scott Hairston? The Cubs are not a who's who so much as a who cares (I can't remember who used it at a roast, but I've always liked the line).

The biggest news of the week in Cubs world involves a AAA back-up third baseman bitching the Cubs out on Twitter.

I know MB says it doesn't matter if Baez reaches the majors this year or next year, but it kind of does. I like to think of myself as a fairly reasonable and knowledgeable Cubs fan.  Remember, I'm the one who was expecting another 100 losses this year, so my expectations are pretty fucking low and they are still managing to underwhelm me repeatedly. I need… something.

Take Scott Hairston… please.  But seriously, I liked that signing. Not because I thought Hairston would hit 30 HRs or bat .300.  I thought he'd provide a nice right side of a platoon with Schierholz. He could bat .250 or so with a little pop. You know, be somewhat useful. But no, he sucks. He's fucking terrible. He's been worth -.6 rWAR in just 92 plate appearances with an 82% platoon advantage ratio. That's by far the highest percentage of lefties he has ever faced in his career so his career .808 OPS vs. lefties should make him a nice piece. But he's having such a bad year, I'd be satisfied with the .702 OPS he's posted in his career against righties instead of the current .572 OPS he is sporting so far (it's lower now because he just struck out again).

Kevin fucking Gregg is the best part of the bullpen right now. KEVIN GREGG! That's a storyline that would be rejected by any writer for simply being so implausible that nobody would buy it.

Don't we have to have something? In theory, we don't need Baez or Soler or whoever to get here in the next season or two, but holy hell our sanity probably does. A good deal of the pre-draft talk around here revolved around a consensus choice for the Cubs to get Appel simply because he'd be a part of the rotation sooner. We're craving something on the major league level and we're getting constant servings of Luis Valbuena being one of the best performers on the team right now. Luis. Valbuena.

So where is our breaking point? And what is the breaking point? If disinterest is an indication, most of us have already reached our breaking point. If it's slamming our frosty dessert cup to the ground and storming off, I haven't gotten there yet, but a lot of fans have. 

And what do we do when we get to that point where we just can't fucking take one more minute of this shit? Do we just give up baseball? Say fuck it and buy a Cardinals hat? A Yankees hat?

I don't know. I just don't know. And what's worse is I'm starting to not even care all that much.

Wrigley Talk Friday Podcast – Crosstown Cup, Run Differential and Whither Jeff Samardzija – 5/30/13

Tim, Adam and Julie talk about the just concluded Crosstown Cup series, potential trades or extensions of our starting pitchers (particularly Jeff Samardzija), and wonder what the hell is going on with the Cubs having a +11 run differential and a record of 7 under .500.

 

Listen to internet radio with Wrigley Talk Friday on BlogTalkRadio

The Crosstown Classic: Two Teams, One Cup, Zero Fucks Given

From what I'm seeing on Twitter, we're talking about the Crosstown Cup already. Oh goody.

To borrow from the late, great Roger Ebert:

I hate this series. I hate hate hate hate hate this series. Hate it. Hate every simpering stupid vacant fan-insulting moment of it. Hate the sensibility that thought anyone would still like it. Hate the implied insult to the fans by the belief that anyone would be entertained by it.

The man knew how to insult stupid things, and this falsely inflated, crosstown, unimportant clusterfuck of a series definitely qualifies.

The Crosstown series was once kind of fun because we had never seen the two teams play games that counted since 1906. But now it has now been sucked of any fun at all since the early 2000's at best. It's not unique anymore. It's boring. It might as well be the impending must-see series between the White Sox and Marlins. Seriously, are even the players' families going to watch that? Good God. INTERLEAGUE!!!

Its unquestioned time of death was October 2005. At that point, both teams were in the middle of the longest and second longest active World Series droughts in baseball. The Crosstown Series was the only tangible thing either fanbase had to gloat over the other team. The 2005 World Series changed that. The Sox won the race to the Holy Grail. So who gives a shit about the Crosstown Series now? You don't care about losing the Kids Choice Award when you win an Oscar. Same basic concept, except some people (kids, I guess) care about the Kids Choice Awards.

All that happens now in the series is that dipshits on both sides of town over-serve themselves and start fights in the stands. RIVALRY!!!

There aren't even any good personalities to inject fake emotions into the series anymore. No Ozzie talking about what a shithole Wrigley is. No Zambrano losing his shit. No A.J. No Sammy. Could these teams possibly have any less interesting players?  Even the good ones are boring for the purposes of the trumped up rivalry that BP has spent millions endorsing.

Is Anthony Rizzo going to say anything about White Sox fans not being able to read? Will Chris Sale make a comment about Wrigley being a gay bar? I expect the Cubs will actually be in the post-season again before either of those things happen.

Maybe the managers will get in a war of words. Dale? Robin? Anything? No? You sure? OK, then.

The closest thing to an actual personality that can get under the skins of the opposing fans is in the broadcast booth. I don't know what Sox fans think of Len Kasper and Jim DeShaies, but my guess it is something between dim recognition and blissful ignorance.  But Cubs fans can pretty much all get on board with being annoyed as fuck by Hawk Harrelson's constant umpire critiques whenever things aren't going his way and Steve Stone's smug arrogance. So there's that. Sounds like good money spent by BP, huh? A rivalry so heated it can be diffused simply by hitting the mute button on your remote control!

I mean, for fuck's sake, the games aren't even on the weekend this year. The Cubs didn't even bother making either one of them a night game. The Cubs scheduled THREE out of four weekday games at night when the Padres were in town. The Padres series got a more favorable time slot than the White Sox. That should tell you something.

Can't we just make it once every three years or so like they do with all the other interleague series? Maybe that will return it to being special again like when the Yankees sometimes play the Cubs. That's kind of fun. Because it doesn't happen every damn year.

Won't someone please, for the love of God, put this series out of its misery? Probably not until the BP money stops rolling in. As if we needed another reason to hate BP.

Talking Cubs/Mets on the Met Musings Podcast

I had an opportunity to join Gary McDonald on his Mets Musings podcast earlier today to talk a bit about the Cubs as we get ready to see Matt Harvey and the Mets this weekend at Wrigley Field. 

My part starts at about the 20 minute mark, but before that Gary talks about Ike Davis' struggles and some of the other problems the Mets have been having lately, so maybe the Cubs have a shot to win a third series in a row!

OK, we won't get crazy. Enjoy.

The Only Thing Tom Ricketts Threatened Was Some People’s Delicate Sensibilities

The Cubs released more renderings of what they would like Wrigley to look like after the renovations they've been planning for four years are complete. There was nothing earth-shattering. We already knew what a jumbo video board would theoretically look like thanks to amateur fans with Photoshop skills. This version had lights on the top of it. Neat.

Of course, Tom Ricketts spoke optimistically that these plans would eventually come to fruition. He expressed confidence in the work they had already done with Tom Tunney and Rahm Emanuel to hash out the outlines of a plan that could get final approval from the next 800 layers of Chicago government bureaucracy. This presentation was barely any more interesting than any of the other renovation presentations the Cubs have subjected us to over the last four years.

Except for one little Ricketts quote, per the Chicago Tribune:

"I'm not sure how anyone is going to stop the signs in the outfield, but if it comes to the point that we don't have the ability to do what we need to do in our outfield then we're going to have to consider moving. It's as simple as that."

And that is pretty much all anyone has taken from the whole shebang.

The Tribune headline:

Ricketts threatens to move Cubs without OK for Wrigley upgrades

The Sun-Times:

Tom Ricketts threatens to take Cubs and go elsewhere

The Daily Herald:

Cubs chairman threatens to move team from Wrigley Field

ESPN Chicago actually played it cooler:

Cubs may ponder Wrigley exit

But then I saw the URL that indicated a much stronger headline from earlier in the day: http://espn.go.com/chicago/mlb/story/_/id/9230531/tom-ricketts-chicago-cubs-threatens-leave-wrigley-field-outfield-signage-not-approved

OH MY GOD!! RICKETTS IS A MONSTER!!!

At least, that is the sense most fans are given when, at some point in the day, every single major media outlet covering the Cubs screamed a variation of the word "threaten" to describe Tom Ricketts' quote as they strove to drive traffic to their sites.

But is it really a "threat?" The media seems to want to have you believe it is. And they also seem to think it is an empty one. The collective clucking of the tongues at Tom Ricketts' perceived impudence is almost deafening.

Tack on about a billion similar tweets from riled-up fans, and the consensus is that the Earth will plunge into the sun before the Cubs would EVER leave Wrigley. 

The problem is that Wrigley won't exist forever. There is a time coming when Wrigley will eventually start falling apart again and fans will be in physical danger if they set foot in the place. It's almost a certainty. Those nets aren't hanging there as some reminder of the Golden Age of Baseball where all the stadiums had nets to protect fans from falling concrete. As I said in the comments the other day, the place is LITERALLY falling apart. Not figuratively. Actual concrete is actually crumbling. This is not a condition that tends to fix itself over time. Something must be done or somebody will end up getting hurt. And soon.

It is clear the Cubs will not get government funding like many other sports teams have received over the years. You can argue whether that is right or wrong, but no matter your opinion, it isn't an option for the Cubs. Period.

The new plan involves the Cubs paying for it themselves, but then being allowed to run their business like a normal business without a billion roadblocks in their way intended to benefit everyone in the neighborhood but the Cubs. They want a few extra night games and the ability to charge corporations for placing some signs in their ballpark. You know, LIKE EVERY OTHER MAJOR LEAGUE TEAM THAT HAS EVER EXISTED. But nothing about that plan is certain. The rooftops have been talking about suing and you can bank on someone that needs to give approval will hold this up for their own agenda. This is Chicago, afterall, lest we forget.

So Ricketts is confident, but Ricketts is a Cubs fan. He knows what it is like to be five outs away from the World Series with a three-run lead and your ace on the mound and have everything go to hell. So what happens if it does?

What options are left? They can't get government funding and they won't be allowed to do it themselves (and let's not pretend that any owner anywhere would do this deal without having increased revenue streams to make it worth their whiles).

The options left on the table would then be: 1) Stay at Wrigley as is or 2) Move somewhere else.

They can only stay at Wrigley for so long. Meanwhile it will continue to be a dump for their players (a point that will be even more blatant when they start training in their state-of-the-art facility in Mesa, Arizona during the Spring) and they'll continue to be handcuffed by shitty advertising and TV revenues because nothing will have changed from the way it is today. Hooray. What a lovely option.

Seriously, the Cubs get pounded left and right for not acting like a "major market" team, but they aren't one. Not anymore. The scope of the game's economics has changed and selling 3 million tickets a year doesn't automatically put you in the "major market" class. 

Don't get me wrong, the team will get better than what they're putting out there now. They almost have to be once they restock the farm system at all the levels, but what sold Ricketts and a large portion of fans on the rebuild was that the Cubs would rebuild a core "the right way" and then use their significant financial muscles to add on where other teams in the division won't be able to afford to. Except now, the Cubs' financial muscles will be flabby and they won't be able to lift a wallet much better than what the Cardinals can do. That's a nice step forward as an organization, but I personally want to beat the fucking Cardinals. Regularly.

And even if that is all doom and gloom, how many years do we think Wrigley has left in it? Like I said, it is already literally falling apart. I shudder to think what some of the support structures might look like in the places of the stadium we don't see. Wrigley has a finite amount of time left and I'm of the opinion that time period is a lot shorter than anybody really wants to admit. The reason the price tag on this renovation is $500 million is because they aren't just slapping a coat of paint on it and calling it renovated. They'll be replacing or stabilizing key parts of the structure as well as digging out entire new areas under existing structures that were built on the understanding that solid ground would be below. That's going to take additional reinforcement. That gets expensive.

The only other stadium besides Fenway I could think of that was in a similar situation to Wrigley was Tiger Stadium. It was a beloved stadium that many Tigers fans still sorely miss, but the Tigers moved instead of renovating.  I got to wondering why. I found out through my Google machine that they had a couple of plans that would have been cheaper than the $300 million they ended up spending on Comerica Park.

One was the Cochrane Plan for an estimated $26 million:

The Tiger Stadium Fan Club, which claims 12,000 members, last year presented the lower-budget Cochrane Plan to the Tigers. The plan would:

  • Leave the first and second decks unchanged, including view-obstructing posts in front of some seats.
  • Build a third deck that would add 73 luxury suites.
  • Expand clubhouse, concession, rest room and office space.

That doesn't seem to address many structural issues. It sounds like they were just going to tack on a third deck onto an almost 100-year old stadium, so that doesn't sound overly sound to me and probably would have ended up costing a lot more than the $26 million estimated price tag.

A second renovation plan, proposed by Ann Arbor contractor Joe O'Neal and Birmingham architect Gunnar Birkerts, would cost $70 million-$95 million. Without interrupting play at the ballpark, that plan over three to four years would:

  • Remove all the support posts.
  • Expand concessions and restrooms.
  • Add a 400-seat stadium club and 200 luxury boxes.

This sounds closer to what the Cubs are planning, but it still doesn't involve changing the footprint of the stadium as the Cubs' does, nor does it involve digging under the existing structure and field.

At the end of the day, both plans seemed more or less like putting lipstick on a pig. They would be extending the use of the stadium for a few years through those changes, but eventually Tiger Stadium would fundamentally fail as old structures tend to do. Maybe that is why the Tigers ultimately didn't go that route. I'm sure the public funding of the new stadium, combined with the neighborhood around Tiger Stadium crumbling around it played into that decision as well.

But from what I'm seeing, it didn't look like there was a real viable long term plan to stay in Tiger Stadium even if the ownership and the city had been interested in doing so. Hence, they moved.

Likewise, if the Wrigleyville neighbors or greedy politicians submarine the latest plan to stay at Wrigley, I don't see any more long-term options for Wrigley Field. This is not Tom Ricketts necessarily saying he desires to take his ball and go home. He's saying that's what's left if this plan doesn't come together.

Everybody saying the Cubs moving would lose the loyalty of thousands of fans is correct. Finding a long-term viable solution to stay in Wrigley is the best solution for all the parties involved. But if that option is closed down, then what's left? Moving elsewhere. It's the only option that would be left on the table. It's not a threat. It's a fact.

***UPDATE***

Since writing most of this, the voice of the rooftops, Beth Murphy, has expressed optimism that maybe the Cubs and the rooftops can live happily ever after. Per Paul Sullivan:

“I think we’re at a point in the process where we’re just going to have to work out the details (of the plan),” Murphy said. “I no longer believe the Cubs want to block us. I wasn’t sure before, but I no longer believe that. I truly am optimistic they want to work this out.”

I don't know what Crane said or did to elicit that kind of quote from Murphy, but that right there may be the most productive thing he has ever done in his tenure with the Cubs. This is probably on par with if Alex Gonzalez had actually managed to turn that double play ball.

I'm not celebrating a done deal yet, but if she holds with this attitude (assuming the rest of the rooftops are also likewise impressed with Crane Kenny's… um… sincerity), this goes a long way to avoiding the doomsday scenario where the Cubs actually would have to start looking at other locations.

Mr. Zambrano Goes to Wrigley (Maybe?)

ESPN free-lance reporter, and all-around good guy, Sahadev Sharma tweeted out one of the more interesting Cubs tweets I have seen in quite awhile:

HOW AWESOME WOULD IT BE TO HAVE ZAMBRANO BACK WITH THE CUBS?!!

I mean, not for his pitching. He's pretty much done as a pitcher and might actually be a worse option than Kevin Gregg that Cubs fans everywhere are losing their shit over. But imagine the entertainment value!

The fans on Twitter's reactions would be worth it by themselves, but then you'd get the mainstream media. Oh man, Steve Rosenbloom, Paul Sullivan, Gordon Wittenmyer, Rick Morrissey… they'd all be fighting with each other about who gets to trash Zambrano first.  Then I'd imagine the national guys would get into the act and just start bludgeoning the Cubs in general while using Zambrano as their leaping-off point.

It will be amazing and that will all be before he actually makes a pitch for the major league team.

A few minutes later Sharma followed up:

So the odds are extremely long anything comes of this.

Paul Sullivan asked the Cubs what was going on:

So it's possible the Cubs are quickly turning off all the lights, hiding under their desks, and pretending nobody is home. Maybe Zambrano isn't there to see the Cubs at all and is there to meet with somebody from the Rangers? Maybe he was in Chicago and thought it would be fun to fuck with everybody. The possibilities are nearly endless!

This is why I want it to happen. All we have is one tweet from one guy that he's at Wrigley and everybody is going crazy. Since there is almost nothing else entertaining about this season, I want this to happen.

Dear sweet Baby Jesus, make this happen.

***UPDATE***

I'm a sad panda.