Role: Pretty much slotted in as #3 starter for the moment
Bats/Throws: Right/Right
Opening Day Age:31
Uniform Number: He's only ever worn #30 for the Twins, but Travis Wood owns that one right now.
What was his best game in the Majors?
His best game probably came in 2007 when he took a perfect game into the 9th inning against the Royals on August 31st. He gave up a lead-off walk to John Buck to lose the perfecto and then gave up a one out single to Mike Sweeney to lose the no-hitter, but he ended the game by getting both future Cub, David DeJesus and former Cub, Mark Grudzielanek to end the game.
Is he hoping the Cubs have a good dental plan?
He might be. It looks like he has had some orthodontic work as recently as 2011.
Baseball-Reference.com's Most Similar Pitcher: Wade Miller
Baseball-Reference.com's Most Similar Pitcher Who Just Won a Cy Young Award: R.A. Dickey
Why We Might Like Him:
He actually throws strikes and doesn't walk many batters.
He's a solid pitcher when healthy. Bill James projects an xFIP of 3.85 for this season.
If he's healthy, he could improve on his career numbers a little just due to switching to the NL.
He could be Maholm 2.0 and get traded at the deadline to help restock the farm system
Why We Might Hate Him:
He is coming back from Tommy John surgery, so you never know for sure what you're going to get back, or when.
The knock on him from early in his career was that he often left the ball up in the strike zone and gave up lots of homeruns. He was a bit better the last couple years, but then he got hurt.
He's also been labeled a slow starter. The splits do show a difference between 1st half and 2nd half, though not a huge one.
If You Rearrange the Letters in His Name You Get: "CRAB TEST OK" or "BAT CORK SET"
Baker, a righty starter, is making his way back from Tommy John surgery, and was probably looking for a soft place to land, re-establish himself, and then hopefully sign a more lucrative contract in the near future. The Cubs, thankfully, can provide that opportunity. And if Baker succeeds by July, with the Cubs out of contention, he becomes a nicely flippable piece.
The big bodied righty (6″4″ 220 lbs) is familiar with the MLB and should be able to adjust quickly from his surgery. His mix included a fastball that wont blow anyone away at 88-92 MpH, but has a very decisive “jump” action as it draws in to the plate, thus making it very difficult to read. Sprinkle in his effective pounding of both sides of the zone, and his fast ball is a registered weapon at the major league level. Secondary pitches include a big curve, an average to + slider and a tricky fade-away changeup that is particularity vicious towards left handed hitters.
Personally, I really like the signing because it’s low risk. This is a regime that has expressed to fans that the rebuild is going to come primarily through the farm and supplemented with smart free agents that make sense for the long term plan. Baker accomplishes that.
We all knew that the methods the Superfriends were employing to build up the overall strength of the entire Cubs organization was going to get ugly at the major league level. Theo and Jed came in and immediately started implementing a long term strategy, which in many cases, was very damaging to the short term quality of the team. We get it. We joke about guys like Jason Berkin and Brooks Raley going to the mound every fifth day because, frankly, what else can you do? But behind the snark, I think most of us get it. At least most of us in this corner of the interwebs.
So the Cubs lost 101 games, and even though most people were slightly surprised at reaching the 100 loss mark (I wasn't), at some point the difference between 95 losses and 100 really doesn't matter. We all knew it would be bad, the only question was exactly how bad they would be.
So now we are on to Year Two of the Superfriends. Organizationally, they are healthier. They now have a few impact level prospects floating around in the lower levels of the system from Hendry's last draft. Plus Jed & Theo added a few nice players through their own draft and trades of Maholm, Dempster and others. This will be a really good year to go check out some Kane County Cougars games. But on the major league roster, we're looking at 100 losses again.
I know that the roster as comprised now will be vastly different than the roster with which they break camp, but this team is bad and I have a hard time envisioning a scenario where they cobble together anything better than a 95 loss team without some serious luck. In reality, it might be worse than last year. Seriously.
The whole reason there was debate about whether the Cubs would reach 100 losses or not last year was due to a stretch from June 25 to July 30 where they went 18-10, mostly due to some pretty good pitching from their rotation. It is no accident that after the Cubs traded away Maholm and Dempster, plus lost Garza to injury that they ran off a record of 18-42 after the trade deadline. That's a .300 winning percentage. That's not even a great batting average. Now heading into 2013, what can we expect from the Cubs pitching staff?
Jeff Samardzija almost has to be considered the ace just because we're pretty sure he can stay healthy and now we have almost a whole season of him being pretty good at pitching to comfort our fears that he'll suddenly revert to the Jeff Samardzija we all laughed at for wanting to be a starter while walking everyone in the ballpark. So that right there doesn't bode real well. A former punchline (who we still aren't 100% certain isn't riding some flukey run of luck) is now the Cubs ace.
We have no damn idea what to expect from Matt Garza and neither does anybody else in the world. That means we can't really book him as the guy that Hendry traded for or anything even close, and it also means that if he's traded it will be for pennies on the dollar. If Jed can swing a trade for an impact level young arm in return for Garza this off-season, we should probably just start building his statue in the McDonald's parking lot right now.
So we get to the third spot and we're at Travis Wood. Travis Wood was barely worth the fifth starter spot last year and he is clearly the Cubs #3 at the moment. These are not good signs, people.
Maybe this wouldn't all sound so bad if we thought there was a chance in hell the Cubs could score runs occasionally, but they can't. Even with a full year of Rizzo, a rejuvenated Soriano (and who is actually taking bets that he continues at last year's pace?), and Castro, the lineup is a god-awful mess. When Ian Stewart is quickly becoming the Cubs best hope to produce anything at third base for the second year in a row, things are bad. When people float rumors of Shane Victorino as a potential option in centerfield and people get excited about it, things are bad.
The hope on the horizon in the minors is still Brett Jackson. There really isn't anybody of note behind him that can come in and make a difference. And forget Vitters. Just forget Vitters. He's so done that I think Gary Scott is actually a better solution after spending the last 20 years selling real estate than Josh Vitters is. My dead cat has just as much chance of being the Cubs' third baseman of the future as Josh Vitters does.
So have the Cubs hit rock bottom? Given the state of their roster and their seeming unwillingness to spend even a little short-term money to help prop up the collapse on the major league level, I just don't see how they can improve on last year's results. Maybe they spread the losing around a little more, that 18-10 stretch is going to be hard to duplicate. You'd think the 18-42 would be hard to duplicate and it will be, but not as tough as you'd think. The Cubs were 24-48 before June 25 for a .333 win percentage and that was with them at full strength. Without that 18-10 stretch, the Cubs played .320 baseball for 134 games. That is a 110 loss pace and probably closer to what this team's true capabilties were, especially at the end.
So I'm putting in my early prediction now. The Cubs will lose 105 games in 2013.
Don't forget to get your 10% non-refundable deposits for season tickets into the Cubs by the end of the day.
There has been a lot of discussion on the intertubes in the last day about who can possibly replace Bob Brenly. Alvin has helpfully compiled a list of candidates from various sources and included his opinion of the probability that they are hired. You can go over to see his commentary if you want, but I'll just give you the list and his estimated likelihood of hiring:
Dave Campbell: 0%
Mark Grace: 0%
Todd Hollandsworth: 20%
Darrin Jackson: 20%
Eric Karros: 50%
Steve Lyons: 20%
Gary Matthews: 5%
Keith Moreland :0%
Steve Stone: 10%
Rick Sutcliffe: 30%
Kerry Wood: near 0%
So it seems that Alvin is 155% sure that someone from this list will be hired. And that is sad. Sad not only because Al is presumably a high school graduate without a basic grasp of math, but also because the best candidate isn't even on the list. I don't know if he's even interested in it, but Tom Ricketts should do some recruiting. Of course, I refer to none other than:
Yes. Bill Fuckin' Murray.
Something has to entertain us as the Cubs flail about on the field as all of their real talent plays out in Kane County next season.
I managed to find a clip of his work in 1987 when he filled in for Harry Caray after his stroke. You can't tell me this work isn't one billion times better than Todd Hollandsworth on his best day, so I submit this on behalf of Mr. Murray to the Cubs.
I don't think any further research or due diligence is even necessary. Hire. This. Man.
Note:This was not my original idea. I first saw it floated out on Twitter by @rightfieldsucks. However, I endorse this idea 100% and will do what I can to put the entire weight of the OV Corporation behind this effort. (Which pretty much just involves making this post. The OV Corporation needs more tax breaks so we can truly become job creators.)
The Cubs announced their new ticket prices for 2013 and Alvin is doing a victory dance with his bologna sandwich tonight because he is getting a ~10% reduction on his seats up there in the last row of the bleachers.
In fact, all season ticket holders are holding basically even or getting a slight discount next year from the 2012 prices. In addition to the cut in bleacher prices, the Upper Deck Box Outfield folks are also getting a ~10% reduction and the the Terrace Reserved Outfield people are getting ~5% off.
Everybody else pretty much holds even at the old levels. If we averaged them out weighting them equally (which I know isn't 100% accurate, but it should be close enough for our purposes), the Cubs lowered their overall ticket prices by about 1.6%.
What's interesting is how the Cubs re-jiggered their individual ticket prices to come to this final overall reduction:
You'll notice that only 9 individual ticket price points were reduced. 37 price points were raised and 19 remained steady. Wait… what?
How did the season ticket prices come down while 56% of the price points actually went up? The key is how the games were distributed in the five pricing tiers. The tickets in the seating bowl have 4 fewer games in the Marquee tier than last year and 3 more in the Bronze tier. The Bleachers have 7 fewer in the Marquee tier and 7 more in the Bronze. They also have 8 more Gold level and 8 fewer Silver. So even though many of the price points were raised, over the course of the season the total amount to purchase every ticket was lowered because there were fewer of the most expensive tickets available.
This is clearly a move to appease their season ticket holders and indicates to me that the Cubs are extremely nervous about the attrition rate of their waiting list. They'll still claim that renewal rates are strong and the number of the people on the waitlist still tops 100,000, but when it comes to ticket revenues, actions speak louder than words.
For individual ticket purchasers, the news is not as good. For one, the prices listed above are generally $1 to $2 lower than they will be when single game tickets go on sale. That doesn't alter the percentage change on the tables above very much because season ticket holders saved $1-2 per ticket last year as well, so while the percentages might change by a tenth of a point or two, that doesn't mean a lot when we're talking about general trends.
Secondly, unless you buy Upper Deck Box Outfield seats, your individual tickets will generally cost you more than last year. Remember, the savings is a result of there being fewer Marquee games on the schedule. So while it is less likely you will be buying an individual ticket for a Marquee game than last year, if you do go to one, chances are you'll pay as much or more for that ticket. If you go to Gold, Silver, or Bronze level, you almost assuredly will pay more. In fact, the average Bronze level seat will cost you over 13% more than a Bronze game from last year.
I'll restate that. You can expect to pay about 13% more per ticket to watch two 90-loss teams play each other on a cold September weekday afternoon than you would last year. In some cases you'll pay significantly more than that. If you sit in the Terrace Reserved section for that horrid game, you'll pay 33% more than last year ($16 compared to $12 last year).
It's a bold strategy that seems on the surface like it may have been Todd Rickett's idea. Those Bronze level tickets were selling for less than a dollar on StubHub last year because season ticket holders were dumping them for anything they could get. Knowing that as we know now and knowing the team will most likely be shitty again next year, why would anyone buy those tickets at the old face value, much less the new one?
The answer might lie in some upcoming scare tactics that the Cubs like to employ to falsely inflate ticket demand.
The Cubs also will use dynamic pricing in the entire ballpark, Faulkner said, after experimenting with the concept in the bleachers in 2012. As ticket inventory decreases, the price of the unsold tickets will go up.
So while people might normally be inclined to wait and see if the team does, in fact, suck as much balls as it did last year before running out and buying tickets to see the Cubs play the Padres, they may feel compelled to buy the tickets early to make sure they get the tickets at the lowest price point. If they wait and the team is actually better than they expect, it could cost more to buy the tickets later.
And don't think the Cubs won't be driving that point home all winter long.
Plus, remember that dynamic pricing allows them to sell fewer tickets overall while maintaining a decent revenue stream because the price point keeps rising as the tickets are sold. So they can make up for lost revenue in the crappy games by selling lots of ever-more-expensive tickets to the popular games.
But I guess as long as Alvin is happy. That's the main thing.
Warning:This post barely mentions the Cubs and even then only in a tangential manner. It will also contain what I can only assume will be a nauseating amount of sentimental nonsense. Please feel free to skip straight to the comments and post inappropriate GIFs, hilarious Alvin photoshops, or even some baseball stuff. In fact, whether you read the post or not, please do those things since I could really use a good laugh.
Today is the day I have been dreading for quite awhile. When you have an old pet, I think the day when they finally go to their final resting place is always not as far from your thoughts as you'd like. With my cat, Schultz, it has been looming in the forefront of my mind for pretty much the last year.
He was 18 years old (give or take a month or two) and he started having seizures about a year ago. Since that time he's had various issues where he seemed to be staring at the light, but then turning away at the last second to stay with us here on this plane of existence. So when he started having difficulty walking to his litterbox in the middle of the night and lost his appetite again this morning, we weren't exactly surprised. We'd been preparing for it in our minds all along. This time, he practically made our decision for us by crashing as hard as he did so quickly, but the speed in which he left us has stunned us into a bit of shock.
The stupor is similar to my state of mind shortly after Game 6 in 2003.
As Cubs fans, I think we all expect disaster to strike at any time, no matter how good the team may seem to be at any given time. We pretty much know that there is another shoe somewhere just waiting to drop, probably onto our heads. So when the Cubs lost their lead only eight pitches after Moises Alou lost his shit, and when Mike Fucking Mordecai put it out of reach with one swing, the Cubs' World Series chances died a very unsurprising, yet completely shocking death that night.
I sat in my seat for a good 30 minutes after the game ended just staring at the field. I finally dragged my ass to Yak-zies where a friend was waiting with a Jack and Coke all ready to numb my pain, but I didn't want it. I was too numb to drink. I was too numb to do anything. I just wanted to go home and curl into a ball an pretend the whole shit show never happened.
At that time, I lived alone with Schultz as my only "roommate." Normally, when I would get home from work, he would greet me at the door and proceed to tell me about his day by meowing in a tone that seemed to indicate that his life of eating, sleeping, and licking himself all day was a hardship on a par with a life of slave labor. So our normal routine would be me walking in:
Me: Hey buddy. How was your day?
Schultz: Meow
Me: Really?
Schultz:(more insistently) Meeeooowww
Me: You don't say. That sounds terrible.
Schultz: Meooow meow MEOW (grabs a a doorframe with his front paws and "scratches" it to indicate how much of a big tough man he is despite having lost his front claws 9 years earlier)
Me: You DO have a hard life.
And it would go on like that until I would sit down and he could climb on my lap and paw at me until I scratched his chin.
But that night, I walked in and sure enough, there he was to greet me. I managed a "hey buddy," but that was all I had energy for. I proceeded immediately to the couch and just collapsed with mental exhaustion. Schultz had yet to say a word to me. He sat at my feet for a bit (I don't know how long because my brain was mush that evening, but it seemed like quite awhile).
Then he climbed up on the couch, but instead of climbing directly on my lap and demanding attention, he laid down next to me and just put his head in my lap and sat quietly purring. It was exactly what I needed. Then he reached out with a paw and put it on my hand and just left it there. I just looked down expecting him to start demanding attention, but he just stayed like that. I don't know how long we sat together, but he stayed with me the whole time. Still purring.
He had other times when he seemed to know when I was sad, lonely, sick, or dealing with more Cubs disappointments, but that was the time that really stuck with me because at that point it was probably the most depressed to the core I had ever been.
The problem now is that I feel very close to the same way as I did back in 2003, but he's not here to comfort me. I'd give anything to have him laying on my lap right now.
The Cubs' season has mercifully ended and now things get interesting again as Theo continues his overhaul of the entire organization.
All Coaches Returning Next Year, Please Step Forward. Not So Fast, Pat…
The strains of the final playing of "Go Cubs Go" were still echoing in the park when the team announced Pat Listach would not be returning in 2013. Lucky bastard. I wonder what he did wrong?
"He did a great job, and it's not anything he did," Sveum said.
Ok… well… it appears they loved his coaching so much, they decided to cut it short. /Quade'd
Hope You Enjoyed Iowa, Boys
Theo had a season-ending press conference and among the snippets tweeted out (which I'm sure will be covered more thoroughly later) were his thoughts on Brett Jackson and Josh Vitters:
"We will build the 2013 team this winter on the assumption that Vitters and Jackson are going back to AAA."
I saw in the last thread that people had varying takes on what Theo's words mean, but I personally think they are hoping to still work on Jackson's swing so he can one day become useful in the majors, and they aren't going to cut Vitters or anything, but I think their expectations of him are dwindling. But he did not commit to either player as part of the Cubs' future, so I'm guessing this was mostly a way to spin their less-than-optimal debuts as positively as possible as they head into the off-season trade talks. I would not be shocked in the least if either or both of these guys are packaged with someone (Soriano? Marmol?) in an attempt to pry some starting pitching away from somebody.
Gordo and Boras Do Not Care For the Cubs' Rebuild Strategy
I honestly don't know what Gordo was getting at except that he was displeased and he was quoting Scott Boras as his expert-in-the-know to support his uneasiness with Theo's rebuild plan.
“They’ve sold you guys a bill of goods,’’ agent Scott Boras said.
Then Gordo goes through a list of reasons why the Cubs have more money to spend to superficially build the major league team up while they fix the foundation in the background, but that's easy to say when it's not your money. Boras obviously wants the Cubs to be players in the free agent market because he wants as many large market teams bidding against each other as possible. Scott Boras doesn't give two shits about what is best for the Cubs. He wants the most money for his clients and himself so he is suckering guys like Gordo into writing stories like these to rile up the masses. The problem is that Theo isn't as gullible.
Theo: “The dollars you spend in major-league free agency provide the lowest return on investment of any dollarswe spend in baseball ops."
I can't comprehend the rollercoaster of emotion he and his family must have gone through yesterday.
Far Less Important and Far Less Depressing News About Moving a Wall at Wrigley
Because we can't end on that note, here's one last blurb about the Cubs getting approval from the Commission on Public Landmarks to move the wall behind home plate an extra 3 feet closer to home plate. This addition to the ballpark is expected to accomodate one more row of 56 seats from which rich assholes can mime giving blowjobs to the camera.
Today on Wrigley Talk Friday, AC and I discuss a lot of stuff that really only tangentially had anything to do with the Cubs. And then my call got dropped as I made a really insightful comment about Kevin Youkilis. We run a tight ship at WTF.
So the Cubs are playing the Rockies. As much as I have a hard time knowing who the Cubs are allowing to play these days, I have no fucking clue who the Rockies are running out there on a daily basis. I think Tyler Colvin? Is he still a thing for them? Does anyone care?
Mostly we needed a new thread.
The Cubs are already up 3-1 and Dave Sappelt is a triple and single short of the cycle. I missed the beginning because there was a new New Girl and I prefer looking at this:
… than what the Cubs and Rockies are capable of doing on a baseball diamond.
Sometimes I just can't help myself. I'm a weak man. I admit it. I know I shouldn't always order my cheeseburger with bacon on it, but I do. I know I could do just as well with a single scoop of ice cream, but go ahead and eat it straight out of the container and then wonder how the container is suddenly empty. But the worst thing that happens to me in those instances is that I may someday end up with pain radiating into my arms and/or daily insulin shots.
But that is nothing compared to the almost certain eye and brain cancer I now have from watching a video link I happened to notice on Twitter featuring a man who is so bloviatingly pompous for no good reason, I have to assume he is a one-dimensional character that has escaped from the confines of a poorly written sitcom on TBS.
I don't know why I clicked on it. I knew I shouldn't have, but as I said, I'm a weak man and I ended up watching the corpse of Chet Coppock take time from his busy schedule of being unemployed and inhabiting what appears to be a junior high school gymnasium to mock Theo Epstein. Look at this fucking asshat:
He looks like he is sustaining himself by somehow managing to capture both Mike North and Steve Rosenbloom and storing them in his jowls for later consumption.
Chet is apparently the only person still reading the Sun-Times sports section and he was none too happy about a story he read by Toni Ginetti where Theo shared a bit of truth about the Cubs chances next season. Here's a quote from Theo that got Chet particularly riled up:
“We’re not trying to hide the ball. We’re trying to be honest with [the fans]. There might be some tough things we have to tell them along the way. There might be another trade deadline in our future where we trade away about 40 percent of a really good rotation. You do that because there will be a day when you acquire two starting pitchers at the deadline to cement your club."
Personally, I find the honesty refreshing. The Cubs are finally taking the time to build an actual organization and that is going to mean a few decisions that are painful in the short term. I'm cool with that. Just about every halfway intelligent Cubs fan understands it. Even a lot of the dumber ones get it to a point. Shit, even BCB hasn't given up on Theo yet and that's about as low a baseball IQ as you're going to find among people literate enough to use the internet. But Chet is fired up and if I had to listen to the rambling incoherent nonsense, I'm going to put it here so we can all suffer together:
Theo, Public Relations 101. Do you realize what your fans have gone through this year? During the first year of your administration? What’s to be cheerful about regarding the Cubs right now besides the possibility that Jeff Samardzija might be a legitimate #2 starter… he’ll never be a #1 starter… and in my opinion, Alfonso Soriano, left for dead, might be worthy of consideration as National League Comeback Player of the year.
Theo, you have to realize something. This ballclub has now gone 104 years without a sniff of a winner’s World Series check. Why would you tell your fans that you might once again have a rotation that’s uh… bordering on being halfway decent, but you’ll have to trade 40% of it because you think you’re going to improve the ballclub?
Theo, you know what? Start sipping some kool-aid and start conveying some joy at the Friendly Confines. This morning, I heard radio stations saturated with spots advertising the availability of tickets for Cubs baseball. You know what, Theo? You’ve had a year. The grace period is over. The party is over. Now the job begins. Now, Theo, you will be judged. And I gotta tell you… I can hardly wait for the Cubs Convention. I want to see just how rough and just how tough the Cubs fans are on the wunderkind from Boston.
What the fuck, Theo? YOU'VE HAD A YEAR! HOW COME YOU HAVEN'T COMPLETELY REVERSED THE FORTUNES OF A TEAM THAT THE WRIGLEY FAMILY AND THE TRIBUNE COMPANY SPENT 104 YEARS FUCKING UP? I mean you have been on the job for 335 whole days! That's over 8,000 hours! Almost 500,000 minutes! I mean, you have had almost 30,000,000 seconds to turn this shit around already. What have you been doing?
I like how Chet is such a fucking dumbass that he can't come up with anything positive Theo has done besides getting lucky with Samardzija and Soriano. Gee Chet, what else have Theo and Jed done that you might have missed while you were busy building a new website that looks hilariously like Snoozebox.com? They locked up their young shortstop on a ludicrously team-friendly deal that will be a damn steal if Castro evolves as a player even a little bit. They traded an injury-prone reliever for a middle-of-the-order, good fielding first baseman. They traded aging veterans for prospects that are ranked in the Top 100 of all of baseball. He's started the process of cleaning out the people in baseball operations that contributed to the problems under Hendry in a massive effort to achieve a culture change within the historically stodgy and stagnant organization. Chet is not impressed.
Chet, on the other hand, has basically accomplished recently what we've accomplished here at OV as a hobby (except we used correctly spelled words on our website). Well done, buddy.
I'd like to know what Chet would've done in Theo's place? He seems to be offended by trading away veteran players that have no future with the team just because they seem to be pitching well at the moment. Maybe Chet really liked Dempster's Harry Caray impression and dick jokes and is having trouble adjusting to life without them. He seems like the kind of person who would, and by that I mean he's brain damaged.
Maybe Chet has magic powers that could turn Soriano into Bryce Harper? Though that seems unlikely since I'd think he would use his magic to not look like Karl Rove and Rainn Wilson's illegitimate love child.
This is the sort of bullshit from people who pass themselves off as experts that pisses me off to no end and I fucking knew I would regret clicking his fucking link. But the little troll won and I'll never get that three minutes back of my life, and neither will you folks who have bothered to read this. I do apologize for shining a light into a corner of the internet that should probably be left in the dark.
But I feel a little better now and I can go back to only dimly being aware that Chet Coppock even exists anymore. The party is over, Chet.
There's been some unusual disturbances in the Force in the Cubs universe recently. Nothing on the scope of millions of voices suddenly crying out and being suddenly silenced, but more like when Luke went into that weird tree on Dagobah and you didn't know what the hell was going on.
Movin' On Up
The Cubs announced plans for the 2013 version of the annual Cubs Convention! So we'll see the usual gathering of snarky Cubs fans drinking alongside ex-players and media at Kitty O'Sheas and… wait… what? It's not at the Hilton this year?
After 27 years at the Chicago Hilton and Towers, the Cubs are moving the convention to a new venue for the first time, giving the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers on the Chicago River a crack at hosting the event a bit more smoothly than the Hilton seemed capable. That's nothing against the people that worked at the Hilton. The crowds just seemed too big for what their facilities could offer. The Sheraton is a nicer facility and judging by its specs, the facilties are generally larger than what the Hilton can offer.
The timing of it seemed odd since the Cubs had a bitch of a time selling the passes to last years' Cubs Con (I don't think they ever did actually sell out), and now they are moving to a bigger facility when enthusiasm about the Cubs has got to be at pre-Sammy Sosa lows? Maybe they're getting a better deal from the Sheraton people. Maybe the Ricketts are Sheraton rewards members and now they never have to pay for a Sheraton hotel room anywhere in the country for the rest of their lives. I don't know. What I do know is that it's a pretty big tradition to break from. John McDonough is probably spinning in his grave. They should make sure they assign a few interns to hang out in the Hilton lobby to redirect wayward fans who accidentally end up at the wrong hotel out of sheer habit.
Cubs Say They Don't Want a Revolution
NBC has been hyping one of their new shows for awhile now and part of the preview involved the characters hiking past a grown-over Wrigley Field (I guess all of the world loses power in 2012 and it's now 15 years later or something). In the previews, beneath the marquee, a sign has been added declaring the Cubs as the 2012 World Champions. However when the show aired last night, the additional sign was blanked out.
How’d they lose the championship in the final cut? “I can’t comment too much on it, only to say that the administration of the Cubs felt strongly that that shouldn’t be there,” [writer, Eric] Kripke tells TVLine. “I’m from the Midwest, and it was not meant as a dig. It was meant as a ‘Wouldn’t that be tragic irony, that I’m rooting for the Cubs and they finally won the year the world ended?’ It was about rooting for a team I have great affection for, but they didn’t see it that way. It’s their team, and I get it.”
Again, it's strange that the Cubs weren't interested in free publicity, even if it wasn't in the best light. Like Kripke said, it wasn't intended as a bash, but the Cubs do seem to be taking some strides to not be viewed as a national joke anymore. I mean, not on the field yet, what with Joe Mather still batting lead-off and such, but you catch my drift.
In addition to setting a record for latest start in Wrigley Field history, Monday night also likely marked the longest amount of time beer sales were allowed. While the team generally cuts sales off in the seventh inning, on Monday night it was in the fourth inning. To be fair, the fourth inning took place around 11:30, meaning fans had a full six-and-a-half hours to get their drink on, so it's not like the Cubs were being unreasonable by shutting things down when they did.
Wrigley's alcohol policy for as long as I can remember it has been consistent:
Alcoholic beverages will not be sold after the last out of the 8th inning during day games and the last out of the 7th inning or 9:20 p.m. for night games.
What I wasn't sure about is whether this policy is in accordance with some MLB alcohol policies (since every stadium I've ever been to has had similar policies), if it is something that is based on a written or informal agreement with the neighborhood, or if the Cubs are free to enforce or not enforce this policy based on individual circumstances. I've never seen alcohol sales get extended beyond that 9:20 limit, and I've been to a number of games where the game has been delayed far enough into the night where the 9:20 cut-off happens well before the 7th inning.
I sent an e-mail to Kevin Saghy, the Cubs PR and social media guru (I don't think that's his exact title, but it should be). He confirmed they sold beer until the 3rd inning and he referred me to Julian Green, Vice President, Communications and Community Affairs (his actual title) about the alcohol policy itself.
I asked Mr. Green about the seeming discrepancy between their published alcohol policy and the sales getting extended last night and he was kind enough to respond (bolding is mine):
There was no discrepancy last night since the policy refers only to on-time starts for day and night games. Our policy is consistent with the majority of baseball stadiums and ballparks which cut off alcohol sales at the end of the 7th or 8th inning but could also be discontinued earlier at the discretion of the team. Obviously, due to the 3 hour plus rain delay last night, the game started late. As Kevin shared with you, beer was sold for the first three innings then concluded at our discretion.
So no MLB rules or local ordinances were broken. It was just a pretty unique situation and they decided the few hundred folks who stuck it out deserved a few beers.
So, in summation, the Cubs have moved their big fan festival to a venue that might actually be equipped to handle it, someone took some steps to eliminate the Cubs' lack of winning as a punchline on national TV, and they exercised some actual judgement in serving the fans who stuck out the insanely long delay to watch them lose.
