The Cubs are in the NLCS. They defeated the Cardinals. When it mattered. This is not a drill.
We sing the praises of Thoyer and Joe, but we too often overlook the fact that Tom Ricketts and family have kicked ass as owners–none of this happens without them.
Nothing like easing Justin Grimm into low-leverage, low-pressure, bases-empty situations.
It's going to be a long time before any Cubs roster lacks postseason experience.
Your assignment for today, class, is to put together a GIF mashup of John Lackey walking off the field and yelling at no one in particular and Sean Rodriguez beating and berating the Gatorade cooler.
2. John Lackey going batshit as he left the mound.
1. A to the Rizzo.
I'm not sure I used the right animal excrement to describe Lackey's tantrum. Ape, maybe?
The postseason might be a crapshoot, but the Cubs, like so many rigged dice, are loaded.
"Go Cubs Go" was loud last night, even if you lived a mile away from Wrigley.
The Cubs problem of having too many middle infielders continues to plague them.
This is a great time to watch baseball with kids. It's outstanding baseball and insanely fun.
I was okay with the Cubs wildcard situation, but it's complete bullshit that they're guaranteed to be the lowest seed throughout the postseason, despite the fact they've won at least five games more than everyone left in the NL.
Despite the fact that many Cubs fans (and mustachioed commentators) love to hate Starlin Castro in the same, definitely-not-racist-at-all way they hated Aramis Ramirez, they're two of my favorite players. So I got a little emotional when I read that Aramis reached out to encourage Starlin after his demotion to the very deep Chicago Cubs bench. I love what Ramirez told him*:
Trust yourself and don't let any negative thing put you down. Keep working, you know you're good.
Cubs Ace Jake Arrieta trumps all in the upcoming wild card showdown with Pittsburgh, and one game should be plenty for Cubs fans and baseball fans in general.
The Cubs, Cardinals, and Pirates have clinched it. No matter what happens on the final day of the season, they will have the best three records in baseball. That much has been decided by the grind of the previous 161 games. What has also been decided is the brevity of their postseason existence. After the first playoff series, two of the top three records in baseball will be eliminated . . . golfing . . . barbecuing in October. It hardly seems fair in a sport where A) they play nothing but series all season long, B) the World Series used to be decided in a best-of-nine contest, and C) one game is far too small a sample to determine the better team, that two teams per league are subject to a one-game playoff to determine their fate.
The apparent unfairness in the current system is compounded by the rule that stipulates the winner of the wild card play-in will face the division champ with the best record instead of reseeding the teams after the wild card winner is decided. The Cardinals' reward for winning 100 games this year and besting all of baseball is to face, theoretically, the second best team in the world.
Is this fair? Of course not. But baseball is a lot like life, and neither one is ever all that fair. Count me among the original dissenters to pan the one-game playoff idea from its inception, but after further review, I like it just fine . . . especially this year.
At its face, that seems ridiculous and dismissive. Life isn't fair, so baseball shouldn't be? And a one-game playoff is especially fair when it's the 2nd and 3rd best records in baseball? Well . . . yes and yes.
First of all, baseball isn't a fair game, at least when it comes to samples of fewer than, I don't know, 100 games? One game isn't enough, but neither is seven. Neither is nine. Neither is 18. The Pirates are 7-11 against the Reds this year, 9-10 against the Brewers. Does anybody on the planet think either of those NL Central cellar dwellers are better than the Pirates? Of course not. But in their respective best-of-19 series with Pittsburgh, the Brewers and the Reds wrapped them up rather easily and convincingly before they even sniffed the 19th game. Is that fair? No, that's weird as hell. That's Milwaukee and Cincinnati winning the Little Lotto. That's just wrong. But it happened because baseball. isn't. fair.
Sure, a nine-game series would be fairer than a one-game nonseries, and even a three-game series would increase the fairness . . . but neither one would really improve it by much. Short of simply crowning the team with the best record as the champion, no playoff system is going to be fair. Even more, this year I truly believe the one-game playoff is the most judicious way of determining a winner. Let me explain.
We know the Cubs and Pirates are pretty much as even as it gets, don't we? They've played 161 games each, and we don't even know who gets homefield advantage. That's pretty damn even. Think about it: 161 games hasn't been enough to decide where they should play next Wednesday. The one-game playoff is ridiculously unfair in other cases, years in which one wildcard entry has 97 wins and the other has 85. That would be unfair. Can you imagine if the Pirates sucked this year and the Cubs' 96 wins (and counting) fell short of the Cardinals by just a game or two and, as a result, had to face an 85-win Mets team? That would be an injustice.
But this year, it's guaranteed to be two great teams with two phenomenal aces on the mound. After 162 games to decide the better team, it may very well be tied. TIED! How much fairer can you get? The World Series home field advantage was decided by an exhibition game, but the site of the wild card game destination is determined by 162, 19 of which are against each other. If the Cubs win today and the Pirates lose, the Cubs will have the slightest of edges. If either of those things doesn't happen, the Pirates will edge the Cubs by an almost equally slim margin. You can't really hope for a fairer resolution than one last 20th game featuring both teams' best players and pitchers.*
As for the matter of the Cardinals awaiting the winner of that game, conceivably pitting 198 wins worth of regular season greatness against each other in an early playoff round, well . . . that just kind of sucks. But it's not the worst thing in the world. I think it makes sense in some regard, mainly trying to maintain regional fairness. I think it makes a small amount of sense to have a rule that says the LCS will feature teams from two different regions of the country. A very small amount of sense. But, again, it will be the 20th through 24th times those two teams play each other. Having it be a round earlier, five games instead of seven, isn't obscenely unfair. Reseeding after the wild card game really isn't an option given the amount of travel uncertainty it would cause. It doesn't make sense to force a division winner to sit glued to their televisions, watching to see where they'll be flying off to for their first playoff matchup. Besides, I don't object to the SEC thinning its own herd to prevent a BCS filled with warm-weather professional schools, so I can't object to the NL Central doing the same. It's okay. It may very well be the best way.
Regardless, we're in for two weeks of amazing baseball between NL Central titans. This year has been an absolute joy to watch, and it boggles my mind to think it could actually improve in intensity and entertainment value.
*Holy crap, this game on Wednesday is going to be absolutely spectacular. I'll probably die. It was nice kinda knowing you all.
2015 had a chance of being a feel-good season for the Chicago Cubs, but that can’t happen now. Back when Kris Bryant was making a long-shot case for an All-Star berth and Kyle Schwarber was pretending he could destroy American League pitching when given the chance to DH, Near the end of July, the Cubs were 5 games over .500, and it seemed like maybe the Cubs would be a little too young to weather a 162-game big-boy schedule.
At that point, just missing the wild card play-in game would have been a mild disappointment, a mild shadow in the foreground of an exceedingly bright future. It could have been a good season, an incredibly fun to watch season, and a very, very nice beginning to what we Cubs fans all hoped (and still do hope) would be an extended run of dominance.
Then a funny thing happened on the way to mediocrity. The Cubs won 15 of their next 16 games. They assembled win streaks of 6, 9, and 6 games and kindled within us that most combustible of substances: hope.
With Jake Arrieta on the mound tonight, we assume the Cubs are at the tail end of a four-game losing streak. Because he’s Jake Arrieta, and he has the same wallet as Jules from Pulp Fiction. It’s to the point that when the Cubs lose, we kind of scratch our collective heads and wonder what’s wrong with the universe. The Cubs win now. That’s what they do. In a matter of one month, they’ve managed to alter our collective psyche to the point where we expect good things. No, we expect great things. Phenomenal things. Joe Maddon thinks they have a shot to win the World Series, and he’s always right.
When Maddon said at his initial press conference that he was aiming for the World Series, it made us happy. When he says it in August, it makes us delirious.
And that leaves us in a very precarious position as fans. Maybe I should stop speaking for all of us, so I’ll just speak for myself. (I have a sneaking suspicion I’m not alone in this, though.)
From here on out, if the last Cubs game of 2015 is a loss, I’ll be crushed. Plain and simple. As Bill Parcells said, “There is winning, and there is misery.” That’s the reality now. If the Cubs miss the playoffs? I’d be crushed. If the Cubs’ World Series hopes are dashed in a 9-inning postseason? Agony. If they make it only so close as five outs away from the World Series and no closer? Death. Even if they lose in the World Series, I think I’ll probably cry for a month. I know they’ll be good for a long time, but I don’t care. Losing sucks. In July, I was fine with the idea of the Cubs missing the playoffs. Now? I’ve hoped too much. I’ve let my imagination wander too far. I’ve seen too many great moments.
It’s World Series or bust. Any Cubs fan who says any different is in denial. I don’t begrudge you the defense mechanism, it’s an excellent tool. Just know, there’s no escape. If this isn’t the year, it’s going to hurt. Tell yourself what you need to in order to cope. Tell yourself the season has been fun. Tell yourself next year will be better. Just know, there is no nice ending. There’s eternal joy and utter devastation. Those are our options.
But I’ll gladly take misery over the numb indifference of the last decade. Misery is ten times better than meh. #maddontshirtideas
It’s been almost a month since Rob Manfred discussed the possible, out-there, well-maybe-I-would-do-this-if-I-got-really-drunk-at-a-party changes with Karl Ravech. (Don’t worry, the “Ten Changes AndCounting Should Make to His Posting Habits” post is in the works including #6: “Consider posting every four years rather than annually or just whenever a new president is sworn into office or upon the closing ceremonies of every Olympics hosted in Russia.”) If you’ve forgotten, never watched, or are Karl Ravech’s or Rob Manfred’s mom and just want to watch every chance you get, here’s the video:
After watching the video a few times (and by “a few,” I mean zero) I got to thinking about what changes MLB really should make, and I’ve been working on compiling a list ever since. (Never rush a list of changes to MLB, kid, you’ll get rotten miracles.) So without much further ado (here’s some ado: Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon are hilarious) here they are:
10. Take three weeks off the regular season schedule and expand playoff teams to 8 in each league. Yeah, yeah, no owners want to lose 9 or 10 home games’ worth of revenue, but I’m guessing most owners would trade 9 or 10 home game gates for the shot at three or four extra postseason games with exorbitantly higher ticket prices and, well, winning and stuff.
From viewing perspective, good DeRosa, it would be fun to watch. Granted, the last month of the regular season really would be more exciting only for the league’s average to below-average teams and their fans and9 far less exciting for the league’s top tier . . . but that’s how it should be. In what other sport do the best teams bite their nails at the end of the regular season over whether they’ll make the playoffs or not? They don’t. There’s no reason for that to be the case in baseball. Imagine, eight best-of-seven series across baseball to begin the postseason (or even four 9-game round-robin groups with the top two teams from each group advancing to lessen the likelihood of a fluke early-round exit). This move would vastly improve the quality of baseball being played league-wide for the last two months of the MLB calendar. It should’ve been done a long time ago.
9. New home-plate collision rule: the catcher is part of home plate until he possesses the baseball, at which point making contact with him results in an out. Bear with me, here. It’s actually pretty simple, as complicated as it sounds, especially compared to the current rule. If the catcher is blocking home plate without possession of the ball, all a baserunner has to do to score is touch the catcher. If the catcher does possess the baseball, all he need do to retire a baserunner attempting to score is make contact with him in any way. So . . . imagine a play at the plate, the catcher waiting expectantly for the throw from the outfield, the baserunner charging down the baseline toward him. Under the old rules, a catcher could simply camp out in front of home plate even if he expected the baserunner to arrive before the throw. Using his body as a shield, a catcher could make it more difficult for the runner to score. But if the catcher were considered part of home plate, the runner need only run by and touch him, slide into him. The human shield strategy would make it easier for a runner to score, shortening the distance between third and home. And if the throw did beat the runner, colliding with the catcher would be an instant out. It wouldn’t matter if the catcher applied the tag, dropped the ball upon impact, or swallowed the ball like a grape. As soon as the runner and catcher made contact, the runner would be out. Under this rule, initiating brutal contact would benefit neither the catcher nor the runner . . . it would just be stupid. Basically, the rule removes any incentive to make contact and addresses the simple fact that baseball players value runs over bodily safety, rendering their caveman sensibilities moot and preserving their tiny, run-loving brains. You’re welcome.
8. Fix the Marlins jerseys and stadium. I mean, come on. This is baseball, not the circus. The circus is scary. We all need a safe place to eat our peanuts without the fear of exploding rainbow trout clowns eating our eyeballs out and molesting our skulls.
7. Stop granting batters time outs between pitches. If the pitcher is on the mound with the ball, he can pitch. Forget the pitch clock. Just let the pitcher pitch according to the rules.
6. Computerize the strike zone. It’s 2015. Let umpires make the calls from a digital readout or something, I don’t care. But we know exactly what a strike is and what a ball is. The human component is preserved in the fact that humans have worked their asses off to develop the technology to know if a pitch passes through the strike zone.
5. Expand instant replay challenge system to include orders from hot dog vendors. If you discover your brat is soggy, you should be able to return that shit.
4. Decide home-field advantage in the World Series based on regular season record. Please. Let every All Star Game end in a tie, I don’t care.
3. Eliminate the divisions. Just two 15-team leagues with an unbalanced schedule that emphasizes local rivalries. Top 8 teams in each league advance. All divisions do is divide us. We are one, people. Except for the American League. Those guys are chumps.
2. DH for everybody. Forget what I said about the AL, pitchers shouldn’t hit. Or if they do hit, you should be able to substitute a DH for anybody you want at any point in the game. I don’t care. But rules should be the same in each league. We all know it.
1. Require the Cubs to win the World Series. I mean COME ON.
It has been almost three years, nearly three hundred losses, and three drafts since the Cubs hired Theo Epstein to save the Cubs from their sins and rescue them from eternal damnation in their permanent subterranean dwelling in the Central Division’s fiery core. And if you think that metaphor is overblown and ridiculous, it was meant to match the expectations of Cubs fans, myself included. Yes, it’s been three years. Three. Long. Years. But the rise of Baez and Soler should remind us both how far the Cubs have come and how quickly they have gotten here.
Yes. I said quickly.
Going the better part of three seasons without seeing many seeds of minor league hope sprout into major league promise has not been the most enjoyable (or watchable) process, but it was so much fun to see Javier Baez make his major league debut a few short weeks ago. Watching him hit two home runs in his third game may have seemed like a once-in-a-generation phenomenon, but it wasn’t even a once-in-a-month phenomenon. Because last night, we saw this.
After his two-homer night in game number three, Soler has eclipsed (SWIDT?) Baez on the hope-o-meter, mostly because he’s on pace to hit eight zillion home runs while striking out three and a half times on his way to seventeen World Series championships. Never mind the fact that the Cubs are going to lose 90 games for the fourth year in a row, this team is going places.
But where is this team? I think we know. I think we remember being here.
When Soler blasted his second Cardinal-killing shot to suburban St. Louis, driving in Baez, the hairs stood up on the back of our collective neck in the same way they did when Kerry Wood struck out the thirteenth or fourteenth Astro back in early May of 1998. (I can hear Ron Santo, somewhere in the ivy-covered portion of heaven, saying, “If he keeps hitting like this, we might BE in the World Series!”) And this parade of power-hitting prospects, with Kris Bryant and Albert Almora still waiting to debut with homers in their first games, brings us to reminisce about the days when Wood, Mark Prior, Carlos Zambrano, and Matt Clement accompanied Greg Maddux on the pitching line of the Cubs Hope Railway.
Those were good times that never led any closer to the promised land than five outs away. The Cubs have never been back. They aren’t in championship-contending territory just yet, but the Cubs are in better shape heading into 2015 than they were before the 2003 season. So this? This right here? The Cubs are in the best position we could have hoped for, really.
Why? Because Theo and the Superfriends are smart. Because these prospects are really good. Because the Cubs lost so very much for so very long, and the front office has capitalized on it in the draft. And before you complain about how long it took, keep in mind that the guy we all freaked out about seeing hack his way through air and baseballs was Jim Hendry’s last first-round pick.
That’s the wake-up call when it comes to the timeline the Epstein regime is on. Baez is a Hendry pick. Soler is an Epstein pick-up off the Cuban market. This rebuild we all knew was coming is just about from scratch, and for what it is? It has been amazingly fast.
So, we have reason to be excited, Cubs fans. Great things are coming (in theory). The excitement is here. The opportunity to assemble a really pretty good team is now (er, this offseason). But we don’t and never really had reason to be impatient. It takes years to develop young talent into anything resembling a productive system. But Epstein and company has done it. And holy crap, it’s fun to watch.
It’s funny. I deleted a post I was writing this week about appreciating the moment, appreciating what we have right now. It was about Javier Baez, the Cubs as they are, and life. Too preachy, too obvious, too blah-blah-blah. So, deleted.
Obviously Robin Williams taking his own life has very little to do with Cubs baseball or even baseball at all, but there is this scene from Good Will Hunting that says almost exactly what I wanted to say.
If you’ve seen it, you know it’s Robin Williams’ character discussing how he missed GAME 6 to “see about a girl.” No regrets. The message rings achingly true for me when I think about all the things we miss in life. I miss Cubs games, opting instead to follow them sporadically on GameDay (yes, I now watch baseball on a spreadsheet, essentially). I miss out on the Twitter chatter. But I don’t regret it. Other people miss out on church or weddings or time with their kids or entire weeks of work, opting instead to attend Cubs games/tweet like mad/pretend to be Jim Belushi . . . whatever it is.
Learning that one of America’s favorite people ended his own life makes the best of us wonder how any of us make it through, but I tell you, it makes me dwell on the heart of the message I deleted when I erased that post (entitled “You don’t know what you got ’til it’s going, going, gone”), which was this: appreciate this moment. Enjoy right now. Learn to love the Cubs in the rebuilding process, Baez in the learning process, and life in whatever sucks-at-the-moment state it may be in. Enjoy it. Do what you love. Appreciate what and who you love.
I’ll finish the facepalm with one tiny little thought about baseball in general. There’s an awful lot of talk about how the game needs to speed up, how football is America’s new pastime, and how baseball as a spectator sport is dying. I disagree. Baseball is what it always has been great at being: the best vehicle for enjoying the moment I’ve ever known. You watch a baseball with friends, family, strangers, and you actually get to enjoy life and the game. Baseball gives us the one thing we never seem to get anymore: pause. You can watch baseball and talk. You can watch baseball and feel. You can watch baseball and laugh, cry, daydream, whatever, and still not miss a thing. Try having a meaningful conversation during a football game . . . even a meaningful conversation about football, and watch the levels of unspoken perturbed discomfort blanch the faces of everyone in the room. Baseball gives us the chance to enjoy the moment for what it is, allowing for a bit of hope for what the next moment might be. So the next time you find yourself bemoaning how bad the Cubs are or telling yourself you just can’t take the pain of life without a World Series victory, tell yourself to shut up and enjoy the game. Because really. It’s good to enjoy the game, however far off the dynastic horizon might seem.
I don’t regret missing so much baseball, but I’d regret watching the games and failing to appreciate the beauty in being able to do so. Don’t let that happen to you.
Anyway. It really sucks that Robin Williams is dead. I will miss him. But I’ll always remember him fondly and gratefully for reminding me that life is hilarious, enjoyable, and worth fighting for. With just that hint of a reminder that sometimes it’s too much. May we all find the grace to carry on.
The last time I posted here, the dinosaurs roamed the earththe Cubs were still in the hunt for the NL pennant I swore I didn’t care about the 2014 Cubs. I said there would be no reason to watch the 2014 Cubs. I pretty much made it clear I wouldn’t so much as accidentally watch 10 seconds of the 2014 Chicago Cubs baseball season. But I’m an idiot, so here I am following along whenever I possibly can. Here are ten reasons why:
10. I’m an idiot. I mean, seriously. This team isn’t good. Before you go misinterpreting this as a “Hey, the Cubs might actually make the playoffs” post, don’t. I know. I’m an idiot. Who maybe thinks this team could make the playoffs, but I’M NOT SAYING THAT. I’m not watching because I think they’ll win.
9. Starlin Castro. Again, don’t misconstrue this as a prediction of awesomeness based on his recent success. I don’t think Starlin is going to have an All-Star-caliber year . . . unless he just gets the obligatory Cubs slot on the National League roster. He very well may suck rocks the rest of the year. But I’m very much entertained by even his rock-sucking abilities. Keep in mind, my favorite Cub of all time is Shawon Dunston. I don’t think he’s the best Cubs player of all time, I just loved watching him play. So . . . yeah. Starlin is fun to watch, even when he sucks. I like watching his highlights. I like watching him swing. I like hearing Pat and Ron (God bless that phrase and the ability to say it again) describe the accounts of his efforts. I even like watching him on gameday, it really doesn’t matter. That’s just me. Also, he’s going to win the NL MVP, BUT I’M NOT SAYING THAT.
8. EMILIO! Okay, this one is a little bit more of a “Hey, this guy might be good” point, but not entirely. Obviously Emilio Bonifacio isn’t going to hit .500 all year. But I love that he has at least shown that, despite his injury plagued past, he’s still speedy. His brand of speedy is still fun. And he obviously doesn’t completely suck, either. He sucks more than he’s shown, but not nearly as bad as I feared when the Cubs signed him 45 minutes ago.
7. Mike Olt. I didn’t have high hopes for Mike Olt when the Cubs acquired him, and I still don’t, but I have high maybes for Mike Olt. That’s the beauty of the trade: it brought only the slightest of what-if expectations, which means it is actually kind of fun to watch and see if he exceeds those expectations. Well, he’s in the majors and not completely making me want to stab my eyes out, so . . . expectations exceeded! Also, he’s going to be the rookie of the year, probably, but I’M NOT SAYING THAT. I’m such an idiot.
6. The starting pitching. The bullpen is almost certainly going to make the late innings unwatchable, but the first two thirds of most games might be worth tuning in to. The offense is bad enough to put the Cubs on the losing end of a lot of close games, but at least the starters will put the Cubs in position to lose those close games. That’s something to hang your hat on, right? No? Ok, but it’s still a reason to check gameday in the early goings.
5. Anthony Rizzo. Say what you want about the prospects being the only reason to follow the Cubs franchise, but Anthony Rizzo is still a prospect worth watching. They are very different players, but in terms of career trajectory, Rizzo bears a pretty strong resemblance to former hope-dasher Corey Patterson, who at the same point in his stint with the Cubs was still making us believe the future was bright . . . in between stretches of severe frustration. While I’m not hitching my wagon to Rizzo’s star, I also don’t think the fate of the Cubs in the years that follow rises and falls with Anthony Rizzo. He isn’t their only hope. He, unlike Patterson before him, is one rough diamond in a farm system encrusted with other rough diamonds. So watching Rizzo to see if he turns out to be pretty okay is very much worth it to me.
4. Because the question isn’t “What if they win it all?” it’s “What if they’re reasonably close in July?” So far, all we’ve seen from Theo and Jed is their ability to draft, develop players, unload salary, pick up potentially good cast-offs from the MLB scrap heap in the offseason, and deal veterans for prospects. We haven’t yet seen how the Superfriends handle a scenario in which the team isn’t completely out of contention at the trade deadline. No, I don’t think the Cubs are good enough to contend, but I do think they’re good enough to come close, through some fluke of dumb luck and statistical anomaly, to flirt with the outskirts of contention in July. So, I’m watching to see what happens if maybe, just maybe, the front office gets a chance to be major-league buyers instead of minor-league buyers. (There are no sellers. Everyone is buying, they’re just not shopping for the same seasons.)
3. Rick Renteria. I don’t know, he seems like he’s not a complete idiot. I’d like to get to know him as a manager, just in case he sticks around until the team is really good.
2. The prospects who aren’t here yet. You know who they are. Watching this team and envisioning how the new guys might fit in? It’s not the worst thing in the world.
1. Hell, it’s baseball. It might not be great or even good, but it’s still baseball. So here I am, watching like an idiot, face in palm.
I like the move, but that's me. I like the thought of appealing to kids because they're too young to know any better than to cheer for the Cubs.
The rest of us have no excuse.
The Cubs have no excuse not to spend more money than what they're spending.
If the front office could improve the team by one win by overspending, they should do it. As many wins as possible. I think that's really the general idea in competitive sports.
Or not.
I don't really care about the 2014 Cubs.
The 2015 Cubs might be interesting.
If Cubs seasons were characters on Lost, 2013 and 2014 would be Nikki and Paulo.
We shouldn't be watching the Cubs right now. Going to a Cubs game right now is like showing up to a concert at the time on the ticket. It's going to be awhile before the real show starts.
Maybe 3 years.
But if you like animated bears, and I do, now is a great time to have your kids start watching.
Next season might turn out to be the Justin Timberlake episode of SNL, but this year is . . . not JT.
I'm intent not to list players on the current roster in this post. I don't have time to Google that shit.
Ok. There's dog poop on the floor. I gotta go.
EDIT: One last less random observation, from the comments.
The fact is, anything the Cubs did apart from improving the team was going to make everyone angry because the team sucks so profoundly and because the fans are paying for a decent team while the owners pay for a crappy one.
All the people in charge of non-baseball activities still have to do their jobs, and this isn’t a bad move at all. It’s actually a good one, possibly great. And the negative reaction? It’s so huge that it does much more to help the effort than to hurt it. People are talking about it. Everyone’s aware of it. The story is taking press away from the NFL conference championships for the love of bear balls.
Who cares if it’s bad press? The Cubs are bad. The enemy of the Cubs business model isn’t angry fans, it’s apathetic fans (me).
That said, I think people should vent their anger about it. I love Tim’s rant about it. I don’t share the anger, but I don’t blame anyone for being angry. But objectively, I think that anger is a sign that the Cubs are doing just enough to stoke the fires of our emotions, and emotion is what keeps us coming back when our senses tell us to do otherwise.
