We all know the Cubs don’t have the most sparkling reputation. I’ve spent the better part of my internet life mocking the Cubs for both epic failures on the field and hilarious escapades off the field. I won’t even bother listing all the ways the Cubs have provided entertainment of an embarrassing nature and just say that if one was to list the foibles of even the last five years, you would need two separate line items just to cover issues involving pee.
So there has been PLENTY to laugh at.
Which is why it pisses me off when people have to invent things to make fun of the Cubs.
Enter the Pontiac Daily Leader and enterprising reporter, Paul Westermeyer, who wrote an article about some bricks from outside Wrigley that had turned up… wait for it… in the garbage. Oh boy. It’s never good when people go dumpster diving and find stuff the Cubs have discarded. Take it away, Paul:
Personalized pavers that once lined Clark and Addison streets near Wrigley Field, home of Chicago Cubs, have been found around Pontiac, purportedly coming from the nearby landfill. The bricks had been billed as “permanent fixtures” by the Cubs organization when they began selling them in 2006.
OH NO! WILL THE CUBS NEVER LEARN?!! HOW EMBARASSING!!
Apparently in his vast research of the article, Westermeyer relied on some info from the Huffington Post from almost a year ago:
However, one of the criticisms of the renovations concerned a lack of transparency regarding the fate of the pavers. Miles Zaremski, a blogger for the Huffington Post’s Chicago web edition, questioned the Cubs in June 2014 and their future plans for renovation and how that would impact the personalized pavers fans purchased.
“This writer phoned the front office on two separate occasions and asked the question, what does the Ricketts family plan on doing with those brick pavers as part of the renovation plans?” Zaremski wrote. “The answer I received both times was the same: WE DON’T KNOW.
WELL, HOW DARE THE CUBS NOT HAVE AN ANSWER TO A QUESTION ABOUT A PROCESS THAT WOULDN’T BE RELEVANT FOR FOUR MONTHS AFTER THE QUESTION WAS ASKED?!
Seriously? This guy is finding sinister motives based off a blogger asking a question four months before the answer was relevant? I’ve been watching this renovation for roughly a billion years now and the one thing I’ve learned is that a whole lot of shit can change in four months. I doubt they spent much time thinking about the paver bricks in June of 2014, but Paul Westermeyer isn’t going to let something like a tiny bit of common sense ruin a perfectly good and potentially hilarious narrative.
To his credit, he keeps digging and actually quotes the Cubs’ Julian Green from a March press conference where he read a number of prepared statements, including this bit about the pavers:
“Our plan is to replace and relocate all personalized pavers following the 2015 season. We anticipate the new pavers will be in place by Opening Day 2016. The original pavers will not be available for distribution and we will communicate specific locations once the design lays are finalized with those personalized pavers.”
This didn’t get a ton of attention locally because the Chicago guys were too busy getting steamed about Julian being all attitudey while addressing unfounded rumors that there was no way Wrigley would be able to host a baseball game on Opening Day. So while this statement got lost initially in that noise, Westermeyer found it and it should have established that the pavers were being replaced because that’s what is explicitly stated in the first sentence of Julian’s statement.
But Westermeyer wasn’t going to let the Cubs off the hook so easily. He had a primary source. He had spoken to a person who was an owner of one of the pavers:
[Suzanne] Terrell recalled having received a letter from the Cubs organization about the replacement of the pavers, yet also recalled that the letter had stated that the original pavers would be kept in storage. She no longer possessed the letter and could not cite it verbatim, however.
So his big source basically knew she had received a letter and she kind of remembered the gist of it, maybe. Good source, Paul.
So now we have a half-baked story in a local newspaper, so who gives a damn?
Enter Deadspin.
How Deadspin got ahold of this obscure article is anyone’s guess, probably a random e-mail from some Nick Vlahos-type that just enjoys shitting on the Cubs. I don’t know and I don’t care. But they did and they ran a post called, “Nick, The Cubs Threw Out Your Grandma’s Personalized Brick,” tagged it LOLCUBS, and included this fun picture from the original post:
If possible, the Deadspin writer, Samer Kalaf, actually did less research or analysis about this than Westermeyer did and just decided to ratchet up the narrative with his opening paragraph:
Nick, my man, we have some bad news. Remember when your sweet grandma bought a commemorative brick to be placed outside of Wrigley Field, one that would stand as a testament to her love for you and the Cubbies forever? Well, the Cubs just made a sucker out of your sweet grandma, because they threw that brick in the garbage.
Fuck you, Deadspin.
You guys pride yourselves on getting at information that traditional journalists can’t get, but then you run this shit with zero follow-up.
I have news for you guys. I have zero credibility as a journalist. My list of “sources” is laughable. I break no news and I don’t even try to pretend that I do like some bloggers out there. *cough* YELLON! *cough*
Yet I reached out to the Cubs and they provided me the letter they sent the people who bought the bricks. It really wasn’t that hard. Shockingly, some of the language contained in it is almost exactly what was given the press in that March presser (emphasis is mine):
Dear <paver owner>,
Thank you for your continued support of the Chicago Cubs. As a follow up to the letter you received in October, we would like to provide you with an update on the status of your Wrigley Field personalized paver.
As you know, work continues in and around the ballpark to restore and expand the Friendly Confines. Due to ongoing construction, your paver was removed and will not be accessible during the 2015 season.
While working with our design team, it was determined the best long-term location for the pavers is outside the Budweiser Bleachers on Sheffield and Waveland avenues. Our plan is to replace and relocate all the personalized pavers following the 2015 season. We anticipate the new pavers will be in place by Opening Day 2016. Original pavers will not be available for distribution. We will communicate specific locations once design layouts are finalized.
If you have any questions, please contact Cubs Fan Services at 773-388-8270.
We appreciate your continued support and patience as we work to restore and expand Wrigley Field to ensure it remains a friendly, enjoyable place to watch a Cubs game for years to come.
So I’m not sure where Suzie got the idea that the Cubs mentioned something about storage, but whatever. This isn’t on her. This is on the dipshit that ran with her half-memory as fact and then the clickbait assholes just waiting to pile on an easy target.
Also, the Cubs indicated to me that everyone who bought a paver originally received a brick they could keep as well. So there isn’t even a story about why the original pavers were disposed of. They provided a keeper version for the buyers already so the old broken bricks are just a bunch of old broken bricks. HOW COULD OLD BROKEN BRICKS END UP IN A LANDFILL?!!
It seems to me and literally anyone with two brain cells to rub together that the Cubs were pretty up front and clear about the plan that pavers outside the park would be replaced and unavailable for distribution. I’d guess that even people who may be confused about who owns the Cubs could get that straight.
It’s not as funny a story, but it’s a more accurate one.
LOLPONTIACDAILYLEADER
LOLDEADSPIN