Report from Miller Park
Made the roadie with the family out to the House that Bud Selig built on Sunday. It was quite a pleasant time, if hotter than all get out.
The day started inauspiciously, as Mark Prior was scratched from and Glendon Rusch flung into the fray. Oh, the howls from both sides of the field – Cub Fan howling at the thought of having paid to watch Rusch suck again, and Brewer Fan howling with laughter at the thought of an easy victory.
Well, one thing led to another. Brewer Fan stopped laughing in the fourth inning, when some very un-Cublike baseball (featuring a home run, walk, and suicide squeeze) staked the good guys to a 4-2 lead. After Doug Davis got lit up for another three in the sixth, the only sound coming from Brewer Fan was the squeal of their tires as the sped from the Miller Field car park, not even hanging around for the customary binge drinking…errrr...post-game tailgate.
By that time, the only question was whether or not the game could officially be referred to as a “laffer” (“with two ‘f’s,’” as Bob Uecker once said…or will say…making sense of the space-time continuum makes my nose bleed). Fortunately, Danny Kolb sent his first pitch to the backstop, sending Angel Pagan scampering home with our 11th run of the day. At that point, the howls of laughter from me (and all the other Cub Fans in attendance) reached 11 as well.
So we head into the All-Star break taking three in a row from the Brewhas. It doesn’t mean a whole lot in the grand scheme of things, I guess. But it’s better than losing three games in a row.
Of course, the hopelessly biased Chicago Tribune has to focus on the dark cloud instead of the silver lining. So very little is said about the wins, while a great deal of newsprint is spent on the Dusty Death Watch. The Death Watch would be worth reporting, if only there was something to report. Every day the reporters ask Baker and Jim Hendry the same questions. And every day they have the same answers.
Do you think Paul Sullivan heads to the ballpark and thinks to himself, “I know I’ve asked Hendry every day since May if he’s gonna fire Baker. But I just know he’ll say yes if I ask him again today!”
One question Sully, his press gaggle cohorts, and the bloggers who are in full Red Queen mode rarely ask is “Where do the Cubs go once Baker gets the axe?”
It’s pretty easy at this point to call for a managerial change. The reasons I offer are Baker’s poor handling of his bullpen and his ham-fisted managing of lineup resources. But is there anyone else out there we can bring in to make things better right now?
Don’t get me wrong – I think it’s time for a change. But to make some random change right now for the sake of making a change would be counter-productive. Hendry has said he’s going to be “evaluating” the team in the near future. Perhaps he’ll “evaluate” where he has gone wrong the last two years, and alter his plans accordingly.
The day started inauspiciously, as Mark Prior was scratched from and Glendon Rusch flung into the fray. Oh, the howls from both sides of the field – Cub Fan howling at the thought of having paid to watch Rusch suck again, and Brewer Fan howling with laughter at the thought of an easy victory.
Well, one thing led to another. Brewer Fan stopped laughing in the fourth inning, when some very un-Cublike baseball (featuring a home run, walk, and suicide squeeze) staked the good guys to a 4-2 lead. After Doug Davis got lit up for another three in the sixth, the only sound coming from Brewer Fan was the squeal of their tires as the sped from the Miller Field car park, not even hanging around for the customary binge drinking…errrr...post-game tailgate.
By that time, the only question was whether or not the game could officially be referred to as a “laffer” (“with two ‘f’s,’” as Bob Uecker once said…or will say…making sense of the space-time continuum makes my nose bleed). Fortunately, Danny Kolb sent his first pitch to the backstop, sending Angel Pagan scampering home with our 11th run of the day. At that point, the howls of laughter from me (and all the other Cub Fans in attendance) reached 11 as well.
So we head into the All-Star break taking three in a row from the Brewhas. It doesn’t mean a whole lot in the grand scheme of things, I guess. But it’s better than losing three games in a row.
Of course, the hopelessly biased Chicago Tribune has to focus on the dark cloud instead of the silver lining. So very little is said about the wins, while a great deal of newsprint is spent on the Dusty Death Watch. The Death Watch would be worth reporting, if only there was something to report. Every day the reporters ask Baker and Jim Hendry the same questions. And every day they have the same answers.
Do you think Paul Sullivan heads to the ballpark and thinks to himself, “I know I’ve asked Hendry every day since May if he’s gonna fire Baker. But I just know he’ll say yes if I ask him again today!”
One question Sully, his press gaggle cohorts, and the bloggers who are in full Red Queen mode rarely ask is “Where do the Cubs go once Baker gets the axe?”
It’s pretty easy at this point to call for a managerial change. The reasons I offer are Baker’s poor handling of his bullpen and his ham-fisted managing of lineup resources. But is there anyone else out there we can bring in to make things better right now?
Don’t get me wrong – I think it’s time for a change. But to make some random change right now for the sake of making a change would be counter-productive. Hendry has said he’s going to be “evaluating” the team in the near future. Perhaps he’ll “evaluate” where he has gone wrong the last two years, and alter his plans accordingly.
posted by Bob at
6:56 PM
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