Headline News

I spend an inordinate amount of time parsing the texts offered by our baseball press corps. And although they deserve every minute, I must point out that sometimes the copy editors are more to blame than the writers.

The copy eds are the folks who write the headlines you see in the paper. Like the one I saw in my Saturday Tribune:

St. Louis article riles up Cubs

Apparently, the Post-Dispatch ran an allegedly wacky bit about how awful the Cubs are. Well, the last thing we want is for our heroes to get riled up. How bent out of shape are they, Sully?

“I actually brought the paper in,” starter Rich Hill said. “It's kind of like a slap in the face. It depends on how you want to take it. It's just something written on paper. It's just talk.

“What can you do? You have to change [the perception] on the field.”

Yow! Settle down, Rich – don’t go flying off the handle like that.

Well, Lou’s gotta be good for a real tantrum. I mean, he’s always throwing bases and screaming at the top of his lungs and stuff. What do you say, Lou?

“We just need to play good baseball,” Piniella replied. “I don't know anything about culture. If you play good baseball, you forget culture. If you play good baseball you're going to win games, and all we need to do is play good baseball.

“Culture? I saw that [article]. I think it's funny, but I don't buy into any of that junk.”

Oh, snap! Head for the storm cellar, ‘cause he’s gonna blow! What with all that talk about playing good ball…and how…funny…it was…and stuff…uuhhhhh…

So there you have it. Sully quotes two Cubs, both of whom say that if the team wins crap like that goes away.

From that, the eds at the Tower make the bold claim the Cubs are “riled up.” Just another triumph from a major metropolitan daily…

The guy who was most bent about it was the Super Genius. He said he wouldn’t talk to the Post-Dispatch reporters this weekend (ESPN has some video of him going off on a reporter), and leveled this classic blast:

That cheap shot against the Cubs, I don't want to be a part of it, and I want them, I want everybody to know that the St. Louis Cardinals and their manager have an absolute disregard for that.

Instead of ginning up pleasing headlines, the Trib eds should thank their lucky stars the Super Genius doesn’t boycott every paper that takes cheap shots against the Cubs. He’d never talk to Sully again. Or any other news org, for that matter…