Jim & Bob's Palatial Baseball Blog

This Is Getting Ridiculous

2010-03-09T19:22:00.000-06:00

OK, so it's Monday evening. I turn on the television machine to see if there is anything that will serve as appropriate background noise while I go about my tasks.

I scroll down the programming guide and the listing for the MLB Network informs me that the Brewers/Mariners game is on. Now, the game was played that afternoon (I know because I saw the final score on the Yahoo MLB page), but who cares? It's baseball, and I'll watch it. God knows I've watched older games.

So I turn my DirecTV crank to channel 213 and get ready for some baseball. Alas, it was not to be.

Instead of a pleasurable, meaningless spring training game, I saw nothing but a blank screen -- and an on-screen message telling me that "This program is blacked out in your area."

Really, Major League Baseball? As if the blackout restrictiosn aren't goofy enough -- now you're blacking out Brewers games that have already been played?

Perhaps Baron Budhausen is scared that we'll all stay home and watch the tape delayed game instead of hitching a lift from this guy for the roadie to Arizona:

At least Zito found a target he couldn't miss

2010-03-04T18:41:00.003-06:00

I have to give credit to the Giants. While some of us might forget a silly incident from six months ago, Barry Zito can't let go. The Giants took offense to a victory celebration by Brewers players following a game winning homer by Prince Fielder in a September game last year. For revenge, Zito drilled Fielder in his first at bat today. In a spring training game. Yes, that is kind of chickenshit.

One other thing I noticed watching the replay. The vegetable truck sure made a lot of stops at the Fielder household this winter. He looks like he ate half of Central California. Is lard a vegetable now?

Tragedy Plus Time Equals Comedy

2010-02-27T10:26:00.000-06:00

Dr. Phil isn't spending all time playing "what if" games about Curtis Granderson. He's also hard at work rehabilitating Dusty Baker's reputation:

With Dusty Baker in charge of the 2003 Cubs, Kerry Wood led the majors in pitches and Mark Prior led in pitches per start. Prior did this despite only turning 23 that September. Some are now questioning whether Baker retard the development of Cuban phenom Aroldis Chapman. But that question can only be answered with another question -- how good is the Cincinnati bullpen? The Cubs' bullpen was brutal in '03, as was shown clearly post-Bartman. Baker's burning desire to win demands a deep bullpen.

This is hilarious on so many levels. Those of us who were (a) sentient and (2) paying attention to the coverage of your 2003 and 2004 Chicago Cubs would have noticed many members of the Chicago media pimping these talking points about Baker as the absolute, honest-to-God truth:

Dusty ruined the careers of Wood and Prior by running them into the ground.
Dusty cannot manage a bullpen. If he did, the bullpen wouldn't suck so much.
Dusty's desire to be liked by his players trumps everything else. If he were serious about winning, he'd crack back on them and make them stop saying mean things about Steve Stone and Sully.

Well, that was a lifetime ago, wasn't it? Dr. Phil has spent most of the spring talking about Dusty and what a great shot he has of winning the Central this year.

The scripts about wristbands, toothpicks, and Dusty's prediliction to use the word "dude" in casual conversation are all forgotten in the stampede to talk about D-Bake's "burning desire to win."

I used to think it was only Cubs players who became superstars the moment they moved to another team. (Check your archives for the Trib's coverage of Eric Hinske, Todd Wellemyer, Sergio Mitre, and Jake Fox. Or, more recently, Milton Bradley.)

Apparently, the leaving-the-Cubs magic also rubs off on managers. Perhaps if the Nationals get off to a decent start, Dr. Phil will drop his criticisms of Jim Riggelman down the memory hole too.

And I Want a Pony, Too!

2010-02-27T10:10:00.000-06:00

Dr. Phil bemoans the fact that the Tigers traded center fielder Curtis Granderson to the Yankees, not the Cubs.

Impressively, Dr. Phil behaves as a semi-responsible journamalist by acknowledging that perhaps Hendry couldn't pull off the deal because the Cubs don't have players the Tigers wanted. Will wonders ever cease?

How different would life have been if he had wound up playing for his hometown team?

Granderson pondered that question for a long time this offseason. It could have been a beautiful marriage — in my opinion, one of the best things that might have happened to the Cubs both because of his skill set as a power-speed hitter and plus fielding and his off-the-charts intangibles.

Cubs general manager Jim Hendry worked to make that happen but couldn't force an unnatural fit with the Tigers, who were looking for parts that weren't in the Cubs' inventory. He settled for signing the right-handed-hitting Marlon Byrd instead, a move born of need, not inspiration.

It was Granderson he really wanted.

"Jim did want to get a deal done,'' Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski said. "But if we were going to trade Curtis and [starter] Edwin Jackson, we had to get back players who could help in the major leagues now. The Cubs had players we liked but they weren't the kind that were ready, and that was the kind we had to have.''

That's better than Dr. Phil has done in the past. In times past, Dr. Phil would have been happy to brush off his "Boy, that Hendry is an idiot for not making this trade" script and called it a day.

Other ways life would be different, if only Hendry could pull off a trade or two:

DNA technology could clone Babe Ruth, Walter Johnson, and Honus Wagner. Just think how awesome the Cubs would be with those three guys!
We could trade a few prospects to the guys and Ben and Jerrys in exchange for magical chocolate and peanut butter ice cream, the kind that you can eat as much as you wanted without getting fat. Good for me personally, and good to help Carlos Silva from becoming the Cubs' version of Bobby Jenks.
Ponies for everyone! Woooo!

One other thing...Dr. Phil. mentions Granderson's "hometown team." As I've been reminded several bajillion times, there are two teams in Chicago. Would trading for Granderson be "one of the better things" to happen to the White Sox?

Whaddya say, Dr. Phil?

In Alex Rios, Juan Pierre and a rejuventated [Andruw] Jones, [Ozzie] Guillen would have himself three center fielders -- four if you count Mark Kotsay, a regular there as recently as 2008 for the Braves.

Certainly no need for a "power-speed hitter" with "plus fielding and off-the-charts intangibles" when you've got that quartet of center field excellence.

He Sure Puts the "Twit" in "Twitter"

2010-02-25T20:39:00.000-06:00

It's an obvious joke. But if I didn't make it, someone would.

One thing's for certain -- Guillen's Twitter feed can't be any more vacuous and pointless than Sully's or Dr. Phil's.

Or -- let's face it -- any other Twitter feed. Except for Jane's. And Kathy's. Chicks who rock are always cool. Even when doing lame things. Like Twitter.

It's Especially Tricky the Way It Works

2010-02-25T20:28:00.000-06:00

Time for another round of that famed Sesame Street game "One of These Things Is Not Like the Others!"

Here's the Chicago Tribune's Mark Gonzalez:

It was more than just a 3.71 ERA that White Sox closer Bobby Jenks needed to trim.

For Jenks, the bigger transformation involved his diet habits in an effort to change his daily life and enhance his baseball longevity.

"Honestly, it was a lot of everything," the 6-foot-4 Jenks said of the alterations he made to drop his weight to 275 pounds. "Not drinking helps. But really it was a lifestyle choice I wanted to make — not just for myself but for my family.

Really, the drinking part was hard. But once you did it, it was easy."

[snip]
The Sox's front office has been delighted at the way Jenks, 29, has responded. Four springs ago, following his breakout rookie season, Jenks reported to camp noticeably overweight and had to spend extra time with conditioning director Allen Thomas.

"In the past we've had to do two things — we had to get him in shape and his arm in shape," pitching coach Don Cooper said. "Right now it's just the arm because his body is in shape. It's great to see Bobby taking more responsibility and control of his career and life."

Jenks pitched through the 2005 postseason with a sore hip but managed to stay healthy until 2008, when he experienced discomfort behind his left shoulder blade. Last year he was sidelined because of kidney stones and missed the final 10 games because of a right calf strain.

As a result, Jenks embarked on measures to strengthen the shoulders, back and legs. He has also cut down on non-healthy food.

"Everyone knows not to eat certain things that aren't good for you, and the hard part is actually going to do it," Jenks said.

Good for Jenks. As a guy who has made similar changes to his lifestyle, I appreciate how difficult it can be. But it's worth it.

Dr. Phil has another heart-warming story of a guy who's worked himself into shape:

Consider the highly motivated Andruw Jones. He arrived at the White Sox camp early and sassy, at one point calling himself the best center fielder on the property.

That seems unlikely, as Jones was only moderately adequate in the outfield for Texas last season. But the man has won 10 Gold Gloves and came to Glendale in good shape (minus the spare tire he packed in the last season or two of his 12-year stay in Atlanta). He's expected to get most of his playing time as part of a DH platoon, but if he could play well in the outfield he will give Ozzie Guillen a chance to use Carlos Quentin as the DH, lessening the chance he will have a recurrence of plantar fasciitis.

Ooohhhh...sassy! I like it!

And finally, it's our old buddy Sully, talkin' about the Cub's formerly pudgy catcher. These are the first two paragraphs of his story:

After losing 40 pounds during the offseason, Geovany Soto looks like an air-brushed impression of his old self.

But losing weight means being under suspicion in the modern age. Soto laughed Tuesday when asked about talk show speculation he had been using performance-enhancing drugs.

"To me, (the rumors are) kind of ridiculous," Soto said. "I wasn't strong. I was just fat."

Sully shows superb self-restraint -- he waited almost two dozen words before he brought up the "speculation" that Geo's been doping!

To sum up: the first thing we hear about Jenks is how he did "a lot of everything" to drop down to a sub-Fielder weight. The first thing we hear about Jones is how he's "highly motivated."

And the first thing we hear about Soto is he's "air-brushed" (i.e., fake) and "under suspicion" for juicing.

So...which thing is not like the others? The Soto piece, of course!

It's just another example of that damnable Tribune bias in favor of the Cubs.

You'll Put Your Eye Out

2010-02-24T21:57:00.002-06:00

This is mean, but funny. Of course some yahoo from Assbackwards, Arkansas is going to be the one to defend keeping a gun in his locker. Come on, what could possibly go wrong with something so innocent as keeping a firearm in an area filled with a group of intense professional athletes?

Now carrying a loaded weiner, that's dangerous.

You Said "Weiner"

2010-02-23T20:26:00.003-06:00

As if they don't have enough trouble on the field, the Kansas City Royals now have problems with their mascot. Seriously, how hopeless do you have to be as a franchise to have this kind of problem?

Perhaps this can be considered as a public service. Perhaps Sluggerrr (damn, that is one stupid name) was merely trying to ensure that Coomer would no longer have to watch Jose Guillen play right field, or Willie Bloomquist play anywhere. I would strongly recommend this defense to Sluggerrr's counsel.

Remember, this is a franchise that actually traded for Yuniesky Betancourt last year. Think about that. The Royals actually looked at all of their options and decided to offer two warm bodies to a team which was about to dump this guy into Puget Sound. And do you know what's really sad about this? Betancourt really IS the best option they have at shortstop right now. This is like realizing that James Inhofe is your best option for climate science.

Poor Royals fan. Another year of watching the Glass House Gang make a mockery of major league baseball.

Good news for White Sox fans

2010-02-20T19:33:00.003-06:00

Johnny Damon signs with the Tigers. Thus sparing us the sight of Damon side-by-side with Juan Pierre in the outfield.

What I Learned Tonight

2010-02-17T22:06:00.001-06:00

Taking part in an auction draft (even a practice one) and re-stringing a catchers mitt at the same time is really really hard. Don't try it.

Don't Quit Your Day Job

2010-02-16T20:57:00.003-06:00

This is what happens when a franchise is both bad and unlucky. Bergesen, who already has had the misfortune of missing half of his rookie season after taking a line drive off of the shin, is now officially a member of the strange injuries Hall of Fame.

A Wang and a Prayer

2010-02-16T20:36:00.003-06:00

I suppose that this isn't the worst gamble in the world, but I'm not sure if it's something that's going to help a terrible team like the ~~Expos~~ Nationals.

Now, in the Monopoly money world of major league baseball, $2 million is chump change . But Wang is a guy who desperately needs a great defense behind him to survive, and it's hard to imagine getting that from the Nationals. My guess would have been that he would have signed a minor league deal with a non-roster invite.

In Denial, or Just Ignorant?

2010-02-10T21:58:00.000-06:00

The headline on Ken Rosenthal's piece today asks a question I thought offered an obvious answer:

Why is Jermaine Dye looking for work?

I'll go out on a limb and sugest a few reasons. It may be the fact that he's 36 years old with a growing list of infirmities. Or perhaps because heis reportedly looking for both a starting gig and a salary somewhere in the neighborhood of where it's been recently ($11.5 million last year, according to ESPN). Or possibly his post-All-Star Break OPS of .590.

Or some combination of the above.

I laughed out loud at this bit:

Just last offseason, the Phillies signed left fielder Raul Ibanez — who was a year older than Dye is now and also a below-average defender — to a three-year, $31.5 million contract.

Dye said his offer from the Cubs was for less than one-tenth of that amount.

The Cubs proposed a one-year $3 million contract, Dye said, not the $3.3 million deal that they gave to another free-agent outfielder, Xavier Nady.

While Nady, 31, is five years younger than Dye, he played in only seven games last season before undergoing a second Tommy John surgery on his right elbow.

“No doubt, I’ve probably slowed down a little bit (defensively), but not enough to not be getting (attractive) offers,” Dye said.

“I’ve already expressed a willingness to play first base or left field if need be. I’ve taken groundballs at first base a couple of times a week the last five years in Chicago. That transition will be pretty easy.”

Is Dye going around whining to reporters that those mean ol' Cubs signed a (slightly) younger outfielder on the cheap instead of giving him a multi-year deal? Or is he bent because he would have jumped at the offer if Jim Hendry had ponied up another $300 K?

[Side note to Jermaine: it is exemplary of you to say you're ready to jump in at first base or left field. However, that may not be as strong a selling point to the Cubs as you think, since we've already got those two positions covered by guys that aren't going anywhere soon.]

I don't begrudge Dye's desire to get a few more years of baseball before he has to hang 'em up. But he's been around long enough to know the business side of the game doesn't leave a lot of room for sentiment.

2010-02-09T13:09:00.002-06:00

The Brewers are going to have a statue of Bud Selig displayed in front of Miller Park.

I hope that he will be posed with his hand reaching into a taxpayers pocket.

It's Inconcievable!

2010-01-27T14:32:00.002-06:00

This just in on MLB.com:

"Melvin Mora is among the remaining free agents still available."

Really? A 38 year old third baseman who slugged .358 last year is still available? Has anyone told Brian Sabean this? The Royals have lost the number of his agent? Someone get the Pirates on the line, now!

Chan Ho Park, Darin Erstad, and Mike Hampton are still unsigned as well. What is this world coming to?

A Firm Grasp of the Obvious

2010-01-24T06:39:00.000-06:00

Dave van Dyck has a firm grasp of the obvious:

[Sean] Marshall and [Tom] Gorzelanny are left-handed, as is [Ted] Lilly. Other than those three, the Cubs' rotation would be all right-handed with Carlos Zambrano, Ryan Dempster and Randy Wells.

To sum up: except for the lefties who may be in the rotation, the Cubs' rotation will be all right-handed.

Damn. I was hoping to see Carlos throw with his feet this year...

Time to Dust Off an Old Story

2010-01-17T10:50:00.001-06:00

Of course Cardinal Fan is going to forgive Mark McGwire. No surprise there.

But, as always seems to be the case when the media discusses McGwire, Sosa, steroids, et al, they bury the lede. According to the AP's Jim Salter:

It was a season [1998] that many said helped baseball finally recover from the damage caused by the 1994 labor dispute that forced cancellation of the World Series. Congress honored McGwire and Sosa. Interstate 70 through St. Louis was dubbed "Mark McGwire Highway."

Even then, there were whispers. McGwire admitted in 1998 that he used androstenedione, an over-the-counter muscle enhancer banned by the NFL, IOC and others. But it was his evasive testimony at the congressional hearing four years ago that seemed to sour many Cardinals fans. One of his questioners at the hearing, Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-Mo. and from St. Louis, said McGwire's name should be stripped from the highway signs.

The implication being that we all "knew" what was going on in '98. But all we got were whispers -- whispers that were whispered very softly so as not to offend anyone or cause people to think that Big Mac's heroic home run chase was anything short of heroic. Whispers no one took seriously until big scary Bonds tarnished the home run record.

We wrote about this years ago. And it seems like every so often I have to dust off that old chestnut and re-run it.

We may have "known" way back then that Mac and Sammy and others were 'roided up. Do we have the right to claim the moral high ground if we didn't say anything in real time?

One more note: A few members of the media have said that the reason they could not say anything in real time is because they had no solid proof for their assertions.

Take a cursory glance at the number of trumped-up charges and flat-out lies about the Clintons and Al Gore that the media gleefully distributed in the late '90s without a second thought about things like fact-checking. And then wonder why they were so squeamish about telling tales about steroids in baseball.

Holy Crap!

2010-01-14T20:46:00.000-06:00

This is post number 1,000 on our little cow-town blog. Who'd have thunk we'd be making that much interweb noise?

Not me, that's for sure. Especially over the last year or so.

Jason Kendall Wasn't Enough?

2010-01-14T17:16:00.004-06:00

Despite coming up with Zach Greinke, Billy Butler, and Alex Gordon, the Royals continue to be the stupidest organization in baseball. Well, maybe tied with the Nationals. And maybe the Mets.

Really, Baron?

2010-01-13T21:31:00.005-06:00

In the aftermath of Mark McGwire's non-shocking admission this week, Baron Budhausen had this to say:

The use of steroids and amphetamines amongst today’s players has greatly subsided and is virtually nonexistent, as our testing results have shown. The so-called steroid era — a reference that is resented by the many players who played in that era and never touched the substances — is clearly a thing of the past, and Mark’s admission today is another step in the right direction.

Really, Baron? The Steroid Era is a "thing of the past?"

I think the Baron needs to accept a bit of wisdom from William Faulkner (perhaps the greatest American writer from south of the Mason-Dixon Line): The past is never dead. It's not even past.

Part of the reason we're still having this discussion is because very few people -- owners, players, fans, and media -- were willing to talk about the prevelance of steroid and other PEDs in the late '80s and early '90s.

Oh, we're willing to kvetch about it now. But in real time, too many of us (and, yes, I'm including myself in that mix) were having too much fun to worry about it in real time.

We'll be talking about 'roids in 2020. The Baron is dumb if he thinks otherwise.

Welcome Back

2010-01-13T11:25:00.003-06:00

Greetings, loyal reader. Our little dog and pony show is back for our entertainment, and, we hope, for yours as well. As to our absence of the past year and a half: I'd apologize, but that would not be sincere. But we're not here to talk about the past.

No sirree, we're here to talk about the present. And the future. And the past, too, if we feel like it. About things like a future with Andre Dawson as a Hall of Famer. And Mark "Not Here to Talk About the Past" McGwire as a hitting coach. And Andruw Jones as the White Sox centerfielder. And of course, all the usual mockery of real honest to goodness professional baseball ~~writers~~stenographers like Phil Rogers and Rick Morrissey that you can handle.

And as usual, we stand behind our product 100%. So if you don't like what you see here, we offer you your money back, guaranteed. Because we're all about value here at the Palatial Baseball Blog.

Mike Downey Makes Me Laugh

2008-09-14T06:34:00.002-05:00

In a dark and mordant way, of course.

The highly estimable Trib columnist (and avowed White Sox Fan, for those of you who believe that sort of thing influences the coverage) used this weekend's washed-out games as an excuse to write another of his patently stupid pieces.

In a nutshell: Carlos Zambrano and Fukudome suck ass. Nick Swisher and Clayton Richard are the bees' knees.

Most amusing was this nugget o' joy. Don't you dare crack on Downey's boys:

Ozzie Guillen nevertheless has had his Sox in first place for more than 100 days. He continues to get criticized by people who seem to believe that being in first place for most of four or five months is easy as pie (and I don't mean Felix).

I even read a couple of days ago that the Sox are "unraveling." They are? When was that? The day they almost fell way down to second place?

It's a fair cop. But it also jogged something in my memory that led me back to the archives.

What was Downey saying back on 27 July? Why, he was carping about another team that was "unraveling:"

Well, you fun-loving, song-singing, "W"-flag-waving Cubs fans, you still feeling confident in the Confines? Did you see this coming?

Who knew?

Who knew before Saturday's 12-inning, 3-2 defeat at Wrigley Field that your team's customary "June Swoon" would turn out to be a July one instead?

According to the good folks at Baseball Reference.com, the Cubs were tied for first place with the Brewers heading into action on the 27th.

Sweet zombie Jesus! That's just like almost falling way down to second place!

Since then (again, according to the Baseball Reference.com folks), the Cubs are 28-14, even with their recent crappy streak.

For those of you scoring at home, that's a .667 winning percentage. Not that anyone at the Tower would tell you that. Or about Geo Soto winning the Rookie of the Month award (but that's another story).

Poohhead 1991?-2008

2008-09-09T12:29:00.002-05:00

My big buddy left me this morning. He'd been sick for a while, but the vet had just called me this morning to tell me that the test results from yesterday had shown a lot of improvement, and so I was happy, thinking that he and I would have a while together still. A few minutes later I walked into my front yard, and I knew as soon as I saw him that he was gone.

Poohhead chose to move in with me right about the time was getting divorced, and ever since then he's always been there for me to talk to. He was a big kitty, and very passive most of the time, but every so often he'd really surprise me by going after another cat for being in his bushes. He'd be there every afternoon to meet my car when I came home from work.

Before Pooh came to stay with me, I didn't even especially like cats. I learned that, no matter what a lot of people think, cats are very loving and very loyal to people who earn their trust. Thank you for trusting me, big guy. I miss you already.

"I Want to Ruin It for Them"

2008-08-03T07:15:00.004-05:00

This happened a few days ago, but I haven't heard about it much in the usual locations. Must be that damned media bias.

Anyway, Ozzie Guillen went off again last week. Here are his actual quotes, presented without comment:

I don't understand the people out there. I don't get it. I sit with [general manager] Kenny Williams and we try to do stuff, and we get pounded like we don't try or don't care or do good for the fans or for us.

And I don't get it. I trust my players. I think they're good talent and will play hard for us.

And hopefully the result will be the right one. Because if we win this thing, Billy Martin, Earl Weaver, all those guys will be on diapers with what I'm going to say, because I'm going to rip a lot of people apart if we win this year, because enough is enough. What are we going to do to satisfy people?...

If people get mad at me and [think] I ruin this stuff for them, good. I want to ruin it for them. That's what people say. But in the meanwhile, it drives me crazy.

I tell my players every day, 'Give me some bullets to fight for you.' Everything I do in this town is to fight for my players. And everyone likes to hammer and hammer and hammer how [terrible] I am.

Oh, what the hell? I'll add a comment...

Sure, Why Not?

2008-07-31T22:45:00.002-05:00

Jim has mentioned Ed Wade's odd decision to trade for Randy Wolf.

That move looks positively brilliant compared with his latest acquisition.

Come on, Ed...LaTroy Hawkins? Good for me, I guess, since it's a sign I won't have to worry about the Astros until about 2012. Not so good for Astro Fans.

Put Me In Coach

2008-07-31T22:30:00.002-05:00

The Trib's Mike Downey takes a break from retyping his usual scripts about the evils of the Cubs, their organization, and their fans to laud his BFFs for their big trade today:

The Tribune, 9:36 a.m.: "Griffey headed to Sox."

Excellent news. I was stoked.

Oh, that Ken Williams, always something up his sleeve. If not an ace, then a king.

Ken Griffey Jr., in center field at the Cell?
A cause to rejoice -- set off the fireworks.

Uhhh...One wonders if Downey realizes Junior hasn't played center field since 2006. And wasn't particularly good at playing center field back then, either.

Oh, well. Set off the fireworks! Everyone gets a pony!

Jerome Holtzman

2008-07-22T20:05:00.003-05:00

Chicago sportswriting legend Jerome Holtzman died yesterday.

Those of you of a certain age (say, about my age and older) who grew up in a certain area (say, the greater Chicago metropolitan area) will certainly remember Holtzman, one of the finest journalists to work in Chicago. I grew up reading his stuff, and it was a sad day for all when he retired from the newspaper grind (to be replaced as the Trib's baseball writer by [shudder] the estimable Dr. Phil).

Anyway, his daily columns were a joy to read. I was blessed to be in the right time and place to read at least some of his work before he died.

For those folks who weren't in that right time and place, Holtzman is probably best remembered for two things.

First is the piece in Bill James' The Baseball Book 1991. On page 375 (and I know because I have a copy open on my desk right now), James (perhaps a bit too antagonistically) penned an essay titled "Jerome Holtzman Has a Cow."

The cow-birthing involved some minor corrections made to the eighth edition of Macmillan's Baseball Encyclopedia. As hard as it might be for some of you kids to understand, back in the day stats and records were kept by hand, not on Excel, and occassionally errors would creep into the records. The only way to make sure you were right would be to go through all the box scores and and it up. Again, by hand.

Anyway, here's how James described the situation:

When they were putting together the book, the editors of the new Macmillan undertook to rectify some errors in the old stats. Honus Wagner had previously been credited with 3,430 career hits, but Macmillan decided that the actual total was only 3,418. Larry Lajoie, credited with 3,251 hits, was pared back to 3,244.

Well, Jerome Holtzman just about sht in his pants.

In the June 10 issue of the Chicago Tribune, Holtzman wrote that the editors were "tampering with baseball's most sacred and trusted text." Wagner and Lajoie, said Holtzman "have been the civtims of a statistcal grave robbery," which he compared to "a baseball Watergate."

Uhhh...yeah. Not one of Jerome's finer moments. Holtzman doesn't get much more rational in the rest of the piece (I just dug it out of my archives).

Just for the record, baseballreference.com lists Wagner with 3,415 hits and Lajoie with 3,242. No word on what Holtzman thought of that, at least that I saw.

On a similar topic, when those damned grave robbers found another RBI for Hack Wilson, raising his record-setting 1930 total to 191, it was officially okee-dokee with Holtzman. Guess it just goes to show that everyone can get goofy about something...

The second thing Holtzman is famous for, of course, is the creation of the save. Few people can say that they single-handedly changed how the game is played, but Holtzman did with the save.

Thanks to Holtzman, we're now treated to the sixty-five inning closer. The guy who comes in only in the ninth inning and only with a lead of three runs or fewer.

And we're also subjected to the usual round of gibbering about the importance of "proven" closers and how important it is to find the guy who's mentally tough enough to protect that three-run, ninth inning lead.

I think it just goes to show how smart Holtzman was that even he had some second thoughts about the value of the save:

"The reality is, he revolutionized baseball," former Sun-Times columnist Bill Gleason said. "He glamorized the relief pitcher, who was just another guy before [the save rule]. Jerome said not long ago that he was sorry he'd come up with the concept, that it wasn't necessary. But there was no need to apologize. If there were more people who thought like Jerome Holtzman, the newspaper business would be in better shape."

Holtzman was right -- saves aren't necessary.

And Gleason (a terrific writer in his own right) was right -- the newspaper business would be in better shape if we had a few more like Jerome Holtzman. Our condolences to his family and friends. We will all miss him.

Ed Wade Is Off His Meds

2008-07-22T18:47:00.003-05:00

We have a leader in the clubhouse in the 2008 Dave Littlefield Sweepstakes. Littlefield was the Pirates GM who last year traded for the washed up Matt Morris and his entire salary at the trading deadline with his team buried in last place. The trade had no basis in common sense and was the last straw which got Littlefield fired.

If Ed Wade thinks that his sad sack Astros team is in any kind of pennant race, he is serious deluding himself. If he thinks that Randy Wolf, 1-6 with a 6.63 ERA outside of pitcher's haven Petco Park, is going to pitch them into the playoffs, he is delusional on a scale of the residents of Arkham Asylum.

This is Wade's "thinking:"

"We still think the club we have is good enough to play better than it's played. We've got a million games left in our own division at this point in time. Our fate rests in our hands and I think it's important for us to do whatever we can, from the baseball ops side, to give our guys as much support as we possibly can."

He may be slightly exaggerating the "million games" part. I'm going to go on record right now that the Astros won't be in contention for at least five years.

That Took Longer Than I Expected

2008-07-11T21:02:00.002-05:00

Before I get into the meat of this post, let's have a little reminder of what Kenny said:

There's only one sports team in Chicago that will get a pass. I won't name them. But it ain't us.

Giving passes today is the Trib's Fred Mitchell. Take it away, Fred:

Tuesday's six-player swap with Oakland doesn't figure to render such historic ramifications. But there are no guarantees when young players are sent packing. The Cubs acquired talented but oft-injured right-hander Rich Harden and reliever Chad Gaudin in exchange for speedy infielder-outfielder Eric Patterson, promising young pitcher Sean Gallagher, serviceable outfielder Matt Murton and catching prospect Josh Donaldson.

Patterson has given no indication he might become another Brock. But Brock, then 25, was hitting only .251 with two homers in 52 games in 1964 when the Cubs dealt him. Patterson, also 25, hit .239 with one homer in 20 games with the Cubs.

No, Patterson has given no indications that he's anywhere near as good as Brock. But let's make the Brock-for-Broglio comparison anyway.

Just another way that damned Chicago media gives the non-White Sox team a pass...

Memo to the Brew Crew

2008-07-11T20:58:00.003-05:00

Dear Mensa Members of Milwaukee:

When celebrating your teammate's selection to the All-Star Team, please do not rush him during a press conference and douse him with beer when he is holding his young daughter on his lap.

That kind of behavior might fly in Milwaukee, but the rest of the civilized world might not be down with it...

That Didn't Take Long

2008-07-09T21:40:00.002-05:00

Mark Mulder seems to be hurt again.

It's unfortunate. Although I don't want the Cards to get any better, I always like Mulder and hoped he had one last good streak left in him. Here's hoping he can come back one more time.

The Stars...Like Dust

2008-07-09T21:15:00.002-05:00

This time of year is always amusing. Whether it's folks griping about undeserving bums like Ryan Dempster (I kid, Jim :-)) making the All-Star team, or other people wailing that guys like Jermaine Dye didn't make the team, it seems like everyone has some complaint about the All-Star rosters.

To them, I say: unclench. Please.

We go through this every year. A while ago, I said that the typical post-All-Star-selection argument goes something like: How could they put [fill-in-the-blank] on the team? There's no way he's better than my favorite guy, [fill-in-the-blank].

This much should be clear, after all these years: the system is flawed, for a variety of reasons I'm too lazy to go into right now. So it stands to reason the teams will, from time to time, be flawed as well.

And if the fact that Ryan Dempster makes the team, or David Wright doesn't, ruins your enjoyment of the game...I can only offer condolences. Because two days after the game, when the season picks up again, no one will give a crap.

Cheap Shots and Shameful Behavior

2008-07-09T20:36:00.002-05:00

It's been a shameful week so far at the Tribune Tower, as two of the company's star columnists engaged in some pretty disgraceful behavior.

First, Big Mouth Morrissey took it upon himself to get Ozzie Guillen to respond to his insulting, anonymously-send e-mail. At the end of the day, Big Mouth is man enough to tell Ozzie he's the guy who's been sending the insulting e-mails. But still -- why in God's name would anyone do that?

Let alone an allegedly professional journalist?

This little escapade doesn't quite reach these heights in terms of outright ignominity. But it comes close.

Meanwhile, Dr. Phil gives us his take on the Brewer's trade for Captain Cheeseburger and the Cubs' move to pick up Rich Harden. True to form, in Dr. Phil's world everything is sunshine and lollipops for the Brew Crew, and doom and gloom for the Cubs.

Buried towards the end of the piece is this little nugget of joy:

Another scout said he did not view Harden as the next best pitcher available after Sabathia because of "makeup" and health questions. He said Harden, who had spent months rehabilitating from a strained shoulder, declined to make starts last September because the A's were out of the race.

If true, that's positively Prioriffic.

Well played, sir! A definite two-fer for the mediocre Doctor! Getting the boot in on Harden and Prior at the same time...not everyone can pull that off. It takes some real talent.

A couple thoughts on the cheap shot(s):

1. If true (and that's a big if, considering all we have to go on is the word of an anonymous scout who's already on the record as being anti-Harden and is probably not a world-class clairvoyant able to read Harden's mind), is it really such an awful thing? For a pitcher rehabbing a bum shoulder to not push himself just to pitch some meaningless September games?

For years, Dr. Phil (and others) lambasted Dusty Baker for pushing Kerry Wood and Mark Prior to the breaking point in 2003. Which, you may recall, was a year my heroes were in the midst of a pennant race.

But now it's bad form for Harden to not want to pitch for the opprtunity to pitch the A's to 81 wins rather than the 79 they wound up with?

2. And perhaps a real smart baseball guy like Billy Beane would agree that, perhaps, it wouldn't be wise to hustle a pitcher back on the mound just to impress the scouts.

3. A couple years ago, Derrick Lee begged off some meaningless September games while he recovered from a broken wrist (and to be with his ailing daughter). He could have played, but opted to be with his family and get healthy for the next year. Does that make D-Lee "Prioriffic," too?

4. And why the cheap shot at Prior in the first place? I was as frustrated at Prior's health problems as anyone. But good God -- is there any reason for the constant harping on the guy?

Especially since Dr. Phil himself was pimping Prior as a potential Godsend for the Padres mere days before the start of the 2008 season:

While still feeling the effects of his 2007 shoulder surgery, [Mark] Prior had an outstanding spring training. He will benefit from being away from the intense scrutiny that came with the expectations he created for himself at Wrigley Field. He will start the season on the disabled list but could make 20-plus starts. Prior can be a free agent after this season, which was a factor in the Cubs not offering him salary arbitration, so he won't lack for motivation. It will be interesting to see if the Cubs will have two starters pitching better than Prior in August and September, when he could have been pushing the Cubs toward the playoffs.

Prioriffic, indeed. I'm willing to bet we have two starters pitching better than Prior in August and September...

Letter to Joe Sheehan

2008-07-07T13:39:00.001-05:00

Hi Joe,

Excellent piece on the ASG roster selections, but I do find myself puzzled by one of your comments. You denounce (quite correctly) the "thought" process that goes into choosing players for the game based on a hot streak of two months while ignoring past history. On the other hand, you make the comment, regarding pitchers who were left off, "No Cole Hamels or Johan Santana, but Ryan Dempster and Brandon Webb."

Never mind Dempster; his selection is silly. Brian Wilson, who you also mention, is another perfect example of players and managers not understanding what defines an elite player but instead being distracted by a bright, shiny bauble (ohhhh, saves! pretty, pretty saves!). But to mention Brandon Webb in the same group is to be guilty of the exact reverse of the prejudice you oppose.

Webb has been one of the elite pitchers in the game almost from the moment of his debut in 2003. Webb has never had an ERA+ of worse than 126. He was better than 150 each of the past two seasons; this year he stands at 132, hardly the record of an undeserving pitcher. Your implication of him as undeserving of selection seems to be based entirely on a poor 4-5 weeks in June and July, ignoring his record from 2003-2007 and his April-May of 2008, in which he had a BB/K ratio of 16/66.

I fully agree that Johan Santana and Cole Hamels are elite pitchers of the type who should be found in the All Star game, while Ryan Dempster and Brian Wilson are not. But to imply that Brandon Webb is some sort of fluke or undeserving selection is a comment perhaps born of frustration and beneath the standards of your usually fine commentary.

Sully Explains It All

2008-07-06T19:05:00.002-05:00

Why aren't MLB.com reporters members of the BBWAA? Let Sully break it down for you:

Reporters for MLB.com have already been told who is on the team, giving them a head-start for their reporting. This is one of the reasons why MLB.com reporters likely will never be allowed into the Baseball Writers Association of America. MLB wants to pretend their reporters are the same as beat reporters for newspapers and other media, but obviously that's not the case or the names would be released to everyone at the same time.

Two reactions:

1. Someone send a waaaaahhhhhh-mbulance to the corner of Boo Street and Hoo Avenue, stat!

2. MLB.com reporters aren't BBWAA members? They are now officially my favorite baseball reporters ever. If the BBWAA hates them enough to exclude them from the clubhouse, they gotta be doing something right...

Heavy Duty

2008-07-06T19:02:00.001-05:00

Cap'n Cheeseburger a Brewer? Does that mean the two fattest players in the National League are on the Milwaukee roster?

And That's Why He's Got a Hall of Fame Ballot and We Don't

2008-07-06T08:08:00.003-05:00

Dr. Phil shows off his impressive analytical skills once more:

The next two months will determine whether the St. Louis Cardinals will be in the National League Central race for the long haul, as his teams usually are.

Two months from now would be September. So...if the Cardinals are still in the race come September, that would determine if they will be in the race for the long haul.

Can't argue with logic like that.

That Was Fast

2008-07-02T20:41:00.002-05:00

It didn't take long to find a solution to this particular sort of mockery of the game. It's not quite the rule I proposed, but it seems reasonable.

Too Late The "Hero"

2008-07-02T20:33:00.002-05:00

Geez, Jerry, where were you a dozen or so years ago when you could have helped stop this thing?

Don't Bump Me, Ump

2008-06-27T21:55:00.003-05:00

I'm glad to see MLB take at least a small stand against overaggressive, argumentative umpires. While umps deserve support and respect, it is not acceptable for any of them to incite or raise the level of an argument.

Talk About Going Down With An Injury

2008-06-27T21:50:00.002-05:00

I have no trouble believing that Brandon Inge hurt himself in exactly the way he described.

What I don't get is this: why in hell is your three year old still sleeping with mommy and daddy? Take some time while on the DL to take a few parenting classes, Brandon.

Thank God That's Over

2008-06-23T21:15:00.003-05:00

Sweet zombie Jeebus, I hate interleague play. But I hate the White Sox series even more than interleague play in general.

No, not because I hate the White Sox. It's because the Cubs/Sox series can never just be about the game. There's so much extraneous BS going around that it just gets tiresome.

Whether it's the bozos from both sides of town who pollute the message boards here to the constant whining about everything from White Sox players, field manager, and front office executives.

I hate to be on the same side as a putz like Mariotti, but I am. You'd think a World Series trophy would be enough to validate some people's sense of self-worth so they wouldn't feel the urge to denigrate others. You'd be wrong.

Look at what those guys were saying over the last week. Now, imagine that instead of a guy from the White Sox saying that stuff about the Cubs, their stadium, and their fans, that it was a guy from the Red Sox talking about the Orioles. Or the Astros talking about the Rangers. Or some random team not from Chicago about some other random team not from Chicago.

If it were a member of the Tigers front office ripping on Cleveland for not having won a World Series in a long time, you'd think him a nut job. Or deeply, deeply disturbed.

But what do I know? Stay classy, Chicago White Sox organization!

Grasping At Straws

2008-06-20T15:18:00.002-05:00

The Toronto Blue Jays fired manager John Gibbons today. Apparently deciding to make every day "Turn Back the Clock Day," they hired Cito Gaston, last seen being put into a lifeboat with a compass and a supply of food and water back in 1997 by a Jays team that went 76-86. Records from that era are spotty at best, but I seem to recall that Gaston pretty much reviled by his entire roster back then. I doubt that ten years out of the game have much improved his ability to interact with his players.

Gibbons was a poor manager, but he's not the one solely responsible for this train wreck. Some people had the idea way back in February that this wasn't the contending team that Gibbons and GM J.P. Ricciardi thought it was. This is a very mediocre offensive team which dumped its' best power source over the side in April after a hissy fit over a two-week slump. When you are looking at Rod Barajas, Brad Wilkerson, and the 40-year old Matt Stairs as upgrades to your offense, you have far, far more problems than can be solved by firing the manager.

At least the Jays made the announcement in mid-day, instead of waiting until the middle of the night like some teams we could name.

Coney Island Sideshow

2008-06-20T09:26:00.002-05:00

Brooklyn and Staten Island players made a mockery of the game last night. How about a new rule, right now, that switch hitters and switch pitchers must declare their "natural side" and must use that side in any confrontation?

Coincidence, or Something the White Sox Organization Teaches?

2008-06-15T07:18:00.002-05:00

Looks like the waaaaaaaaaah-mbulance needs to make a stop in Saint Louis:

“Lately it’s gotten a little unfair,” Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said. “You lose Albert, you lose Wainwright, (Joel) Piñeiro was missing. All that stuff gets to be a little unfair.

“If it gets excessive, it kind of pisses you off.”

Unfair? Yeah, I guess that's one way of looking at it.

The non-whiny way of looking at it: that's baseball. Deal with it.

Yahoo's Jeff Passan must be trying to get some credentials for the McCain campaign, because this is his sentence immediate after LaRussa's "unfair" claim:

La Russa is a lot of things. A whiner isn’t one of them.

Spare me. If anybody else in the game had said that his team's injury situation was "unfair," he'd be mocked nine ways from Sunday for being a WATB. I guess LaRussa's reputation as a straight-talkin' maverick protects him from such judgements...

Just in Case You Have a House That Gets Hit by Lightning All the Time, or in Case You Have a Loved One Cryogenically Frozen in Your Basement

2008-06-12T18:51:00.001-05:00

If it weren't for the unintentionally funny e-mails I get from some of my co-workers, this would be the most hi-sprockin'-larious thing I've read in a long, long time.

Thank you, Mr. Kermit, for teaching us to laugh at love -- again.

Don't Let The Door Hit Your Fat, Knighted Ass On The Way Out

2008-06-07T19:49:00.003-05:00

Why did this not surprise me one bit? This is my suggestion to any team thinking about giving him another chance: don't. Sidney Ponson is a fat, drunken, boorish jerk who has now worn out his welcome with six major league teams while running up an 86-102 record with a substandard career ERA. Someone should remind Ponson that you can be fat, a jerk, or even both and stay in the majors if you show results. Below average players with those qualities run out of chances fast.

The Hell???

2008-06-05T20:19:00.002-05:00

Michael Lewis, the evil-doer who co-wrote Moneyball with Billy Beane (that's a joke -- don't write in to tell me that's incorrect), once referred to baseball as a big social club, with the media serving as a Women's Auxiliary to the club.

One journamalist that Lewis points to as playing a large role in the Auxiliary is Tracy Ringolsby. And Ringolsby shows off the credentials that led him to that role with this puzzling piece about Cub Fans and White Sox Fans.

I'm not sure what the hell this was supposed to be about. But I'm pretty sure there's something to offend everyone in this piece (Jim, any thoughts on those Sox Fans who "like to talk about Disco Demlotion?").

Surf City, Here I Come

2008-06-05T20:02:00.002-05:00

The Tribune's Phil Rosenthal reports that new Tribune Co. headmaster Sam Zell expects the media behemoth to "retain a minority interest" in the Chicago Cubs.

That would be the same Sam Zell who also holds a minority interest in the Chicago White Sox.

We may have to toss out the Second City nickname for Chicago and replace it with Surf City. To paraphrase Brian Wilson -- Two teams for every boy!

Zell received an exemption from Baron Budhausen regarding this dual ownership. For good reason, it's quite against Major League rules for anyone to have an ownership stake in multiple teams.

Reportedly, Zell was in the process of off-loading his White Sox share when he leveraged himself into the TribCo's top job. I haven't seen any further report of movement on this front (Gentle Readers, please correct me if I am wrong). Let's hope the Baron uses his Commissioner's powers to hasten the process along...

What a Difference a Day Makes

2008-06-05T19:45:00.002-05:00

After wasting a few paragraphs with pointless trivia (Did you know that the Cubs are off to their best start since 1977? Or, more to the point, do you care?), Sully drops this nugget of joy into his "game" story late Tuesday night:

While the Cubs came into the game ranked third in NL starting pitching with a 3.96 earned-run average, Marquis and Ted Lilly have yet to show the kind of consistency needed to convince anyone the Cubs are truly a championship-caliber team.

That's actually a fair cop, and an unusually insightful piece of commentary from a usually-inane Sully.

Unfortunately, the insight doesn't continue today. Sully reverts to his typical typist fare with this:

Two months into the season, the Cubs are the obvious front-runner for the National League pennant, an unfamiliar position for many of the players.

Gentle Readers, try to wrap your mind around these two statements, posted on the web site of a major metropolitan daily on two consecutive days.

I understand that the unfolding narrative of the season means that team's fortunes will rise and fall. But can a particular team's fortunes rise so fast that on Tuesday it is unable to "convince anyone they are truly a championship-caliber team," while on Wednesday it is the "obvious front-runner for the National League pennant?"

I don't know about you, Gentle Readers, but if I overheard a fellow at my local watering establishment, or at the office water cooler, spout off two wildly divergent opinions about the same team on consecutive days, I'd be inclined to write him off as a kook. Or a disingenuous phony.

Perhaps Major League Baseball follows the Heisenberg uncertainty principle -- measuring a team's position in the standing makes its momentum uncertain.

Back To The Ballot

2008-06-02T20:50:00.004-05:00

National League:

C: Brian McCann. Bob is lobbying for Geovany Soto, and there certainly wouldn't be anything wrong with that vote. Nor would Russell Martin be a poor choice. Benjie Molina has been pretty good, too. I'm going with McCann because even though he's only been in the league four years, that's still a lot more than Soto. Also, remember this handy voting guide: A vote for McCann is good, a vote for McCain is very, very bad.

1B: Albert Pujols. Last year it was Prince Fielder, this year it's Lance Berkman. Berkman is a terrific hitter and a favorite of mine. Albert Pujols is one of the greatest players of all time. I check his name on the ballot pretty much automatically.

2B: Chase Utley. Pretty much as automatic as Pujols. Dan Uggla will make a fine backup. It's pretty cool to have two all-star second basemen whose names begin with "U." I would also be remiss to not mention Orlando Hudson, an outstanding defensive player who is slugging .514.

3B: David Wright. This was a very difficult choice; how do you pass on a future Hall of Famer who is hitting .405 with power? Hmmm, maybe I can't. I guess I'd just have to say that there is no way that Larry can keep this up, and by the end of the season Wright will have had the better year. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

SS: Hanley Ramirez. Ramirez was the best shortstop in the NL last year, and for the first two months of this year, but Jose Reyes is pretty close, and by the All Star game might pass him. I'll stay with Hanley for now.

LF: Jason Bay. The NL leader in OPS among leftfielders so far this year is Ryan Ludwick. Let's try again. Second is Pat Burrell. Burrell is a good hitter but a clown in the outfield. The next three are Adam Dunn, Bay, and Matt Holliday. I went with my usual tiebreaker, the same one I used to pick Justin Morneau over Kevin Youklis--when in doubt, pick the Canadian.

As an aside, I could have very easily and defensively picked an all-Pirates outfield. How can a team have three guys having all star seasons in its' lineup and still suck so much?

CF: Aaron (Pants) Rowand. Well, this worked better than the last time the Giants handed out a huge free agent contract. Sure, he's over his head, but so is Nate McLouth, and who else are you going to vote for? Maybe Carlos Beltran, if he has a hot June.

RF: Kosuke Fukodome. I'm going with the guy with the .409 OBP. I trust that you understand the reasoning behind that.

Comments?

Miller To Hall: Drop Dead

2008-06-02T20:44:00.001-05:00

This interview might give you a better idea of why I think that Hall of Fame elections are no longer relevant.

Big Mouth Morrissey: Even More Annoying Than the Real Morrissey

2008-06-01T06:33:00.002-05:00

Shorter Big Mouth: It's about time the focus at Wrigley Field was on the games, instead of stuff like billy goats, evil advertising signs, people singing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," and the horror that is selling naming rights to the place. You know, the kind of stupid sh*t that is the bread-and-butter of my columns.

Hey, don't take my word for it. Here's the first five paragraphs of his piece:

A beautiful Saturday afternoon, and the only thing that matters at Wrigley Field is the action on the field.

This is more like it. Or, at least, this is the way it's supposed to be. But these are the Cubs, and this is a different universe.

Of course, the emphasis should be on the baseball. Not on the physical state of the ballpark. Not on the offensive Kosuke Fukudome T-shirts on sale. Not on the eventual sale of the team. Not on the seventh-inning-stretch singers. Not on how much advertising to allow inside Wrigley. Not on the ballpark's landmark status.

Not on the long-suffering fans. Not on naming rights. Not on the concern that fans are harassing Alfonso Soriano. Not on the Billy Goat curse or rooftop owners or a fan reaching for a foul ball during a playoff game.

It should be about the team with the best record in baseball beating the Rockies on a sunlit afternoon. By the way, the team with the best record in baseball hasn't won a World Series in 100 years. Would that be considered immaterial to the Cubs holding off Colorado 5-4 on Saturday?

A Bartman re-set followed up by a 100 year re-set? Well played, sir! Well played!

I gotta hand it to ol' Big Mouth, though. No one at the Tower is as much a virtuoso at playing the rubes than he is...

Big Mouth does let something slip, a dirty little secret that few in the Chicago journamalist trade will ever let you in on:

The Yankees might dwell in the Bronx Zoo and every breath they take might be material for New York tabloids, but the difference is that the Yankees have won 26 World Series. They're the circus; the fans aren't. It's the other way around here, with Wrigleyville serving as the big top.

If you're thinking to yourself that this wouldn't be the case if the media chose to take a pass on everything Cub, you're right.

WHAT????? I'm so confused..."if the media chose to take a pass on everything Cub?"

B-b-b-b-but Kenny told us that there was only one team in Chicago that got a pass. And it wasn't the White Sox!

Now Big Mouth says the Cubs don't get a pass, either. It's like one of those paradoxes Kirk uses to make evil computers blow themselves up on Star Trek!

Note: I take no credit for this post's title. I shamelessly swiped it from a commenter over at Hire Jim Essian. I'm not clever enough to come up with anything that funny...

Another Triumph from the Tower of Ideas

2008-05-31T13:17:00.002-05:00

Way back in April, Sully was johnny-on-the spot with a quick blog post trumpeting the fact that the Cubs putzed away a seven-run lead against the Pirates. As I noted at the time, Sully didn't bother to add a follow-up post mentioning the minor fact that the Cubs eventually won the game in extra innings. However, he did helpfully add that the last time the Cubs came back from a seven-run deficit was 22 June, 1999 against Colorado, when they turned a 9-1 Rockies lead into a 13-12 Cubs win.

By an amazing coincidence, the Cubs came back from a 9-1 deficit to defeat the Rockies 10-9 Friday. No, there was no in-game blog post from Sully to tell fans about the amazing turn-around. And, no, there was no mention in Sully's game story about how many years it had been since the Cubs had prevailed despite digging themselves a deep early hole.

Sully did manage to work a reference to the 100th anniversary of the Cubs' last World Series victory into his story. In the second paragraph, no less.

This came a day after Sullly spent the first three paragraphs of Friday's game story rehashing last May's lost weekend. You may remember it -- it started with Carlos Zambrano playing Whack-a-Barrett and ended with Lou Piniella throwing a hissy-fit on the field.

As any j-school graduate could tell you, those lead paragaphs should contain the most important information in the whole piece. Why is year-old information more important than what happened yesterday? Jeebus only knows. It's just how Sully rolls, I guess...

From the Top Down

2008-05-31T13:01:00.002-05:00

Jim offered the opinion that Orlando Cabrera is a whiny baby.

He very well could be; such behavior lends credence to the theory. But perhaps he's also following the lead of White Sox management.

After all, Cabrera's manager had a cry-fest because people in Chicago didn't love his team enough. Boo hoo, cried Ozzie. We're horse[bleep], and we're going to be horse[bleep] the rest of our lives, no matter how many World Series we win. We are the bitch of Chicago. We're the Chicago bitch.

And then there's Ozzie's boss. You may recall the rain falling from Kenny's eyes back in March. Stamping his feet, Kenny sobbed, There's only one sports team in Chicago that will get a pass. I won't name them. But it ain't us.

With team leadership behaving in such fashion, is it any wonder Cabrera behaved as if there were no shame in (a) whining to the official scorer and (2) whining to the press that Ozzie don't love him enough?

Voted Early, Will Vote Often Later

2008-05-30T20:36:00.003-05:00

Just finished turning in my first ballot for the 2008 All-Star game. Sure, I'll share it with you, thank you for asking.

American League

C: Joe Mauer. I hadn't realized this, but neither Mauer nor Victor Martinez has homered yet this year. But Mauer still has a .408 OBP, and that's all I need to know.

1B: Justin Morneau. If I would have had to make a prediction before the season, I would have said that of Dr. Morneau and Kevin Youkilis, Youkilis would have the higher OBP and Morneau the greater slugging percentage. How wrong I would have been. All things considered the two are about even and I like both, so I'm going with "who was born in Canada" as my tiebreaker. One could make a case for Jason Giambi here, but I won't.

2B: Ian Kinsler. Kinsler wins out at a weak position over Brian Roberts. Kinsler has a better slugging average and the two have virtually identical OBPs. Roberts is a terrific basestealer, but Kinsler has stolen 15 in 15 tries this year and is 49-55 for his career. Tough to beat that.

3B: Alex Rodriguez. This is the All-STAR game, after all. Who else can you even make a good case for?

SS: Derek Jeter. Remember when this was the centerpiece position in the AL? A-Rod, Jeter, Nomar, Tejada...now it's as empty as it can be. Jeter gets the nod over Michael Young on career achievement, kind of like Oscars voting.

I always vote outfielder by position; one LF, one CF, one RF. I know I don't have to do that, but I'm a stubborn cuss.

LF: Manny Ramirez. I could vote for Milton Bradley, but I don't like Milton Bradley. I could vote for favorite son Carlos Quentin, but I'd like to see him do this for more than two months. I could vote for Hideki Matsui, but...well, Manny is Manny, and that has positive connotations as well as negative ones. He's still a dangerous, dangerous hitter.

CF: Josh Hamilton. I hope that his story just keeps getting better. Not just for his sake, but for mine too, because I love watching him. He gets the vote here over two of my of my other favorite players, B.J. Upton and Ichiro Suzuki. This may be the first time ever I haven't voted for Ichiro.

RF: Magglio Ordonez. Kenny Williams was wrong, Ozzie Guillen was wrong, and I was wrong. If the Sox had it to do all over again I'd still recommend doing just what they did, but I'm still glad to see things work out so well for Mags.

DH: David Ortiz. Coming around after a slow start. Still fun to watch, but I wouldn't count on this lasting much longer.

It's getting late, so I'll finish tomorrow with the lesser league.

Orlando Cabrera Has A Hissy Fit

2008-05-29T20:33:00.002-05:00

Those mean official scorers are charging him with errors! And his manager is mean, too, because he won't waste time calling the scorer to ask that the calls be changed. Also, they make him take naps during the day and clean his plate before getting dessert.

Cabrera is a good player, but he looks like a short timer with the Sox. Both his manager and his GM are apparently losing patience with him quickly. Dick Williams once said that Terry Kennedy had an equipment problem--he needed a diaper. Cabrera appears to have the same need.

Best. Promotion. Ever.

2008-05-23T20:20:00.002-05:00

I want one of these SO bad...

About Time

2008-05-22T20:06:00.002-05:00

MLB has decided to try to remove some of the wasted time from games by actually enforcing some existing rules. What a concept...what's next, making umpires observe the rule book strike zone, or eliminating the phantom double play?

Seriously, this a move that is very welcome. If you've ever sat through a Steve Trachsel start, you'd welcome it to. Or for that matter, watched the between pitch antics of Nomar Garciaparra (or many, many others). I know that hitting is timing, and pitching is upsetting timing, but it's not about timing plate appearances with a sundial.

In his New Historical Baseball Abstract, Bill James made an excellent point that many times the interests of one party in a game are at odds with the interests of the game itself. The interest of the game in this case is to provide an arresting and riveting entertainment and not the interest of Steve Trachsel trying to defeat the opposing batter not through great stuff or clever pitch selection but by boring him into giving up.

I'm glad to see that stadium "entertainment" personnel have also been put on notice. While they're at it, can you also require them to turn it down a few notches?

Telling Figures Indeed

2008-05-21T20:28:00.002-05:00

Record of the New York Yankees prior to the injury to overpaid, overrated, choking loser Alex Rodriguez: 14-14, 4.25 runs scored per game.

Record of the New York Yankees after the injury to overpaid, overrated, choking loser Alex Rodriguez: 6-10, 3.75 runs scored per game.

Yep. it's all his fault when they lose.

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things

2008-05-21T19:12:00.002-05:00

Baseball in general, and watching the Tampa Bay Rays? Check. Comics? Check.

A Sports Illustrated cover drawn by comics artist Mark Bagley featuring super Carl Crawford lifting a stunned Derek Jeter over his head while Bizarro watches?

Almost too good for words.

Oh Happy Day

2008-05-15T22:04:00.002-05:00

Saints be praised -- the Rays are in first, the Yankees are in last.

Tampa manager Joe Maddon may only want his guys to celebrate for a half hour, but I'm gonna savor this until at least tomorrow morning. Woo hoo!

So It's Come to This

2008-05-15T21:55:00.002-05:00

Jim Hendry has signed the dessicated remains of Jim Edmonds. Ugh.

I don't hate Edmonds like some other folks do. Even so, if Edmonds gives us anything approaching Neifi-like production I will be surprised.

I guess if the team was that desperate for a centerfielder, this move is marginally better than disinterring Hack Wilson and sticking a bat in his hands. But only because overtime pay for the grave diggers would have cost more money than what we're on the hook for with Edmonds...

Thank You, God, for the Sixteen-Team NL

2008-05-15T21:50:00.002-05:00

Interleague play starts this weekend. But for once in my life I'm grateful for the sixteen-team National League. Because thanks to the unwieldy set-up envisioned by Baron Budhausen and his crew, it means that my heroes will play the Pirates this weekend, and not participate in the annual marketing scheme that interleague play is at its heart.

It Would Be Funny If It Weren't So Pathetic

2008-05-13T19:55:00.002-05:00

Shorter Mike Downey: Boo-hoo! The White Sox are in second place, and no one loves them as much as they love the Cubs! Boo-hoo! Life is so unfair!

This is standard-issue nuttery from Downey. I try not to mock stuff like this (because it's like shooting fish in a Dixie cup), but there was one particular passage that made me laugh and laugh. The ridiculousness of it just begged for a whuppin'.

After blathering about how the Sox started the week merely a game out of first place, and about all the good young talent on the team, and some self-pitying mewling about how nobody loves his heroes, Downey comes back with this:

For a team that has been in first or second place for most of this season, the Sox have not been the talk of the league. They aren't even the talk of their own town.

Cubs, Cubs and More Cubs—that's what you hear here.

A day doesn't go by without somebody gushing about how great the Cubs look. (Whereas the last time I looked in the standings, the Cubs were only 1 1/2 games ahead of the so-so Houston Astros and 4 1/2 up on the p.u. Pittsburgh Pirates.)

And this is the point at which Downey's logic collapses like the house of cards it is.

No, not because I think the White Sox stink. Rather, it's because the facts have a pro-Cubs bias.

Downey's facts are right about the Cubs' lead over divisional rivals Houston and Pittsburgh. But Downey is disingenuous presenting this information, because he doesn't actually tell you what the teams' records actually are.

Heading into today's action, here's the NL Central standings:

Chicago 23-15 ---
Saint Louis 23-17 1
Houston 22-17 1.5
Milwaukee 19-19 4
Pittsburgh 18-20 5
Cincinnati 16-23 7.5

Meanwhile, the White Sox -- the team Downey refers to as a "nice surprise" and deserves a "standing ovation" for being a game out of first place, is 18-19.

You read that correctly. Mike Downey says that a .500 team is a "nice suprise."

Eagle-eyed readers may also notice that those so-so Astros would be three games up in the standings on the Pale Hose. And the "p.u." Pirates -- merely a half-game behind.

And that's the team Downey is telling the rubes they should be cheering for. Not those no-good, rotten, over-rated Cubs.

The White Sox have an interesting team this year, which is more than I could say about last year's version. But right now, they're a .500 team with decent pitching and a middling offense. If Cleveland and Detroit continue to fritter away their seasons, that could be enough to keep them in contention all year. You know, pretty much the same scenario that last year's Cubs squad took advantage of.

Downey's an admitted White Sox partisan, so it's not surprising that he should make this little trip in the waaaaaaaaah-mbulance. The truly sad thing -- a guy who is honored with a Hall of Fame ballot cannot advance the discourse about our National Pastime more than this.

Stay Classy, Reds Announcers

2008-05-08T23:00:00.001-05:00

As reported over at Hire Jim Essian...

Saddle Up

2008-05-08T22:47:00.003-05:00

If you want more proof that the blow-up doll "controversy" is more like making a mountain out of a grain of sand, look no further than Mike Downey and Big Mouth Morrissey getting up on their high horses in this week's Trib.

Downey pretty much calls out the Sun-Times as a bunch of hypocrites for getting up in arms about the dolls while at the same time running adverts for strip joints and pictures of Playmates.

Meanwhile, Big Mouth says:

I don't want to sound like a mother demanding her child eat all of his food because of the starving children in China, but 22,000 people died in a recent typhoon in Myanmar, and we're worried about two blowup dolls in a major-league clubhouse?

Congratulations, Big Mouth -- you've just rationlized your livelihood away. I mean, bad stuff happens every single day in the world. Really bad stuff that makes worrying about any form of entertainment (movies, sports, TV) inconsequential.

When a "controversy" is so lame that it produces two columns this banal, it's time to close the door on it. Please, let's just move on, OK?

Why, Indeed?

2008-05-08T22:10:00.002-05:00

Following up (sort of) on Jim's post about Trump's crack-back on Alex Rodriguez, we find Fox Sport.com's Tracy Ringolsby offering this nugget o' joy:

If Alex Rodriguez really is the "franchise player'' that should have the richest contract in baseball history, can someone explain why he has never played in a World Series game? He won't turn 33 until July 27 and has finished among the top 10 in MVP voting in nine of his 12 full seasons, but he ranks third among active players in terms of games played without a World Series appearance.

His one-time Seattle teammate, Ken Griffey, Jr., is at the top of the active chart, and Frank Thomas ranks second.

Not to say that a player has to be in a World Series to be considered one of the game's most talented, but the bottom line for history isn't the bottom line in a checking account but rather the success of a team. Team success is tied to championships.

Nice of him to toss in that last bit. I guess Ringolsby can admit that A-Rod is talented, even if he isn't clutch enough to make it to the World Series.

But to address his original question...why has A-Rod never played in a World Series game?

Can it be all his fault? Since signing that record contract, Rodriguez' OPS+ have been 160, 158, 147, 131, 173, 134, and 177.

For those of you who aren't guys sitting in their basements "spilling food on ourselves" (as Ozzie described it), OPS+ measures how productive a batter is relative to the league average. So in 2007, when Rodriguez was all chokin' in the clutch and stuff, he was 77% better than the average player.

I'm no rocket scientist, but I think most people would think that is pretty good. Perhaps a guy who's 77% better than the league average would be someone you'd want on your team.

So why hasn't Rodriguez been in the Fall Classic? Call me crazy, but I think these might be contributing factors, that no sane person could blame on Rodriguez' obsession with the almighty dollar:

** In 2001, out of all the Rangers' starting pitchers, the lowest ERA was Doug Davis' 4.45. Rick Helling, Kenny Rogers, and Darren Oliver starting 82 games (more than half the season) between them, and posted ERAs of 5.17, 6.19, and 6.02.

** The 2002 Rangers got their pitching together a little. Very little The league-worst 669 walks allowed may have contributed to a team ERA of 5.15.

** The '03 Texas team narrowly missed an ignominious Triple Crown -- they finished with the worst ERA (5.67) and most HR allowed (208), but managed to squeeze into thirteenth place in walks allowed (603).

Few teams have made it to the Series with pitching that bad.

** In 2004, the Yankees rolled to a 101-61 record before getting rolled themselves by Boston in the ALCS. Rodriguez put up a .258/.378/.516. Why couldn't he be as clutch as that nice Derek Jeter (.200/.333/.233)?

** Rodriguez had a famously bad 2005 ALDS versus Anaheim. So did Mike Mussina, Randy Johnson, Al Leiter, and Tanyon Sturtze. Not that anyone noticed...

** Rodriguez had a more-famously bad 2006 ALDS against the Tigers. That nice Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada were the Yankees who did squat (the team totals were .246/.289/.388). Chalk it up to four games of life sucking for the Yankees at the worst time.

** Last year, the boo-birds were all over A-Rod's .267/.353/.467 as Cleveland clobbered the Bombers in four games. Perhaps sub-par compared to what we've come to expect from Rodriguez. But perhaps the Tribe found it easier to win the best-of-five series after clobbering Yankees ace Chien-Ming Wang in both his starts.

To sum up -- why hasn't Rodriguez been in a World Series? Several reasons: the Rangers were a really, really bad team when he was with them. And in his four years in New York, the Yankees have either run into better teams or just picked the wrong time to have a crappy week.

Hope this clears things up...

The Donald Runs His Mouth

2008-05-08T20:45:00.003-05:00

Sweet Jumping Jebus on a pogo stick! Who in the hell cares for a single minute what Donald Trump thinks about Alex Rodriguez? How surprising that a boob like Trump thinks that Derek Jeter is a winner and Rodriguez is a loser. Rodriquez has never won a ring, so how could he be any good? It's all his fault when the Yankees don't win, you know, because he is a failure in the clutch. And Jeter, he just knows how to win.

Please explain to me the fascination that America seems to have with a jackass like Trump, an egotistical, money worshiping, mean spirited creep. Why is this news?

And here's a puzzler for you: if Derek Jeter is all-powerful, how is it that his Yankees have won no World Series titles since 2000? Rodriguez didn't show up until 2004, so it can't all be his fault. Or can it?

The Dolls Clubhouse

2008-05-08T20:22:00.004-05:00

I'm sure that I'll be taken to task by someone for my insensitive and incorrect views, so this is all I'm going to say about the blow up doll incident. The members of the Chicago White Sox are all adults, and adults do things like this. Because they are friends, and friends like to laugh among themselves, and at themselves.

I'm not sure that it was funny, but my sense of humor is probably a bit more refined.

We move closer and closer every day to the time when MLB clubhouses are no longer accessible to the media. I'm not sure that this would be an entirely bad thing.

Hard to Believe

2008-05-07T21:33:00.001-05:00

From an AP story picked up by the Arlington Daily Herald:

Investigators say Sox fan James Falakos had been drinking when he pushed a Cubs fan into a window at a Domino's Pizza restaurant, breaking the glass.

What? White Sox Fan getting drunk and violent? That's unpossible!

I kid, of course...

Return of the Horse[bleep] Tuesday Night Link Dump

2008-05-06T21:30:00.002-05:00

Well-rested after a week's vacation, what is widely considered in my house to be the greatest Tuesday Night Link Dump on the Internet tubes returns!

** After a terrible, no-good, rotten day Sunday, Ozzie decided to unclench a little:

Guillen was less critical of media members whom he accused by being too fickle after the first five weeks of the season.

"I don't worry about the media," he said. "I can go to the moon, and people will ask me a question. I went to Spain last year because I don't want to talk about baseball, and people were talking about baseball in bars.

"Wherever I go, people want to know what's going on."

Sounds like somebody got some QT with the blow-up dolls. I kid, I kid!

** MLB continues its efforts to atone for its shameful, shameful past:

As part of its 2008 First-Year Player Draft next month, Major League Baseball will hold a ceremonial selection of players from the Negro Leagues. Participation in the draft is voluntary, but most of the 30 clubs are expected to take part as baseball continues its efforts to keep alive the history of the Negro Leagues.

The ceremonial event will be streamed live by BaseballChannel.TV at 1 p.m. ET, directly preceding the start of the 2008 First-Year Player Draft at 2 p.m. ET. Both events will take place at The Milk House at Disney's Wide World of Sports complex in Orlando, Fla. Fans are encouraged to attend and admission is free, with seating available on a first-come, first-served basis.

"You don't ever want to forget your history," [MLB Executive Vice President Jimmie Lee] Solomon said Tuesday. "The whole gist of what we've been trying to do in this area of diversity -- in this era of inclusion -- is to go full circle: look at our present and examine our past and rededicate ourselves to the true essence of what the American pastime should be."

We've been critical of Baron Budhausen and his cronies here, but I'm more than happy to give him props for stuff like this. If only we didn't have to have stuff like this...

** Voting for the All-Star Game is now open. Because there's no better time to figure out who's having the best season than the first week in May. No props to the Baron for this form of early voting...

** Maybe Jim can add to this, because he's paid for MLB TV while I stick to good ol' reliable Gameday Audio:

According to the customer service at Major League Baseball, the MLB.TV Premium package, which lets customers watch baseball games on their computers at higher bandwidths than the basic package and allows users to watch up to six games at once, is a "bonus."
The rep also claims that the difference between 800k and 1.2Mb video speeds, both of which are available to Premium subscribers, is negligible, and in any case, their product info pages says they're not obligated to provide the 1.2Mb package.

** MLB.com's Mike Bauman wrote the Brew Crew was "for real" after their exciting win Thursday against the Cubs.

Since then, the Crew has dropped four in a row to Houston and Florida.

Note to Mr. Bauman: please don't ever write that the Cubs are "for real." Thank you.

** ESPN.com goes into the details on why the Brewers weren't "for real" since 1983.

** Finally, it wouldn't be a Tuesday Night Link Dump without a You Tube musical interlude. To honor those nutty funsters in the White Sox clubhouse, without any further ado, here's your own -- your very own -- Dirk McQuickly!

Stuff That Gets Blown (Up) Out of Proportion

2008-05-06T21:19:00.003-05:00

Props to the AP for coming up with the most amusing headline of the day:

Never a doll moment for White Sox

Negative props to the media as a whole for keeping this story afloat. One could say that they were blowing it out of proportion...

As a Cub Fan, I've witnessed the media make a huge deal out of some real stupid [bleep] (if I may quote Ozzie Guillen). From Dusty's toothpicks to Sammy's boom box to Lou's next big blow up, there's nothing the media loves more than something stupid that gets people riled up. This blow-up doll story is on par with that other stuff.

Oh, it's tasteless (as is the concept of the "Slump Buster"). But GM Kenny Williams has addressed the issue, and assures us it shan't happen again. That's good enough for me.

Anyway, if the Sox were really serious about busting their slump, they wouldn't mess around with ordinary blow-up dolls -- they'd go right for the good stuff. One of these things was a staple in the locker room of Madison's former pro hockey team. At least it was until a very tough loss in the playoffs...

Yankee Fan Was Right

2008-05-06T21:13:00.002-05:00

A-Rod is a wimp!

Alex Rodriguez passed out during the birth of his first daughter.

“The one nurse had a cold cloth on his head. The other nurse had the blood pressure on his arm. And my mother was like rubbing his back. And he is passed out on a couch. And I am there, in the middle of labor,” Cynthia Rodriguez, wife of the New York Yankees star, said on an episode of the YES Network’s “YESterdays” that is scheduled to be broadcast Wednesday night.

“And really, I am not being paid much attention to besides the doctor and a couple of nurses,” she said. “And he is there moaning. In between pushing, I am going, `Honey, are you OK?’ and `Are you breathing? Are you OK?’"

Look for plenty of jokes about this for the next eleventy bajillion years...

But speaking as a guy who was also nearly overcome by the miracle of childbirth, I have to ask: why does Yahoo consider this the sixth-most important baseball story of the evening?

Stay Classy, White Sox Players

2008-05-05T21:32:00.004-05:00

From what was once marketed in Chicago as The Bright One:

A clubhouse prank by the White Sox before Sunday's game against the Blue Jays drew some attention in Toronto and forced Ozzie Guillen to address why there were blow-up dolls in his clubhouse.

The prank, apparently designed as a "slump-buster" to get the Sox offense out of a rut, included two blow-up dolls with bats strategically placed. The incident was reported in today's National Post in Toronto and on www.suntimes.com/sports in the "Inside the White Sox" blog by Joe Cowley.

"I’m not going to make the players apologize," Guillen said. "I don’t think that was a big deal. It’s our house. I don’t think we did anything wrong and I don’t think we did anything to make people upset. We did something to have fun and stay loose."

Here's the official reaction from the front office. I think there's a sentence hidden in there somewhere:

[Sox spokesman Scott] Reifert expects some dialogue about the situation when the team returns.

"I'm sure when the team gets back from the road trip there will be some conversations," he said. "Generally in a clubhouse that kind of thing is kept kind of quiet in the clubhouse in terms of results."

We're Going to Be Horse[bleep] the Rest of Our Lives

2008-05-05T20:16:00.002-05:00

An artist's recreation of Ozzie Guillen's pity party Sunday night:

The whole thing is utterly hi-frickin'-larious on so many levels. An unnamed reporter set Ozzie off by having the audacity to joke that perhaps some A-ball outfielder might be called up to help the big club generate some offense. Ozzie's reponse:

Tired of ''all the managers in the press box and at home, watching the game on TV and spilling food on themselves,'' Guillen became the story before a 4-3 loss Sunday to the Toronto Blue Jays. In what never rose to the emotional level of some of his previous rants, Guillen made his feelings known about the perceived treatment he and his organization get in the Windy City.

''Right now, everyone in Chicago is making lineups, 'Call up this guy, call up that guy,''' Guillen said. ''If we had 50 people allowed on the roster, we could do that. That's what ticks me off about Chicago fans and Chicago media -- they forget pretty quick. A couple of days ago, we were the [bleep]ing best [bleep] in town, now we're [bleep].''

Because, as we all know, Ozzie is the only manager who's ever had his lineup questioned. Ever.

Asked why that is, Guillen pulled no punches.

''Because maybe the manager is an ass[bleep],'' he replied.

Finally -- Ozzie says something I can agree with 100%.

Here's where Ozzie truly takes a turn into Bizarro World.

Guillen said that the only way the perception of the Sox ever would change is by winning, but even after they did in 2005, it hasn't taken long for it to wear off.

''We won it a couple years ago, and we're horse[bleep],'' Guillen said. ''The Cubs haven't won in 120 years, and they're the [bleep]ing best. [Bleep] it, we're good. [Bleep] everybody. We're horse[bleep], and we're going to be horse[bleep] the rest of our lives, no matter how many World Series we win. We are the bitch of Chicago. We're the Chicago bitch. We have the worst owner -- the guy's got seven [bleep]ing rings, and he's the [bleep]ing horse[bleep] owner.''

One thing everyone associated with the White Sox will tell you is that they just don't care about what those darned Cubs do, 'cause their team is enough to keep the occupied. I'll run the risk of mind-reading and say that many of those people are lying through their teeth. Ozzie's boss cried about it earlier this year; now, Ozzie takes his turn.

Who the hell brought up the Cubs? And what do they have to do with someone making a weak joke about adding some pop to the lineup?

What does it say about Guillen that a dumb question from a reporter should spin completely out-of-control like that? It's not like he defended his decision-making; instead, he was able to move from the dumb question to "Everybody hates me" to "Everybody hates my team" to "Everybody loves those other guys more."

Sweet zombie Jesus -- and they said that Dusty was sensitive!

If Guillen lived in the real world instead of whatever Ozzie-verse he inhabits, he'd realize that (a) every manager in the Major Leagues gets asked stupid questions about his lineups, his rotation, his bullpen, the hotshot prospects tearing it up in the bush leagues, etc., etc. and (b) whatever sins (real of imagined) Chicago has committed against his team are committed in equal measure against those other guys.

Anyone who can read the web sites of the two Chicago dailies would see that. Guillen's been around the block -- he should realize that the only thing the media loves more than a winner is a loser they can beat up on. The only thing they hate are boring, mediocre teams that are hard to write about.

The Sun-Times didn't include this nugget o' joy, but the Trib's Mark Gonzales records it for posterity:

"How about the Cubs celebrating that Lee Elia bull[bleep]? How many times do I curse people out? I will make a lot of money with my [stuff]. I have to keep going because in the future Ozzie will need money, and I can say, 'Here, give me money, here's the 10-year anniversary of my time I called [Jay] Mariotti stuff and the time I went on the radio and cursed out Mike North.'

"Yeah, we have to celebrate all that [stuff] too. But I won't be around for 10 years, believe me."

I know it's hard for Guillen to keep tabs on what's going on in what I like to call Reality...but the Cubs didn't "celebrate" Lee Elia at all. The media loved it, and brought it up every change they got. Elia took the opportunity to apologize (I never thought he owed Cub Fans one, but I'll accept it on behalf of all of us if it makes him feel better) and sell some stuff to benefit some charity.

There was no Lee Elia Day at Wrigley. He didn't throw out the first pitch, or sing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." He did go to a game, but he had to get a ticket from a friend to get in the park -- no comp seat from his ex-employers (damn cheapskates).

Then again, when has Guillen allowed the facts to get in the way of his gab?

May Day Review

2008-05-01T19:43:00.003-05:00

Greetings, Comrades! Join Commissar Jim on the reviewing stand as we salute the glorious achievements for April of the Workers and Peasants of Major League baseball! All hail Markakis, Lennon and Trosky!

**Imperialist Tool Dave van Dyck wonders how the White Sox are able to lead the league in runs per game while ranking last in the AL in batting average. Van Dyck gives the credit to the discredited capitalist tricks of "timely hitting" and "manufacturing runs." The enlightened proletariat knows that the real reason is the unlike last year, the White Sox have players at the top of the lineup gloriously drawing walks and being on base when someone jacks one out of the park. All hail Kenny Williams for the Nick Swisher and Carlos Quentin trades!

**Decadent Yankees beware! The downtrodden masses in Tampa are now a powerful insurgent force ready to contend on the AL Eastern Front. Heroes of the People Upton, Crawford, Longoria, Shields, and Kazmir will no longer submit to the iron heel of the oppressor. The Rays have cut almost two runs per game off of their runs allowed since last year, without their staff leader, Scott Kazmir, having thrown a pitch this season. Kazmir will make his first start on Sunday.

**Hero of the Kansas City revolution Zach Greinke is the new Greg Maddux. The people do not suggest that he will win 350 games, but watching Greinke is like watching vintage Maddux--the command, the intelligence, the location, the way he makes getting hitters out look easy. The Royals are not a good team, yet, but they are on the march, and at least are entertaining, which they have not been in a long time.

**Imperialist Dodgers and other NL West running dogs, the Diamondbacks will bury you! The NL West was never a four team race. The Arizona Diamondbacks have always been champions. The Snakes have scored the second most runs in the NL while allowing the fewest, and that's not a fluke. Good young hitters, a strong defense, one of the league's best rotations, and a strong bullpen--that covers it, fellow workers!

**Commissar Jim awards Pirates GM Neal Huntington high honors and the people's fame forever for being a man of his word. Huntington's open letter to Pirates fan this spring promised that he would rule with an iron fist and that poor performance would no longer be tolerated. He backed up his promise last week by having Matt Morris taken out behind the ballpark and shot. Death to the enemies of rebuilding in Pittsburgh! Morris was the most visible symbol on the field of the ineptitude of the rule of Dave Littlefield, and needed to go.

On to May! The people demand baseball!

It Happens Every Spring

2008-04-24T18:33:00.005-05:00

It's the end of April, and that can only mean it's time for the Tribune to rehash the Lee Elia tirade story again.

Funny how things change...twenty-five years ago, Elia said a lot of naughty, naughty words. And people were shocked -- shocked, I tell ya!

Today, there's another manager in town for whom the F-bomb serves as a conjunction, preposition, and adjective. And he's praised for his straight-talking, non-PC way of takin' care of business.

[Side note to everyone in Chicago -- there's only one team in the city that gets a pass. Stop handing out passes!]

More interesting than the same-old, same-old Elia Says Curses story is the accompanying text about the reporters covering Elia's rant. From the first few paragraphs you can tell that Teddy Greenstein is giving us a rare glimpse into the soul of our sports media:

It was a few hours before their 6 p.m. sportscast, and WMAQ-Ch. 5's 1-2 punch of Chet Coppock and Mark Giangreco realized they were hurting for a lead item.

The date was April 29, 1983. The White Sox were in Toronto. The Blackhawks were down 2-0 to Edmonton in their playoff series. The Bulls were already on vacation.

"We're watching the Cubs game and Lee Smith throws a wild pitch in the eighth to bring in the [ Dodgers'] go-ahead run," Coppock recalled. "The Cubs are just awful.

"So I tell Mark, 'Why don't you go to Cubs park? There has to be somebody who will pop off.' "

What that? The media just trolling for controversial sound bites to fill its air time? And not really giving a rat's ass about what actually happens on the field, as long as they can get some good tape of "somebody who will pop off?"

Over the last quarter century, our baseball media has grown much more tolerant of NC-17 language. But they still loves them some hot, juicy sound bites.

Good to know that somethings haven't changed since 1983.

Not That It's Wrong

2008-04-24T18:26:00.003-05:00

Ozzie Guillen had this to say about Yankees captain Derek Jeter:

"At the All-Star Game (where Guillen managed him in 2006), I looked around to see if he has anything I don't like. No. He's the perfect man. "

Uuuuummmmmmm...OK.

Now, why does this remind me of an episode of Scrubs?

No, that's not it.

Hmmmm...closer, but not quite. What else ya got?

In the immortal words of Charlie Brown: THAT'S IT!

Not that it's wrong, of course...

Billy Beane Ain't Nobody's Fool

2008-04-24T18:16:00.003-05:00

You can't accuse Billy Beane of looking a gift horse in the mouth.

Beane had the option of picking up Frank Thomas for a shade over $330,000 for the remainder of the 2008 season, or letting him slip by because he's old and grumpy.

What do you think, Billy?

“Bottom line, this was a risk worth taking,” Beane said. “He looks in fantastic shape. Obviously we had a great year from him and he was a great influence on the club. It would be foolish on our part not to consider it.”

How long before someone like Joe Morgan starts whining about Thomas' Moneyball tendencies?

Stupid Roster Tricks

2008-04-23T18:30:00.002-05:00

I know I'm just an ignorant blogger sitting in my mom's basement in my underwear, but I just don't get the Blue Jays. Yes, Frank Thomas is old. Yes, Frank Thomas is expensive. Frank Thomas was also really the only serious power threat on the Blue Jays roster and by releasing him the Blue Jays have pretty much guaranteed that they will score fewer runs than they did last year, probably twenty to thirty. Because the players that the Jays plan to replace Thomas are bad hitters.

Don't believe me? Let me present the Jays lineup for tonight. Granted, Alex Rios is out of the lineup tonight.

SS David Eckstein, the scrappiest of the scrappy
LF Shannon Stewart. I had forgotten that he still existed.
2B Aaron Hill. Really? Hitting third?
CF Vernon Wells. Your idea of a cleanup hitter?
RF Matt Stairs
1B Rod Barajas? Really, Rod Barajas? You're killing me here.
C Gregg Zaun
DH Robinzon Diaz. If your DH is hitting eighth, you don't understand the concept.
3B Joe Inglett. Because the mighty leadership of Scott Rolen is still on the DL with the 2,673rd injury of his career.

Remember, this is a team that thinks it can compete with the Yankees and Red Sox. Bless their hearts, we all have our delusions. Essentially, the Jays threw away their best power threat because he's expensive and grumpy. That's no way to run a roster.

Neither is the Brewers brilliant idea of carrying fourteen (14) (yes, 14) pitchers. When you're building a space shuttle, for example, it's good to have multiple redundancies, because you need that backup in case one system fails. When building a pitching staff, it's not such a great idea. I get it that you want that extra starter because you're not sure of the status of Ben Sheets, but do you really need all of the following at the same time:

Derrick Turnbow
Guillermo Mota
Salomon Torres
David Riske
Seth McClung

Maybe you should just pick two or three and dump the rest, so that you can get some other players on your roster who can hit and play in the field. Just a thought. Right now your "bench" consists of Mike Rivera (who you won't use), Craig Counsell, and either Tony Gwynn or Gabe Kapler, whichever one isn't in the lineup. There is no scenario in which this will work.

I'm sure that Brewers will return to a more reasonable roster shortly, but this mess is going to cost them a game before they do. In a division which might be decided by a single game, that could prove very costly.

Frank Thomas Memorial Link Dump

2008-04-22T20:06:00.002-05:00

** There's nothing better than beating the livin' bejeezus out of the Mets. Well, almost nothing. I admit that beatin' the living bejeezus out of the Cardinals comes first.

But what makes beatin' the livin' bejeezus out of the Mets even more special is recapping the series through You Tube videos.

** Hey -- Rob Neyer's got a new book out. I might have to give it a look-see.

** Thank you to Goat Rider Kyle for quantifying "Scrappiness." Hey, it makes as much sense as any of Dr. Phil's alleged analysis.

** Mike Downey tells us all about scrappy white guy Reed Johnson. He's a "31-year-old who hustles like Pete Rose and hero-worships Ty Cobb."

As my bilingual friends might say, Donde los yikes! Let's hope he stays away from the casinos. And doesn't beat up handicapped fans in the stands.

** This just about sums up Brewer Fans' reaction to Ben Sheets' latest.

** We've got a new addition to the links: Where Have You Gone, Andy van Slyke? Show a Pirate Fan some love, would ya?

** I was going to point out that Corey Patterson is still not having a good season, but Pat (from the aforemention WHYGAVS blog) beat me to it.

** The week's most shocking news, of course, was the Blue Jays sudden dumping of Frank Thomas. Reaction ranged from mocking the Jays for ditching their best hitting just because he had a bad two weeks and praising the Jays for getting rid of selfish, mean, no-good Thomas (both encapsulated here by FJM's Junior). Mike Downey wonders why Thomas is waiting on the unemployment line with Barry, Sammy, and Roger.

I can't reckon why the Blue Jays pulled the plug like that. The most obvious answer is economics -- after a certain number of PA's, Thomas' option for '09 kicks in. But eating the rest of this year's contract seems to be an odd way of getting out from under that option.

Thomas is on the downslope of his career, but there's nothing that makes me think he'd be a waste this year. I think some enterprising AL team needing a cheap DH would be more than happy to pay Thomas the Major League minimum for the rest of the year...

** In honor of Frank Thomas, I continue my award-winning Rutles retrospective. This song is from the Rutles' second film (the one in color that wasn't as good as the black-and-white one). Enjoy!

Pundit-Hot-Air-Symmetry Fever -- Catch It!

2008-04-22T19:39:00.003-05:00

Shorter Big Mouth and van Dyck: Sure, the Cubs swept the Pirates. But the Pirates suck. Therefore, if you think the Cubs have a chance to have a good year, you're an idiot.

Either the eds at the Tower really cracked the whip on Sunday night, or Big Mouth Morrissey and Dave van Dyck were typing off the same script. The two scribes expended a lot of energy explaining that the Cubs would have to do just as well against the Mets, Rockies, and (later this month) the Brew Crew to keep the Pennant Express rolling.

To which I say: No kidding.

I think it's fair to say that beating Pittsburgh is not a trial by fire for any would-be pennant contender (sorry, Pirate Fans -- believe me, I feel your pain). But imagine the wailing and gnashing of teeth if the Cubs hadn't swept the Pirates. Or -- even worse -- split their first six games.

Imagined Big Mouth and van Dyck wailing: Great googaly moogaly! How can anyone consider the Cubs a pennant contender when they can't handle a second-division team like the Pirates? Any team wanting to establish its post-season bona fides needs to beat up on the weaker sisters of the league.

I wasn't about to send in a down payment on October tickets after the Pirates series. But wins are wins, and I'd rather my heroes beat the Pirates now than the alternative.

Someone Will Find a Way to Blame Dusty for This, Too

2008-04-20T07:30:00.002-05:00

Sean Deveney from The Sporting News reports this frankly mind-boggling bit of information:

Alas, in the gambling scandal that never was, the ‘18 Cubs just might have laid down for that year’s A.L. champ, the Red Sox. In their defense, those Cubs could not have known that, 90 years later, North Side fans would still be pulling hair out over this team.

Now, it cannot be said for certain that gamblers got to the ‘18 Cubs. But Eddie Cicotte, pitcher and one of the eight White Sox outcasts from the ‘19 World Series, did say in a newly found affidavit he gave to the 1920 Cook County grand jury that the Cubs influenced the Black Sox. Cicotte said the notion of throwing a World Series first came up when the White Sox were on a train to New York. The team was discussing the previous year’s World Series, which had been fixed, according to players. Some members of the Sox tried to figure how many players it would take to throw a Series. From that conversation, Cicotte said, a scandal was born.

Considering all the gambling shenanniganes going on from, oh, let's say the 1880's through 1920 (when MLB finally decided to do something to defend the faith of fifty million people), I don't think anyone should be very surprised by this information. I think the story will bear watching, if only to get a fuller understanding of just what the hell was going on in the game back then.

I'm curious as to why there hasn't been any speculation about that 1918 World Series -- at least not any that I've seen before. The Black Sox weren't the only players caught up in gambling scandals, just the most notorious. Deveney notes that Hugh Fullerton wrote about some questionable play in real time back in '18. Is there anything else out there?

How long until someone use this as another example of how only one team in Chicago gets a pass?

Thirty-Three Is a Magic Number

2008-04-17T22:09:00.001-05:00

I wonder if, deep down inside, Ed Wade isn't regretting trading for Miguel Tejada...

Ball Hawks

2008-04-17T21:53:00.002-05:00

The guys at chicagosports.com put up some audio of Reds' broadcaster Marty Brennaman blasting Cub Fans because a bunch of idiots in the bleachers threw balls on the field after a Reds homer the other night.

Just a few thoughts on that...

** Marty's right -- throwing the ball back is lame. It was amusing the first time someone did it. No, wait...that's a lie. It was never amusing. Cub Fan, I implore you -- stop. Just stop.

** Marty goes on to say that there were "fifteen or eighteen" balls on the field, and elaborates that that is "so typical" of Cub Fan.

Eighteen idiots threw balls on the field. More than 39,000 other people (some of them idiots, some not) repressed the urge to hurl anything out of the stands. Is eighteen a large enough sample in this group to call it "typical" of the group?

** And just for good measure, Marty adds that people throwing baseballs on the field after home runs are one of the reasons why he roots against the Cubs. And then caps it all off by saying that you know there's just no way the Cubs will win the division this year because they're the Cubs, and will find a way to mess it up.

Is this part of the pass that one of the Chicago teams keeps getting? Just curious...

Words Fail Me

2008-04-15T23:06:00.002-05:00

Another reason why bloggers suck and you need four years of j-school to be a real baseball writer...Here's Sully's lead paragraph in his alleged game story for tonight's Reds-Cubs tilt:

When Lou Piniella and Dusty Baker squared off at Wrigley Field on the night of June 3, 2003, Sammy Sosa was ejected in the first inning for using a corked bat.

Have I mentioned that that was the lead paragraph? You know, the paragraph which, if my journalism text book is correct, should be used to summarize all the salient information contained in the article?

You see, traditional journalism used what we in the biz call an "inverted pyramid" structure. All the really, really important stuff goes first. The other interesting-but-not-essential details get shoved to the back.

The reason for this is because you can't assume that people will have the time or inclination to read all your pearls of wisdom. Therefore -- important stuff up top, less important stuff at the bottom (which also makes it easy for your ed to cut as needed).

It seems the most important fact in tonight's Reds-Cubs game for Sully is that Sammy corked his bat five years ago. Rick Reilly was right -- all these damned bloggers are ruining sports journamalism for the rest of us...

Tuesday Night Link Dump

2008-04-15T20:17:00.004-05:00

** Last week, Ken Tremendous at FJM pointed out this lovely piece from SI's Rick Reilly:

"It’s all over the map," Reilly says about sports journalism on the dot.com world. "There's some good journalism, and some really horrible crap on there from guys holding down the couch springs in their mother's basement...

Yes, it's another piece from a journamalist who are fed up with all us guys who think we know something about whatever sport we're writing about. Because if we don't sit in the press box and watch the players get undressed, what could we possibly add to the discourse?

I thought of Reilly's assessment today, when the Tribune wasted the lives of more trees printing this piece of crap from Sully.

This has to be one of the laziest things ever written by Sully, who is quickly becoming a master of lazy hack work (like this, for instance). All Sully does is rehash his favorite scripts about Dusty and Lou. If you've read the Trib at any point of the last four years, you've read it all before.

Cut-and-paste. Why, it's as lazy as masquerading a lame collection of links as a real blog post...

** Meanwhile, at the Tower, Fred Mitchell makes this modest proposal:

It took 22 years before the Boston organization and Red Sox Nation publicly forgave first baseman Bill Buckner for his fielding gaffe in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series...

Which raises the question: Are Cubs fans ready to forgive their former first baseman, Leon Durham, whose fielding error in the sixth inning of the deciding game of the 1984 National League Championship Series against San Diego opened the floodgates for a bitter loss?

Or do the Cubs have to win a World Series before their fans get around to forgiving Durham?

To once again quote Mr. Ken Tremendous...f*ck the heck????

I know that, in this hundred year anniversary, we'll be elbow-deep in rehashing of all the alleged tragedies in Cub history. But this is a new one on me. I didn't realize that we Cub Fans were supposed to be hatin' on the Bull.

If I'm going to blame anything for our 1984 NLCS loss, I'll blame the fact that the Padres won Game Five and we didn't.

We didn't lose the game because Durham booted the ball. We lost because the Padres played better than we did. Can we stop trying to gin up some phony "controversy" about stuff that happened almost a quarter century ago?

** Mitchell includes this nugget from Buckner. Talk about burying the lede!

"I really had to forgive, not the fans of Boston per se, but in my heart, I had to forgive the media for what they put me and my family through," Buckner said after throwing out the first pitch. "I've done that, I'm over that and I'm just happy."

Emphasis, of course, mine. Hard to believe that Mitchell would let that slip that some of his cohort might not be as "fair and balanced" about some players as they like to think they are...

** Goat Rider Curt has this trenchant response to Mitchell's idiocy. Bravo, Kurt!

Hey, as a writer of a daily blog, I understand the need to drive quantity sometimes at the cost of quality. Maybe Mitchell's editor approached him and said, "hey, 100 words on Durham and Buckner by 5PM please," leaving poor Fred Mitchell no choice but to write one of the most ridiculous articles ever written by a Tribune columnist not named Phil Rogers.

** Also at the Goat Riders, Byron has a Q&A with Reds blogger Red Hot Mama. RHM becomes one of the first to offer this tired take on a subject that should have been put to rest long ago:

As for Fukudome, he's hardly a rookie. He played at the Japanese major league level for, what, nine years? Giving him the ROY would be like letting the kid who was held back for three years win the pull-up competition.

*sigh* Once more, folks -- Fukudome, and all other players that come from the Japanese leagues, are rookies during their first year in MLB. It doesn't matter if they've spent nine years, one year, or twenty years in the Japanese leagues.

The only way that analogy works is if you're willing to argue that the Japanese leagues are at an equal level of quality as MLB. In which case, Tuffy Rhodes should be considered a brilliant power hitter.

** Shorter Jeff Passan: Nick Swisher -- what a guy! Here's wishing we could all be a little more like him!

I like Nick Swisher. I think he's a good ballplayer. It's funny that when he was with the A's, people griped more about his Moneyball skills than anything. Now, they're beginning to notice that he's got some talent.

** Last week's Rutles video was so well-received I just have to do it again. And with all this talk about Baker, Durham, and Buckner, I know just the song. Enjoy it, won't you?

The Day All Hell Broke Loose In Baseball

2008-04-15T14:02:00.004-05:00

Today is Jackie Robinson Day. This is one of the most important dates in baseball history; hell, it's one of the most important dates in the history of our country. Let Steven Goldman of Baseball Prospectus tell you why.

Bill Clinton said that everything that is wrong with America can be fixed by everything that's right with America. Segregation was one of the things most wrong. The courage of Jackie Robinson, the leadership of Pee Wee Reese, the quiet dignity of Roy Campanella, and the moral courage of Pete Reiser were things that were right.

While we celebrate the achievements of Jackie Robinson, let's not let MLB off the hook. This isn't a day for MLB itself to be particularly proud of; it's actually a day of shame that such a day was ever necessary. When we think of Robinson, let's also think for a moment about Cap Anson, who refused to play against Fleet Walker and George Stovey and helped cement the color line. Let's think about Judge Landis, who vigilantly enforced the line while piously telling the public that no such line existed. Let's think about Yankees GM George Weiss, who told a writer that he'd never allow blacks to play for the Yankees "because it would offend boxholders from Westchester to have to sit with niggers." Let's think about Tom Yawkey's Red Sox, who were tipped off to Willie Mays in the late 1940's but decided not to offer him a contract because he wasn't "their type of player" and didn't integrate until 12 years after Robinson broke in. Anson, Landis, Weiss, and Yawkey are all members of baseball's Hall of Fame.

As much as we criticize Bud Selig on this site, I have to say that Selig seems sincere about moving the game far beyond its sordid racist past. Jackie Robinson Day, the Civil Rights Game, the RBI program are excellent ideas that MLB should be credited for.

Racism in America is far from eliminated. A day like this is an inspiration, a day in which we can see that progress can be made against the most seemingly intractable opposition.

It's Especially Tricky the Way It Works

2008-04-13T07:34:00.002-05:00

In an article printed today, Sully re-hashes Carlos Zambrano's "fit" from Friday night and openly calls Zambrano "crazy as ever."

Meanwhile, Dave van Dyck advances the White Sox' assertion that they're not a bunch of "whiners." As you may have heard, Ozzie Guillen accused an umpire of having a vendetta against him, and Jim Thome was recently tossed for complaining about a called strike.

Apparently, those were not "fits," and Ozzie isn't as "crazy as ever."

Because I like to be fair and balanced, I'll let White Sox GM Kenny Williams have the last word:

There's only one sports team in Chicago that will get a pass. I won't name them. But it ain't us.

You've Been Warned

2008-04-12T11:06:00.002-05:00

An interesting little tid-bit buried in Jayson Stark's latest column:

Bet you didn't even know there is a spring training crisis, right? Well, there isn't yet. But something happened this week that's about to unleash one.

That development was the finalization of the Reds' financing deal with Goodyear, Ariz., making their 2010 move to Arizona official. So why is that a crisis? Well, it's bad enough that one of the best sites in Florida (Sarasota) will be teamless. But it's a crisis because when the Reds leave, it's going to create an odd number of teams (15 apiece) in each state.

The big ramification of that mess is that at least one team will either have to be off, or scheduled for a split-squad game, every day of spring training. That's not an issue early in the spring. But by the last week of the spring, nobody wants to play a split-squad game. And if there is one, there will be so many minor leaguers playing in it, we bet some ticket-buyers will want their money back.

The Reds' exit also worsens the already-arduous travel issue in Florida, where teams are much more spread out than they are in Arizona. And you'd be surprised how many baseball people are ticked off by all of this.

Some of that unhappiness is being aimed at the government officials in Florida who don't even seem to care about all the tourist dollars they're chasing away. But some folks in baseball are also asking this question:

How could the commissioner's office sit back and let this happen? Wasn't this an issue worthy of MLB's intervention? Couldn't the commissioner's discretionary fund have ridden to the rescue when the Reds and Sarasota couldn't agree on how to fund necessary improvements to the complex?

"My understanding is, that's exactly what it was intended for," said an official of one team that trains in Florida. "They don't like to tell us what that fund is used for. But that's what it was supposed to be used for."

You'll be reading lots of stories about this "crisis" in 2010. We just wanted to be the first column on your block to alert you to the impending panic attack.

At the risk of sounding cynical, here's my two cents: Why didn't Baron Budhausen use his discretionary fund to "rescue" the Sarasota training site? Because if a MLB team is getting government financing (say, from Goodyear AZ), why in God's name would he want to spend MLB money?

That's how Budhausen has rolled in every other new facility debate that's crossed his desk. Why should his attitude be any different for a spring training stadium?

Stay Classy, White Sox Fans

2008-04-12T09:57:00.001-05:00

File this one under "Why Am I Not Surprised?"

Tuesday Night Link Dump

2008-04-08T20:49:00.004-05:00

It's the laziest post of the week, as I just don't feel like thinking all that much...

** Listening to the Rays/Mariners game tonight, I just heard what could be the greatest radio promotion of all time!

If you bring a radio to the Trop, and one of crew there spots you with it, they'll give you a game ball. And a chance to give a shout-out on the air.

OK, so it's not much. Still, I think it's pretty cool.

** As far as bloggers go, Sully makes me look like someone who puts effort into it. He rarely posts anything that isn't a cut-and-paste from his pieces in the next day's paper (unlike White Sox beat reporter Mark Gonzales, who seems to understand that the blog provides a medium that offers the opportunity to post in real time).

Sully, though, was quick to put this post up trumpeting the Cubs' blown seven-run lead Monday. If you're looking for a follow-up post that mentions in passing the Cubs winning that game in extras...well, you're still waiting.

What do you think about that, Kenny Williams?

There's only one sports team in Chicago that will get a pass. I won't name them. But it ain't us.

** I've already mocked Dr. Phil for his dopey "Power Rankings." Fortunately, Bad Kermit at Hire Jim Essian! presents a funnier mockery of the "Power Rankings." He even includes a re-set of this famous play:

** Fire Joe Morgan's Ken Tremendous presents a cogent write-up of what I consider to be the greatest moment in the history of ESPN Sunday Night Baseball. I mean, did the guys at ESPN really expect the umpire to say something not bleep-worthy after getting drilled in the face with a pitch?

** I'm not sure what The New Yorker's Roger Angell is trying to say here. I think he's saying that baseball players used steroids because they want to make an assload of money, not because they want to tarnish the game's hallowed records. Any thoughts on that?

** As you may have heard, the pit known as Shea Stadium is closing after this year. And while MLB.com's Michael Bauman mentions one famous non-baseball event held there, I don't understand how he could leave this one out of his column:

** And just for the hell of it, take a trip in the Way-Back Machine and revisit a classic episode of Batgirl's Legovision. Because I miss Batgirl.

Isn't It Ironic, Don't You Think?

2008-04-08T12:30:00.003-05:00

Of the 750 active major league players, only one, Jamie Moyer, had been born at the time the first pitch was thrown at brand-new Shea Stadium on April 17, 1964.

Guess who random chance drew as the starting pitcher for the Phillies for todays final home opener at Shea.

It's not Adam Eaton.

Light Shining Through The Blackout?

2008-04-08T10:40:00.003-05:00

Well, well...perhaps MLB has finally begun to realize the absurdity of their blackout policies.

Living in Sacramento, I'm blacked out of the Athletics and Giants. I can live with that, even if I don't really agree with it. Besides, who wants to watch the 2008 Giants, anyway? And I do have the option of watching the archived version of the game after it's been played, so I don't have to miss a start by Tim Lincecum if I don't want to.

But the poor guy living in Las Vegas or Billings, Montana or Cedar Rapids, Iowa shouldn't be considered part of the home market of six different teams. That's absurd.

There is bound to be resistance to this among many clubs, and the commissioner and his president will probably have to step in and umpire. While the goal of fixing this situation by the start of the 2009 season is encouraging, it's probably not realistic.

It's still a step forward. The bottom line is that the MLB TV package should serve the function of growing interest in the game as well as being a profit center. The blackout was creating a failure of the first function, which in the long run hurts the second. Allowing more fans and potential fans access to the game is good for everyone.

Oh Good Lord

2008-04-06T21:50:00.003-05:00

Dr. Phil offers his special brand of baseball analysis with his first "Power Rankings" of the season:

9. Cubs (6): For this to be a magical season, they will have to play better. They were on a pace to allow a majors-worst 162 unearned runs through five games.

"They will have to play better." Thanks, Dr. Phil! I bet my heroes never thought of that!

Oh, and I love the talk about being "on pace" this early in the year. By the way -- Mark Ellis was "on pace" to hit 162 homers after the first game in Tokyo. He's fallen slightly off the pace since then...

Dr. Phil also has the Tigers ranked #31. Don't ask why he has more than thirty spots for a thirty-team list (he adds allegedly clever things to his lists). Hey -- Detroit's on pace to lose a major-league worst 162 games through five games (and most of the sixth going on right now).

I think it's obvious that for the Tigers to get the magical season everybody expected from the, they'll have to play better.

Meeting of the Minds

2008-04-06T21:46:00.001-05:00

Ozzie Guillen and Joe Morgan -- two undisputed geniuses of the game -- had a disagreement Sunday about who the best Puerto Rican player ever is.

Wish I could've been there to see it...

Paranoid Much?

2008-04-06T21:38:00.002-05:00

Normally, I wouldn't bother to make fun of Jose Canseco. But this little nugget of joy, as reported by the Trib's David Haugh, set off the WTF Alarm in my head:

A courtesy cup of black coffee was waiting for Jose Canseco on Friday when he arrived at his seat inside a downtown bookstore to sign copies of his second tell-all about steroids and baseball, "Vindicated."

Before Canseco took out a pen, he sent the beverage back.
"Who made this coffee? If you don't know who made it, you've got to dump it," Canseco snapped at a store employee. "No way they are going to get me."

They?

So began the latest stop on Canseco's Me Against the World Tour.

Wearing sunglasses he chose not to remove, Canseco called Major League Baseball a "powerful mafia," gave a detailed account of how he once injected former White Sox teammate Magglio Ordonez with steroids inside the U.S. Cellular Field clubhouse and flexed an ego that has never needed enhancement.

About half an hour after Canseco refused his coffee in a paranoid snit, another worker returned with a fresh cup she said she had just made herself. "Good—thank you," Canseco said.

You know, I've said some pretty mean things about Baron Budhausen and his cronies before. But I don't think they'd actually try to assassinate someone who's ticking them off. Perhaps Canseco is exaggerating his affect on the Commissioner's Office?

On the other hand, what do I know? As the saying goes...just because you're not paranoid doesn't mean that they're not out to get you, too...

Quiet Riot

2008-04-06T21:23:00.002-05:00

So I'm listening to Sports Central on WGN radio after Saturday's Cubs game. You'd think I know better, because if there's anything I've learned in my 40+ years on this planet that one of the few places that you can find less insightful baseball analysis than internet message boards is sports radio.

So I shouldn't have been surprised to hear co-host Jim Memolo gush about what a great top-of-the-lineup hitter Ryan Theriot is. Because he's a grinder and "works the count" so excellently.

Here are Theriot's pitches per plate appearance for the last four years, courtesy of ESPN:

2005 -- 4.07
2006 -- 3.65
2007 -- 3.53
2008 (through Saturday) -- 2.96

If that's "working the count," The Riot has the cushiest job in Wrigley Field.

I'm sure that there are lots of Cub Fans who now accept as gospel truth that Theriot can "work the count" without a second thought. Because some guy on WGN radio said he could, and he must know what he's talking about because he's on the radio.

Gentle Readers, if there's one thing you take away from our little cow-town blog, it's this: don't ever accept anything anyone (even us) tells you at face value. Do your homework. Look up the numbers. And decide for yourself.

If there's something else I've learned during my 40+ years on this planet, it's that everybody is as full of crap as everyone else (even me (I won't speak for Jim here)). You know just as much as anyone on the radio, or in the newspapers, or with a cow-town blog. Or at least you do, if you're willing to put a little effort into it...

Patterson Watch

2008-04-06T21:03:00.002-05:00

I touched on Dusty Baker's decision to drop Corey Patterson in the leadoff spot on Opening Day a few days ago. I offered the opinion that Baker could be considered coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs for using Patterson in a role for which he has displayed no aptitude.

Over the last week, I tracked the Reds' box scores to see if Baker continued that trend. And he has. Patterson has his leadoff in three other games. So far this young season, Patterson is five-for-nineteen as a leadoff hitter (with one walk).

Four of his five hits are for extra bases (two doubles and two dingers). That's good.

His OBP so far is .273. That's...uhhh...not good.

The Reds looked good this week, so Patterson's shortcomings may be glossed over slightly. And it's early, small sample size, blah blah blah.

But still. Corey doesn't get on base enough to be an effective leadoff man. If Baker keeps running him out there everyday (against righties, that is -- it looks like Freel takes over against southpaws), the Reds will be hurting sooner or later.

And sooner or later, Jay Bruce will force his way onto the team. Even Sarge knows it:

"Where is that young kid who looked so good in spring training in center field, and why isn't he here?" — Gary Matthews Sr., former major-league outfielder, friend of Baker and Phillies broadcaster, asking about Jay Bruce.

(Hat tip to Chad at Redlegs Nation for pointing that one out.)