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...
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.
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!
“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.
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...
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?
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.
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 Chicagodailies 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.
"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?
