There are reports that top advisers to Yankees GM Brian Cashman have been at recent outings of Carlos Zambrano. Obviously, that starts rumors that the Yankees might try to bring him in. I couldn't root for this more to happen. I hate Zambrano so much, and would love to root against him. Plus, he sucks. You add that pressure of New York to this guy and he is going to snap, and I would love to sit back and watch that happen. If that wasn't good enough over $28MM remaining on his contract, and the Yankees are already bleeding money. Sure, they will never run out, but it has to get annoying.
Zambrano is a bum, and his 4.50 ERA in the NL will easily be over 5.00 if he comes to the AL East. I will pray each night, and will a goat for the baseball Gods if they let this happen.
This is basically a yearly event, but once again Carlos Zambrano has one again shot of his mouth against a teammate...
"The problem wasn't Pujols," Zambrano said. "The problem was [Theriot's] at-bat. We should have known better than this. We are playing like a Triple-A team. This is embarrassing. Embarrassing for the team and the owners. Embarrassing for the fans. Embarrassing, that's the word for this team."
"We should know that Ryan Theriot is not a good fastball hitter," Zambrano yelled after turning in the direction of Marmol's then-vacated locker. "We should know that as a team. We should play better here. We stink. That's all I've got to say."
I am actually fine with 90% of what he said. The Cubs do suck, they are playing like a AAA team and he should be pissed (6 straight losses, 11 games out of of 1st place in the NL central). The one thing I have a problem with is calling out a teammate. If you got a problem with something he did you let him know, and you try to correct it. There is no need to go to the media. This shouldn't be shocking though, Zambrano is a fucking moron. Overall though they can't be too mad with the way Zambrano is playing, he is 5-2 on the season with a 3.98 and as long as he doesn't completely explode (which is asking a lot) he shouldn't be suspended.
Tim Wakefield pitched a real good 6.2 IP, giving up just one run and not walking anyone. He only threw 75 pitches during that time but Francona wanted to get him out of there before anything bad happened. Daniel Bard faced 4 batters and Jon Papelbon closed it out.
The real hero of the game though has to be Adrian Gonzalez who is on fire. he went 4 for 4 and now has his batting average up to .340. Salty and Youk provided the rest of the offense.
Kerry Wood plunked Jed Lowrie but there were no other fireworks like Saturdays game.
We take on the juggernaut known as the Cleveland Indians next and are a half game back of the 1st place Rays.
Chicago makes its first visit to Fenway Park since losing the 1918 World Series in six games. Interestingly enough the Sox are currently riding a 6 game win streak. They have had those wins in almost every way you can think of. Lately it has been pitching, but it all started with the hitting getting going. One thing that almost all the games have had in common is that they have been close. With this streak the Sox are only 1 1/2 games behind the Rays for 1st place in the AL East, something that seemed so far away just a week or two ago.
Tonight we get Lester vs. Doug Davis. Doug Davis (0-1, 1.80) makes his 2nd start for the Cubs after he allowed 3 runs and 4 hits in 5 innings of a 3-0 loss to San Francisco. he has pitched pretty well against the Sox in his career going 3-2 with a 3.92 ERA in six starts.
Lester meanwhile has never pitched against the Cubs, and could really use a good outing after letting up 9 runs (and 9 walks) over his last two starts. Pitchers like Lester don't stay down for long, and he has pitched very well at home this year (1.38 ERA while striking out 16 in 13 innings to win his last two at home). I think his command issues will go away, because that is not something that is usually a problem for him.
Red Sox win 4-2 Player of the Game: Lester/Pedroia Game starts at 7:10pm
If the NFL schedule release is the start of when we really get to be bombarded with NFL news in the run up to summer camps and eventually the season, what takes place tonight might be the biggest event before the Saints and Vikings kick off on September 9th. Until the last few years, the release of the schedule was actually not the big television event the NFL has turned it into. Instead that major offseason moment came with the NFL's annual Entry Draft. It seems odd to me that the NFL would put two major events in such close proximity when the season is a good five months away, here we are. The NFL Draft is an annual feed for the football news addicts that can't get through the offseason without massive withdrawal.
Lucky us. Tonight we get our fix.
Yes, the NFL Draft starts tonight, which seems odd to say given that this is the first time ever that it has started both on a week night and in prime time. This has always been a Saturday day-long weekend affair, but now that the NFL has realized what ESPN knew for the past two decades -- the NFL Draft is a valuable television property that you can use to maximize ratings and thus rights fees by stretching it out -- we get treated to a first round Thursday night, the second and third rounds Friday night and the rest of the selection process stretching out all day Saturday.
It's a bizarre format, and frankly I always enjoyed spending a day plopped on the couch watching the selections. It was kind of like how Sundays in the fall are, but just with hundreds of players I didn't know very well, the bombast of Chris Berman, the way-too-enthusiastic intensity of Todd McShay and, obviously, Mel Kiper Jr.'s hair. The hair may have been the best part. Still, because I love football and because I'm a sheep, I will still be watching with all eyes keyed in on whom the New York Giants will be selecting with the 15th overall pick.
Of course, that moment in particular won't be happening until roughly two and a half hours in, but I will still be watching the prior picks to see what potential reaches are gone, what potential steals might still be on the board for Big Blue and what awkward moments we might get to see. Rumor has it Clemson running back C.J. Spiller might fall to the Giants at No. 15, which, potentially, would be a huge steal. At least in m mind. Most guesses though have the G-Men targeting Rolando McClain of Alabama to fill the void at middle linebacker. This would be fine too. The peculiar thing about it, though is that getting quite so wrapped up in everything and grading each pick immediately is, you know, pointless. Sure drafts can have major immediate impacts -- the 2007 Super Bowl Champion Giants got significant contributions from all seven of their draft picks that year, though that is rare -- but overall, the one thing most necessary to remember about drafts is this:
We have no idea what is going to happen with any of these players. Really. We haven't a clue. And yet we watch anyway with some bizarre notion that our team's immediate fortunes will be changed by every pick they make, when, in fact, most players selected won't be impacting their teams for at least a season or two. Immediate impacts are rare by rookies in the NFL. Of course, it doesn't make it any less fun to think about.
As for me, I'll be watching tomorrow while I juggle that and, potentially, the end of the Devils' season as they fight to stay alive in Game 5 against Philadelphia. New Jersey does have two things going for it. For one, the Devils are home tonight. Not having to play in Philly is always helpful. For another, and far more importantly, the Flyers got word today that Jeff Carter, who had a three-point game in Game 4, and Simon Gagne, another dangerous offensive weapon, are going to be out at least for the rest of the series. This turns everythign completely upside down.
I believe in comebacks.
And speaking of believing in comebacks, I attended my first Mets game of the year tonight, and believing in comebacks didn't exactly bring it to pass in a rough 9-3 loss to the Cubs. Of course, the Amazins pulled within three in the eighth to make us feel as though we might actually have a chance, but ever the teases, that all went to hell when the Cubs score three in the top of the ninth to put it away.
The game itself was mundane and vaguely disappointing, Ike Davis continued to rocket to stardom with a phenomenal catch over the dugout railing in foul territory. Of course, he also proved later in the night that he is awful agaisnt lefthanders. Hopefully that part changes. What I hope never changes is the character of the people you bump into on the subway ride back. I had to deal with one odd man, who misheard what I did for a living and assumed I was a writer for NFL.com. He took advantage of the moment to tell me that he was a great player who wouldn't make the pros because of a knee injury, but that "players play and writers write, you do what you do best."
And he insisted the way I should do what I do best was to take it from him and "put it in the column tomorrow" that Ben Roethlisberger would be traded before the Draft. When I told him that I would be incredibly surprised by this for a number of reasons, he kept insisting that I "put it in the column." I'm not sure why he was so convinced, I can tell you I'm not, but given that a) I don't have a football column to write and b) if I did, I'm fairly sure "some guy on the seven train" wouldn't be considered a solid source, well, I won't be writing that column.
If I'm proven wrong, and, well, I'm pretty sure I won't be, it won't take long to know. Like I said, I will be watching.
In the mid-1990’s there was a commercial for ESPN Sunday Night Baseball in which a Chicago Cubs bobblehead doll nodded its head repeating “This is our year! We can’t be beat!” As it said this, the doll slowly grew a beard and became covered with cobwebs. At the time I thought this was funny, but being that I was young and not particularly well-versed in Cubs history, I didn’t quite understand the depths of why it was so funny or what it truly meant to watch the Cubbies.
There are, to me, few immutable truths or superstitions that are worth relying on in professional sports. Curses, good luck, bad luck, lucky socks, lucky jockstraps, rubbing your bats with fruit, wearing the same uniforms, eating the same pregame meal, velcroing and de-velcroing your batting glove the exact same number of times before each pitch – it’s all complete lunacy. None of it is real, none of it exists, it’s all in your head.
Except one.
There is one superstition that I believe wholeheartedly without any cold data or rational reason.
I haven’t found a Z-Score to determine the statistical significance of how unlikely it was for the Cubs to go more than a century without winning a championship, but given that there are now 30 teams in Major League Baseball, and that for the first 54 years of this streak there were only 16 teams, and if we assume that all things being equal, the Cubs should have made a World Series appearance at least once every eight years as there were only eight teams in the National League until 1962, and also assume they had a 50% chance of winning each of those World Series, well, it seems particularly unlikely that this one baseball team could go more than a century without winning a World Series.
It seems likely that this series of events would happen – all things being equal – less than five percent of the time. From this I can only assume that there is, in fact, a statistically significant bias that is causing the Cubs to have not won a championship. There must be some reason. And so, until it is determined that there is no reason, or the Cubs somehow manage to prove me wrong, I will stick with my belief that the Chicago Cubs will never win the World Series.
Because they are the Chicago Cubs.
Of course, I’m sure there are legions of Cubbies fans ready to prove me wrong on this count. What evidence they have to back themselves up I couldn’t tell you. There’s 101 years of evidence that seem fairly clear cut to me. And ineptitude isn’t the only reason as Wrigleyville has suffered the most disastrous close calls this side of Fenway, such as the black cat at Shea Stadium in 1969, Chicago’s near-miss in 1984 or the devastating collapse of the Bartman Game in the 2003 NLCS.
That last one I remember extremely vividly as I was in my second month at Northwestern University when the collapse occurred. Of course, as Frou Frou might have put it, there’s beauty in the breakdown. Watching the Cubs fall apart just five outs from a World Series berth on Alex Gonzalez’s booted double-play ball and the interference on a foul pop fly down the left field line to Moises Alou, which was muffed by lifelong Cubs fan Steve Bartman, was the way the course of events were supposed to run. Because the Cubs will never win the World Series.
It was life. And in a cruel way, it was beautiful.
I pulled myself down to Sheffield and Waveland Avenues to be a part of the crowd for Game 7, hoping to witness the explosion in Wrigleyville when the Cubs made their first World Series appearance in 58 years. Alas, a rally by the Marlins, who pulled off the upset, meant it was not meant to be. The Fish would go on to an unlikely Championship that year – which I predicted a month earlier, just ask Luisa – and the Cubbies stayed home, wallowing in misery as the bad century continued its march.
I actually attended my first game at Wrigley a month before it all happened on September 28, 2003, clearing up my first order of business as I began my undergraduate career in Evanston by making my first venture inside the friendly confines. That day the confines weren’t exactly friendly – or at least they weren’t comfortable. It was extremely chilly, something that could be said 10 months out of the year in Chicago, and with the Cubs having clinched the 2003 NL Central Division title by sweeping the Pirates in a doubleheader a day earlier, this regular season finale was entirely meaningless.
I got my ticket through Northwestern as this was considered one of the New Student Week activities where you were encouraged to make friends by doing random activities with hundreds people you’ve never met before. While, at that point, I had made a few friends at school, it was still that nebulous period freshman year is heir to – a semester of eating, drinking and socializing with dozens of people you don’t know and who you aren’t sure are your real friends. Eventually, most people find their way – and their friends – and I certainly did that, but it hadn’t happened yet. I went to the game on my own, picking up my ticket at the technical institute and then following the crowd to the Noyes L stop.
Wrigley Field sits at the Addison stop on the Red Line and as the train pulled in, the conductor announced, “This stop, Addison – Wrigley Field, home of the 2003 World Series Champion Chicago Cubs.” Not surprisingly, cheers rang out as I headed out of the station and by the numerous ticket brokers trying to pawn off their last ducats outside the stadium. There are dozens of them. Ticket scalping is a common sight at every stadium, but Wrigley has an abundance of them. If a Cubs game appears to be sold out, have no fear, you will still be able to find a ticket. If you have overwhelming demands such as “being in your seat by first pitch”, you may pay an arm and a leg for one. However, if you wait until the start of the first inning, the prices drop quickly.
Wrigley is a building that looks as old as it is. The exterior is covered with paint that is constantly crackling or peeling, the green roof on top seems lower to the ground than it actually is and the big red marquee behind home plate looks like something out of a Charlie Chaplin film. But I say these things not out of skepticism, but adoration. Where Wrigley lags behind Fenway in terms of city-necessitated quirks or championships it makes up for with an unbelievable amount of charm.
Wrigley’s aged appearance has a friendly appeal that makes it feel warm, even if the weather almost never is. There are moments and days when the weather at Wrigley is wonderful, but they are impossible to predict and disappear as quickly as they come. On some days, if you’re lucky, there will actually be multiple weather patterns within the stadium, as was the case when Evan Hung and I felt 45-degree chills in the upper deck while bleacher bums went shirtless because of the oppressive sun in the outfield. My sophomore year at school I went to all three games the Mets played in Chicago and found myself one night in monsoon-like conditions, the next night under clear skies and 80-degree weather, and the final day stuck in the bleachers shivering as the temperature struggled to break 40. The pain of that day was exacerbated when famed longtime Cubs fan Ronnie “Woo Woo” Wickers, a man who legendary Cubs announcer Harry Caray dubbed “Leather Lungs” for his ability to shout for hours at a time, razzed me personally in front of a crowd as I exited the stadium when the Mets fell in extra innings.
Woo Woo has become a cult hero around Wrigleyville, recognized far and wide as one of the most dedicated souls in the Windy City. Wickers has become so popular over the years that he led the crowd in “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” during the seventh-inning stretch in 2001, an honor typically reserved for local celebrities or ones who just happen to be passing through the city. Ozzie Osborne once delivered a particularly memorable – and entirely indecipherable – rendition of the tune.
Wickers actually spent most of his adult life as a night custodian at Northwestern before briefly being homeless in the late 1980s, a period during which he attended most games with donated tickets. If nothing else, this is a place where the fans appreciate the other fans. One such notable incident occurred in 2008, when the Cubs allowed someone who had actually seen them win a World Series, 104-year-old Leo Hildebrand, throw out the first pitch to a raucous ovation. Of course, this came after the Cubs front office had initially denied Hildebrand’s request and then caved to a wave of bad press.
Being razzed by Woo Woo was embarrassing and my friends mocked me on most of the ride home, but I’ve since come to view it as an honor of sorts. At the very least, whether he mocks you or not, you know Woo Woo will always be there. He, and perhaps annual disappointment for the Cubs faithful, unlike the weather, are constants around the park.
Wrigley is famed for its Ivy-covered brick outfield walls, and they are a pretty sight to see – and I imagine a painful one to experience – but this only holds true in the later months of the season. In April, the ivy is still reeling from the sub-zero Chicago winters and is a mess of brown and gray. Personally, the ivy isn’t my favorite feature in the old yard even if it is the most famous. For me the two things that truly stick out are the old timey centerfield scoreboard and the extended bleachers across Sheffield and Waveland. The scoreboard is still operated by hand and has pennants of all 16 National League teams hanging above it in division order. It doesn’t seem very far from home plate in the deceptively large building, but the only person to ever hit it, according to legend, is PGA great Sam Snead, who needed a golf ball to do it.
Beyond the scoreboard, the bleachers across the street from Wrigley are a unique characteristic of taking in the Cubs games. Like many old parks, the stadium sits in an urban area where rooftops from across the street can see into the grounds with ease. While people BBQing as they watched the games for free was a practice quietly tolerated by the Cubs for decades, enterprising landowners eventually billed bleachers on the roofs of each building to be rented out during games. Not surprisingly, this brought legal action from the ball club in 2002, with the rooftop owners eventually agree to donate a portion of their proceeds to the Cubs. Since then, the Cubs have advertised the rooftops on their website, endorsing them as “partners” with the team.
One such rooftop across Sheffield Avenue in right field is frequented by the Lakeview Baseball Club, which boasts a famous sign which says, “Eamus Catuli” or what is roughly the Latin for “Let’s Go Cubs”. While the “Catuli” literally translates to “whelp”, the Wrigley faithful have latched on to the phrase anyway, with the same rooftop also posting a sign which says “AC0064101”. AC stands for “Anno Catuli”, or “in the year of the Cub”, while the next two digits count down the years passed since a Cubs division title, with the next two counting years since a National League pennant and the last three the time passed since the Cubs last won the World Series. While division championships have become a norm in recent years, the last two numbers have only gotten larger. However, it speaks to the almost irrational pride these fans have that they would publicize their decades-long futility rather than hide it.
While I went to my fair share of games in college, I almost spent more time around Wrigley than in it. Wrigleyville is a noted weekend hot spot populated by all the Northwestern undergrads who recently turned 21 and want to feel like adults by paying for alcohol they could have gotten for free at a house or apartment party. No, these aren’t the only people drinking in Wrigleyville on a Saturday night, but you’ll almost always bump into someone you know from school if you’re in the neighborhood. While many of the bars are generic, some pay homage to the Cubs’ history, like Merkle’s, which is named for the New York Giants rookie Fred Merkle, whose famous inability to touch second base – known as Merkle’s Boner – cost the Giants the 1908 pennant, launching the Cubs to their most recent World Series title. Others are historic spots in their own right such as the Billy Goat Tavern, which just might be the root of all this pain and suffering. The Tavern’s owner, Billy Sianis supposedly was asked to leave Wrigley during the 1945 World Series because his pet billy goat had an offending odor, prompting Sianis to declare that he would curse the franchise from ever again playing in the Fall Classic.
They haven’t since.
There have been a number of attempts to shed the curse, including a recent bizarre trend of leaving dead goat carcasses hanging from the statue of Cubs announcer Harry Caray outside the stadium. As of yet, these attempts have been unsuccessful. But the first day I was there, the one sense I got more than any other from the fans around me was, certainly, the curse of the Billy Goat wouldn’t be hanging around for much longer. With the Cubs winning a division title and earning a postseason berth, surely this was their year. Of course it wasn’t their year. They are the Cubs after all, but as I soaked in my first day at the legendary ballpark, the fans all seemed carefree, safe in the knowledge that the Central division champs were one step closer to ending a century of heartbreak.
After the first few innings of watching the game by myself, something I don’t particularly enjoy, I was lucky enough to happen upon Adam Rowings, who had been one of a group of Northwestern freshman I went camping with in Minnesota before school started. I would watch the rest of the game, an unremarkable 3-2 win for the Bucs with Adam, a lifelong Cubs fan, who I imagine was also certain Chicago’s World Series drought was set to end that fall. Of course, it was not meant to be, as Steve Bartman’s misfortune became the misfortune of all the Cubs faithful.
Near the end of my college career, I made a point to squeeze in one last game at Wrigley, and was lucky in that my roommate, Abe, and friend David Morrison, were both Marlins fans willing to see a game on May 30, 2007 when the Fish were in town. The primary draw for me, aside from the sheer joy of watching a game in that building, was that it was Alfonso Soriano bobblehead day. The three of us threw caution to the wind and bought pricier seats near the field level. The upshot of this was a great view of the game on a picture perfect night. The downside was nearly three years later, Dave still owes me $50 for the ticket. Dave, however, was my co-beat writer at the Daily Northwestern for Women’s Tennis and Women’s Basketball. Considering Dave probably spent more time with me than anyone who didn’t live with me or date me, I feel like he’s had enough exposure to my neuroses that I should give him a break.
Abe and Dave left happy as the Marlins beat the Cubs up that night. Dan Uggla launched two home runs while Miguel Cabrera and Josh Willingham added longballs of their own en route to a 9-0 thumping. The Cubs had fallen quite a bit since losing the NLCS to these same Marlins four years earlier. Evidently, after another brush with greatness, the Cubs were left to realize that the curse still lives.
In a desperate bid to end the scourge of the Billy Goat, the Bartman baseball was later bought at auction by Harry Caray’s restaurant and blown up in front of an approving crowd. The remains were then boiled with the steam being captured, distilled, and used in a pasta sauce, which would later be served at the restaurant. The proceeds from this dish were donated to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, the same charity that Bartman himself suggested any Marlins fans looking to send him gifts donate their money to.
In theory, the explosion and digestion of the ball was expected to overturn the Curse of the Billy Goat once and for all. How permanently making a symbol of your eternal pain part of you overturns said pain is a concept well beyond me, but at this point I don’t blame Cubs fans for trying everything in the book. No doubt, they are a dedicated lot – they have to be to still love this team without a title in more than a lifetime. But if going to numerous games at the friendly confines and living among Cubs fans for four years taught me anything, it’s that they shouldn’t be worried about the heartbreak of the past. Steve Bartman and every Billy Goat they can find are of no concern to the mighty Catuli and their fans. They are not overwhelmed or beleaguered by the curses, or their title drought. Nowadays they are supremely confident rather than dwelling on their struggles.
After all, as they’ll tell you every April, this is their year.
