Tommy Lasorda - Superstar 7th Inning Conductor

I'm glad they had Tommy Lasorda come up and do the 7th inning at Wrigley Field last night, one fo the few times the ritual didn't irritate me. Even with Fergie Jenkins in the booth, I got irritated because the game was going by below these announcers that seem to forget they are on air when a quasi-celebrity walks through.

Tommy Lasorda is a different story. He could sing every night and sit through tow or three innings if he wanted to in my book. Not because he sang "Root root root for the Dodgers.., " or because the Cubs rallied while he was in the booth. I can forgive the Dodgers reference, this guy bleeds Dodger blue more than even Ron Santo does Cubbie blue. Read the rest at Cubs Obsession.

Baseball! - A Catch for Everyone

I could not be a Cubs fans, or even remotely justify having even a free, lightly developed, Cubs blog, without taking note of this catch, made by Reed Johnson, one of my favorite surprises so far this season, and he just keeps getting better.



This guy, I'd never heard of him before Spring training, late in spring training, when the Blue Jays cut him and we picked him right up. What a pickup. Apparently, the Blue Jays are loaded, or maybe he just needed a change of scenery, but Reed Johnson is the Ryan Theriot of the outfield, with possibly a little more speed, and the same giddyup that is beginning to signify the Lou Piniella era.

I've come to believe that you can tell a coach not by his stars, but by his peripheral players. Rare is the coach that can really change a star player, especially if they are already successful, but it's the players that a coach keeps around to fill in the other spots that tell his ability, and character. I felt the same way when Dusty came in, because his Neifi Perez's actually were a cut above the guys we'd had previously coming off the bench. His unexplained overuse of them, despite performance, is another story.

Lou Piniella plays the hot hitter, period. Want to play some baseball, Mike Fontenot, take advantage of the AB or two you'll get from sitting on Lou's bench and soon you'll be starting, keep it up when you get an extended chance, and you may start sharing time with a regular starter. Conversely, start playing stupid baseball like I've seen the last two outings and you will lose any tan you may be working on sitting back in the dugout shadows. You too, Henry Blanco. There have been some good points, but you need to start acting like the player that signed that nice fat contract.

Reed Johnson knows Lou's game. And he doesn't rest on his laurels, or bitch about his batting postion, or field position, he doesn't bitch, he doesn't even preen for the cameras after making such an outstanding play. One that might have required a five minute semi-pro dance routine anywhere else. He doesn't even bother to put his cap bill back down and he runs away, holding up the ball.

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My love affair with baseball, and the Cubs

As long as I can remember, I have been a Cubs fan. Probably before I even realized that baseball was a game, or what a game was, I have been a Cubs fan.
Blame my mom.

As a little boy, before I can even remember now, she took me to Cubs games. I met, well saw and got autographs from, Ron Santo, Billy Williams, Ernie Banks, and many others. Those were the days where the players hung around the field and the stands before the game, signing autographs and talking to the fans.

No, shit, talking to the fans.
I remember Billy Williams as being the nicest person outside of my family that I had met at that point of my life. I don't have any specific memories of those early Cubs games, when I was 4 and 5 years old, but they set a pleasant tone for the rest of my life, following the Cubs.

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AT&T and John Caponera are just Creepy..

I didn't quite grow up with Harry Caray, unless listening to him do White Sox games counts. I didn't even really like him at first, but he did grow on me. Still, he really isn't sacred territory, make fun of him, so what? What's bad about this latest round of Harry Caray commercials is their creepiness.

You wait ten years and now come out with this? And John Caponera, I've heard you before on the radio, and I might be one of the five people that watched your TV show, has your career really sunk this low, this bad?

Maybe it's just one of those "Seemed like a good idea at the time," deals...
Is it? It has to be something like that, because I can't believe that anyone thinks this is a good idea. Cub fans are offended and everyone else is just annoyed.

Why shouldn't we be annoyed, obviously AT&T believes that we are all just a bunch of drunks who go to the park and laugh at our clowns. Harry Caray, apparently, is one of our clowns, like Bozo, or Mickey and Donald and Goofy. That doesn't mean we need to see a tired, twenty year old bit on every commercial break.

Of course, it is not lost on me that I am linking up to the very commercials that I loathe, but thats just for anyone that hasn't been forced to see them on television, yet.

John Caponera, you look like a stick figure caricature of Harry Caray, more like the weird Six Flags commercial guy than Harry. Every time one of them comes on, radio or,TV, I begin to miss the old days(maybe that was just last week?) when I was getting barraged by Frank Caliendo, at least his material is only three or four years old.

Jason Kendall - Just in Time.

I've been watching Jason Kendall throughout his career, mostly when he was with Pittsburgh and owned the Cubs. More than once he beat us all by himself, and for some reason he was always out of the Cub's grasp.

Now, this season, on what hopefully is a still rising wave, he has come to the Cubs. Like many Cub fans, I am wary of good signs. Maybe I shouldn't be, they really HAVE made the playoffs, and even advanced a round, but when things are going good, we all look for a shoe to drop. This isn't the shoe dropping, this is us getting a very good catcher, probably past his prime, but with serviceable stats over the last month, much better than what we've been getting. AND, he can catch the damn ball.

Jim Hendry made the announcement during the game this evening, that Jason Kendall had been acquired from the Oakland A's for Rob Bowen, the catcher we got for Barrett, and Jerry Blevins, a relief pitcher that has spent this season putting up decent stats for the Cubs' A and AA teams.

Losing Michael Barrett was a good addition to this team, for whatever reason you want to believe, witness the won-loss record since he left, now filling the hole he left behind with Kendall starts to put this team on the roll that will take them into the post-season.

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Felix Pie : A Slice of Optimism

Am I having a Tuffy Rhodes moment?

I don't know for sure, of course it will take a season or more to know, but I am quite happy about what I saw happen for the Cubs yesterday in center field. Felix came in and acquitted himself quite nicely. Though it's been pointed out he batted only .167, those were an important 167 points, helping rally the Cubs to tie. Then, he made a throw from the outfield to home plate that threw out the go ahead run for the Padres and eventually got the Cubs into extra innings.

He didn't throw the Cubs on his back and carry them to victory, but he wasn't overwhelmed. Seeing this kid in uniform, in Wrigley Field, makes me feel all better, and almost able to ignore that our high-priced offensive arsenal went 14 innings without being able to score more than three runs. These are all things that Lou Piniella can and will address, and though I know he can't go over the top about Pie, the performance was not lost on someone as savvy as Lou.

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Steve Stone for Cubs (Senior Advisor to the Owner)!!

Throughout this week, after realizing that Mark Cuban owning the Cubs is less than a pipe dream, it took a column in the Sun-Times to make me realize who I was forgetting about that I should want to be in control of the Cubs.

• Who is the voice that I home in on any time he is on a radio program talking baseball? (Well, this might be a negative because I know he definitely won't be doing that as much)
• Who is a deep, Cubbie Blue blooded Cubs fan?
• He would have gone somewhere else after getting run out of the booth if he weren't. You can't tell me there are jobs elsewhere for Andy Maser and not Steve Stone.
• Who has the baseball and Cubs organization knowledge needed to do the job right?

Read the rest on my Cubs Blog

Opening Day! New Manager, new OWNER, new team!

Over the last few years, bandied over the airwaves, blogs, and print media, it has been said that the sweetest four words of the year is the phrase, "PITCHERS AND CATCHERS REPORT." I disagree, though it is a step in the right directions.

Spring training is simply that, training, and after more than a few games you quickly realize that he baseball being played there is as meaningless as minor league. It is the true mirage of the Arizona desert, very nice to look at but nothing when you bend to the fountain to drink. Look! I saw Derek Lee, he's leading the cactus league in RBI's... somewhere some very lonely, disillusioned man keeps track of those stats, but he is not heard from except for those few weeks that the teams return to the desert, or swamps for the east coasters.

Opening Day, Today, is truly when it is time for celebration. Today, everyone is in first place, even the Pittsburgh Pirates and Tampa Bay Devil Rays. This is the sport whose season starts with the actual growing cycle of our continent for a reason. First day of baseball, first days of spring. It's like the beginning of the semester, everyone has an "A", everything is new and nice and never stops making me grin.

I can only wish good luck to all of the other teams starting their seasons, except for Cincinnatti of course, and hope that all the changes in the off-season come to fruition. I have a feeling that Lou will get the job done or else. The Cubs even get a new owner today , as I am typing this they are announcing the sale and I am getting details from the Mike North morning show(uh-oh).

Apparently the new owner, Sam Zell, already has interest in the White Sox and is expected to sell the Cubs right away. How's this for a Cub fan spin on the sale, even a Sox fan knows the Cubs are more valuable and liquid than the Sox. Honestly, I hope he has Mark Cuban on his speed dial.

Even more good news, it really looks like the Cubs are going to give Zambrano his money, enough to make him happy and save face in front of the other overpaid pitching free agents. The numbers being put out are 5 years and 80-85 million, ones that I can swallow much easier than those given to Soriano. I can see us starting to sweat in 3 or 4 years about getting his resigned again because I know "Z" will live up to this one. Soriano, well, I see us wondering why we are paying him so much towards the end of his deal but that is the going rate and he just might make us a great team now.

This post is also posted in my Cubs Blog, which I started because somewhere I read you should have a different blog for each topic, and I'd been writing post-long comments on too many other Cubs Blogs(Crawley's Cubs and BleedCubbieBlue [Check them out for spiffy lineups and better pics, you're welcome guys for all that extra traffic I'm sending your way, hope you have the bandwidth for it!]).