The Summer of My Discontent
Forgive me for not updating the blog for a few weeks. You see, I have been preoccupied with has become a struggle of epic proportions – saving the 2004 baseball season for the Chicago Cubs. There is a part of me that feels it can come to the rescue by sheer will power, and this part of me has been controlling almost every decision I have made since early June. Actually, it started long before June.
A Love Affair Gone Wrong
My struggle began last October, when a strange thing happened on the way to Creighton’s basketball season – the Cubs made the playoffs. The same Cubs that I had seen make the playoffs just TWICE in the 15 years of watching their games on WGN.
During the summer of 2002, my buddy Panon and I went to Wrigley so I could catch my first Cubs game in the Friendly Confines. I had seen them play in Kansas City and Minnesota (one of the few perks of Interleague Play), but I had never seen a game in baseball’s Shrine. It was like going to mass in St. Peter’s Basilica.
That day, as Panon and I basked in the sunshine – and Old Style – of the right field bleachers, I wondered what it would be like if the Cubs won a World Series in my lifetime. Their futility since last winning the Series in 1908 is legendary, and I tried to picture what Wrigleyville would look and feel like in late October, with Addison and Sheffield and Clark streets full of people and with a brisk, cool autumn wind sweeping in, bringing with it a feeling of hope for all Cubs fans everywhere.
A boy can dream, can’t he?
Well, last year all signs were pointing toward my dreams being fulfilled. The Cubs had actually played well in the second half of the season (something that hadn’t happened since 1998) and they had arguably the most momentum of any team going into Divisional and Championship Series. Needless to say, Panon and I and every other person whose feelings and hope had been crushed by the Loveable Losers time and time again didn’t know what to do. In 1998, the Cubs were just happy to be in the playoffs. In 2003, people didn’t know what to do because this team actually had a shot at a title.
Panon and I had to be a part of it. We drove to Chicago for games 3 and 4 of the best-of-5 Divisional Series versus the Atlanta Braves. Obviously, as recent college graduates months before, we didn’t have the means to get inside of Wrigley for those two games, but the electricity in Wrigleyville was something I had never been apart of. Not only was Wrigley sold out, but the same could be said for every bar and restaurant in the neighborhood. Panon and I ducked into what looked to be a rather unassuming Spanish-themed sangria bar, preferring to dodge the crowds at Cub fan-favorites The Cubby Bear and Murphy’s. If by “unassuming” you mean packed from wall to wall and door to door with young 20-somethings ready to drink heavily and root on Mark Prior as he toed the rubber on a chilly and drizzly evening, then unassuming it was.
Good things happen when Panon and I go to the Windy City. It is safe to say two of my top five all-time greatest sporting event moments witnessed in person happened in Chicago (that is another blog for another time). I felt our presence in the city would be the final boost the Cubs would need – that we were the good luck charm.
I’m not kidding. This is the way I think about my favorite teams. I don’t know why. You know how some athletes hire sports psychologists to help them figure out why they are slumping …I’m going to hire one to figure out why I am obsessed with teams on an emotional level. I know the typical response – “fan” comes from “fanatic”, blah blah blah. I understand that, I really do, but why ME???
Well, we did it. The Cubs beat the Braves and the season would continue for another seven games. I realized then and there that I might not have the strength mentally to go through another series. I actually felt scared – scared that they might actually win it and I wouldn’t know how to react. I think the Cubs felt the same way.
If you didn’t see the National League Championship Series (taking place during the same time the Red Sox and Yankees were dueling in the ALCS, which was another blog for another time), you are not a sports fan. You had to watch those games. No one cares about the Florida Marlins, I’ll give you that, but EVERYONE was interested in what was happening with the Cubs. Maybe that made their collapse even harder to take.
I don’t really want to talk about – seriously. I just wanted to give some context to how close we came. We were six outs away from a World Series against the Yankees – an overrated team we had taken 2 of 3 from in July and the “favorite” that would eventually get pounded by the Marlins. Six freakin’ outs.
Expect the Unexpected
The second half of the 2003 season was a tease. We’re talkin’ a Jenna Jameson- Jenny Finch-type tease. And it didn’t end with that oh-so-fleeting taste of playoff success. Cubs General Manager Jim Hendry – the man who led my beloved Creighton University to the school’s only College World Series appearance – started laying the ground work for a team that would become the “it”pick for the 2004 World Series champs. Hendry’s work started during the 2003, picking up an all-star third baseman in Aramis Ramirez, and he continued to cement the lineup by trading for future all-star first baseman Derek Lee and catcher Michael Barrett and signing free agents Greg Maddux (referred to in the rest of this article as The God of Pitching) and “the Todds” – Hollandsworth and Walker.
You can’t blame me for being excited in February, can you? I mean, this team was put together for the sole purpose of winning the World Series. They even brought back The God to round out a pitching staff that had possibly 5 20-game winners. You don’t “round out” a staff with The God of Pitching – maybe that is where all of this went wrong.
This team was too good on paper. It was the first year I had been a Cubs fan and actually known before the season started that the team had a chance to make the playoffs. My excitement built through the winter, keeping me warm as my beloved Bluejays made an early exit during college hoops season. Every couple of days, I would go up and down the Cubs lineup – as I saw it – in my head, trying to look for a flaw. They were there, but I just couldn’t see them.
There was the lack of a true lead-off man, the type of guy that revs up the offensive engine. It took almost two-thirds of the 2003 season to get that type of guy, but Kenny Lofton took over centerfield for an injured Corey Patterson (who was knocking at an all-star birth at the time of his knee injury in 2003) and the Cubs followed his lead at the top of the batting order.
There was the lack of offense from the shortstop and catcher positions. Alex Gonzalez was not the answer, no matter what anyone says, even though he hit his fair share of clutch home runs during the 2003 season. If you ask any Cubs fan not fixated with the Bartman situation (i.e. all the true Cubs fans that actually know something about baseball), A-Gonz cost the Cubs Game 6 last year – plain and simple. Couple the shortstop woes with the prospect of having Michael Barrett starting at catcher – a career .253 hitter with the Montreal Expos – and there were serious doubts about the offensive production at two of the infield positions.
There was the changing of the guard – out with the old and in with the new – playing itself out in the order. Veterans Moises Alou and Sammy Sosa no longer were viewed as the most important pieces of the offensive puzzle. That distinction was placed upon two young studs, third baseman Ramirez and first baseman Lee, who had never had to carry offenses before with their former teams. Some people (myself included) questioned Alou’s health and bat speed, along with his utterly disturbing acknowledgement of urinating on his hands to make his skin stronger. I mean, we have guys pissing on themselves in order to hold a bat. Unbelievable. No one thought Moises and Sammy were completely done, but many wondered when their declines would start.
And finally, there was a pitching staff that was seriously too good to be true. Co-aces Kerry Wood and Mark Prior, followed by ace-in-the-making and featured wild man Carlos Zambrano, the always-filthy Matt Clement, and The God. The starting staff was almost a sick joke, with Maddux possibly the fifth starter. The God of Pitching is the fifth starter on this team. Fifth. How many times can I write it before it becomes cruel. Even the bullpen, which was shaky most of last season, was forged with new veteran additions like Kent Mercker and LaTroy Hawkins.
This was just too good to believe. And maybe believing is what’s got me in this mess.
Keep It on the DL
It started just before pitchers and catchers reported to Mesa, Arizona for camp, and it will become the stigma for the 2004 Cubs to overcome. There were rumors that Prior wasn’t healthy, that he was having some soreness in his right Achilles’ Heal. Prior had carried the Cubs on his broad shoulders in 2003 upon returning from the Disabled List in July and making a late push for Cy Young Award consideration. Now, it was looking as if he would start the season on the DL.
This did not discourage me from what was to become the most significant purchase I had made since my 1989 Honda Accord (which still works beautifully and, save for the machine-gun sounds that occur every time I turn left, is in decent condition) – the MLB Extra Innings package on digital cable. Hill and I made the executive decision that our house would become Baseball HQ for the rest of the season, as it was already decided that the Cubs the Red Sox, Hill’s favorite team, would meet in the World Series.
Note: The MLB Extra Innings package is my life, now. I don’t know what I did before a) the Internet, b) ESPN Sportscenter replays all day long, and c) MLB Extra Innings. How did anyone ever follow their favorite teams in cities they didn’t live in? HOW?
The Cubs played well through April and the offense was potent, leading to a 13-9 record during the first month of the season. Sergio Mitre (or Meat Tray, as Panon and my roommate Hill would call him, because he served up meat balls for opposing batters) filled in less-than-admirably for Prior, but he did pitch decent enough to stay in the rotation. The Cubs made their first trip to the West Coast in May, and that is when things would get absolutely nerve-racking.
It turns out that Prior’s injury served as the tip of the iceberg for the Cubs training staff. Wood was the next pitcher to serve time on the DL (mystery pain and soreness in his pitching elbow), and so began the two-month roller coaster ride to the all-star break. They lost the first two games against the Dodgers but rebounded to sweep the San Diego Padres in their new ballpark. During the stop in beautiful San Diego, Sosa sneezed his way on to the DL. (I’m not kidding. He sneezed so hard he tweaked a few muscles in his back. You all know that I have been known to sneeze a time or two, but I don’t think I’ve ever injured myself – someone else maybe – with a sneeze. Unbelievable.)
Then game the debacle in Pittsburgh. Due to a rainout in mid-April, when the Cubs were piling runs on top of the Pirates at PNC Park, the Cubs played a doubleheader the Friday before Memorial Day. In both games, the Cubs had a lead. In both games, the Cubs blew the lead. But, the worst part – or the best, if you are Garrett Mackowiak – is that Pirates utility player Rob Mackowiak hit a game-winning, two-out grand slam in the bottom of the ninth inning to win the first game, and tied the second game of the doubleheader with a two-run home run in the bottom of the ninth. The Cubs were swept, and my Memorial Day weekend was off to a disparaging start.
But then the roller coaster ascends, and the Cubs go to Anaheim and take two out of three from the AL West-leading Angels, and then pay a visit to the Astros in Houston. During this time, Mark Prior has returned from the DL, and he paid homage to Roger Clemens by soundly out-pitching The Rocket on national television for his first win of the season. The Cubs sweep the Astros in Minute Maid Park, go back home and win a series against the Oakland A’s, and are in the midst of an 8-2 stretch without Slammin’ Sammy or Wood.
The highlight of the season up to that point is the Independence Day weekend series against the White Sox at Wrigley. This series was great because a) it was my birthday weekend, b) the Cubs/Sox game on the 4th was picked up by ESPN for the Sunday Night Baseball national telecast, and c) it was my birthday weekend. Also, Patrice surprised me with a replica of the white flag flown at Wrigley after every Cubs victory (it is white with a blue “W”). After my birthday weekend, however, the Cubs seemed to wave their white flag.
The Cubs proceed to be swept in Milwaukee, in front of a virtual home crowd at Miller Park (or “Wrigley Field North” as Chip and Steve like to call it), scoring all of two runs in the process and being shut out twice in three games. Oh, and did I mention that A-Ram strained his groin against the White Sox and would miss the next 17 games? That’s right, I didn’t mention it because it makes me sick to my stomach. The momentum is going south, and my love for the Extra Innings package is waning with every Cub loss and St. Louis Cardinal win.
The All-Star Break
Boring. That is what the all-star break was this year – flat out boring. The game was boring, the home run derby was boring, and the gossip and trade rumors were boring. Maybe my hopes were too high; I love the All-Star Game. But alas, it put me to sleep. Kind of like the Cubs uninspired play the previous two months.
The break did give me time to get refocused. The Cardinals had gone on a tear, beating everyone – including the Cubs – and fortifying their spot as this year’s Atlanta Braves. DJ (the only Braves admirer that I know) might get mad at me, but you have to admit, this year’s Cardinal team has all the makings of one of those Braves teams. The rest of the NL Central division is just beating each other senseless, just like the NL East used to do, and the Cardinals put big-time runs up on the board. They win the close games and the blowouts, but while doing so they abuse their bullpen. I’m not talking about the early Braves teams that cruised with The God at the helm and Tom Glavine and John Smoltz behind him – I’m talking about the Braves teams that were still winning the East as Maddux and Glavine were slightly falling back to the rest of the pack and Smoltzy was injured and reappeared in the bullpen.
Those Braves teams always had everything working in the regular season – everything – and yet they still imploded in the postseason. I GUARANTEE it will happen to the Cardinals. Or maybe that is just me being bitter.
Indian Summer
Since the All-Star Game, things have slowly improved. Sammy is back, along with A-Ram and the rest of the injured starters. The pitching staff is healthy (for now), there Cardinals are no longer a looming distraction (they are 10.5 games ahead of the Cubs in the division right now), and the NL Wild Card is fully within grasp. This team was built in order to win a World Series, plain and simple. It didn’t have to be this year, but that was the goal. There were enough young players around to be excited about the future, but also enough veterans around that wanted it now.
Cubs GM Hendry, manager Dusty Baker, legendary Cub Ron Santo, and the rest of the Windy City knew that expectations had grown increasingly big, and something had to be done to quench those expectations as the Cubs made a two-month push for the Wild Card. For this project, Hendry was the perfect fit.
All he did was go out and get Nomaaaaahhhhhhhhh! He stole Nomar Garciaparra from the Boston Red Sox in a four-team deal that made an absolute mockery of teams like the Minnesota Twins and Montreal Expos. Those teams gave up their best defensive players to the Red Sox, the Sox sent their icon and their franchise’s face to the Cubs. The Cubs sent their WORST position player to the Expos, along with a couple of average prospects. THAT WAS THE TRADE! That’s it. That is all she wrote – Hendry cements himself as one of the top five GMs in the game, the Cubs get arguably the most dangerous number two hitter of any lineup in the National League, and the Red Sox made their defense better. Um, I’ll take Nomar any day of the week over “an improved defense”, because every baseball fan knows that is a load of crap. They lost touch with Nomar, Nomar was resented by how he was treated, and both sides cried and moaned about it for the better part of six months. He was a problem in the clubhouse because the Sox let it get that way, and for that every Sox fan should be upset.
So, that is where I stand. My constant struggle still continues, but I am optimistic about the last two months of the season. The DL hasn’t been seriously whispered for a while, the offense is starting to hit, and the pitching staff is gaining momentum. So, I hope you understand why I haven’t had time to write. Maybe I’ll write more during the next few weeks.
Or, maybe you should just look for my next post in late October.
A Love Affair Gone Wrong
My struggle began last October, when a strange thing happened on the way to Creighton’s basketball season – the Cubs made the playoffs. The same Cubs that I had seen make the playoffs just TWICE in the 15 years of watching their games on WGN.
During the summer of 2002, my buddy Panon and I went to Wrigley so I could catch my first Cubs game in the Friendly Confines. I had seen them play in Kansas City and Minnesota (one of the few perks of Interleague Play), but I had never seen a game in baseball’s Shrine. It was like going to mass in St. Peter’s Basilica.
That day, as Panon and I basked in the sunshine – and Old Style – of the right field bleachers, I wondered what it would be like if the Cubs won a World Series in my lifetime. Their futility since last winning the Series in 1908 is legendary, and I tried to picture what Wrigleyville would look and feel like in late October, with Addison and Sheffield and Clark streets full of people and with a brisk, cool autumn wind sweeping in, bringing with it a feeling of hope for all Cubs fans everywhere.
A boy can dream, can’t he?
Well, last year all signs were pointing toward my dreams being fulfilled. The Cubs had actually played well in the second half of the season (something that hadn’t happened since 1998) and they had arguably the most momentum of any team going into Divisional and Championship Series. Needless to say, Panon and I and every other person whose feelings and hope had been crushed by the Loveable Losers time and time again didn’t know what to do. In 1998, the Cubs were just happy to be in the playoffs. In 2003, people didn’t know what to do because this team actually had a shot at a title.
Panon and I had to be a part of it. We drove to Chicago for games 3 and 4 of the best-of-5 Divisional Series versus the Atlanta Braves. Obviously, as recent college graduates months before, we didn’t have the means to get inside of Wrigley for those two games, but the electricity in Wrigleyville was something I had never been apart of. Not only was Wrigley sold out, but the same could be said for every bar and restaurant in the neighborhood. Panon and I ducked into what looked to be a rather unassuming Spanish-themed sangria bar, preferring to dodge the crowds at Cub fan-favorites The Cubby Bear and Murphy’s. If by “unassuming” you mean packed from wall to wall and door to door with young 20-somethings ready to drink heavily and root on Mark Prior as he toed the rubber on a chilly and drizzly evening, then unassuming it was.
Good things happen when Panon and I go to the Windy City. It is safe to say two of my top five all-time greatest sporting event moments witnessed in person happened in Chicago (that is another blog for another time). I felt our presence in the city would be the final boost the Cubs would need – that we were the good luck charm.
I’m not kidding. This is the way I think about my favorite teams. I don’t know why. You know how some athletes hire sports psychologists to help them figure out why they are slumping …I’m going to hire one to figure out why I am obsessed with teams on an emotional level. I know the typical response – “fan” comes from “fanatic”, blah blah blah. I understand that, I really do, but why ME???
Well, we did it. The Cubs beat the Braves and the season would continue for another seven games. I realized then and there that I might not have the strength mentally to go through another series. I actually felt scared – scared that they might actually win it and I wouldn’t know how to react. I think the Cubs felt the same way.
If you didn’t see the National League Championship Series (taking place during the same time the Red Sox and Yankees were dueling in the ALCS, which was another blog for another time), you are not a sports fan. You had to watch those games. No one cares about the Florida Marlins, I’ll give you that, but EVERYONE was interested in what was happening with the Cubs. Maybe that made their collapse even harder to take.
I don’t really want to talk about – seriously. I just wanted to give some context to how close we came. We were six outs away from a World Series against the Yankees – an overrated team we had taken 2 of 3 from in July and the “favorite” that would eventually get pounded by the Marlins. Six freakin’ outs.
Expect the Unexpected
The second half of the 2003 season was a tease. We’re talkin’ a Jenna Jameson- Jenny Finch-type tease. And it didn’t end with that oh-so-fleeting taste of playoff success. Cubs General Manager Jim Hendry – the man who led my beloved Creighton University to the school’s only College World Series appearance – started laying the ground work for a team that would become the “it”pick for the 2004 World Series champs. Hendry’s work started during the 2003, picking up an all-star third baseman in Aramis Ramirez, and he continued to cement the lineup by trading for future all-star first baseman Derek Lee and catcher Michael Barrett and signing free agents Greg Maddux (referred to in the rest of this article as The God of Pitching) and “the Todds” – Hollandsworth and Walker.
You can’t blame me for being excited in February, can you? I mean, this team was put together for the sole purpose of winning the World Series. They even brought back The God to round out a pitching staff that had possibly 5 20-game winners. You don’t “round out” a staff with The God of Pitching – maybe that is where all of this went wrong.
This team was too good on paper. It was the first year I had been a Cubs fan and actually known before the season started that the team had a chance to make the playoffs. My excitement built through the winter, keeping me warm as my beloved Bluejays made an early exit during college hoops season. Every couple of days, I would go up and down the Cubs lineup – as I saw it – in my head, trying to look for a flaw. They were there, but I just couldn’t see them.
There was the lack of a true lead-off man, the type of guy that revs up the offensive engine. It took almost two-thirds of the 2003 season to get that type of guy, but Kenny Lofton took over centerfield for an injured Corey Patterson (who was knocking at an all-star birth at the time of his knee injury in 2003) and the Cubs followed his lead at the top of the batting order.
There was the lack of offense from the shortstop and catcher positions. Alex Gonzalez was not the answer, no matter what anyone says, even though he hit his fair share of clutch home runs during the 2003 season. If you ask any Cubs fan not fixated with the Bartman situation (i.e. all the true Cubs fans that actually know something about baseball), A-Gonz cost the Cubs Game 6 last year – plain and simple. Couple the shortstop woes with the prospect of having Michael Barrett starting at catcher – a career .253 hitter with the Montreal Expos – and there were serious doubts about the offensive production at two of the infield positions.
There was the changing of the guard – out with the old and in with the new – playing itself out in the order. Veterans Moises Alou and Sammy Sosa no longer were viewed as the most important pieces of the offensive puzzle. That distinction was placed upon two young studs, third baseman Ramirez and first baseman Lee, who had never had to carry offenses before with their former teams. Some people (myself included) questioned Alou’s health and bat speed, along with his utterly disturbing acknowledgement of urinating on his hands to make his skin stronger. I mean, we have guys pissing on themselves in order to hold a bat. Unbelievable. No one thought Moises and Sammy were completely done, but many wondered when their declines would start.
And finally, there was a pitching staff that was seriously too good to be true. Co-aces Kerry Wood and Mark Prior, followed by ace-in-the-making and featured wild man Carlos Zambrano, the always-filthy Matt Clement, and The God. The starting staff was almost a sick joke, with Maddux possibly the fifth starter. The God of Pitching is the fifth starter on this team. Fifth. How many times can I write it before it becomes cruel. Even the bullpen, which was shaky most of last season, was forged with new veteran additions like Kent Mercker and LaTroy Hawkins.
This was just too good to believe. And maybe believing is what’s got me in this mess.
Keep It on the DL
It started just before pitchers and catchers reported to Mesa, Arizona for camp, and it will become the stigma for the 2004 Cubs to overcome. There were rumors that Prior wasn’t healthy, that he was having some soreness in his right Achilles’ Heal. Prior had carried the Cubs on his broad shoulders in 2003 upon returning from the Disabled List in July and making a late push for Cy Young Award consideration. Now, it was looking as if he would start the season on the DL.
This did not discourage me from what was to become the most significant purchase I had made since my 1989 Honda Accord (which still works beautifully and, save for the machine-gun sounds that occur every time I turn left, is in decent condition) – the MLB Extra Innings package on digital cable. Hill and I made the executive decision that our house would become Baseball HQ for the rest of the season, as it was already decided that the Cubs the Red Sox, Hill’s favorite team, would meet in the World Series.
Note: The MLB Extra Innings package is my life, now. I don’t know what I did before a) the Internet, b) ESPN Sportscenter replays all day long, and c) MLB Extra Innings. How did anyone ever follow their favorite teams in cities they didn’t live in? HOW?
The Cubs played well through April and the offense was potent, leading to a 13-9 record during the first month of the season. Sergio Mitre (or Meat Tray, as Panon and my roommate Hill would call him, because he served up meat balls for opposing batters) filled in less-than-admirably for Prior, but he did pitch decent enough to stay in the rotation. The Cubs made their first trip to the West Coast in May, and that is when things would get absolutely nerve-racking.
It turns out that Prior’s injury served as the tip of the iceberg for the Cubs training staff. Wood was the next pitcher to serve time on the DL (mystery pain and soreness in his pitching elbow), and so began the two-month roller coaster ride to the all-star break. They lost the first two games against the Dodgers but rebounded to sweep the San Diego Padres in their new ballpark. During the stop in beautiful San Diego, Sosa sneezed his way on to the DL. (I’m not kidding. He sneezed so hard he tweaked a few muscles in his back. You all know that I have been known to sneeze a time or two, but I don’t think I’ve ever injured myself – someone else maybe – with a sneeze. Unbelievable.)
Then game the debacle in Pittsburgh. Due to a rainout in mid-April, when the Cubs were piling runs on top of the Pirates at PNC Park, the Cubs played a doubleheader the Friday before Memorial Day. In both games, the Cubs had a lead. In both games, the Cubs blew the lead. But, the worst part – or the best, if you are Garrett Mackowiak – is that Pirates utility player Rob Mackowiak hit a game-winning, two-out grand slam in the bottom of the ninth inning to win the first game, and tied the second game of the doubleheader with a two-run home run in the bottom of the ninth. The Cubs were swept, and my Memorial Day weekend was off to a disparaging start.
But then the roller coaster ascends, and the Cubs go to Anaheim and take two out of three from the AL West-leading Angels, and then pay a visit to the Astros in Houston. During this time, Mark Prior has returned from the DL, and he paid homage to Roger Clemens by soundly out-pitching The Rocket on national television for his first win of the season. The Cubs sweep the Astros in Minute Maid Park, go back home and win a series against the Oakland A’s, and are in the midst of an 8-2 stretch without Slammin’ Sammy or Wood.
The highlight of the season up to that point is the Independence Day weekend series against the White Sox at Wrigley. This series was great because a) it was my birthday weekend, b) the Cubs/Sox game on the 4th was picked up by ESPN for the Sunday Night Baseball national telecast, and c) it was my birthday weekend. Also, Patrice surprised me with a replica of the white flag flown at Wrigley after every Cubs victory (it is white with a blue “W”). After my birthday weekend, however, the Cubs seemed to wave their white flag.
The Cubs proceed to be swept in Milwaukee, in front of a virtual home crowd at Miller Park (or “Wrigley Field North” as Chip and Steve like to call it), scoring all of two runs in the process and being shut out twice in three games. Oh, and did I mention that A-Ram strained his groin against the White Sox and would miss the next 17 games? That’s right, I didn’t mention it because it makes me sick to my stomach. The momentum is going south, and my love for the Extra Innings package is waning with every Cub loss and St. Louis Cardinal win.
The All-Star Break
Boring. That is what the all-star break was this year – flat out boring. The game was boring, the home run derby was boring, and the gossip and trade rumors were boring. Maybe my hopes were too high; I love the All-Star Game. But alas, it put me to sleep. Kind of like the Cubs uninspired play the previous two months.
The break did give me time to get refocused. The Cardinals had gone on a tear, beating everyone – including the Cubs – and fortifying their spot as this year’s Atlanta Braves. DJ (the only Braves admirer that I know) might get mad at me, but you have to admit, this year’s Cardinal team has all the makings of one of those Braves teams. The rest of the NL Central division is just beating each other senseless, just like the NL East used to do, and the Cardinals put big-time runs up on the board. They win the close games and the blowouts, but while doing so they abuse their bullpen. I’m not talking about the early Braves teams that cruised with The God at the helm and Tom Glavine and John Smoltz behind him – I’m talking about the Braves teams that were still winning the East as Maddux and Glavine were slightly falling back to the rest of the pack and Smoltzy was injured and reappeared in the bullpen.
Those Braves teams always had everything working in the regular season – everything – and yet they still imploded in the postseason. I GUARANTEE it will happen to the Cardinals. Or maybe that is just me being bitter.
Indian Summer
Since the All-Star Game, things have slowly improved. Sammy is back, along with A-Ram and the rest of the injured starters. The pitching staff is healthy (for now), there Cardinals are no longer a looming distraction (they are 10.5 games ahead of the Cubs in the division right now), and the NL Wild Card is fully within grasp. This team was built in order to win a World Series, plain and simple. It didn’t have to be this year, but that was the goal. There were enough young players around to be excited about the future, but also enough veterans around that wanted it now.
Cubs GM Hendry, manager Dusty Baker, legendary Cub Ron Santo, and the rest of the Windy City knew that expectations had grown increasingly big, and something had to be done to quench those expectations as the Cubs made a two-month push for the Wild Card. For this project, Hendry was the perfect fit.
All he did was go out and get Nomaaaaahhhhhhhhh! He stole Nomar Garciaparra from the Boston Red Sox in a four-team deal that made an absolute mockery of teams like the Minnesota Twins and Montreal Expos. Those teams gave up their best defensive players to the Red Sox, the Sox sent their icon and their franchise’s face to the Cubs. The Cubs sent their WORST position player to the Expos, along with a couple of average prospects. THAT WAS THE TRADE! That’s it. That is all she wrote – Hendry cements himself as one of the top five GMs in the game, the Cubs get arguably the most dangerous number two hitter of any lineup in the National League, and the Red Sox made their defense better. Um, I’ll take Nomar any day of the week over “an improved defense”, because every baseball fan knows that is a load of crap. They lost touch with Nomar, Nomar was resented by how he was treated, and both sides cried and moaned about it for the better part of six months. He was a problem in the clubhouse because the Sox let it get that way, and for that every Sox fan should be upset.
So, that is where I stand. My constant struggle still continues, but I am optimistic about the last two months of the season. The DL hasn’t been seriously whispered for a while, the offense is starting to hit, and the pitching staff is gaining momentum. So, I hope you understand why I haven’t had time to write. Maybe I’ll write more during the next few weeks.
Or, maybe you should just look for my next post in late October.
posted by Creighton Otter at 5:29 PM
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