Baseball: The Sport for "Real" Men

[rockysigman]

I need a new avatar.

[shin]

rockysigman said:

Well, Damon is slightly better fielder, and maybe a slightly better hitter (really this might even be a push), and Damon is in his decline phase while Crisp is just entering the prime of his career. In fact, I'd be almost certain that by the fourth year of this contract that Damon got from the Yankees, that there won't be any debate that Crisp is better. To switch from Damon to Crisp and have a bunch of money left over to buy pitching help or whatever doesn't sound like a bad plan at all. Maybe not an upgrade at that one position, but not much of a loss if it allows them to improve other areas where they need help.

Just remembered this. I'd like to say that 3rd place is real cozy, Rocky

[rockysigman]

Because of Johnny Damon? Do you really believe that that's why they finished 3rd?

[shin]

No. Just the point that Crisp was a failure, Damon an immediate success in NY, and the front office decisions that led to that sort of thing (along with the upcoming cheap-and-gritty injured Trot Nixon for expensive-and-lazy injured JD Drew swap) is what led to 3rd place to begin with. Which is what I wad decrying in the first place way back in the when.

[rockysigman]

Last year in general was a disaster for the Red Sox. Crisp had some pretty major injuries, and yeah, wasn't great when he was healthy either, but he's still got some years left. IMO, its way too early to declare him a failure. In two years, as Damon continues to approach the end of the line, you see which one you'd rather have at that point.

[RocDoc]

_{...and Z looked SO good last night, intimidating as fuck....}

Sorry, Lou; this was the wrong bet

Mike Downey | In the wake of the news
October 4, 2007
PHOENIX


In the heat of the night in the Valley of the Sun, the Cubs collapsed from a seventh-inning stroke.

A decision that Lou Piniella made in the pressure cooker of the playoffs blew up in the manager's face Wednesday night and cost his guys Game 1.

"Let's not gloom-and-doom this thing," Piniella requested after he and the Cubs gave away this one.

But the gloomy fact is, Lou, you made a move to save a pitcher's strength for your game coming up Sunday and now there might not even be a Sunday.

The opening game of this series began so late—thanks, TBS—that not everybody back in the Central time zone could stay awake to see how it ended, which was 3-1 in the Arizona Diamondbacks' favor.

When fans back home go to work or school Thursday morning, many will ask the same thing:

"Why'd he take out Zambrano?"

It was a 1-1 ballgame when a shirt-sleeved crowd of 48,864 on a 91-degree night at Chase Field stood for a seventh-inning stretch. Much to the astonishment of, oh, a good 48,000 of those in the house, the Cubs sent out the wrong Carlos.

Carlos Alberto Zambrano had been cruising along, making only one mistake—Stephen Drew hit it out of the park—and defanging one Diamondback after another.

Carlos Agustin Marmol came in to relieve him, however, even though Zambrano had been permitted to bat for himself with the bases full in the sixth inning.

It was a curious move, one that went unexplained on TV while the game was in progress.

Piniella took out Zambrano, the man the Cubs pay millions to, the man who won 18 games for them, the man who had previous experience pitching in the playoffs.

He put in Marmol, who had never pitched in a game this important in his life.

You could understand it if Zambrano's arm was hanging by a thread, if he already had thrown 110 or 120 pitches and was totally gassed.

You could comprehend it if Zambrano was suffering from cramps again, as he had in a couple of recent starts.

You could even fathom it if Piniella had warned everybody that he was going to go easy on Big Z, even though this is no time of the season for any Cub to go easy.

But no, that wasn't the case. Before the game Piniella assured everybody that everything was hunky-dory.

The manager was "keeping the door open" that Zambrano might come back Sunday to pitch Game 4 at Wrigley Field, he said before the game.

"That means probably that we won't let Zambrano throw all that many pitches tonight—105, 110, we'll shorten him up. One hundred pitches, whatever it is," Piniella said. "We've got a good bullpen. We believe in it."

He was asked if he had any concerns about going with a three-man rotation, about asking Zambrano to work two of a series' first four games.

"I don't have any concerns about anything," was Piniella's response.

He does now.

Zambrano did not throw 110 pitches, or 105. He did not "shorten up" to 100.

He threw 85.

That was his night's work—85 pitches in the biggest game of the season, the biggest Cubs game in years.

Piniella pulled his ace. Then later he couldn't understand why anyone couldn't understand it.

"I took a shot. It didn't work. Period. End of the story."

Somebody asked the Cubs skipper if he might be accused of looking ahead.

Piniella bristled. "I'm not accused of anything, sir," he said.

He didn't seem to think—as everyone else in room and in the southwestern United States seemed to—that lifting Zambrano and having Marmol get lit up was the story of this ballgame.

"The reason we didn't win was we scored one run on four hits," Piniella claimed. "That's really the story of this ballgame."

One big hit could have changed the complexion of this game when the score was 1-1 and with Zambrano hooked up in a beauty of a pitching duel with Brandon Webb.

But these are the playoffs, where hits can be hard to come by.

All the Phillies could manage were four hits in a loss to the Rockies. All the Angels could muster were four in a loss to the Red Sox.

Webb did not have the Cubs eating out of the palm of his hand, exactly. They mounted serious threats against him in the second, third and fifth, then put a run on the board off him in the sixth.

"Pitchers are controlling this game right now," Arizona manager Bob Melvin said midgame on live TV.

They were. But then the Cubs changed theirs. Big Z got the rest of the night off.

"Anytime he comes out of a game, it's kind of a sigh of relief," said Arizona third baseman Mark Reynolds, who welcomed Marmol to the playoffs with a tie-breaking home run.

Piniella decided to keep Zambrano fresh for Game 4.

There had better be a Game 4. If not, Cubs fans will be talking about this move for years to come.

[e-mail]

_{www.chicagotribune.com/sports/cs-071003downey,0,2479761.column?coll=chi_tab01_layout}

[RocDoc]

yer watching, right ken?

[skvorisdeadsorta]

My Cubs are going to totally fall apart but I will love watching it.

[RocDoc]

you
shut
up

[RocDoc]

i forgot you're the other 'foreign-born' cubs fan on here, skvor.


my sympathies.

;D

[skvorisdeadsorta]

Well, here's the deal: The Cubs had a Triple A team in the town that I grew up in here in Texas. I have been a life long Cubs fan and I am nervous as hell right now. I had an emotional meltdown when they lost to the Marlins.

[phil]

CUBS _ RED SOX for the championship !!

[RocDoc]

i fucking DIED in 1969, believe me. cos that was a collapse for the ages and as a 14 year old i (and ALL of my buddies) took it very hard.
i loved this column when i read it...this guy's got the page 2 column in the tribune and he's the 'typical' south-sider who's bound by his honor to hate the effing cubbies...but he writes a nice one here:

Note to Cubs fans: Go all in or pack it in

John Kass
September 23, 2007

I ask this not as a White Sox fan who, like my Sox brothers and sisters, has been where you are now. I ask as Mr. Predictor, co-founder of the proposed Chumbolone Museum of Grant Park and dean of the new University of Chumbolone.

Don't be a chumbolone, Cubs fans. Believe in these Cubs.

Remember June? Cubs fans were in the fetal position, cursing Jacque Jones, damning Carlos Zambrano, giving Lou Piniella the finger for not knowing anything about baseball.

It was mass hysteria, and I could have fanned the flames of self loathing. Instead, I channeled Mr. Predictor. And what did Mr. Predictor tell you back in June?

That the Cubs would win this thing. They'd win it, they'd win it, they'd win it.

Now, in the last week of the season, don't take a turn to negativity town. You can still get on the bus, but the door closes Sunday afternoon.

"After that, you can't get on," said WGN-AM's David Kaplan, a crazed Cubs fan who has called me up in the middle of the night to curse me out for being caught on HBO tape, standing next to Mr. Bartman at that infamous 2003 playoff game, with a big smile on my face.

"What worries me about a lot of Cubs fans, is that they're not putting their heart in it," Kaplan said. "And you know what? If they win this thing, win the whole thing, the fans who didn't put their heart in it will still wear their Cubs playoff gear, and they'll pass a mirror and see themselves.

"And they'll look at that guy in the mirror, and the guy will look back, and they'll know that they didn't believe. You can't fool that guy in the mirror. So don't try it. Believe."

Yes, Cubs fans, there is no refuge for you now. Either put your Cubs heart on the emotional chopping block once again, or refuse and crawl safely along the baseboards of life.

I'm not asking as a Sox fan who has walked in your Crocs, or whatever those ridiculous things on your feet are called. I'm asking you as a brother. Do you believe?

Don't be a chumbolone. Say it. Tell it. The Cubs are going to win this thing.

"Shut up," said my real brother Peter, a true Cubs fan, who has loved the Cubs since he was a little boy.

"You're doing the Mr. Predictor thing just to jinx us. I know it. Everybody knows it. Mr. Predictor. Jinx. Mr. Predictor, jinx. Oh, I get it.

"I don't care about your jinx. We're beyond jinxes now. I'm so tired of it. We're past what happened in 2003 and Mr. Predictor and the Billy Goat curse and all that other [deleted] going back a century. Let's forget all that stuff. It doesn't mean anything. What means everything is this week. So let's believe."

There you have it, fans. My brother Peter is one of the purest, most believing, non-booing Cubs fans that ever lived.

When he was a little boy, about 10, he learned his lesson. He was at a Cubs game at Wrigley, and his idol, Ron Santo, came up with men on base and struck out. The fans started booing, and Pete joined in, "Santo! You bum!"

A few innings later, the great Santo came up again, with men on base, and washed his hands in the dirt at home plate the way the great Santo was known to do. Santo hit a home run. The fans cheered, and Pete was one of them.

An old man sitting next to him -- I mean a real old man, a wrinkly, hat-wearing old man, with a white shirt on, glasses, holding a sharp pencil to keep score -- touched my brother on the shoulder.

"Sit down!" hissed the old man.

Pete looked up, horrified.

"You booed Santo. You don't have the right to cheer! Sit down!"

So Pete, knowing the old man was right, sat down. He cheered, but he cheered sitting down. And he felt terrible, since he loved Santo, and loves him still and despises anyone who'd criticize Santo. He felt guilty.

Pete learned his lesson, and the principles haven't changed, from 1969 to 1984, 1989 and that 2003 playoff game, fans counting the outs to the World Series, when his brother was standing there next to Bartman.

When it comes to baseball, you can't protect your heart. Love your team. Believe. And so, if you don't want to answer Mr. Predictor, answer my little brother.

Do you believe?

"The true Cubs fans believe now," Pete said. "And this is what I want to see. Let's put the armor on. Let's be like the old warriors on the Steppe. Hordes of true Cubs fans together. There's no safe place for us. If our hearts get broken, they get broken. It's baseball. But we can't cheat ourselves. Let's believe."

I hope so. For my brothers Pete and Nick. For Santo and Kaplan and the Polish Spartacus and all Cubs fans out there.

Mr. Predictor says the only thing worse than not winning is seeing your team win just as you've pulled back to protect yourself. Don't do that, I beseech you.

Believe.

Or not.

[e-mail]

_{www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/columnists/chi-kassbdcubssep23,0,1560682.column}

[maarts]

Great, great piece!

[Proud]

God hates Philadelphia.