It’s got to be Ozzie Guillen on Twitter.  Ozzie’s only been on Twitter a few weeks, but he’s provided me many chuckles while I sit at my desk at work.  There is really not a person in baseball that I would rather see on Twitter. There’s nothing but a text message standing between Ozzie’s brain and the general public.  Today was especially entertaining to me.  Ozzie tweeted 8 times in 17 minutes.  Ozzie was apparently bored in a car, stuck in traffic on the 101 or 202 in the Valley of the Sun.

(All times are Arizona Time)

4:25 pm -I hate the trafic I arizona aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

4:28 pm – This is crazyI thought the gas cost a lot money to many car lord

4:34 pm – I want a corona polar presidente now please this trafic lord

4:35 pm – Big reazon to love my boat no trafic in the ocean

4:36 pm – I want my cabo boat working hard to get my cabo 52 yessssssss

4:37 pm – I wish I have my bike in this moment

4:39 pm – Por que a jose gregorio hernandez lo hacen santo por que? Luchemos por eso un venezolano que le pasa al vaticano ?

4:42 pm – I going to get my chevy help me suv ?

Coming soon to the Ivy Envy Podcast – “The Ozzie Guillen Tweet of the Week”.

Filed under: General Baseball | 1 Comment »

Welcome to Season 2 of the Ivy Envy Podcast. We kick off the new season with a new host – Jeremy. We also have regular guest, Dispatch/Argus sportswriter Matt Veto with us to discuss the Cubs off-season moves. And, we award the first Asshat of the Week in 2010.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (66.7MB)

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Today was the first televised game of the 2010 pre-season and I am very happy that Lou Piniella decided to hold off the Carlos Silva start for a televised game.  What a pitching line:

2IP – 7H – 6ER – 2HR – 27.0 ERA
Was it fried chicken grease on his fingers? Maybe he was just eager to get pulled from the game so he go outside Hohokam to get a pork tenderloin straight from the QC Area’s own Chuck Cox and his Spring Training extension of TC’s Food and Spirits.

* With no cuts to the roster yet, that dugout was mighty crowded this afternoon. I think I saw Doug Dascenso walking around in there.

* Soriano dove for a ball. It wasn’t pretty, but he left his feet in a way that didn’t involve a hop. I’m not getting my hopes up. It just surprised me.

* It’s hilarious that every time Starlin Castro is brought up by someone in the Cubs organization, they hint at a future Theriot injury.  Today it was Jim Hendry on the radio with Pat and Ron.  If you haven’t heard, Ron lost a tooth eating cheese pizza today.

* No Pepsi “Bizzay” commercials this year? Maybe they aired it and I just missed it. For you Quad Cities folks, television isn’t the only place to hear commercials repeated several times in a broadcast. Anyone that listens to Pat and Ron on KJOC 1170am is very familiar with the Lions Den Adult Superstore due to their 15 ads per Cubs game. Anyway, I’m sure you’d like to see this commercial again:

WGN aired this commercial during the broadcast. Will this be the commercial that makes me want to punch people by mid-April?

Filed under: Broadcasters/Networks, Former Cubs, Outfield, Spring Training, Starting Pitching | 3 Comments »

Marlon Byrd has taken it upon himself to assist the Cubs pitching staff this year by pointing it out to them that they are tipping their pitches.  The most eye-catching name in this article is Carlos Marmol.  I have no doubt that pitch tipping happens far more often that we know, but it would ideally be one of those things that the pitching coach is watching.  You typically don’t rely on your Center Fielder to pull pitchers aside to coach them on their mound presence and delivery.

This could be an indication of the quality of Rothschild’s coaching.  I have never liked Rothschild, but I suspect that most of it goes back to the Dusty Baker years.  But let me try to be an optimist here.  I won’t put this on Rothschild, who happens to be the most awkward looking man in a uniform I have ever seen.

I am, instead, going to assume that this is just an indication of the stellar coaching by Rudy Jaramillo that Marlon Byrd has consumed in the last three years in Texas.

Filed under: Management, Relief Pitching, Starting Pitching | No Comments »

I try to give Al-Sor the benefit of the doubt, but when your left fielder says this–

“I have my job — before I had to do my job to make the team. Now I’ve made the team and it’s boring.”

– a Cubs fan just has to cringe. Did I take the quote out of context? Yes. But only slightly. See the whole thing here.

I just don’t get it, man. He knows people think he’s lazy and unmotivated, and he still think it’s funny to make comments about being lazy and unmotivated? Get a fucking clue.  For the kind of money he’s getting paid, I would let people shoot bullets at me. Not rubber bullets. Real bullets. The kind that come out of guns really fast and kill people.

I’m not questioning his decision not to play the first two weeks of Spring Training. I understand that he may have other work to do besides playing exhibition games. I’m really just questioning the words that he uses to justify it.

Filed under: Outfield | 2 Comments »

Corey, Andy and Kurt finally build up the guts to allow our wives and fiance on the podcast to talk about the Cubs with us. We learn how they really feel about the Cubs. The girls also get honest about our obsession with the Cubs and the time to we dedicate to Ivy Envy. They are then subjected to a pop quiz that consist of general baseball and Cubs-specific questions.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (57.0MB)

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The 2009 season is something we’d all like to forget. The injuries and dysfunction weighed heavily throughout 2009 and hopes are high that 2010 will be different on both fronts.

I am not a Soriano fan and I was outspoken about this last year. He earned two swipes from me in the “Most Hated Cubs Player of 2009″ contest at our first live event at Twenty Sports Grille. Soriano ended up winning that contest, by the way. I wasn’t the only one ready to express my frustrations with the liability in left field.

But I decided to try to accept Soriano for who he is in 2010. He won’t show the effort we’d like to see. He won’t play with his head in the game. He will be below-average in the field. But if he is healthy and pitchers forgot to throw him sliders in the dirt, his power should return this season.

Soriano reported to Spring Training in Mesa today and started things off by reporting that he’s 75%-80% recovered from his September arthroscopic knee surgery. He also said that he doesn’t want to push things too quickly. That sounds like the Soriano I know.

Fellow Cubs fans, it will be the 2015 season until we see a roster without Alfonso Soriano. He will earn $90 million between now and then. That’s right, he is still owed 2/3 of this contract. And he’ll do it all with a little hop and a grin on his face.

Filed under: Defense, Outfield, Spring Training | 6 Comments »

Is anybody else thinking our team is looking a little rickety at the moment? The celebrated former Penn QB has signed with the Giants, and I would have thought after last year they would put an extra value on someone that can play multiple positions and cover for Aramis’ annual month long hiatus. Not to mention there has never  been a single athlete in Chicago sports history as popular in boys town…I’ll have you know that he was hotjocks.com’s Hot Jock of the Day, April 25, 2008.

Now, this man could care less that you pay $3,000 a month for an industrial loft concept studio in Boystown, or that you know the bartender at Roscoe’s.  But, it’s not a bad idea to cater to your local fan base with your roster,  the White Sox have been doin’ it for years on the South Side.  His wife was voted hottest baseball wife in the world that same year, what a hoax. I bet they didn’t even consider how much tail Randy Johnson gets in an 8 win season.

Randy Johnson is a pretty girl

Moving on, we basically are starting the year with 3 starting pitchers, and thats praying Wells wasn’t a one-hit wonder.  I love the Irish hipster as much as anyone, but I feel the Cubs missed out on an opportunity to have a better deep threat than the Bears here.  The bullpen’s wishy washy at best…I wanna be optimistic but I feel like the Cubs are the overly-confident giant grizzly bear I saw on the Discovery Channel last night,  walking on super thin ice trying to dig up dead frozen fish and make it thru the season.

Filed under: Former Cubs, Offense, Ownership, Starting Pitching | 1 Comment »

Spring Training is underway and since we at Ivy Envy will not be in Mesa to provide any coverage, we feel an obligation to point our readers towards some sources for up-to-the-minute information.

First, College of Idiots is based out of the Phoenix area and have heeded the call to provide readers with the happenings in the Valley of the Sun.  Are you planning a trip to Mesa for Spring Training?  These guys will give you the inside info on where to go, what to avoid and where the coldest beer in the area is.  But these guys provide entertaining insight regarding the Cubs beyond Spring Training and throughout the whole season.  Bookmark this site and check back often.  You can also follow College of Idiots on Twitter @CollegeofIdiots.

The other blog you should be checking out for Spring Training coverage is Boys of Spring.  Boys of Spring is a blog written by Tim Sheridan.  Sheridan serves as the Cubs Spring Training P.A. Address Announcer.  Not only does he provide some analysis of what’s going on in Mesa, but he posts some great pictures.  You can also follow Tim on Twitter @BoysOfSpring.

These are the blogs and Twitter accounts we’ll be watching this March and April, and you should too.  To give you a taste of Boys of Spring, here are some photos from their website:

Filed under: Cubs Blogs, Spring Training | 2 Comments »

I recently decided that I will not be purchasing the MLB Extra Innings package.  Last year, I didn’t use it nearly as much as I expected that I would.  A few times, we’d be out in the backyard on the weekend and a game from the NL or AL Central would finish and we would flip over and watch a west coast game, but we didn’t do it often enough to justify $200 for the package.

I was at Twenty Sports Grille (proud sponsor of Ivy Envy) a few weeks ago and a guy informed me of the MLB At-Bat application for iPhone, Blackberry and Android.  The details for 2010 have not been released, but this app cost only $10 last year and it includes Pitch-by-Pitch, video highlights, video of 1 or 2 live games per day, as well as the home and away radio feeds for every game (no blackouts).  This seems like an adequate and affordable replacement for me.

But imagining laying in bed listening to the radio broadcast of west coast games really takes me back to my childhood.

This idea makes me feel like an old-timer.  I’m only 32, but growing up, my family didn’t have cable and I relied on the radio for my baseball fix.  Sadly, living in central Illinois, this fix was taken care of by the St. Louis Cardinals, via Jack Buck and Mike Shannon.  Being a Cubs fan, I fell asleep every summer night, rooting for whoever the Cardinals were playing.

But the game is different on the radio.  Obviously, the announcers are relied upon to paint a visual picture of the game for the listeners.  But it’s more than that.  There is a cadence to calling a game on the radio.  Ron Santo doesn’t quite have this cadence down yet.

Baseball seems more pure to me on the radio.  I can’t see what actually happened during a play.  I am trusting the call of the announcer.  On television, I can see Soriano’s gaffes in the field clearly.  I can form my own opinion of the play of each person on the field.  On the radio, I only know what the guy in the booth wants me to know.  I don’t mean to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but it’s quite the opposite.  There is an element of innocence to listening to the game.  You listen for the love of the game.  I don’t listen to a game on the radio ready to second-guess and question every ball and strike call.  I don’t over-analyze the route an outfielder takes to the ball.  I find myself not questioning managerial decisions as much.  It’s pure and it’s America’s past-time.

We take it all too seriously.  It’s ridiculous how closely we, and the rest of the Cubs blog-world, watches these guys.  It’s absurd, the scrupulous nature of our attention to the Cubs.  But it’s what fandom has become and there’s no turning back.  So I will watch the Cubs on television and critique every step and every swing.  I’ll just listen to the radio broadcasts of west coast games for my “love of the game” fix now.

Filed under: Broadcasters/Networks | No Comments »