Andy, Corey, Kurt and Ryan convene to discuss Lou’s sudden departure from the Cubs. We also dip our toes in the “new manager” waters. Don’t miss our live podcast recording on Monday, September 13th at Twenty Sports Grill and Nightclub in Downtown Moline.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 50:20 — 46.1MB)
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So Manny Ramirez has agreed to sign with the Chicago White Sox after being claimed off of waivers. Fantastic.
You’d think I’d be a big fan of Manny since he does his own thing and doesn’t take any grief from anyone. I’m actually not: I think he’s a buffoon. First off, he used the stuff and when he came back he didn’t talk to anyone or seem remorseful whatsoever. Second, he’s gained SO much weight since he came into the league and shows up out of shape every single year. And most important the Sox have no business with him in the lineup.
I don’t buy that Ozzie and him are going to get along either just because they share similar heritage. Manny takes things personal, and you could pretty much take anything Ozzie says personal. It’s not going to end well, but I’m sure in the next few days Ozzie will come out and say something like this to the media:
“You know what he still good player. He good player and that what happens when you get a guy who is…you say because he Latino that he no have good manners and stuff but I know and he is one of the best. He like to play with good players and has played with good…uh…good other teams that win baseball. But if you can say he Latino then…psh…they going to try and come to his farm and take all of the animals you know? But it just like Noah said in the Bible you have to have two of every one.”
I’ve never had a stroke so I’m not quite sure what all of that means, but you know he’d try to make it an ethnic issue of some sort. Ozzie could make a transaction with a vending machine an ethnic issue. In the end, the Sox have to pay Ramirez’ remaining Dodger contract of $3.8 million which seems to me to be an awful lot for a guy like that late in his career.
Meehan
Filed under: General Baseball, General Sports | 2 Comments »
"Look...if we had replay we wouldn't even need you assclowns in the first place!"
In this installment of our new series “Show Some Love” I’d like to talk about Detroit Tigers manager Jim Leyland. This is course comes to light every time he’s been thrown out of a game for arguing with the umpires, which has been a lot because Detroit hasn’t had a great year. Jim himself never played in the big leagues. He was a career .222 hitter and catcher in the minors in the 1960′s, and then in 1970 statred managing the Montgomery Rebels. Forty years later, he’s still relevant as the leader of a team that clearly isn’t. Because of a contract extension signed in 2009, he’s signed on to run the team through the 2011 season.
Leyland smokes cigarettes. A lot. More importantly, he doesn’t care that anybody might be offended either. During their World Series against the Cardinals in 2006, FOX television had to be careful when showing the Tigers dugout because Leyland was smoking so much. And he couldn’t have cared less about it. I think that’s significant just due in general to the way people complain about those who choose to smoke. The angle he takes is not exactly the politically correct one.
But what I love about Leyland is the way he stands up for his players. You know if that’s your skipper he’s got your back and he’s not afraid to risk getting thrown out of the game to prove his point.
When a reporter asked him at the end of the 1998 season if he was going to retire, he shot back with a very Rodney Dangerfieldesque answer: “My wife doesn’t like me that much. I can’t retire.”
I can’t help but notice that in all walks of life, when things gets tamer, they get lamer. Baseball needs more guys like Jim Leyland just like Rock and Roll music needs more guys like Iggy Pop. Also, I hear a lot of complaining about outspken guys like Leyland, Guillen and Piniella. But I actually like to see some fire from a managerial position. If every manager in MLB was like Dusty Baker, how boring would that be?
Check out this video of him pwning Barry Bonds:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNttXpxZ1Kc
Meehan
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Seeing as how I’ve managed to smear myself all over the internet, it should be no surprise that I’ve been assigned yet another gig writing for a website called Get Off My Mound. I’m assuming this guy is either referring to the Dallas Braden incident from earlier this year, or he’s just Native American and really pissed.
http://getoffmymound.wordpress.com/
Either way, GOMM is a site that is just starting up and is based out of New York City. It’s a site dedicated to sabermetric baseball blogging and talk. I’ve been assigned NFL duties for this site as well so we’ll see how it goes.
And I just want to remind everyone that our final event of what is left of the 2010 Cubs season will be on Monday, September 13th at Twenty Sports Grille in downtown Moline. And since Twenty is a sponsor and I believe they have been wronged, I’d like to mention how disappointed I am on the lack of progress on the 5th Avenue project. I can only hope that when whoever is in charge of that mess finishes that Twenty will continue to be the coolest bar in the Quad Cities, a title that they have managed to hold through all of this.
Meehan
Filed under: Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
First off, we at Ivy Envy would like to apologize for the frequency of our posts dropping off. We don’t want to write about the Cubs, so I can only assume you have an equal amount of disinterest in reading about the Cubs, so let’s call it even. Here’s just a few things:
So that’s what’s going on around here. I’d like to comment on the Cubs, but I just can’t muster the desire right now. I am watching parts of games, though. However, I told myself a few days ago that if the Cubs win one of these remaining games in walk-off fashion and they proceed to celebrate, I will literally not watch another game for the rest of the year. The only way I could excuse this behavior is if the victory kept a winning streak of 8 games or more alive. It seemed like a pretty ludicrous exception earlier this week, but now that they have won 3 games in a row under Quade……it’s still ludicrous.
Filed under: The Cubs | 1 Comment »
So Lou is done, and his last day on the job was a ridiculous 16-5 loss to the Braves. Fortunately, the Ivy Envy bus-trippers went to the game the day before, which happened to be Piniella’s last victory as a manager. The photo above was taken at the game, and that moment was Lou’s last time arguing a call.
Personally, I enjoyed having Lou as the manager of the Cubs. I feel that he made good decisions most of the time, and I think that this abysmal season is more due to the personnel on the field. It is hard to forget 2008, in which Lou led the Cubs to a 97-64 record. I remember watching the Cubs in the last few weeks of that season, wondering if they would crack the 100-win mark. They didn’t quite get there, but their record was still the best in the National League. Lou also compiled 1,835 wins during his managerial career.
If you missed the final post-game press conference, check it out. Lou gets very emotional, and he seems to hold the city of Chicago, the Cubs, and Cubs fans in high regard. Thank you, Lou–we appreciate your years as “the fine manager of the Chicago Cubs.”
Filed under: Management | 2 Comments »
After 5 months of waiting, our bus trip to the Cubs game is today. I’m pretty floored that 56 people will be making this trip today. I’m glad that we sold the tickets in February, when everyone was excited about the Cubs. If we would have waited until this point in the season, I’m not sure we could have given them away. It will be cool to see Derrek Lee one more time, though he’ll be wearing different shades of blue and red.
But it’s going to be a blast and we’ll be posting some photos from the trip on Twitter today so follow along at www.twitter.com/ivyenvy
Get ahold of us on Twitter if you’ll be at Wrigley today and want to get a drink.
Also, There won’t be a podcast episode this week since we typically record on Saturday mornings.
Filed under: Ivy Envy, Live Blogging, The Cubs | 1 Comment »
It’s official. The Cubs have finally traded first baseman Derrek Lee to the Atlanta Braves for three pitching prospects. (The title of this post is supposed to be an Alice in Chains reference if you hadn’t caught that)
In the deal, the Cubs received two right handers, Robinson Lopez, 19, and Tyrelle Harris, 23, and one left hander, Jeffrey Lorick, 22. The plan (if you’d consider anything the Cubs do at this point to be any kind of a plan) is to start fresh with some young talent and these guys are all under 24 years of age. If only one of these players becomes marginally successful, it’s still a good trade because I think we all knew Lee wasn’t happy. You can only be a nice guy for so long before you get hungry, especially for someone who’s previously tasted the glory of a World Series championship.
As someone who has always liked Derrek Lee (with the exception of the 2003 MLB playoffs), it is kind of nice to see him finally go to a team that’s got a somewhat legitimate shot at the pennant in Atlanta. It’s hard to blame a guy who’s simply exercising his options that has a chance to take that leap from a team that’s 20 games under .500 . The Braves will likely move Troy Glaus to third base due to the shifts in the team’s infield; because of what will probably end up being a career ending injury to Chipper Jones.
So all in all, I’d like to wish Derrek Lee the best for the rest of his career. And although he did not have a good season this year, he wasn’t exactly surrounded by All-Stars during his tenure with the Cubs. He hit .251 this year, which was far below his .282 lifetime average which I believe will eventually keep him out of the Hall of Fame. Here’s a link to his Wikipedia page if you’d like to judge for yourself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derrek_Lee
Here’s a quote from everyone’s best friend and resident square-peg-in-round-hole enthusiast Jim Hendry about the move: “It’s unfortunate we got ourselves in the spot we’re in now. The overall situation we’re in makes us all somewhere between miserable and sad every day.”
That’s a bit of an understatement don’t you think? Miserable is different than sad. Sad implies that there are circumstances beyond your control and that you actually feel sorry the situation at hand. Miserable is, well…the 2010 Cubs.
In summation, it’s kind of nice to know that the Cubs can move on from this point even though Lee seemed to be a fan favorite. As a fan it gives me a sense of relief and at least creates the illusion (if only for a brief second) that Hendry’s dumbass isn’t just waiting for the season to end before making some changes that will hopefully flip this boat over.
Filed under: Former Cubs, General Baseball, Infield, Management, Trades, Uncategorized | 6 Comments »
Andy, Corey and Ryan let you know about some events we have coming up. We also discuss our feelings about the Reds this year and read your responses to the question of the week.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 49:06 — 45.0MB)
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I never really minded the Reds. When I was 13, I put a Reds sticker on my dirt-bike to support them in their 1990 playoff run and World Series battle with the Bash Brothers and the rest of the Oakland A’s. They haven’t really been terribly relevant, and so I’ve had pretty impartial feelings towards them for years. When Dusty Baker was picked up by the Reds, I wanted to see them fail, just because I couldn’t stand Dusty Baker. However, in the last month or so, the Reds are possibly becoming my most hated team in the division.
The Reds have become a cocky and outspoken team. There is a gray area of cocky and whiny and these Reds fall somewhere in the middle.
After the All-Star game, we awarded Joey Votto with our Asshat of the Week award for his comments about the Cubs and Marlon Byrd after Byrd’s efforts to help the National League win home-field advantage, from which the Reds could possibly benefit.
I don’t like the Cubs. And I’m not going to pat anybody with a Cubs uniform on the back.
You might be curious what Votto did to assist the NL in securing home-field advantage in the World Series. He went 0-2 at the plate.
But that’s old news. Reds players have been in the news twice this week for their statements. This week, the Reds acquired Jim Edmonds to assist him in his tour of the NL Central – 4 teams down, 2 to go. Edmonds was asked if fans would warm up to him in Cincinnati and responded with this:
As long as it’s not as bad as it was in Chicago, I’ll be all right. The media killed me in Chicago for the first three weeks until I hit my first home run.
Now I’ll admit that I don’t have the most fresh memory, but for the life of me, I don’t recall the media or fans in Chicago killing Jim Edmonds, literally or figuratively. Many fans had mixed feelings based on his years in St. Louis, but I don’t recall anyone being that difficult on him. He actually became a player I had positive feelings about, based on his effort, despite his declining skills. I posed the following question on our Twitter account: Does Edmonds think that to fit in at Cincy, you need to have an inferiority complex towards Chicago and the Cubs?
And then Brandon Phillips joined the party on Monday with his comments on the Cardinals.
I’d play against these guys with one leg. We have to beat these guys. I hate the Cardinals. All they do is bitch and moan about everything, all of them. … I really hate the Cardinals. Compared to the Cardinals, I love the Chicago Cubs. Let me make this clear: I hate the Cardinals.
The Cardinals were none to happy with these comments and Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina let Phillips know how he felt as Phillips came to the plate in his first at-bat in Tuesday night’s game. This led to the clearing of both benches and ejections of the two managers.
Since the Cubs are out of post-season contention and although I am definitely no fan of the Cardinals, I am rooting for them to destroy these mouth-breathers from Cincinnati Northern Kentucky. They apparently can not handle four months of winning baseball and I believe they will melt down in any sort of race to the finish. They exhibit the inability to keep their cool and control themselves.
Filed under: General Baseball | 10 Comments »
