Ivy Envy

Geo!

Andy — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 01:51:52 +0000

For those of you who missed Monday’s game with the Astros (and I’m sure many of us did), Geovany Soto had a great game. Not only did he hit a go-ahead solo homer in the eighth inning, but in the fourth inning he also hung onto the ball after surviving a harsh collision with Michael Bourn at the plate. If you haven’t seen this video, click here to watch it. It looks like Soto gets hit in the face by Bourn’s elbow, but as they fall to the ground, Bourn’s face also appears to get raked by Soto’s cleats. It was a pretty clean, hard-nosed play, and hats off to Soto for hanging on to that ball, especially since he got hammered only a split second after catching it.

While I’m at it, hats off to Geovany Soto for a good season. He has played almost the same number of games as he played in ’09 (97 to 102), and his numbers this year are much better than they were in ’09. Here are some numbers to look at–

2008–141 games/141 hits/23 HR/86 RBI/.285 BA/.364 OBP/.504 SLG
2009–102 games/72 hits/11 HR/47 RBI/.218 BA/.321 OBP/.381 SLG
2010–97 games/83 hits/17 HR/51 RBI/.284 BA/.399 OBP/.521 SLG

With 24 games left to play, it looks to me like Soto is going to get fairly close to some of his numbers from 2008, and as you know, in 2008, Soto won the Rookie of the Year Award and played in the All-Star Game. Check out Soto’s OBP and SLG percentages this year–pretty out of hand. Despite the Cubs playing terribly overall this season, Soto has quietly managed to have a great year. He is eligible for arbitration coming up in 2011, so the Cubs will have to pay him a little more than the $575,000 he is making this year. I hope they plan to keep him around for a while.

Why The Cubs Need Ryno

Tim — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:06:22 +0000

I know that everyone’s probably already talked this to death.. but here at Camp Shelby, I’m a few weeks behind the real world.. I know what’s going on in the real world, but my reaction time is a little slow.. That said, this is why I think the Cubs need Mr. Sandberg.

1. We need a reason for people to talk about the Cubs next year. I mean, lets be honest, we’re terrible. Aramis is batting sub par, Soriano is being.. well, Soriano. Lee’s gone, Fukodome is in his yearly slump.. And the number one reason people probably won’t be talking about the Cubs is that there is literally no reason to talk about them.

2. Let’s talk about some of the candidates:

Authors note: Because I don’t think the Cubs would ever be able to pry Girardi loose from the Steinbrenner’s cold fingers, I’m not even going to mention him as a legit replacement. Just the top 3 in my opinion.

A. Mike Quade: Career win percentage is actually pretty good! He’s currently standing at .667. He’s won about 8 out of every 12 games he’s managed in the majors to this point in his career.. That said, he’s managed exactly 12 games in his illustrious career. His minor league wins and losses stand at 1137-1097. Not exactly the incredible numbers that you’d hope that your future white knight manager would have. I mean, slightly above .500 is ok.. but I’d like them to be better.

B. Bob Brenley: We all know who he is, right? And as far as his managing high lights, if you’ve watched at least one Cubs game that he’s been an announcer for.. Well, you know them too. Len Casper probably mumbles about Bob’s world series for the Diamondbacks and him managing the NL All Star team. I am, however, pleased to announce that he can now officially stop telling everyone that he’s the last NL manager to not “lose” the All Star Game. You tied. Great job. Shut up so Len can tell me what’s going on in the game I’m actually watching. Now that I’m done venting about Bob, I’ll actually talk statistics.. Since he has more than 12 major league games as a manager, I’m just going to throw out his ML stats. Wins-Losses: 303-262. Winning percentage: .536. He was fired just 4 years after he started as manager of the Diamondbacks, and just 3 years after his World Series win. I think it’s safe to ask, “What about Bob?” If in 4 years, you win your division twice and the World Series once, and you still manage to get fired, you must just be really really annoying.

C. Ryne Sandberg: While his minor league managerial statistics are not spectacular, what he’s done in the Cub’s paltry minor league system is. This year, most of us probably know that he won the PCL Manager of the Year award, and he’s sucessfully managed to be an all around cool dude. With how many rookies the Cubs brought up this year to the ML, who better to be their manager at a ML level than the man who’s been with them since single A ball? His minor league stats stand at 284-276. Only slightly above .500, but this year alone he’s over 20 games over .500. Pretty good, eh?

Ok, so none of the top 3 choices (in my humble nobody opinion, but it’s my blog so I’m going to tell you my opinion and you’ll like it.) look great as far as their stats go. That said, Ryne has got to be the choice if the Cubs want to have a successful future. I think he’ll turn out to be a lot like Jim Leyland- Knowing when he should probably stop, but not going to because his players need somebody to stand up for them. If you’ve paid any attention to the last few years, Sandberg has definitely grown as a manager, and I think he’ll still have growing pains.. I’m not saying that the Cubs will win a World Series next year.. I’m not even saying they’ll finish 2nd or 3rd in the Central.. But in a couple years, with a young, competent HOF manager at the helm, I think we’ll have a lot better of a chance to set ourselves up for the future than with Brenley, Quade, La Russa, Torre, or.. fine, I’ll-say-it-but-it’ll-never-happen-in-a-million-years Girardi. I figure that if Ricketts is the Cub’s fan that he says he is, he’s probably hanging on our every word here at Ivy Envy.. So, Mr. Ricketts, hire Sandberg if you know what’s good for your team!

NATIONALS / MARLINS BRAWL AND BASEBALL’S UNWRITTEN RULE BOOK

Ryan — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 17:53:30 +0000

So Wednesday night Nationals outfielder Nyjer Morgan seriously lost it and just like that, the whole country had a reason to be interested in the Nationals just like they did before Strasburg got hurt.

Here’s a brief overview of what happened. Tuesday night Morgan slammed into Marlins catcher Brett Hayes who ended up suffering a separated shoulder from the incident. Then Wednesday night, starting pitcher Chris Volstad then plunked Morgan in the fourth inning, probably because he was either instructed to do so by his manager or doing it to defend his teammates.

But when Morgan got on base, he stole two bases when his team was down ten runs which is a little weird but I certainly didn’t think it warranted more chaos. Upset about the stolen bases, Volstad threw at him AGAIN (this time behind him), and that in my mind was reason enough to go. Morgan went apeshit and charged the mound and then things kind of went black for a few minutes. The benches cleared and four players were ejected.

I actually think as big of an issue that Morgan probably does have with regards to anger management, when these suspensions get handed out he’s going to end up getting screwed because of his actions the past two weeks with the throwing the ball into the stands and such.

I just think that if you break any of these rules the other team should be expected to plunk you once to send you the message that you aren’t going to let anybody mess with you. But you hit more than one guy or do it twice to the same guy, that’s reason to go. And that’s why I don’t necessarily think this was a bad fight. It was completely justified as Morgan was doing nothing except trying to help his team win in that particular game. I do understand that he injured one of their players, but neither of these team are going to make it to the playoffs anyway so who cares? I’m actually kind of happy he did it, because it’s brought about this conversation about unwritten rules in baseball.

Earlier in the year when Dallas Braden yelled at A-Rod, I was kind of puzzled that someone like him wasn’t aware that you weren’t supposed to run across the mound. I was always taught when we were younger that you run OUT of the field of play beyond the foul lines, and then quietly go back to the bench.

Then when the Reds and Cardinals had at it this summer, I was shocked to find out that the batter could even tap the catcher. I just thought the batter wasn’t allowed to touch the catcher. But it’s not written in the rule book.

So what does everyone else think? Are there any other unwritten rules that you can think of? Should MLB actually start putting some of the “not cool” stuff in print so everyone knows what’s allowed and there isn’t any disagreement about what you can and can’t do?

Podcast 2.23 – Lou, Ryno, Quade, etc.

Corey — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 02:45:59 +0000

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.

MANNY RAMIREZ SIGNS WITH THE PALE HOSE

Ryan — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 20:41:24 +0000

by Ryan Meehan

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

SHOW SOME LOVE: DETROIT TIGERS MANAGER JIM LEYLAND

Ryan — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 12:30:46 +0000

"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

NEW PARTNER SITE

Ryan — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 00:57:47 +0000

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

Notes – 8/27/2010

Corey — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 03:42:03 +0000

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:

Our bus trip was incredible, with 55 Cubs fans from the Quad Cities boarding a charter bus and heading to Wrigley for a beautiful day of baseball. I’ll do a write-up about the bus trip in the next week (yeah, I said that about six weeks ago about my Dodgers game summary). There are lots of great photos trickling in on our Facebook page, so keep checking in there. If you took photos you would want to share, get ahold of me: corey@ivyenvy.com . Thanks to everyone that went. I’m thinking we may need to consider having two buses next year based on the interest I’ve heard.

We got a bit of a shout-out in Matt Veto’s column in today’s Dispatch/Argus about the possibility of Ryne Sandberg being the next Cubs manager when he quoted me and mentioned Ivy Envy. Veto covers a TON of local sports and it’s cool to see them give him the space to write about the Cubs.

If you listened to our NL Central preview podcast episodes, you’ll remember that we made a little wager with Brian over at Chris Sabo’s Goggles. The bet was the following: If the Reds beat the Cubs in head-to-head victories this year, at the end of the season, for three days, we will shut down Ivy Envy and when you go to our website, you will be re-directed to his website. I really didn’t expect the Reds to destroy the Cubs this year in head-to-head games or in the overall standings, but that’s where we are, Cubs fans. So for a few days in early October, we will disappear and you will be forced to read about Joey Votto. In case you are wondering, going into this weekend’s series in Cincinnati, the Reds lead the Cubs 10-3 in head-to-head games. It’s a good thing the Reds will be back home because folks in Ohio don’t know how to conduct themselves when the Reds are on the road.

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.

Lou’s Farewell

Andy — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 02:59:28 +0000

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.”

Today is the bus trip

Corey — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 11:55:52 +0000

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.

“YEAH, IT’S OVER NOW…”

Ryan — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 22:55:19 +0000

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.

Podcast 2.22 – Cardinals vs. Reds

Corey — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 11:25:33 +0000

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.

The Reds are the most un-likeable team in the NL Central

Corey — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 03:27:09 +0000

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.

Ted Lilly’s First Start with the Dodgers…

Andy — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 17:51:56 +0000

went well. I know this is old news at this point, but check out this link to the highlights–

Ted Lilly pitches a gem in his Dodger’s debut.

You’ve gotta love hearing Vin Scully. In case you were wondering (I don’t blame you if you weren’t), Ryan Theriot is currently 7-20 with the Dodgers.

Show Some Love

Andy — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 17:25:30 +0000

Welcome to “Show Some Love,” where periodically we will be balancing out our “Asshat of the Week” by drawing attention to the hardworking players in the game (Cubs or not) who turn in performances any baseball fan could respect and appreciate. This week we show some love to Todd Coffey of the Milwaukee Brewers–

What the heck am I looking at at :08 seconds??

It’s definitely no secret that Coffey sprints in from the bullpen when called upon. It is this type of energy that has endeared him to Brewers fans, and as Cubs fans, we can appreciate the spirited effort he brings every appearance. Though Coffey isn’t exactly one of the elite relievers in the game, he gives it his all to keep the Brewers in the game. His best season was probably 2009, where he appeared in 78 games and maintained a sub-3.00 ERA. Coffey also had to put in his time in the minors–it took about seven years for him to finally make it to a big-league roster. So, though you play for the enemy, you are appreciated, Todd Coffey.

We have a few empty spots on our bus trip

Corey — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 11:23:13 +0000

Ivy Envy is chartering a bus from the Quad Cities to Wrigley Field on August 21st for the Braves vs Cubs game. We have a few spots that have opened up. Tickets are $80 and that includes the bus ride up and your ticket to the game. Email me at corey@ivyenvy.com if you want any of these spots.

OZZIE GUILLEN’S BIG MOUTH IS TRYING TO BARK AT A UNICORN

Ryan — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 22:42:00 +0000

So the Cubs have lost five in a row. We did a really good piece on last night’s episode with Matt Swain from Wrigleybound about the Cubs minor league system and the prospects acquired in the Lilly trade. This is going to be important information for any Cubs fan because our future is pretty much all we have at this point, save the success of Carlos Marmol. Other than that, there isn’t exactly a whole lot to discuss on the North side.

However, last night a comment made by White Sox skipper Ozzie Guillen had surfaced on ESPN. Here is the first part of it: “Very bad. I say, why do we have Japanese interpreters and we don’t have a Spanish one. I always say that. Why do they have that privilege and we don’t?” Guillen said Sunday before Chicago played the Oakland Athletics. “Don’t take this wrong, but they take advantage of us. We bring a Japanese player and they are very good and they bring all these privileges to them. We bring a Dominican kid … go to the minor leagues, good luck. Good luck. And it’s always going to be like that. It’s never going to change. But that’s the way it is.”

I’m not like some of the other guys on the broadcast when it comes to the Sox. I actually like the pale hose and I think Ozzie Guillen is great for baseball and he makes for the best soundbites in the league, but this is clearly not one of them. He went on to defend his theory that “not nearly enough” is being done to prevent players in the Domincan Republic and Venezuela from using performance enhancing drugs, and that in some instances they are being influenced to use drugs. (Which isn’t the fault of any baseball organization, instead the fault of society for creating the pressure to succeed on any level)

So let’s break this down: The first thing that jumps out to me here is the “We bring a Dominican kid … go to the minor leagues, good luck. Good luck. And it’s always going to be like that. It’s never going to change” part. Well if it’s never going to change, why bring it up in the first place? What’s the point? Doesn’t seem like it would help the arguement much. “They take advantage of us” is a bit much when you consider the people that are really living in poverty all around the world. Taking a young man out of a country like Haiti for example and giving him more money than most people will ever see in a lifetime, then putting him up in a posh apartment is hardly being taken advantage of regardless of how much English he knows.

Additionally, has anyone here seen MLB TV lately? It’s almost all interviews nowadays. How would MLB get out of providing interpreters for non-English speaking players when their own cable network consists of about 75% interviews? And when it comes to steroids, I don’t understand how MLB could educate white or Asian players about the use of PEDS and then deliberately educate Latino players less. Latinos make up a very large demographic in the majors, so it is unrealistic to believe that they aren’t getting the same information the rest of the players are.

And while I’m at it, since Guillen brought up the situation of the Asian players getting special treatment, what about the players from the Dominican and other Carribean countries who go to play baseball in Korea or Japan? Those languages are WAY more difficult to learn than English, so is he insinuating that those players are given translators? And how would we as writers even go about researching something like that? But I think all of this is just simply not an issue. How could it be? There’s way too many players of Latino or Carribean descent in Major League Baseball for them to not have translators even at the minor league level.

I think this is a case of Ozzie getting up a little bit early on Sunday, having a couple of drinks before he headed to the ballpark, and feeling like he needed to inject himself into the news cycle. Ozzie used to do this when the White Sox were in the middle of a losing streak, which is precisely why it’s puzzling becuase the White Sox are on fire right now, and other than the Rangers they might be the only other American League team that can actually give the Yankees a run for their money. Ozzie Guillen is slowly becoming more and more like Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones when it comes to making sure that he appears on Sportscenter at least once every six or seven days.

In summation, I think there is no real point that Guillen is trying to make here. It could have something to do with the way he feels about the Arizona Immigration Law, it could be him just wanting attention, it MIGHT have even been his frustration about the fact that the White Sox made a push to get Manny Ramirez and didn’t get the job done. Which shows how ridiculous this arguement is in the first place, because you KNOW there are plenty of translators when it comes to negotiating a multi-million dollar contract and that’s not just limited to professional sports.

Myabe it just is what it is.

“Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar” – Sigmund Freud

Meehan

Podcast 2.21 – Lilly and Theriot traded to the Dodgers

Corey — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 13:14:25 +0000

Andy, Corey and Ryan share their thoughts on the Ted Lilly/Ryan Theriot trade. We also discuss Derrek Lee’s decision to reject trades and whether Cubs fans should be frustrated with him for this. Matt from WrigleyBound comes on to look at the minor league players the Cubs received in the Lilly trade. And Ryan awards the Asshat of the Week.

Good thing the Cubs don’t have to face Ubaldo, huh?

Corey — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 13:58:43 +0000

The fact that the Cubs will not have to face Ubaldo Jimenez in this series in Denver does not really matter. When your pitching staff gives up 17 runs on 21 hits, it doesn’t really matter who you are facing. You’re not going to win that game. I was thinking that the Cubs will have gotten through both series in 2010 with the Rockies without facing Jimenez. That’s good for the Cubs, I guess. But really, it’s quite clear 2010 is over for this club and I wouldn’t have minded watching one of the best young pitchers in MLB.

Jimenez hasn’t been great lately, though. In his last 7 outings, he’s given up a lot of earned runs. He’s given up 7, two games of 6, and two games of 4 earned runs. His ERA is at 2.67, which is low, but after having an ERA of under 1.00 for the first two months of the season, it appears batters are maybe getting more comfortable with his pitching. His control is slipping, too. In his second most recent outing, he lasted 2 innings and gave up 6 runs on 3 hits and 6 walks.

If a 3-3, 4.56 Jeff Francis can handcuff the Cubs and hold them to four hits and then hand it over to the bullpen, which didn’t allow a hit, I would imagine the Cubs could have given the 16-2 Ubaldo Jimenez a perfect opportunity to get back on track and probably throw a 1-hitter.

WTF?

Andy — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 04:10:10 +0000

I’m watching the Cubs play the Rockies right now, and the Cubs have given up 12 runs here in the 8th inning to make the score 17-2 Rockies. What a freaking joke. I just about reached for the remote to end my misery, and then I thought twice. No. I’m watching this. It’s like my penance for caring too much about this team this season. I’m the monk flagellating himself for his sins right now. The sin of thinking just a week ago that this team could magically turn it around and still make a run.

Old Style is running a radio ad right now emphasizing how their beer has improved so much since they brought back the kraeusening process. In the ad, a guy walks around asking fans how they would “kraeusen” their experience at the ball park that particular day. The answers are all like, “Put sprinklers in the bleachers,” and “Have a bottomless container of nachos.” Tee-hee. So how would I kraeusen my experience with this ball game? Have the ground open up and swallow the bullpen.

Corey and the Cubs in Phoenix, Part II

Corey — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 12:11:53 +0000

***This is Part II of the recap of my trip to Phoenix to watch the Cubs play the Diamondbacks. Check out Part I here. I will do the same mix of tweets and photos as I did in the first part.***

I left off with our little ticket mix-up. I went to will-call to pick up the tickets for Tuesday’s game and later that night, when we handed Jeff and Timoree their tickets (they were to meet us at Tuesday’s game), we discovered the tickets were printed for Monday’s game. I had screwed up my order in March, but I sorted things out with a ticket agent over the phone immediately and it seemed that everything was in order. Apparently something was not in order. It was late Monday night and the box office was closed, so I decided I would just walk over to Chase Field in the morning when the box offices opened to see if we could do anything. I wasn’t that worried about getting tickets. Monday’s paid attendance was 26,250 and the stadium holds 49,000. I was more worried that we wouldn’t have tickets, but my credit card was billed.

Up @ 6:30am in Phoenix because I’m so excited to see Carlos Silva pitch tonight.Or, having kids has destroyed my ability to sleep in. Tuesday, July 06, 2010 6:41:39 AM

What do you do when you are in the desert and can’t sleep past 6:30am? Go to the pool. Tuesday, July 06, 2010 6:57:17 AM

Yes, even with mega-thick hotel curtains, I was unable to sleep past 6:30am. So I went to the pool, where the water was surprisingly cool. I only spent about 15 minutes in the pool because the sun peeked over the other downtown buildings and even though it was shortly after 7am, I could feel my pale Irish/Midwestern skin burning.

The box office opened at 9am and I walked the 5 blocks from the hotel over to Chase Field. The temperature was near 100 degrees, but I walked these 5 blocks without my shirt soaking up a drop of sweat. It’s a weird sensation when you are used to having swamp-ass when it’s 83 degrees because of the humidity. One thing I quickly remembered…carry water. You are sweating, but it’s just evaporating right away. You get very thirsty in this environment. Everyone walking around downtown was carrying water and some were even carrying gallons of water. By the way, this was our view of the stadium from our hotel.

As we are leaving the hotel, Timoree called and informed us that Jeff snagged us some good seats for the game. He knows someone that has season tickets that won’t be going to the game. Then Tawny tells me how good these seats actually are. The are 5th row, directly behind home-plate. He has 4 seats, so we have 10 total (they got the ticket confusion worked out at the box office)and the plan is to rotate so everyone can sit in the good seats for a while. Not only are these seats infinitely better than the nose-bleed seats I bought, but I’ve never even sat in seats that close for QC River Bandits games, where they probably cost $12.

I’m pretty giddy about the idea of sitting in these seats all day. But I’m a Cubs fan, so I’m waiting for the tickets to fall through for some reason. We are always prepared for the bottom to drop out on us.

I have already declared that we must eat lunch at a place in Mesa called the Pizza Pit, located on the northwest corner of Dobson and Baseline. My friend Marisol, who lives in the area, informed me of this place about 6 months ago. It is a Quad Cities style pizza place, along the lines of Harris, Sluggers, Fields of Pizza and so on. Apparently, a few guys from the Quad Cities moved to the Valley of the Sun and decided to take a part of the Quad Cities with them. They definitely had the style of the pizza perfected. I would say that it’s closer to Fields of Pizza than Harris or Sluggers, mainly in that it wasn’t as greasy as those other two. The walls were decorated in photos of landmarks the Quad Cities such as Modern Woodmen Park and the bridges that span the Mississippi.

I spoke with one of the managers and he told me that they have 10-15 Quad Citians come in every day. They even do QC get-togethers twice a month at the restaurant.

They had about 5 pizza boxes hanging on the wall that were covered in writing and one that was sitting in the window. Quad Citians were invited to sign the boxes. Tawny and I left our mark, representing the area where the river runs east to west.

Click “read more” for photos and descriptions from the baseball game.

At Slider’s, right next to Chase Field. Door-man told me that the Prez of the Dbacks called and asked them to not play “Go Cubs Go” again. Tuesday, July 06, 2010

Yeah, so we walked into Sliders about 2 hours before game-time to get something to eat and start greasing the wheels. Sliders is the bar that’s right across the little walkway from Chase Field. The guy checking ID’s was wearing a Cubs hat and commented on the number of Cubs fans at the bar already. He informed us that Derrick Hall (President and CEO of the Diamondbacks) called Sliders the night before to complain that they were playing “Go Cubs Go” and he feels it’s disrespectful to the Diamondbacks and their fans. I suppose I can see where he’s coming from, but those Cubs fans are about 75% of your attendance for this series, so I’d accept the fact that your team’s play on the field is disrespectful enough and maybe you should focus on that before you worry about the songs that a bar not attached to the stadium plays. Sliders was just trying to appeal to their customers. The place was easily 85% Cubs fans.

I don’t know if it was just because the Cubs were in town, but Old Style was the special and there was lots of it. Here’s Mrs. Ivy Envy enjoying a few.

I won’t be tweeting as much from tonight’s #Cubs vs #Dbacks game. 6 rows behind homeplate and I don’t want to be “that guy”. Tuesday, July 06, 2010 5:58:40 PM

Our seats were stellar and the photos will indicate that. As I said, we were in the 5th row, directly behind homeplate. And this is why I didn’t want to be tweeting much during the game. I didn’t want to sit there in my Cubs jersey and hat with my phone in my hand the whole night. I could just hear Dbacks fans across Arizona watching on FSN saying “Look at that guy, he has great seats and he’s sitting there texting all night.” Nor did I want to embarrass Cubs fans on WGN/CSN by being just one step up from the dude in a choice seat with the cell phone plastered to his ear, waving at the camera with a shit-eating grin on his face. Don’t get me wrong, I got my time on your television screens, but I tried to make it as low-key as possible. If I walked down a few rows from our seats, there was a stairway that led down to a bar and restrooms. These were for the folks with the pricey seats. So I sent out a few “tweets” informing those following when I would take the walk down the stairs, which would put me in full view of the camera.

These seats were pretty awesome. I was surprised at how many seats around us were empty. Most of the people sitting around us were scouts for other teams, so maybe they set aside a number of seats for scouts, in case a large number of them show up. Here are some photos from our vantage point:

We were sitting in the middle of all the scouts. It was pretty incredible to watch them graphing, charting and making notes on every pitch.

This next photo has a pretty good shot of the scoreboard. Being Cubs fans and traditionalists, at first glance, you would roll your eyes at this huge thing. That was my initial reaction. But as the game went on, I really started to appreciate the board and I enjoyed the stats on it quite a bit.

The left part of the scoreboard has season stats on the batter and what the players line in the scorecard should look like for the game. After a few pitches into the at-bat, the scorecard part switches over to stats about recent streaks, lifetime stats or interesting tidbits of information. The right part of the scoreboard has an inning summary, which is very useful if you’re filling out a scorecard and missed an at-bat. Under that, there is a defensive roster and the stolen base stats on the baserunners. And then at the bottom, there is information on the pitcher.

Overall, the scoreboard is very much aimed at those paying attention to statistics and/or keeping a scorecard. But, in the two games, I didn’t see anyone filling out a scorecard besides the scouts.

The Cubs won the game and the large fellow got the win to improve to 9-2 on the season.

Offensively, this was a fun game to watch. Fukudome hit a homerun, his second in as many days. Starlin Castro hit a triple while Lee, Theriot and Soto hit doubles. What carried the Cubs to victory, however, was Aramis Ramirez and his 2 homeruns and 4 RBI.

Because there was 8 of us and only 4 of the good seats, we rotated between these choice seats and the cheap seats. I may have hogged a good seat for longer than I should have, but I moved up for a few innings. The Diamondbacks began to work their way back into the game, earning two runs off Sean Marshall in the 8th. Lou went to the bullpen and called in Marmol. I had a hunch this move was about to happen, so I moved back down to the good seats. I was giddy as a school-girl to see Marmol’s pitching from this angle. I was in the seat DIRECTLY behind homeplate. Just in watching Marmol warm-up, I couldn’t believe the movement on his pitches. Once the Diamondback batters stepped up to the plate, it was comical. I was literally laughing at the movement on his pitches. I wasn’t the only person giggling. There was a scout sitting behind me that shook his head and laughed when Marmol threw one of his patent sliders.

It was incredible to watch and I feel very lucky to see them from that angle and that closely. Marmol came in for the 5-out save, registering 5 strikeouts and allowing one hit. It was his 16th save on the season and it dropped his ERA below 2.00.

Overall, the trip was awesome. These two wins by the Cubs brought my 2010 record to 4-0. The Cubs haven’t played well in Phoenix, and there was a base from the Cubs vs. Dbacks 2007 playoffs there to remind me. I was pretty amazed it wasn’t behind glass. It was actually just sitting on the ground in one of the souvenir shops.

But Mrs. Ivy Envy and I would really like to thank Jeff for hooking us up with these incredible seats.

Thanks to Tiffany and Jay for driving and spending some of their vacation days to hang out in Phoenix and watch the Cubs with us.

That’s what summer is all about. It’s about family and it’s about baseball.

Thanks for reading these lengthy recaps. There is one more on the way. I had purchased tickets for the Cubs vs. Dodgers game on that Sunday. However, during the day on Tuesday, before this game I just recapped, Tawny’s mom texted me to let me know that one of my father-in-law’s friends had tickets for Friday’s game for us. They were the $125 seats. So great seats were just falling from the skies. Given how long it took me to do this recap, I can’t really say when I’ll get the Dodgers game done, but you’ll want to watch for it. If you want a preview, check out the Podcast episodes 2.18 and 2.19.

Podcast 2.20 – Managerial Options

Corey — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 23:27:30 +0000

Corey and Andy reflect on the encouraging play of the Cubs post All-Star Break. We also discuss the upcoming trade deadline and Ted Lilly. We also begin to look at the topic that will be discussed for months – Who will be the next manager of the Cubs?

Re-up Ted!

Andy — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:32:52 +0000

(photo by Jeff Gross)

So the Cubs “win one for Ted” campaign failed miserably last night, and sadly enough, the game was probably Lilly’s last as a Cub as he “appears certain to be traded.” My opinion is that the Cubs need to re-up Lilly and look to unload payroll elsewhere. The problem is that Lilly is going to be the easiest contract to unload out of all of them. According to the Ted Lilly Fan Club, now that Dan Haren has been traded, Ted is the “Belle of the Ball.” So there is some demand for him, and most of the other players that the Cubs could potentially move have complications like full no-trade clauses (Lilly has a partial no-trade clause), money that the Cubs will have to eat, crumby seasons, etc.

Anyway, Ted Lilly could be part of the solution for this team going forward. He has been foundational to the success the team has had since 2007, posting “a 47-34 record and a 3.73 ERA.” There has been a lot of talk about how Lilly has received “the least amount of run support in the Majors, as the Cubs have averaged 2.43 runs per start” (Muskat). That abysmal number is the reason for the 3-8 record this season. If the Cubs support Lilly with some offensive production, seasons like 2007 and 2008 happen, where he went 15-8 and 17-9 respectively. Though he has lost some velocity on his fastball, pure speed is not what makes Ted Lilly an effective pitcher. His effectiveness is due to the difference in speed between his fastball and his ridiculous curve/change-up, as well as his ability to locate his pitches. I think he is good for another three-year contract. With just over three days before the trade deadline, we don’t have too much time to wait to see what happens. What do you do if your favorite player gets traded away from your favorite team?

Corey and the Cubs in Phoenix, Part I

Corey — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 00:13:16 +0000

***This is Part I of my “Cubs games in Phoenix” trip. I’ll post Part II tomorrow and you won’t want to miss tomorrow’s photos***

My wife and I take our kids to Southern California every summer for 3 weeks to visit my wife’s family. It just so happened that this year, the Cubs would be out West at the same time. In March, it seemed like a great opportunity to see the Cubs play in Phoenix and Los Angeles. Remember where we were as Cubs fans in March? Publicly, we predicted the Cardinals to win the division, but deep down, we held out hope that Derrek, Aramis and the trio of Carlos could pull off something special and make 2010 a season we’d never forget. Plus Tawny and I met in Tempe, Arizona. It’s where I proposed and we hadn’t been back there in 6 years.

However, in late June, it didn’t seem quite as appealing to spend 3 days of my vacation with this Cubs team. They were maddening and I had no interest in cheering for anyone besides Starlin Castro, Ted Lilly and Marlon Byrd. However, I woke up early on Monday July 5th and left Orange County, California to drive across the desert to catch the first game of the Cubs vs. Dbacks series, early that afternoon. Similarly to my recap of the Wasting Away in Wrigleyville Pub Crawl, I will mix in some tweets, photos and fill in the gaps. My recap of the Dodgers game will probably come next week. If you’re not the reading type, check out episodes 2.18 and 2.19 of the Ivy Envy Podcast for my recaps via audio. We made this trip to Arizona with my sister-in-law, Tiffany and my brother-in-law, Jay.

Also, I’d like to say that I really enjoyed the interaction on Twitter with other Cubs fans. Thanks for following us on Twitter.

Breakfast at McDonalds in Corona, CA on the way to the #Cubs game in Phoenix. 6:30 AM Jul 5th

I eat McDonald’s about once a year. It’s always on a road trip. It did cross my mind that it might not be a good idea to eat McDonald’s when you’re about to trek 5 or 6 hours across the desert.

107 degrees in Blythe, CA. Insert Zambrano hot-head joke here. Should get to Chase Field right at game-time. #Cubs 1:01 PM Jul 5th

A big thank-you to Jay for driving. After the drive from IL to Southern California and knowing we had to turn around and go back home in a week, it was awesome to be able to fart around and send Ivy Envy tweets in the backseat. Also, You’ll have to excuse my repeated comments on the heat. I’m from the Midwest. We like to talk about weather.

Arrived at Chase Field. 1:01 PM Jul 5th

We walked into Chase Field right at game-time. The fact that we left a little later than we wanted and had two female bladders (one of which is pregnant…not her bladder, you know what I mean) made this accomplishment even more impressive. There was a small problem brewing (not the McDonald’s). Tawny and I are vegetarians and ballparks are typically not the most vege-friendly venues. Usually, I am left to eat nachos. However, this isn’t Wrigley Field, folks:

I hate modern ballparks, now excuse me while I eat at TGIFriday’s and watch this #Cubs game. 1:17 PM Jul 5th

Even though TGI Friday’s is about the most un-vege-friendly restaurant in the United States, at least we could get fries and a salad. Click “read more” to see this massive post and all the photos.So we got to our table just as Kosuke Fukudome was stepping up to lead off the game. Here’s our view from the table inside TGI Friday’s:

If you don’t remember, (because the game was 2 1/2 weeks ago) Fukudome led off the game with a homerun. I believe it was center-field-ish. As you can see, most of the outfield is not in my line-of-sight, and I was in the middle of ordering my french fries, so I didn’t see the exact path of the ball.

Also, I was able to capture a photo of the most majestic artist rendition of Randy Johnson’s mullet that I have ever seen. Am I crazy or can I see a Bob Brenly resemblance in Randy’s face?

After our bellies were filled with french fries, we wandered around the concourse a little bit. We discovered that their organist is located in the upper level concourse in left field.

Seated next to the organist were what we figured had to be the oldest season-ticket holders. I’m guessing they have had season tickets for the entire existence of the Dbacks. This is what I want from my senior citizen years. Put a couple of score-cards in their hands and it’s perfect. I do love the headphones.

@CollegeofIdiots Tons of empty seats here. Is that typical or can these 2010 #Cubs not draw in PHX anymore? Monday, July 05, 2010 3:27:44 PM

The guys from College of Idiots are from the Phoenix area and they were at these games, as well. You will notice, especially in the photos from Tuesday evening’s game, how empty Chase Field was for these games. Paid attendance for Monday’s game – 26,250. The place holds 49,000.

I asked Tawny’s cousin’s husband, Jeff who lives in Scottsdale about this. He has been a Dbacks fan since they started and he attributed the lackluster numbers to a poor Dbacks season and the fact that the Cubs are frustrating for their fans doesn’t help attendance much. There are tons of Cubs fans in the Phoenix area, but it was clear they didn’t show up for these games, either. This makes me feel like more of a loser/sucker for driving 1800 miles to Southern California and then another 375 miles to Phoenix to see these guys play.

Byrd bouncing into a RBI fielders choice was cheered by Dbacks fans in our section. They were real happy to get Theriot at 2nd, I guess. Monday, July 05, 2010 2:39:04 PM

It was difficult to gauge the Dbacks fans around us. I wouldn’t say they were baseball dumb, but they definitely weren’t baseball smart. One thing that stood out to me was that they were surprisingly “rural”. I wouldn’t expect to see much cammo print in a metro area with a population of 4.3 million. I mean, Phoenix is the 5th largest city in the United States.

Kissing cam just led to the engagement at of a female Cubs fan and male Dbacks fan. Monday, July 05, 2010 2:43:33 PM

It’s part of the Modern Stadium vs. Classic Stadium debate – The Kissing Cam. It’s cheesy as hell. But really, there is nothing else going on between innings and it didn’t really bother me that much. It gave me a few chuckles. I guess I don’t mind this stuff that much at other stadiums. I just don’t want it at Wrigley or Notre Dame Stadium, thanks.

The amount of blasting music flashing lights for that DBacks triple gave me an apomplectic seizure. Monday, July 05, 2010 4:49:37 PM

First off, if you haven’t seen the movie Fishing with Ghandi, you need to. But this is where I can’t hang with modern stadiums. It was hotter than hell outside, so the roof is closed. The stadium is at half-capacity. Yet, when one of the Dbacks hit a triple, it was like I was in the Waco compound and the ATF was trying to drive me out. Flashing lights everywhere and POUNDING music. I think it would have been disguised better if there was more than 10,000-15,000 Dbacks fans in the crowd. But a smattering of applause being crushed by system noise is not a pleasant baseball experience in my book.

By the way, $4 beers at Chase Field. Monday, July 05, 2010 2:45:12 PM

Yes…$4 beer. I think the $4 beer was supposed to be Coors Light or something but the vendor gave us 12 oz. of Blue Moon for that price. We might have been his only customers of the day, so he decided to give us a deal. I will reference these $4 beers next week when I write about my trip to Dodger Stadium and their $11 beers.

Roof is closed at Chase Field, but a bird just shit in my sister-in-law’s frozen yogurt! #Cubs #Dbacks Monday, July 05, 2010 3:39:35 PM

Now, it’s no secret the Cubs won both the games we went to, and swept the series. However, this moment may have been the highlight of the trip for me. They sell soft-serve frozen yogurt at Chase Field. And if you would have told me that a few days earlier, I would have used that in my case against modern stadiums. But you know, it was a hot day and we were pretty laid back with an entire section to ourselves. The Cubs were winning and even if they did blow the game, I’ve already detached my emotions from the Cubs this season. Frozen yogurt? That sounds pretty damn good. So Tiffany is eating hers and sees something white fall into her cup. She calmly asks if there is something white on her Cubs hat. I’m thinking she leaned over and dipped her hat into the yogurt. No, a pigeon defecated in her yogurt like Lauryn Hill defecates on your microphone. As I said, the roof was closed and there were some birds flying around, but not a large enough number that you would expect to get shat on. As previously mentioned, Tiffany is pregnant and I’ve seen how quickly a pregnant woman can throw up. Kudos to her for keeping it together.

The stats on the big scoreboard at Chase Field are fairly informative and interesting. Can’t stand the replays and highlights, though. Monday, July 05, 2010 3:55:30 PM

I will get into the scoreboard in Part II with photographs. This is another aspect of modern stadiums in which I was surprised that I actually liked.

Most runs scored by the Cubs in over 3 weeks, since the 12 run Angels game, I believe. Monday, July 05, 2010 4:10:11 PM

Yes, it was the most runs scored by the Cubs in over two weeks. If you take away that Angels game, it was the most runs they had scored since May 2nd, when they also played the Dbacks. This is a team that put up a ridiculous amount of runs on a regular basis in 2007 and 2008. But now they require the historically awful Dbacks pitching staff to be able to put up these numbers.

The Dbacks defense is very quick. Monday, July 05, 2010 6:12:04 PM

The Dbacks pitching staff might be awful, but their defense, particularly in the outfield was fun to watch. These outfielders (at least in this series) covered a ton of ground. Cole Gillespie’s grab in left-field robbing Aramis Ramirez of extra bases even earned him a spot in the top 10 plays of the day on SportsCenter.

Waved our W flag. Feels good. Monday, July 05, 2010 4:21:28 PM

This photo really annoys me because Tawny is standing a step higher and it makes me look even more like a leprechaun. I will swallow my pride and share the photo with you. I was surprised, but I only saw 2 or 3 other W flags. I think the W flags are kind of cheesy, but at the same time, I like them. It felt good to be on the road and bring a little bit of Wrigley to an opposing ballpark.

Walking out of the ball park, well over 100 degrees, someone is blasting “Go Cubs Go”. Let the party in Phoenix begin! Monday, July 05, 2010 4:39:08 PM

#Cubs fans partying outside Chase Field. Monday, July 05, 2010 6:44:29 PM

More on that bar and the “Go Cubs Go” in Part II. As it turns out, the Diamondbacks weren’t real keen on a bar right next to Chase Field playing a Cubs song.

It’s…hot…in…Phoenix…in…July. Monday, July 05, 2010 6:47:52 PM

They say it’s a dry heat, and it is. I would take 107 degrees of desert dry air over 93 degrees of humid Midwest air. We walked quite a distance a few times while we were in Phoenix and I didn’t have a soggy shirt or anything. The sweat dries right off you. However, I remembered that you have to carry water everywhere you go. There was one time where I felt as though I could curl up in a ball and die from not having water. Redheads aren’t meant to be in the desert, I suppose.

So that wraps up Part I. I hope to have Part II done for tomorrow. The photos are MUCH better. You might wonder why, and let me tease you to keep you interested in the next post. I went to will-call on Monday before the game and picked up our tickets for Tuesdays game. They were cheap nose-bleed upper deck seats. We were invited to Jeff’s house for dinner that night. He and his wife were going to go to Tuesday’s game with us. When I handed them their tickets, we noticed that the dates for those tickets said Monday July 5th. They had given me the wrong tickets. There was some confusion (my fault) when I ordered the tickets in March and I wasn’t sure I had the updated confirmation number. So we weren’t sure we had seats, which based on the attendance for Monday’s game didn’t seem like a big deal. But it did add a bit of confusion and frustration. All I will say is that things turned out much better. Thanks for suffering through this ridiculously long post on an event that happened over two weeks ago.

HOW EXACTLY IS THIS A NEWS STORY?

Ryan — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 23:20:57 +0000

This isn’t going to be a terribly long post, but I did want to address the ridiculous method in which the media has been covering Lou Piniella’s “snap decision” to retire at the end of this season. They led with the story on Sportscenter last night, and WGN was running all sorts of clips of fans outside Wrigley Field giving their take on something that I was pretty sure was inevitable to begin with.

Lou’s contract was up at the end of this season, and given the lack of effort (which is a very kind way of saying the guy couldn’t give a shit either way) that he has shown in the past couple of years I just can’t fathom anyone being legitimately shocked about this.

Look, he was an inagural member of the Seattle Pilots in 1971. That fact alone should tell you right there that he probably didn’t have a lot of years left in him. Seriously, the guy ain’t Joe Paterno.

Meehan

Podcast 2.19 – Viva Los Doyers (Part II)

Corey — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 11:33:28 +0000

Listen to Episode 2.18 to hear Corey’s experience at Dodger Stadium before you listen to this episode. On Part II, we welcome Dodgers season-ticket holder, Gus Hernandez to explain the conduct of Dodgers fans at their stadium. This is a great interview, so don’t look past this episode. The highlight is Gus describing his first game as a season-ticket holder.

Game-Watch at Twenty Sports Grille moved to Tuesday night

Corey — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 01:01:08 +0000

If you went to Twenty Sports Grille in Moline tonight for our monthly game-watch, I am very sorry that we weren’t there. I announced via Twitter that the game-watch is being moved to Tuesday night. When I scheduled this event, I didn’t notice that tonight’s game was a WCIU game. If you live in Chicago and wonder what that has to do with anything, we in the Quad Cities aren’t able to watch the games televised on WCIU (yes, even with MLB Extra Innings). So we’ll do this thing tomorrow night.

If you haven’t made it to one of our game-watches, come on down. We are a harmless bunch and we’d love to hear your take on the Cubs.

Also, tomorrow morning I will be posting Part 2 of our podcast episode “Viva Los Doyers”. This is a great interview with Gus Hernandez, a Dodgers season-ticket holder.

IT’S NOT ALL STORM CLOUDS AND TORRENTIAL DOWNPOURS

Ryan — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 05:53:30 +0000

If you’re like me, hopefully you were sitting comfortably in your living space Sunday night with your significant other watching the Cubs put the finishing touches on their series with the Phillies. I’ve been getting a lot of flack lately for being too negative in my writing so I’m going to spin everybody around tonight and say some really positive things.

The Cubs won tonight 11-6 taking the series against Philly 3 to 1 at home. In no way was it dominant or pretty for that matter, but I was a lot more impressed with our team in the past four games than I have been in quite some time. We had an impressive showing against not only a very good team, but a very good team that is healthy which is almost unheard of in professional sports these days.

We had fourteen hits this evening. And although we did make some questionable defensive plays, at times the infield looked surprising accurate and attentive. And most importantly, it was a great game to watch as a diehard baseball fan. Colvin 3 for 5, Castro 3 for 4, and anytime (even this year) Soriano goes 2 for 4 I’ll take it. (As of press time Soriano has an .888 OPS) And we did it all against Roy Halladay, who you would think would know better as far as what to throw our guys.

It made me feel good to see us have an exciting come from behind victory on Friday, as well as execute a couple of killer suicide squeezes that afternoon and the next night. It gives Lou a little bit of breathing room too, although it’s debatable whether or not he is ultimately concerned. We’re still 9 games under .500, but it didn’t sting as bad as it did on Wednesday when every team in the league was off.

The only real stain on the broadcast was of course Jon Miller, who I heard mention tonight that the Phillies “were only four games behind the Tampa Bay Devil Rays”. Andy also mentioned to me that he caught him mixing up the names of the pitchers and the batters on more than one occasion. (At least Haray Caray could blame his problems on the brown bottle flu, I’m not sure Miller even drinks. Yikes.) They also did a segment on how Miller will be inducted into the Pro Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. I bet Pete Rose is thrilled about that.

Was it as fun as watching a pigeon peck a horse to death? Not really. Too little too late? Probably? But at least it made for some good television, even if only for a half of a week.

Meehan

Bonus Ted Lilly related update: Bruce Levine is reporting the Yankees are showing some interest in Ted Lilly now that Andy Pettite has fallen victim to a groin injury. Detroit and the Mets are also still being mentioned in that conversation. http://espn.go.com/blog/chicago/cubs/post/_/id/1554/yankees-may-join-the-lilly-chase And for all of the Ted Lilly supporters, this might mean we would have a chance at reacquiring him at the end of the season or even early next year, as you know there’s no way he is going to be on the Yankees’ 2011 opening day roster.

Game-watch at Twenty Sports Grille Monday Night

Corey — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 20:43:43 +0000

We are having our monthly Cubs game-watch at Twenty Sports Grille in Moline. Twenty has been a great sponsor and eager to work with us. They have twenty beers on tap and a menu with great food.

The Cubs will play the Astros and the game starts at 7pm, so come on down. Twenty is located at 1405 5th Avenue in Moline.

Podcast 2.18 – Viva Los Doyers (Part I)

Corey — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 03:24:32 +0000

Andy, Corey and Kurt briefly discuss where the Cubs stand at the half-way point of the season. Then, Corey describes his experiences watching the Cubs play in Phoenix and Los Angeles. Stay tuned to Part II of Viva Los Doyers coming soon. In Part II, we will have a Dodgers season ticket holder on the show to comment on the conduct of Dodgers fans.

First Game Back

Andy — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 23:55:28 +0000

Hey! It’s the first game of the 2nd half! Let’s watch to see if the Cubs can somehow begin the process of turning things around! Oh wait… it’s on WCIU. #@*%$! Well at least WGN has a bunch of America’s Funniest Home Videos on.

**UPDATE**

I found a radio and listened to these two guys who called themselves “Pat & Ron.” And I’ll be darned, but it turned out to be a nice way to take in a game.

800 Gallons of Ketchup Used at Angel Stadium on 7/13

Andy — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 14:02:36 +0000

So the All-Star Game happened, and the usual coma-inducing game promised to be even more of a sedative for Cubs fans as only Marlon Byrd made the cut. If you only tuned in for the ninth inning, you saw the most exciting part of the game, and that excitement was provided by none other than Byrd. For those of you who didn’t tune in–AL catcher John Buck hit an awkward ball in front of Byrd in right field, and Byrd had to make a decision whether to dive for it or let it fall. Meanwhile, David Ortiz froze on the base path between first and second in case Byrd made the catch. Marlon allowed the ball to fall right in front of him and snapped a throw to second to force Ortiz. That play was the second out of the inning, so Byrd contributed in a big way to the National League victory. In addition to walking and scoring a run earlier in the game, Byrd helped preserve the win with his defense. Of course this long-time-coming N.L. victory comes in a year in which the Cubs are pretty much out of the playoff race already, but still, it has been kind of a pain in the ass watching the A.L. win every year going back to when “Ironic” by Alanis Morrisette was inexplicably a popular song.

Also, according to MLB.com, 800 gallons of ketchup and 78,000 pounds of ice were used during the game. Whoop-de-shit. According to my count, Joe Buck and Tim McCarver said “Andy Pettitte” about 78,000 times. Also, Tim McCarver made a differentiation between two pitchers with high-nineties fastballs (I think they were Price and Verlander)–one of them threw a “hard” high-nineties fastball, and the other threw a “soft” high-nineties fastball. What do you think that means?

Asshat of the Week

Andy — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 14:28:04 +0000

Vicente Padilla

Vicente Padilla is a decent pitcher, and he definitely made the Cubs look terrible on Sunday night. During that game, he threw 75 out of 106 pitches for strikes. One of the 31 pitches that was out of the strike zone struck Marlon Byrd on the back. So was it intentional? Marlon Byrd thought it was. After the game he said, “When a guy’s throwing a two-hit shutout and he’s pinpoint all day long, and you get hit with a four-seamer, you have to question it sometimes.”

So why would a guy who is pitching lights out (the Cubs managed two hits in the game) all of a sudden decide to uncork a fastball way inside on a likable player like Marlon Byrd? Well, it turns out that when Byrd and Padilla were teammates on the Rangers, Byrd made it clear that he was glad when Padilla was placed on waivers. Apparently Padilla was just about as poisonous to the Rangers’ clubhouse as Milton Bradley was to the Cubs. Byrd wasn’t the only one to express jubilation at Padilla’s departure. According to the linked Dallas News article, “Handshakes were exchanged, and Ian Kinsler went so far as to say, ‘Congrats’ [to Rangers' GM Jon Daniels].” The same article mentions how Padilla often didn’t show up to team meetings, and “he would escape to the clubhouse during games to check e-mail and surf the Internet.” So Byrd thought that Padilla was a negative influence on the younger players, and he made it known. Padilla also has a history of headhunting. You may remember a game in ’09 in which Padilla hit his former teammate Mark Teixeira twice. This guy is a turd.

Vicente Padilla has pitched for twelve seasons in the majors. I wanted to compare his stats to another twelve-season veteran, and of course, Ted Lilly came to mind immediately. Over his twelve seasons of service, Padilla has hit 105 batters with a pitch while Lilly has only hit 48, and Lilly actually has quite a few more innings pitched. So Padilla has to have a lot more walks than Lilly, right? Obviously control has to be an issue, right? Well, Lilly has walked 561 during his career to only 517 for Padilla. So my conclusion is that Padilla uses the mound to exact petty revenge in the form of errant four-seam fastballs.

To Brian Runge and Friends: Get Bent

Andy — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 17:11:17 +0000

Let’s start out by saying that after a great series in Arizona, the Cubs didn’t play very well in L.A. Even though they put some runs on the board, the pitching was pretty atrocious overall. With that being said, what the hell was up with this crew of umpires? Brian Runge especially appeared to get a number of calls wrong, and some of these calls weren’t even that close. His strike zone was ridiculously fluid on Thursday (which led to the ejection of Byrd), and he made a few obviously erroneous calls at first as well (which led to the ejection of Silva). You know the calls weren’t too close when the commentators kept using the phrase “to the naked eye.” Muskat’s article contained a Piniella quotation that summed it all up–

This crew here, I don’t think I want to see them the rest of the year,” said Piniella, who was ejected Saturday by umpire Jerry Layne, also because of a call at first. “I usually don’t complain about umpires, but we never got a call all weekend.

Frustratingly enough, Piniella seemed content to go out to the field and have some polite words with the ump. On Saturday he was finally ejected, but it was still kind of maddening that it took him that long. At some point, a manager has to get kicked out along with his player, especially if the call made by the umpire is a game-changing mistake. I thought he should’ve done the same thing on Sunday with the two missed calls at first base. Thank God for the All-Star Break.

I Think It’s Safe to Open Your Eyes Now

Andy — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 17:32:55 +0000

Even though the Cubs lost last night, I’ll be damned if they aren’t playing some entertaining baseball right now. I know the D-backs are terrible, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve still just had fun watching the Cubs play baseball, and watching the Diamondbacks play makes me feel a little better about the Cubs. On one of the telecasts, Bob Brenly mentioned that the D-backs bullpen would have to pitch fifty scoreless innings to lower their league-worst ERA to match that of the next worst club. Our old buddy Aaron Heilman must’ve taken that statement as a challenge to make their failure even more epic, so he gave up a two-run homer to Aramis Ramirez in the 8th inning of Tuesday night’s game. Nice to see him finally helping the Cubs.

There are some good things happening with the Cubs right now. They’ve dug their hole deep enough that it probably doesn’t matter, but as I mentioned before, at least it makes it tolerable to watch them and even enjoy the game. Though he winces on every swing-and-a-miss, Aramis Ramirez seems to finally be coming to life. With every at-bat though, it does seem like he is one funky swing away from the DL again. Soto is playing well–he has been a force to be reckoned with at the plate lately. I hope they hang on to Soto when they think about rebuilding this team. I know many probably don’t agree with me, but I think he is a good player who has the potential to be great still. Fukudome has also been hitting for power lately which is nice to see. And speaking of power, seeing Soriano’s homer in last night’s game was a thrill. It was a no-doubter off the bat that unfortunately didn’t seem to spark the offense like it should have.

Steerrike two!

So they went on to lose the game. And in the top of the ninth, good-guy Marlon Byrd got ejected from the game by the first base umpire, Hunter Wendelstedt. This whole situation was the biggest pile of horsecrap that I’ve seen since the referees in the World Cup disallowed two good U.S. goals. First, the home plate ump called two low-and-outside pitches strikes. The second called strike was so erroneous that the fans in the 20th deck of Dodger stadium could have discerned that it was a ball. And I have to hand it to Byrd here. He instantly took a short walk away from the plate to collect himself, and when he walked back toward the plate, he was upset yet under control. For whatever reason, I became a very good lip-reader here, and Byrd was saying, “Unbelievable. That wasn’t even close.” As far as I could tell, he didn’t bring the F-bomb into it at all. Byrd then checked his swing on the next low-and-away pitch and it was called a swing by Wendelstedt, making it a strikeout.

At this point, Bob Brenly cracked me up by saying that not only do the Cubs have to cover the plate against 100-mph-pitching Broxton, but they have to “cover six inches off the plate and below the knees” as well. Byrd got kicked out of the game while he was walking back to the dugout, muttering to himself. This would have been a great time for Piniella to freak out, but instead he just went out and got mildly agitated with Wendelstedt. Then to top the whole thing off, Brenly said something to the effect of, “You think this is bad? Wait till you see Hunter Wedelstedt behind the plate tomorrow.” So that game ended up being pretty entertaining for a 3-2 loss. I’m looking forward to tonight’s game.

Live from Los Angeles this Friday and Sunday

Corey — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 17:23:31 +0000

If you missed it, I did some live commentary on the Cubs vs. Diamondbacks games from Phoenix via Twitter. When I return to the Quad Cities, I will post photos and some thoughts on those games.

I will be at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles for today’s (Friday) game and Sunday’s Cubs vs. Dodgers games. I really enjoyed the interaction on Twitter with some of our followers during the games in Phoenix and look forward to more of it this weekend.

You can follow all of the action on Twitter – @IvyEnvy.

Live from Phoenix for the next two days.

Corey — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 14:52:04 +0000

If you are at all interested in the Cubs anymore, I will be “tweeting” from the games in Phoenix for the next few days. Follow along at www.twitter.com/ivyenvy for all the action.

Also, it doesn’t appear that we will have a podcast for you this week. My computer took a dump 15 minutes into Jimmy’s debut performance on the podcast. All I will say is that you won’t get to hear Jimmy’s opinions on Dodgers fans unless we can get him on the next episode.

Signing off from the 91 Freeway near Corona, CA.

Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

A FEW BRIEF BASEBALL NOTES

Ryan — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 03:07:45 +0000

Make sure to tune in every Sunday Night to ESPN to catch Orel Hershiser and two other guys that probably aren't smart enough to clean your toilet get paid insane amounts of money to talk about a sport you'd think they've never seen before.

OK so it’s the 4th of July the Cubs once again got their clock cleaned. Nothing to see here but our usual ample supply of said clock polish.

Now, I’ve been away from the site for a couple of weeks, but I had to come on here tonight and just talk a little about how much of a fricking disgrace the All Star selections were. At least they selected Marlon Byrd to represent the Cubs, but I’d actually like to talk in particular about Joey Votto from the Cincinnati Reds getting totally screwed out of a spot on the All Star roster.

This is not the first time I’ve thought the voting for the All Star Game is horseshit. But it is however the first time I’ve seen a legitimate MVP candidate not even get selected to play in the game. Total rubbish. I was trying to go over in my brain how exactly that could have happened. I was drumming up situations that might have possibly kept him from being selected. Off field issues? Nope. Went into a slump at ANY point during the ’10 season? Nope. Not fielding well? Nope. There’s no reason he misses that game. I just don’t understand.

As a baseball fan it pains me to say this, but I’m starting to think that the overwhelming majority of baseball fans aren’t smart enough to select the players for the All Star Game. I follow professional basketball too and it’s REALLY bad in that sport. (Shaquille O’Neal makes the All star team almost every year) And of course through the internet, there’s no way in a million years that any sport would ever be able to know if someone isn’t stuffing the ballot box.

I think that even though there are a lot of bad sportswriters in America, most of them still would possess the knowledge to vote in an accurate All Star team. The fans just can’t do it anymore, and if this shit keeps up people will still be voting for Derek Jeter after he’s been retired for decades.

In addition, I’d like to briefly comment on the Sunday Night Baseball crew on ESPN. Sunday Night Baseball is a program on ESPN that has the knockout combo punch of Orel Hershiser on color, Joe Morgan on whatever the fuck it is that he does, and this guy who should never been introduced to the field of broadcasting named Jon Miller.

I was watching tonight’s blockbuster matchup between the Angels and the Royals (and that’s your primetime game? Wow…MLB Network sure has ESPN swinging from their groins don’t they?) and someone from the Angels flied out to right field with a man on third base. The outfielder caught the ball as the runner tagged, threw towards home plate and the ball soared over the catcher’s head by about twenty feet, and Miller said “Touchdown! He threw a touchdown!” I swear to God man. Morgan is also terrible. He stops in the middle of sentences all of the time and doesn’t finish them, and he’s got an awful voice. And I liked Hershiser as a player, but the longer he spends around those assholes, the more ridiculous he sounds to me.

The Cubs? Yep, they’re still bad.

Meehan

Summing it up.

Jimmy — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 22:39:10 +0000

The Nerve of this Franchise

Corey — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 23:13:09 +0000

In June, the Cubs went 10-16. Their overall record is 34-45, 11 games under .500 a week and a half before the All-Star break. Wax Paper Beer Cup (via Twitter) pointed out today that they are on track to win fewer than 70 games this season. I could go on and on with everything wrong with this team. But what pops into my e-mail inbox multiple times a day? An e-mail from the Cubs encouraging begging me to vote for these guys to go to the All-Star Game. And why should I vote for position players that are part of a team that ranked 3rd to last in the league for runs scored in June? Yeah, I’ll make sure I vote as many times as MLB allows.

Notes – 6/30/2010

Corey — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 16:14:05 +0000

Since I’m on vacation, I don’t want to ruin this time of relaxation by actually putting together a thought-out post about this crummy team. So I’ll just put together a few thoughts here.

Since unloading 12 runs on the Angels in the final game of that series, the Cubs’ offense has disappeared. Since that game, the Cubs have averaged 2.25 runs per game. In the month of June, before this stretch, the Cubs were averaging 4.4 runs per game. The interesting thing about writing about the Cubs now is that, since I’ve given up hope for this season, these types of stats don’t drive me nuts like they would if the Cubs were in contention. I almost see these stretches as an encouraging sign to see the Cubs start working towards building a winning team for the future. Until that begins to happen, we will sit and wait for the moves to start happening.

On the last podcast, I predicted that Zambrano would be moved to the bullpen when he returns to the team. I hope that the Cubs put Z in his place and keep his role minuscule. At this point, I doubt the Cubs have much concern with his trade value. Everything that has happened with Z this year has diminished his trade value, and I would say that last week’s blow-up did more to hurt it than his move to the bullpen earlier in the season. It’s just another contract that the Cubs will have to eat. I don’t think Hendry can pull off another trade of an undesirable player like he did with Milton Bradley. I can’t imagine the Cubs not being on the losing end of a Zambrano trade.

I’m not sure I can wear my Zambrano t-shirt jersey anymore. Looks like I might need a replacement seeing as how I ruined my Ramirez one with oil while BBQ-ing and the other one I have is a Samardzija one. I haven’t turned on Samardzija, but I don’t think I want to endure the heckling. But I have three of these shirts and none of the players are worth representing at this point.

And that sums up this week’s episode of dilemmas in Corey’s wardrobe. Thanks for tuning in and we’ll see you next week.

Podcast 2.17 – This week on the Carlos Zambrano Show….

Corey — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 05:15:09 +0000

Welcome to yet another podcast episode that is focused on Carlos Zambrano. Andy and Corey discuss the current Z situation over 2000 miles of distance. We also read your answers to the question of the week.

Another reason I hate the 2010 Cubs.

Corey — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 00:36:19 +0000

The Cubs were dealt another series loss in Seattle this week, salvaging the last game of the series. Before Andy and I recorded Podcast 2.15, we were discussing that it feels like the Cubs have had a lot of series in which they lose the first two games and win the third. So let’s take a look at the numbers of the series in the 2010 season, so far.

After the series loss to the Mariners, the Cubs are 7-16-1 in series in 2010. Though the Cubs have lost a lot in 2010, they’ve only been swept once (remember the Pirates?). They have lost 2/3 of the series they’ve played.

Of the first 25 series (including the first game in this weekend’s White Sox series), the Cubs have lost game 1 of the series 17 times. That is nearly 70% of the series, thus far.

As Andy and I were discussing this, I made the comment that it seems like they lose the first two games of a series and then somewhat salvage it with a win in the third game. We went through to see how many series ended up L-L-W. This has happened 9 times this season. That’s about 40% of the series this season, and 75% of the series they have lost 2-1. Mathematically speaking (which I don’t often), you would expect this to happen about 1/3 of the time, so that 75% really stands out and seems odd to me.

Usually, when a team wins the third game of a series to avoid a sweep, the hope is that they carry that momentum into the next series. Of the 9 times they have won the third game of a series to avoid a sweep, they have won the first game of the next series twice. That’s 22% of the time.

So we’ve established a few things here.

1. The Cubs lose a lot of series – way more than they win.

2. The Cubs often avoid sweeps by winning the final game of a series.

3. The Cubs don’t carry any momentum of that win into the next series.

White Flag Sans “W”

Andy — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 17:45:43 +0000

There aren’t too many good things to say about the Cubs right now. I watched all of Tuesday night’s terrible game and only some of last night’s equally terrible game. What the crap is up with Wells? It’s too bad that Marshall and Gorzelanny are both lefties because it’s looking like Wells should get a demotion. The Cubs mostly still seem to have a terrible approach at the plate–swinging for the fences when the situation calls for getting on base (not to mention the fact that they are hitting at pitcher-friendly Safeco). The double-play ball also seems to be showing up a lot lately too. Twenty men left on base yesterday, with Lee and Nady each having five a piece.

However, there are a couple players showing up to play. Though Soto didn’t have the best game last night, he didn’t leave anyone on base, and he seems to be continuing his patience at the plate. He drew two walks in Tuesday night’s game, and his OBP is .405 currently. Soriano also continues to hit, and lately has been getting a lot of base hits. Byrd seems to be working well in the lead off spot–he has four hits in the past two games. Imagine that! The Cubs’ lead off man getting on base. Still the middle of the order has been abysmal, so Byrd’s efforts have been wasted. When I listened to Veto’s interview with Ramirez, it was nice to hear that Ramirez does seem to realize the urgency of the situation. Maybe he can come in there tomorrow and put a charge in the lineup.

This team seems to be waving the white flag… and it doesn’t have a “W” in the middle of it.

Podcast 2.16 – Media Session with Aramis Ramirez in Peoria

Corey — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 12:00:57 +0000

Chicago Cubs third baseman Aramis Ramirez talks to reporters after his first of two rehab games with the Peoria Chiefs against the Quad Cities River Bandits on June 19, 2010. Ramirez was rehabbing a sore left thumb. This is a contribution from Ivy Envy guest, Matt Veto.

Podcast 2.15 – Cubs fans: What about our needs?

Corey — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 18:23:14 +0000

Andy and Corey try to make sense of their feelings towards the Cubs and their own fandom. They also comment on some of the changes around Wrigley Field and how these changes affect the aura of Wrigley.

It’s good to have options.

Corey — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 11:10:50 +0000

Before Friday’s game, I really felt that if the Cubs could put together a solid series, they could work their way into the NL Central race make me feel better about this team. I’ve mentioned this many times, but the Angels are my 2nd favorite team. I’ve been looking forward to this series all season. But man, the Cubs are really doing everything they can to push me away.

Friday’s game was just painful to watch. Watching the Cubs commit errors and mental mistakes is hard enough, but when they do it against one of the best fundamental teams in baseball, it really stands out. I believe Pat Hughes said that the Angels are #1 in the majors at going 1st to 3rd on a base-hit. This is what I want the Cubs to be. I think I can handle the Cubs losing if they played good and fundamental baseball. Of course, good fundamental baseball leads to winning…so yeah.

The Cubs put together a rally in the 9th with homeruns by Colvin and Lee. For some reason, this only pissed me off more. I knew they’d come up short. Situations like that aren’t a rush for me this year. I know they won’t end well. Don’t try to get my hopes up. Interestingly, J from Garden of Halos told us on the last podcast that the Angels bullpen is awful and if the Cubs could get into the Angels bullpen, they would have a chance, regardless of the score.

You might think that Sunday’s slaughter of the Angels would draw me back in. It doesn’t – it makes me hate them more. How dare they put up a 12-spot in the 3rd game of an awful series? I am so tired of seeing L-L-W in a series, then they don’t carry anything over to the next series.

So I feel I have three options with the Cubs at this point in the season, and in my life.

Option #1: Continue rooting on the boys in blue every day – living and dying (mostly dying) with every pitch, batter, inning and game.

Emotions from taking this approach: Frustration, Anger, Depression

Option #2: Give the Cubs the old “it’s not you, it’s me” talk. Thank them for their 25 years and be on my way. I can give a laundry list of reasons and the list ends with the fact they play Zombie Nation at Wrigley Field now. The idea of leaving the Cubs sounds ridiculous and I’ve dismissed it anytime I’ve heard a friend consider it. However, it’s beginning to make sense.

Emotions from taking this approach: Relief, initial 20 lb post-break-up weight gain, then a 30 lb weight loss to appeal to a new team, pleasure from finding a younger and hotter team, years of the ability to look back on a wasted 25 years and see how much better off I am since I broke it off. And I’ll make big money by selling this website.

Option #3: Put 2010 behind me. Call it a season, enjoy the summer and if I don’t happen to have anything to do, maybe I’ll turn a Cubs game on. I’ll wait and see what they do to build a winning team and get my hopes up, if their moves warrant that.

Emotions from taking this approach: A care-free spirit this summer, indifference when they get swept by the Pirates.

What it comes down to is this: What fun is it to be a fan of a team that you don’t like? I think I know what will cure all of this. In a few weeks, I will see the Cubs play twice in Phoenix and once in LA. Going to see the Cubs on the road should re-fuel me a little. For now, it will probably be Option #3, but Option #2 is closer than it’s ever been before.

Time We Started Seeing Other Baseball Teams?

Andy — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 05:29:56 +0000

Yesterday, the Cubs lost 12-0 to the Angels. The loss was so demoralizing that it had someone I know (whose name starts with “C” and ends with “orey”) threatening to end his lifelong dedication to the Cubs. Saturday evening, I went over to his house, and with a crazed look in his eye, he placed an Angels cap on my head. Needless to say, we’re going to address this momentary lapse of judgment in our next podcast.

One thing we can say for sure is that the Cubs’ defense has been an absolute joke this season. Carrie Muskat wrote yesterday that this season the Cubs have “given up 44 unearned runs, tops in the Major Leagues, and have committed 11 errors in the past five games.” Put some circus music behind Cubs’ game footage and you have a bloopers reel to rival anything you could get free with a subscription to Sports Illustrated. But is it time to give up on the Cubs yet? Allow me to quote one of Corey’s favorite college football commentators and say, “Not so fast, my friend.”

Today, the Cubs defeated the Angels 12-1. Granted, they were facing probably the weakest pitcher in the Angels’ rotation, but it was still quite a retort to yesterday’s piss-poor showing. Ivy Envy writer Ryan called the team “bipolar” in a text to me today, and he is right; though this has been an issue going back even to the first year of this site, it has been even worse in 2009 & 2010. The “ups” have been brief, and the “downs” have been sustained for longer and longer periods of time. Consistency of excellent play will be the attribute that will help the Cubs finally break through and win a championship. That looks like it won’t happen this season or perhaps not even in the near future. I’m still not giving up on the Cubs this season, and I certainly will never think of stepping out on the Cubs, no matter how bleak it gets. Is that pathetic? Stay tuned for further discussion on this issue.

Welcome to Baseball Heaven?

Andy — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 17:20:58 +0000

Ted Lilly & Alfonso Soriano (as played by Andy & Ziggy the dog)

My wife and I had the pleasure of attending the first game of the Cubs-Angels series yesterday. The Miller Lite billboard beyond right field read, “Welcome to baseball heaven.” After watching the horrible defensive play of the Cubs yesterday (and really for a while now), I’m not ready to come to the conclusion that heaven is a place on earth. The Angels, however, showed the Cubs how it is done offensively. They had multiple successful bunts, they stole bases, and they hit for power–all without Morales or Aybar in the lineup. Though the Cubs showed some life late in the game, most of their six runs came from long balls. The Cubs seem so one-dimensional on offense, and to be a contender, the Cubs will have to show an ability to win games in the way that the Angels won yesterday.

Though the two defensive miscues by Baker were maddening, the play that really drove me nuts was the bunt with Grabow on the mound. Since Ivy Envy writer Jeremy was at the same game, maybe he can answer this question–Why the heck didn’t Grabow cover first base on that play? I figured it was maybe because he had a potential play on the ball? Now that the offense is showing some signs of life, the Cubs have to step up their defense and relief pitching, or we will be able to stick a fork in this season.

I think we all know that's not true.

Carlos Silva

An abomination?

Scorecard after the break–

Now, this is only my second attempt at scoring a game, so don’t scrutinize it too closely. You can see where I quit in the eighth inning, during Grabow’s ineptitude.

Podcast 2.14 – The Cubs are un-watchable.

Corey — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 11:46:41 +0000

Andy, Corey, Jeremy and Ryan talk about this Cubs team that is having difficulty capturing our attention. We welcome J from Garden of Halos on to preview the Angels for the upcoming Angels vs. Cubs series.