Tag: cubs

Do not adjust your set

Levi was at the Cardinals-Cubs game today. I watched the Comcast SportsNet broadcast from home.

Levi had to watch the Cardinals not score any runs in the top of the 9th inning and lose 3-2, but I saw something else instead of the last two outs…

I remember being impressed back in 1989 that ABC had a slide specifically reading “World Series” at the ready to throw up on screen when they lost their feed from San Francisco. As you can see, Comcast SportsNet is not as classy as ABC. (And no wonder they’re experiencing technical difficulties — their cnntrol room looks blurry and smeared.)

Jacque!

Cardinals fans have spent the past couple of weeks worrying that the Cardinals might, as rumor had it, sign Jacque Jones from the Twins. Jacque Jones is not a very good baseball player, and he was destined to be overpaid.

So the Cubs signed him! For three years! For

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$16 million!

Dan Szymborski of Baseballprimer.com has a hilarious analysis of the signing at their Transaction Oracle. I can’t figure out how to permalink to the post, so you should go here, then scroll down just a bit until you find the Jones signing. It’s worth it.

In the news

In addition to today’s front pages, newseum.org has newspaper front pages from certain historic dates since they’ve been collecting front pages.

Here are the newspapers in the U.S. that ran a front-page news photo relating to the White Sox’s win today, October 27, 2005 (as opposed to a photo used in a referral box at the top of the page or down the side): Arizona Daily Star (Tucson); Los Angeles Times; The Record (Stockton, CA); San Diego Union-Tribune; Ventura County Star; Denver Post; Rocky Mountain News; Hartford Courant; The Ledger (Lakeland, FL); Augusta Chronicle (Georgia); Chicago Sun-Times; Chicago Tribune; Daily Herald (Chicago); Peoria Journal-Star; Northwest Herald (Crystal Lake, IL); Rockford Register-Star; The Times (Munster, IN); Quad City Times (Davenport, IA); St. Louis Post-Dispatch (with the special added bonus of Weatherbird wearing a Sox shirt); Las Vegas Review-Journal; The Press (Atlantic City, NJ); New York Times; Albany Times-Union; Columbus Dispatch (Ohio); The Morning Call (Allentown, PA); Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Jackson Sun (Tennessee); Abilene Reporter-News; Austin American-Statesman; Corpus Christi Caller-Times; Dallas Morning News; Fort Worth Star-Telegram; Houston Chronicle; Rumbo (various Texas cities); San Antonio Express-News; San Angelo Standard-Times; Deseret Morning News (Salt Lake City); USA Today; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; and The Post-Crescent (Appleton, WI).

Now, here’s the list for the Red Sox from Thursday, October 28, 2004: Anniston Star (Alabama); Anchorage Daily News; Daily News (Los Angeles); Los Angeles Times; Oakland Tribune; Record Searchlight (Redding, CA); Sacramento Bee; San Diego Union-Tribune; San Francisco Chronicle; Fresno Bee; The Press-Democrat (Santa Rosa, CA); Ventura County Star; Rocky Mountain News; The Gazette (Colorado Springs); The Day (New London, CT); Hartford Courant; Norwich Bulletin (Connecticut); Record-Journal (Meriden, CT); Republican-American (Waterbury, CT); Washington Post; Charlotte Sun (Florida); The Ledger (Lakeland, FL); Miami Herald; The News-Press (Ft. Myers, FL); El Nuevo Herald (Miami); Palm Beach Post; St. Petersburg Times; Bradenton Herald (Florida); Augusta Chronicle (Georgia); Honolulu Advertiser; Idaho Statesman (Boise); Chicago Sun-Times; Chicago Tribune; Northwest Herald (Crystal Lake, IL); Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA); Portland Press-Herald (Maine); Sun Journal (Lewiston, ME); The Sun (Baltimore, MD); Boston Globe; The Enterprise (Brockton, MA); The Patriot Ledger (Quincy, MA); The Sun (Lowell, MA); Kalamazoo Gazette; Pioneer Press (St. Paul, MN); Springfield News-Leader (Missouri); St. Louis Post-Dispatch; Las Vegas Review-Journal; Reno Gazette-Journal; Concord Monitor (New Hampshire); The Telegraph (Nashua, NH); Union Leader (Manchester, NH); The Press (Atlantic City, NJ); The Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ); Albuquerque Journal; Buffalo News; Hoy (New York, NY); New York Sun; New York Times; Post-Standard (Syracuse); Poughkeepsie Journal; Times Herald-Record (Middletown, NY); Albany Times-Union; Charlotte Observer; News & Observer (Raleigh, NC); News & Record (Greensboro, NC); Winston-Salem Journal; Cincinnati Enquirer; Columbus Dispatch (Ohio); Dayton Daily News; Plain Dealer (Cleveland, OH); Oklahoman (Oklahoma City, OK); Beaver County Times (Pennsylvania); Tribune-Review (Greensburg, PA); Philadelphia Inquirer; Morning Call (Allentown, PA); Providence Journal; Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN); Abilene Reporter-News; Al Día (Dallas, TX); Amarillo Globe-News; Austin American-Statesman; Beaumont Enterprise; Dallas Morning News; Fort Worth Star-Telegram; San Antonio Express-News; The Monitor (McAllen, TX); Times Record News (Wichita Falls, TX); Deseret Morning News (Salt Lake City, UT); Salt Lake Tribune; Rutland Herald (Vermont); Culpeper Star-Exponent (Virginia); Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, VA); News Leader (Staunton, VA); Richmond Times-Dispatch; USA Today; Olympian (Olympia, WA); Spokesman-Review (Spokane, WA); Columbian (Vancouver, WA); Charleston Gazette (West Virginia); Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; and The Post-Crescent (Appleton, WI).

I had a point, but after typing all those in, I forget exactly what it was. Something about the Red Sox list being longer and it being evidence of what a well-publicized “curse” can do for you. Oh, and I also want to note that both the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times used the same front-page headline for the White Sox victory (“Believe It!”) — so now that they’ve both used that, what do they do when the Cubs win? Actually, there may not be such a thing as newspapers by the time the Cubs win.

Good thing the Cubs didn’t make the playoffs

Nomar Garciaparra has had plenty of time to

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hang around at home just in case someone falls into Boston Harbor.

Holy cow!

Actual quote from an e-mail from my father: “Better you should have never been born, than to post something good about
Harry Caray.” Obviously, I can’t resist now. Bill James on Harry Caray, from the 1985 Baseball Abstract:

Cable television has arrived to the distant Balkan outland that I call home, and I have been watching Harry Caray whenever I get the time. It’s the first significant exposure to Harry that I’ve had in fifteen years, and I realize with a sense of shock how much of my own attitude about the game and about my profession, which I thought I had found by myself, I may in fact have picked up from hundreds of hours of listening to Harry Caray as a child.

Or perhaps it is a false pride, but I love Harry Caray. You have to understand what Harry Caray was to the Midwest in my childhood. In the years when baseball stopped at the Mississippi, KMOX radio built a network of stations across the midwest and into the Far West that brought major league baseball into every little urb across the landscape. Harry’s remarkable talents and enthusiasm were the spearhead of their efforts, and forged a link between the Cardinals and the midwest that remains to this day; even now, some of my neighbors are Cardinal fans.

This effect covers a huge area and encompasses millions of people, many times as many people as live in New York. A Harry Caray-for-the-Hall-of-Fame debate is in progress. To us, to hear New Yorkers or Californians suggest that Harry Caray might not be worthy of the honors given to Mel Allen or Vince Scully is a) almost comically ignorant, sort of like hearing a midwesterner suggest that the Statue of Liberty was never of any real national significance and should be turned into scrap metal, and b) personally offensive. That Harry should have to wait in line behind these wonderful men but comparatively insignificant figures is, beyond any question, an egregious example of the regional bias of the nation’s media.

But besides that, the man is really good. His unflagging enthusiasm, his love of the game, and his intense focus and involvement in every detail of the contest make every inning enjoyable, no matter what the score or the pace of the game. His humor, his affection for language and his vibrant images are the tools of a craftsman; only Garagiola, his one-time protégé, can match him in this way. He is criticized for not being objective, which is preposterous; he is the most objective baseball announcer I’ve ever witnessed. He is criticized for being “critical” of the players, when in fact Harry will bend over backwards to avoid saying something negative about a player or a manager. But Harry also knows that he does the fans no service when he closes his eyes and pretends not to see things. A player misses the cut-off man, Harry says that he missed the cut-off man, the player complains to the press, and some sweetlicking journalist, trying to ingratiate himself to a potential source, rips Harry for being critical of the player.

Harry is involved in another controversy now over the firing of Milo Hamilton, onetime heir apparent to Jack Brickhouse. Hamilton as a broadcaster is a model of professionalism, fluency, and deportment; he is, in short, as interesting as the weather channel, to which I would frequently dial while he was on. Milo’s skills would serve him well as a lawyer, an executive, or a broker. He broadcasts baseball games in a tone that would be more appropriate for a man reviewing a loan application. He projects no sense at all that he is enjoying the game or that we ought to be, and I frankly find it difficult to believe that the writers who ripped the Cubs for firing Hamilton actually watch the broadcasts. Is Harry to be faulted because the fans love him and find Hamilton a dry substitute?

People confuse “objectivity” with “neutralism.” If you look up “neutral” in the dictionary it says “of no particular kind, color, characteristics, etc.; indefinite. Gray; without hue; of zero chromel; achromatic. Neuter.” That pretty well describes Milo Hamilton. To Harry Caray, the greatest sports broadcaster who ever lived. This Bud’s for you.

Dad, you’ll be pleased to know that Bill James lost me somewhere around “Vince Scully.” Surprised he didn’t also refer to “Melvin Allen.” Also, it seems Milo Hamilton must have run over his dog or something.

Another quibble is that broadcasters don’t go into the Hall of Fame per se, they just win the Ford Frick Award. Harry Caray won in 1989, and despite Bill James’s best efforts, Milo Hamilton won in 1992.

Puzzling evidence

From the 1985 Bill James Baseball Abstract, which I know from the sticker inside the back cover that my father purchased at Haslam’s Book Store in St. Petersburg, Florida, which within a few years would be located in the shadow of the Florida Suncoast Dome/Thunderdome/Tropicana Field (well, the shadow’s not that big, but it’s close enough)…

Fate, or chance? The Cubs in 1945 met the Tigers; the Cubs in 1984 would have met the Tigers if they had won one more game. Chance, or destiny? A new commissioner of baseball, Happy Chandler, was named in April of 1945, but had other commitments that kept him busy until that October; a new commissioner of baseball, Peter Ueberroth, was named in March of 1984, but prevented from beginning the job until October by other commitments. Coincidence, or fortune? Steve Trout pitched a 5-hit, complete-game victory for the Cubs in the 1984 playoffs; his father, Dizzy Trout, pitched a 5-hit, complete-game victory against the Cubs in the 1945 World Series. Luck, or predetermination? The 1945 season was the last hurrah for a popular Cub infielder named Stan Hack; the 1984 season was the last hurrah for a popular Cub infielder named Larry Bowa. “Hack” and “Bowa” each have four letters in their names, even if you spell them backwards. Coincidence, or sheer pap? The 1984 Cubs fired their television broadcaster, Milo Hamilton; the 1945 Cubs released a catcher named Len Rice; it goes against my grain to accept

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that as a mere coincidence. Goodnight.

After that, Bill James goes into a paean to Milo Hamilton’s replacement on the Cubs TV broadcasts, Harry Caray, which I’ll post later.

Luck

At last night’s Cubs/Reds game, two rows in front of me, sitting with a couple of season ticket holders whom I recognize but don’t know, was a guy who had neglected to bring his shirt. He had, however, brought–and was displaying in their full glory–his late-seventies porn-star curls and moustache and his oddly incongruous gothic-lettered “Chi Town” tattoo, which was in the spot on the back where a tramp stamp would go on a gal.

His appearance alone, and his obvious joy in it, would have been worthy of note. But then he added to his allure by catching not one but two foul balls. Our section hardly ever gets foul balls hit anywhere near it, but last night Mr. Chi Town No-Shirt got one while strolling the aisle just to the left of us and a second that bounced right up to him in his seat. I had hopes that he would trade one of them to a drunk for a shirt, but it was not to be.

The days they come, the days they go

Some days, you look out your office window and wish you’d taken the day off to go see the Cardinals and Cubs at Wrigley Field, like you used to always do back when tickets were more readily available after the first day of tickets sales and such outings didn’t, therefore, have to be so rigorously planned.

Other days, you don’t.

I don’t have a wooden heart

Don’t ask me why I specifically remember this: on July 3, 2003, Levi and I were at Wrigley Field for a Cubs-Cardinals game when somehow the talk among Levi and his season ticket buddies turned to Viagra spokesman Rafael Palmeiro, and specifically, various baseball terms that had now turned into double entendres where he was concerned. I piped up with “He really got some good wood on that one,” which was enjoyed by all. Actually, I probably remember it because it’s one of those rare times I managed a bon mot at exactly the right moment, rather than 90 seconds later and after the conversation had gone in a completely different direction.

Anyway, slightly over two years later, on July 27, 2005, Bob Costas appeared on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and used basically the same line.

I’ve got my eye on you, Costas!