The Cubs have Ricketts

I think I’m in love.

“Hope is not a strategy anymore.”  Awesome.

A pox on Mediacom

Our cable has been out all night.  I have missed ALL of game one of the World Series.  Curse you Mediacom!

Dammit

The Red Sox lost.  Well, who am I supposed to root for now?

GrumbleGrumbleGrumble.

How long until spring training.

Let’s go Red Sox

It’s game three today.  The Sawx are on the brink of elimination.  We’ve been here before.

Go team.

Another baseball season has come to an end

And Cubs fans are still waiting…

Wait till next year…again

Show’s over folks.  Nothing to see here.

The Cubs have been mathematically eliminated from the NL Central race.  Dammit.

Another summer down the drain.  Next year we’ll get there.

Let’s go Red Sox.

So long Milton

The Cubs have suspended outfielder Milton Bradley for the rest of the season.  Hah.

Here is a quote from Cubs General Manager Jim Hendry

“Recently, it’s become intolerable to hear Milton talk about our great fans the way he has,” general manger Jim Hendry said. “We pride ourselves on having the greatest fans in baseball, so at this time we felt it was best to send him home for the rest of the season.”

ESPN Chicago

Poor  Bradley has been complaining about how awful it is to play for the Cubs.  How the fans hate him and he has to deal with all this negativity.  As I said before, Cubs fans expect you to do your job.  If we are paying you millions of dollars we expect you to hit the ball, and occasionally play your position effectively.  Silly us.  So poor Milton feels unappreciated.  Too bad.

Meanwhile here is a quote from Reed Johnson.  He is another Cubs outfielder, one who is not overpaid or overrated.

“I came from Toronto and come here and just like fall in love with the city and fall in love with the organization,” Johnson said. “It’s just hard for me to believe that you can come to this city, come to this organization, and not enjoy your time here.”

So go home and sit your fat ass down Milton.  Don’t the the door hit you on the way out.  He still has two years left on a 3 year 30 million dollar contract.  We paid him 10 MILLION dollars this year to hit .257 with 12 homeruns and a whopping 40 RBI’s.  There seems to be some question about whether or not Bradley will be back next year.  I for one will be happy to help him pack.

Photos from yesterday

A great day out yesterday as captured in pixels.

Take me out to the bus leagues

Today we went to the Iowa Cubs game down in the Big City.  It was interesting because the Chicago Cubs has already called up a bunch of players to fill out their 40-man roster so a lot of these guys are fresh from A and AA-Ball.

We had pretty good seats, slightly to the third base side of home, and in the second tier of seats.  The contrast between getting tickets for the I-Cubs and the Chicago Cubs is amazing.  The biggest difference, of course is that you CAN get tickets to see the I-Cubs.  You call the front office, and some very friendly person seem so pleased to hear from you and asks where you would like to sit.  Then he finds you seats in that area.  And as if that were not miraculous enough, after he finds those seats he asks you if they are satisfactory.  Amazing.  When you call for Cubs tickets a grumpy ticket agent answers and your options are few.  It’s pretty much a take it or leave it situation.  You just have to try not to cry.

So, after we arrived we were told to head over toward right field because it was free baseball day.  We walked over there and waited in a pretty long (by I-Cubs standards) but very orderly queue.  When we got to the front of the line everybody got a baseball wrapped up in a Subway Sandwich bag.  The balls were all autographed, and I am assuming they put them in the bags so you couldn’t see whose you were getting.  I was hoping for Samardzija.

We found our seats and got some lunch.  And do you know what?  No walking tacos!  What is wrong with these people?  I had to settle for a cheeseburger.  Clearly I am going to have to wait for basketball season to get my hands on a walking taco.  Sigh.

They do all the standard minor league hijinks during the game.  They shoot t-shirts out of a t-shirt gun, they shoot hot dogs out of the hot dog gun, and they have their equivalent of the sausage races.  Here they have a hot dog, a taquito and an egg roll.  They also have burger races with a red burger, a white burger and a blue burger.  The lucky fan with the dirtiest car in the parking lot wins a free car wash, and kids run the bases after the game (on Sundays).

I learned that I do not get verklempt during the 7^th-inning stretch at Principal Park.  Apparently that is a Wrigley Field thing only.  Ditto for the National Anthem.  And they do not play Go Cubs Go after a win.  I know this because the I-Cubs won, beating the Albuquerque Isotopes 3-1.

The kids had a great time.  They ate pizza and chicken strips and fries and cokes and slushies and Dippin’Dots.  Did you know that Dippin’ Dots are the ice cream of the future?  That’s what the sign says.  They also bought souvenirs.  The Princess went with the classic T-shirt option.  The C-man opted for one of those battery-operated fans that also squirts water at you.  It kept him occupied.  After the game they ran the bases and then we all came home.

Oh, and I did not get a Jeff Samardzija baseball.  I got So Taguchi.

More photos to follow tomorrow.

Da Cubs

Da Cubs are not doing well.  They are not doing well at all.  As of this writing they are 10 games back of the Saint Louis Cardinals in the NL Central, and six games back in the Wild Card race.  There are four teams ahead of them for the Wild Card slot:  The Rockies, the Giants, the Braves and the Marlins.  And there are only 30 games left in the regular season (I counted).

So, we need to start winning, and winning a lot.  Of course another problem is we don’t have any more scheduled games against the other four teams ahead of us in the Wild Card race.  We do have three more games against Saint Louis, but it is too late to think about catching them.  Our only shot really is the wild card, and there is precious little we can do about it.  All we can do is try to win ballgames and hope the other teams all fall apart (unlikely).

Of course, even if the Cubs have some kind of miraculous comeback and do clinch the Wild Card berth things still don’t look good.

Here is our record against the other teams likely to be in the playoffs:

Phillies:  1 win – 5 losses

Cardinals:  5 wins – 8 losses

Dodgers – 3 wins – 4 losses

If the season ended tomorrow (and we were the wild card) we would have to play the Phillies.  Yippee skippee.  So you can see that would not go well. As I said, we still have three games left against St. Louis, so that record could still get worse.  And if I am not mistaken two of those three wins came while Manny Ramerez was serving a suspension for using performance-enhancing drugs.

We have not been mathematically eliminated yet, but we have our work cut out for us.