SB Nation User Blog: Al

NLCS Game #2: Dodgers vs. Phillies, 3:30 CT and ALCS Game #1: Red Sox vs. Rays, 7:30 CT

Al — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:53:08 -0000

MLB.com Gameday for Phillies/Dodgers -- starting time 3:30 pm CT

Today's Starting Pitchers


C. Billingsley Dodgers	vs.	B. Myers Phillies


16-10	W-L	10-13
3.14	ERA	4.55
201	SO	163
80	BB	65
14	HR	29
vs. Phi	--	vs. LA

Baseball-reference.com game preview for Dodgers/Phillies

MLB.com Gameday for Red Sox/Rays -- game time 7:30 pm CT

Today's Starting Pitchers


D. Matsuzaka Red Sox	vs.	J. Shields Rays


18-3	W-L	14-8
2.90	ERA	3.56
154	SO	160
94	BB	40
12	HR	24
vs. TB	--	vs. Bos

Baseball-reference.com game preview for Red Sox/Rays

Building A Cubs Champion: Curses! Foiled Again!

Al — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:40:28 -0000

This post isn't going to be about what you think, at least not from the title (yeah, I decided to get cute. So sue me).

Fred Merkle's curse. Goats. Black cats. Bartman. These are things that you haven't seen me discuss much here -- because what do they have to do with baseball? To me, they seem the lazy mass media reporter's crutch for trying to explain the inexplicable.

Think about it. There are a number of other teams, both baseball and other professional sports, that have had championship droughts of decades -- some now broken -- and never did you hear about such frivolous things. Only the Red Sox had one (and JUST one) -- the "Curse of the Bambino" -- and that wasn't real, it was the invention of a Boston sportswriter, Dan Shaughnessy, in the 1980's. The White Sox (88 years, now broken), the Indians (60 years), the Giants (54 years) in baseball; the New York Rangers (54 years, now broken), the Blackhawks (47 years) in hockey; the Detroit Lions (51 years) and the Chicago/St. Louis/Arizona Cardinals (61 years), all teams with long title droughts -- no excuses, no cutesy little stories, nothing.

So why do the Cubs have these? Why are we the ONLY team with a sports drought that has it shoved down our throats? It can't be simply the length of the drought -- the White Sox drought was nearly as long before it was broken. Part of the answer lies in what I said above -- laziness on the part of mass media reporters and columnists. Not wanting to delve into the real problems, they fall back on something easy, something they've heard of.

It doesn't help matters any when the chairman of the team -- and don't get me wrong, I happen to like Crane Kenney and what he's done for this team in the last two years -- hires a priest to spray holy water in the dugout before the first game of the NLDS, just after Lou Piniella had carefully spent the entire season getting his team to concentrate on nothing but baseball.

And focusing on baseball is the way it should be. I thought long and hard before making this post (figuring it'd probably be taken the wrong way), but since this kind of stuff has been heaped on us, it's time for it to stop. No more baseballs blown up and served in pasta. If you as a fan are asked to give an interview about goats, walk away from the camera. If some fan of another team taunts you about Bartman (and I can't understand the Cardinals fans who buy a jersey with their team name on it with "BARTMAN" on the back. What's THAT about?), just turn the other cheek.

This is the last time you will see me write about ANY of this stuff on this site. Why did I do it this time? Because these things have been part of Cubs lore and I think they shouldn't be. We need to leave them in the dust and focus on management and players. This is a call to reporters, columnists, and yes, team management.

Stop the cute stuff. Ignore it. Be done with it. I am.

NLCS Game #1: Dodgers vs. Phillies, Thursday 10/9, 7:20 CT

Al — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 18:01:33 -0000

Good thing the White Sox aren't in this game, or people would be accusing me of "supporting" them. In any case, this isn't to "support" either team, just provide a place for you to discusss NLCS Game 1.

MLB.com Gameday for Phillies/Dodgers -- starting time 7:20 pm CT

Today's Starting Pitchers


D. Lowe Dodgers	vs.	C. Hamels Phillies


14-11	W-L	14-10
3.24	ERA	3.09
147	SO	196
45	BB	53
14	HR	28
vs. Phi	--	vs. LA

Postseason Ticket Refund Information

Al — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 22:20:12 -0000

I posted this info in the Playoff Refund post on the sidebar, but that post seems to have dropped down quite a bit in the list, so I thought I'd pass along the Cubs' official info regarding postseason ticket refunds, for those who bought individual tickets for unplayed games (those who have season tickets will automatically have the money refunded or credited to their 2009 season tickets, whatever they chose when they bought the tickets):

Online Purchases through Tickets.com or cubs.com: For fans who purchased tickets online directly through Tickets.Com or cubs.com for Cubs Division Series Home Game 3 or Any League Series Games to be played at Wrigley Field, you will receive an automatic credit to the original credit cards used for purchasing the tickets. These credits will appear on your credit card statement no later than October 17th, 2008.

Hooray! The Cubs have seen the light, and aren't requiring the extra procedure of mailing tickets back for a refund.

Sigh. We all wish we were using the tickets instead of getting our money back. It's an absolutely beautiful day in Chicago today -- perfect for a playoff game.

Next year...

Building A Cubs Champion: Managing Management

Al — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 14:30:24 -0000

Think back two weeks.

Just after the Cubs clinched the NL Central, even as they were resting players and struggling through the last week, most if not all of us were praising Jim Hendry and Lou Piniella for building a near-juggernaut that won more games than any Cubs team in 63 years and was likely the best Cubs team in 73, if not longer.

They seemed deep and well-balanced and built for a long postseason run.

Didn't happen, of course. So are you among those who are calling for wholesale changes, both on and off the field? If you are, I think you're making a mistake.

The club is going to be sold within the next few months -- although if you go back and read what Sam Zell supposedly wanted to do, it should have been sold more than six months ago, so who knows for sure -- and I know there are some who think that whoever the new owner turns out to be, should dump everyone and start over.

To which I say, "Huh?" You just witnessed the Cubs win the most games they have won in two consecutive seasons (182) in exactly seventy years (since 1937-38), and you want to tear it down and begin again? Why?

Instead, I would call on new ownership to keep everyone who's built this team -- because thanks to Jim Hendry and Lou Piniella, they have put together a club that should, with minor tweaks, be able to continue to contend for the long haul -- and add to the front office staff.

That's one thing the Cubs have always trailed the major leagues in -- year-round, full-time employees that can make a difference, particularly in baseball operations and scouting. Look at the team's front office list -- I counted 128 full-time employees. That's nearly dead last among all thirty teams. The Dodgers, who just blew the Cubs out of the playoffs, list 182 full-timers; the Red Sox, who Crane Kenney keeps saying he wants to see the Cubs emulate, have 178; and the Rays, who just came out of nowhere and might still win it all this year, have 160. Only the Marlins, with 110 (don't be fooled by the long list -- many of those are interns or seasonal employees like gameday personnel), have fewer year-round, full-time employees than the Cubs.

Increasing the scouting and baseball operations staffs, in particular, might get new voices involved and help current staffers who are overworked. For some of you who think I'm not statistically oriented, I acknowledge the need to look at advanced metrics in modern baseball -- in conjunction with scouting reports -- and hope that new ownership would put people in place that would lend their expertise in this area, just as the Red Sox did when they brought Bill James on board several years ago (in fact, it wouldn't be a bad idea to try to swipe James himself from Boston). I like the job Jim Hendry and Co. have done, but I will say that Hendry, a former baseball coach, has a tendency to rely too much on "tools" rather than actual baseball skills -- resulting in too many chances being given to players like Corey Patterson (and maybe Felix Pie, though I say the jury's still out on him). That's the only flaw I see in Hendry's game.

So to Mark Cuban or the Ricketts group or whoever winds up owning the Cubs in the near future: don't tear the building down. Put a shiny new addition on it. That's how I see a perennial winner being built on the North Side of Chicago.

Building A Cubs Champion: The AC Sign Must Go

Al — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 13:57:24 -0000

Since 1945, we as Cubs fans have been subjected to 63 years of really bad baseball. We had hoped that the hurts and pains and disappointments of the last 63 years were about to be assuaged by the best team most of us had ever seen; instead, one of the most spectacular collapses we have ever seen finds us looking for answers.

The answers lie, I think, in baseball-related changes on the field -- whatever will prevent a team that plays so well for six months from collapsing in three games. But what is it we hear about from the mass media? Smashing of pipes in the dugout in Dodger Stadium. Or the guy who's allegedly selling his Cubs loyalty on eBay.

Frivolous nonsense, in other words.

This post is going to be one of an occasional series here, designed to rid Cubdom of the dumb things, the irrelevant things, the stupid off-field things that shouldn't be part of us going into the future. This team has a long and storied history on the field, even when some of that history isn't the best. Should it be celebrated? Some of it -- for example, the pennants and World Series the team did win, and the great individual performances and games -- absolutely. Some of it -- things like the College of Coaches, poor decisions by management and ownership -- should be criticized and will be here, as they have in the past (maybe not enough, in the opinion of some).

So it is in that spirit that I say today:

Lakeview Baseball Club, tear down this sign.

I'll credit this idea to a comment made by BCB reader Shanghai Badger the other day on this very subject, which got me to thinking about it. For a number of years, this sign has kept track of the years since the Cubs won a division title, a NL pennant, and the World Series. It became an "insider" thing; I'd often have to explain what it meant to newbies, and of course all of us wanted to see it read "000000".

But what does that sign actually do, other than to remind us how bad the Cubs have been for a century? You may remember that when Cubs chairman Crane Kenney suggested that the Cubs might stop flying the "L" flag after losses at Wrigley Field, I criticized that idea (and in fact, they never did stop doing this). There's a difference, I think, in what each of these symbols means. Flying the "L" flag after a home loss says only, "We lost today." It's taken down before the next game.

The AC sign says, "We have sucked for 100 years and we're going to remind you of it not only during home games, but every single day of the year," since the sign stays up year-round (though as of yesterday, it hadn't been changed and in past years, it hasn't been changed until well after the next calendar year has begun). It celebrates failure.

Since a digit would have to be added to the sign before next April, I say it's time to get rid of it. Stop reminding us of all the failures. The Lakeview Baseball Club, obviously, is a private club, with no connection to Cubs ownership (other than the financial deal they made with them a couple of years ago), so they are obviously free to do as they please. They also have signs reading "EAMUS CATULI!" (loosely translated, "Let's Go Cubs!" in Latin) and "NEC ASPERA TERRENT" (the motto of the Prince of Wales' regiments, it translates as "Difficulties be damned"). Those are positive messages and ought to stay.

Get rid of the AC sign. Yes, doing that won't win a single game. (Those of you who have asked what I think are the on-field moves the Cubs should make for '09 -- geez, give it some time! The team's organizational meetings, where they'll discuss what happened this year and lay out a plan for next, won't start till October 19.) But it is part of changing the attitude. Look forward to the next 100 years with the attitude said on a T-shirt I once bought (and still own): "CUBS 2000: The Next Millennium Is Ours".

AL Division Series Discussion Thread: Game #4, White Sox/Rays and Game #4, Red Sox/Angels

Al — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 13:02:26 -0000

MLB.com Gameday for White Sox/Rays -- game time 4:00 pm CT

Today's Starting Pitchers


G. Floyd White Sox	vs.	A. Sonnanstine Rays


17-8	W-L	13-9
3.84	ERA	4.38
145	SO	124
70	BB	37
30	HR	21
vs. TB	--	vs. Chi

MLB.com Gameday for Red Sox/Angels -- starting time 7:30 pm CT

Today's Starting Pitchers


J. Lester Red Sox	vs.	J. Lackey Angels


16-6	W-L	12-5
3.21	ERA	3.75
152	SO	130
66	BB	40
14	HR	26
vs. LAA	--	vs. Bos

Elegy To The 2008 Cubs

Al — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 19:38:47 -0000

It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops. -- A. Bartlett Giamatti, "The Green Fields of the Mind"

Normally, I end my final game recap of a baseball season with Bart Giamatti's words, but this afternoon, as, perhaps not coincidentally, one of those fall chill rains is falling gently in Chicago, it seems more appropriate to begin with them. Let me attempt to put into words the stunning collapse of the team we just knew was going to be the one to win it all.

Usually, one of my game recaps includes a link to the boxscore of the game. Why bother? You all saw it, and you don't need me to tell you or remind you of the series' last game, which, although the score was closer, the Cubs didn't appear to be there, just as they barely showed up for games one and two. Neither did I read any of the local sports pages' articles or columns about the disaster -- and having heard that they were filled with remarks about goats and black cats and curses, I'm glad I didn't. To mention those, I think, is lame and weak and doesn't address the facts.

Which are: it is, even now, a sunrise later, hard to believe that the team we saw all summer, the one that put up the best record in the National League and the team that was, most likely, the best Cub team in three generations, looked like the Dusty Baker-led clown squad that stunk the joint out at the end of 2006. How does this happen? How does a team that looked so good for six months look so bad for three days? Even during their losing streaks of four (in June) and six (in August and September), they didn't look this bad.

Perhaps part of the answer can be found in this New York Times article, one I could read because it was more dispassionate, coming from a source outside of Chicago. Tyler Kepner, the writer, quotes Derrek Lee:

"No question, there’s a larger weight in Chicago," Lee said after the Cubs were swept from the playoffs for the second year in a row. "I hate to call it pressure, because it’s hard to put more pressure on us than we put on ourselves. But you can feel it in the city. They want it bad. It’s understandable. But it’s all about how you perform on the field."

And quotes Mark DeRosa:

"You read about it every day, the 100 years," DeRosa said. "You know about it. Every guy who signs here wants to be part of the team that gets it done. You look at what happened — if I turn a double play, it changes the complexion of Game 2. It’s one of those things; I don’t know. I’m just in shock that this is the end."

"Every guy who signs here wants to be part of the team that gets it done."

That, in one sentence, may be the biggest part of the problem. They put too much pressure on themselves; someone posted here the other day that the 2004 Red Sox, who finally broke that team's long drought (and they've now won twice and have a chance to do it again), called themselves "idiots" as if they didn't care about all the history -- and then they played like it, playing for the moment only, even as they had to win four straight elimination games to even make it to the World Series, then four more in a row to sweep it.

Maybe that's what future Cub teams have to do -- NOT care so much. Play loose, as the Dodgers did. The tightness in each Cub performance showed in pretty much every at-bat and pitch that happened after James Loney's grand slam, and to some extent even before. Don't blame the fans -- we have been here long before today's players were born, and will be here long after they are retired. "Cowboy Up", as those '04 Red Sox said, take the blame -- as Kerry Wood did in '03 -- and next year, get it done.

In the meantime, this feeling is different than 2003 or 2007. In '03, that team roared through September and its first nine postseason games, bringing us to the brink, but they were playing over their heads. Last year's elimination came so fast after a breathless chase to even get there, that we barely had time to be upset, much less angry.

This one makes me angry. This team was the one that was "different", that felt right, that set records and accomplished feats that hadn't been done in decades. And not only do they go out early, they go out with barely a whimper. Maybe what I wrote above has something to do with it, that they put too much pressure on themselves, and the weight of the 100 years does affect them on the field. Thinking about it intellectually, it shouldn't. But intellect and statistical prowess can't always stop things from gnawing into your head -- you surely know this in your own lives, and a professional athlete, highly trained though he may be, is a human being, subject to the same thoughts and feelings as the rest of us. And if you are thinking, "Hey, this was a great season with lots of great things to remember!" -- well, yes and no. Sure, there are a lot of 2008 games that will always carry wonderful memories for me, from Z's no-hitter to A-Ram's walkoff vs. the White Sox to Soto's 9th-inning tying HR to the division clincher.

But the 2008 season -- SEASON, not individual games -- was a failure.

Will I quit? Hell no; I'm a Cubs fan. That's how I grew up; if you're my age or older you have many of these shared disasters, now all of us have 2008. When last night's game ended I took off my division champions T-shirt, that I had been wearing for whatever luck or mojo it could contribute (sure, I know it can't really affect players 2000 miles away), but why not? -- and tossed it in the trash.

I'll recover it, of course. Anger will fade, as will the feelings of "it's NEVER gonna happen", to sarcastically paraphrase the sign that's been all over Wrigleyville the last couple of years. I don't really have the stomach to watch a lot of what's left of the postseason, though I may catch a game or three before it's over. In normal times I'd probably have deleted 2/3 of the posts all of you have made, but under the circumstances I'm leaving all of them; I figure you all need the catharsis (as one was titled) and to let out your emotions. It's way too early to talk about how to retool this team for '09 -- and yes, it does need changing, just as every team does, including whichever one is the last one standing this year -- but keep this in mind: what do you do to "retool" a team that blew through the regular season so easily, leading the league in virtually every important stat category? What do you add to it (or subtract from it) so that the team that does enough to get into the postseason is strong enough (physically and emotionally) to win eleven games in October?

I don't think any of us knows that answer. Hell, Jim Hendry probably doesn't know the answer, or he'd have done it and I wouldn't be writing these words today.

I have, sadly, a funeral to attend tomorrow (not for the team, though that'd be appropriate, too), and so I may be scarce for a couple of days. If any of you wishes to start a discussion thread for any of the remaining division series days, go ahead.

And keep the faith. We are Cubs fans. We hope, someday, that our turn will come, while we still inhabit the Earth.

I Have Nothing To Say

Al — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 05:21:00 -0000

And when I say "nothing", I mean it.

I am not opening comments on this post. Eventually, I will post a recap of this utter disaster, but it may take me a day or so. Until then, I want this post to stand alone on the front page as a monument to the worst performance I have seen in 45 years as a Cubs fan.

Good night.

Overflow Thread 4: NLDS Game #3, Cubs vs. Dodgers, Saturday 10/4, 9:00 CT

Al — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 14:50:22 -0000

Random baseball-reference.com page