I think the new regime has shown they are willing to buck the old school notion of Wrigley as some sort of shrine to baseball- we came up with a brilliant way to increase revenue, create some publicity and have a great time for cubs fans. 

Truly great ideas build slowly in the mind. Separate idea fragments are gathered over time and sit in isolation. They lay, seemingly dormant, for years. Imperceptibly reaching out, building neuron pathways to construct a web of connections until that last fragment floats into the web and the distant fragments coalesce into one gorgeous concept, and a brilliant idea is born! A Brilliant idea in three fragments:

 

Not Roberto's most lasting impression on our author

 

1.       Remember Roberto Alomar? Sure you do, everyone remembers the umpire spitting incident, and some might also remember the slick fielding, his deft handling of the bat or his A-rod-esque persona. But what I remember is being a baseball obsessed teenager hearing that when Alomar was trade to Toronto  in the early 90’s he never bothered to rent an apartment, opting to stay in a hotel for the 2-3 months until the end of the season. Unremarkable, except this hotel was situated inside the Blue Jay’s stadium (The Sky dome at the time, now renamed the Rogers Center or something) and he had a room that looked out on the field. I was awestruck. You mean you can live in a baseball stadium?!
2.       A few years later the Cub’s were deeply entrenched in the Steve Buechele era and wins were hard to come by. The ‘W’ flag was something of a rumor. I was couch potato-ing and came across the movie ‘Rookie of the Year.’ The mere promise of a few Hollywood Cubs victories was enough for me to put down the remote and perk up a bit. You know the movie, an eleven year old little leaguer tears a ligament in his arm, the doctor sews him up a little tight and he comes out of it with a 103mph fastball. A scout for the Cub’s happens to witness him throw a bullet from right field during a little league game and signs him on the spot, he joins the team and after a few pitfalls they come together as a team and win the pennant. It’s basically the Mark Prior saga in rewind. But that isn’t the idea fragment, after he is signed by the Cub’s he shows up at Wrigley for his first day on the job. When he arrives at the player’s entrance there is a big metal door that is locked up tight and they have a little Wizard of Oz moment when he knocks on the door. A Munchkin-like geezer appears out of this small window asking him what he wants. There were plenty of oddities in this movie but I was struck, did that Munchkin geezer live at Wrigley?
3.       About a week ago on an overwhelmingly pleasant Friday, the sun was shining and everyone had a smile on their face.  It was the type of day that demanded a Cub’s game but the Lords of baseball are unyielding in their adherence to the schedule. Barring a decree from chairman Selig it dawned on me that this wasn’t going to happen. Upon reconsideration I concluded that I didn’t even need a game and 40,000 sun drenched friends to hang out with, I just wanted to sit at Wrigley, sip a beer and talk baseball. But how? And the apple drops. Whiz! Bang! Flash! Eureka! If only I lived at Wrigley, then all my problems would be solved!
Now it’s only a matter of convincing Mr. Ricketts to let me slap a few 2x4’s together to build a little tree house into the grandstand somewhere. Perhaps if I told him I was his bastard son, drunkenly conceived after one of those College days in the bleachers, the ones before he met his future wife. Would that be enough to extort a tiny corner of Wrigley for myself? Would that work?

 

Read the rest here: http://torturedfanbase.com/2010/04/a-beautiful-mind-and-a-brilliant-idea/

Here is Bills Article from the other day: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/100129&sportCat=nfl

First, not exactly surprising to find we are indeed No. 1! Second I am basically sick of hearing the pity from Red Sox fans. You are not our model- we are not going to win it like you did (*cough* with lotsa roids *cough*)

My rebuttal can be found in native form here:

http://torturedfanbase.com/2010/02/dear-mr-simmons-a-rebuttal/

For those who don't leave BCB,  I also pasted the complete letter after the jump. For the record I don't consider myself a Simmons basher, I am just sick of the hearing "how the Red Sox did it" over and over and over...

Dear Mr Simmons:

At this point, there is nothing worse than listening to advice from a Red Sox fan: "look at how it is done Cubs fans: you just play some moneyball, reverse the curse, be loose, say some prayers, keep on plugging, believe in miracles, and most of all never give up".

You might as well be tell us to think "outside-the-box" and to try "putting some synergy on that baseball".

Continue reading this post »

I got an email from the Cubbies verifying that we are paid up but no word on any upgraded seats yet.

Anyone get the chance to move up a few rows this year? With all the tickets released by the Tribune and the economy I thought there would surely be something by now. Any advice from longer term season ticket holders? 

Every time I call my account manager I just get a semi-polite brush off. I am sort of wondering if everyone else is in the same boat or if it is just me!

 

Thanks-

During lunch the other day a self important   fan who i will call 'Steve Hagino' was drooling all over Albert Pujols and how great he was. I mentioned that Albert has not been that terrible to the Cubs over the years and that Carlos Zambrano actually has held him to a low batting average. 

As a cheap shot to my friend: even though Steve has been a   fan for a long time he only recently visited Fenway to see a game. Anyway I digress; this lead to a discussion as to who the biggest Cub Killer was today. The names Fielder, Carlos Lee, Albert Pujols, and Corey Patterson all came into the mix. just kidding about the last one.

I personally thought Carlos Lee probably has the career Cub Killer numbers but that Fielder has the more recently better numbers. So for discussion purposes I am going to define Cub Killer as that guy who puts the dagger in a certain game, who puts the L in the L flag, not necessarily the guy with a statistical advantage but the guy who just terrorizes our already torturedfanbase :-) Vote early and often....

Yes i purposely left off: Milton Bradley and the Gatorade Machine- technically that would be a Cub suicide.

Poll

Who is the Biggest Cub Killer playing now?

8%

Prince 'of Whales' Fielder

11 votes

58%

Carlos 'El Chupacabra' Lee

74 votes

21%

Albert 'takes it in the' Pujols

27 votes

11%

Other (enter your write in in the comments below)

14 votes

126 votes | Poll has closed

I need help completeing this  thought (http://twitter.com/TorturedFanBase) from http://twitter.com/nearlynextyear on an off day:

The Cast:

 

Yoda = Sweet Lou:  English not always so great, but great knowledge within is held

Chewbacca= Z or D.Lee: Z has the temper and probably does a better wookie yell, but D.Lee matches better on the height and wingspan

Han Solo= Demp: witty commentary and swinging single dude 

R2D2= Gatorade Machine

C3PO= probably the mysterious pitching machine 'the Fuzz'

Ewoks = sorry Theriot and Fonty but you both came from the same planet and you fit the height requirements

Jar-Jar= Carlos Marmol just for the ears

Princess Leia= intrepid investigative reporter Sarah Spain

Lando Carlissian= Milton 'works every time' Bradley 

Skywalker = Leaning towards Soto, but could be K Wood after the CLE series

Sam Zell= Jabba the Hutt

Tony La Russa= Count Duku

Darth Vader = Joe Torre

Emporer Palpatine= Bud Selig

Some other notable suggestions from twitter-ville:

Please add your own in the comments.... images welcome :-)

@CubsMagicNumber A better match for Marmol is Nien Nunb: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Nien_Nunb #cubs #starwars

@nearlynextyear I said it once and I'll say it again, Gregg is Tusken Raider. See? http://bit.ly/zPTId http://bit.ly/ctiD0 #cubs #starwars
@ajwalsh08 Sam Zell is Jabba the Hutt.

via www.site.mobilenxt.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With Zambrano and Ramirez on the mend (right? I mean they are coming back eventually) someone is going to have to go bye bye to make room for the great Bobby Scales.

Scales's line so far:

BA OBP SLG

.429

.429

.786

This guy is no slouch and as far as I can tell there is no way Lou will send him down while he is playing so great. He looks like a good 3B/2B but he might be out of luck with SS.

You might say this is a small sample size but you are obviously wrong so there is no real need to discuss this possiblity.

I'd prefer if it was Miles: he hasn't really showed himself to be much more than a servicible 2B and even though the competition might heat up his bat from here on I have not been too impressed. The only problem is that will leave us without a backup SS, so Miles is probably hanging on unless Scales can play a better backup SS (whatever that really means).

 

Poll

The next winner in the AAA demotion contest is:

26%

Freel

73 votes

4%

Fonty

13 votes

32%

Miles

91 votes

26%

The next pitcher to throw 8 straight balls not named Carlos

74 votes

8%

Bobby 'Ted Williams Watch Out' Scales

23 votes

2%

Other, I'll explain in the comments

6 votes

280 votes | Poll has closed

I herby present the Kommentor Zone Rating System for the statistical evaluation of commentors on BCB.

at first blush this stat should be defined as:

[(REC's)+ (DAVR-BLOU)+(SWLs)] / (P+C)

REC's = # of rec's received on posts or comments

DAVR = number of  replies to your post/comments

BLOU = number of replies calling you a major ass/requesting you pound sand

SWLs = funny or timely pictures posted

P= # of posts made

C= # of comments made

There should also be some accomodation for comments or stances that are heckled at the time but turn out to be so way correct that you are considered forever awesome (ie: all The Riot and Hoffpauir official athletic supporters).

Possibly including extra points if you start a running gag that sticks- not sure on that abbreviation yet.

Of course there should be a plus/minus system in place to determine our value over replacement level (cubs.com message board comments?) and the Zones could be defined as

• newbie
• occasional poster 
• highly flammable
• serial posters
  
• I truly have no life outside of BCB

All in all I think this will at least be as valuable to conversation as discussing defensive statistics. Please feel free to heap your praise in the comments below.

Al, if you need help implementing this I can lend some programming help so we can add this to our user pages.

 

Poll

Is this an awesome idea?

21%

Yes!

22 votes

23%

Hells yes!

24 votes

54%

OMG you are a genius!

56 votes

102 votes | Poll has closed

Since it seems that disaster and decline and general angst is the name of tha game here lately I thought I would point out some relatively awesome things that are going on:

• TheRiot morphing into a Mighty Cajun Power Infielder to go along with Fontenot
• Fukudome hitting very well and not getting down on himself after bad strike calls
• Some great throws in from the OF from Milton and Soriano- even if their range and jumps are the best at least they are limiting guys from taking an extra base
• Some really great plays from Fukey and Reed in the OF- it seems like Gregg should be buying these guys sushi and whatever Reed eats for dinner since they have seriously saved his tail lately
•  D .Lee so far removing the DP from his name (As Al mentioned) and hitting homers like he is reading all the 'decline' stuff you guys are posting
  
• Micah HoffPower earning his keep at the plate and even flashing a bit of leather in the field (not awesome in the OF but he has looked above avg at times in RF and 1B)
• Ramirez keeping the Mr Clutch title- even if TheRiot is trying his best to steal it from him
• Ted Lilly with a low low 0.98 WHIP
• Sean Marshall maturing nicely: BB are down and Ks are up!
• Koyie Hill hitting and throwing baserunners out!
• Milton Bradley only getting thrown out of one game

I know it's alot easier to argue about stats, find problems, and get all anxious about Z's hammy but the Cubbies played well against a rather hot Marlins team and a lot of the things generally thought to be major problems (Hill, Hoff, MArshall, Theriot) are actually doing very well so far.

We have our work cut out today against Cy Young, but hopefully the collective psyche of our tortured fan base can exhale. Think positive boys n girls- it is a long season.

Now get your buts down to the ball park, have an Old Style, and go back to having a good time!

via torturedfanbase.com

 

I have poured through so many web sites trying to ID this LHP.  I picked it up at a Wrigley Garage Sale a few years back when they demo'd the Bleachers and it has been hanging in my Cubs shrine since. Based on the uniform it is probably late 70s thru 80s. I just  could not find an African American LHP that looks remotely like this guy.

The distinctive pitching style should have set him apart to someone discerning eye and a good memory.  The fact that he earned a place on the office wall in Wrigley probably means someone in Cubby Land remembers him!

The way peoples faces get distorted when they are pitching probably doesn't help much.

Any clues? If we decide the negative was flipped and this was actually a RHP then I have to start my search all over again.

I have another pic after the jump- Bring back the Stirrups!

 

 

 

Continue reading this post »

Cubs Clinch 2008 at Wrigley from Andre Fonseca on Vimeo.

This Could be better video quality but its fun to listen to the fans go wild. For some reason this post needs to have lots of interesting things in it so I can publish it, but the video pretty much speaks for itself. I have another one of the players running around the field after - I will post that later. I need five more words.... done!