Wednesday, August 27, 2008

"Suffering" - What's in a Name?

I stand before you a shamed man. I have taken on (albeit involuntarily) a moniker of which I have not earned. The moniker of “Long Suffering Cubs Fan”. The truth can attack you in the strangest of places. For me it was the checkout line at Dominick’s. There I was minding my own business, buying some Edy’s Mint Chocolate Chip and Edy’s Cookie Dough Ice Cream. My main man Mario was running the items through the scanner. He saw my Cubs hat (and having had previous Cubs conversations with me) asked if they were going to start on another winning streak. As the Cubs were beginning a series against Cincinnati, I said “I certainly hope so.”

Then all of a sudden a guy behind me says “Are you two old enough to remember ’69?” He proceeded to regale us with snippets of the season and pointed out that “that was my childhood team. They broke my heart.”

On the drive home I thought about the fact that, while I consider myself to be a life-long fan, I only have memories going back to 1974. Then I fast forwarded to that magic year of 1984 when Ryno and Sut led us to the Promised Land. Ten years I waited. Much of that as a child just learning the game. I can’t say that I suffered all that much. Oh sure, I was disappointed in 1977 when they took over first place mid-season and then free-fell to a .500 record. But all I had to wait was ten years to see my boys in the playoffs.

After that it was a quick five years when they returned in ’89. Then it was ’98, ’03 (sniff, tears starting to well) and ’07. So that’s five playoff appearances in 42 years for me and eight of those years haven’t stayed in my memory bank; an average of one playoff appearance every eight years. Not great, but not bad. Especially when you consider that from 1945 to 1984, Cub fans had to wait 39 years for one playoff appearance. Some poor soul born in 1939, that’s a long suffering fan.

I think my generation falls into the Medi-Frustrated Cub Fan. The Cub fan that was led to believe that Joe Strain, Ty Waller, Jerry Morales and Steve Renko were the pieces needed to get us to the title.

Now to totally put a jinx on the fun we’re having this season, all the suffering could come to an end for all of us in late October. (That sound you heard was The Professor opening up his office window and hurtling himself to the ground below. He almost blew a gasket back in the off-season before the 1991 campaign when I uttered the words “Cubs in the World Series” because they had signed George Bell, Danny Jackson and Dave Smith. Jinxed, surely because of me, that season brought us 4th place [six games under .500], got Popeye fired and ushered in the Jim Essian Era [all 122 games of it]).

Non-CFCL Notes: Cubs Magic Number is 23 games as of August 26, 2008

CFCL Notes: As of 8/26/08, the point spread between 1st and 11th place is 55 points. The spread between 5th and 12th place is 60 points.

Monday, August 18, 2008

Pumping Wattage Into Your Cottage

Back in 1979 on this day (August 19th) The Knack hit number one on the charts with “My Sharonna”.

In 2008, the Chicago Cubs are number one on the charts with a bullet thanks in large part to Ma-ma-ma-Mark DeRosa. This isn’t a tribute to DeRosa because my wife thinks he’s the sexiest thing to wear Cub pinstripes since Mark Grace. It’s a look at DeRosa because he’s an amazingly good ballplayer.

It would be easy to simply classify DeRosa as a useful utility player since he has manned first, second, third, rightfield, leftfield and even shortstop. While that is amazing, it would be a disservice to him. Let’s take a look at his offensive numbers.

But before we do that, let’s look at the key members of the Cubs first post-season appearing team since they were in the World Series – the 1984 Cubs. When you think of the offensive production of the ’84 Cubs you think of Sandberg, Durham, Davis, Moreland, Cey and Matthews (and Bowa WHO WOULD NOT GIVE UP ON TRYING TO SWITCH HIT WITH THAT WEAKASS LEFT-HANDED SLAP THAT WOULDN’T GET PAST THE PITCHING MOUND!!! . . .but I digress). You think of the six pack of offense (and that’s not including Bobby Dernier leading everything off).

So here are there numbers in CFCL terms (Runs, Home Runs, RBI, OBP)

Sandberg - 114 -- 19 -- 84 -- .367
Mathews - 101 -- 14 -- 82 -- .410
Moreland - 59 -- 16 -- 80 -- .326
Durham - 86 -- 23 -- 96 -- .369
Davis - 55 -- 19 -- 94 -- .315
Cey - 71 -- 25 -- 97 -- .324

Certainly it’s a different ballgame as far as offense is concerned nowadays with smaller ballparks, tightly wrapped baseballs (and players for that matter), but in my mind’s eye I always remember the ’84 Cubs as an amazing offensive longball machine. Yet there were only two 20 homerun guys and not one of them knocked in 100 runs.

Here are DeRosa’s numbers (projected out based on his production through mid-August). He would finish the season with these stats.

DeRosa - 99 -- 17 -- 90 -- .374

Look how close his stats match up. He would have been third in runs, fifth in homeruns, fourth in RBIs and second in OBP. Look how he compares to Sandberg. He outperformed Sandberg in two of the categories and Sandberg won the MVP in ’84 (as he should have). But are you voting for DeRosa to win the MVP in ’08? Probably not. With the bigger names of Ramirez, Soriano, Lee and even Fukodome, it’s easy for DeRosa to get overlooked. He’s having a hell of a year.

CFCL Notes: Congrats to Bob for correctly identifying the name of the movie (Gone in 60 Seconds) from last week’s article.

Monday, August 11, 2008

What's An Owner To Do?

I faced a dilemma at the deadline of the IFAB deadline. I wanted to improve my team and if not make a run at the title, at least try to finish in the money. In order to do so I would need some offense. Key injuries to Eric Byrnes and Khalil Greene (as well as general ineffectiveness) had left Dem Rebels sorely lacking on the offensive side of the ball. A big trade had just been pulled off in the MLB and Manny Ramirez had moved to the National League. Should I bid on him? Would I bid on him? As Detective Roland Castlebeck said to Randall Raines “Here I am, right in the middle of a moral dilemma.” (Movie anyone?)

More and more stories were coming out of Boston that Ramirez had threatened to lie down and not play for the Red Sox if he wasn’t traded. This after years of demanding trades, promising to never again play for the Red Sox. Would I want someone like that on the Rebels? Certainly not.

But I’m trying to get back into the pennant chase! At what point does the price of our morals outweigh the price of a trophy? Ultimately I didn’t get Ramirez. Not from a lack of effort (the Rebels bid their maximum FAAB of .35) but because Steve had more Stones in his wallet he picked up Ramirez for .50. As I e-mailed the bid, I felt a twinge of remorse as though I was doing something wrong; much like telling my kids to look both ways and cross at the corner, then running across the street quickly to save time.

It caused me to look back over the history of the Rebels (and my fandom) and realize that there doesn’t seem to be a clear cut line for us to follow.

My favorite player for quite a long time was Mark McGwire. I loved him in Oakland, enjoyed him in St. Louis and had him on the Rebels whenever the opportunity presented itself. I even made sure to tape the episode of Mad About You when he had a cameo appearance with my then TV fantasy, Helen Hunt. But now he is a shameful reminder of how easily I have been duped.

Sadly I know I’ve cheered for Sosa, though now I would be distraught if the Cub organization ever allowed him back into Wrigley Field. Opponents to that thought have expressed “He should be honored and recognized for his accomplishments as a Cub and should be in the Hall of Fame. He put up tremendous numbers.” Yes, he did . . . BECAUSE HE CHEATED!!!! And I know he probably faced pitchers who were cheating as well, but that doesn’t change things in my mind. He couldn’t have put up those numbers if he approached the game like Aaron, Dawson or Sandberg.

To my knowledge I never had Barry Bonds on my team (League Secretary Mahlan may end up disproving that statement) but I know I bid on him during the draft. The logic of my thinking being “I don’t really want him, but if everyone else drops at .12, how can I pass him up?”

Aramis Ramirez, while not having been accused of cheating, dogs it out of the batters box more than the Westminster Kennel Show, and yet I acquired him in a trade last year as I made a failed push for the title.

A lot of what happens in sports occurs behind the magic curtain, so even if we wanted to stock our teams with only hard playing, clean nosed players it would be impossible to pick the right guys. But even avoiding the obvious ones – the ones pumped up on enhancers, the dogs that don’t run out of the batter’s box, the guys that won’t run out an infield pop up, the guys in the field that turn routine outs into triples – can we run a successful team not using those guys? Successful? Probably. Championship? Most unlikely.

Non CFCL Notes: Jim Edmonds turned a routine flyball into a ground rule double on Tuesday at Wrigley – think about that, a ground rule double at Wrigley. For that to happen the ball basically had to bounce straight down on the warning track (which it did) and Edmonds was there, looking into the sun with his wrap arounds securely sitting on the bill of his cap as he made a dramatic backhanded twisted glove effort to catch the ball.

Monday, August 4, 2008

A Confession

It wasn’t supposed to go this far. It had been years since I’d seen her. Once you get married you’re not supposed to hang with your old girlfriends, and I haven’t – until this week. She looked good, a little older, and the rumors were true that she had a facelift. But can I judge? I had lost more hair and gained forty pounds since the last time we sat holding hands all afternoon. Her complexion was a little more ruddy than I remember, but she still had that natural beauty, hardly any makeup. And considering the years that had passed, she was in remarkable shape. She always looked good, turned the head of anyone that would pass her. But seeing her again made me realize that it is possible to become more attractive the older you get. And still she could turn the heads. The whole time we were together, everyone we saw was looking at her, not me (not that that is surprising).

Before we got married, Kim even agreed to a threesome a couple of times. How many of you can say that? Check it, I don’t want to know. (And Grage – it’s not a threesome just because you use two hands.) But after we got married and the kids started coming, those opportunities ended.

I felt guilty approaching her after all these years, wanting to rekindle what we had. Would she be resentful? Jealous? Indignant that a married man would want to start something again? To my amazement, she was welcoming. Never questioned why I hadn’t tried to stay in touch. We just fell right back to the ebb and flow; the energy we had when we were younger. At times we were slightly loud and raucous. At other moments we were quiet, just taking in the moments we had together.

As we spent the evening together, it all came back to me; the intimate places of her that made our relationship so special. And she knew just how to push my buttons; the magic I felt just being in her presence.

When it was time to part, she didn’t complain. Didn’t beg for me to stay. She understood. A lump grew in my throat and I secretly hoped that we could sneak away together again soon. Wrigley never looked and felt so good.