There was a time (2003 and 2004) when Cubs’ baserunners were routinely sent to their demise at home plate by a very small little guy who waved like he was drowning. Last night, was turn back the clock night at Wrigley and the more proportioned third base coach did the same thing. In a tie game he sent Michael Barrett home to die and in the postgame his boss said it was basically because Corey Patterson was going to be up with two outs and since he was going to strike out to the end the inning, the only chance the Cubs had of scoring was to send Barrett and hope the Braves messed up the throw. OK, Dusty didn’t exactly say that. But it was close.
Unlike the play at home.
The Cubs squandered a dominating performance by Carlos Zambrano, who, among other things, welcomed superrookie Jeff Francoeur to the big leagues by striking him out three times by throwing high fastballs to him on every pitch. Carlos made one mistake and Larry Wayne Jones hit it into the right field bleachers.
Kerry Wood decided that success is overrated and for his second straight appearance he gave up a homer (he served his up to Larry Wayne, too) that served as a final kick in the nuts for his team.
Before the game the hubub (yes, hubub) was about a comment Corey made over the weekend where he said, “It’s just a game.” People are up in arms about this, claiming it means Corey doesn’t care, or that he doesn’t have the drive to succeed. I look at it differently.
Corey’s right. Baseball is just a game. And it’s a game that he pretty much sucks at. Since it’s just a game, it should be easy for him to give up. Maybe he can go find a fun job, selling men’s clothes at Dillard’s, or managing a Boston Market. Whatever he chooses, I wish him luck. He seems like a nice guy.
Yesterday, we went through a two-part Dose and tried to figure out which team(s) to throw our suddenly available support to. Since the Cubs stopped playing on July 29, we’ve had a lot of time on our hands. So we narrowed it down, first, to the Phillies. It’s not that we like the Phillies all that much, it’s just that of all the teams in the NL who have legit playoff hopes, they’re the least offensive.
But it seemed we were giving the AL short shrift. Some of you wanted to pull for the A’s, and some the Indians. We picked the A’s because it was funny to use this banner:
But even for Desipio, that’s kind of a weak reason. So fine, you win. Until either the season ends, or these teams are eliminated, we’re going to track the Phillies, A’s and Indians and root them on as they go after the Cardinals and/or White Sox.
Besides, it seemed odd to leave the Indians out, since they win almost every day and are starting to make the White Sox spincters pucker.
