At Bleed Cubbie Blue, a fan posted a photo of the statue at the Daley Plaza.
It seems it has joined the Cubs in the midst of today’s Cubs Playoff Rally in downtown Chicago.
Category: Cubs
Cubs, Dodgers: Breaking down the Stats
Dave Pinto does a good job of breaking down the Cubs and Dodgers statistically on Baseball Musings. Not too many surprises here:
Cubs come out on top offensively in pretty much every category. They were tops in the league in runs/game, OBA (Dusty who?), slugging and batting.
On the pitching side of things, it’s a little more competitive. Dem Bums’ ERA of 3.68 was tops in the NL in ERA though the Cubs weren’t too far behind with a 3.87 ERA which was good for 3rd in the league. Though the Cubs best the Dodgers (and the rest of the league) in K/9 IP, they don’t do as well in BB/9 IP in comparison.
The Cubs won the season series record but Pinto points out that the games and stats were close. Runs, homeruns and walks, were all pretty statistically even.
Bob Howry and the Cubs playing the spoiler against the Mets
The Chicago Cubs defeated the Mets in New York tonight 9-6.
With the score tied 6-6, Lou Piniella brought in Bobby Howry. I groaned audibly. When Daniel Murphy led off the inning with a triple, the groans turned to plain ol’ swearing. My wife even commented, "is that the pitcher you don’t like, honey?" Yeah, that about sums it up.
But wait! This story has a happy ending. With no outs, a runner on third, and no real option left in the bullpen, it was left to Howry to get the job done. He struck out David Wright. Lou called for two successive intentional walks to Carlos Delgado and Carlos Beltran. A short hop to Ronnie Cedeno by Ryan Church looked like DP-fodder but Ronnie took the sure out at home preventing the winning run from scoring. Finally, the coup-d-grace, Howry struck out Ramon Castro to get out of the inning.
The Cubs went on to score three runs in the top of the tenth on a Ryan Theriot single, a Derrek Lee double and a Aramis Ramirez homerun. Kerry Wood came on to pitch a scoreless tenth to get his 34th save.
All good things but nothing impressed me more than Howry and how he got out of his 9th inning jam.
Ron Santo: The last chance for the Vet Committee to get it right
Santo at the 2008 Cubs Convention
Stop me if you heard this one. Ron Santo was one of ten players selected to this year’s Veteran’s Committee Ballot. And once again, he will need a 75 percent to make it to the Hall of Fame. Results will be announced on December 8th.
The kicker is that this is Santo’s last chance. If he doesn’t get in this year, he will have no chance to be selected to next year’s ballot.
I won’t bother reciting Santo’s stats. Anyone who’s followed the issue, is familiar with them. Or belabor the point that he was playing in a pitcher’s era. Or go on and on about his defensive prowess. You all know about that.
All that doesn’t even take in consideration his work with the Cubs as a broadcaster and all-around ambassador for the game.
If you’re looking for a good bio, please read Al Yellon’s piece on Bleed Cubbie Blue when he chose Santo as the #7 Cub of all time. It’s one of most detailed articles you’ll find on him.
The esteemed Joe Sheehan says that the "omission of Ron Santo is the most egregious mistake ever made by the Baseball Writers Association of America" and calls for the Veterans Committee to rectify that mistake. On a personal level, I know a lot of baseball people and almost every I know support Ron Santo for the Hall. Yes, that includes White Sox fans.
So Veterans Committee, get it right and get it done. Vote for Ron Santo.
Cubs get Ballpark envy?
After enjoying two days as the host team in another ballpark, some Cubs players are fanaticizing about a new park in Chicago especially one with state-of-the-art locker facilities. Zambrano was the most blunt about his comparison between the two parks:
"(Miller Park) is a beautiful ballpark. Gosh, I wish we could have a new ballpark."
Though Jason Marquis also enjoyed his Miller Park stay, he had more appreciation for the fan’s love of Wrigley and had a creative idea:
"You never want to see a landmark taken down, a place with so much history," Marquis said. "The fans love it. That being said, the game is changing, stadiums are getting updated. There are better facilities, not only for the players, but for the fans—better food concessions, comfortable seats, better views. …
"If I had a personal choice, I think they should knock Wrigley down and build a replica in the exact same spot to give it that same feel. The same colored seats, same ivy, same wall, and throw up a Jumbotron, but have it look like a replica of the scoreboard that’s up there now, try to give it the same feel, in the same spot. I wouldn’t be opposed to that."
I suggest to the Cubs that before they get too concerned about grandiose ideas like new parks and locker facilities that they realize that they have a division to clinch and playoffs to be more concerned about. They’ve come this far with the Friendly Confines as their home base. Their two-day stay in Milwaukee was awesome and in some ways, historic. But let’s not lose sight of why it was important to win those games.
Hint: it wasn’t for "The Locker Rooms that Zambrano Built.
Zambrano’s no-hitter: the medicine for what ails the Cubs
Mark my words, when they put out the video entitled "The Chicago Cubs’ 2008 Championship Season", Sunday’s night game will be portrayed as the "the game that turned things around" for the Cubs.
Carlos Zambrano hadn’t pitched in over 12 days due to a sore rotator cuff. In his first day back, he no-hits division rivals Houston and allows only 2 base runners. For good measure, he went 1 for 3 with a run scored. It was pretty much a Carlos Zambrano show. He even called for a pop-up that D Lee would have normally gotten. Z is like that.
It was first Cub no-no since Milt Pappas’ gem 36 years ago. It was also the first no-hitter ever in a neutral park. The only downside was that the game was not televised outside of Chicago. But 23,000+ of the faithful showed up on short notice to cheer the good guys on.
At recent Cubs Conventions, Pappas had been telling Zambrano that he would be the next.
Every year at the Cubs Convention, Milt Pappas greets Carlos Zambrano with the same statement.
"He keeps telling me, ‘You will be the next one. You will be the next one,’" Zambrano said.
For the record for anyone who might be interested/worried, Zambrano threw 110 pitches. That’s a high count for anyone let alone someone coming off a rotator cuff injury. I bet Zambrano was flying through the last few innings though.
Yes, Sunday’s game is the stuff legends are made and just what the Cubs needed. Ted Lilly got the memo that the losing ways of the past is over. He even attempted to emulate Carlos and nearly succeeded. Lilly got through six without a hit today. It didn’t matter that Mark Loretta got one through. We won 6-1 and that magic number is rapidly dissipating.
ESPN’s "No Love Lost" profiles Cub fans from last ten decades
For those Cub fans who enjoy fluff pieces about their team, ESPN has assembled a pretty cool multimedia ensemble called "No Love Lost" which profiles ten Cub fans who were born in each decade since the Cubs last won the World Series.
It’s rather cool in a bittersweet way for a Cub fan. Some of those profiled are well-known in their own right such as David Diaz (light welterweight boxer) and Billy Corgan (former Smashing Pumpkins singer) and others are known purely for their love of the Cubs such as Ronnie "Woo Woo" Wickers and 100-year old Richard Savage representing the 1908 season.
Savage has some pretty humorous quotes, in my opinion:
On Fukudome: "He’s always spinning around with this whirling nonsense. They have a batting coach. Why the hell can’t they teach him to stop that?"
On Soriano: "He’s had some big hits, he’s a pretty good hitter, but he plays the field like a grammar school student."
Funny, I’ve thought the same thing about Fukudome.
Link (thanks, B & T!)
Cubs games are blowing in the wind
Aside from playing havoc with people’s lives down south, Hurricane Ike is playing havoc with the MLB schedule. There were six rainouts on Friday.
That includes the Cubs-Astros series in Houston. Some Cubs players are wanting to play at a neutral site but Astros manager Cecil Cooper is pretty adamant about playing at home.
"Minute Maid is where we should play them," he said.
I had heard rumors about playing them Cubs-Astros series at Turner Field in Atlanta but that’s exactly what they were. Rumors.
9/13 Update: Looks like the games will indeed be played. Not at Turner Field but at Wrigley North aka Miller Park in Milwaukee. Boy, if I were Cecil Cooper, I wouldn’t be happy.
Neither if I were the Milwaukee Brewers. A division rival using the home park where the fans can pack in to root their team to victory only to hurt the Brewers’ cause.
But I’m a Cubs fan so yeah, good idea.
First game is Sunday at 7:05pm.
Five Ribbies and 3 HR for Alfonso (and a tense moment for Jason Marquis)
Linescore of the Day:
Alfonso Soriano: 4 for 5, 3 HR, 4 runs, 5 rbi (and no errors)
Soriano came though for the Cubs in a big way for the Cubs Saturday against the Reds in a game they quite honestly needed to win. They needed all of Alfonso’s production as the Reds made a comeback against the Cubs beleaguered bullpen scoring 8 runs in the last two innings. Final score: 14-9.
Much kudos to starter Jason Marquis who not only pitched a good game (2 runs in 7 plus innings though with five walks… more on that later), he had a good day at the plate. He hit two nicely hit flyballs for outs the first two times he was up but the third time was a charm. That one reached the right field seats for a solo homer.
The day wasn’t without a little controversy, though. The situation with umpire Brian Runge was just plain weird. With the bases loaded and a 3-0 count, Marquis threw one that looked like a strike to me. Regardless, Runge didn’t call it. Even stranger, batter Chris Dickerson didn’t make a move to first thinking it was a strike himself. It took a long while before anyone did anything. Finally, Runge made the call, Ball Four. Boy, that got Marquis upset and he got yelling and gesturing the shape of the strike zone.
The Play of the Game?
The best play of the game wasn’t a hit or a play in the field. It was a simple gesture made by catcher Geovany Soto to Runge that could have saved the game. While Marquis was yelling at Runge and things were getting tense, Runge started to move to go toward the mound. Soto touched Runge’s arm as if to say, "Don’t worry. I’ll handle it." and went out to the mound. Runge turned back to his spot behind home plate.
In my opinion, Soto prevented Marquis from getting ejected from the game. It may have been obvious and simple but it worked. Marquis pitched pretty well the rest of his outing, allowing one more run in the eighth (don’t forget about his homerun too). Had he been ejected, who knows what could have happened. We saw what happened in the 8th and 9th inning.
Soto has been showing this kind of maturity and presence of mind all year. I will most likely have the first pick in the rookie draft in the Ilowa APBA League next year.
I think I have made my decision.
Somebody get Lou a GPS nav unit
Lou Piniella jokingly blames it on Coach Matt Sinatro who was driving. MLB.com’s headline, Never trust online directions, seems to accuse Google Maps (not likely). Either way who look at it, the two of them got lost on their way to Cincinnati for their first game of the series (seems to me Lou spent some time there, didn’t he?). They drove 80-90 miles out of their way.
Get Lou a TomTom, stat.
The Cubs didn’t win the series opener either losing their sixth straight 10-2.