Pat Allen: The View from Right Field

The Heckler: Reasons You're Watching The Cubs Game

From yesterday's Heckler:

Public Money for the Cubs?

Before Kerry Wood’s retirement the big news involving the Cubs that was a super PAC funded by Joe Ricketts, the father of Tom, Pete, Laura, and Todd, had been approached to finance a $10 million series of ads against President Obama and his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.  Even though the ads never ran, and it is unclear whether Joe Rickets ever agreed to sponsor the ads, it was a BIG DEAL to Chicago Major Rahm Emanuel.  Six weeks ago Mayor Emanuel said that a deal with the Cubs was in its final stages.  On Thursday of last week, Mayor Emanuel wouldn’t even take a phone call from Tom Ricketts.  Mayor Emanuel said, “I don’t think that’s fitting in a campaign of any nature.”

Most of the commentary in the media was how dumb for the Rickettses to be “involved”* in such an idea when they were trying to get support from Mayor Emanuel for some amount of public help for the renovation of Wrigley Field. 

But wait a second.  Is Mayor Emanuel saying, and is the media condoning the idea, that it’s okay for the City to refuse to help the Cubs with their renovation of Wrigley Field because of a position on national politics that the father of the Cubs’ chairman may have been thinking about taking?  I thought Rahm Emanuel was Mayor of Chicago.  If that is true, he should be deciding things based on what’s good for Chicago, not whether somebody supports or doesn’t support his candidate for President.

Is Mayor Emanuel saying you have to support his candidate for President to get help from the City?  Is he, in effect, using Chicago taxpayer money to “encourage” people to support President Obama – or at least to not attack President Obama in ways that Mayor Emanuel doesn’t like?  Is the City of Chicago becoming just another arm of the DNC?

The funniest thing about this whole brouhaha, however, was when Mayor Emanuel said, “You can have disagreements without being disagreeable.”  Rahm Emanuel talking about disagreeing without being disagreeable?  That’s hilarious.

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* I am not sure what “involved” means here since there is no evidence that super PAC – or Joe Ricketts – ever agreed to the idea. 

Note:  The White Sox got public money for a new stadium, the Bulls and Blackhawks got public money for their stadium, and the Bears got public money for a new stadium.  Based on all of that, you could make the argument that the Cubs should get public money for renovating Wrigley Field.  Maybe you can, but it’s doesn’t matter.  I didn’t favor public money for those teams’ stadiums, and I don’t favor public money for Wrigley Field.  I do, however, think the City should help the Cubs in ways that don’t cost the City money.  For example, the City shouldn’t let the landmark designation of Wrigley Field be used to prevent the Cubs from doing things to raise money that don’t cost the City money.  Also, the City should let the Cubs close the streets around Wrigley Field.  Etc.

Update (5/20/21 1:40 pm):  Corrected two typos in the last paragraph. 

Woody, Thanks.

I’m sorry we couldn’t win it for you, today, but thanks so much for so many memories.  The twenty strike out game.  The playoff game against Maddux in 1998.  Your comeback in 2000.  Game 5 in Atlanta in ’03.  Your comeback in 2007; Glavine may have won his 300th, but you got the cheers.  And the Cubs Convention the last two years.  It has been great.  Thank you so much.

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Update (5/19/2012 11:50 pm):  I was in a rush to post something about Kerry Wood retiring yesterday because, well, it seemed the right thing to do.  Let me mention in some more detail the two "comebacks" I referred to.  On May 2, 2000, Kerry was making his first start since the 1998 playoffs.  He had been out all of 1999 rehabilitating from surgery, and May 2 was his first time back.  The Cubs beat the Astros, 11 to 1, and Kerry hit a home run in the second inning.  On August 5, 2007, Kerry was returning from fourteen months on the disabled list.  Before that he had always been a starter; now he was a reliever.  This was his first game back, and when he came into the game in the sixth inning, Wrigley Field was electric.  I will never forget either one of those games.

Help in the Bullpen? Time for a Comback, Doug Dascenzo.

The Cubs clearly need help in the bullpen.  Woody is back, but he is only going to be used in the sixth or seventh inning.  Carlos Marmol is … well, better to not say anything about him.  Dale Sveum is talking about closing with James Russell or Rafael Dolis, but before we commit to one of them, let me make suggestion.  Instead of some young kid, how about proven veteran, a guy who has pitched for the Cubs in relief and has gotten the job done.  A guy who has never given up a run in all of his relief appearances for the Cubs – and somebody who is not going to injure himself shagging flyballs in the outfield during BP.  Who do I mean?  Doug Dascenzo, of course:

In four appearances over two years, Dougie pitched five innings without giving up a single run.  He had a WHIP of 1.00 and only walked two batters.  It doesn’t get any better than that.  And he set a then-National League record of 241 errorless games in the outfield at the start of his career, so we won’t need to worry about torn ACLs before the game even starts.

And don’t worry about him being too old.  He’s over than a year and a half younger than Jamie Moyer.

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Update (5/4/12 12:50 am): I changed to title to include Dougie's name. 

The Most Exciting Player on the Cubs

Matt Garza is probably our best pitcher.  Starlin Castro is our best player (and he only turned 22 last month; mind-boggling).  But probably the most exciting player on the Cubs right now is just 5’ 8” and weighs 165 pounds: Tony Campana. 

I don’t know how much the Cubs ever expected out of Tony.  When he came up to the Cubs last year, he had to first be put on the 40-man roster.  And this year he didn’t make the major league roster out of spring training.  But when Marlon Byrd was traded to the Red Sox, Tony came up.  And he has been awesome – and so much fun to watch.  I was at Wrigley Field last weekend and last Monday night.  When Tony got on base, he was a constant distraction to the pitcher.  The other team knew he was going to steal and they knew he was going to be safe, but they still had to try to stop him, which meant they couldn’t be giving their total concentration to the batter.  It was great.

And he doesn’t just affect the other team’s pitchers.  He affects their fielders, too.  Infielders know they have to field the ball cleanly and throw quickly in order to get Tony, and the fact that they know that can make them bobble the ball just a little, and that is enough for Tony to beat it out.  Also, infielders have to play in a couple of steps when Tony is batting because they have to get to the ball quickly if they are going to throw him out.  If they stay back, he could be safe.  Having the other team’s infielders playing in a couple of steps opens up bigger holes in the infield for more hits to get through.  (That’s just geometry.)

Consider yesterday’s win over the Phillies.  I had some things to do, so I wasn’t able to watch the game on TV.  But it was great just listening to the radio with Tony on base.  In the third inning, Campana singled.  The pitcher was so worried about Tony stealing that he mis-threw a pickoff throw to first and Tony went to second.  Darwin Barney moved him over to third.  When Starlin Castro hit a fly ball to shallow-to-medium right field, nobody else in the league would have tried to score, especially with Hunter Pence, who has had the most assists of any National League outfielder over the last four years, in the right field.  But Tony tried, and he was safe even though Pence threw a one-bounce strike to the catcher.

In the eighth inning, Tony singled on a soft ground ball to the second baseman.  He promptly stole second and was sacrificed to third by Darwin Barney.  With the Cubs already ahead 3 to 0, the Phillies played the infield in.  Starlin Castro hit a ground ball to second, but Campana was going on contact and he scored – again.  I didn’t see it, but it sure was fun to listen to.

Without those two runs, Cubs would have only been up by three, instead of five, when Carlos Marmol came in in the bottom of the ninth.  Who knows what would have happened if we had only had a three-run lead, since Marmol gave up a single and three walks, including walking in a run, before finally getting the third out.

Here’s what two Cubs said about Campana after Sunday’s game:

“‘We scored two runs on just flat out speed, that's all it was [said Cubs manager Dale Sveum]. Anybody else you don't even think about sending him on that [shallow] a fly ball, but a guy like that you send him on just about anything that's not on the infield dirt.’ 

Said [Cubs starting pitcher Matt] Garza: ‘He's just too quick. If I was facing him, it would be a pain in the butt. You want him to hit the ball hard. He's one of the few where you want him to hit the ball hard. You want him to get it up in the air. Because if he hits it on the ground, nine out of 10 times he's going to be safe. It's awesome for us, for the other guys it's a pain.pain.’”

Tony has gotten on base five times in the first three games of the series against the Phillies and he has scored each.  As Paul Sullivan said in the Tribune this morning, the Cubs are playing a variation of small ball:  “Campy Ball”.

Tony Campana:  Fun to watch and, right now, maybe the Cubs most exciting player.

The Heckler: “Pujols blames slow start on not facing Cubs anymore”

I had another article published in The Heckler: “Pujols blames slow start on not facing Cubs anymore”. You can find it here.

Sure Cure for Global Warming

Cubs home games in April:  Lined jeans.  Long sleeve shirt, heavy sweatshirt, fleece and parka.  Double gloves.  Insulated boots + toe-warmers.  And it’s still cold.  We could use some of that “inconvenient truth” at Wrigley Field.

Jamie Moyer Sets Another Major League Record

I was thinking about writing about how bad the Cubs were last night in losing to the Florida, oops, I mean Miami, Marlins, but then I saw that Jamie Moyer won another game – at 49 years, 150 days old, the oldest man ever to win a major league game.  And he didn’t do by pitching in relief, he did it by starting and pitching seven innings, giving up just six hits and two runs, both unearned.

David Schoenfield’s story is here.

My scorecard from Jamie Moyer’s first major league game, on June 16, 1986 is here:

50 Years Ago: Easter Sunday, 1962

Actually, it wasn‘t 50 years ago today, April 8, because Easter was on April 22 in 1962.  But it was on Easter, so it is appropriate to mention it today.

1962 was a terrible year for the Cubs.  The Cubs lost the most games they had ever lost in a single season, 103, and they finished in ninth place behind the expansion Houston Colt .45s (a name that Houston did not keep for very long).

But Easter Sunday was different.  The Cubs were in St. Louis.  They had lost all eleven games in St. Louis (in oldest Busch Stadium) the year before, and they were playing a doubleheader against the Cardinals on Easter.  (See this post for an explanation of a doubleheader used to be.  {Sorry for the sarcasm.})

In the first game the Cubs beat the Cardinals in a slugfest, 11 to 5.  Kenny Hubbs, Ron Santo and Ernie Banks each drove in three runs, and Ron and Ernie each hit a home run.  Dick Ellsworth won the game for the Cubs over Ray Sadecki and four other Cardinal pitchers.

In the second game, the Cubs threw a rookie, Cal Koonce, against Bob Gibson.  It was Cal Koonce’s first major league start and only his third major league game, but he pitched a complete game (in spite of a 44-minute rain delay), holding the Cardinals to just one run.  Meanwhile, Billy Williams hit a two-run homer in the first inning, and the Cubs never trailed, winning 5 to 1.

The first game took 2:58 (which was a long game back then), but three rain delays added another 77 minutes.  The second game was shorter, 2:26, but it too had a lengthy rain delay.  But it didn’t matter.  Even though, with the four rain delays and the break between the two games, the doubleheader took almost eight hours to complete, it was great.  I still remember sitting in my room listening to Jack Quinlan and Lou Boudreau on WGN radio (away games weren’t on TV back then), especially to the second game and Cal Koonce win his first major league game.

I realize this is not what Easter is really about, but it was, and still is, a wonderful memory.

Fantasy Baseball - The Real Kind

“Fantasy baseball” is a big deal.  Personally, though, I have always thought that the real fantasy baseball was baseball itself.  How could fans care so much if it were not for fantasy – expect maybe Yankees fans, but they don’t count.

In any case, with baseball season starting two weeks from today, I give you this cartoon on Fantasy Baseball from the April 2, 2012 issue of Baseball America.  Paul Trap, who draws the cartoons for Baseball America, is awesome.  His cartoon is the first thing I look for in every issue of Baseball America.