Carlos shouldn’t have done it, but what is it about the Cubs that they have so many of these problems? The whole thing with Sammy Sosa at the end of the ’04 season was way overblown – by the Cubs. And the refusal to let Sammy announce his retirement at Wrigley Field was childish.
Compare the way the Cubs handled Mark Grace’s departure after the 2000 season with the way the Braves handled Greg Maddux leaving after 2003.
Carlos has been in the Cubs organization since he was 16 years old. It probably doesn’t speak well of Carlos that he has these issues, but what does it say about the organization he has been in for fourteen years that it wasn’t addressed years ago?
With some organizations, they talk about the Braves way of baseball or, in prior times, the Orioles way of playing baseball. For the past 30 years, what has been the Cubs’ way?
Bottom line, it’s what Ryne Sandberg talked about when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame. It’s about respect. And with the Cubs, there are too many times I don’t see it.
It was okay not to hire Ryne Sandberg as the manager last year (in fact, I liked Mike Quade), but why wasn’t Ryno told, ahead of time, what was happening and why. Why did Ryno have to find out through the media that he could have had the Iowa job again this year? Where was the respect?
Consider the statue of Ernie Banks. It’s great the Cubs did it, but why did it take so long and why did Jesse Jackson have to publicly harass to get the Cubs to get it done? Where was the respect for Ernie?
In 2007 why did somebody like Joe Girardi have to almost beg for an interview for the manager’s job? Where was the respect?
And where is the respect, on a day-to-day basis, for the fans and for each other, when players turn doubles into singles because they are watching what they think is a home run bounce off the outfield wall or when players making tens of millions of dollars can’t even run out a ground ball to first?
While Carlos may be a problem, he isn’t the problem. The problem has been there for a long time. And the really unfortunate thing is that I haven’t seen any indication that the new owners realize it.
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