The View from Right Field

Whither the 2023 Cubs?

So, what is going to happen with the 2023 Cubs?  Where are they going to wind up?  In the postseason or just done with the season?  At the time of posting this, they are ½ game ahead of Miami for the third – and final – wild card spot.  But will we keep it? 

When I am feeling negative, 2023 makes me think of 2004.  We collapsed the last week of the season, losing the wild card spot we had in our control at the beginning of the week.  Sammy opted out of the lineup and left Wrigley Field before the last game was over.  He hasn’t been back since.¹  Things went so bad our announcers even quit after the season.  The only good thing that happened was that, on Sunday, after we were eliminated, Greg Maddux, who didn’t leave early, won his 15th game of the season, extending his streak of consecutive15-win seasons to seventeen, though I am not sure he cared at the time. 

Mike Royko and the Ex-Cubs Rule

Famed Chicago journalist Mike Royko had a rule that no team could win a World Series if they had three (or more) ex-Cubs on their roster.  While Mike was a Cubs fan, he also believed that playing for the Cubs either so jinxed players or taught them such bad habits, that any team with three or more of them on their roster couldn’t win a World Series (or at least that is what he said in his columns).  And it didn’t happen until the Arizona Diamondbacks won the World Series in 2001 with Mark Grace, Luis Gonzalez, and Miguel Batista on their roster.¹ 

In any case, watching the Cubs-Yankees game on Sunday made me wonder if there is some kind of a regular season too-many-ex-Cubs rule, too.  The Yankees were leading 4 to 1 after six 5innings.  But the Yankees had five ex-Cubs (or ex-Cubs organization) players in their starting lineup: Anthony Rizzo, DJ LeMahieu², Gleyber Torres³, Josh Donaldson⁴, and Billy McKinney⁵.

Terry Francona is Still Managing Cleveland. Where is Joe Maddon?

I went to the Cubs/Cleveland Guardians (f/k/a Indians) game today, and I am going tomorrow, too.  When I saw Terry Francona was still managing Cleveland, I thought back to the 2016 World Series: the Cubs managed by Joe Maddon versus the Indians (now Guardians) managed by Terry Francona.  Joe Maddon left the Cubs a long time ago (mostly because the Cubs wanted him to go).  Terry Francona, however, is still managing Cleveland.

So remind me: Which manager won the 2016 World Series and which manager lost?

The 60th Anniversary of the Lindy McDaniel Game

Today is the 79th anniversary of D-Day  It is also the 60th anniversary of the "Lindy McDaniel game." As I wrote here, for Cubs fans of a certain age, before there was the Sandberg game, there was the Lindy McDaniel game.  Read about the game here and here.

36th Annual Cubs Convention – January 13-15, 2023

Here is my annual report on the Cubs Convention.  Well, sort of annual.  There was no Convention in 2021 or 2022 because of Covid.  I had been planning on going, at least on Saturday, but some things came up so I couldn’t go, but, fortunately, the Cubs broadcast pretty much the whole thing on the Marquee Network, so I got to see it even if I couldn’t be there in person.  (I did miss the autograph sessions with the old-timers and the chance to buy some baseball cards. But, there is always next year.)

The Opening Ceremonies may have been easier to watch on TV instead of in-person.  I didn’t same to stand or wait in line for a couple of hours.  Plus you could see a little better.  The same with “Off the Mound with Ryan Dempster”.  Plus, once it was over, you could just turn off the TV and you were home.  You didn’t have to drive or take an Uber.

Yes, You Can Buy a Championship in Baseball. The @Cubs Did It in 2016.

In writing about the Winter Meetings, Paul Sullivan reminds us that Tom Ricketts said, back in September, “The fact is you can’t buy a championship in baseball.”  Well, yes – and no.  You can’t buy a whole team, but you can buy missing parts, maybe even a lot of them.  Because that’s how the Cubs won the World Series in 2016.  They signed Jon Lester for $155 million (five years), Jason Heyward for $185 million (eight years), Ben Zobrist for $56 million (four years), and John Lackey for $32 million (two years). 

So, yes, you can buy a championship in baseball.  Once you have a good base, you can buy a championship by signing free agents to fill in the missing parts.  To the extent the Cubs are not doing this now, it means that Cubs management and ownership do not think the Cubs have a good enough base to do it. 

Willy’s Not Coming Back, Whether He’s Traded or Not

Yesterday I tweeted:

“The worst way for a company to handle a RIF [i.e., a reduction in force] is to announce it and then tell people that the list of who is being let go will be disclosed in two weeks. Welcome to the  @Cubs at the @MLB #TradeDeadline.”

Yesterday, Willson Contreras said, with respect to today’s off-day and tomorrow’s 5 pm trade deadline: "It's going to be a long day. It's been long, long, long, long week, long, long, month for me. But I'm ready for this to be over, to be honest."

Happy Birthday, Mr. Cub

From all your fans, past, present, and future.

Larry Biittner, RIP

April 14, 1978.  Cubs-Pirates.   Cubs home opener.  45,777 paid attendance.  Largest crowd in my lifetime.  I was there.

A see-saw game.  The Cubs scored one in the first and two in the second.  The Pirates tied it with three in the sixth and took a 4 to 3 lead in the top of the eighth.  But the Cubs tied it 4 to 4 in the bottom of the eighth.

If You Want to Win, You Have to Hit the Ball

A quick follow-up on yesterday’s post about the Cubs’ 2021 season.  With two games to go (I am posting this before Saturday night’s game), the Cubs have already set a team record for most strikeouts in a season (by batters, unfortunately, not pitchers), and they are only fourteen strikeouts away from setting a major league record.  Which they should be able to do since they are averaging 9.88 strikeouts a game.

While it may be obvious that you have to hit the ball to win,¹ it is actually more obvious than you think.  Consider the New Look Cubs’ seven-game winning streak from August 31 to September 6.  Two of those wins came on balls that were hit, but should have been outs.  On September 2, a whiffed pop up to the infield resulted in the winning run scoring in the bottom of the eleventh.  A strike out wouldn’t have done it, but when you hit the ball, you never know (see at 7:40):