Bleacher Report - Articles by Clare Ondrey

Will Mark Cuban Come to the Cubs?

Clare Ondrey — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 09:50:59 -0400

With all this Olympic excitement in the air, I almost forgot about the Cubbies. I'm sorry Cubbies. So I turned my attention to an important point: the future ownership, specifically the possibility of Mark Cuban spending his (hard earned?) money to support the hometown team.

But Chicago isn't Mark Cuban's hometown! And the Govanator isn't from Cali either, but the people supported him didn't they?* Well now it is time that the people of Chicago support Cuban.

*Later, I found a similar mention of Arnold's original citizenship while reading some other blog posts about this issue (specifically this one). I still wanted to leave the reference in though; it's dramatic.

Think about Wrigley Field. It lands at No. 30 on the Stuff White People Like list. Cubs fans are fratty, drunk, and rowdy, and they're ready to accept Cuban among them.

But I don't have to convince the people of Chicago this fact, they know. The other MLB owners have laid down the major roadblock. Their refusal to approve Cuban into Cubs ownership is part of an antiquated way of looking at the position of an owner in baseball.

One great idea—force their hand with "an offer they can't refuse." (PS if you click only one link in this article, I'd recommend that one. Though SWPL is pretty funny too.) The offer though, is less "decapitated horse head" and more "donate to the MLB charity."

The campaign is featured on the Cuban and the Cubs official website, which I referenced above, and on The Point. The more people give, the more that will be donated to charity but ONLY if Mark Cuban becomes the final owner. How's that for ingenuity?

The site is www.thepoint.com, or you can go straight to the the campaign!

It's a great world when I can help students afford college and make sure that the Wrigley bleachers will remain a stronghold of debauchery.

Jeff Samardzija Debuts, Cubs Still Lose: What The First Pitches Could Mean

Clare Ondrey — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 08:37:06 -0400

With Kerry Wood out with a blister, the Cubs called up Jeff Samardzija on July 25. He stepped onto the mound straight from the minors during the seventh inning of what was, frankly, otherwise a pretty boring game.

The Cubs had just kept the lead the night before after loading the bases in the top of the ninth with a three-run lead.

But Samardzija getting called up, and that made the game a little more exciting. I looked on from the the .3 feet of cubic space I was able to find in the general admission bleachers.

I love watching truly great athletes no matter what sport they are playing. Could this great athlete be the hero the Cubs bullpen needs? No, not yet anyway.

Besides the obvious—the Cubs lost the 2-1 lead they had to the Marlins—Samardzija also startled Soto and the fans a little when he threw the ball over the head of the All-Star catcher to allow a steal that would eventually score the winning run.

But boy was he throwing the heat. Watching the MPH I saw pretty much only: 96, 97, 99. He also threw some beautiful Ks.

It's sometimes hard to be a fan of a perennially losing team because even the hope of new talent like this gets lost in thoughts about trades, an early peak, or worse—no peak at all.

But with Kerry Wood coming back soon maybe having a little more strength in the bullpen by way of a great athlete like Samardzija can give the Cubs that push that Chicago so desperately hopes for.

Though, as the crowd got to their feet for Samardzija I couldn't join them. I was crushed into a make-shift step behind the centerfield bleacher section alternatively trying not to step on small children, flash all of Wrigley (poor choice of skirt for the baseball game), and avoid the Cubs fan with the confederate flag tattoos that screamed at anyone not wearing a jersey.

If Samardzija can fix those situations too—then he's really got all my confidence.

Ugg, A. Busch IV, Youk's Goatee and Other Mistakes From the All-Star Game

Clare Ondrey — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 06:33:14 -0400

Last night's game alternated hot and cold, slow and fast, excruciating and really excruciating.

I live vicariously through my boyfriend for major sporting events. (Oh, sh*t, it's a girl writing, and she's dating, I'm out.) The festivities started out the night before with a call from him at Yankee stadium.

He got pretty much crushed at the derby—both literally by other fans and figuratively with his giant cups of beer. I did manage to find him on my tivo.

Actually, you can't really see him, but you can see his Yankees hat slapping his best friend, affectionately named "Big Nugs," as the camera focuses on the kid in the row in front of them who caught one of Hamilton's 28.

Night two, he gave in and bought a single ticket off Craig’s list and went with his binoculars to a seat that from the picture he sent me on Blackberry Messenger.

It looks like he was about six rows back on the side of right field. First, he commented on the crowd; I told him that I could hear how loud it was, especially the boos for Red Sox manager Francona. I'm sure he was a part of that.

As the game wore on though, both of us tired of the dramatics and just wanted to see the AL win (although I didn't want to see the loss chalked up to a Cubs pitcher—I do live in the Windy City).

When you've been with someone for a while or when you've been in the same job for too long, it's easy to focus on all the bad things you didn't notice when you were so infatuated the flaws were easy to overlook.

No, not my boyfriend—that's when I started focusing on all the things I didn't like about the game.

Uggla. I wanted the crowd to start the chant "UGLY, UGLY" from Nickelodeon’s "Salute Your Shorts." The counselor’s name was Ug Lee, for anyone that didn't get chicken pox in the 1980s. Even worse was that despite all his errors, the AL still couldn't pull out a win until the bottom of the 15th. Again—Ugg.
The Anheuser-Busch adds. That's fine if InBev wants to keep sponsoring MLB and the All-Star weekend, but don't put August Busch IV on an ad telling us that Bud is different because it's a family company, unless you mention that it's now a family company for Brazilians and Belgium.
Kevin Youkilis' goatee. This is not specific to the All-Star game, but damn if he isn't the ugliest man to walk the planet. Making his chin look like a crotch isn't helping things.

So when the game ended with the pop fly, all I could think was—I'm glad I didn't have time to dwell on Josh Hamilton's tats for long because I'm really starting to like him.