Bleacher Report - Articles by Darrell Horwitz

Fire Chicago Bear Head Coach Lovie Smith...Now!

Darrell Horwitz — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:14:38 -0500

Watching the Chicago Bear debacle against Arizona today, despite the late comeback attempt against a team that already put this one in the victory column brings me to one conclusion—Lovie Smith should be fired right now. This game would have been a repeat of the Cincinnati Bengal game if the Cardinals had the revenge factor with Cedric Benson and put the hammer down the way the Bengals did a couple of weeks ago.

I don’t want to hear from anybody that you can’t change coaches in mid-season of the NFL, because that would mean changing schemes and the players wouldn’t have time to adjust.

The Bears are going nowhere fast anyway, so it really doesn’t matter. THIS IS NOT A PLAYOFF TEAM.

They don’t know what they’re doing on both sides of the ball right now anyway, so what does it matter if they make a change at this time? At least it would give fans hope for the future.

Another year of Lovie-speak is more than I can stand. “We’ll look at the tape and make corrections and go from there.”

To make changes, you need to have someone in charge that knows football and Lovie is sadly lacking in that area. He only knows one defense; has no clue how to make in game adjustments, and is incapable of motivating a team anymore. They’re no longer buying his shtick.

I would like to introduce here the nickname I have for Lovie Smith, a name I feel is absolutely appropriate—LUCKY SMITH.

He was lucky to get the job in the first place. He was undeserving of the opportunity because he wasn’t that great as a defensive coordinator. He obviously has no leadership skills. All you have to do is hear him speak to know that. That also includes his intelligence, or should I say lack of it. Listening to him and his press conferences on a regular basis and you hear the same thing over and over again.

That’s because he doesn’t know anything else. HE’S DUMB. He employs the cover two or Tampa two because his mentor Tony Dungy taught him that. He doesn’t know any other way to play defense.

He fired Rom Rivera after the Super Bowl because he felt threatened by his presence. He likes to put people in place that lack experience and will not question his authority.

Before anyone comments to me that he took the Bears to the Super Bowl, let me shoot down your argument right now. The Bears went to the Super Bowl in spite of Lucky Smith.

Devin Hester took the Bears to the Super Bowl.

I would have actually fired him with a couple of seconds left in regulation in the playoff game against Seattle that year when he called time out with Seattle having the ball with a couple of seconds left at midfield.

The only thing that could have happened would have been Seattle either scoring a touchdown or getting a defensive penalty that would have allowed them to kick the game winning field goal and keeping the Bears from making the Super Bowl.

If I were Jerry Angelo, I would have called Lovie Smith at that point, told him he was fired, and tell him to hand the phone to Ron Rivera and tell him he’s taking over the team.

The year before they lost to Carolina in the playoffs when the stubborn and clueless Smith continued to play wide receiver Steve Smith with one-on-one coverage as he burned them again and again and sent them packing their bags and heading to vacation.

He played his beloved defense against Indianapolis in the Super Bowl against a quarterback in Peyton Manning that knows that defense in his sleep. He did nothing to change things up.

That’s the only reason the vastly overrated Tony Dungy ever won a Super Bowl, because he went against his clueless pupil. He never won it with very talented Tampa teams, and only once with the potent Colts.

‘Lucky’ Smith then got a $22 million extension for four years beyond the one year Lucky had left on his contract, effectively locking the Bears into mediocrity at least for the next five years, because the cheap McCaskey clan will not pay off that contract to send him away.

He had a year left on his contract when he received the extension. You didn’t have to extend him at that time. Of course the media chimed in and Lovie put on a push for an extension, and the weak-minded Angelo gave in to him and tied the Bears' hands for several years.

Why make that decision when Smith was in a position of power? It’s not like the Bears won the Super Bowl. If they waited to the next year when the Bears failed to make the playoffs, now management is in the position of power.

They could extend him at far less money and years, or they could make the smart decision at that time and replace him. Either way they come out far better.

The Bears constantly lose games because of the cluelessness of Smith, including that game last year when the Bears lost a game against Atlanta when they took the lead with eleven seconds left in the game and somehow still lost.

There are too many examples of this under his reign. His game management is non-existent.

I’m not just saying fire him without having a plan.

To give the team the best chance to try to save the season, you can bring in Mike Shanahan. Cutler knows him and his offense, and that will change things dramatically right from the start. Shanahan is also a top-notch NFL head coach; not an unimaginative defensive coordinator who was given a job he did not deserve.

Bill Cowher is also out there and either one of them would be a great addition no matter what happens the rest of this season.

Let me repeat—THE BEARS ARE GOING NOWHERE THIS YEAR.

Now I know the cheap and clueless Bears will not do this. Winning is not important, making money is. Giving away money is a no-no.

The Bears might have lost last week against Cleveland in an abysmal victory if Brady Quinn started the game instead of Derek Anderson, but he has a huge bonus based on the percentage of plays he participates in. Like I said, winning is not important, the bottom line is.

Trading for Jay Cutler was supposed to turn this team around with a franchise-type quarterback, but as I said when they made the trade, “If you don’t know how to use him, it doesn’t matter how talented he is.”

The Bears bought a new toy, but they read the instructions and didn’t know how to put it together, so it sits there unused.

This season is a disgrace! I do a sports radio show every Sunday and miss the beginning of the game if it starts at noon. In previous years, under the Smith regime, I would go grocery shopping after the show and get home in time for the second half.

This year, I figured with Cutler, I had to get home as soon as possible so I could see every minute because I was so looking forward to having a quarterback for once in my lifetime.

Instead, they have the same team they had in the past. There may be a new name at quarterback, a guy with far better skills than they had before, but it’s still the same old team.

After the Bengal game, Smith said he didn’t have the team ready to play. He made the same statement after the Falcons loss. I wonder what he’s going to say today. If he can’t get his team ready to play, should he still be the head coach?

They’ve tuned him out and now it’s time to turn him loose. It’s time to fire ‘Lucky Smith.’

Chicago: City of Losers

Darrell Horwitz — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 14:24:22 -0400

Can you imagine wanting something so bad that you would sell your soul to the devil just to get a taste of it, like the Cubs winning the World Series?

What if your feelings were just as strong pulling in the opposite direction? What if you wanted at all costs for something not to happen, even though you were almost certain it would? Especially because you were against it.

That's the feeling I had today while listening to the radio and hearing a heavily accented voice saying that Chicago was out of the running for the 2016 Olympics.

I was in shock because I was sure we were going to win the bid despite my heavy opposition to it. I was certain we would be in the final round.

But to lose and be the first city out absolutely shocked me.

My reasons against the bid were because I live in the neighborhood where a lot of things would be going on. I was selfishly thinking about my inconvenience during the construction and eventually the event.

I was also thinking about the corrupt city I live in and how the politicians and especially our "king," Mayor Daley, were going to divvy up the profits while us lowly serfs (citizens) footed the bill for the inevitable cost overrides that Daley guaranteed wouldn't happen.

Sure, there could have been positives coming out of this. Supposedly it would have created more jobs, improved infrastructure, and showed the world what a "world class" city Chicago is.

Listening to the carnage after the vote, I heard that Chicago's bid was not very impressive or enthusiastic outside of Michelle and Barack Obama.

Of course, when you have our mayor speaking with his Chicago accent and spewing out "des' and "dems," how good an impression can you make? I also heard that Pat Ryan, who was in charge of the bid for the city, dropped the ball in his presentation and that in general, Chicago's presentation was not very impressive.

I was already trying to make lemonade out of lemons this morning before leaving the house thinking that since the Olympics will be in my neighborhood, my real estate values will probably shoot through the roof. Not to mention the thousands of dollars I anticipated extracting from some foreign visitor who wanted to live right in the center of the excitement and rent out my place.

I wasn't planning on sticking around for that mess.

But then I heard the words that Chicago has been eliminated in the first round.

Suddenly I was taken back to the past two seasons when the Cubs were one and done in the playoffs and the Bears getting spanked in the Super Bowl a few years ago.

All of the anguish I have suffered as a Chicago sports fan came back to bite me even though I was so against this.

Then it hit me. Chicago is not the second city. It's the city of losers and this is just one more example of it.

Cubs GM Jim Hendry: Part 3: The Ugly

Darrell Horwitz — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 18:20:54 -0400

We’ve just finished the bad and it wasn’t pretty, but this is just downright ugly. Here is the final chapter in the trilogy I have written about Jim Hendry’s term as General Manager of the Chicago Cubs.

What’s the right place to start in evaluating the job Hendry has done since taking over the reigns of the organization in 2002? How about right field?

February 5, 2005Jim Hendry signed Jeromy Burnitz for $4.5 million to play right field. He lasted one year.

Jacque Jones followed in 2006 and lasted for two seasons; though he was the target of the right field bleacher boo birds after some less than inspired play both at bat and in the field, especially throwing the ball.

Native Chicagoan Cliff Floyd returned for a year in 2007 and shared the duties in right with Matt Murton. It wasn’t a great homecoming and he was shown the door after the season ended.

In 2008, Hendry outmaneuvered everybody to sign Japanese right fielder Kosuke Fukudome for $48 million dollars for four years.

In April and May it looked like a brilliant move by Hendry as Fukudome exceeded all expectations. Unfortunately the season extends until October and Fukudome was a disaster as the season wore on and in the playoffs.

Because of the lack of confidence the organization had in Fukudome, who was still owed close to $40 million in his back-loaded contract, Jim Hendry pursued volatile right fielder Milton Bradley to take over the position.

Raul Ibanez who is tearing up the NL was available as was perennial 40 home run, 100 RBI guy Adam Dunn. Bobby Abreu, another player who knocks in over 100 ribbies every year was another option and signed for only $5 million this year.

I know Dunn is really a DH, but that’s what the injury prone Bradley has been doing the majority of the time for the past few years.

Hendry zeroed in on Bradley and never even contacted the other candidates. He gave him a three year contract for $30 million dollars. That’s $78 million worth of right fielders in just the last two years alone.

Meanwhile on the other side of town, White Sox GM Kenny Williams signed right fielder Jermaine Dye before the 2005 season for three years at a little over $16 million for the term of the contract.

Dye was the MVP of the World Series for the Sox in 2005 and has averaged over thirty-four homers and 95 RBI’s per season since that signing. He’s still playing right for the Sox and is a valuable piece if they decide to try to trade him before the deadline this year.

The one thing every player Hendry signed has in common aside from the fact that they’re bad is that they all bat left-handed. Batting lefty is more important than being a quality player.

This is a perfect example just in Chicagoalone why Hendry is so inept at his job. In addition to the Dye signing, Williams has also made some slick additions at the expense of giving up little or nothing in return.

He received superb lefty bullpen pitcher Matt Thornton for first round bust Joe Borchard, while Hendry received nothing of quality in return for Corey Patterson, who despite his failures was a much better ballplayer than Borchard.

Williams made lemonade out of a bad pick while Hendry just got stuck with lemons.

Williams picked up John Danks for over hyped Sox prospect Brandon McCarthy and stole Gavin Floyd, who won seventeen games last year for washed up pitcher Freddie Garcia. He also committed highway robbery in acquiring 2008 MVP candidate Carlos Quentin for a low level minor leaguer.

He also signed unheralded Cuban free agent Alexei Ramirez before the 2008 season. He has been a terrific addition to the team.

Those four players are the reason the Sox made the playoffs in 2008 and actually won one more game than the Cubs did in the playoffs.

Hendry always does the obvious, while a creative and intelligent GM like Williams comes up with the hidden gem.

Before the 2007 season, trying to make a splash after bringing in Piniella to manage the club, he signed Alfonso Soriano for $136 million dollars. Unfortunately Hendry bidded against himself in giving him so much money.

The problem with that signing is that Soriano is really a designated hitter, and they don’t have that position in the National League. He’s got a strong arm, but is a disaster in the field.

He’s also not a very good hitter. Sure, he gets hot at times for a week or two, but he hurts your team more than helps it with swinging at terrible pitches, having a low on-base percentage, and insisting on batting in the leadoff spot.

He is the direct reason they have played so poorly in the last two playoffs because he kills you at the top of the order, and as long as he’s here, and he will be with that ridiculous back-loaded contract, the Cubs are not going anywhere.

With the ownership issue still in limbo, Hendry tied his hands and didn’t allow for any flexibility to make other moves to help the team. In fact, that signing caused the team to make cost-cutting deals that have hurt this team terribly.

Hendry let Mark DeRosa go this off-season for three prospects that weren’t very highly rated by Baseball America. At the time, it was thought he made that move to get prospects to move to the Padres for the proposed Jake Peavy trade.

That trade never happened. Meanwhile as expected, third baseman Aramis Ramirez went down with an injury and left the Cubs scrambling for someone to cover his position.

DeRosa was a great signing by Hendry. He played practically every position except for catcher.

Nobody expected Ramirez to go down for over two months, but you knew he was going to be out at least for two weeks some time during the season. DeRosa was a great insurance policy at third, along with several other positions.

Hendry left the team with no viable alternative to play third, and that is one of the many reasons the Cubs have been so mediocre so far this year.

Hendry made two terrible moves in the 2007 off-season if you’re not including the Soriano signing.

Before the 2007 season, he drafted Josh Hamilton in the Rule 5 draft and immediately sent him to the Cincinnati Reds in a prearranged deal for cash. Hamilton was the former first pick in the draft and a five tool player who happened to play center field and also bats left-handed.

Had the Cubs kept him, they might never have had to sign Fukudome or Bradley because they would have had that lefty power hitting outfielder that they were looking for. That would have freed up a ton of money to make other moves.

Hamilton was a low cost risk despite his previous baggage. If you don’t keep him on your team for the entire season after picking him, you have to offer him back to his previous team for half of what you paid to sign him.

Hamilton had a good season with the Reds in 2007, who then parlayed him into pitcher Edinson Volquez, who won seventeen games for them in 2008.

Hamilton had a breakout year in 2008 and was an MVP candidate. In addition to power that had him compared to Mickey Mantle, he also played a great center field and had a rocket for an arm.

The Rangers ended up with Hamilton, the Reds ended up with Volquez, and the Cubs ended up with cash. Can you see why I’m as critical of Hendry as a GM with absolutely no foresight?

He also let Juan Pierre leave the team as a free agent after trading three young pitchers for him before the 2006 season. While this technically happened in 2006, the end result occurred with Pierre leaving the team before the 2007 season.

Hendry gave up Ricky Nolasco, Reynal Pinto and Sergio Mitre. Pinto has done a nice job for the Marlins in the bullpen, while Nolasco won 15 games for them last year.

Pierrewas the leadoff hitter that the team was searching for seemingly forever. He had an expiring contract, and while you could argue he wasn’t worth the money the Dodgers spent to sign him, he also wasn’t worth the pitching Hendry gave up to get him if you were only planning on keeping him around for just one year.

At the trade deadline in 2006, Hendry traded Greg Maddux to the Dodgers for shortstop Cesar Izturis. Izturis was relegated to the bench for the Dodgers after they signed Rafael Furcal as a free agent in the off season.

This was the same Furcal that Jim Hendry had targeted as his number one priority that year. Ned Colletti was hired as GM just two weeks earlier and swooped in out of nowhere and stole him from the Cubs, who had been negotiating with him for some time.

Hendry couldn’t close the deal.

Then with the Dodgers in the playoff race and desperate for pitching, Hendry had future Hall of Famer Maddux as a valued commodity to trade. The Dodgers farm system was loaded with young talent like Jeff Kemp, Andre Ethier, and James Loney.

When you’re in a position of power, you can demand one of those players in return if the Dodgers really are serious about making the playoffs. Didn’t players like Jeff Bagwell and John Smoltz come to their teams in similar trades’ years ago for middling veterans? The players that went in those trades had nowhere near the resume that Maddux had.

Yet Hendry settled for the player they no longer needed in Izturis after Colletti already one upped him by getting Furcal. Izturis was gone the next season for nothing in return.

Furcal even came back to haunt the Cubs by injuring Derrek Lee in a play at first early in the 2006 season. If Hendry could have gotten his man, Lee would never have been injured. He also might have supplied better power numbers the last couple of years. He seemed to have lost his power stroke since that injury.

Another Hendry acquisition LaTroy Hawkins sabotaged the team in the 2004 playoff race when he imploded after taking over the closing role because of injuries. He blew several saves as the season was winding down and the Cubs tanked it in the last week of the season.

Hendry again did not do his due diligence and see what type of personality Hawkins had and how he would adapt to the role. He blew up shortly after being named the closer when talking to the media and telling them that this was the last time he was speaking to them.

And last but not least is the Cubs farm system and its lack of quality prospects. There is little hope for the future and that’s been a trademark of the Hendry regime, as well as generally the history of the team other than for a short period under Dallas Green.

The Cubs are generally short-handed compared to other teams in terms of numbers when it comes to scouting. That’s been an area that they have tried to conserve money in and it has showed.

Development has also been an issue, as many highly touted prospects failed to develop into major league talent.

The only player of note in the system is third baseman Josh Vitters who is currently playing in lower level A ball.

He was the prize piece that Jim Hendry put in the proposed trade for Jake Peavy that never materialized.

I mentioned before that where the Cubs were lacking was with hitting, yet Hendry continued to pursue Peavy for most of the winter. To include Vitters in the trade was indefensible on Hendry’s part and highlights why he doesn’t belong in this job.

To make matters even worse, Sox GM Kenny Williams actually pulled off a trade for Peavy before he nixed it that didn’t include as highly rated a prospect as Vitters. He also seemed to pull the trade out of mid-air. Nobody had ever even talked about it before.

Again, Williams gets the job done while the hapless Hendry whiffs again. I know the trade didn’t go through, but he at least came to an agreement on players; something that Hendry couldn’t accomplish.

The Cubs are also loaded with untradeable back-loaded contracts like Soriano, Fukudome, etc. In addition, most of those long term contracts include no trade clauses, so he couldn’t get rid of them even if the contracts weren’t so poorly structured.

Hendry has the Cubs in a very precarious position. They have a very short window of opportunity to win with the current team, and with a bleak outlook for the future.

Hendry has tried to outspend his mistakes and has failed in that endeavor.

While the Cubs are again in contention in a weak division, this is not realistically a team that can win the World Series.

The future owner of the Cubs is going to have to have deep pockets to correct the mistakes the Hendry regime has made.

Cub fans will not allow the team to rebuild, and with no talent on the horizon to help out, spending more money is going to be the only way to get them out of this mess.

A mix of both homegrown talent, along with trades and free agent signings when necessary are the ideal way to build a consistent winner.

Overpaying for players with limited skills, not developing the farm system, and trying to correct your mistakes year after year is not the solution.

Jim Hendry is the problem for the Cubs; he’s not the solution. Hopefully the new owner will recognize that and put someone in place that understands what it takes to build an organization that has a chance to win year in and year out.

Cubs General Manager Jim Hendry Part 2: The Bad

Darrell Horwitz — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:09:40 -0400

When we last left our hero Jim Hendry, he was holding on for dear life as I was about to enter the bad phase of the trilogy.

With a huge payroll over the past several years, Hendry has spent like a drunken sailor on shore leave.

While the screws have been tightened a bit this year as the sale of the Cubs hangs in limbo, Hendry did not have his best offseason with the money he was allocated. However, this is not the ugly phase yet, so let’s proceed to the bad.

Needing a bullpen pitcher before the 2002 season when Tom Gordon went down, Hendry thought he would bring a circus act to join the clowns that have inhabited the big top at Wrigley over the past century.

Antonio (six fingers) Alfonseca joined the freak show at the house of horrors. Nothing was scarier than watching Alfonseca trudge to the mound to start the ninth inning. Completely out of shape and looking like he was ready to give birth any day, Alfonseca joined a long list of failures at the closer position.

He did come with a companion though, Matt Clement, who pitched well for the team for a couple of years.

The Cubs sent the Marlins psychotic reliever/starter Julian Tavarez along with a young lefty from the farm system named Dontrelle Willis.

Willis was Rookie of the Year in 2003 and a Cy Young candidate the following year. He’s fallen on some hard times lately, but would have looked really good in the Cub rotation for a few years there.

The reason this trade falls into the bad category is because Matt Clement was thrust upon the Cubs because the Marlins didn’t want to pay his salary. They were told if you want Alfonseca, you have to take Clement.

I don’t give credit for getting lucky, and that’s what Hendry did. Hendry wasn’t the official GM at the time, but he made the trade.

After the 2003 season and looking for a little more offense, Hendry traded catcher Damian Miller to the A’s for Michael Barrett, a player he coveted for awhile.

While Barrett was an upgrade at the position offensively, he was a failure at handling the pitching staff. He continued to get worse as the years went by until Hendry got rid of him at Lou Piniella’s request shortly after Carlos Zambrano used him as a punching bag.

Meanwhile the Marlins signed backstop Ivan (Pudge) Rodriguez as a free agent before the 2003 season. He ended up killing the Cubs in the NLCS and helping the fish win the World Series in 2003.

Can Hendry get an Executive of the Year award for the Marlins for giving them Willis and not signing Rodriguez? They wouldn’t have been there if not for those two players.

Rodriguez became a free agent again in 2004, but Hendry passed for a second time on bringing in a perennial All-Star catcher who in fact did make the All-Star team that year.

While Rodriguez could throw, call a game, and hit, the Cubs were stuck with a guy who caught punches better than pitches.

The reason for passing on Rodriguez was Hendry had only so much money to spend, so he wanted to spend it on bringing back an icon to Chicago, who unfortunately had his best days in Atlanta.

Whether it was for marketing reasons or trying to help the team win, Greg Maddux again took the mound at Wrigley.

While he did win thirty-eight games over the next three seasons before Hendry traded him to the Dodgers, he wasn’t the same pitcher that left to go to Atlanta.

The Cubs already had Kerry Wood, Mark Prior, Carlos Zambrano, and Matt Clement at the time and didn’t really need Maddux.

I said before the season that I would like both of them, but if I could only have one, my pick would be Rodriguez.

Maddux pitches every fifth day while “Pudge” gives the team a chance to win every day. Maybe with him behind the plate, the Cubs make the playoffs in 2004 with the team that Sports Illustrated picked to win the World Series.

The Cubs traded a couple of relief pitchers over the years that could have helped a bereft bullpen.

Juan Cruz was traded for a minor league pitcher named Andy Pratt, whose father was working for the organization. I’m not sure if it was a favor to him, but after a short stay and a beat down by opposing batters, he disappeared and was never to be seen again.

I think he went into the witness protection program and his story is due to be seen on a future episode of In Plain Sight.

Cruz, meanwhile, has been a very effective middle reliever for the past few years with his upper nineties fastball. He sure would look good in the Cubs pen now.

The Cubs also traded Scott Eyre, or as Lou Piniella affectionately referred to him as Stevie Ire. He languished on the bench under him before being traded to the Phillies and helping them win the World Series in 2008.

I won’t mention the minor leaguer the Cubs got back because you’ll never hear of him anyway.

A lefty in the pen is a valuable commodity, and while I wasn’t in love with him, he deserved a chance to prove he could do the job.

This year the Cubs started the year with one lefty in the pen in Neal Cotts, who had a career year with the White Sox in 2005. He’s back in the minors and will also be appearing in a future episode of In Plain Sight, because of Lou doesn’t like you, you disappear.

Too bad the GM isn’t smart enough to at least get something back in return for the players he lets go.

Three years ago when Hendry left the Cubs short on starting pitching in the 2006 season, he signed a couple of pitchers after the season to fill the void and one of them was Jason Marquis.

While Marquis really didn’t pitch that poorly if you consider him a fifth starter, Hendry way overpaid him giving him a $21 million dollar contract for three years.

Then when he only had one year left on his contract and could have been a valuable commodity, Hendry traded him for Luis Vizcaino.

Vizcaino was only given three innings to pitch with the bullpen poor Cubs before he was let go. He hasn’t pitched great, but he hasn’t been that bad either with the Indians.

Meanwhile the Cubs have nothing to show for the trade, and Marquis is one of the league leaders in wins with Colorado.

Jim Hendry was widely commended for picking up center fielders Reed Johnson and Jim Edmonds during the 2008 season as free agents. But why did Hendry have to pick up either one of them? Because he had almost no outfield depth, and his prize rookie Felix Pie failed to develop into a major league ballplayer as so many future phenoms fail in the Cubs farm system. I’ll get to that in the next chapter.

I don’t give credit when you fail at your job and have to desperately search the scrap heap to correct your mistakes. They both played very well and helped the team make the playoffs.

Johnson is still there, though he doesn’t play much because he doesn’t bat left handed, so he sits while the Japanese corkscrew continues trying to dig himself into the ground.

And finally, I’m going to blame Hendry for what he didn’t do. Before the 2008 season, all you heard was the name Brian Roberts and that he’s coming to the Cubs. You heard that practically all winter and until the trade deadline last year.

Hendry couldn’t manage to put together a deal to get that long sought after lead-off hitter with his former boss Andy MacPhail, who now toils for the Orioles.

Whether it was a lack of talent in the Cubs farm system, or Hendry’s reluctance to include certain players in the trade, it never happened.

Players rumored to be sought after by MacPhail included Rich Hill, Felix Pie, and Jose Ceda. Now, all of those players are gone and the best the Cubs have to show for it is Kevin Gregg, their new closer.

He refused to let any of them go last year, but in 2009, he practically gave them away. Would the Cubs have had a better chance in the playoffs last year with Roberts leading off instead of that albatross Soriano batting first?

Then this year he repeats it with the Jake Peavy watch. Again, supposedly he didn’t have the goods to make the trade and traded away a fan and team favorite in Mark DeRosa, allegedly to get more prospects to throw into the pot so he could complete the trade.

Why he even wanted Peavy is a mystery to me. The starting staff isn’t the problem. He still needed that lead-off hitter.

We all know that never happened and the worst possible scenario happened to the Cubs. Aramis Ramirez went down for at least two months with an injury and no adequate back-up to replace him. Wouldn’t DeRosa look really good if he was still with the team? I won’t mention he also has far more RBI than any current Cub player.

This is the end of Chapter 2, The Bad. Stay tuned for The Ugly, coming soon to a computer near you.

Cubs GM Jim Hendry: The Worst GM in Chicago: Part 1: The Good

Darrell Horwitz — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 17:42:13 -0400

Watching Nick Punto of the Twins bunt for a base hit with two outs to score a run in today’s Cub game exemplifies everything that is wrong with the Cubs and the way Cub GM Jim Hendry has constructed this team.

I’m not really directly comparing him to the other GM’s in Chicago, but with the money he has had to work with, I think he has done a horrible job of putting together a team, and building an organization.

From people that don’t really know baseball, I’m going to get the argument about how can I criticize someone whose teams have made the playoffs three times in the last six years, and consecutively for the first time in 100 years.

When making that argument, you have to take in consideration the competition in your division, what they have to work with, and how well he utilized what he had. You also have to look at what could he have done better, and that’s a really long list.

Since officially taking over the spot mid-2002, I’m going to go Clint Eastwood on him and rate the “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" on the moves he has made.

The bad and the ugly are so long, this is going to be a trilogy. Stay tuned in the near future for the next exciting episode of this continuing serial.

I’m also going to tell you why even some of his best moves were not really all that great. I’m not going to cover every single move he has made; just the ones that I think have the greatest significance.

THE GOOD

After Corey Patterson went down, he traded journeyman Jose Hernandez and touted prospect Bobby Hill for Aramis Ramirez and Kenny Lofton.

Lofton energized the team from the lead-off position and was one of the biggest reasons they made the playoffs in 2003.

Ramirez has been a God-send at the hot corner. He’s the first legitimate third sacker the Cubs have had since Bill Madlock, a player often forgotten when fans talk about past Cub third baseman.

Hernandez was what he was, and Hill, as the norm in the Cub organization, busted out.

On paper and in the field a great trade, but on behalf of the Pirates, it was a salary dump. They knew they wouldn’t be able to afford Ramirez in the future and were trying to salvage whatever they could out of the trade.

If everything were equal monetarily, Hendry would never have pulled off this heist. But he made the trade, so I’ll give him credit for it.

A similar deal involved acquiring Derrek Lee from the Marlins. The Cubs gave up another highly touted prospect in Hee Seop Choi for Lee. The Marlins were also doing their every four years or so salary dump.

Choi also failed like almost all position players the Cubs develop (I use that term loosely).

Lee has solidified first base for the Cubs for the past several years, though his power has dissipated in the past few years since he injured his wrist in a play at first with Rafael Furcal.

You could question if it’s the wrist or maybe something else. You know what I’m talking about. Nothing has ever been said about Lee and you know what, but in today’s game, anything is possible.

Also, he came from Pro Player’s Stadium in Florida that was a ‘Death Valley’ for sluggers, and he still averaged close to 27 homers with the fish. He had two fine seasons with the Cubs after coming over, including a career year in 2005 when he belted forty-six dingers.

But he has dropped off since, and you have to wonder.

It’s still another winner on Jim Hendry’s scorecard.

He also stole Mark Grudzielanek and Eric Karros from the Dodgers for the beleaguered Todd Hundley. They helped lead the Cubs to the playoffs in that 2003 season.

Yet again, this was a trade that was considered let me trade my garbage for your garbage. Grudzielanek and Karros weren’t garbage; just overpaid veterans the Dodgers were trying to dump.

Hundley was overpaid garbage.

Another winner for Hendry.

Last year after the Brewers secured C.C. Sabathia, Hendry countered by getting injury prone Rich Harden for some non-descript players. Harden has pitched very well for the Cubs and this was a nice move by him.

I also liked his trade for Nomar Garciaparra in 2004 at the trade deadline. The trade didn’t work out as planned, but it showed that Hendry was going for it and trying to do whatever he could to win that year.

He also picked up Matt Murton in that deal who I thought had some potential, but that potential was wasted when he ran into the impatient Lou Piniella, who never gave him a chance.

The only player of significance the Cubs gave up was Brendan Harris. He’s been an okay player, but nothing special.

I give Hendry an E for effort on this one.

Signing Ted Lilly as a free-agent while Hendry was in a hospital bed has proven to be a life-saver, no pun intended.

Lilly has arguably been the Cubs best pitcher since coming over.

Signing Mark DeRosa was another great move despite the criticism he received at the time when everybody said you signed who for how much. That included me.

While the versatile DeRosa turned out to be a great signing, I have a feeling we’re going to see his name again in a not so good category.

Ryan Dempster came off arm surgery when Hendry took a chance on him, and while he took a lot of criticism when he was the closer, you can’t argue with what he has done since he signed with the team, including winning 17 games last year. Good move.

Dumping the albatross Sammy Sosa, Hendry was able to secure minor leaguer Mike Fontenot in return who has been a good contributor for the team, though not quite so good this year. When do the Cubs ever get a minor league player in a trade that makes the big league roster and contributes? Fontenot has. That in itself is a miracle.

Being patient and waiting until Dusty Baker was available after the 2002 season was a great move by Hendry. He had led the Giants to the World Series in 2002.

Normally the Cubs settle for managers with training wheels.

Baker took the team to the brink of the World Series in 2003; just one game away. He soon fell out of favor and was informed he was no longer needed after the 2006 season.

It was not all his fault. In fact, most of the blame belongs to Hendry for the team he put on the field the last two years, but this is the good part of the trilogy, so excuse me for losing focus.

He also hired the grizzled veteran Lou Piniella to run the show after Baker. I thought it was a good choice at the time. Piniella led the Cubs to consecutive division titles for the first time in a hundred years.

Unfortunately he went on vacation during the playoffs and looked like he belonged in a nursing home or a homeless shelter with his disheveled look.

I’m not so sure if I’m too fond of him now as he keeps repeating he has no answers for the Cubs June swoon. I like my managers to have a solution. Even if he doesn’t have one, I don’t want to hear that he doesn’t know what to do.

Again I digress, but we’re at the end of Part 1 and heading to The Bad, so this is a perfect segue.

Look for Part 2 coming soon to a computer near you. It could be released Tuesday.

Chicago Cubs' Scouting Director Tim Wilken Opens Up About the Organization

Darrell Horwitz — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:34:52 -0400

With the Cubs selecting Brett Jackson from Cal with their first pick, I thought it might be interesting to read an interview I did with Tim Wilken of the Cubs during the winter.

When Tim Wilken joined the Cubs, it was considered a coup by Jim Hendry, as Wilken was considered one of the top scouts in the game.

With his title as Director of Amateur and Professional Scouting, he came over in January of 2006 to resurrect the Cub farm system with a steady stream of talent expected to make its way to the big league club.

At one point with Toronto, he had 12 consecutive first-round draft picks making a major-league roster. So far things are not quite as fruitful with the Cubs.

Darrell Horwitz: What are your responsibilities with the Chicago Cubs?

Tim Wilken: I coordinate from 20 to 25 amateur scouts in the United States and Puerto Rico. Once the draft is over, I turn my attention to professional scouting, which I coordinate with Randy Bush and Jim Hendry. We talk frequently about potential deals between May and the trade deadline.

DH: When Jim Hendry hired you, what did he tell you he was looking for you to add to the system?

TW: He was looking to add overall depth to the system. We were looking specifically adding depth to the everyday players because up until the last few years, it’s kind of been a void for 15 years with the concentration being on pitching.

DH: What are the differences in what you’re looking for early in the draft as compared to later rounds?

TW: Earlier, you’re looking for players with a higher ceiling. Later, getting to rounds five and beyond, you’re looking for players with average or slightly less than average type tools that you can hopefully make into an everyday player, or organizational depth being the type of player that can become part of the twenty-five man roster.

DH: Some players can have all of the tools in the world, like a Corey Patterson, but they never achieve what’s predicted for them. How can you tell if a player has what it takes to become a star ballplayer?

TW: Sometimes you’ll see a player that has tremendous physical attributes, but the part of the game that you’re looking for and what you’re alluding to; it doesn’t necessarily show up. You’re evaluating tools, but the player’s ability or lack of playing ability doesn’t always show in quick looks.

DH: In a Baseball Prospectus article that appeared in a Paul Sullivan column a while back, it said that the Cub farm system didn’t fare too well in their evaluation, and their quote was, “This is a weak system in which finding any future Cub stars requires a bit of dreaming.”

Also, when it came to trying to trade for CC Sabathia and for Jake Peavy, it was said by scouts of other teams that the Cubs didn’t have the players in their minor league system to pull off those deals. What’s your take on those statements?

TW: I’m a prideful person and I could say let them come and see the whole system. A lot of their evaluations are what they see statistically. Some things we can improve upon here.

We can get a higher ceiling type of player. I think our depth is as good as anyone at this point. I can’t answer for Baseball Prospectus or some unidentified scout that thinks he knows our system totally.

A lot of our depth and talent is at the ‘A’ level. I understand it’s not punch you in the face talent, but I think there’s a fair amount of major leaguers that once they mature, they’re going to say they had some pretty good players.

I say let’s check this thing out three years from now.

DH: Are there any players right now that you think are on the fast track to the major leagues?

TW: Everything’s been pretty steady here and I don’t know if there’s one player that’s going to be on the fast track. I think you’re going to see some pitchers that are going to move fairly quickly here.

I think pitchers have a tendency to move quicker than everyday players. I won’t say it’s a fast track; I think it’s going to be a steady track.

DH: Are there any pitchers we should be looking out for in the near future?

TW: You can look at our first pick last year, Andrew Cashner. He was a little wild when he started off, but in the Florida State League playoffs he was totally unhittable.

I also think Chris Carpenter, who was a third round pick in that same draft is going to move pretty quick, and Jay Jackson, our ninth round pick got out of the starting blocks very well last summer.

DH: How would you rate Tyler Colvin, who was your first pick with the Cubs, and Josh Vitters, and how they’re doing so far? (This interview was conducted before their minor league seasons began.)

TW: In Colvin’s case, he’s starting to walk a little bit more and get a little more patient at the plate. His outfield play has been good. He’s a good base runner and I think he’s got a chance to hit. I think he’s got a chance to be a big leaguer.

With Vitters, when he signed a couple of years ago in August, he wanted to play, and I think it was a detriment to him because he wasn’t ready to play. He had a bout with mono right after high school and did not play the next two months.

I think when he went out last August, some people said he didn’t do too well, but you have to remember he was a young seventeen. He turned around and went to the Northwest League last spring and swung the bat very well.

The thing I was really impressed with Josh was that his defensive play had improved immensely. I saw him play in the Dominican Republic this past winter and he played very well down there.

DH: The Cubs have not done very well the last two years in the playoffs. Is one of your jobs handling advance scouting involving teams you face in the playoffs?

TW: As we get closer to the playoffs, around two to three weeks before playoff time, we all get together and assign a certain amount of scouts to clubs we may be playing in the playoffs. We have different two and three man crews and they’re supposed to notice tendencies and things like that.

I’m just as disappointed and frustrated as most of the fans in Chicago. It’s something we’re going to keep trying to improve upon. We didn’t have any answers, but hopefully we’ll be able to improve ourselves in 2009.

DH: It seems like the other teams have been able to find all of the weaknesses in the Cubs' hitters, and it didn’t seem to be that way the other way around.

TW: I don’t know if it’s so much that their scouts found it as it’s we just didn’t hit the ground running in either of those playoffs. There’s no excuses there.

There are books that each club builds on each particular player and the organizations that they may face. It’s a matter of executing pitches, executing as a hitter, and we didn’t do that. They pitched our hitter’s right, and we didn’t do the job.

I don’t know that one scouting department out did another one; I just think it’s a case that we didn’t perform. We will get better at it, and that’s the only way I can retort to that question.

Five Players To Start an NBA Team

Darrell Horwitz — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 19:20:06 -0400

Watching Derrick Rose dominate the Boston Celtics in his first career playoff game got me to thinking: Is Rose the best player on either team in this series?

There’s really no one on the Bulls to compare. Yet when you look at the Celtics and Paul Pierce with Ray Allen, perennial All-Stars, you have to question whether I’m completely out of my mind.

But am I?

Was either player anywhere near as good as Rose as a rookie? He’s also the team leader and that’s a lot to put on the shoulders of a 20-year-old kid just two years removed from high school at this point of the season.

I’m not mentioning Kevin Garnett, since he’s not supposed to be playing in this series—but I think I might still go there with this argument even if he were.

When their careers are over, which player is going to be looked at as the best player?

It’s a little early for the vote, but I live in Chicago. If we’re going to hold an election, I think it’s going to be a slam-dunk for Rose.

Of course, our saying here in town is, "vote early and vote often." Also, being dead does not preclude you from voting, at least not in the city of big shoulders and bigger pinkie rings.

The thought of how good Rose is compared to the Celtic greats got me to thinking how good Rose is compared to his peers in the league.

If you were an NBA general manager and were going to start a team today, who would be your first pick?

For the sake of argument, let’s rule out anyone currently over 30. If you saw the movie “Wild in the Streets” many years ago, you would know that’s the magic age for the older generation.

That rules out Kobe. I know he would have been in your fave five.

But who would your top five picks be right now?

Let me tell you a couple of guys who are not going to make the list.

Dwayne Wade is a great player. He had an incredible comeback this year, averaging 30.2 points per game and leading the Miami Heat into the playoffs. He’s already led his team to a championship.

I have to be crazy, but I’m really sly as a fox. Because even though he’s only 27, he’s an old 27.

He’s had a lot of wear and tear on his body. I want the players I’m picking to be around a long time and I don’t know how long he’s going to be able to sustain his level of play.

I love Brandon Roy and would have been thrilled had the Bulls selected him a few years back. He’s really good. If I were doing a top ten list, he would be in it. But he doesn’t quite make top five.

There are other great players like Carmelo Anthony and Dirk Nowitzki and a few others that I’m probably forgetting, but they’re not on the list either.

Another player that might be there if this were the top ten is Deron Williams of Utah. A terrific leader and a good shooter, but he's not top-five material.

Now that I’ve teased you enough, let’s get to the list.

No. 5—Dwight Howard

He’s a beast. There really isn’t anybody in the league that can match up with him physically, athletically.

He dominates the paint, hordes the boards, and swats away that stuff you’re putting up there if you’re anywhere near his area code. He’s only 23 and is going to get better.

But he doesn’t have a great game if you can keep him away from the basket. He also needs someone to get him the ball on the offensive end of the court.

His biggest weakness is...well, just grab him once he gets the ball and put him on the stripe. It looks like one of those rigged baskets at a carnival the way he can’t get the ball in the cylinder.

No. 4—Chris Paul

Though he's barely six—feet—tall, he elevates his team to much greater heights. The Hornets were the second seed last year in the West! You have to be kidding.

They’ve dropped a bit this year, but what can you say about a guy who averages 19.4 points, almost 10 assists, and close to five rebounds a game?

He’s how tall?

I know I want him on my team. He might be a bit higher if he were a bit higher.

No. 3—Kevin Durant

Is this a basketball player or a praying mantis? He’s only 6’9” but, with a wingspan of a seven-footer, he could play anywhere on the court.

He shoots three-pointers, goes to the hole, brings the ball up the court, and can dish off to an open teammate. His game improved tremendously when the Thunder replaced P.J. Carlesimo with Scott Brooks, who opened up the offense to take advantage of his other-worldly skills.

He can do everything but a pull-up.

He’s a 30-point a night player waiting to happen and he’s only 20 years old. His career average is already 22.7 points a game.

Can you believe that Portland took Greg Oden over him? I’m sure they can’t believe it, but they like picking bust centers over superstars.

That’s why Chicago won six championships with Michael Jordan while they selected Sam Bowie ahead of him.

No. 2—Derrick Rose

Is this too high? I don’t think so.

This kid is a winner. He’s won everywhere he’s played, from two state championships in high school, runner-up in his only year in college, and now leading a rag-tag bunch of misfits into the playoffs with the Bulls.

He might even lead them to a series win over the Celtics, especially if he attacks the basket the way he did in the first game.

He’s a better outside shooter than advertised and has a lightning quick first step that makes you stay back—dare he break your legs on a crossover like he did to Andre Miller of the Sixers earlier this year.

He’s quiet, but he’s a leader. He deferred at times to his older teammates this year, but this rook is not a rookie anymore. He now tells the vets where they need to be on the court.

He takes over the game when he sees that nobody else is doing anything and can do it almost anytime he wants. As his confidence grows, that’s going to become a daily thing.

He still needs to work on his defense and his shot also could get better. But you know that he’s going to work on those things. What are now perceived weaknesses will someday be strengths.

He’s also going to start getting the calls from the refs that he didn’t get this year. Once that happens, everybody will be breaking out into song.

“There’s no stopping me now.”

No. 1—LeBron James

Was there ever any doubt?

He’s built like an NFL tight end with corner back speed. Without a hand-check rule in the NBA, how can anybody stop him?

Even with it, they’d probably break their hand trying. From shooting threes or attacking the rim to threading a pass to a teammate, there is nothing this superman can not do on the court.

He’s going to lead his team to a championship, maybe even this year. With an inferior team in only his fourth season in the league, he brought the Cavs to the Finals only to come up short.

That’s the only way he ever came up short. He was already a man when he came out of high school. He looks like he could pose for the cover of Men's Health Magazine, if he hasn’t already.

The only thing that could hold him back is if he really is as old as he looks. I’d guess he's late 30s or maybe early 40s, kind of like Greg Oden. I don’t know which one looks older, but I do know which one is the far superior player.

That’s my list and as always in this type of story, people are going to disagree.

I encourage your participation. Let me know: Am I right or wrong?

Give me your fave five, and let’s start the debate.

When Is a Strike a Strike or The Saga of Milton Bradley

Darrell Horwitz — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 15:47:13 -0400

Milton Bradley of the Chicago Cubs was ejected from a game the other day for arguing balls and strikes. The volatile Bradley was also handed down a two game suspension for making incidental contact with the umpire while arguing the call.

He was of course thrown out for saying the magic word or words that you’re not allowed to say to an umpire or on the radio, unless you want the FCC to come down on you.

I didn’t even notice the contact, and the only way you can really even see it is with a DVR and going in slow motion.

I’m not here to debate whether the pitch was a ball or a strike, or whether Bradley deserved the suspension. I’m here to debate if it should even have come down to this.

It’s a known fact that every umpire has his own strike zone, based on his interpretation of what is a strike. All a player asks for is for the umpire to be consistent.

I don’t buy that.

I don’t care if an umpire is consistent, if he’s consistently calling pitches that should be a ball a strike. That affects the whole game for both teams, because the hitters have to adjust to each umpire’s individual strike zone.

Therefore, every day there is a different strike zone.

How do you adjust if the umpire is giving the pitcher six inches off the plate like Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine lived on throughout their careers?

You can’t adjust because those pitches are unhittable and that’s why both of them will be first ballot Hall of Famers.

The strike zone is supposed to be from the knees to the letters or armpits, and across the diameter of the plate. Unfortunately that strike zone has not been in effect for many year.

When do you see a letter high pitch called a strike, even if it cuts the plate in two?

The announcers question the pitch saying it’s high, and how can you call that pitch a strike. But it is a strike, and I think it’s time major league baseball started enforcing the real strike zone.

In 2001, they made an attempt to do just that with the advent of QuesTec, a system that has cameras in various spots around the ballpark and judges how umpires call pitches based on the results of viewing their calls.

The umpires did not like this system, and did not like being judged on how they did their job.

Of course, none of us are ever judged on that. We are never evaluated by our bosses.

Give me a break.

The technology for QuesTec. was not available in all ballparks, but in a sampling of nine parks around baseball.

The suspicion raised among players and fans was that games were called differently in parks with QuesTec.

The umpires were hoping to get a high grade on their test results.

Over time, it became clear that QuesTec accomplished its goal of narrowing the strike zone closer to the width of the plate, and allowing for lower and higher strikes to be called as baseball rules require.

In 2009, a new system is in place called Zone Evaluation. It relies on data already collected from cameras in all thirty parks that track pitches for MLB.

According to Mike Port, baseball’s vice president of umpiring, it will more accurately evaluate an umpires’ performance.

But why do we even need the human element, when it seems a system is in place that can do the job better and eliminate the subjective strike zone of each individual umpire?

Also, when is a strike a strike?

Is it when it crosses the plate, or is it when the catcher receives the ball?

According to the rules and Bob Brenly, current Cub color analyst and a major league catcher for many years, it’s when the ball crosses the plate.

But if that’s the case, why does the catcher frame the pitch so the umpire can make the call? Shouldn’t it already be too late, based on that theory, to judge if it’s a ball or strike?

How many times does the ball cross the plate a strike, but ends up in the dirt when the catcher retrieves the ball? Do you even see that pitch called a strike?

The batter would go even crazier than the certified loon Bradley if that were the case.

Let’s eliminate this part of the game that can be so easily corrected.

I’m not saying get rid of the home plate umpire. I’m just saying let him just call plays at the plate and not balls and strikes.

You’re not allowed to argue balls and strikes and a manager is automatically ejected if he does. A player usually gets a little more latitude, but if they step over the line like Bradley did the other day, they’re going to be ejected.

If you eliminate umpires calling balls and strikes, you also eliminate players and managers arguing about the calls.

You can’t argue with a robot, or an inhuman device.

To sum up, a strike should be a strike no matter who is umpiring that particular day. It should not be subjective.

The Curse Of The Chicago Cubs

Darrell Horwitz — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 19:11:36 -0400

Screaming from the headlines in Chicago on Monday morning, opening day for the beloved Cubs, was word of a dead goat hung from the Harry Caray statue outside Wrigley Field.

It’s a replay of what also happened in 2007.

Last year, before the playoffs started, Cub chairman Crane Kenney had a Greek orthodox priest sprinkle holy water in the dugout.

What’s with all of this superstition?

Are the Cubs cursed?

The curse allegedly started on October 6, 1945 when William Sianis brought his billy goat named Murphy with him and tried to bring him into the ballpark. The Cubs were leading the series at the time two games to one.

After being refused admission, he put a curse on the Cubs saying that they would never play in the World Series again.

It must have been one helluva curse because the Cubs have never returned to the fall classic.

In 1969, the Cubs best chance up to that time to break the curse, the Cubs were sailing along with a nine and a half game lead on August 13.

The Cubs started faltering, the New York Mets got hot, and on September 9, a black cat scurried around Ron Santo in the on deck circle before finally retreating from the field.

The Cubs also retreated as the Mets left them in the dust on their way to winning the World Series.

In 1984, the Cubs were up 2-0 on the San Diego Padres and were just one victory away from reaching the series.

The Cubs dropped the next two, and with Cy Young award winner Rick Sutcliffe pitching the decisive game, and leading 3-0 entering the sixth inning, the Cubs again fell apart.

Cub first baseman Leon Durham had supposedly spilled some Gatorade on his glove before the game, and the sticky substance hindered him fielding a ball that went between his legs and left Cub fans in the wake once again.

There were a few other playoff appearances in between, but the Cubs were overmatched both times.

Then came 2003 and the infamous Steve Bartman game, where he reached out trying to catch a foul ball and interfered with Moises Alou trying to secure the second out in the eighth inning with the Cubs leading 3-0.

We all know what happened next so I’ll spare you the details.

So, are the Cubs really cursed, or are they just cursed by really bad ownership and management throughout the years?

William Wrigley was a great owner and a big baseball fan, and while the Cubs were under his reign, they were constantly in the running for all the marbles.

He passed in 1932 and his son Phil Wrigley took over.

As is often the case, a dynamic leader with vision is often cursed with offspring that fall far from the family tree.

That was Phil Wrigley.

In perhaps his biggest error of which there were many, he left the Cubs as the only team without lights in Major League Baseball during his tenure.

There were plans at one time to install lights, but during World War II, he decided to donate them to the war effort and left the Cubs in the dark.

Playing all day games was definitely a detriment to the team, especially in the dog days of summer in Chicago.

That could be a reason why the Cubs have failed miserably for so many years.

Finally in 1988, under the Tribune Company, the team installed lights, bringing the Cubs into the 21^st Century.

But just like Phil Wrigley, who viewed the team as an amusement, the Tribune Company had similar ideas, at least when it came to winning.

They initially hired Dallas Green to run the show and he appeared to have them on the right track, until he was fired and former Cub manager Jim Frey was pulled out of the announcing booth to take over his duties.

That was a big mistake as he ruined the team for years, though they did make the playoffs in 1989.

One inept GM after another came in to run the team until the Cubs brought in Andy MacPhail, a third generation baseball man who had helped lead the Minnesota Twins to two world titles.

But alas, he caught the same disease as everyone else and forgot how to put together a team. I won’t mention how cheap he was with the purse strings.

The Tribune viewed the Cubs as a business, and if you want to view their tenure in that way, they were a huge success.

But on the field, they were generally as abysmal as ever.

A new owner is waiting to take over the team from interim czar Sam Zell, who acquired them along with the newspaper and other holdings.

Tom Ricketts is his name, and he’s still gathering the funds together to put the finishing touches on the deal. The timing of the turnover keeps on getting delayed and is now pushed back to May or later.

Nobody knows what kind of owner he will be, but he grew up a Cub fan and met his wife in the bleachers at Wrigley Field.

The Cubs are currently in their 101^st year of ineptitude, and while they have made the playoffs the last two years, they went down without a fight both times to further the suffering of their loyal fans who will not accept anything less than winning the World Series.

So to answer the question, are the Cubs cursed or cursed by bad management; it’s kind of a little of both.

They’ve definitely had bad luck throughout the years, but they’ve also brought a lot of that bad luck on themselves.

So I’m going to leave it up to you to decide if the Cubs are really cursed or not.

But in the meantime, the next time they want to hang something on Harry Caray’s statue to break the curse, I’m suggesting they string up current Billy Goat restaurant owner Sam Sianis.

He was at a party before the season started to supposedly again take off the curse. He had this wry smile on his face.

I took it as look at these suckers buying into this, as his cash register continues to go cha-ching, cha ching, at the expense of the Cub faithful.

Talking with Former Cub and Current Cincinnati Reds Manager Dusty Baker

Darrell Horwitz — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 16:05:44 -0400

You say the name Dusty Baker in Chicago, and you’re bound to get a reaction...and it’s probably not going to be a good one.

Yet he had the Cubs just five outs away from the World Series, while Lou Piniella has yet to win one postseason game. Under his regime, Wrigley Field changed from a place to soak in the sun and sop up the beer to a place that fans expected the team to win.

He’s the one that brought those expectations, yet he is loathed in this town. In this interview, he answers the question if he felt he was mistreated by the Chicago media, who was the toughest player he ever managed, and if Steve Bartman really was the blame for the Cubs losing in 2003. He also gives us a little insight into the Cincinnati Reds organization.

Darrell Horwitz: Last year was your first with the Cincinnati Reds. How would you access your first year managing them?

Dusty Baker: It was a learning year. I had to learn the organization and I had to learn the players. There were some players that I knew, and some players that I didn’t know much about. You have to learn the scouts, you have to learn the coaches, and you have to learn everybody in the organization. We’re building this organization and we have some fine young players coming up, and we’re trying to acquire some players to fit in and make us better, and fill in the missing pieces.

DH: You mentioned you have some good young players. One of the criticisms when you were with the Cubs was that you didn’t want to play young players. Do you think the progress of the young players you had with Cincinnati last year disputes that statement, and if you have quality young players, you have no problem playing them?

DB: That’s something that I don’t know where it came from because the Cubs aren’t playing young players now. The time I was there, that’s all I did play basically. You see Matt Murton, he’s not there, Ronny Cedeno, he was playing everyday. Theriot was platooning at that time with Freddie Bynum to see who was going to be better to keep.

If I’ve got young players with talent, and I feel they’re ready to play in the big leagues, I’m not afraid to play anybody. The players I have now are quality young players like Joey Votto, Cueto, Edison Volquez Jay Bruce, and Edwin Encarnacion. We have other fine young players coming up in our system. You don’t want to rush them because you want them to prosper when they get there. You want them to be successful so you don’t ruin them.

If we feel they’re ready to play at the big league level, and we feel they have the mental capacity and aptitude to handle failure, that’s the big thing about being in the big leagues is how do you handle failure, because everybody can handle success.

DH: When you first came to the Cubs in 2003, the team had lost 95 games the previous season. You made a statement saying “My name is Dusty, not messiah,” yet you took this team to five outs away from the World Series. How do you think you accomplished such a turnaround that year?

DB: We didn’t really take off until we made the blockbuster trade when we acquired Kenny Lofton, Aramis Ramirez, and Randall Simon. Those three players really put us on the map. Aramis is still there and he is a perennial All-Star. Kenny Lofton was a big-time winner, and I think those three players really made a big difference for us down the stretch because prior to that, we were a .500 team.

We were trying to finish .500 because this was a team that had lost 95 games, but once you start winning, it becomes contagious, the power of belief flows through your clubhouse and the guys feel a lot better about themselves when you start winning. That year it took 88 victories to win, when most years it going to take from 90 to 95 to have a chance to get into the playoffs.

DH: Do you think you changed the mindset of the team where they started to expect to win when you came here?

DB: I expect to win all the time, but it takes personnel, and I don’t care what kind of coach you are, you have to have the horses in order to win. You can have the horses sometimes, but if things don’t work out right or if things aren’t together, you’re still not going to win, but it certainly increases your chances when you have the horses to win.

DH: In 2003, things were going great in the playoffs, and then all of a sudden Steve Bartman touched that ball and it seemed to take the teams’ momentum away. What kind of effect did you think that had?

DB: I can’t really blame Bartman that much. We still had opportunities to win that game. There were a couple of plays that we didn’t make at that time. And we still had Game Seven where we had the lead and we lost it and got it back. Bartman might have been part of it; that was big, that would have been a big second out. It wouldn’t have ended the inning, but it certainly would have helped stop the rally before you had the other guys coming up.

DH: After that play happened, everybody seemed to get upset. Alou was very angry and Prior got upset on the mound. Looking back, do you think maybe you should have gone out to the mound to talk to Prior to settle him down?

DB: Everyone’s looking for clues when you haven’t won for a long time. Most of the time when a manager goes out there, you’re going to take the pitcher out. I do believe Larry Rothschild went out there. Most of the time, the pitching coach goes out there. That’s something in the past. You can’t bring it back. It’s good talk around the table, its good talk on the radio, but let’s go forward.

DH: Do you think you were treated fairly by the media in Chicago?

DB: Probably not, but what’s treated fairly? It’s over, it’s in the past, but there were things done and said that didn’t appear necessary. You’ve got to criticize somebody, and it seemed like I was that guy.

When you’re the chosen one for criticism, it’s going to pile on because that’s human nature. People want to blame someone and it usually starts at the top. I learned a lot through that experience. There was some pain and there were some scars, but I’m a lot stronger because of it, and it’s going to help me deal with anything that may come my way in the future.

DH: It seemed the last two years you were here, you didn’t have very good players to work with, yet you received all of the blame for the way the teams performed. Do you think Jim Hendry should have shouldered some of the blame and that he got a pass?

DB: I don’t know if he was allowed to get me good players. I don’t know if Jim was allowed to spend. Everybody’s got a boss, and everybody’s got to serve somebody, but it appears like the last couple of years they opened up the pocketbook to spend, and for whatever reason when I was there the last two years we didn’t.

The third year we had a lot of injuries, but that last year here, we had a lot of guys that aren’t even in baseball anymore. They have certainly opened up the pocketbooks the last couple of years to try to win.

DH: Does it bother you that they spent all that money when Lou Piniella came in, and they didn’t do that for you?

DB: Not really. Teams tend to do that. I’ve seen it happen a number of times. I saw it happen to Joe Torre when he left the St. Louis Cardinals. You wish they did, but you can’t waste time trying to figure it out. I definitely gave all I had to Chicago. I wanted to be ‘that guy’ to win, but it didn’t happen and it’s probably one of the few disappointments in my life.

DH: You’ve managed a long time. Who would you say was the toughest player you ever had to manage?

DB: The toughest and the easiest was probably the same person. It’s probably Barry Bonds. He’s a thoroughbred and thoroughbreds are tough, but you enjoy it once the race starts and they start running. Barry was a little tough to figure out in the beginning; things got better in the middle and the end, and he was also the easiest guy to manage because all you had to do was put his name in the lineup and you knew he was going to produce and play. We had some good times and we had some tough times, but Barry Bonds made it a whole lot easier for me to manage just like most superstars do.

DH: How would you compare managing Sammy Sosa to managing Bonds?

DB: They were different. I had Sammy Sosa on the decline. I had Barry Bonds on the incline. It’s always tough when you have a player on the decline because a player still sees himself at the peak of his career, and it’s always tough when your production goes down and when he realizes he might be losing something.

I remember talking to Tony LaRussa a long time ago and he said one of the toughest things to do as a manager is to deal with a star that’s falling. It would have been a whole lot easier if I had been there five, six years prior to that when Sammy Sosa was hitting forty, fifty, or sixty homers. I didn’t have any real problems with Sammy. At the end, there was a couple of misunderstandings but those things happen.

DH: If there was anything you could have changed in Chicago while you were there, what would it be?

DB: Probably to have more influence on the organization my last few years there to reload big time. The toughest thing was probably losing Sammy Sosa and Moises Alou at the same time and trying to replace the production. I probably would have been more assertive in helping to reload and adding reinforcements to what we already had.

DH: You mentioned you received a lot of racist mail in Chicago. Do you think the fact that you were Afro-American had anything to do with the way you were treated in Chicago?

DB: Most hate mail is racial mail. Nobody wanted to hear it, and when I did say something about it, I remember one writer said I was making it up to get sympathy or something. I said I didn’t bring it up, I was asked a question. Again, it makes you stronger.

I remember when Hank Aaron showed me his and I thought that was the worst thing in the world, and then you get yours and here we go full circle again in life. Most of the world is beautiful, but there’s still some ugliness out there. You have to say, this is how it is, you deal with it, and you try to treat everybody as fairly as possible and you try not to hold grudges.

DH: How much longer do you plan on managing, and what goals do you still want to achieve?

DB: I need a championship or two before I retire. I was talking to George Seifert a couple of years ago in a duck blind, and the late Bill Walsh, and they told me don’t be in a hurry to make a decision on a deadline at the end because it’s going to get there soon enough.

When I talked to George, he thought he might have retired a little too soon at the time. It weighs between being away from family, because I was gone seven months last year, and they were probably with me about three or three and half months of that time. The first time I had done that was in Chicago, and now the second time in Cincinnati. It weighs between making a living and how much you enjoy what you’re doing, which is quite a bit. I’ll be 60 this year, and I’m really not sure, but somewhere between now and 65 the way I look at it because then my son will be 14, and I feel I probably need to be home at that time, or at least part of the time.

I’m going to take it a year at a time. I’m enjoying helping build this organization with Walt Jocketty, and I want to see some of the fruits of our work before I retire.

Baseball, Wrigley Field, and the Cubs: Need I Say More?

Darrell Horwitz — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 20:11:34 -0400

Posing the question about the greatest sports month of the year is right up my alley. It's such an easy question to answer for me, so I'm going to make you sweat it out a bit before I tell you.

The Pro Football season starts in September, but I live in Chicago and I'm a Bear fan, so why would that be my favorite month? Watching an offense for most of my life that would make paint drying seem exciting doesn't get my blood boiling for the start of Fall.

Of course, the Bears just ruined that previous statement I made by doing the unthinkable, actually acquiring a real, honest-to-goodness NFL quarterback. I'm actually looking forward to the Bears this year, and I can't believe it.

I've always been jealous of other cities watching their teams play and saying, "Why can't we have a quarterback like that?" By golly, now we do.

The playoff races heat up in September in baseball, but I'm a Cub fan. So they'll either have it wrapped up without much drama, or they will have broken my heart again. Besides, nothing matters until October anyway.

October, what a month. I was born in October. The World Series is played in October. Funny, I've never seen the Cubs play in it. October is not my favorite sports month.

Our winter sports start in November with both the NBA and the NHL getting in the swing of things. But it's early, and I still haven't rediscovered hockey yet.

I've acknowledged that the Blackhawks do exist again, but I haven't given them much time since the reign of the mighty dictator "Dollar" Bill Wirtz.

The Bulls are relevant again with Derrick Rose; just not very good yet. Besides, as a Bulls fan from the '90s, the season doesn't start until June anyway, because that's when we hoist the trophy.

I won't be doing that this June, so that's not my favorite month either.

I live in Chicago, so December, January, and February are automatically out. Do you have any idea what our winters are like? You don't want to know.

So what do we have left? It looks like March, April, May, and June.

March is out because like I said before, I live in Chicago, and the weather still sucks in March.

July only has baseball going on, so even though I love baseball, the answer can't be July.

May has the basketball and hockey playoffs, along with baseball getting into full swing. It's a good month, but not the best month.

April may have the playoffs and the Masters, but that's not what makes it my favorite sport month.

I do like the NFL draft. There's a picture of me in my high school yearbook listening to a transistor radio. Yes, I am that old. I was listening to the NFL draft.

The draft is about hope. Drafting future stars so that February could become relevant. Of course with the Bears, that never pans out, but like I mentioned earlier, they shocked me with Cutler, so who knows?

April is about dreams, and that means baseball is back after a long, miserable winter of snow, ice, cold, bristling winds whipping off the lake, driving in slush, and scraping the snow and ice off of your car so you can see out the window to drive.

Did I mention I hated winter?

Baseball is back and as a fan of the North Side team, the Chicago Cubs, hope springs eternal. The Cubs have not lost a game yet. They can still fulfill my boyhood dream of winning the World Series.

Of course, it's been a long time since I've been a boy, but I become one every April on Opening Day when the umpire says, "Play ball."

I'm running home from school to catch the end of the game, listening to Jack Brickhouse hype up the team, even though they rarely warranted it.

"Hey Hey" was the popular refrain as Ernie Banks belted another home run. He was my favorite player.

Walking up the steps at Wrigley always brings a thrill to me like the first time I did it, seeing the green grass and beautiful baseball diamond, looking at the ancient scoreboard and the ivy.

Okay, the ivy hasn't grown in yet, but it will. It always comes back, and so do I, despite all the pain I have suffered throughout the years.

I am a boy again, and life is just starting. All my hopes and dreams are still there. They haven't been dashed or stomped on yet. There is eternal hope, and that's what baseball and the Cubs are about, and that's why April is my favorite month.

Without Derrick Rose, Would the Chicago Bulls Even Be in the NBA Playoff Hunt?

Darrell Horwitz — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 17:58:41 -0400

As the season winds down and the playoffs approach, it’s a good time to look back on the Chicago Bulls season and judge whether this has been a successful year.

The first thing to look at is whether it’s even worth it to make the playoffs. Currently, the seventh seed in the Eastern Conference, the Bulls would be facing the Orlando Magic and Dwight Howard.

This is not a good match-up for the Bulls, as they have no one who can effectively guard “Superman.”

The alternatives are not any better: the Cleveland Cavaliers and LeBron James, or the defending champion Boston Celtics, with three possible Hall of Famers.

The question can be asked is it better to miss the playoffs and try to get lucky in the draft lottery?

The Bulls certainly did last year. In fact, had they not lucked out and ended up with the No. 1 pick and Derrick Rose, you could argue they might be the worst team in the league this year. They certainly wouldn’t be competing for the playoffs.

Can a miracle happen two years in a row and allow the Bulls to draft Blake Griffin if they fall out of the playoffs?

While I won’t say they have a lock on a playoff spot right now, they would really have to implode, and a mediocre team would have to exceed expectations and rise up to grab the spot.

Were they to miss out on the playoffs, could they tempt fate one more time and end up with the first pick again?

Not likely unless the NBA decides they need a marquee franchise in Chicago and fix the lottery like they did in 1985 for the New York Knicks, allowing them to draft Patrick Ewing with the first pick.

With our look into the future over, how did this Bulls team perform this year? Were they underachievers, or exactly where they should be?

They hired a rookie coach in Vinny Del Negro after their meddling owner Jerry Reinsdorf messed up the Mike D’Antoni signing. Vinny has been learning on the job, and it shows.

There was a time where he kept Rose on the bench in crucial fourth-quarter situations for five straight games, retarding the progress of the player who is going to lead your team if you ever aspire to play in June again.

The best player on the team was supposed to be Luol Deng, but he’s been injured much of the year and has seemed out of sorts when he has played.

He sure looks like a waste of $71 million, the contract he signed before the season. He’s gotten worse instead of better.

The same can be said for Kirk Hinrich, who gave up his starters’ role as the point guard for Rose. A few years back, I thought he was the best white non-European player in the league.

I know that’s like saying you’re the best looking pig at a beauty contest for pigs, but he’s been a big disappointment the last few years. He’s done all right in a reserve role and that’s probably where he belongs.

Ben Gordon’s probably the best sixth man in the league, though he doesn’t relish that role and has been starting most of the season.

He’s instant offense off the bench and a helluva shooter, even if you’re swearing at times when he lets the ball go until it swishes through the basket. Of course, that’s all he can do as his defense and ball-handling skills kill the team at times.

Tyrus Thomas is an enigma. He has so much athletic skill that Reggie Miller on a TNT broadcast this year said he should average a triple double, and he’s counting blocked shots rather than assists.

While that’s a bit of an exaggeration, since nobody in league history has ever come close to averaging 10 a game, I can understand his excitement when you see some of the things he can do.

He’s improving and has had several double-doubles this year, and maybe one day will not cause the Bulls embarrassment about that draft day trade where they sent LaMarcus Aldridge to Portland.

Joakim Noah has become what he was supposed to be, an "Energizer bunny" type of player who rebounds and block shots running the floor and occasionally putting the ball in the hole.

The real improvement in this team came with the near deadline trade where the Bulls received John Salmons and Brad Miller.

Salmons has been everything Luol Deng was supposed to be, averaging over 20 points a game since coming to the Bulls and playing solid defense. He can play both shooting guard and small forward, and he might end up at the guard position once Deng is healthy.

Miller is a solid back-up who is a good passer and plays smart. He’s the type of player who is not a game-changer, but he makes the team better.

The other players on the team don’t matter, so I won’t mention them.

I will be surprised if the Bulls win one game in the playoffs. If they do, I would consider this a successful season.

They’re far away from being an elite team and unless they can find another star to team with Rose, they won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.

When they do, Vinny won’t be coaching them.

The worst thing you can be is a middle of the road team that always makes the playoffs, but never has a chance to get past the second round.

So to answer the question I asked earlier, the Bulls should be better than they are. If they had the right coach who was able to get the most out of everybody, they would be.

The Day The Grinch Stole Baseball

Darrell Horwitz — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 09:06:51 -0500

With The Yankees signing of Mark Teixeira for $180 million for eight years, they completed their Christmas shopping spree. Are there any toys or trinkets left for anybody else? If you have all of the toys, is there anyone else left to play with?

Teixeira follows the dynamic pitching duo of C. C. Sabathia and A.J. Burnett coming into the fold for the Bronx Bombers. It’s almost like being a kid on Christmas morning, unwrapping the gifts and getting every toy you could have imagined, and some you didn’t, under the tree. Of course it helps if your daddy is Donald Trump, or in this case, a Steinbrenner.

But what’s left for the other kids out there? All their stockings contained were lumps of coal.

Of course spending money doesn’t guarantee that you will win the World Series, as the Yankees have proven since 2000, the last glory year for the team that considers the championship as their birthright. But it sure gives you a lot better chance.

After an unfathomable year sitting at home watching the playoffs on the tube, the Yankees spent $423.5 million on just three players, and will be paying $152.1 million for just nine players next year. That may be more than any other team spends for the requisite twenty-five players.

And who said they’re done yet. The irrepressible Manny Ramirez is still out there, and if nothing else, he’s a winner, and that’s what the Yankees need most of all. There is also talk they may be making an offer to Derek Lowe, adding another starter to a bankrupt pitching staff.

I’m not a fan of the Yankees, and I wouldn’t really care about their careless spending, except for how it impacts fans of other teams and the fans themselves.

If you’re a fan of the Royals or the Pirates, what hope is there? It used to be that every year was another season, and that everybody started out 0-0. That’s not the case anymore. Some teams know before the season starts that they don’t even have a prayer of making the playoffs, let alone winning it all.

Year after year, their fans have the feeling of hopelessness. It’s not fun watching your team when they’re out of the race at the start of May. I should know. I’m a fan of the Cubs.

Of course, every so often comes a Tampa Bay Rays out of nowhere. But isn’t there run short term? What happens when their players are no longer under the teams’ control, and can opt for free-agency?

Actually, with arbitration, it won’t even take that long before they’re priced out of the market and the Yankees swoop in, replenishing their roster, thanks to their counterparts that are really more like glorified farm teams, feeding the boss hog.

Major League Baseball parallels our society that is based on capitalism. It’s great for the rich, but for the little guy that can’t compete, it’s a failed system. And nobody is on an even playing field with the Yankees, even the richer teams like the Red Sox, Angels, Dodgers, Mets, and Cubs.

Isn’t the socialist NFL a much better system for parity, a word so many people hate? They share the network money equally and everybody has a chance, from the big cities to the small-town burgs like Green Bay.

Is there any reason that a player needs to make $22.5 million dollars a year like Teixara’s contract averages out to? Couldn’t he live comfortably on half of that or even a quarter of it?

Does his family have to live like kings for the next several generations just because he can play a sport well? He’s not even that good. He may be by today’s standards, but I don’t think anyone pays the big bucks to go to a game to watch Mark Teixeira.

The real issue and this is what the player’s union completely backs is getting every last dollar you can out of a team so you can raise salary expectations for your brethren. The more you make, the more every body else makes too. At least that’s the theory.

With today’s economic situation, the mid and lower range players probably aren’t going to make as much money.

But who cares about the players? I certainly don’t, because they don’t care about me. They’re very rarely loyal to any team, and seldom take a home town discount, and when they do, the union comes down on them for the above mentioned reasons.

Top ticket prices at new Yankee Stadium are $2,500 a seat per game. That’s for one game and doesn’t include taking a friend with you. But I do think they give you popcorn with it. I sure hope the butter is free.

How can a family go to a baseball game anymore? Baseball used to be the most affordable athletic activity to enjoy with your family.

I remember as a kid going to the bleachers at Wrigley Field and getting in for less than a buck. Today it’s going to cost you over forty bucks, and that’s if you’re lucky enough to be able to buy a ticket for face value and not have to see a scalper or StubHub for a ducat.

Do I need to get a home equity line of credit to see a baseball game today in person? Will the owners of the best seats be faceless corporations that are still able to afford to buy tickets, maybe using our bailout money?

It’s not right and I don’t care about the player’s right to earn what the market bears. Because while so few are benefiting, so many are feeling the pain.

A young boy may no longer experience going to a ballgame with his dad to watch the game; an experience passed on from generation to generation.

The greed of the players and the owners is reprehensible.

The player’s union will not allow a salary cap to slow down the process. Baseball is the only sport without one. They don’t care about anyone but themselves.

If they were in charge and had to take the risks that go along with guaranteed contracts, would they be paying out this kind of money? I don’t think so. For them, it’s no risk and all reward.

But I don’t think the owners should reap all of the rewards either, despite the fact that they are the only ones with something to lose.

Without fans to go to the games, everybody loses…both the owners and the players.

I would say prices should be slashed in half, but would you want to spend a measly $1250 for the best seat at the Yankees game?

How about putting a cap on salaries where the most anyone can make in a year is $10 million? And that’s still way too high. The only two players in sports history with the highest salaries that have ever deserved them were Babe Ruth and Michael Jordan.

And what’s wrong with going back to the olden days, when players had to negotiate a new contract every year? That way you get paid what you deserve, not what you negotiated in a walk year when you actually played hard so you could sign a multi-year contract so you could go on vacation until the next time your contract was up? That’s how other people get paid. Why shouldn’t players get paid the same way?

For the fans, there should always be at least 10,000 tickets to every game that cost no more than ten dollars. You can charge for the luxury boxes and front row seats, but even on that, there should be a reasonable cap, not whatever the market bears.

Sports should be for the masses, not just a privileged few. And on this Christmas Day, let’s remember that old saying, “It’s better to give than receive.”

It’s time for all of the Scrooges in the world to finally wake up and give back to the people, instead of hoarding all of the goodies for themselves.

It's The Hall Of Shame If Santo Isn't In It

Darrell Horwitz — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 08:32:36 -0500

He sits by his locker; needle in hand, ready to inject himself. The room is empty, for he doesn’t want anyone to know what he is doing. He knows he needs this stuff to be able to play, and he doesn’t know how his teammates would react if they found out. He doesn’t care, because baseball means everything to him, and this is going to allow him to perform.

His name is Ron Santo, and we’re sitting in the Cub’s locker room in the early sixties. His needle is full of insulin, and he needed it to live. He kept it a secret when he first found out about it at eighteen. He didn’t want to be shunted aside because of his handicap. He let his little secret out after he had established himself as a star ballplayer.

Unfortunately, while many players felt they needed to inject themselves in the backside to play in the past several years, a true hero with more heart than any of them suffers another slap in the face every two years when he’s told he’s not good enough to be a member of the Hall of Fame.

His name is on the list again this year, and we’ll know tomorrow if he will be allowed to join this exclusive club.

The disease has taken a toll on him. He has lost both of his legs, had heart problems, and so many other serious complications from diabetes that his medical records could fill a season of ER.

While many of today’s players were not playing on a level playing field, Santo never did either. He never knew how the disease was going to react from one day to the next.

He had to constantly monitor himself. If he didn’t, he could go into an insulin related coma. He kept candy bars stashed in the dugout in case his blood sugar got too low.

He once told a story that his blood sugar was so low that he didn’t think he was going to be able to come to bat. He was the next hitter, and sucked it up and marched to the plate.

The bags were jammed, and he could barely see. He said he saw three balls coming at him and swung at the one in the middle. The ball ended up in the seats for a grand-slam home run. But people don’t talk about that.

After the veterans committee that was previously formed to vote on players that were out of baseball for fifteen years or more was disbanded, a new system was put in place in 2001 with the current living Hall of Famers deciding who should enter the vaunted hall.

So far, they’re pitching a shutout. When asked about the election process at the time, Tom Seaver stated, “I’m of the opinion it’s going to be awfully hard to get in, and maybe that’s how it should be.”

Brooks Robinson played in the same era as Santo, and was elected on the first ballot. Santo dwarfed his offensive numbers, and was closer to him as a fielder than most people know.

The difference is that Robinson had the chance to shine in the spotlight of the World Series, and shine he did. He was like a vacuum cleaner as he sucked up every ball hit to his side of the field. That performance put him in. Santo was never given that opportunity.

If you never win a championship, does that mean you’re not a Hall of Famer? Does Ted Williams belong? How about Ernie Banks? Should Phil Rizzuto have been voted in? Wasn’t he the beneficiary of playing for a great organization and not really a great player?

The system has changed this year, and now there are ten players that made it through the process that are eligible to be voted for. It’s supposed to make it a little easier for someone to be voted in. Santo is one of them.

I wonder if any of those not voting for him knew how difficult it was for him to perform day in and day out. What would his numbers have been if he hadn’t been affected by this debilitating disease, and how much longer could he have played? How many of those players deciding his fate could have done it?

Yet Santo never complained or mentioned how unfair it was that he was afflicted. He just went out there everyday and gave an honest days work. And he did it better than most.

He doesn’t want or deserve anyone’s pity. He only wants what he’s earned. He shouldn’t be elected into the Hall of Fame because he had diabetes. He should be voted in because he was good enough.

101 Is Not Just a Highway In California Anymore

Darrell Horwitz — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 10:08:27 -0500

Over a month and a half has passed since the Cubs quest for a World Series title in their 100th year went down in flames like a California wildfire. As the team meekly succumbed to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLDS, Cub fans were not so docile in their reaction to the team's demise.

In years past, cold brews, hot babes, and playing baseball in sunshine were enough to tame the most hardened fans. But that changed a few years back when the Cubs were five outs from the World Series in 2003, and then the hand of the infamous Bartman reached out like the hand of God, snatching away the ball and the dream of the most starved fans in sports, Cub fans, of finally playing in and winning the World Series.

Dusty Baker was in charge of the reins at the time, in his first year, and he took the team beyond everyone's expectations at the beginning of the year. But he was also his own worst enemy. He came in and convinced the fans that they should expect a winner. Just being lucky enough to get a ticket to the game and maybe a phone number was no longer enough. Now the team was supposed to win.

Dusty lasted three more years and he never led the team to the playoffs again. They came close in 2004, but bombed during the last week of the season. It was definitely the best team he had, but they had more injuries that year than a M.A.S.H. unit, if you want to make excuses. The last two years of his contract he was stuck with lackluster rosters that didn't have much of a chance of winning, yet he was practically tar and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail as his teams failed and the Cubs drought was closing in on the century mark.

Then the supposed savior was brought in, the legendary Lou Piniella. Piniella was the guy that wasn't going to accept the losing and would do whatever was necessary, whether it was throwing bases, having spittle run down his uniform as he went nose to nose with an umpire, or give one of his players a well-deserved kick in the behind.

I guess that was the old Lou Piniella. We got the OLD Lou Piniella as the manager of this team and he doesn't do that anymore. Sure, he put on a phony act with an umpire his first year in 2007, the day after Carlos Zambrano used Michael Barrett as a punching bag, first in the dugout and later in the clubhouse. And it worked. The team came alive and suddenly everyone thought it was gonna happen. It didn't.

The Arizona Diamondbacks swept the Cubs in three games as Piniella pulled Carlos Zambrano after six innings so he could save him for Game 4. Unfortunately, I guess the senile Lou Piniella didn't realize it was a best of five series and you have to win a game to get there. So the Cubs went home and their long-suffering fans were left to contemplate the 100 year anniversary of their last championship in 1908.

Fortunately the 2008 Cubs were picked by just about everyone to win their division and make it to the series. Last year was just a warm-up. This team was built to win, or so we thought. Right from the start they jumped out like they meant business, and nothing was going to stop them from achieving the goal that had eluded them for so long. They led for most of the season, and they were resting players the last week to get ready for the playoffs.

This is the year! At least that was the rant from Cub radio announcer Ron Santo whenever an inning ended during the broadcast. And it sure seemed like it. The team was healthy going into the playoffs. They added a top of the rotation starter in Rich Harden. What happened last year was an aberration and would never happen again.

So why was I crying on October 4 when a wonderful season came to an abrupt end. (I wasn't really crying, but it sounds more dramatic.) I was pissed though, and not just because the team lost. It was how they lost.

I was on vacation in New York and watched the first game at the ESPN Zone right in the heart of Times Square. Unfortunately, I had a squirrley Dodger fan sitting in front of me who kept standing up every time he thought the Dodgers were doing something. I let him know I didn't appreciate it and that I can't see when he stands up in front of me. Besides, it's not like we were at the game. That would have been acceptable.

I was hoping to get back at him with a Cubs series victory, even though I would never see him again. But instead, I had to suffer through a life-less team effort as they went down without a fight. Hell, I had more fight than the Cubs. If I were a few years younger, that Dodger fan would have been beat even if his team wasn't. (I'm just kidding, but don't think the thought didn't cross my mind. Losing for so many years gets to you after awhile.)

Lou Piniella recently received the Manager of the Year award for the job he did guiding the team to the playoffs, the first time that's happened two years in a row in a hundred years. (We're not just bad enough that we don't win in the playoffs; we hardly ever make it.) Unfortunately the voting takes place before the playoffs. But when you have a team that everyone predicts to win and they do, should you win the award? Shouldn't it go to a manager that exceeds expectations, not just meets it?

The funny thing is Cub pitcher Ryan Dempster, who recently signed a four-year extension, came out and said the team wasn't prepared and didn't have a sense of urgency. He thought the Dodgers were more prepared for the series than the Cubs. Piniella denied that was the case and said he prepared the team just like he did during the regular season.

That was the problem. This isn't the regular season. It's three and out. For two years in a row, sweet Lou hasn't had a sense of urgency.

Maybe that's why he put Kosuke Fukedome in the two hole in Game 1, even though he hadn't been hitting for almost four months. He finally started benching him in September, after giving him a lot longer leash than the normally inpatient Piniella is known for. He then started him the next game too, although in the eighth spot that game.

Is the short division series the time to see if a guy is going to start to hit? I think Dempster was right about the team not having a sense of urgency. If the manager doesn't, why should the players?

Of course Fukedome failed miserably, as Piniella did as a manager. The last straw was when he left him in to bat in the 7th inning when the Cubs had their last gasp of breath. Trailing 7-0 starting the inning, they put together a couple of doubles and a single with two outs, cutting the lead to 7-1 and bringing Fukedome up to the plate. Torre went to the mound to make a pitching change, and my TV went to a commercial break. I was sure I wouldn't see Fukedome at the plate when they came back.

Boy was I wrong! Fukedome grounded meekly to short, and that was it for the Cubs. I would have had Zambrano pinch hit for him for God's sake. He's a switch-hitter and a much better hitter. Anyone but Fukedome!

If I were the general manager, I would have fired him right there, even though that same GM extended him before the playoffs even started. What, you couldn't wait to see how the team did in the playoffs? They didn't even compete for the second year in a row and he gets an extension. No wonder this organization never wins.

In a recent interview, Piniella came out and blamed the media for putting too much pressure on the team with the 100 year theme. They were trying too hard. But the good news is he thinks that there will be less pressure on them this year. I guess 101's not quite as romantic a number as 100.

2009 will be no different than 2008 or any other year in the last hundred because the Cubs will not win the World Series. Not as long as sweet Lou is still here. Did I mention he has brought only one team to a title, and that was the 1990 Reds? He has never even taken another team to the World Series and has a 23-27 record as a manager in the playoffs, so why is he the Cubs savior?

Sweet Lou is starting to smell like a rotten fish, and if I were in charge, I'd throw him back in the water.

Dust