Cubs have adopted the 1 percent solution

[manbearcub]

http://www.suntimes.com/sports/8439764-419/cubs-have-adopted-the-1-percent-solution.html

 

 

 

Is Wall Street occupying the Cubs?

Has the most elite of the 1 percent taken over Cubdom and thereby the health of the longest-suffering crowd in sports?

Are the smartest boys in the room telling us how infallible things such as the laws of large numbers and exotic computer models can turn the Cubs into the sporting equivalent of a Greenwich hedge fund?

These may sound like silly questions. But are they?

At a time when the middle class is vanishing, when Baby Boomers are wondering how they’re going to be able to retire, when job-hunting young people who are saddled with mammoth education and government debt are protesting the clever profiteers at the top of the capitalist food chain, is it silly to ask if Tom Ricketts and Theo Epstein are appropriate heroes for the times?

Aren’t these the type of fellows who helped muddy up what used to be known as the American Dream?

Epstein, who was announced as the new Cubs president of baseball operations Tuesday, is only 37 but has a success pedigree much longer than his hair.

Yale undergrad, law degree in his spare time, smart-as-a-whip, boy-wonder Theo won two World Series in his nine years as general manager for the Red Sox. But where did he play his pro ball? Oh, in the hallways of various front offices.

Ricketts, the second-year Cubs chairman, has a pair of diplomas from the University of Chicago, and his fortune was made in the world of investment banking and bond structuring.

There was a period in baseball — notably after futures trader John Henry took over the Red Sox in 2002 — when old-school, tobacco-chewing, scout-from-the-stands analysis was replaced by faddish, techno number-crunching.

For sure, that new stuff, called sabermetrics by some, was all the rage. And it makes sense, to a point. (See “Moneyball’’ for details.)

Geeks on the wane

But now it’s as old-fashioned as mortgage-backed derivatives and collateralized debt obligations.

All that latter mumbo-jumbo made a fortune for a bunch of sly bankers and Wall Street types while bringing a good percentage of Americans to its knees.

Do we trust the numbers guys yet?

If we do, then why — if the Texas Rangers win this World Series, which they lead 3-2 — will 10 different baseball teams have won World Series titles in the last 11 years? Every team can’t be run by a computer geek, can it?

It’s more than a tad ironic that, as Sports Illustrated recently noted, “The advantage of the early adopters [of statistical analysis] is gone.’’

The roaring 2000s are history, both for our economy, and, it appears, baseball brainiac pioneers.

In September, Epstein told SI of his Red Sox techniques, “Just about everything we’re doing here is being done elsewhere, and a lot of it better. We have a pretty big cushion with our resources. We can take sixth-rounders and pay them third-round money without thinking twice about it.’’

Trump ’em with deep pockets, then.

And who fills the deep pockets?

If the recent banking and Wall Street revelations have taught us anything, it should be that it ever and always comes from us, the folks who are not smarter than the rest of the room. Because we are the room.

Loss of innocence

The 103-year desert of failure stares at Cubs fans like a howling wasteland.

For leaders, the Cubs have tried and given up on baseball royalty (Andy MacPhail), baseball lifers (Lou Piniella, Jim Hendry) and baseball dilettantes (Tribune Co.).

And now we have, in a sense, Ben Bernanke and Steve Jobs costume-wearers at the helm.

This may be what is needed for the job. But with the acceptance of the Ricketts-Epstein leadership comes a price, and it is the loss of whatever slim innocence still remained for the Cubs.

People who go to Wrigley Field have often been ridiculed as partiers who are out to enjoy the sun, the beer, the small-park ambience — as if going to a summer game must be a somber event filled with grimacing intensity.

It can only get nastier at Wrigley now that the brilliant hotshots are in charge. Failure is no longer funny, not even acceptable.

It’s moneyball, for sure.

Just be careful, Cubs pilgrims, of what you wished for.

Edited October 27, 2011 by manbearcub

[Omar]

http://memegenerator.net/cache/instances/400x/10/10684/10940425.jpg

[Rob]

Did the Williston Herald get bought out by the Sun Times?

[Scotti]

Telander has written some dumb stuff through the years but, man, that was stupid.

[El Duderino]

what the hell is this crap?

[doschi]

It shouldn't make a [expletive] difference in regard to how people of varying political persuasions should feel about the Theo Epstein/Jed Hoyer/Jason McLeod hirings.

 

We're all Cubs fans. We should all be elated that the team we live and die with has finally decided to seriously pursue a championship.

 

If anyone would like to debate the social, political, or economic ramifications of these hirings within the dynamics of the current protest movement, feel free to do so at Rick Telander's house, the third Tuesday of every month.

 

Let's not do it here.

 

Here is where we unite ourselves via our love for the Cubs.

[A New Era]

I hate to tell this guy, but even the "old school" guys like Jim Hendry were top 1%'ers. In every single industry in America, the top 1% are getting richer and the income disparity is widening. That's EVERYWHERE. Including baseball.

 

I wouldn't have such vitriol for people who are smart and have money. My anger lies in the people who steal, and cheat, and buy polititians so they can cheat their taxes. This guy gives true liberals, or progressives, a bad name. He seems to be saying just because law students run baseball that we should just hate it now.

[Laura]

People have been complaining about the loss of innocence of Cubs fans for decades.

[Soul]

Come on

 

Stop posting Onion articles with fake Sun Times links.

[ScrubMD]

I, too, think we should be concerned that smart people are running the Cubs.

[ctcf]

That's FJM worthy.

[UMFan83]

This is maybe the 3rd or 4th article I've read from Chicago media about how hiring Theo and co. ruins the aura that is Chicago Cubs baseball.

 

Are you [expletive] kidding me?

 

I used to think that people were exaggerating when they painted the Cubs and Cubs fans as people who like to get drunk and watch baseball in the sun, and if the Cubs win, that's a bonus. I used to think that everyone who was a legitimate Cubs fan would sacrifice everything for a World Series title. I can't believe that this is a legitimate viewpoint coming from Chicago.

[bukie]

This is maybe the 3rd or 4th article I've read from Chicago media about how hiring Theo and co. ruins the aura that is Chicago Cubs baseball.

 

Are you [expletive] kidding me?

 

I used to think that people were exaggerating when they painted the Cubs and Cubs fans as people who like to get drunk and watch baseball in the sun, and if the Cubs win, that's a bonus. I used to think that everyone who was a legitimate Cubs fan would sacrifice everything for a World Series title. I can't believe that this is a legitimate viewpoint coming from Chicago.

Just because it's published, doesn't mean it's legitimate.

[Gmoney23]

I like how he is trying to make the point the playoffs are a crapshoot saying 10 different teams have won titles in the last 11 years. He didnt mention which team had the continued success to pull it out twice in 10 years, Theo's Red Sox, or that they averaged 93 wins a year over there in Boston.

[jersey cubs fan]

I used to think that people were exaggerating when they painted the Cubs and Cubs fans as people who like to get drunk and watch baseball in the sun, and if the Cubs win, that's a bonus. I used to think that everyone who was a legitimate Cubs fan would sacrifice everything for a World Series title. I can't believe that this is a legitimate viewpoint coming from Chicago.

 

An idiotic writer writing it doesn't make it so.

[ConstableRabbit]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/79/The_Simpsons-Jeff_Albertson.png/222px-The_Simpsons-Jeff_Albertson.png

[Gmoney23]

Are the sportswriters in other towns this idiotic?

[Guest]

Are the sportswriters in other towns this idiotic?

 

Ever watch Around the Horn?

[hardcorecubfan]

This article has a distinct smell of our own Lo Pan

[TruffleShuffle]

This article has a distinct smell of our own Lo Pan

 

try again.