2013 Cubs Convention Thread

[Gilby]

I would rather DFA Lendy or Chris Rusin, but our outfield will get crowded if Hairston or Bourn are brought in.

[pitchcs]

Anyone see Castro? Looks like he's beefed up considerably.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I would rather DFA Lendy or Chris Rusin, but our outfield will get crowded if Hairston or Bourn are brought in.

 

Objectively, he has some value as a backup outfielder. Heck, he has more fWAR the last two years than Schierholtz in less playing time.

 

But I'm really tired of hearing about how fast and white he is.

[J.R.]

Bruce Miles ‏@BruceMiles2112

Ricketts said questions on Sosa are good question and indicates it may be time to revisit the issue. #Cubs

 

Yes, please

Way overdue.

[rynefan]

Anyone see Castro? Looks like he's beefed up considerably.

 

Definitely. In fact, we were waiting for him at the 3 p.m. signing, got our vouchers and then my daughter went to look for him walking up to the signing stage. She came back and that was the FIRST thing she said. I agreed. Kind of surprised me.

[rynefan]

Had a great time at the convention. Always interesting to see how things play out. Rizzo and Barney were scheduled to sign at 9 on Sunday with Castro in there at 10. First guy in line supposedly got there to sit outside the ballroom door at 2 a.m. Not a chance I would ever do that.

 

So many either ditched early or blew off sessions, especially Sunday. Feldman missed almost all his sessions, Edwin Jackson missed his Sunday session, Matthews missed his photo time slot, but Jody Davis filled in, which made my son's day. Campana filled in for the TBA time slot in the photo line Sunday, and that made my kids' day.

 

Soriano cracked me up. He walked into his Saturday signing session with a dark brown hoodie pulled way up over his head. He sat at the table by himself looking at one of the pocket Cubs' schedules for about 3 minutes. He did shake my son's hand and pose for a nice photo.

 

I love the random sightings.... Len Kaspar waiting for a cab right in front of us Saturday night, Deshaies wandering around outside the ballroom, etc. My daughter was on Cloud 9 riding up in the elevator (alone) with Vitters, Stewart and Beeler.

 

And yes.. all those mentioned above got the most attention, but Samardzija was a huge draw, too. Some also waited hours for Garza to sign.... definitely not me....

 

I know there's a lot of BS at these events, but honestly I had a really good time, and the kids had so much fun they started talking about next year. Got me psyched for the season. Hope springs eternal I guess!

[Irrelevant Dude]

I love the random sightings.... Len Kaspar waiting for a cab right in front of us Saturday night, Deshaies wandering around outside the ballroom, etc. My daughter was on Cloud 9 riding up in the elevator (alone) with Vitters, Stewart and Beeler.

Those are the things your kid(s) will remember. The one thing I remember most from the only time I went to the Cubs Convention as a kid was riding in the elevator with Doug Dascenzo. I can still picture him standing there, toothpick in mouth, and it didn't matter to me one bit that he was an awful player.

[CubsWin]

I hope Theo announces Campana's been DFA'd sometime today.

 

I do, too, but I hope he has adequate security.

No Villanueva move announcement today, per Muskat. I tweeted Bruce there's not enough police inside facility to handle riot for Campana DFA announcement, he responded "you got it".

One of the insider-types over at PSD was saying that the Cubs had been in talks on trading either Lake or Watkins pretty hard this past week. Looks like they're trying to add Villanueva without DFAing anyone...

[MSG T]

I love the random sightings.... Len Kaspar waiting for a cab right in front of us Saturday night, Deshaies wandering around outside the ballroom, etc. My daughter was on Cloud 9 riding up in the elevator (alone) with Vitters, Stewart and Beeler.

Those are the things your kid(s) will remember. The one thing I remember most from the only time I went to the Cubs Convention as a kid was riding in the elevator with Doug Dascenzo. I can still picture him standing there, toothpick in mouth, and it didn't matter to me one bit that he was an awful player.

 

 

While not really Cubs related, I have the same feeling about a random meeting with Joe Delaney, the former Chief that died in the summer of 83. I was in KC for a baseball camp the winter prior and myself and a friend were on an elevator in the hotel. Delaney got on around the 5th floor, and we asked him if he was Delaney. Talked to him for the length of the ride and got his autograph. Seemed like a really nice guy. I was actually pretty sad when I heard that he died trying to save some kids from drowning the next summer.

 

 

I did meet Grace one time. Got and autograph from him too, but he had kind of a weird vibe. I was even doing my best to not be creepy and he's the one who offered the autograph, just had a weird feeling about it.

[rynefan]

I love the random sightings.... Len Kaspar waiting for a cab right in front of us Saturday night, Deshaies wandering around outside the ballroom, etc. My daughter was on Cloud 9 riding up in the elevator (alone) with Vitters, Stewart and Beeler.

Those are the things your kid(s) will remember. The one thing I remember most from the only time I went to the Cubs Convention as a kid was riding in the elevator with Doug Dascenzo. I can still picture him standing there, toothpick in mouth, and it didn't matter to me one bit that he was an awful player.

 

No doubt. I remember when I was in college going down to St. Louis for a weekend series. We were staying at the players' hotel. My mom was a HUGE Vance Law fan. We ended up in the elevator alone with him. My mom was speechless, about to faint. Something we still talk about all these years later.

[rynefan]

Samardzija was hilarious. At one of the Friday night sessions they got to talking about Facebook and Twitter. One of the WGN people asked him if he had ever gotten into a social media situation (tying it back to the current Facebook situation going on with Notre Dame). He said he'd had enough trouble with regular girlfriends. He also said he doesn't have a Facebook or Twitter and probably never will until he gets older and more responsible. The whole room was cracking up. He was also the only one I saw come out with a beer in hand.... seems like a cool, laid-back guy...

[ConstableRabbit]

Samardzija was hilarious. At one of the Friday night sessions they got to talking about Facebook and Twitter. One of the WGN people asked him if he had ever gotten into a social media situation (tying it back to the current Facebook situation going on with Notre Dame). He said he'd had enough trouble with regular girlfriends. He also said he doesn't have a Facebook or Twitter and probably never will until he gets older and more responsible. The whole room was cracking up. He was also the only one I saw come out with a beer in hand.... seems like a cool, laid-back guy...

He is a cool guy.

I ran into him at a bar on Clark St. a couple of years ago. I had just walked in for a beer and he was there by himself. The place was pretty empty and we chatted for a little bit.

[SouthSideRyan]

Samardzija is the only Cub I see out with any sort of regularity. I'm guessing that means the other guys are club-rats, so point Samardzija.

[neely crenshaw]

Barney and Campana with the biggest cheers evidently.

This is why I don't go to the Cubs Convention every year. You are surrounded by a majority people who do things like this and they also think we should still have Theriot/Fontenot as our SS/2B combo with Barney at 3B and Campana and Fuld manning the OF.

 

umm, have you seen our current alignment?....just wondering

[jersey cubs fan]

Barney and Campana with the biggest cheers evidently.

This is why I don't go to the Cubs Convention every year. You are surrounded by a majority people who do things like this and they also think we should still have Theriot/Fontenot as our SS/2B combo with Barney at 3B and Campana and Fuld manning the OF.

 

umm, have you seen our current alignment?....just wondering

 

Yes, it's better than it would be with those guys.

[neely crenshaw]

slightly

[Ding Dong Johnson]

I love it when you stop by.

[Clem Fandango]

That video montage was pretty [expletive] awesome.

 

 

EDIT - And so was that other one. Nobody else watching on CSN?

 

Yeah those videos were baseball porn.

 

This what you guys were talking about?

 

[Guest]

That video montage was pretty [expletive] awesome.

 

 

EDIT - And so was that other one. Nobody else watching on CSN?

 

Yeah those videos were baseball porn.

 

This what you guys were talking about?

 

 

Yep, that was one of them.

 

There was another one, too.

[J.R.]

That was fantastic.

[Abe Frohman]

Taking my 8 year old son made this a fantastic trip. He is a big time Rizzo fan, so I actually won him a game used jersey at the auction for a pretty good price (well, it could probably sell on Ebay for 2-3 times what I got it for). He got to meet some cool people and had a great time, including pictures with Wayne Messmer, Ferguson Jenkins, Gary Pressy, Lee Smith, Rollie Fingers, Anthony Rizzo, Scott Baker, the band, and almost Todd Walker. Clubhouse guy Otis hooked him up with a couple balls, which was great.

 

On the flip side, I took him a little early to the opening ceremony thing so he could get a good look at the players and I was a froghair from stomping the dogsheet out of two 50 year old geeks who decided they wanted to come stand in front of my boy 5 minutes before it started.

 

There were some idiots there for sure.