jersey cubs fan

Yep, it makes sense for Briggs to try to pick this fight now though. He's not gonna get primo money if he waits till the deal is done. Then maybe he shouldn't have signed it in the first place. Hey Lance, have fun sitting out the next 3 years if you don't get a new contract. I'm pretty sure that Soldier Field will still be full whether or not you and your over-inflated tackle numbers are there or not. Stuff like this is what sucks about the NFL. I know the players take the risk with no guaranteed contracts and it sucks for them, but complaining and trying to negotiate with 3 years left on a market value contract when only like 2 teams had any interest when you were an unrestricted free agent 3 years ago? [expletive] off. The guy made it clear he's not sitting out this year and that his hope is to have an extension before next season. The NFL does not suck so your commentary really doesn't make any sense.

I wouldn't make the decision based on who else is in the system. His greatest value to the team may end up being via trade, and if he can handle 2B that may be the right decision to make. A good hitting 2B has more cache than a similar hitting 3B.

I disagree. Everybody has too many of these kinds of fans, and if we didn't have enough of these kinds of fans the team would suffer financially.

The new GM doesn't get to hire his own assistant? What kind of nonsense is that?

Didn't he just get a new contract last year? Spring of 2008. That does not feel that long ago.

You listed him as a guy who didn't deserve to be booed. And I said most of their success was in spite of him. The defense carried his butt to the Super Bowl and there is absolutely no possibly way to pretend otherwise.

Plus very low pressure/expectations by "historic sports franchise with faithful fanbase in a major metropolitan city" standards. You get a clean slate to build a franchise with a lot tools/resources to work with and a fanbase that isn't going to run you out of town if you're not contending for a World Series by Year 2. That is something that can't be stressed enough. The Cubs were a .500 team under Hendry. They lost an insane amount of games far too often. Other big market fan bases would flip out at that. By and large Cubs fan have thought Hendry was a god for giving them 3 playoff appearances.

I think it's hard to maintain success as a small market team and even harder to regain it once you've had it. Their rivals are all spending more than them as they all have money making situations Oakland can only dream of. They are in the AL, which essentially means the wild card isn't an option. It's a really tough position.

Andy MacPhail talked about emulating the Braves, which probably wasn't a good idea considering they relied so heavily on having 4 aces and finding 4 aces ain't easy. He talked of drafting and developing pitchers and then acquiring hitters later, which is fairly inefficient. He also talked of "contending within the division" as his primary goal. MacPhail had his sights on the commissioner position and was more about keeping steady. Ricketts has much more power in terms of the direction of this franchise, and much more of a reason to worry only about this franchise. They had very different roles, and I think they had different views on what needed to be done.

The Cubs are in the position they are in largely because they have been run like a team that agrees with the nonsense Baker spouted. Maybe if he didn't take himself so seriously I'd find his schtick amusing.

Neither do I. A manager pointing out that the Yankees don't take walks while they were leading the league in walks doesn't amuse me when he's managing the Cubs.

But my point is your list was kind of ridiculous. Grossman deserved boos. He sucked far too often. Calling him a great Bears QB is like referring to Hendry has good for a Cubs GM. So freaking what. He was bad. Grossman and Bradley deserved boos. Booing my own team is not my thing, but if you are going to do it, you do it to QBs who play as poorly as Grossman did as often as he did, and unproductive assholes like Bradley. Soriano has received more boos than he deserved, but he's also done enough bad, especially while looking clueless in the field, that every player is going to get boos in reaction. Cutler is hated everywhere. I never understood it while he was in Denver, and I only sort of understand it now, but that is just a general sports fan reaction to Cutler. It has nothing to do with Chicago's supposed horribly history of booing the wrong guy.

They must have put the shoe print into COTUS.

ok, so because a white player has been booed, that means the slurs shouted at black and latino players is the same thing? the booing of a white player is in no way shape or form proof that racism doesn't exist. And the fact that racists shout slurs at black and latino players doesn't mean all people yelling at them are motivated by racial reasons. The main reason anybody yells at an athlete is the irrational fanaticism they have about the team they support, and the responsibility they place on those athletes to deliver results.

Here's the thing about Miles, though...if he had been the Miles of '04-'08, tons of Cubs fans would have loved him, or at least tolerated him. You're right, people are going to hate a crappy player. regardless of skin color...but mediocrity goes a long way to inexplicably justifying a white player in too many fans' eyes. Mediocrity plus affordability. Most of the biggest hatred goes to mediocre or worse players that account for a significant portion of the payroll.

Completely justifiable booing.

What the heck does that even mean? He's the starting WR in a pass happy offense, how in the hell is whatever he gives us a bonus? He has to produce. It's very early. It means I don't expect him to remain in that position. That still doesn't make his production a bonus. He's not an undrafted free agent. If Williams sucks balls there's absolutely no way you can call booing him "unjustified". He's a veteran free agent paid money to catch balls. It's not the fans' fault if he sucks.

you pathetic enablers

Didn't it just get a huge cash infusion from venture capitalists? It may suck but it is relevant. Relevant to whom? I'm not questioning the truth of your comment, just curious. If it weren't for people posting about how horrible it is on nsbb, I wouldn't even know it existed. To me, as far as I can gather, it's just another random site someone put up to post their ramblings. There are thousands of them. And among those thousands, it might be the biggest "random site" out there. I don't know who its audience is, but deadspin and KSK refer to it regularly.

Yeah, some people were griping about his "attitude" and "selfishness" pretty much every season he was on the Cubs and they sucked (AKA pretty much every season). "Sammy only coming through for Sammy after it was too late" was pretty common meme, especially after the home run race. Not saying it was the dominant mentality, but it wasn't hard to find/hear, either. My recollection was that Sammy was kind of all flash and no substance prior to learning how to take a walk and really blowing up in 98. But going back to his pre 98 numbers, he was regularly putting up 4+ WAR seasons. As a sidenote, I always remember a friend's dad (Mets fan in NJ) saying he was rooting for McGwire in the homerun race and all his reasoning pretty much worked as code about how it was because McGwire was white.

Didn't it just get a huge cash infusion from venture capitalists? It may suck but it is relevant.

That's a really odd list of guys you are trying to claim have received unwarranted boos. I defended Grossman to the end, but the guy crapped the bed repeatedly. He stunk and almost all of the success they had was in spite of him. Bradley was horrible and an [expletive]. Soriano was just the wrong acquisition. He's done about as well as could be reasonably expected, it's just easier to boo the player than the idiot GM. And Cutler has carried this team of late.

What the heck does that even mean? He's the starting WR in a pass happy offense, how in the hell is whatever he gives us a bonus? He has to produce.

And this catch: That looked kind of awkward. Almost like he didn't exactly dive for the ball but rather just went limp after catching it on the run. Thats an amazingly difficult catch, and he made it look easy on a full sprint. Love to see you out there attempting it, if you can get out of your computer chair :yahoo: But seriously though, what a talent. And they tried to make him a catcher. HA! ok

For the most part, Lee didn't seem to have an issue. Or Marlon Byrd. Mark Prior, however, did. I think the scapegoats tend to originate from players that aren't open with the media, as the beat writers and columnists are often the ones who start these crusades. I totally agree. But there does seem to be a recent and growing anti-Latino bent. I think it's a pale reflection of the general mood of the country. For all the fun and games we have making fun of the anti-Latino thing, there are pretty obvious reasons why these guys are targets. I love Ramirez. I love what he's done with the Cubs. But he really doesn't look like much of a tryer, and it has nothing to do with skin color. Milton Bradley was an unproductive surly prick. People freak out about body language and how athletes look. Jay Cutler gets dumped on for his body language. Reed Johnson isn't very good, but somehow he keeps producing and he looks like he tries really hard, and people love that. Todd Hundley didn't produce worth a crap and he looked like he as constantly waking up in strange hallways, which was probably the case. And people hated him. Some people still insist Ryan Dempster sucks because of some blown saves. Nobody can stand John Grabow. On the fringes there are definitely racial overtones to many statements about certain players. But by and large the perception comes from the reality of how the player acts, and that is the case in every city in America. It's hardly a Chicago thing.