robnail

Gotta love the fact they announced this on one of the slowest news days of the year. I guess the Cubs' PR staffers are in mid-season form. I take it there won't be an Aaron Miles introductory press conference after the Winter Classic. Can you imagine the vile things women would throw at him? I just got my cubs.com e-mail. Subject line: "Cubs Sign Miles, Acquire Three Pitchers". You have to open the e-mail to learn that one of the team's most popular players was dealt for a bunch of nobodies and never-will-be's. I'm okay with the moves, but seriously, how lame. I think Cubs fans can do without the attempts to put lipstick on a pig.

I don't like the fact that the Cubs apparently need to trim the payroll to get Milton-freaking-Bradley, a volatile injury risk who reminds me way too much of Rondell White, when Peavy was theirs for the taking at a lower price. I hope this is a quick-fix maneuver to settle the ship until new ownership gets the keys (soon, please???) That said, I don't mind that the Cubs appear to be looking to add two left-handed bats while decreasing their reliance on a right-handed late-bloomer who will probably regress in '09. And DeRosa has more than proven himself one of the team's most reliable postseason choke artists. Between the bases-loaded GDP against Arizona and the botched GDP against the Dodgers, the man has shown an affinity for producing landmark forgettable moments at Wrigley when the Cubs need him most. Get out of here with your wind-blown home runs if you don't like what I'm saying.

According to what I've been reading, the major hang-up was the Cubs' refusal to eat more than $4 million of Marquis' contract. If what I'm reading is true, and I concede it may not be, then I think every Cub fan has a right to be upset. If true, this would indicate that the unstable ownership situation was--as rumored--the deal's undoing, and that The Trib is bending us all over once again, in a uniquely uncomfortable way, before heading out the door. Even if the Cubs were required to give up a gluttonous goody bag of prospects (we all know how well our prospects have turned out in recent years, puzzling anomalies wearing catcher's masks excluded) and too many tight-sphinctered utility men coming off career years, then I still can't comfortably live with turning away one of the best pitchers in the game, a guy who specifically said he wanted to play in Wrigley Field. When these kinds of situations arise in other cities, the deals get done. Even Cincinnati, for God's sake, made things happen in order to welcome a Hall of Famer who wanted to come home. Sure, that particular situation never resulted in a championship, and this one probably wouldn't have either, but damned if the Cubs do not owe it to their fans to give such gambles a shot. Before I go, please forgive me for not dropping to my hands and knees to offer thanks for Alfonso Soriano, an overpaid Sosa disciple who isn't worth near the amount his contact is paying (hence the reality that this overgrown child is truly the only top-shelf free agent signing that Hendry and/or the Trib haven't bungled). Oh, and I'm not going to grovel and give thanks to Tribune for either of our last two "star" managers. One was opposed to "clogging the bases" with walks and the other has been embarassed by the opposing manager in each of the last two playoff series. And let's not forget the drooling CEO, who called in a priest and risked knocking over a delicate mental house of cards to which the second of "star" managers had devoted his tenure to building with painstaking precision. And please, folks, face it once and for all: the A's gave Harden away. Man, he really showed up when we need him in Game 3, didn't he? He's another Prior, nothing less and certainly nothing more. Sure, maybe we can get a freak year out him and ride his arm to a division title, but when the chips are down, who in the world can provide a convincing argument that he won't melt down? Any Cubs fan who isn't celebrating the Tribune's imminent departure from our baseball lives (along with the failed corporation's epic collapese) is an idiot. Period. Did I mention Greg Maddux? Blame it on Larry Himes and you get slapped. Think Steinbrenner would have let that go down?

I came here ready to go on a long rant about how this is the last straw and I'm not setting foot in Wrigley Field until the Cubs show the same desire to win a championship as the Yankees and Mets and Red Sox and blah, blah, blah. Then I realized that I should not have expected anything less than a debacle in the Tribune Company's (fingers crossed) final off-season. To turn away one of the game's best pitchers who WANTS to come and play for YOU is so unforgivable. Yet I hold out hope that the next owner will care as much as we do, albeit with much deeper pockets. I'm a Cubs fan. I hope. Whatever.

Please, please, please go to the Rangers.

Trade that postseason choker! He'll never perform on a big stage! :roll:

Tragically, I think my only way out is fathering a child and raising him or her in a geographic location far from Chicago. I don't see it happening before next season. I'm accepting applications, ladies.

I actually cheered Soriano's last at bat. It was (hopefully) the end of Tribune ownership. I like my silver linings.

You're not alone. Theriot and Soriano are co-goats for me. But I'm not mad or sad. I'm disgusted. I was far, far more upset Thursday. DeRosa wears the horns again. Sorry, he booted the DP ball and struck out last night in a critical situation. I love the guy, but he's let me down too many times.

I'm glad I was spared that. I listened to Santo call the 2nd and 3rd innings...he hung in there like it was a regular season game, even though his heart was in his bowels like the rest of us. That man is a trooper.

The Cubs have nothing to do with your personal failures. Quit making us look bad. That said, I need help to avoid caring about this team during the '09 season. This won't be a hateable bunch of cads like '04. And even they were hard to tune out, Mercker and all. Someone help.

1.) Santo Hall of Fame election (it'll be announced earlier this year). 2.) New ownership (At least we won't have a top exec calling priests before we even start choking).

Can we get Reyes?

While I don't subscribe to the school of thought that allows for the possibility of a great scribe in the sky penning us some titillating copy, I am starting to let myself be conned into believing that if one looks at the next two games objectively, there is no reason the Cubs can't get the series back to Wrigley. Again speaking objectively, Harden-Kuroda and Lilly-three-day-Lowe are more favorable match-ups for this team than were Demp-fresh-Lowe and Zambrano-Billingsley. That said, I'm fully prepared to get swept. Today, I went through my usual post-elimination depression bout. So at least that's out of the way. I've mentally accepted the collapse of '08 as if it's already happened. If the Cubs can even win a game, I'll be ecstatic.

He's their best option at the plate at this point.

For the record, I will be more than happy to eat crow for posting all these negative things about the Cubs before Game 2 was over. Way more than happy. Arrest me for being too happy, that kind of happy.

That poor, poor man.

I'd be happy if the cast-offs were limited to DeRo, Dempster, Theriot, and D-Lee. They had the tightest sphincters this series, so they simply have to go. Give Fuku another year. Embrace Soriano's eccentricity and encourage players to emulate him. Sign four guys that, in a psychological sense, most fit the Manny/Johnny Damon/Idiot psychological profile to replace DeRo, Demp, Ther, and D. Just not Manny himself. Too distracting. Bring in Bellhorn as a bench guy (or coach?). DeRo, really? You do realize he's driven in our only runs of this series, right? Keep him as a super utility guy if you must. This was a career year. I would expect something Gary Gaetti-like from him next year. And that DP boot must have made Alex Gonzalez blush.

I'd be happy if the cast-offs were limited to DeRo, Dempster, Theriot, and D-Lee. They had the tightest sphincters this series, so they simply have to go. Give Fuku another year. Embrace Soriano's eccentricity and encourage players to emulate him. Sign four guys that, in a psychological sense, most fit the Manny/Johnny Damon/Idiot psychological profile to replace DeRo, Demp, Ther, and D. Just not Manny himself. Too distracting. Bring in Bellhorn as a bench guy (or coach?).

You expected anything else from the chokingist franchise in the history of American sports? 1999, 1984, 1989, 2003, 2004, 2007, 2008. Go to hell, Cubs. Go to hell and die. This post makes me laugh because you for some reason led off with 1999, a choke no doubt no just really random. And then you went in chronological order. I'm too busy processing the fact that the Cubs found a way to fit a sliver from each of those choke jobs into a single inning. Tonight. Just happened.

It really does make one wonder if there really is something to this effing curse and whatnot. How do you be the best team in the NL, 97-wins, all those stats, etc etc etc and just completely wet the bed when it comes to the games that absolutely matter the most? This ain't just a mega-choke job. I freaked about curses a little bit last night, but at the end of the day its about players tightening up due to the added pressure. The second inning was the ultimate proof of this hypothesis. The reality is only a certain breed of professional athlete can perform when confronted with the stress of having to perform within a very small timeframe in front of a huge fan base in a major media market constantly reminding the that they are "cursed." To date, only the '04 Red Sox had the right mix of carefree, loosey-goosey guys to get it done. Maybe the '80 Phils too. The '05 White Sox? No pressure on them. They're the second team in this city and always would be whether they won or lost. Their fans only care about beating the Cubs. If the Cubs are ever to win anything, they need to model the psychological profile of their team after the '04 Red Sox.

The worst part is I came home unprepared to drown my sorrows. All we have in the house is cheap red wine.

If they get Reyes they'll pull me back in. I hope they don't.

Over/under on the inning in which garbage-tossing delays the game?

There must be a cure out there somewhere. Twelve-step? All I know is I'm too old to be this depressed about a bunch of choking millionaires. Let's lean on each other and kick this, since it's apparent that no over-paid pro in blue will never deliver the tonic we've been waiting for like Godot.