Thusly Boned

No, you know it's always easier to spot the flaws of others than our own. But allowing a dominant Beckett to throw 115 in an elimination game that was only 2-0 until the almost the end was far more defensible than Prior going 116 in a 12-0 game 2.

On a related note, I was recently watching an interview with David Samson (former president of the Marlins) where he was asked about game 6/Bartman and he quickly said it shouldn't be called the Bartman game (or Alex Gonzalez), but said the game and series should be laid at the feet of Dusty Baker. Specifically his (ab)use of pitchers, Prior in particular. Specifically pointed at Prior throwing 120 pitches in the game 2 blowout. I mean certainly nothing we don't already know very well, but was as little surprising coming so candidly from a former executive.

For sure. I hated trading him more than almost all the other trades (mostly because it was a clear salary dump), and would still take him back. Owen Caissie panning out would do a lot to ease that angst, however.

They're unwilling to be totally wrong, so they're grasping at the hope that at least they might be right that Williams won't be the guy, and it would somehow hurt those who have been advocating for drafting him. They are projecting their cult-like personal investment in Fields onto people who have just been pointing out that Williams is the logical choice. As if Williams himself is a proxy for the people who have been disagreeing with them for months. These are folks for whom rationality has long since left the building.

Oh FFS people

They went to the playoffs with him twice, so it wasn't like they didn't win anything with him. And for most of Sammy's career, he was nearly the only reason to get excited about the Cubs. Certainly the number one reason to consistently tune and watch the games from like 1996-2002. I'll sometimes play random games on YouTube while I am working, and I am always amazed at just how awful the lineup around him was for much of his career. Just brutally bad outside of he and Grace, and I guess I was so enured to the Cubs being bad back then that I didn't appreciate how awful some of those teams were at the time. Though shut out of the playoffs, at least mid-late 1960s fans had Banks, Williams, Santo and Jenkins to watch. Four hall of famers. I became really invested as a fan (as opposed to just being the kid of a Cubs fan) in 1987 or 88, and outside of the decennial playoff appearance (which felt more like an aberrant gift than anything), the primary reasons I ever had to feel excited to watch Cubs baseball on a daily basis was Ryne Sandberg for a handful of years and Sammy Sosa. And though Ryno was my favorite as young kid, Sammy was the most exciting player I've personally seen in a Cubs uniform. It was must see TV and I loved it. Obviously the steroid thing diminishes those memories a bit, but it doesn't nullify them, or even close to it. And the notion that he be ostracized by the organization until he repentantly abases himself to a repellent chode like Tom Ricketts (who wasn't even associated with the team until long after Sammy was gone) is absurd.

It's a winning org, great coach, and there's a very good possibility Russ is cooked.

I sure did

Fields has issues (one, mostly) that can't be fixed, but the Bears impaired him in just about every way they could. The whole thing would have seemed insidious to anyone not familiar with how inept the Bears are. He almost certainly wouldn't have ended up being the guy regardless, but the organization did its best to make sure he wasn't the guy.

Most people just don't care about the steroids, tbh. Just crochety old baseball writers and meatball fans.

I feel bad for Justin, the Bears failed him. But his biggest problem wasn't fixable. Now I'm relieved we don't have to listen to all these people living in an alternate reality where this wasn't always (at least since the Bears were guaranteed 1.1) going to happen. I actually think Pitt is a good spot for him, he'll be starting before long when Russ collapses on himself.

That's because bouncing a check is tantamount to that most heinous of all crimes in America, taking any amount of money from a rich person.

I don't see any way you can have Fields and his replacement in the same locker room.

Golf will drive you insane if you let it. Mostly because of how elusive it is. That's an odd adjective to use, but it's the best one I can think of; getting good is hard enough, maintaining is even harder. One small tweak and you can level up, or the whole thing can fall completely apart and it's like you're starting all over. I love golfing and would do it all day if I could. But the minute you start to get legitimately mad on the course (or range), you just have to pack it in and go home. Getting angry while golfing will only end in even more anger, and if it makes you angry all the time, it probably isn't for you. You have to have the patience of a saint sometimes.

Golf is definitely a operator>tools game, but getting fitted clubs can make a huge difference. I'm 5'11" so I've never felt like I had to, but I've known people who were really tall (and short) for whom getting a fitted set was really beneficial. And good that you're doing it relative early. My dad was 6'5" and played most of his life with clubs that were way too short and when he finally got a fitted set, it just jacked him up because he was fighting decades of muscle memory.

Yeah, most of us have lived through worse than the Rickettses (at least in terms of running the team), if bailing due to bad ownership was something we'd do, it'd have already been done.

Sports fandom isn't the same as choosing what other businesses you want to give your money to. Being a heavily invested sports fan is irrational at its very core. Obviously very. very few people have the luxury of being able to financially exercise their praxis in every facet of their lives. The best most of us can do is pick an choose what we feel the most strongly about and kind of stomach the rest. For me, it's a spectrum; there are a handful of businesses I simply will not give my money to, others I prefer not to, and many whose sins I just try not to think about too much. But the I came to the Cubs (and my other teams) through indoctrination, as most of us did. And as much as I'd like to be above it, it becomes kind of a ridiculous tribal identity thing. It's fanatical. choosing another team after 30+ years is not like choosing a different box store because I don't like the owner. If I could just not, I wouldn't. Sports fandom is objectively stupid. I can exercise extreme discipline in most of my financial affairs when we are trying to be thrifty, but then go out and buy like four stupid Cubs hats in a week (I actually just did this). It's just different, and most days I kind of hate it.

I think what we're seeing from the Cubs is sadly becoming more common: simply shooting for a .540ish winning percentage and just doing enough to get in. Using a slice of their saving to patch holes along the way. Outside of a small handful of teams, I think this is going to become a widespread approach. We're not the only fanbase having this conversation. It's easy to see why greedy types would go this route, as recent history shows it's just as effective hurling truckloads of cash at the roster. And odds are that the team that comes out on top in 2024 isn't going to be the one that spent the most money, again. And that'll just validate all the other owners who want to go the same way. Almost everyone wants to be the Rays, not because they have to, but because they're stingy. As a fan, this sucks, because the product just isn't as entertaining as it could be, and it's riskier than loading your roster. The fact your FO is making the choice not to field the best product they can reasonably afford is galling. The most popular team in the third largest market in the country should absolutely be mitigating risk by throwing money at their problems.

The draft can't get here soon enough. The "discussion" about what the Bears are going to do was already tired a couple months ago. Now it's insufferable, and I'm barely exposed to it. The "Keep Justin vs. Draft Williams" civil war is one of the dumber things I've seen in ages, and given the usual level of discourse among football fans, that is really saying something.

I can't imagine the chances there are good. He's coming off a nice rebound season after multiple bad ones; if he signed a one year deal and regressed significantly, he probably wouldn't get a good shot at a lucrative multiyear deal again. It would validate all the uncertainty around him. It'd be a huge roll of the dice to sign a one year deal.

I just can't see anyone going there, at least in guaranteed money. If he's gonna be stubborn about it, this might drag into March.

IIRC, B2B loved bagging on Epstein (at the time) as well, and pining for Hendry. Seems to be a pattern of being malcontent. But he wasn't alone, a lot of people really hated the teardown phase of the Epstein era.

"full time", lol

I was listening to the Parkins and Spiegel bit with Cowherd just a while ago, and while it was an excruciating listen, the takeaway seemed to be this: Williams and his camp have concerns about the Bears, but won't pull and Eli/Elway and refuse to play if drafted. And honestly, anyone in his position would be an absolute fool to not have major concerns, as the franchise has done an almost inexplicable job of screwing the pooch throughout their recent history, and particularly their very recent history, and especially with regard to their offense/QB. Plus they have a defensive HC who could end up on the hot seat very easily, so it's totally within the realm of possibility that he would end up in the same position Fields was in having a new staff within his first year. But that doesn't mean he would flat out refuse to play for the Bears. I'd bet that he will, and that they Bears will draft him. But if I were him, the prospect would make me a little queasy.

Most of it is, but the quick delivery bit says Caleb and screams "not Justin" to me.