CUBZ99

Ward's mistake better not cost us another run.

I want the Cubs to make the playoffs, win the World Series and Jim Hendry to laugh at all of us for doubting his philosophy. I would even be okay with the Cubs keeping him another year if they win it all in 2007. :lol: Why would that scenario allow Hendry to laugh at us for doubting his philosophy? Its not like his team would have won a lot of games, we would have made the playoffs due to a terrible division and getting hot at the right time. He would have accomplished something no GM for the Cubs has accomplished in 98 years.

I want the Cubs to make the playoffs, win the World Series and Jim Hendry to laugh at all of us for doubting his philosophy. I would even be okay with the Cubs keeping him another year if they win it all in 2007. :lol:

:lol: :lol:

Somebody gets it. :D

Don't buy into that at all. Lou has remained fluid through out the entire season, and may be one of the reasons the Cubs are even in the race in the first place. Just to name a few, the decision to start Theriot over Izturis, riding out Fontenot's hot bat, replacing Wade Miller in the rotation before June, benching Eyre, benching Ohman, giving Jones a rest until he heated up, riding out some of the young relievers arms when they were effective i.e. Petrick. I know your not suggesting that you just stick with the same thing ala Dusty until the team is out of contention, but Lou has seemed to have a good idea of the teams strengths and weakness and tried to take advantage of them. If Dusty were still managing my guess is that Izturis would still be starting, Jones, and Floyd would be mainstays in the lineup even vs. lefties and Miller would have been in the rotation alot longer.

When Lou talks about speed, my guess is that he is referring to Pie, Fontenot, Theriot, Cedeno, etc. I wouldn't mind seeing Pie get another shot out in CF before this season is over. Defensively he is an improvement, and he is bound to break out with his bat. I would also think that Soriano would move to the middle of the order until he gets his legs back.

Nice way to show some fight in that inning.

I hope they are pinch hitting for Trachsel here.

Glad to see other teams can look that dumb at times.

Should DLEE bunt? :lol:

Wow, those are some bad numbers for the year so far.

It was his own fault. It's good they took a stand. Maybe it'll help the kid in the long run. So was the whole Monroe getting lost and not being able to find the park viewed as a valid excuse?

Apparently Monroe doesn't like to come to the game on time either. Of course his excuse was that he couldn't find the ballpark. :lol:

Ok, now that he's apologized, I hope we can all move on and give the guy a break. As someone pointed out earlier, its not like he is a loafing, non caring player. This guy wants to win as much as any Cub I have seen in awhile.

So we are villifying him by wanting him to stop sucking and start pitching like the ace he is? Ya sounds like we are real irrational. you've been villifying him from your very first post. And no one said anything about the fact that wanting him to stop sucking is a bad thing. But that yesterday was beyond that. We are going to have to agree to disagree because you arent going to change my mind that there was nothing wrong with what took place yesterday from the fans. Villifying? Have we really reached a point that every negative comment is going to be construed as villifying?

I'm almost positive that Carpenter would have the sense not to make similar comments that Zambrano made. I think the biggest problems from all of this, is that Zambrano has put himself into a position with the fans where he has zero margin for error.

What about our other pitchers? Should Lee and Ramirez get booed for having no power this year? Anytime a player has a bad run they should get booed? Its not just about the bad pitching the last month. Its everything else taken into as a whole. The fans of Chicago want to win so badly, and they know this year the team has a chance at the playoffs. Yesterday was a big game for us, as the fans could see Stl losing and Milw losing, and then Z comes out and craps the bed. The fans were upset just like Z was upset with Barret. However its ok for Z to show his emotion towards Barret, but not for the fans to show their emotion towards big Z. That is hipocracy at its finest plain and simple. That's the thing though-it wasn't fine for Z to show his emotion towards Barrett, and he admitted that and apologized for it. If you are going to compare the two situations, then you're saying that the booing was unjustified. Big difference between booing someone for poor performance and punching someone because you are unhappy with them.

Thats not hypocritical, thats called showing approval or disapproval of a players performance. Hyprocritical would be cheering a guy for a certain action on one day, and then booing him on the next day for the same action under the same circumstances.

Zambrano can let his emotions get the better of him and deck Michael Barrett, but fans are supposed to sit on their hands the entire game and show zero emotion. Zambrano is the prince of emotion, in line to succeed Ron Santo as king. Cardinal fans were dead wrong to boo any part of their 11 run blowout yesterday, too. If only the fans would have cheered louder at each fundamental blow up, the Cardinal players would have seized the moment and scored 12 runs to come back and win the game. It doesn't work that way. Fans pay money to show some emotion at the game. They all prefer to cheer the whole game. And they don't boo when someone boots a ground ball. Boot 4 or 5 ground balls and yeah, you're going to hear displeasure. It's the nature of the beast. Well when you do it to an emotional guy like Zambrano (which incidentally is what makes him both great and awful), who is sensitive, it's only natural he's confused about the intent of fans. If i was cheered one day, had 4 years of being one of the best players on the team, and then I was booed because of one up or down year, I'd think fans were selfish too. And I'd be right. No you wouldnt be. Z is emotional, and right now in the heat of the pennant race when Z is needed more than ever hes pitching like Kip Wells, he would be a fool to think the fans arent going to show their emotion just like they would with him if he was pitching great. Z cant have it both ways. Its either ok to be emotional during the heat of a game, or its not. Its a 2 way street here. Well it's obvious that Z cares. It's obvious he was hurt yesterday. Not all players are thick skinned. If you want the Cubs to win, we NEED Z. Crushing his spirit when we need him the most won't be productive. But go ahead and think your right to boo is principled. It's as hypocritical as it gets, so enjoy it. How is that hypocritical? Most fans aren't sophisticated enough to go through an analysis of what consequences their actions will have on a player. In fact, I would guess most fans don't care. It is the nature of the beast. If there is one player that should understand that emotions sometimes get the best of people, I would think it would be Zambrano.

Zambrano can let his emotions get the better of him and deck Michael Barrett, but fans are supposed to sit on their hands the entire game and show zero emotion. Zambrano is the prince of emotion, in line to succeed Ron Santo as king. Cardinal fans were dead wrong to boo any part of their 11 run blowout yesterday, too. If only the fans would have cheered louder at each fundamental blow up, the Cardinal players would have seized the moment and scored 12 runs to come back and win the game. It doesn't work that way. Fans pay money to show some emotion at the game. They all prefer to cheer the whole game. And they don't boo when someone boots a ground ball. Boot 4 or 5 ground balls and yeah, you're going to hear displeasure. It's the nature of the beast. I just want to be clear, I wasn't saying that I agree with him. I just said that he made some valid points, but that those valid points were lost in the tone of his post. I think out of all the players on the team Zambrano is one guy that you don't have to worry about giving everything he has. I don't believe that it makes him immune to any type of criticism. I am certainly not against booing by the fans. Fans just react to the game as they see it. When their team makes good plays they cheer and shout encouragement. When the team/player makes bad plays they boo. Its nothing new to sports and its certainly not going to change.

You make some decent points about Zambrano. If only you could put it into words without calling everyone that disagrees with you "major idiots" or "fickle moronic idiots".

I was in favor of the trade for Monroe, but what exactly have you seen from Monroe (during his time with the Cubs) that you like?

Booing to me is not a productive way to help the team you are suppose to support. Am I happy about how Z threw or acted...absolutely not. I'm more in line of what do I have to do to fix this and not booing to voice what's already been done. I agree, in general that booing is not a very effective way of helping the home teams. If used to much is probably has no effect at all. But if there were a time to boo effectively, yesterday may have been that time. Fans pay money to watch the game and should expect better than what they got yesterday. Z played terrible and made some plays that even little leaguers knew were bad. I have yet to see anybody argue that Zambrano had a good game or has been good for a couple starts now. I think its pretty hypocrytical to gladly accept all of the cheering and fanfare and then somehow consider yourself immune to booing. The Cubs game isn't the Dr. Phil show, and the crowd is reacting in real time, not pondering how every action or inaction is going to effect the players longterm. I fear that the way Zambrano handled the situation is only going to make things worse for him throughout the rest of the season. There was no reason for him to make those comments and put him in a position where people are going to start booing him for the slighest mistakes.

Doubt it Floyds a veteran who's been there. Young kids forget how to play baseball in sept, thats why you need veterans On the radio pre-game Lou stated that Floyd needed to step it up and start hitting. I thought it was interesting that Lou would single him out. Floyd had some opportunities to drive in some runs today and failed. Interestingly enough, as soon as Lou had a chance, he pinch hit for Floyd and Murton came through. I wouldn't be suprised to see Piniella give Murton a shot to play more down the stretch. Lou has proven that he will go with the hot hand (Theriot, Fontenot, Ward (to some extent)) at times.