After reading the headline I bet your were scared silly thinking about what image I would post with today’s blog. Not to worry, today my wife is my editor. Nevertheless, today we are treated - if I may use that word - to, quite possibly, the most homoerotic opening paragraph ever printed on a major metropolitan sports page.
Like foie gras, 10 Cane rum and the Bugatti Veyron sports car, Rich Harden is a delicacy best consumed in moderation. You build him a large lead. You yank him after 5 1/3 scoreless innings and 96 pitches. You slap him on the rump and thank him, as Lou Piniella did Saturday, and then you lock him in a hermetically sealed cocoon so his blowtorch right arm doesn’t go limp before his next start.
So, in review, he* wants to eat him, drink his sweet, pungent, flavor, drive him hard and fast and then yank him and put him away so he* can play with him again. Well, between consenting adults I guess that would be fine. But something tells me that Mr. Harden may have an issue or two with that scenario.
In keeping with the theme of the day, such as it is, we get a food reference for Carlos Marmol as well. However, this time it is both an insult and an allegedly funny play on his name.
Would someone mind telling me what the hell happened to Carlos Marmol and why his once-unhittable pitches have turned to marmalade?
Yes, “once-unhittable” is not really a hyphenated word. But, let’s focus on the larger issues here. This is the kind of sentence that gets you a failing grade in the 3rd grade. Moreover, it shows that he* was not actually watching Marmol pitch. He is no longer “once-unhittable” because he is leaving everything up over the plate. Now, why he is doing that would make for an interesting article. But we will get nothing like that today.
“Sorry I’m late, but I had to have a nice, cold beer before coming down here,” Piniella said after the Cubs salvaged an 8-7 win over the Giants in 11 innings.
Yes, there should be a period after “down here”. But, our very own Tyrone needed a beer after yesterday’s game, and he doesn’t drink. So we can cut Lou some slack there. The column* then wanders around, now praising Wood after spending months bashing him, talks about the Cubs’ great record and then worries about how it will all go away if this or that or some combination of the above happens.
Deprived of facts or the most basic form of literary ability, he* just wanders on and on and on and ..... Oh, the hell with it. TomD, who I have run out of nicknames for, has already started a thread, so CLICK HERE TO JOIN THE FUN!
Not too shabby of a first half season of baseball for Chicago, eh? And yes that includes both north and southsiders.
Despite Jay’s incessant prediction of a supposedly inevitable bottom of the pack fate for this season, the White Sox stand alone and at the top of the AL Central with a nifty 53-39 record.
One guesses that those blow up dolls did have some value after all.
Being a self-loathing overtly cautious pessimistic Cubs fan (yes Hino, I know, I know… keep the faith), this season has been a revelation.
So far. But then again, it is only the mid point.
Welcome aboard Rich Harden. Here is hoping that you out perform Sabathia on the pitcher’s mound and not at the dinner table. And whatever you do, please avoid any member of the medical staff that possess charts with the names “Prior” and “Wood”. Also would be a great idea to take a pass on any invitation to jumping into Kerry’s hot tub. Thanks.
SouthSideSlim, our residential computer guru and legendary contributor, has initiated a contest to determine who are the MVPs for the White Sox and Cubs so far this season. You can nominate your favorite White Sox here and Cubs player here.
Obviously, this is sure to draw bloodshed. Or maybe not.
Special props to photoshop wizard Rocky Biddle for today’s pic. This is what one would appear like should only one percent of brain activity be committed to following this year’s White Sox success.
Have a great weekend.
What the Packers should do, of course, is understand why Favre waffles so wildly and forgive him. His greatness is imbedded deep in his heart, and while it drives us daffy when he changes his mind with such predictable unpredictability, his desire to return is based on raw emotion and a fear of life without football. - Back Page Village Idiot
What a load of horse manure. And I’m not even referring to the lame attempt of re-inventing the English language.
“Imbedded”?
Jay Mariotti’s ignorance of the ongoings of professional football are evidently even worse than his spell check efforts. Perhaps the pundit is confusing the NFL with his childhood soccer house league where everybody gets to play and no score is kept.
Since we are damn well aware that Michael Cooke’s favorite pump wearing miniaturized lawn ornament reads every post on this website, we sure as hell better keep it simple on explaining the position of the Green Bay Packers.
As in first grade type of simple.
You see Jay, football is a pretty complex game. The players actually practice and execute offensive and defensive schemes based upon the ideology of the head coach in conjunction with the talent presented on the roster. This is a year round effort that consists of off season optional practices, mini and rookie camps, work outs and training camps. It was kind of important for the Packers to know if Favre was going to return or not for this season several months ago.
And Favre gave his answer. He called a press conference and announced that he was through with football. That rumble in the distance is John Madden’s continual bellow of protest.
Still, too difficult to understand? Okay, let’s simplify this even more so.
Aaron Rogers is not Brett Favre. He throws fewer interceptions during clutch moments and doesn’t punk his team out annually with insincere quibbling over potential retirement.
Favre is not the starting quarterback of the Green Bay Packers because he voluntarily (according to him anyways) quit his job, cleaned out his locker and walked off into the sunset. In essence, Favre made the decision that Rogers was now the main man taking the snaps.
And now after all this time, the shameless prima donna wants his job back.
Well, too frigging bad.
Of course, Jay Mariotti is perturbed by the Packers refusing to allow their organization to roll over and die and be held hostage by these antics. After all, who else but Mariotti would appreciate the fine art of “taking one’s ball and going home” when feeling slighted by “the man”?
No different than Madden’s routine slobbering that “Brett Favre is Brett Favre” on Sunday Night Football broadcasts (should still be Monday but that’s for another day) somehow Mariotti expected the Packers to figure that Favre’s retirement sob fest was disingenuous and prepare for the return of #4 anyways.
Makes perfect sense. Hold up the entire future direction of the Packers for one individual. Sure, it is Brett Favre. But how many times was this franchise expected to play the “please come back Brett and play again” shtick?
Why should they?
If alive, Vince Lombardi would be kicking two arses tonight. First, an unconditional release of Favre would be issued. After all, Lombardi was about team first and individual a distant second. Favre doesn’t want to be a Packer, then so be it. Go ahead and enjoy Baltimore or Tampa Bay.
As for that second set of buttocks? Our educated readers already know the answer.
No reason to further titillate the dwarf on this Friday Bunker Night with Vinyl Ben.
There is an old Celtic saying, “A Dragon lies by telling the truth.” It means that you have been told a fact or two, but not all of the relevant ones and, eventually, you will be eaten. The same basic philosophy applies to ambulance chasing lawyers and our little Diva of Despair.
Dadgum, Hawkeroo. Would you believe the records are nearly identical now? In fact, when weighing the difficulty quotient of playing in the superior league, the White Sox actually are having a better season than the charmed, beloved, gush-and-goo Cubbies. Where this uprising came from, I don’t know, and where it’s going, I can’t say. But “Sox In The City” is a boffo hit.
I guess we can start with the obvious and thank the diseased troll for giving sideways props to all my friends over at www.SoxAndTheCity.net. I know he* didn’t mean to, but I thought I would start this on a happy note. Besides, everyone over there can read and write English well above the 4th grade level, so it is a nice place to visit.
Although, I wonder if Lou really wants to be known as a “Gush and Goo” kind of guy. It would seem that there are medical treatments for that.
Ah well, all things must end. Let’s take a look at today’s spew and see if we can make any sense out of it.
And worst of all? Attendance on the South Side, a traditional Sox bugaboo that should be a non-issue after a World Series championship, is becoming a story again. Despite their success, the Sox rank 18th among the 30 big-league teams with a 28,915 average, down 4,225 bodies a game from last year and a revealing 7,596 fans from 2006.
- AND -
The economy has some impact, sure, but perhaps there’s also a burnout effect involving Guillen, Williams and their circus-like way of doing business. A day rarely passes without a Sox controversy, whether it’s the federal investigation of a Dominican Republic scouting scandal or the argument Wednesday night between the level-headed Dye and volatile Orlando Cabrera.
If you look at the actual numbers (below), Sox attendance has been up, over 400,000 seats a year, since Ozzie came to town - once you exclude his first year. In 2005 the Sox became the first team since the 1926 Yankees to go wire to wire in first place and win the World Series. After many years of disappointment fans began packing the seats in the second half of the season. In 2006, flush from the World Series win, fans were treated to a 90 win season. Only the fact that Detroit went bats**t crazy and beat everyone but their wives kept the Sox out of the playoffs that year. In 2007 it was clear by the All Star break that the Sox could get swept by 9 arthritic grannies and their brooms. So, the fans stayed away. But, if you look at the actual numbers, they are projected to have more fans in the stands this year than they did in 2005 and that number could easily go up if they are seriously contending in August and September.
Which they will be. 
White Sox Attendance - Annually
2004 - 1,930,537
2005 - 2,342,834
2006 - 2,957,414
2007 - 2,684,395
2008 - 2,378,000 (projected at current rate)
Thanks to the people at BASEBALL ALMANAC for all this info. For the projection, I took current average attendance, multiplied by the number of home games and rounded up to the nearest whole number.
Overall, attendance to most non-necessary events is down. Gas has doubled over the last year and a half, food and rent have gone up beyond the cost of living increases and unemployment is skyrocketing. No matter which political fence you lean over, that is not a recipe to start a party or blow money needlessly.
Add in the fact that The Cell, unlike Wrigley, is a single point destination and not conducive to tourism and you have some very tangible reasons why the Sox draw fewer fans than the Cubs and why this year may not draw 3,000,000 to the South Side.
As to the Sox All Star snubs this season, one look no further than the history of the All Star voting. Since the players and managers vote first and they barely see the players they are voting for, barring the occasional player who is on the front cover of USA Today every week, they tend to vote on the previous year’s record. That is wrong, unfair or whatever you want to call it. Even so, it is also true. They are in the middle of their own seasons and do not have the time to peruse daily stats for every player. Of course, that kind of insight would be regularly available to any reporter who actually talked to a baseball player or manager. Hell, chat up any secretary in the front office, he or she will know all this too.
Other than getting facts wrong or horribly distorted, today’s column* once again proves that in order to pay for the high quality (ahem) reporting* that Mariotti brings to the table that the Sun Times needed to cut luxuries out of the budget; like Spell Check, Grammar Check, Logic Check, etc. In other words, Caveat Lector.
TomD, a man whose friends have inexplicably taken to calling Hooperoo the Groovy Rabbit, has already started a thread, so CLICK HERE TO JOIN THE FUN!
Who to believe? Mariotti? A man far too enamored with the 3/4 naked men who comprise ultimate fighting these days;
As formal responses go, Jim Hendry struck quicker Tuesday than Cynthia Rodriguez’s divorce attorney and Rampage Jackson in an octagon jam.
Memo to Jay, Rampage lost his big fight (my wife is a fan of the 3/4 naked man sport and she told me), so comparing the Cubs to a loser is probably not a good idea. That being said, maybe our readers would prefer to believe Cubs General Manager Jim Hendry?
“We’re really happy about it,” Cubs general manager Jim Hendry said. “We’ve been working on Mr. Harden for a few weeks.” - courtesy ST Sports Staff
Mariotti?
The trade-market retort was so rapid and precise, Tribster czar Sam Zell didn’t even have time to say “(Bleep) no.”
Or Hendry?
“I applaud my boss Crane Kenney, because it shows we’re in this to win this thing,” Hendry said. - courtesy ST Sports Staff
Yeah, me too.
It has been no secret that the Cubs have been looking to shore up their starting rotation. It has also not been a secret that a trade with the Indians for Sabathia would have proved problematic for the Cubs. They just didn’t have the pieces the Indians needed or wanted. Jim Hendry is a smart man. He knew all this stuff too. So, if he spent the last three weeks buttering Beane (still the best GM to win absolutely nothing) in order to make his team better, more power to him. If the Milwaukee trade got him to add the last piece that Beane needed to pull the trigger, who cares?
The Cubs have given up nothing and gotten a pitcher who can take them to November. The only starter they gave up, Gallagher, has shown flashes of brilliance but has also shown that he is distracted by ... well, darn near anything. That can be fixed, but that is not a luxury a first place team in the hunt for a ring has. The A’s do. So, maybe he will flourish there, maybe not. Either way the Cubs and their fans shouldn’t care at all. The only thing that matters is that they just went from good to scary in one day.
Simply put, unlike Mariotti, I will eschew vapid pop culture references and making unsubstantiated claims - based on Bean’s great track record I am guessing (see above) - that the Cubs just traded for a pitcher who may get injured and instead allow Lou Pinella to speak on behalf of the team he manages.
“We’re excited, really are,” manager Lou Piniella said. “He’s got really good stuff, knows how to win. He’s a welcomed addition. This gives us another weapon. He’ll fit in here really, really nice. Let’s keep him healthy and pitching and go from there.
“Jim’s been trying to improve our team. He’s talked to a few different clubs about our pitching. And yesterday Milwaukee made a nice deal for a left-handed starter and today Jim went out and got real good right-handed pitcher. Good to see he’s so competitive. We get a top-of-the line rotation pitcher and a nice piece in the bullpen. This shows the Cubs will do everything in their power to get us where we want to go.”
Even though I am a Sox fan, I hope that Lou gets to pop another bottle of cheap champagne this year on his way to the World Series. Our very own connoisseur of the French bubbly and French maid outfits, TomD has already started a thread so CLICK HERE TO JOIN THE FUN!