By Steve Rhodes
Even more ridiculous than throwing his glove 20 rows into the stands after sucking yet again was Cubs pitcher Kerry Wood’s response at his locker to a question about it from the Tribune’s Paul Sullivan.
Dude! Wrong.
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In no time, Kerry Wood was trending in Chicago.
Kerry Wood is one angry mascot! #Cubs
— Rob Perry (@robperry_12) May 9, 2012
The mascot meme stuck.
“Mascots don’t get to have bad nights,” Score host Dan Bernstein wrote in “Be Careful, Kerry Wood.”
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“This squirmy situation is on Ricketts, not on Wood, whose meteoric ascent to stardom in 1998, when he went 13-6, will conclude with a stunningly-low 80 or so career wins and 1,600-some career strikeouts,” the Score’s Dan McNeil writes in the Tribune. Ricketts hired Epstein and Hoyer to put a World Series-caliber product on the field.
“That doesn’t include mascots. Especially when they’re in uniform and make $3 million a year, while precluding young arms from cutting their major league teeth.”
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Recall that Wood was one of the Cubs who helped chased out Steve Stone, who had the gall to call the game the way he saw it. If only Wood had paid attention to Stone’s warnings instead of being so flip about someone he could have learned from.
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The new Mr. Cub? Please. Kerry Wood’s legacy is hot tubs, towel drills and the disabled list; his talent squandered to a fat, arrogant and stubborn youth. He’s been manufactured into a hero in the era of the gentrified Cubs fan – one of whom now owns the team. Now he’s going out in a blaze of gory.
No, Kerry Wood, the issue that’s ‘irrelevant, dude,’ is the rest of your Cubs career. It’s hard being Ricketts’ human fantasy league pick.
— steve rosenbloom (@steverosenbloom) May 9, 2012
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Comments welcome.
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1. From Jerry Pritikin, aka The Bleacher Preacher:
One year, he received 13 million bucks just to be on the D.L. This year he should have played for a buck, if he had a conscience. His charitable causes are nice, but if I got paid not to perform, I would’ve done the same thing. With each passing year, the Cubs keep giving contracts to “has beens” and “never was” players, and what do the fans get in return? Higher ticket prices, lot’ of electronic signage and an overpriced beer garden where a beautiful ballpark once stood. In fact, I am reminded of a Frank Sinatra song . . . “There used to be a ballpark right over here,” except that song was about the Brooklyn Dodgers, but I think of the “Friendly Confines” instead!
Posted on May 10, 2012