Chicago -
By Marty Gangler
I had a conversation with a friend recently about this year’s Cubs squad and he called them unintentionally comedic. To which I responded, there is nothing funny about this team at all.
*
Then again, a lot of people find Jay Leno funny, so to each his own,
*
I’ll concede this: Maybe the Cubs are sad clown kind of funny.
Posted on July 25, 2011
By Marty Gangler
Whew. Thank goodness for that. The last thing we needed was for the Cubs to use the All-Star break as a “recharge” period.
Sure, they had a couple days off, but they picked up back exactly where they left off. Which was horrible.
Any kind of glimmer of hope could really put the kibosh on trading away a few of these bums. And yes, we could get other bums in return – we probably will – but at least they’ll be different bums and at this point of the season different is kind of okay. Or at least better than what we see every day.
After all, when your team worships Jeff Baker, it pretty much means you stinks.
Posted on July 17, 2011
By Marty Gangler
So this was the week when the Cubs got healthy and got their team back, right?
When the “just injuries” excuse was put to the test.
When the Cubs had all guns blazing – went all in, if you will – to show the rest of the baseball world that they weren’t a complete and utter failure.
Sure, Big Z lost a start when he went on the DL with lower back tightness – joined a few days later by Marcos Mateo and his inflamed right wing – but really, Mike Quade had as many cards in his deck as could be expected. The Cubs were back in business.
The business of being really bad.
Posted on July 11, 2011
By Marty Gangler
As we are pretty much at the mid-point of the 2011 season (88 games in the books), we here at The Cub Factor think it’s time to take stock.
And just like when you were in school, we thought it’d be fun to give out letter grades – cuz you remember how much fun letter grades were, right? I mean, we could just go pass/fail but what fun is that as the Cubs are surely fail.
So with that in mind, let’s take a look at some grades in different categories:
Record: F. The Cubs have 35 wins right now and only the Astros and Royals have less in all of MLB. And the Cubs lost to the Royals.
Posted on July 5, 2011
By Steve Rhodes
“Depending on how fast reliever Kerry Wood and outfielder Marlon Byrd can
return from the disabled list, the Cubs might be able to put most of their Opening Day roster together for the first time in more than two months by the All-Star break,” the Sun-Times reports.
“That’s what general manager Jim Hendry said he wants to see before he decides what moves he’ll try to make before the July 31 trade deadline.”
You know what? Every year the Cubs hope to field their Opening Day lineup by the All-Star break. You know why? Teams suffer injuries. Every last one of ’em. Only the Cubs seem to use that fact of modern baseball as an excuse year in and year out as an explanation for why the grand plans of geniuses such as Jim Hendry don’t pan out. After blaming the weather, of course.
O Lord, how long?
Posted on June 27, 2011
By Marty Gangler
As a dad, every once in awhile I am reminded of something I should remember by my young son. My little guy is just over three-years-old and at that age they tend to lack “political correctness.” They really just call it as they see it and they let the chips fall where they may. Which means they can say the sweetest and most hurtful things in back-to-back sentences.
What I will remember about Father’s Day 2011 is my son telling me, “No baseball, daddy.” I tried to get him into the game but the answer was always “No baseball, daddy.”
And it turned out he was right. I was better off not watching that debacle unfold on Sunday night, with the Cubs throwing away the game with so many “un-error errors.” You know, those plays that don’t show up as an error in the box score but are as detrimental to winning baseball as a lazy grounder going right under your glove.
I’m not sure that an “un-error error” is the correct term for outfielders giving up on catchable flyballs, but I do know that that was “No baseball, daddy.” The smartest person in the room was the three-year-old.
Posted on June 20, 2011
By Marty Gangler
I have to admit that I wasn’t exactly sure what to make of this season before it started. The Cubs were in a weird place.
Instead of the standard, misplaced wait-til-next-year optimism of most years, you kinda thought that a ton of things would have to go right for them to have a chance. I was hoping for a little luck and at least a shot at the wild card.
But more than anything, I wanted to like this team.
Posted on June 13, 2011
By Marty Gangler
If the 2011 Cubs season was a hand of hold ’em poker, you would have to say that Mike Quade was dealt a 9-4 off-suit.
For you people who don’t know poker, that is a lousy two-card hand.
Not as bad as, say, the Astros’ 7-2 off-suit, but a 9-4 is pretty bad. No matter what five community cards are on the table, it’s hard to make something out of 9-4 off-suit.
But in poker, as in life, as in baseball, there are always more than just the cards you are dealt. You have to play your hand and get creative with your bets, checks, calls, etc.
I mean, sure you can be happy just to be playing cards for a living seeing as how most schleps are breaking their backs for a paycheck or slowly killing themselves in a cube somewhere, but you are playing for high stakes and can’t just be happy to be there because you’ll get pantsed. And there are, unfortunately, no cash awards given to the nicest player at the table. If anything being the nicest guy at the poker table shows that you lack a killer instinct, a full understanding of what you are dealing with, or a poker face – which in poker is kind of important.
So yeah, I’m talking about my once-loved (by me) manager Mike Quade. There is nothing wrong with being a good guy and believing in your players, but you have to know that when you are holding a 9-4 off-suit in a big pot, Albert Pujols is calling your bluff, your table presence is for shit and big Al came to play some cards.
Posted on June 6, 2011
By Marty Gangler
In the not-too-distant future, say 2018, Cubs fans will look back at the season currently in progress and say, “That team sure got decimated with injuries in 2011. Pass me that turkey sandwich pill.”
Because surely turkey sandwiches will come in pill form by then.
Cyanide already does. Maybe we could kill this season now and get a head start on next year’s embarrassment.
Posted on May 31, 2011
By Steve Rhodes
Mike Quade took the reins of a team late last August that had thus far posted a 51-74 record under Lou Piniella’s gasping leadership and turned around its fortunes with a 24-13 stretch in the last leg of the season by basically doing the opposite of what Sweet Lou had done.
That meant, among other things, pulling Alfonso Soriano after a bonehead play; sitting down Starlin Castro after the same; finding playing time for Tyler Colvin while scotching the idea of turning him into a first baseman; rewarding productivity without regard to star power or doghouses; letting the pitching staff relax instead of keeping them on tenterhooks; respecting defense – and his players – by not constantly playing people out of position; and even informing players of the starting lineup well before game time so they could actually prepare for their days’ work.
Where oh where has that Mike Quade gone?
Posted on May 23, 2011
