One of the best things about being 1,800 miles from Chicago with minimal internet access is that you get removed from the spasmodic reactions of the Chicago fans on websites and the talk radio hosts that stoke the communal angst. Certainly there have to be fans on the ledge because the Cubs still haven't upgraded their team since the end of the 2009 season.

How many teeth were ground to dust over the Matt Capps to the Nationals signing?

How many gigs of message board space were filled with bitching that Curtis Granderson isn't a Cub? Same with Marlon Byrd. And even Reed Johnson, for that matter.

How much moaning is going on over the expected upcoming thrashing that the fans are expecting the Vikings to lay on the Bears and lame duck coach Lovie Smith (if he's not gone in 2 weeks, he's gone in 54 weeks)?

In the Decade of the Ought's, we as a society have come to expect instant gratification, no matter if that makes any sense or not. We all live on Internet Time. Even microwave ovens are sluggish for us.

How peaceful it is to be away from all this and be able to wear short sleeves, no jacket, and avoid e-mails.

Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate. I'll bet you wish you were where I am, even if you don't realize it.
|

It getting kind of clear that some people are already getting frustrated with the Ricketts' stewardship of the Chicago Cubs. The "Tradition" fans (read: those that like to go to the games and don't want anyone to mess with that experience) are already mad that the Cubs may move their training base to Florida from Arizona.

I've had an e-mail debate with one good fan who is upset that the Cubs haven't signed anyone yet.

But, now a professional media person is getting in on the act. Barry Rozner starts drawing a line in the sand:

The problem is that while Ricketts watches this little play unfold, the theater's on fire, and the audience is screaming for the fire department.

Yet, Ricketts stands with a cup of water in hand, takes a sip, and watches it happen.

...

Everyone knows the family overpaid to get the franchise and its broken-down ballpark, but if they didn't have enough cash to find a new center fielder, maybe they shouldn't have bought the club.

And if they do have the money but are waiting to see what Hendry can do, enough is enough already.

What's going to happen when Ricketts doesn't win the World Series by June?
|

Phil Rodgers is on the case of Bud Selig's new competition committee:

Is the designated hitter rule finally on its way out with Major League Baseball?

To be fair, it's premature to ask such a potentially provocative question. But thanks to Commissioner Bud Selig's decision to turn recommendations for on-field matters over to a newly created version of the NFL's Competition Committee, the DH rule could face its first real threat since the American League accepted it permanently for the 1976 season, after a three-year experiment that began as a way to create run scoring and increase attendance.

So, why now? What could possibly be driving the removal of the DH now? Read on:

La Russa, like the other three managers on the committee ( Joe Torre, Jim Leyland and Mike Scioscia) has seen the DH rule play a major role in World Series play involving his teams. It is used in the AL park and not the NL, creating two different styles of games in determining championships.

Forced to build deeper rosters because of the DH rule, the AL has had an upper hand against the NL in recent years -- a trend borne out in results from the All-Star Game, the World Series and in interleague play. AL teams have been bigger spenders than their NL counterparts.

Oh ho! Bigger spenders? Amazing!

The reality of the DH is that it gives longer careers to marginal players. And what happens to a player's salary as their career extends? They get paid more.

DH's are high paid, one dimensional players - exactly the kind of player that teams really don't want to pay. With attendance high and juiced players scoring plenty of runs, the need for the DH as a augmentation to the offense has been basically removed.

The league wants the DH to go away, not because Tony LaRussa now no longer sees it as a benefit to the game. They want it to go away to save American League teams a lot of money.

How do they get the union to agree to this? The last thing the MLBPA wants is to see salaries go down Here's one idea. Go to a 26 man roster with a 1-man inactive slot. From the MLBPA's position, the league is going to take away 14 high paying jobs, but they will be replaced with 30 brand new jobs. Those 30 minor leaguers who are union members but stuck in AAA are certainly going to vote in favor of no-DH and yes-extra roster spot.

From the owners place, the 30 new jobs will probably earn less than the 14 players who had been filling the DH roles.

And for the fans? Well, the use of the 26th slot should go to the previous day's starting pitcher. Benches have thinned out over the past twenty years as teams migrated from a 4-man pitching rotation to a 5-man rotation. That extra starter came at the cost of a bench player. With teams carrying 11 or 12 pitchers, benches are awfully thin. Solution: Extra bench player, inactive yesterday's starter.

Does this suggestion have a chance of being adopted? Probably not. But the owners are going to have to give the players something to get them to give up 14 DH jobs. Thirty new jobs is not a bad way to do just that.
|

For those of you who listened to WGN's Sports Central last night, you were treated to 90 minutes of wry repartee on the Cubs from David Kaplan, Andy Dolan and Bad Kermit. Kaplan was a very gracious host and did a great job moving the conversation around amongst the four of us.

His producer and intern also deserve a shout out as they actually came through and had pizza ready for us when we arrived. That really hit the spot after a few Billy Goat Lagers.

You can hear the full broadcast here (via mp3 download) or simply click on the player below to listen with the commercials deleted.

FYC, indeed.

:::UPDATE:::
Bad Kermit with some detailed play-by-play.


|

Lovie Smith gave his press conference yesterday, during which he said that of his team's eight losses, "three of them were legitimate losses. ... To say we're that far away, I wouldn't necessarily say that."

Smith is saying that the Begnals (loss by 35 points), Vikings (loss by 26 points), and Cardinals (loss by 20 points) were the only ones where the Bears were not in the game.

By that logic, only 3 of the Bears' wins were legitimate as well. If Lovie is saying that his coaching has the team only a couple of plays away from a 10-3 record, then he has to admit that the opposing teams' coaches are only a couple of plays away from the Bears being 3-10 right now. In fact, Pittsburgh's problems were more to do with field goal kicking rather than coaching.

Dave Wannstedt was a lousy coach on so many levels. But what used to be the most bothersome was his refusal to take responsibility for his suckitude. "We're only a few plays away," he'd say. And he was right.

What he misunderstood was that EVERY losing team is only a few plays away. That's the difference between good teams and bad teams. Good team consistently make key plays, bad ones don't.

It's not bad luck that you are losing and you aren't close because the losses are close. If you are stacking losses, there's a reason.

When you've been stacking losses for 3 consecutive years, it's time to go away.
|

When Jay Cutler came to the Bears, you figured that, at the very least, the Bears would be entertaining. You figured, "Young, Pro-Bowl quarterback. Decent young running back. Yeah, the D-line may be declining as Tommie Harris is now down to only 1 leg, but the offense will make this fun." It was going to be like watching the Dolphins in the Marino years. Yeah, they wouldn't really be contenders every year, but you wouldn't be bored for three hours every Sunday.

Man, was that wrong.

Lovie Smith has evolved into another Dave Wannstedt. He coaches scared. How frustrating is it to see, on 3rd and 12, a short swing pass? Isn't this QB a guy who is supposed to be able to gun it over the middle?

"Oh, but Cutler throws a lot of pics," some will say. The swing pass is the safe play.

At 5-7, what's the reason left to play it safe?

There is none.

It's not easy to tell if Lovie Smith thinks his job is in jeopardy. But going conservative instead of giving the fans something to potentially cheer about sure seems to be a way of trying to save one's own butt over treating the playing customers to an actual entertaining spectacle.

On the plus side, the next three weekends just found three extra hours for doing other stuff. If enough other people agree, just maybe the McCaskey's will realize that their brand is faltering again.
|

Last Saturday, the day when news stories people don't want talked about are talked about, Paul Sullivan ran a piece in the Tribune on ticket price increases for the Cubs in 2010:

Club box outfield seats will increase by nearly 19 percent for so-called "platinum" games, a new ticket price tier that was introduced in 2009, and will nearly double from 14 games to 26 next year.

The most expensive seat will be a platinum club infield box, which was raised by $12, or a 12 percent increase from $100 to $112. The cheapest tickets will be $9 for an upper deck outfield reserved seat for one of the six "bronze" games on weekdays in April, May and September.

The Cubs maintain that half of the ticket inventory will remain about the same, while the average price increase will be $2 for "gold" games and $5 for "platinum" games. A 1 percent rise in the city amusement tax, from 11 to 12 percent, also figured into the price hike.

In essence, the Cubs hiked the prices on their most expensive seats and said they believe many of them will be re-sold by season ticket holders. Meanwhile, they held the line on most "cheap" seats that generally go to individuals when tickets go on sale to the public in February.

The best Cubs-Business blogger out there, Wax Paper Beer Cup, has some fun with a Crane Kenney comment:

"We understand our season ticket holders in particular use the secondary market as a way of underwriting their ticket purchases," Kenney said. "It's a fact of life. We’re over that. That’s fine. So we did the $5 (average) increase on those premium games as a way of trying to push the burden of our ticket price increase on those games, leaving the ticket prices flat for most of our games, for most of our seats.”

So Kenney decides to run the 'move the blame to the ticket brokers play', it's a play that's almost as tiresome as a Bears screen pass. Kenney doesn't have to run this play and truthfully the Cubs should thank the secondary market for being an easy scapegoat every year the Cubs raise ticket prices. I guess it's easier to blame ticket brokers than it is to tell the fans: 'the team has a shitload of debt and you will pay for it. That may not go over so well.

You never want to slap down anger directed at Kenney (aside - just why is he at the Winter Meetings? What the hell kind of value is he capable of adding to actual baseball discussions?), our friend CCD kind of misses Kenney's (shockingly) correct point.

The reason the Cubs are raising ticket prices is not because of the brokers. It's because the brokers demonstrate that Cubs tickets have a higher market value than their face value.

As we all know, the Ricketts now are responsible for debt service on $425 million in loans. If they have a way to increase total revenue, they should do it. If the equilibrium price for tickets is higher than the face value of the tickets, then, by gum, raise prices.

What no one seems to have noticed here is that this has been the case for quite a while. Remember Premium Ticket Services? The Cubs have been trying to get extra money for years out of their tickets.

So, why didn't they just raise prices like this directly the last few years? Simple.

The team was for sale. What do you do when a sports team is for sale? Maximize attendance and show a buyer the inherent potential for new revenue. What do you NOT do? Do anything that creates even one more empty seat.

What this means is that prices have been lower the past several years in an effort to facilitate a sale.

This isn't really a price increase. It's a price recovery.
|

This rare goal is getting kinda common from this guy.

There were two problems with this goal: 1) It was at the other end of the ice from where we were sitting; and 2) It was the Hawks' only goal of the night and they needed 5.

Jonathan Toews just keeps getting better and better and better...


|

...Jim Hendry managed to unload a bad player who was signed to too long of a contract on another team. Aaron Miles is an A. The A's gave up two non-prospects and gave the Cubs $1.7 million in salary relief. Why would they do that? Hendry handed Billy Beane Jake Fox. For once, Hendry realized some sort of positive value for a "prospect." If only he'd realized this much value with Bobbie Brownlie. Or Donnie Veal. Or Andy Sisco. Or...

...If the Bears had still owned their #1 pick in 2010, wouldn't yesterday's 17-9 snoozefest win over the Rams be the kind of game that the organization would have been better off for losing?

...Iowa goes to the Orange Bowl to play a game on a Tuesday night. The Orange Bowl Committee is certainly betting that the Iowa economy is doing well enough not only for their fans to travel to Florida, but for them to take off part of the week after New Years as well.

...The Chicago Blackhawks' crowd was pretty tepid last Friday night considering how well the team is doing, how strong the road trip was, and that it was Marian Hossa's first game in a Hawk uniform. Then again, other the Jonathan Toews' Hall of Fame caliber goal, there wasn't much to cheer about.

...Mike Cameron for the Cubs strikes me as a decent idea, but do we really want Jim Hendry setting the terms of the contract? New ownership of Tom Ricketts (et al) sure didn't do much oversight on the John Grabow negotiations.
|

Chip Caray was fired today. He didn't quit, he was fired. How do we know it wasn't mutual? From the article:

Caray had some time left on his contract with Turner, where he also called Braves games on the Peachtree TV cable network. Levy said the company was looking at a "number of candidates" to replace Caray at both positions.

TBS is paying Chip to stay away. Smart move.

If only Milton Bradley worked for TBS.
|

This page has long held the opinion that Lovie Smith is a good coach when it comes to motivating his players and getting the most out of their performances. These good skills have been nearly offset by his stubbornness to adapt his game plans to the talent he has available to him. Additionally, he has shown time and again that he is a poor tactician when it comes to adjusting his game plan once a game has started.

None of those will be the reasons Lovie stays or gets fired after the 2009 season. As with nearly everything, especially with the McCaskey's, it all will come down to money.

Yes, Lovie Smith is owed $10 million more dollars through 2011. And his coaching staff is probably due another $5 million combined on top of that. Furthermore, there is really no reason to unload Lovie unless you completely clean house and remove Jerry Angelo, the architect of this house (which is in need of foreclosure). That means another $5 million or more.

So, to start the process of fixing the Bears, it's going to cost well over $20 million or more. They'll never do it, right?

Most likely not. But don't be too sure.

The question the McCaskey's have to weigh is if retaining this regime will cost them more money than firing them and replacing them. There is certainly a probability that the cost to retain is greater than the cost to fire.

First, as mentioned previously, this team has $40 million invested in Jay Cutler. If Lovie can't get value out of that $40 million, a team could see that there's money to be saved by finding someone who can get that value out. And, beyond Cutler, there's value in the rest of the roster. Can value be generated out of Johnny Knox, Devin Hester and Lance Briggs or will this regime simply burn their salaries and talent in the fires of wasted seasons?

And then there is the question of franchise value. What does a disgusted fan base do to the value of the franchise in a sale. Make no doubt about it, the Bears will eb the next team sold in Chicago, and that day comes not long after Virginia McCaskey decides she prefers a harp and a halo to a sky box.

The Bears have a lot of family members that own stock who want to monetize that stock. What's better for the value? Lovie Smith, Jerry Angelo and rapidly de-evolving quarterback or Bill Cowher?

It was no accident that Hub Arkush let slip last week that the Bears have reached out to Cowher. The McCaskey family floated a trial balloon to see what fan reaction would be. Word on the street was that the fans were pretty receptive to the idea.

The McCaskey's are going to do what they need to do to protect the value of their investment. Unlike nearly every other owner, this is all they have. If they deem that firing Lovie will improve their value, the regime will be dumped very quickly after this season ends.

The only remaining question is: Can the final 5 games of the 2009 season influence that decision.

Well, back in 2006, with another team up for sale, waning fan interest and empty seats resulted in the spending of a few hundred million dollars on Lou Piniella, Alfonso Soriano, and Ted Lilly.

The telltale for the 2009 Chicago Bears will be the same. Watch for empty seats.
|

Normally, we go with Les Nessman. As a change, we go with Jed Bartlett.

Happy Turkey Coma, everyone!


|

For the last few days, the radio talk shows have talked about little else than what Dr. Dan Grossman, ophthalmologist from Bloomington, IN, had to say about Jay Cutler, Rex Grossman and the sad state that is the Chicago Bears:

"You know this young man can really play the sport and that position. It borders on the ridiculous. And the media wants to continually rip the player. And they are missing the point. It's not the player. It's the organization.

I'm not even going to rip the coaches. It's not even the coaches. The coaches are given a clear, strong message: 'We're not building an offensive passing team; we're building an offensive running team.'"

What the media has focused on are the direct points Dr. Grossman made (why is Jay struggling and why did Rex struggle) and the "journalistic" angle (why did Fred Mitchell even go and contact Dr. Grossman).

There is some merit in the journalism angle. Is it good for society to have newspapers, in this specific case the Chicago Tribune, continue to try to stave off extinction by creating stories and not simply reporting them? Does it even matter in something as trivial as sports? If this practice is accepted for sports, does it have ramifications for how news organizations will cover hard news?

All good discussions to have.

But Dr. Grossman makes an accusation that fans of sports teams need to understand. Dr. Grossman has directly accused the McCaskey family of directly controlling the style of on field play to the detriment of the product. Listen to what he says:

"I believe that the NFL is a passing league. It has been for the last 20 years. Chicago continues to use the phrase, at least Lovie Smith continues to use the phrase, 'We get off the bus running.' They need to abandon that concept. Running is obviously a very important part of the offense. But the best teams in this league are prolific passing teams."

The good doctor is saying that ownership is guiding the "run first" mentality when the league has moved on to become a passing league.

No one in the professional media has asked Mike McCaskey to comment on this as far as this page knows.

Do the Bears make general manager and coaching hires based upon on-field styles as directed by ownership?

Does ownership get involved in game decisions in other ways?

Are player personnel decisions still influenced by ownership?

This is what Dr. Grossman is saying. About time someone asked if his accusations have merit.

And, Cub fans, let's hope Tom Ricketts is paying close attention to this as well.
|

When the Cubs signed Milton Bradley, he was already clearly a loon, but a talented loon. His numbers were good, he got on base, he had decent power. One figured that in a decent lineup, if he could stay healthy, Milton would be a good player for the Cubs. Hell, he could even be the Cubs #3 hitter.

Boy was scouting wrong.

That's what you get when you scout a player via the press and not by watching him regularly.

When the Bears traded for Jay Cutler, you looked at the numbers and listed to the analysts. Here was a franchise QB. Young, proven, ready for the next ten years. People who didn't agree were lambasted by the Boers & Burnstein types with them saying, "You've had plenty of chances to see this guy. Denver's been onllocal TV plenty the last three years. He's great. Don't worry about it."

Sounded good. These guys are paid to watch every game so we gave their opinion the benefit of a doubt. Some of us have non-sports lives and can't watch 16 NFL games a week, much less 15 MLB games a day. Therefore, we've learned to give some credence to their opinion.

Well, one wonders what they saw in Jay Cutler before, because we aren't seeing it here.

Jay is a good quarterback, but he clearly has some serious flaws. Those flaws that are being exposed as a Chicago Bear are some combination of three factors:

1) His receivers are beyond awful. Often it seems that Jay expects Bear receivers to behave like NFL receivers. That's a mistake. While the Bears have some guys that have the talent to catch and the speed to run, they don't seem to have guys that know how to play.

2) The play calling can be brutal. How many third and longs where the play is a three yard swing pass are going to be called before someone suggests that they should try something different?

3) Jay just doesn't see the defenders bracketing his receivers. This seems to be his red zone problem. The less field there is to defend, the more the defense can surround the wide outs, the more Cutler tosses a ball into the gut of a defender.

Interestingly, all this is fixable. Better WRs who are better coached would be a help. A GM who drafted and signed better offensive linemen would help.

The question is if this staff can do the fixing? The McCaskey's have more money tied up in Jay Cutler than they do in Lovie Smith and Jerry Angelo. At what point do they spend money do defend other money?

A few more losses and we just may find out.
|

Happy 40th to Sesame Street.

|

It's been like the 1980's around here. The Cubs have new ownership and there are real, honest-to-goodness leveraged buy outs to work on. The latter has taken up the bulk of the time of this writer. Regardless, everything seems like a replay of decades ago.

Speaking of replay, it's interesting how much instant replay has been the focus of the sport world of late. The Major League Baseball playoffs were littered with obvious mistakes that would take one quick glance to overturn on instant replay. Alex Rodriguez had a double that was turned into a home run via replay in the World Series. The Iowa Hawkeyes were saved a loss to Indiana by a questionable reversal of a touchdown call. Then, just last night, the Bulls were denied a potential win via a ten minute review of a potential game winning shot by Brad Miller.

In the MLB General Managers meetings this week, replay was glossed over:

Upon further review ... baseball general managers like instant replay the way it is.

GMs failed to take a vote Tuesday on expanding instant replay following a postseason filled with blown calls by umpires.

"I know there are some who have talked off line about the expansion of instant replay," said Jimmie Lee Solomon, executive vice president of baseball operations in the commissioner's office. "Right now, the commissioner doesn't see any reason to consider it."

Bud Selig doesn't see any reason? I guess he didn't watch any of his sport over the months of October and November.

What's true is this: Bud, you opened the door to replay already. It's in your sport. That you use it in only the most rudimentary way on calls that could become undisputed by simply installing Wrigley Field-like baskets in every stadium only shows how unthinking you are.

But you opened the door. To say you only like replay for somethings and not for others is not only dumb, but it suggests you have an outside influence preventing you from implementing replay further.

The thing about replay is you either do it fully loaded or not at all. You know the old joke that says if you won't sleep with me for $10 but you will for $1,000,000, then we know what you are, we are just haggling over price?

How much more do you need to be paid, Bud, to get replay done the right way? We know what you are, we just want to know your price.
|

I just want to know how long Stewart has been practicing the Glenn Beck imitation.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The 11/3 Project
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

|

Yesterday, at halftime of the Bears boring win over the Cleveland Browns, the Chicago Bears played a tribute to Walter Payton. Now, unless you saw the late news or read the papers and blogs this AM, you'd never have known about the tribute given Fox's CBS' ignoring the event.

It seems there was a six minute video tribute. The Bears have done their fans a service by posting the video on line. If you haven't seen it, the tribute can be found here.

I was 8 years old when Walter played his first game as a Bear. I have no recollection of watching the Bears before him. Could simply be that they were so bad that there was nothing worth remembering.

Walter Payton is worth remembering.

Hard to believe it's been 10 years.
|