Home Run Derby

 D-Day has arrived.  We are officially one third of the way through our 30 teams in 30 days feature (although I had two 1 day vacations so far).  When I first got my arms around this concept with Sky, the one team I couldn’t wait to profile was the Chicago Cubs.  I explicitly banned Richie from hijacking this post when we announced the feature back on February 28th.

Why you ask?  For those of you who don’t know me, I am a die hard Chicago fan, and when it comes to baseball, there is only one Chicago team for me, the Chicago White Sox. I am writing this while proudly wearing my A.J. Pierzynski jersey.  I absolutely HATE the Cubs .. .I am using the word “hate” to describe my feelings about the Cubs so that there is no misunderstanding.

In fact in my post on the Pirates, I referred to them as my second favorite team growing up, and that statement is true about 15 times each season, because my reality since becoming an adult is my two favorite teams are the White Sox and whomever is playing the Cubs.

and let me say, I tried, really hard, to abandon my hatred of the Cubs. Really  I did.  I spent my college years and another half dozen after that in Lincoln Park surrounded by Cubs fans.  There was always somebody from the office going to a Cubs game and getting a ticket wasn’t that hard.  In fact, my hatred was probably more accurately described a moderate dislike that magical 2003 season, but then all that progress was thrown away in one night.

I was lucky enough to get a ticket to Game 6 of the NLCS (through work).  They weren’t great seats but hey I was in the park about to possibly watch history–The Cubs making the World Series.  I don’t remember the row and seat number, but I was in Section 201 and I was in the last seat in the row.  Which meant I had a nice view of field and when I looked to my left I had an unobstructed view of Waveland Avenue.

It also meant that I wasn’t that far from the faithful spot that all Cub Fans feel is the scene of the crime … the crime that denied them a trip to the World Series.  Yep, I was at the Steve Bartman game and I remember that entire experience vividly. 

I went to the game as a baseball fan and not as a Cub hater.  As I entered the Friendly Confines, the buzz in the stadium was overwhelming.  I hadn’t reached my seat yet and I said to myself, “OK Greek, this is the moment.  This is where you can come to appreciate the Northside, watch some history, and take a step into Cub fandom.”  I promised myself to let go of everything that had shaped my baseball allegiances and to get caught up in the moment.

For seven innings the moment exceeded all expectations.  The mood was set in the first inning when Sammy Sosa doubled in the first run of the game and the Cubs took an early 1-0 lead.  The crowd believed it was inevitable.  Inning after inning, the buzz grew and Wrigley was bordering on all out pandemonium. 

By the time the sixth inning was finished the Cubs were up 2-0, Mark Prior was unbe-frickin’-lievable, and the crowd was standing arm-in-arm.  It was, at the time, the single greatest sporting event I had ever been to!  And then, just when I thought the atmosphere couldn’t be anymore fever pitched, it got kicked up a notch. 

The crowd started chanting the number of outs remaining before the World Series in the seventh. 

• Mike Lowell flies out to Left … Crowd shouts “EIGHT!” 
• Jeff Conine flies out to Center … Crowd shouts “SEVEN!!” 
• Alex Gonzalez (of the Marlins) flies out to right … Crowd shouts “SIX!!!” and then goes right into the stretch. 

Amazing.  I looked around and thought this is AWESOME!  (Full disclosure: I had to go back to the official play by play to get the names and plays right).

I took a quick look on to Waveland to see how large of a crowd was on the street and I saw something I didn’t expect.  The street was filled as one would imagine, but in front of the crowd seemed to be the entire mounted divison of the Chicago Police Department. T alk about cool, but there had to be over two dozen cops on horseback to help contain the party that was already starting.

The Cubs added another run in the bottom of the seventh and entered the eighth up 3-0 with six outs to go.  Cub fans … you can skip ahead to the predictions because I am sure you don’t want to re-live the next 3 outs.   Mike Mordecai fly to left…Crowd: “FIVE!!!”  People are hugging and I am 100 percent caught up in the moment.  I am seeing history tonight.

Juan Pierre hits a double…no big deal.   The crowd shakes it off like nothing.  Then the defining moment, at least in the minds of Cub fans.  The Castillo flyball to Bartman.  The crowd certainly boos, but the reaction wasn’t over the top.  Then Castillo walks (Pierre is on third now due to a wild pitch).  But hey, I am thinking there is still one out and a man on first, one double play and the Cubs are 3 outs away. 

Pudge hits a single, scoring a run and now runners are on 1st and 2nd, still one out, and the boos begin to pick up and the crowd starts to tighten up a bit.  And then comes the real defining moment of that game (unlike the Bartman bullshit that ESPN still peddles).  Double play ball to Alex Gonzales (of the Cubs) and he boots it.  The Cubs should have walked out of that inning up 3-1 and still only 3 outs away from the World Series.

Instead the bases are loaded for Derrek Lee (of the Marlins) and he unloads them with a three run double.  The crowd turns on Bartman … chants of “asshole” fill the stadium and no less than 3 dozen beers are launched in his direction.  His unfortunate place in Cubs lore is now secured (with the help of some dumbass writers at the Chicago Sun-Times that felt tracking him down and “outing” him was newsworthy … but that is a whole different story).

In five minutes, everything collapsed, the buzz was killed, the chanting of outs was gone, and so was any chance that I would become a Cub fan.  God, I have been wanting to write that down for a long time, and now I have had the chance.  Thanks for indulging me and my story … sometimes I get on a roll and it takes some time before I can wrap it up.

Now with my Cub Hate fully intact and further cemented by my own team’s 2005 World Series victory, I am now on to the predictions.  I will be fair and quite frankly this will include my boldest prediction yet (Sorry Nats fans).

Before I get to the predictions, one feature note.  The roundtables are great but they take a lot of coordination and time.  Sky and I are committed to doing them, but I am going to separate the roundtables into their own posts. The Cubs roundtable was great and quite lengthy.  The editing process is taking quite some time and we find that some roundtable are easier to solicit responses than others.   Anyway, the roundtables will continue (maybe even during the season) but not be included in any of my posts (Sky is certainly free to present them however he chooses). 

Win Total Over/Under is 87.5.  My bold prediction that the Pirates take the season series from the Cubs aside, the Cubs are going to have a good season. The NL Central division sucks and the Cubs’ interleague schedule is the weakest in all of baseball.  I will take the over as the Cubs will probably win 91-93 games.  Before I go any further, I see two keys to the Cubs season…well three keys.  

1. Derrek Lee
2. Ted Lilly  and …
3. A trade for a Center Fielder 

Derrek Lee has to play like his pre-wrist injury days.  His second half of 2007 makes that seem very likely as he hit 16 of his 22 Home Runs after the All-Star Break. 

Ted Lilly has to prove that last year was no fluke.  His command last year was tremendous (evidenced by his K/BB rate of 3.16 which was under 2.00 each of the last 3 seasons and his ERA+ of 122 vs his career 103 rating). 

As far as the CF position goes, Felix Pie (and I pronounce it PIE! just like Cartman) may be a very good player some day, but the Cubs have a chance to win it all this year – it is not worth the risk that PIE hits .215 again, no matter how good he is with the glove.  Go out a get a decent CF.  I am not crazy about Coco Crisp … but he would do.

Player most likely to have a Home Run Break Out Season: The Cubs really don’t have a good break out HR candidate as most players on this team are either established sluggers or just won’t be Home Run hitters.  So I go with the Derrek Lee rebound - he will hit over 30 Home Runs this year.

Player most likely to have a disappointing Home Run Season: The new guy, Kosuke Fukudome.  He will have a good year – just not hitting the long ball.  He had a respectable Home Run rate of 1 in every 20 at bats in Japan, which would suggest a 30 Home Run season this year.  He will only hit half of that number in 2008.  Pitching is better in MLB … even in the NL.

Best Case Scenario for the Team:  Derrek Lee returns to his All Star form, Aramis Ramirez stays healthy and Carlos Zambrano stays on his meds and won’t have a breakdown this year.

Best Chance for Hardware (League Awards):  I think this is the year Zambrano wins the Cy Young (sorry Mets fans).

Bold Statement: I purposely left this one for last.  My overated chant aside in the Pirates post, let me be the first to congratulate the 2008 World Series Champion Chicago Cubs. 

It pains me to say it because I don’t think they are the best team in the league.  But it is clear to me the Cubs will win their division and anything (I MEAN ANYTHING) can happen once you are in the Final Eight.  This team is able to go on a hot streak in the playoffs with their lineup the top of their rotation, not to mention a really good bullpen. 

The story line is just too perfect as a century of losing comes to an end. 

Let the record show that HRD Cub Fan Richie picked the Red Sox to win it all in 2008 … a day after the Red Sox won in 2007.

It is going to be a long, long winter in 2008-2009 as I will have to hear Cubs fans rejoice around the City (not to mention the shit I am going to take from my fellow Palehose fans). 

Just remember, the White Sox did it first!

Next up: the Seattle Mariners.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 13th, 2008 at 9:43 pm and is filed under 2008 MLB, 30 Teams in 30 Days, Cubs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.