First of all, 35th Street is a bit of a hike from the North Side whether you take the El or drive it and park. But besides the commute, during your stay in the South Side you will be met with pity and derision if not general abuse, albeit polite and civil general abuse. And that’s before the first pitch.
A Sox fan sums it up accurately and courteously for the guest team
Last Friday the Cubs didn’t help matters by doing what they often do best, which is to make a mockery of business in the same way that the Keystone Cops enforced the law.
A regular notch in the Cubs pitching rotation saw Tom Gorzelanny pitch much of the game against the Sox. Gorzelanny initially got slotted into the Cubs’ starting rotation earlier in 2010 only after Carlos Zambrano, a former All-Star, got sent into the bullpen after mediocre performances followed by temper tantrums.
Oddly enough, the second inning on this day saw Gorzelanny take the mound after Zambrano gave up four runs in a mediocre performance, followed by an altercation in the dugout and a temper tantrum.
The Cubs eventually lost 6-0, winning only the last of the three game series of the Crosstown Classic.
Before the end of the game, I talked with other baseball fans of both persuasions to find out that the consensus was that Zambrano was a bum, a whiny baby, and the root of many of the Cubs’ problems. But that’s not the simple answer.
True, Zambrano’s pitching this season stinks, but so does that of the entire pitching staff save Carlos Silva, and maybe Ryan Dempster. Power hitters like Aramis Ramirez, aren’t hitting the ball, and Cubs hitting hasn’t been adequate much less stellar. Nor can the Cubs hold a lead when they have one. Moreover, Coach Lou Piniella is out of contract after this season, and the Cubs have new owners who are just starting to get settled and find their way. All in all, it seems that the team has accepted that things are going nowhere and that’s how they're playing at the moment.
I remember when the Cubs’ issues back in the days of the 1990s, were predictable but tried and true.
Alfonseca, the 6 fingered man, with better pitching in better attire.
Back then, and up until the mid 2000s, the Cubs main talent seemed to be putting men on base. The problem was that they could never seem to get them to home plate.
Beyond that, it was the pitching quality and the untimely tendency of Cubs pitchers to slump from a good streak in one inning straight to a terrible inning to follow. I remember pitcher Kevin Tapani, a highly regarded Cub, in his usual patterns. The Tapani Algorithm, as I privately call it, would consist throwing an amazing no-hitter for four or five innings followed by a meltdown that would put a couple of runs on the board for the other team. The algorithm then ends mathematically when Tapani gets pulled off the mound.
Then there was Antonio Alfonseca, an excellent pitcher early in his career who won a World Series with the Marlins in 1997. He was also, in 2000, named National League Rolaids Relief Man of the Year. Problem was that during his Cubs years, as is typical with Cubs’ pitching, his innings on the mound were dodgy at best and horrendous at worst.
One public holiday weekend in 2003 (on Memorial Day, I think) a home game at Wrigley saw the Cubs up 2 to 1 in the 8th. Alfonseca took the mound in that inning as a relief pitcher. By the bottom of the 8th, it was 12 to 2 for the opposing team as Alfonseca moped off the mound, probably feeling awful about his self-destructive performance, giving up 11 runs. It was days like these that I wished the Wrigley beer man was the one pitching the Rolaids for us fans.
Perhaps now the Cubs’ bad performances aren’t so catastrophic in their onset, and as such, are met with less surprise by the fans and media. Failure comes more gradually with each inning, as an expected coda to a symphony of indifference and expected incompetence.
It’s unclear what the rest of the season will hold for the Cubs for sure. With interleague play ending soon, the Cubs’ Sham at the Cell finished, and the visitations of punishment by the White Sox over and done with, the MLB All-Star Game divides the season with a potential for a fresh start in its second half.
Maybe nothing will happen and Chicago’s North Side will see their club cross the finish line limping, perhaps without a coach. Maybe the Cubs will work their way back to some wins and respectability. Who knows.
But in the words of Harry Caray, “Holy Cow” doesn’t even begin to describe the situation.
Andy Frye writes about sports and life at MySportscomplex.blogspot.com and via My Sports / Complex on Facebook and Twitter. His opinions may suck, but not as much as the Cubs do right now.
Writings © 2010. Alfonseca pic courtesy of wikipedia.org
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