If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows, and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing. A writer who appreciates the seriousness of writing so little that he is anxious to make people see he is formally educated, cultured, or well-bred, is merely a popinjay. —Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon
Cubs Like White Elephants
I sat in my car last night and listened to the first two innings of the Cubs at Walgreens.
"Ian Desmond goes in standing with an RBI double. His third and fourth RBIs of the day against the rookie Chris Rusin."
"He just can't get ahead of any of these hitters."
"Here comes Dale Sveum."
I changed the radio to auxiliary mode and listened to Spotify.
I stared out the driver's side window. A bird flew overhead and disappeared behind the tree line.
"Let it go. This too shall pass."
AC is really showing all his tools in number gathering!
I say enjoy the ride. I am.
Should’ve refreshed (dying laughing)
Anyway…Ramirez strikes out on a really unfortunate foul tip. Ump got the call right. I think.
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-league-stew/aramis-ramirez-strikes-swinging-without-ever-swinging-video-033204918–mlb.html
Monocle on facepalm bear is great.
Reminds me of this poem (though Wright’s ending is even more fitting):
Lying In A Hammock At William Duffy’s Farm In Pine Island, Minnesota
James Wright
Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly,
Asleep on the black trunk,
blowing like a leaf in green shadow.
Down the ravine behind the empty house,
The cowbells follow one another
Into the distances of the afternoon.
To my right,
In a field of sunlight between two pines,
The droppings of last year’s horses
Blaze up into golden stones.
I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.
A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.
I have wasted my life.
josh wrote:
Reminds me of this clip
(dying laughing) at the monocle
@ WaLi:
Wouldn’t be surprised if the Simpsons writers were familiar with James Wright, actually. He’s pretty famous in terms of recent poets (insofar as “fame” applies to a poet not named Maya Angelou).
What do you call a writer who sees another trying a different approach to writing than his own and automatically sees him as trying to show off?
@ josh:
I’m just kidding, those guys are totally pretentious.
josh wrote:
Steve.
@ Berselius:
Is that like a Tao of Steve reference?
Isn’t “HIlls Like White Elephants” a pretty callous tale about an unwanted pregnancy?
In a normal season, the Cubs would have a real good shot at that #1 pick, but the Astros are a juggernaut of suck. They haven’t officially clinched it yet, but I don’t know if the Cubs can catch them if they lost all of their remaining games. I honestly don’t think the Astros can possibly win 10 of their last 26 games.
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
It’s a story about two people (man and woman) discussing something without ever saying it directly. Many take it to be an unwanted pregnancy and/or an abortion. They could easily be talking about a murder or anal sex, really.
@ josh:
I’m the only one who’s seen that movie?
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
I don’t know if I’d characterize it as callous, though.
Aisle424 wrote:
Someone pointed out on twitter last night that the Astros would have to go 1-25 in their remaining games to match that awful Tigers team from a decade or so ago. You never know.
Racist.
Response to that underlying racism in broadcasting study The Atlantic did a little while back.
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=18229
@ josh:
I might have seen it. All Carell movies seem the same to me. Is that the one where he’s at a family reunion near the ocean?
I thought B meant Steve Rosenbloom (-burg?).
josh wrote:
Fixed
/low hanging fruit. Geez, it took 17 comments for someone to do this? We are slipping. Never gonna get reundiscredited this way.
@ SVB:
Steve Carrell’s not in it. It’s Donel Logue from Grounded for Life (the movie is called The Tao of Steve). It’s about a fat guy who is really good at nailing chicks. Also, he and his friends have a theory that all the coolest people are named Steve. (Steve McQueen, e.g.).
@ josh:
Also, for the record, I never said it was a GOOD movie.
http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/f07c/
QaPla!
@ SVB:
As if the Cubs would be so lucky as to have a few of their droppings blaze up into golden stones.
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-league-stew/ranking-chipper-jones-retirement-gifts-far-172941742–mlb.html
is this normal for a bunch of other teams to give a player a retirement present?
Didn’t someone say “Nice outing by Humber” yesterday? I’m just now catching up with the fact that the White Sox lost 18-9.
@ EnricoPallazzo:
Chipper’s kind of a legend, right? I don’t know, maybe that is normal.
@ EnricoPallazzo:
Usually when it’s a hall of famer. I remember similar things happening when Ripken and Gwynn were playing their final season.
@ Berselius:
hopefully it’s limited to good players, otherwise a whole boatload of Cubs pitchers are missing out on some serious swag.
@ josh:
I’m familiar with the story, big Hemingway fan, but it seems to me the meaning is clear.
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
it is, I was just being contentious. But I still don’t think you could necessarily call it callous. I mean, the characters are having what I would call a fairly realistic discussion. Like when the woman says things like “well, I’ll do it if you want me to” and he says “you shouldn’t do it if you feel that way.” I don’t know if that’s necessarily true. People communicate like that, where they feel out each other’s meanings. how committed are you to it? What are your doubts? Maybe I can tease them out. Etc. etc.
I taught this story for a class once, had a good time discussing it with a bunch of Freshman at a Catholic school.
Worst. Class. Ever.
@ josh:
Yeah, but the fetus = cheap unwanted gift implication is pretty harsh.
@ josh:
Ugh, I can imagine.
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
Well, the original sense of white elephant was actually something like a land purchase that the owner didn’t need, so I don’t think that Hemingway meant to cheapen the idea.
Then again, dude was a pretty callous old fuck.
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
I was a horrible teacher, too, so that didn’t help. I get really nervous in front of people.
@ josh:
Possibly the one person who truly did not give a fuck.
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
Yes indeed. It was supposed to be a subtle commentary on this Cubs season.
Nice, little write-up on Baez. I think it’s protected (Insider).
http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/8337938/scouting-prospects-shelby-miller-javier-baez-mlb
Now I can’t look at OV until a bunch of people post, Mish!
Trying to pretend to work over here!
@ josh:
(dying laughing)
@ josh:
I didn’t realize it was sarcastic at the time and thought, “Good, it’s about time he caught a break.”
What a nightmare season Humber is having. Well, except for the perfect game.
@ Rizzo the Rat:
Same for me.
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/09/05/baffoe-dont-sign-that-stupid-cubs-petition-sign-this-one/
@ Rizzo the Rat:
And normally that wouldn’t stand out, but teh White Sox have actually been pretty good this year.
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
Yes. That guy is smart. A real Cub fan because he only likes good baseball. (dying laughing)
Sorry. What a moran.
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
*Slow Clap*
@ AndCounting:
I think there’s something to be said for a level of impatience, though it has to be taken with reason. Personally, I’m sick of them losing already.
@ AndCounting:
I think he means the “we won’t be waiting until next year” to convey “we won’t be bought off with bells and whistles and Candy Maldonado and Rodney Myers anymore”
I think he’s largely right. There’s no reason for the vocal minority of Cub fans that love that pathetic BS to be the face.
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
Exactly.
@ josh:
Exactly. I get what Theo is trying to do, but “we’re building something and it will take a long time” isn’t going to hold much water in a couple years.
Here’s the meaty bit of that article for me:
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
Yeah, I know. But I think not letting Greenberg play has the same net effect as letting Greenberg play. It’s a nonfactor for a franchise that is a nonentity. And if he hasn’t been bought off with cheap, sentimental frills, what exactly is it that has kept him hanging on all these years? I understand the desire to make winning a priority, but if all he cared about was championships, it seems like the thoughtful thing to do would be to become a fan of the best team. It’s the degree of sentimental attachment, not great critical thinking skills, that keep guys like him cheering for the Cubs. I don’t see why people insist on making intellectual arguments defending their Cub fandom. There isn’t one. It’s like a Disney fan campaigning for more hard-hitting, realistic story lines. That’s not what draws a person to Disney, so why complain by the lack of something that was never a part of the company’s philosophy to begin with?
@ AndCounting:
Sentimental attachment devoid of critical thinking is exactly what led to the Cubs actually selling their fans on a tradition of losing. He’s calling for smarter fandom, not fans who are fans because they are smart.
The Greenburg thing is a problem because it smacks of the Rodney Myers days. It’s the kind of candyassed shit an org that’s more concerned with making money than winning does. Win first, then do the silly shit. It’s about priorities, and the fans pushing this thing don’t seem to get that. Just like they didn’t get that re-signing Gaetti was a bad idea or that Theriot and Fontenot were not the second coming of Tinker and Evers or that Ronnie Woo-Woo is not part of the charm of Wrigley, he’s a drunk who serially gropes women in the ballpark and urinates on himself. They don’t fucking want to win. They want their Cubbies and their floppy hats and their Torco sign back.
I get frustrated with the dopes in their We Got Wood shirts and all that nonsense, but what bothers me is when the Cubs pander to that shit and seem to make that the priority rather than actually building a winner that would appeal to absolutely everyone. For once, we have a front office that actually has those long-term goals and an actual plan for achieving those goals (and I assume metrics for measuring their success in executing their plan). That’s pretty much good enough for me.
Like I said, I was happy to see the Cubs take a pass on this because normally they would have been all over it, but it really wouldn’t have mattered. He seems to be thinking the Cubs would cut an actual prospect to put Greenberg on the roster, when in fact it would be someone with absolutely no future with this team that will one day be getting his walking papers anyway, so it might as well be now (Joe Mather, Joe Mather, Joe Mather, Joe Mather, Joe Mather). So AC is right that it really wouldn’t have hindered anything.
The petition is stupid, but it doesn’t bother as much as it might have in the past because I now have a certain level of confidence that Tommy actually is trying to oversee a massive overhaul of culture on the team instead of just taking our money and applying band-aids everywhere. There will always be a certain level of this crap with any team. GW pointed to the link about Billy Crystal playing in a spring training game for the Yankees. I seem to remember that Garth Brooks had a similar situation with some team years ago. It happens. I just don’t want it to be the focal point and it doesn’t seem to be right now.
I want the Torco sign back. I am sick to death of what Miller Lite considers wit on that billboard.
@ Aisle424:
Maybe they could replace it with a video replay board sponsored by Miller Lite.
Let there be video replay boards!
I have confidence that Theo wants to do that. I have far less confidence that a guy who thought it was a good idea to don goofy glasses and chug Bud longnecks in the street is ready just yet to let all of that shit go by the wayside.
@ Aisle424:
Art imitates life on that billboard. Stale, tired jokes for tasteless, rice-adjuncted beer.
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
I just think bitching about the silly shit creates a false sense of fixing the problem. The silly sideshows never prevented the Cubs from winning. The fans haven’t done a thing to prevent the Cubs from winning. If the fans were smarter, the Cubs might be poorer, but they wouldn’t be better.
@ AndCounting:
See, I think that’s false. A more demanding fanbase creates urgency in the FO. When a team can lose without financial consequence (which the Cubs could through most of the 90′s and early 00′s), there’s no need to make real improvements. And that’s a real part of why the Cubs org was so fucked when Theo took over.
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
To be fair, I think the urgency that built the 2007 team had more to do with the sad state of the team in 2012.
http://www.amazon.com/Wenger-16999-Giant-Swiss-Knife/dp/B001DZTJRQ
I think I posted this product at some point, but this page comes with some very helpful reviews.
@ AndCounting:
And I think the post-2003 demands of the fans lent impetus to that 2007 push.
I mean, the cubs aren’t screwed right now because they’re digging out from under Gary Gaetti’s contract.
@ AndCounting:
No, but they also never had to worry much about developing a real farm system because they could just sign a guy. There were no consequences. 3 million fans a year, every year.
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
See? Nothing good comes from winning.
The problem with the Trib was not that they didn’t care about winning. They knew as well as anybody that a winning team would make them boatloads more money than a losing team, even if the losing was still extremely profitable. The problem was that they had no idea how to allocate their resources to build a true winning organization. They only saw results at the major league level, and they saw that every winning team netted them about 3 or 4 years of good faith, so when they had a crappy team, which was most of the time, they stuck a bunch of crap together in the name of veteran leadership or whatever bullshit they were peddling at the time and occasionally the veterans got it right and the team won for a season.
The baseball budget right now is probably close to what it was in the Sosa years (adjusted for inflation), but now more of that budget is being spent on the stuff the fans can’t see. That shit never flew with the Trib. if their money wasn’t spent with the intent of immediately raising revenues, it wasn’t spent. So you got shitty veteran contracts and the marketers had to spin it as something the fans should be excited about. Ricketts is actually spending money on stuff that doesn’t have an immediate payoff. The Dominican facilities, the gargantuan amounts of cash they threw at international and amateur players in the last year they were able to, improvements to the minor league facilities so they can develop and monitor their farm more efficiently. You can’t tell me that the cameras on the minor league parks is a new idea or new technology. but it cost money and the Trib would never, ever spend on something like that.
So the fact that Tom has opened his wallet and is apparently letting Theo spend it behind the scenes is a huge indication that he finally does get it, to a degree. He also gets that pandering to the masses is essential, so he’ll still be dragging out the oversize glasses and other bullshit as well. And I’m fine with that as long as the behind-the-scenes stuff keeps happening.
I’ll never be okay with that stuff. I hate LCD-pandering.
Rice Cube wrote:
AndCounting wrote:
Wait, what?
@ GBTS:
Oh, I get it.
Mercurial Outfielder wrote:
Is that like a mainstream LCD Soundsystem cover band?
@ GBTS:
No urgency would have left the Superfriends with a crappy house they could tear down and rebuild. The spending to make the team good short-term (and raise the selling price) left the new regime with a crappy house AND a giant mortgage.
@ GBTS:
I think AC is referring to the backloaded deals and NTCs that made it very hard to clear the decks and rebuild properly. Granted some of those were signed prior to 2006-2007.
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
Yeah at first I thought he meant the 2007 spending spree was based on some prescient notion of how god awful they’d be five years in the future. (dying laughing)
Obviously I want the team to win. I just think the thinking that publicity stunts and LCD-pandering has been the problem is a stretch. I think it has been nothing more than window dressing. The owners of this team never knew how to win. They didn’t know how to run a media company either. The biggest draw the Cubs have ever had has been periodic flashes of competence.
Dear god, what has become of my grammar.
Mather = shit
SK on the moon wrote:
fify
@ Aisle424:
I agree here. I hate it when they pander to the fans. I do agree with MO though in that this “we’re trying to build something” shit isn’t going to fly with the fans for very long. That includes me too. I’m fine with building a strong farm system so you have a foundation to work with, but the idea that you can’t also sign free agents really irritates me. The Cubs are going to suck next year, but sign a couple star free agents and you just might find yourself in contention. Keep working on the farm system the same as they had, but they don’t have to ignore the MLB team to do so.
The problem with “building something” is that in this business there’s a very good chance of failure. The Cubs attempt to rebuild from within is fantastic, but it could very easily fail. The Royals and Pirates have been rebuilding for two decades. This was actually an article I was thinking about writing, but I’d have to do a lot of work. The two teams that rebuilt that had success were both in Miami. They traded a shitton of players for a shitton of prospects and spent a lot on minor league talent along the way. The Cubs were able to do neither.
I’m not impatient, but at the same time I want to see the MLB team get better and look to have a brighter future. One way or another that will require free agent signings so I see no reason not to spend some of the Cubs money and do just that.
That’s 10 homers the Nats have hit so far in this series.
Watch all the way to the end.
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
Or just skip the first 16 minutes.
Second straight 6-homer game for the Nats.
YES YES A THOUSAND TIMES YES: http://www.buzzfeed.com/donnad/sifl-olly-return
@ Rizzo the Rat:
Rizzo told them to start hitting homers to make up for Strasburg.
I see the Cubs are still terrible.
@ Rice Cube:
They do seem slightly overmatched against the best team in the league.
Vitters: .076/.127/.152
If .200 is the Mendoza Line, is .100 the Vitters Line?
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
I don’t know what this is, but my girlfriend is ecstatic now.
@ Rizzo the Rat:
Vitters is .076 above the Vitters Line and .24 below the Neifi Line.
@ GW:
Send her this: http://www.uproxx.com/gammasquad/2012/09/sifl-and-olly-coming-back/#page/1
I’m so stoked.
Dunn moved up to 11th on the all-time single-season strikeout list (tying himself in 2006). He needs one more to reach the top ten (tying himself in 2004). He strikes out a lot is what I’m saying.
@ Rizzo the Rat:
Brett Jackson is making a Mikayla Face right now.
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
(dying laughing)
I got the DVDs for being awesome (I assume). I thought Kerry Wood’s 20K game was on here! The Sandburg game is on here, which is sweet. You can all bask in your jealousy now.
papa johns needs to fire their ad agency, stat
@ GW:
While they’re at it, they can fire whomever told them that recipe makes pizza.
New Comic: http://www.obstructedview.net/comics/the-gift-of-pain.html
These replacement refs are hot garbage.