PITTSBURGH – The Cubs’ bench doesn’t have a memorable nickname like “the Pine Brothers” from the 1977 team or “the Lemons” from 2003.
But Henry Blanco, Reed Johnson and Ronny Cedeno all played key roles in Wednesday’s 2-0 victory over the Pirates, and Daryle Ward and Mike Fontenot also have come up with big hits in recent games.
“It’s good for the guys who play every day,” Johnson said. “We can give those guys a rest, and we’re not losing a whole lot. We obviously have our best nine guys, and guys like myself and Henry who can come off the bench and do a pretty good job as well.”
Manager Lou Piniella has played Blanco more often in August after using Geovany Soto almost every day in June and July, and the added rest appears to be helping Soto’s bat. After hitting .250 in June and .258 in July, he’s batting .328 in August with three homers and 20 RBIs.
Blanco accepts the fact he won’t catch much behind Soto but is always ready to go when needed.
I know it’s the middle of pennant race baseball, and that college football starts in a week, and that the NFL looms on the horizon, as well… but this was way too fucking cool not to share. I was in the Raleigh this week on some free time. Saw some friends, played some golf, drank some beer… good times. But I never thought I’d run into one of the greatest players in hockey history along the way.
The Cubs are back in town, folks. After eight days gone, they’re performing at the funhouse known as Wrigley Field for 13 home games in the next 16 days.
You could feel the nuttiness building last night for the first game in the stretch, against the bottom-dwelling Cincinnati Reds.
We’re not talking run-of-the-mill, Cubby-Bear/Sluggers/Murphy’s Bleachers/bus-trip-from-Iowa nuttiness. That’s all summer long for the Cubs.
We’re talking twitchy, oh-my-god, this-could-be-the-year frenzy. It’s still muted, but it’s emerging.
I was going to do the baseball preview just like I did the last one, with each team’s record over the last 40 games and all that, but I lost my work from the last time, and I did not feel like doing it again, so we will just get a brief summary this time. Read the rest of this entry »
For those of you who are new to our little corner of the blogosphere, every once in a while, I like to post Rounding the Bases, where I scour the MLB message boards to find little nuggets of wisdom for everyone that we would otherwise not see. Boy do I have a doozy today.
If I can quote the great Stu Nahan: “What started out as a joke has turned out to be a disaster.”
It’s been a while since I blasted my favorite team, the New York Mess. I wanted to be fair to new skipper Jerry Manuel and and given that it’s been almost two months since he took the reigns from Willie Randolph, I’m due for a mini meltdown. I’ve never thought of pre-Septmber games as “must win” since you can still live to play another day if you lose in June or July. It just makes it a bit harder to do so. However, there are a handful of games a team can’t afford to lose. The Mess lost one today to the Pittsburgh Pirates. The same Pirates who traded their two main cogs, Bay and Nady, away and were basically fielding a AAAA team out there. Today’s game was a make-up game from an April rainout and let’s face it, the Pirates probably just wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible and with an early 3-0 deficit due to a Wright 3-run HR, that’s what it looked like. Read the rest of this entry »
During the Reds/Brewers game yesterday Prince Fielder shoved Manny Parra in the dugout. While it was nowhere near the Michael Barrett/Carlos Zambrano brawl in the Cubs’ dugout last year, it was still pretty good.
In a day and age when athletes seem to be all about the money and fame, it’s nice to see a player like Reed Johnson still get excited like a little kid. After all, baseball is a kids’ game. From today’s Chicago Tribune:
Johnson burst off the bench with two outs in the eighth inning to deliver a two-run pinch homer, leading the Cubs to a zany 8-5 victory over Pittsburgh.
Pumping his fist as he ran to first and watched the ball plop into the left-field bleachers, the former Blue Jays reject felt like he was in another stratosphere for a few moments.
“It was probably the best moment for me on a baseball field,” Johnson said. “I’ve never had a curtain call before. I’ve always wondered, when I see [ Aramis Ramirez and Derrek Lee] go out there when they hit big home runs, what it would be like to get a curtain call.
“I was excited to get back in the dugout and celebrate with my teammates. To hear the crowd going crazy and my teammates telling me to go out there and give the crowd the acknowledgment — there’s no better feeling.”
Johnson may not be the best player on the Cubs, but he has come up with some absolutely HUGE hits for them. Toronto’s loss was definitely the Cubs’ gain.
Late word came in this evening that Skip Caray passed away in his sleep last night. While Skip wasn’t the best announcer in baseball (nor was he the worst), as a Braves fan, he was OUR announcer. My formative baseball fan years were spent in front of a TV in Myrtle Beach, SC watching a BAD Braves team led by Dale Murphy, and listening to Skip and Ernie Johnson, Sr. handling the call of the game. Pete Van Wieren would later replace Ernie, giving us the traditional Braves duo… whom they even have a BBQ joint at Turner Field named after. My favorite Skip memory is that of most everyone else: Sid Bream improbably beating Barry Bonds’ throw from left field with two outs in the bottom of the ninth to defeat Pittsburgh in Game Seven of the ’92 NLCS. Ironically, that was my LAST night in Myrtle Beach (we were leaving for Alabama the following day) and our cable got knocked out in the 7th inning, leaving us only a radio to keep up with the game. Sid slid and the Braves won, Braves won, Braves won, Braves won, Braves won, Braves won.
I am really surprised no one has commented on this, but since me and Mike were talking about it last night, I figured I would give my two cents on the whole Brett Favre saga, or, as I am sure ESPN will start calling it, OPERATION: JILTED QB soon, complete with breaking updates when important things happen, like a private jet being fueled on the runway.
Just stop. Enough already. Its not this big a story.
3 Men, a Blind Guy, and a Humorless Yankee Fan - A Sports Blog for the Ages 