Year 1 for the Cubs

It is March, which means as a baseball fan, it is time for spring training and getting ready for the upcoming season. As a Chicago Cubs fan, it also means optimism and thoughts of a World Series because one game has yet to be played, which means we’re still in the hunt!

This year the Cubs are under new ownership. They are no longer owned by the Tribune Company and are now owned by the Ricketts family. And to commemorate that, they have started a marketing campaign across the City called “Year 1”.

The idea of the campaign is to let us fans know that the new ownership is focused on winning and bringing the World Series (and championship) to Wrigley Field. That, from this point forward, it is a new era.

ondeckWell, as a Cubs fan, and a marketing person, I think that it is all well and good. It is a catchy campaign. But this is the CUBS we are talking about. The lovable losers. It has been over 100 years since they have won a championship. New marketing campaigns aren’t going to win us any games.

The Cubs don’t really need to woo fans. We have Wrigley Field. The games sell out every day in the summer, regardless of how the team is doing. People go for the atmosphere. Our season ticket waiting list is like 40,000 people deep. I know. I’m like number 28,837 on the list, and I signed up over three years ago. They have continually raised ticket prices every year and yet, it doesn’t matter. They are never hurting for revenue. We are a sports town with a drinking problem!

My question is, though, what happens next year? Or what happens in Year 17? Are we going to keep this up until we win a championship? How silly are you going to look when you don’t win the World Series this year? And what about the last 100-plus years the team has been in existence? Those years, which included some great teams and Hall of Famers, mean nothing? Isn’t that a knock to the storied history of this franchise? Aren’t you basically saying that everything that happened before this year is crap?

[Source]

[Photo]

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RE: Johnny Damon

I just wanted to make sure that somebody made the caveman joke.

Johnny_damon_caveman

{Not an endorsement. Seriously, really not.}

And yes, Johnny. I am trying to say that I think shaving and maybe a haircut would be a better look for you.

Get off of my lawn!

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roid rage

“If I only had three words of advice, they would be, ‘tell the truth.’ If got three more words, I’d add, ‘all the time.’”  -Randy Pausch

In the category of “Not Exactly News,” Mark McGwire admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs during his Major League Baseball career, including in 1998 when he broke Roger Maris’ single season home run record. The timing of the announcement is apparently designed so that it will have all blown over before Spring Training gets underway and McGwire goes to work as batting coach for the St Louis Cardinals. He is being lauded for coming clean, despite lying to everyone for years. And in “everyone” you can include his wife, his kids, his parents, his manager, his teammates. Everyone.

I’ll grant that late is better than never but how many more times is this scene going to be repeated? How many times am I going to have to explain this crap to my son Oliver, who is four years old and idolizes baseball players? I suppose I’m fortunate that my son was born after McGwire retired and he has probably never heard the name, but he knows Manny Ramirez and used to say he was “his best guy.” Then came the day I had to explain that Manny broke the rules and had to have a very long “sit down,” just like when he breaks the rules at school. A week later, when he had more questions, I had to explain how Manny took medicine that wasn’t good for his body. The questions didn’t stop for more about a month. It was easily my greatest challenge as a parent, and we’ve already been through the death of a beloved family pet.

The whole thing makes me angry. As a mom I want to insulate my kids from the world and for them to think the best of everyone, but it will not be long before my son is able to read all this for himself in the newspaper or some other source.

So help me out. What do you tell your kids when their sports heroes turn out to be liars and cheats? (I’ll leave the adulterers for another day.)

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Just Because: Manimal

I saw this picture in an article on Deadspin. I’ll be honest, I have no idea what the post was about because I was too distracted by this picture.

Picture 1

I could not find the name of the original artist or the name of the painting, but I like to think it is called Manimal: Half Beast, Half Alex Rodriguez.

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Dear Grady Sizemore,

This is just a professional courtesy letter to advise you that the Cleveland Indians ball club would prefer it if you kept these sort of pics to yourself and very intimate friends and did not go posting about the web.

While we appreciate your efforts to draw a crowd of ladies to admire your VERY handsome physique, we just think that we want to keep this a FAMILY show and your johnson really doesn’t have have a place out in public (or hiding behing a coffee mug either).

Oh, and work on the guns. The rest of the bod is fairly rockin’. But we think you’ll draw a better crowd if you:

  • Show them the goods 

OR

  • Give them THE GUN SHOW

Please pick one.

 

Sincerely,

Cleveland Indians Front Office

(ps click the link for more pics!)

*serious props to my plurkie pal Mikalis for hitting us with this link today. THAT Is good stuff!*

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