Here’s a question for Chicago Cubs fans: Which player hit the club’s farthest home run in 2017? You would be forgiven if you said Kyle Schwarber; after all, Scwarbs, who is built like an NFL lineman, hit five of the team’s ten deepest dingers. But you’d be wrong. On October 18, catcher Willson Contreras launched …
“Buckle up, hold on to your Cubs caps, and watch as the two most exciting weeks of the 2017 season are about to unfold.” As I noted in my last piece for this hallowed blog, at this year’s All-Star break, the defending World Series champion Chicago Cubs were just about as average an MLB team …
Long-suffering Chicago Cubs fans were finally granted a reprieve in 2016. The Cubs’ World Series victory — considered by many baseball watchers as one of the greatest World Series ever played — was the sweetest gift that the beautiful but troubled City of Big Shoulders could have received last year. As a life-long Cubs fan, …
On the occasion of the San Francisco Giants’ annual visit to Wrigley Field, Chicago Cubs manager Joe Maddon said the following regarding their victory in San Francisco last year in the National League Division Series: “I’m telling you, man, Game 4 pretty much won the World Series. I did not want to see Mr. Cueto …
Last Friday, I watched a bit of the Cubs victory celebration in Chicago. I’m not really a parade person, but seeing it I wished I was there. City says 5 MILLION turned out. I admit I got a little misty seeing the throngs in my various old haunts: Wrigley, LSD, the Boul Mich, Grant Park. …
No, the title is not a misprint. In fact, this post is mostly an excuse to write that line, which has been so long in coming. One person with extra motivation to be happy today is Aroldis Chapman, who escaped by the narrowest of margins the fate of becoming the latest victim of the Billy …
Who would have thought that Los Angeles Dodger pitcher Clayton Kershaw would show up to Game 6 of the National League Championship Series without his curveball? It didn’t take long for the Chicago Cubs to figure out that he couldn’t throw it for strikes, and they wasted little time in taking advantage, running up a …
The ninth inning of last night’s Game 4 of the recently concluded series between the San Francisco Giants and the Chicago Cubs was as brutal a finish to a game as I’ve ever witnessed. Five Giant relief pitchers combined to cough up four runs and render what had been a 5-2 lead into a 6-5 …
It’s a good thing I don’t make my living as a prophet. I expected last night’s Giants/Mets game to go something like this: Madison Bumgarner would give up a run or two early, as he often does when settling into a game, and that would have been the difference as Noah Syndergaard pitched another shutout. …
One of my sources tells me that Cub mania is heating up in Chi-town, “I’m seeing a lot more Cub attire these days, just like when the Hawks started their great run of success I saw sooooo many new Hawk fans. This town will explode if the Cubs win the WS. The other day a …
Nice interview with Bill Murray on ESPN at Wrigley. Still funny as ever. http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=13934932 No need to give up on the Cubs yet. Lots of parallels to the 2004 Red Sox: 1. Theo Epstein 2. Down 3-0 at home against a New York team 3. A prospective World Series opponent from Missouri Everything is all …
After the Chicago Cubs dispatched the St. Louis Cardinals in the NLDS, a friend of mine commented that we were now in an alternative universe. I had to correct him; the Cubs would need to reach the World Series for that to apply. As of now, there is still the possibility that the Cubs could …
Great piece from Charles Pierce on the Cubs win last night. http://grantland.com/the-triangle/beatdown-the-cubs-keelhaul-the-bucs-in-pittsburgh/ Pierce appears to have made a regular assignment of covering Wild Card playoff games in Pittsburgh. This is the one he wrote last year when the Giants paid their visit. http://grantland.com/the-triangle/baseball-playoffs-mlb-roger-goodells/ Even as they suffered their second year of one-and-done disappointment, last night’s …
My brother, who works in San Francisco, got an invitation to see the Giants play the Chicago Cubs Tuesday night from a luxury skybox. The accommodations were nice: no standing in line for bathrooms or concessions here. The play on the field, at least for Giants fans, was not. Pitcher Matt Cain didn’t have his …
The current owner of the Chicago Cubs, the ultra-wealthy Ricketts family, defied an existing legal contract signed by the former owner of the Cubs, i.e., the Chicago Tribune Company, with Wrigley rooftop businesses by significantly expanding bleacher space in right and left field. The expansion also includes the addition of video screens. These improvements are …
The Chicago Cubs will celebrate the 100th anniversary of playing at Wrigley Field this year! Think of the historic events. Babe Ruth’s “called shot.” Kid K’s breakout game. Harry Caray. The collapse of 1969. Jose Cardenal’s afro. Sutcliffe going 16-1. Andre Dawson’s magical MVP season. Bartman. All of the aforementioned took place without a World …
During one furlough day I had to break from my massive deck project to rest my bones from all the bending, lifting, and stooping. I choose to do something I had never done in my 25 years of living in Chicago: I toured the Bohemian National Cemetery located at 5255 N. Pulaski Road on Chicago’s …
Chicagoan Kevin DeBolt may have overheard confirmation of the Ryne Sandberg back-to-the-Chicago-Cubs rumor. Says KB on FB Thursday morning, “Just walked past a certain Mr. Ryne Sandberg on Michigan Ave. He was on his phone talking about hitting coaches. I’m NOT joking. Could there be a DOUBLE announcement this weekend?” DeBolt is referring to the …
It’s all here… Also in EastPortlandBlog.com: The World Series Championship Trophy Comes to Redding, CA – by Chuck Strom October Baseball in San Francisco, by Chuck Strom
“I moved to Chicago for Major League Baseball, I might leave for the same reason.” – Jethro Burns I skimmed The Original Curse: Did the Cubs Inspire the Black Sox by throwing the 1918 World Series against Babe Ruth’s Red Sox? by Sean Deveney in the library and it’s fabulous, a well told sports story …
“I moved to Chicago for Major League Baseball, I might leave for the same reason.” – Jethro Burns A recent communiqué from BernardStreetCred: If you spy a copy of the rather expensive magazine Fretboard Journal, there’s a lovely, long article about Jethro Burns in it. Good stories from Sam Bush and Don Stiernberg, among others. …