Are Cubs Fans Scared by the 2012 Red Sox?

Or, are they encouraged?

The Cubs hired Theo Epstein to be their president based, I assume, quite a bit on his time with Boston. Really, who could blame them? Sure looked like he was doing pretty well as the Red Sox GM. Then, he left to go to the Cubs, and things sort of unraveled at Fenway Park for a bit. Was it because Theo left, or because of what Theo left?

The Sox are certainly making it seem like they needed to clean up the mess Theo ran out on. They traded away his two biggest free agent signings. Not just traded. Jettisoned. They cleared out Youkilis. Scutaro. Basically erased his time here. Does that worry Cubs fans? Do they look back and think the 2004 team was really mostly players he inherited. The MVPs of the two 2007 playoff series were acquired when he wasn’t GM. And, by all accounts, wasn’t a trade he would have made. Sure, he signed David Ortiz…but he signed him to back up Jeremy Giambi for crying out loud. Was it all smoke and mirrors? Was it luck? What did we get ourselves into?

Or, are they encouraged? Look at the mess that happened once he left! They couldn’t find a decent manager, once Theo stole their top choice. They traded away three great players once he wasn’t there to stop them. They even were able to dump an aging third baseman because of the young stud that Theo drafted. Clearly the rest of ownership was a bunch of clueless buffoons that only won two titles because Theo was there to steer the ship.

What’s going through their heads?

Making Reservations

The National League is the host of the 2012 World Series. The team that won the NL pennant would be the host for game one. Detroit won the American League pennant, and had to travel to the NL city. Problem is, the NL series wasn’t decided until game seven, two days before game one of the series. Detroit had about 48 hours notice to get to San Francisco.

How did they make their hotel reservations?

Sure, if I were going to San Francisco for a game in two days, I probably wouldn’t have much of a problem. I bet I could find a hotel room somewhere in the city. But, I only need one room. And, I don’t care if I end up at a Holiday Inn. The Tigers needed, what, 30 rooms? 50? Together. At a nice hotel. How did they do that?

Did they have rooms reserved in both cities? How long ago did they need to make those arrangements? Did they also get rooms in Washington? Atlanta? Did the Yankees? I think I remember a team being blasted once for making reservations for the Super Bowl hotels before the championship game was played. It was classic bulletin board material. “They’re so sure they’re going to win, they’ve made hotel reservations!” Does that mean most teams wait? The Sox caught some flack in 2003 for paining the World Series logo on the field before the ALCS was over. Did they already have hotel reservations for Miami by then? For Chicago?

Does MLB just reserve 50 hotel rooms in every city for whichever team needs them? Does it have a contract with a five-star hotel in every city that if needed, the hotel will clear a floor at a moment’s notice? Does each team have its own arrangement? Or, are hotel rooms actually not that hard to come by at a nice hotel? Are they all very willing to bump out the regular folk if a baseball team comes a calling?

I’m guessing it’s more complicated than calling Priceline.

List of 36

Red Sox Pitchers to Record a World Series Strikeout

1. Cy Young

2. Bob Stanley

3. Bronson Arroyo

4. Luis Tiant

5. Buck O’Brien

6. Keith Foulke

7. Bruce Hurst

8. Rube Foster

9. Josh Beckett

10. Joe Bush

11. Pedro Martinez

12. Bill Dinneen

13. Hideki Okajima

14. Dutch Leonard

15. Joe Dobson

16. Derek Lowe

17. Charley Hall

18. Reggie Cleveland

19. Gary Waslewski

20. Ernie Shore

21. Roger Clemens

22. Sad Sam Jones

23. Tex Hughson

24. Joe Wood

25. Jose Santiago

26. Carl Mays

27. Oil Can Boyd

28. Jim Lonborg

29. Hugh Bedient

30. Bill Lee

31. Daisuke Matsuzaka

32. Babe Ruth

33. Curt Schilling

34. Ray Collins

35. Mickey Harris

36. Eric Gagne

OK. Now That’s Settled

The Red Sox have officially gotten their man. I still don’t understand why we needed John Farrell so badly. But, they got him. The Sox wanted him last season, and were willing to wait as long as it took to get him. Looks like they lucked out and got him a year earlier than they thought. Great.

Don’t get me wrong. I like the choice of Farrell. I just don’t think he was much better than the other options that didn’t cost us a starting shortstop.

I even liked some of what he said during his press conference, and other various interviews he’s give since being announced. I’m sure some of it is stock answers, that any new manager would give. I like that he wants to run, but knows enough not to fall in love with a philosophy. David Ortiz, if he’s here, will not be asked to go first to third all that often. It’s important to know that different techniques work in different situations. You can’t say, “I don’t bunt.” because, sometimes the bunt is the right call. That’s something that Bobby Valentine said too. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.

Speaking of the former manager, he got himself into the news yesterday as well. He suggested that David Ortiz quit on the team once they made the stupid trade. Seemed like a reasonable comment to me. I thought the same thing. Ortiz saw the season was thrown away, so he took his sweet time coming back from his heel injury. What is startling to me is the reaction. I heard some radio hosts going on and on saying Bobby V had gone too far. How dare he, they screamed, question a player who was injured. Sure, Ortiz took longer to come back than the timetables we were given, but that’s the nature of the injury. Sometimes it just takes longer to come back than you thought. I realized they were right. I mean, the media has never questioned the dedication of an injured player. They have never said a player was slacking off when they didn’t come right back from an injury. They’ve never run a shortstop out of town because he was taking too long to return from a heel injury. They never forced a leftfielder out of town because they didn’t believe the severity of his injury. Not once have they questioned the toughness and commitment of a center fielder that seemed to be on the DL longer than initial reports would have us believe.

Wait. They do that ALL the time. So, what’s the difference with Ortiz? Why does he get the benefit of the doubt when Nomar, Manny, and Jacoby didn’t? It couldn’t be the string of great quotes that Ortiz gives the media. It couldn’t be because he makes their job easier.

Surely they have more integrity than that.

A Banner Day

Not long ago, I got an e-mail from somebody who had a great tailgate idea for me. Now, I don’t generally tailgate before Red Sox games. Since I almost always take the T in, they tend to look at me funny when I set up the barbecue in the parking garage. But, I checked out the e-mail anyway. The e-mail was from Banners-on-the-Cheap. They wanted to provide me with a banner to talk about here. It sounded like it would be fun, so I gladly accepted.

What a great process. I went on the website to custom-design my banner. This was the only problem that I had. Since I didn’t have a specific purpose in mind for the banner, it was hard to narrow down all the choices available. What a problem to have! I’m sure that if I knew I wanted a banner for a baby shower, or that it had to be the length of my living room couch, I could have narrowed things down a lot faster. Thankfully, the site had some standard categories, so I was able to just pick something to get started. For the size, they suggested a 3’x8’ banner. What a big one! But, if you’re going to do it, might as well do it big. I’m glad I did.

Once I had the size narrowed down, I had to decide what to put on it. Again, if I had a purpose in mind, this would have been easier. I would have known I wanted it to say “Welcome Home Andrew!” or “Showers of Happiness Holly!” So, the message took me some time. But, the site made it easy to try different sayings out. I could type in my words, and move and stretch them until they looked the best. I could also do previews along the way to make sure I knew what I was doing.

The last choice was to add the hem and grommets to help in hanging. I’m really glad I decided to go for that, since I’m not sure how I would hang it otherwise.

I really couldn’t be more pleased with the results. When I first opened the box, I was a bit concerned about durability. I was worried that the vinyl material would be susceptible to showing creases and bends. But, after spending the weekend moving it around, trying it in different locations, carrying it from here to there, it has held up wonderfully. Obviously, once it’s hung up, it’ll just stay there for a while anyway. It’s just great.

If you want a banner of your own, I’ve added a link to the site on my sidebar. In addition to the banner website, there are links to three other websites in the “on-the-cheap” family. I haven’t tried those yet, but can only imagine they’d be as much fun as the banner was.( Car Magnets Cheap Signs Photo to Canvas Vinyl Banners)

For now, the banner looks great hanging in my Red Sox room. I’ll have to come up with some ideas on how best to use it.

Anyone have any fun suggestions for it?