Cubby-Blue

ESPN announcers have distracting hands.

The way ESPN announcers talks with their hands has been bothering me for years.
Especially the newly recruited ex-player.
Actually, it's not so much talk with their hands as it is distract - like their hands are pigeons, or small monkeys being electrocuted.

You know these guys don't start out like that, right?
Because nobody does that naturally.
There has to be an ESPN School or something.
Maybe a class called "Talking on ESPN 101"?

I've taken presentation courses for advertising.
There's some expert guy and he sets up a camera in a conference room and other people you work with are watching and you're nervous and you do a presentation and answer tricky improv questions and they critique your performance and give you a digital copy of the thing you worry people who dislike you might put on You Tube.

Imagine if you're a freshly retired pro football player going to ESPN School.
There's probably a camera crew and an anchor desk. You'd be in there with pro announcer-teachers and a previously taped game, and you have to do "color" or whatever.

But then there's the other part, where they teach you how to actually be on camera like you were doing pre-game or talking at the half with Mike Ditka or "Jaws" or guys like that.
And you say, "He can run! He can catch! It's time for a Matt...Forte payday! Chicago Bears: do not forsake Forte!"
And the ESPN Teacher goes, "NO! For a sentence like this, you have to hold your hands in the air as if you're doing the five dollar foot long song, and shake 'em up and down to emphasize your point!"

Pretty soon, it's just natural to swat at invisible bats whenever you open your mouth to speak.

Anyway, if you hadn't noticed this before I apologize because...well no I don't.
In fact, now I hope you won't be able to take your eyes off the hands.
Share my pain, please.

Now onto today's game.
I swore I wouldn't fall for it, but I've been completely sucked in by the Bears.
Detroit can be beat (I can't believe I just said that), and 4 Ws in a row will be sweet.
Go Bears.

 

Hey Cub Fans, aren't you glad it isn't last November?

Remember last November?
That November in 2010?
Yeah, Thanksgiving was gonna happen and all that, but...
It sucked.
Why?
Because we had 2011 to look forward to.
Castro, Cashner, and Colvin!
That was the spin - pretty much all we had to hang our hope on, the Three Rooks.
We also had the same general manager and a general feeling of being trapped like rats.
Awful.

Now it's November of 2011.
At the risk of sounding like I'm wearing the rose colored glasses I tend to wear, man oh man am I excited.
This manager search, compare the feeling now to the feeling of having a newly-signed Mike Quade.
There's a world of difference, a world of promise and big things.
The weatherman isn't saying, "Cloudy skies with a lame duck overcast" any more.

Talk to a White Sox fan right now - lotta those guys feel like we did last year.
In fact, I've had fans of other teams come up and say things like, "Man, must be nice."
To be a Cubs Fan?

What?

 

If the Cubs were on South Park

 

If you're a "South Park" fan, hopefully you get a laugh here.
Yeah, the collective dislike and bashing of Cub Suit Crane Kenney is pretty old news, but this cartoon just popped in my head.
Of course, it would be awesome if this gif had an accompanying story about Kenney actually being dismissed or moving on, but that didn't happen.

What's really going on? 

Why, the Cubs will interview Mike Maddux for their manager job.
Lets see what happens... 

 

Theo Epstein's "action interview" for manager process

Sorry, out of touch and town and just found out about this unique interviewing process that Theo Epstein is using to find a new Cubs manager.
I guess you'd call it an "action interview", because Theo is simulating game situations and asking the candidate what he'd do.
It creates pressure, I guess, and you wouldn't be able to fake any knowledge in this instance, right?
Man,I hope it works.
I tried to imagine if I actually got to witness the interviews, but couldn't help adding a Cubs slant...

When I first was trying to break into advertising, I had an "action interview" at Leo Burnett.

Found out later it was for a promotional post (I didn't know jack about ad promotions or anything, really).
These two creative directors in really expensive, cool clothing go, "We've got a lunch, and no time to talk or look at your stuff."
Crap.
Then they say: "We're going to give you an assignment and you have to have it figured out by the time we get back."

(I swear, by the way, that everything in this story is true.)

They say, "A company that sells canned vegetables wants to give out a free Rubik's Cube to anyone who sends in the labels from all 6 different types of vegetables they sell. The Rubik's Cube, instead of different colors, has the different labels."
One of them draws a crude Rubik's Cube with little corn labels on one side, and green beans labels on the next...
"Get it?"
I say, "Sure."
"Okay" they say, "sit in this cubicle and we'll be back in an hour. SELL SOME VEGETABLES!"

It had just turned noon, I'm sitting at a desk in a cubicle in a real Ad Agency!
I'm so excited I could spit.
Suddenly from the other side of the cubicle, I hear a bag unwrapping and drinks being put on a desk and a woman's voice say something like, "You went out with Craig? Tell me EVERYTHING!"
And the other woman replied something that was so immediately obscene, I went into shock instead of simply raising my head above the cubicle's wall and saying, "Hi. Probably nobody sits in this cubicle, which is why you're talking as if you're in private. But I'm sitting here..."
But I didn't.
Instead, I listened to a lunch-worth of really intimate sex stuff that was so filthy yet told in such a casual manner that my poor young just-out-of-college ears went all red.
And of course, it was awesome.
Suddenly, it was ten til one, and I hadn't even written a thing.

Honestly, I can't even remember what I wrote down, but later I got offered a job.

Same thing's gonna happen to the next Cub manager. 

(btw - still on production and didnt' have time to draw, thus the logo-like gif above.) 

 

The New Cubs Logo

Well, it's looking pretty Boston-like around here, no?
Trust me, that's a good thing.
I can't help but think that while hiring a new President of Baseball Operations in November probably would have gotten some ink on page 2 of the Sports page back in the 80's, I am astounded at the coverage today.
And I'm not just talking about the Cubs - you wouldn't have read word one about a new "senior vice president/scouting and player development" back then.
But hell, nothin' else to talk about, right?
So it's Theo Epstein, Jed Hoyer, and Jason McLeod as the Holy Trinity of the New Regime, and they're all buddies with successful Boston roots.
I can't believe anybody is angry or weirded out about this.
We've been clamoring for quite some time for change and it's finally here and we should be dancing in the streets!
The next Big Hire will be the new Cubs manager.
It won't be Ryne Sandberg.
I'm telling you that the possibility of Ryne Sandberg perhaps becoming the new manager of the St. Louis Cardinals is really REALLY NOT the reason the Cubs should hire him as their new manager.
Don't fret.
It would be awesome for Ryno to get a big league manager job.
And it will be awesome when the Cubs hire someone with the experience to guide a transitional team into respectability.
Be happy, feel a collective positive new direction, and don't worry about the past.

Lastly, I was on a plane the other day, and the woman across the aisle out-smarted the airlines by bringing on her own food.
Hard boiled eggs.
As she peeled off the shell, the entire cabin took on the atmosphere of a sewer.
You've never seen such dagger eyes, including mine.
Ewww.
Anyway, don't ever do that.

Okay, GO CUBS!