Cubby-Blue

Will "Mound Visits" get their own space in the TV infographic during baseball games?

Hmm.
I wonder.
Will "Mound Visits" be as important as, say, time outs in football?
Will we see them on scoreboards and box scores and those infographic thingies in the upper left hand side of your televised baseball game?
Or will they make a guest appearance, like the radar reading on a pitch?
Just pop up when it happens?
This teeny thing that may or may not actually speed up the overall time of a baseball game... will it actually become a compelling, interesting part of a game?
Because you have to make a pitching change if you go over 6 mound visits.
Or, a possible ejection.
This from The Comeback: Speaking at a news conference later in the day, commissioner Rob Manfred and MLB chief officer Joe Torre said umpires will simply tell a catcher or other player to return to his position if his team has used up its six visits. If a catcher defies that order and gets into an argument with an umpire, then an ejection could be in order. 

So just thinking out loud...
Say Carl Edwards Jr. is rested and really has his stuff and is mowing 'em down in the top of the 8th but he's got his signals screwed up and Willson Contreras runs out there, accidentally going over the 6, and Edwards has to take a seat.
And Strop has to come in even though he's pitched the last 2 days and just doesn't have it today, gives up a homer.
That could be a big deal. 

I'll believe the ejection when I see it.

Anyway, just wasting time til real baseball happens.
A week from Thursday. 
A WEEK FROM THURSDAY!

One last thing.
Justin Turner busted his wrist getting hit by a pitch in Spring Training.
It's the absolute WORST.
I can't find it online because it happened before the internet, but that happened to Ryno one Spring.
Horrible.
Remember Derek Lee's?
That came in April, he broke 2 bones and was much worse than Turner's, but Lee wasn't the same hitter all season.
Anyway, wrists are tricky and while he won't need surgery, it'll be interesting to see how Turner is when he comes back.
In the meantime, that's just a reminder that unthinkable things can happen at any time.
So... not thinking about it.

A week from Thursday.
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Cubs Sunday: What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.

Because of work or life or whatever, Sunday was only the 2nd time this Spring I was able to sit down and watch a game from the beginning.
And apparently, it's not good luck.
They played in Las Vegas, and after seeing Sloan Park, it was almost shocking to see such a shabby Vegas field.
Rob Zastryzny fanned Francisco Lindor to begin the game, but after 8 outs he'd given up 5 runs on 5 hits and worse, walked 4 Indians.
So I was super pumped to see Dillon Maples come in, but he couldn't really find the plate either.
Len and Bob speculated that he was being directed to throw mostly his slider, and maybe that is what was going on. 
Still, he walked 3 during his four outs.
Then came Cory Mazzoni.
Poor guy couldn't get out of his only inning before giving up 5 more runs. He got to 2 outs, and you kept thinking well, he'll get this next guy.
Then you thought it again. And again. And about 14 hours went by while you were saying that.
Only 2 of his runs were earned, though. The Cub b-teamers looked sloppy with an error at 3rd by Ryan Court and one not called an E in center that went in and out of Jacob Hannemann's glove.
But hopefully what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.

All in all, Cub pitching gave up 22 runs yesterday - split squads giving up 11 each to Cleveland and Kansas City.
Luckily we could turn our attention to all the college basketball giant-killing going on, especially with the local favorite Loyola Ramblers.
2 games won with last second shots over teams they're sooo supposed to lose to makes for exciting stuff.

Okay 10 days from now, Jon Lester's gonna get on a mound in Florida and throw for real.
And 11 days after that will be the Cubs home opener.
Here's a screen grab off the Cubs.com schedule:



Looks like they're predicting snow, right?
That icon means there's some promot...OH MY GOD I JUST REMEMBERED FRIDGE MAGNET SCHEDULES!

It's the greatest time of the year.

A Cubs Limerick for St. Pats Day.

Maaan, this waiting for The Season to begin... 
IT'S DRIVING ME MAD!"
Crazy enough to write a limerick.
Oh well, Happy St. Patrick's Day.
I was over at Jake's Pub the other day and this year - it's kind of a Super Nova with St. Pat's actually falling on a Saturday.
Behind the bar, they all rolled their eyes.
Yeah, not going anywhere near downtown that day.

Anyway, what's going on?
Jesse Rogers tells us that cell and Wifi at Wrigley will be improved this year which is awesome.
More concession stands, cool.
And the dugouts will be moved almost 30' towards the outfield to make room for the new luxury 1914 Club behind home plate.
There's got to be an emoji for my response to that, but maybe it won't be so weird.

Justin Grimm got let go.
Sure to be picked up soon.
And now Dillon Maples, Justin Hancock, and Randy Rosario are all on red alert thinking they might take his place in the pen.
Awful for Grimm, but can you imagine being one of these guys?
Somebody's gonna step up.

Okay, gonna buy a corned beef and get it ready for tomorrow.
Have a happy one and Go Cubs.

Zonk. Keith Moreland from '84 Cubs portrait today.

My fav memory of Keith Moreland was an Arnie Harris-directed camera shot from center field looking towards home plate.
Zonk is up to bat.
A little chin music, and he went down.
Then he popped back up and charged the mound, running straight to camera.
All you could think was "LOOK OUT IT'S A FREAKING LINEBACKER"!
He and whoever the pitcher was ended up in a lively heap, and yet no players were actually harmed in the making of the video.

It's... weird, this off season.
Not just because of the slowness of deals, but also about the only drama going on with our favorite team is Ian Happ and who's gonna lead off.
You have to think he will to begin the season - on the road, less pressure, nice.
Hit his 5th dinger the other day, this one leading off against Madison Bumgarner.
That's SO exciting.
But everything else is pretty much in place.
Javier Baez is doing well and hopefully back in the lineup this weekend.
Jason Heyward has 4 hits in 26 at bats.
Tyler Chatwood continues to look amazing.
All awesome.

Gotta run, but Kyle Hendricks on the mound today vs. Diamondbacks at 3:05 Chi Time.
Go Cubs.

Painting tribute to Jake Arrieta. No longer a Cub.

I did this illustration of Jake Arrieta right after the Cubs were eliminated from the NLCS by the Dodgers last year.
I knew he wasn't coming back.
You can do super-realistic illustrations of a guy but maybe not capture the real guy.
This quick illustration that I did with a bottle of ink and an eye dropper, then added the color, took way less time than one of my "portraits".
But it has a feeling that's more accurate of him.
Yeah, Arrieta was pretty composed overall and, you know, Pilates and all that made him feel more "modern".
Like you can't compare him with a Clemens or something.
But underneath?
He is one hyper-competitive bad ass super skilled Superman who you just don't mess with.
I figured they didn't really have the money, but the baseball bile was building every time I thought... what if he becomes a Brewer?
What if the Cubs had to face him the max amount of time during a regular season?
I'm so glad he went to the Phillies.
I'm out in NY shooting with huge Met Fan Pete, and when this Arrieta news came out today there were a number of words rhyming with "luck" and "flit" coming from his mouth.

I was alive and he was on the black and white Zenith, but I don't really remember watching Fergie.
Sutcliffe had his time while Mark Prior and Kerry Wood were robbed of theirs.
But you?
You were the most dominating Cub pitcher I'll ever see.
Good luck to you Jake Arrieta.

Javy Baez' hammie tightness. Ugh.

Man, I can't listen to the Cubs all the time.
It's just so busy at work.
But my buddy Oif, sitting across the table from me (we have an open office layout), suddenly grunts while looking at his phone.
"What?" I ask.
"Javier Baez left the game with a hamstring."
Like I said, it's an open office - taking up a whole floor.
I did a couple unfocused laps around the perimeter.

There are plenty of things worse than tweaking a hamstring in Spring Training.
Death is one.
But say you accidentally elbowed the emergency exit lever while waiting in a short line to take a leak on a plane and got sucked out into the jet engine and all the little bits of you got eaten by a flock of famished meat eating sparrows at 27,000 feet, there would at least be a measure of certainty and, more importantly, an ending.
Javy Baez' tweaked hammie will for MONTHS be a source of anxiety and bad gas for you and I.
They say he'll probably be back in the lineup by Saturday.
But we'll have that thing in the back of our brains every time we see Javy running.
And we'll think no.
NO JAVY DON'T RUN!
DON'T PULL THAT HAMMIE FOR REAL PLEASE NO DON'T!!!

I hate my own head lots of the time.
Sorry about that.
It's probably just cramps like he said.
He'll drink more water and it'll all be cool.
So... just shutting up about it now.

Oh look.
Ian Happ hit a triple today.
Leading off.
He's 9 for 21 with 4 homers and and OBP of .500.
That's good, right?
There is nothing cooler than watching a guy get such a huge opportunity and realize it.
Grab it by the neck.
You're Ritchie Starkey playing drums for some band and one day these guys John, Paul and George say dude, DUDE - you wanna play in our band?
You either say uh, I like what I'm doing now... or you change your name to Ringo and go rule the world.
Not saying that's gonna happen, but I love thinking it might.
The Cubs were on tv Wednesday night vs Cleveland.
Happ played DH and led off, and I swear the Tribe pitchers were throwing around him.
Spring Training game.

Okay, now I'm gonna put ALL my positive vibes into the air and send 'em to Javy's hammie.
You do the same, okay?
Go Cubs.