Cubby-Blue

Jeff Samardzija illustrated retrospective.

Remember when Jeff Samardzija was just a pup?
Came up in 2008, did pretty good as a reliever, but then bounced back and forth between the majors and minors.
He had to grow up pretty fast - like dog years fast in his first couple years.



Then, he became a starter.

He always had a good bat.


And a bad bullpen that always seemed to give up any lead he might have gotten.


He won some...


He lost some...

But overall, Jeff Samardzija was just on the wrong team at the wrong time.
Sure they went to the playoffs in '08, but after that it just turned bad.
No direction or sustainability under Jim Hendry, so the Cubs brought in Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer and the Big Restructure began with Samardzija stuck between Cubbery and The Future.




His team couldn't score any runs.

You know it was driving him crazy, not being able to win with a team that didn't care to.


Now with the Oakland A's, maybe he lucked out...

What might be going on inside Jeff Samardzija's head. (gif)

Can you imagine what it would be like to go from the Chicago Cubs to the Oakland Athletics right now?
To go from one of the worst big league teams, to the team with the best record in baseball?
The team everyone now expects will win the World Series?
Because YOU are the missing piece?
The piece Billy Beane traded away a chunk of the A's future for?
Billy Beane.
The guy who's largely responsible for changing the way baseball teams...think about baseball teams. 
The really smart guy who is all about a system and sustainability and prospects.
The guy who doesn't trade away the future just traded away some future... for you.

Think of the leap, and how you'd have to re-define yourself in your own head.
Samardzija went from the Browns to the Seahawks.
From Cro Magnon to James Bond.
Actually, it's best put with plain reality: he went from the Cubs to the Athletics.
No longer will he have to deal with a lack of runs because the A's scored 435 so far, the best in baseball.
And that's one hundred and five more than the Cubs.

With his Notre Dame background and sort of growing up in the brutal Chicago sports pages, I think his brain can handle it.
And I'll be rooting for him.

For us Cub Fans?
Hey man, pretty soon we'll be sitting right where the A's are.
I couldn't be happier.

Happy 4th of July, Cub Fans. (watercolor)

Happy 4th!
I'm all busy with the BBQ and festivities of this fabulous weekend, and hope you have a great one too.

Go Cubs!

Hey Cubs. Please play Mike Olt.

This is as desperate as I can get.
Yes, that's Ginger from Gilligan's Island asking the Cubs to play Mike Olt.
Just play him.
The wins have been awesome lately, and a sweep of the Red Sox is impossibly cool.
But the Cubs ain't going to the World Series this year.
They can, however, find out about Mike Olt.
A guy named Anthony Rizzo had some growing pains.
But they played him and... now look.
We all figure that the July trades should happen any minute.
Probably Darwn Barney will be part of that so you'll have a place to play Luis Valbuena.
Play Mike Olt.
The rest of the year.
Every day.
His power is not just a... thing you can find on the corner.
Did you see the homer over the green monster?
Please.
Play.
Mike.
Olt.

How smart does Theo Epstein look after the Jake Arietta trade? (gif)

That's right.
Theo Epstein looks like Albert Einstein right now.
Almost exactly one year ago, last July 2nd, the Cubs traded Scott Feldman and Steve Clevenger to the Orioles for Jake Arietta and Pedro Strope.
And yesterday, for his second start in a row, Arietta almost threw a no-hitter.
This time against the Red Sox.
Arietta had given up no hits with 2 out in the 8th when Stephen Drew hit a single.
He was relieved by Pedro Strope, who got the last out.
And Hector Rondon went the final 3 outs and Nate Schierholtz had hit a 2-run homer in the 4th.
Cubs 2 Sox nothin'.

And...tomorrow is July 2nd.
Watch for some Cubs to become ex-Cubs, and maybe some new Cubs who become the new Jake Ariettas.

The minty taste of Victory, (maybe) coming to Wrigley Field in 2015.

I have no idea what's going to happen next year.
But I'm fairly certain that early in the season the lineup will have Starlin Castro, Anthony Rizzo, and Kris Bryant.
That's not a whole team by any stretch, but those guys together sort of makes me go...hmmm.
Next year, now there's no way anybody's thinking about actually winning winning, but...hmmm.
If Theo Epstein has sort of... the Cubs have been like watching the pot of water, and next year I'd say it'll start to boil.
Who knows - Baez...Alcantara...Vizcaino... some of those guys might bubble up.
Maybe the headlines in July 2015 won't be about who the Cubs can get for some guy Chris Bosio polished into something new and shiny.
Mabye it'll be more about "gelling" and "nucleus" and stuff like that.
It's up to the kids, really.
Anyway, somebody gave me a chiclet the other day and I looked at it and thought man... wouldn't be hard to put a little blue W on there, would it?
So I took a photo and photoshopped it into an ad.
Wouldn't it be nice, when you're walking out of Wrigley after another Cub victory, somebody could hand you a little pack?
It almost makes sense at Wrigley Field, right?