Of Cubs And Kismet

 

Submitted for your perusal: A chilly, breezy November night in Wrigley Field, game seven of the World Series. It's the top of the 9th and the Chicago Cubs are clinging to a one-run lead. The American League champions have the bases loaded, two outs and the count is full on their best hitter. There's no place to put him. It's bedlam in the Friendly Confines as everyone is on their feet screaming (or praying, as the case may be) and fans all over town are already dealing with Cubs-PTSD. More than 700 million people all over the world are watching on TV or listening to the radio broadcasts and the media is all set for an unprecedented worldwide blitz.  As the entire planet waits with bated breath for the next pitch, it has all come down to this. Will the Cubs finally make it to the promised land after wandering in the baseball desert for 108 years? Or will lightning strike and fate spear the Cubs' faithful in the heart again in the most sadistic way yet?

It's the mother of all do-or-die situations (to be doubly proverbial). For the Chicago pitcher, standing all alone,  marooned on the mound, it feels like the fate of the whole universe rests on his pitching arm. The pressure will be beyond inhumane because if he fails with this much at stake and the Cubs end up losing he will be harassed, threatened and publicly disgraced by media and fans alike and given an immediate armored car ride out of Dodge and into the Witness Protection Program while the Chicago Police Department dispatches units to Willis Tower to disperse and prevent suicide leapers. And what would become of the poor Cub who commits a Buckner that changes the course of the game or the series? Or - dare we even think - Bartman II? (Okay, okay, forget I mentioned that one.)

The flip side, of course, is if the pitcher gets the final out he's the Emperor of Earth all winter long and a baseball legend for life (or at least until his first loss next year), the Cubs become the biggest feel-good story of the 21st century and the 24/7 partying will carry on all the way to Spring Training.

With the 2016 baseball season about to start and so many sportswriters, radio talking heads and their many loyal minions jumping aboard the Chicago Cubs Bandwagon Express, a little real-time reality is in order. The Cubs have a very good shot at going all the way this year and while that extreme 9th inning scenario is as about as likely as finding a living witness to their last World Championship, the pressure to get that last out will be tremendous even if the Cubs have a 10-run lead. You don't have to be a Doctor of Psychology to understand that during the course of repeated attempts to achieve, the longer it takes the harder it gets and hence, the worse the pressure will be. It doesn't matter if the Cubs are good or bad. Invariably during every season the media and opposing fans will bring up 1908 right up to that do-or-die game, even if it's just a regular season elimination. It's unavoidable.

That said, Cub fans and their rabid devotion to a team that hasn't won a World Series in over a century are unparalleled in sports. Be it in their living rooms, the bars, at the ballpark or on the rooftops across the street on Waveland and Sheffield Avenues, they are preposterously loyal masochists beyond hope who love their Cubbies, win or lose, and are damn proud of it. That, along with plenty of emotional scar tissue, is what it takes to be a baseball fan in the north side of Chicago.

 

Phil Jackson Is Just Getting Started

"So far my experiment has fallen flat on its face."

  Those were the words of New York Knicks' president Phil Jackson while assessing the results the triangle offense has had on the team this season. However, some are taking it the usual steps further by calling Jackson himself a flop and labeling the triangle as outdated and unworkable in today's NBA. Well, a good look at the bigger picture is in order, whether those "experts" like it or not. 

  First and most obvious, these Knicks aren't exactly Jackson's Los Angeles Lakers or Chicago Bulls. Aside from Carmelo Anthony this roster is pretty much D-League material. But it's easy to see why. Jackson has been busy creating as much cap room as possible while getting rid of bad and unnecessary players and utilizing the "art" of tanking because that's the way it's done in the NBA these days. And, unlike his predecessors, Jackson has easily resisted other teams' attempts to sweet-talk him out of what could be the first pick in the NBA draft this summer and a shot at college phenom Jahlil Okafor. The long/short of it is, Phil Jackson has spent his first year on the job putting the Knicks into a position they've never been in before. That's why this season was a wash from the start and the writers and radio talking heads (and fans who flock to them like seagulls to a garbage dump) should know this.
  Furthermore, the sports media-fueled notion that no free agent will come to the Knicks because they're a bad team is dumb at best because any free agent(s) immediately improves the team.  And, of course, money still talks and the Knicks will have loads of it to offer as well as the lure of Madison Square Garden, New York City, all the publicity and fame as well as endless endorsement and business opportunities that no other city can match. 

  But here's the key. When free agent season opens in July Jackson won't automatically be going big game hunting. Certainly, he'll be trying to land a big name or two this summer and next but he knows the priority is to fill the roster with the right players, the smart players, the fundamental players, not with as many superstars as the Knicks can afford. Jackson knows as well as any jaded Knick fan that the quick-fix approach has never worked in the 42 years since the Knicks' last championship. His Lakers and Bulls will be the model rosters Jackson will pattern the Knicks after, if possible. Whatever transpires, this summer is when things will start getting very interesting at Madison Square Garden.

Baseball, You Have a BIG Problem

There was a time when the name Tommy John meant an excellent pitcher who happened to make history when he was the first patient to undergo an ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction (or UCL), a new procedure developed by the late Dr. Frank Jobe.   The operation was revolutionary and was named after John. Nowadays, for pitchers, the name Tommy John has mutated into the definition of a living nightmare and all of organized baseball should be petrified.

Matt Harvey

During the 20th century a torn elbow ligament was often referred to as a "dead arm injury" and depending on the severity usually meant the end of a career. Tommy John Surgery changed that bleak outlook by providing a fix for that scenario, the same way a torn rotator cuff once spelled doom for pitchers until all the wonderful things that science and medical research has made available changed that outcome for the better. Typical recovery time for UCL surgery is one year, give or take, and the success rate is over 90%. However, this has led to a false reliance on it because the number of cases has taken an alarming direction and has recently included young star pitchers like Washington's Stephen Strasburg, the Mets' Matt Harvey, Miami's 2013 N.L. Rookie of the Year Jose Fernandez and at the time of this writing, possibly Yankee sensation Masahiro Tanaka.
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During the time Spring Training opened through the first week of the regular season 11 pitchers had been diagnosed with torn elbow ligaments and were gone for the season, some for the second time. It's not restricted to pitchers either, as Marlins' shortstop Rafael Furcal and Orioles catcher Matt Wieters can attest. Considering the money-is-everything mentality of sports, this counter-productive development should be gaining more of an emergency effort to reverse it instead of maintaining an ill-advised dependency on surgery and rehab.

How did baseball go from having legendary fireballers like Bob Feller, Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, Tom Seaver, Steve Carlton, Nolan Ryan and Randy Johnson having no such injuries in their long careers to what we're seeing now? The problem is easily traced to alterations over the years in dynamics and methods of pitching windups, particularly too much emphasis on arm strength instead of pushing off with the rear leg which Seaver and Ryan (pictured) used to great effect well into their 40s. Add to that the foolish notion that these "modern" techniques can allow starters to increase their velocity and work less innings while relievers can go for triple-digit speed, throwing harder between appearances, restrictive pitch counts that result in less innings to build up in-game physical endurance, and you have the makings of a rapidly spreading epidemic that could threaten the game more than performance enhancing drugs ever have.

Using PEDs is an individual's choice (and eventual risk), but shaving a year off a promising player's career due to universal training procedures authorized by the game itself shouldn't be considered a virtual right of passage. If you stop and think about it, that's the direction it's heading and a lot of young athletes will eventually start choosing a sport other than baseball, or at least give serious consideration to it. This problem has the potential to jeopardize the future of Major League Baseball when young players start getting forced out of the game before they even get their careers going.

MLB alone isn't to blame. Organized baseball at every level encourages young pitchers to throw hard starting as early as high school. They all better start getting major-league serious about solving this situation fast before they have to start dredging the Little Leagues for pitchers.

A Message From a Baseball Legend

"There's something going on in baseball that seems very funny to me. I spent 43 years in baseball, and all my years as a kid playing and loving the game more than life. But today, all I read and hear is negative ... negative ... negative.

Baseball has what no other sport has. It has great suspense. I recently watched the Dodgers and Reds play a 12-inning game. After the Dodgers scored a run to take the lead, they brought in their closer, Todd Worrell, and he got hammered for two quick homers and the Reds won the game. It didn't matter who you were rooting for ... it gave you goose bumps.

... And we somehow forget about it. Baseball is the only sport where you cannot stall out the clock. Each team must get 27 outs. I don't care if it takes two hours or four hours, you must get 27 outs. And this is done 162 times a year.

Baseball is marvelous. Let's stop all the negative, hold firm and realize we have the greatest game in the world."

~ Sparky Anderson, "Sparky's Corner" 1996 in The Sporting News.

ME, ME, ME, MEEE....Is This Thing On?

LeBron's James has a real racket going, doesn't he? It's all about "ME" for this phony. Nothing else. Just "ME." Nobody but "ME." This preposterous landfill of ego-driven, obnoxious self promotion, narcissism and overhype has left a bad taste in everyone's mouth (other than Miami) and it's demonstrated quite clearly that LeBron JaMEs is Lady Gaga and A-Rod wrapped up in the New York Post and smothered with well-aged manure. Actually, in light of everything, that sounds almost complimentary.

As much as he and his lame-ass followers want to believe LeBron JaMEs is on a par with Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, the truth is, he isn't, never was and has now guaranteed that he never will be. He could have been, but even before this summer he was lagging way behind them as well as a dozen other Hall of Famers at similar stages of their careers. JaMEs' post-season busts have shown that in even with his extraordinary physical talents, he is simply not capable of carrying a team in pressure situations. He doesn't have that it. You can talk all you want about "supporting casts" but when the chips are down, the man takes over and JaMEs ain't that man. He's proven to be strictly a regular season superstar and that just doesn't cut it compared to the greats.

Despite JaMEs' disgusting tease of New York and all the "unnamed sources" blathering for two years that JaMEs was a lock to come to the Apple, there was never a guarantee he'd wind up there. Besides, New York would have eaten him alive because with Knick fans beyond desperate for a winner and the media hanging on his every move, even the pregame warmups would have had a playoff edge. His constant yakking to the refs is a problem that will backfire on him (if it hasn't already) because if he doesn't shut up, the refs won't be there to protect him as they've done with other superstars. His classless reactions to his failures would have brought back memories of Bobby Bonilla. Chicago never had a chance because there was no way in hell that JaMEs was going to have Michael Jordan and his six championships hanging over his bandanna. All of which makes the New Jersey/Brooklyn, Jay-Z rappin', Russian-owned Netskys's acid trip of talking JaMEs into dropping into the swamps look pretty damned ridiculous from the start, which it was. Now that this sordid peep show is finally over the Yankees should threaten JaMEs with a lawsuit if he ever wears a Yankee cap in public again.

Maybe JaMEs secretly knows all this because why else would he slither off to Miami? He certainly won't score the off-the-court mint that New York would have drowned him in, especially now with the terrible publicity he's in for. The fact that he left $30 million on the table in Cleveland is misleading because Florida has no state income tax so he figures to net a lot more there (Imagine how happy Bosh is to switch from Canada's heavy tax burden). Furthermore, the Heat won't even be JaMEs' team; it's Dwyane Wade's team and it will always be Dwyane Wade's team, in the same way the Lakers are Kobe's team, the Bulls were Jordan's team, and the Celtics were Bill Russell's team. The Cavaliers were JaMEs' team, but he didn't have the stones to finish the job even once, and now he doesn't want to take on that load anymore so he's happily separating himself from immortality by taking the path of least resistance while still getting paid the max bucks. And if the Heat do win a title or two, JaMEs' will celebrate and his mentally-challenged followers will proclaim him as just as great as the others. Wonder what Wade will think of that? Because no matter how many titles JaMEs wins with Wade, Wade will always have one more.

JaMEs has said that he wants to be a billionaire, but have you ever heard him say he wanted to be one of the greatest players of all time? In fact, all this nauseating self-promotion allowed LeBron JaMEs to create the possible scenario of winning a championship and still coming out looking like a major-league loser. Winning a World Series erased a lot of the bad memories for Alex Rodriguez, and Reggie Jackson, but nothing will help JaMEs. He will be hated more than Barry Bonds ever was because it's not just the fans who are pissed off. Other players, sports figures, GMs, owners and celebrities are tearing into JaMEs and it only figures to get worse.

Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert ripped JaMEs, saying that he quit on the team in the playoffs this year and last year (An assessment virtually impossible to argue against), but then he did something that has often had a profound impact on teams: As part of an open letter to Cleveland, Gilbert placed a curse on JaMEs and Miami!

"...this heartless and callous action can only serve as the antidote to the so-called “curse” on Cleveland, Ohio. The self-declared former “King” will be taking the “curse” with him down south. And until he does “right” by Cleveland and Ohio, James (and the town where he plays) will unfortunately own this dreaded spell and bad karma."

Wow, that's heavy stuff. And bad news for the Heat and JaMEs. Curses like the Red Sox "Bambino" and the Cubs "Billy Goat" have shown to be quite effective, if one tends to believe in those things. However, the one this is most similar to is the Curse of Muldoon. In 1928 the NHL's Chicago Blackhawks had finished third in their division and team owner Major Frederic McLaughlin laid all the blame on coach Pete Muldoon. As the story goes, during a heated argument after the season Muldoon said to McLaughlin, "Fire me, Major, and you'll never finish first. I'll put a curse on this team that will hoodoo it until the end of time." McLaughlin swung the axe anyway and the Blackhawks went nearly 40 years before coming out out on top again in 1967. Jim Coleman, a Toronto sportswriter who first printed the story of the curse in 1943, admitted in 1967 after Chicago broke the hex that he made the story up to break a writer's block he had as a column deadline approached. Still, by then, the Curse of Muldoon had taken on a morbid life of it's own. So be careful, LeBron JaMEs. It's on your head now.

The James/Wade/Bosh plan is also the first case of players collusion in sports. Technically they did nothing wrong, but it still doesn't help anyone but themselves. It doesn't benefit the NBA because with three of the league's biggest names on one team, that's two separate drawing cards removed from every other team's home schedule and it will make it especially tough on the West Coast teams who host the East Coast teams only once a year. David Stern can't be liking that math.

Putting three superstars on the same team has proven to fail more often than not so this all guarantees nothing. Even if they do win, what it will accomplish is cement LeBron JaMEs' legacy as the most amazing example of walking fertilizer in sports history. But he'll have his money and his cheap title ride, so he won't care. More than anything, LeBron JaMEs has a major-league bulls-eye on his back. Everyone outside of Miami, especially the cities he jilted, will have him in their cross-hairs and the way some "fans" are these days, the torrid abuse heading his way in the coming years could be a potentially dangerous problem. And I just can't wait to see how Cleveland receives JaMEs upon his return to the ranch. As this picture shows, it's already begun on the streets. Congratulations, Art Modell, you've finally dropped from the top of Cleveland's (s)hit list.

About the only thing left to occur that will make this a truly unanimous nationwide hate-fest is if Pat Riley comes down from the front office to coach again. He did it last time after the Heat acquired Shaquille O'Neal when he shoved Stan van Gundy out the door just to go for the ride and take credit. Considering the type of people we're dealing with here, it would almost be surprising if it didn't happen.

So party hard, Miami because the storm clouds are already towering over Camp JaMEs and his team of leeches and hangers-on. You watch. When things start to go sour (and they will, you can count on it) and JaMEs shows once again that he can't handle the adversity on or off the court and starts throwing teammates and "team" mates under the bus, they will turn on him and devour him like a swarm of piranhas, the lawsuits and scandals will come out of the woodwork, and his sponsors will drop him faster than you can say, "ME." Why? The same thing happened to two other world-famous, misguided, egomaniacal, over-hyped, out-of-control sports megastars:

Tiger Woods and Mike Tyson.