Cubs Bring Brooms to South Side
Despite some legitimate beefs by Perry, I'm a big fan of the Crosstown Classic. The atmosphere in the ballpark is always electric, and it's the topic of conversation for baseball fans across the city for the entire week. I was at the Cubs-Sox game a few weeks ago when Lee hit that pinch grand slam, and the stadium was truly alive. If I could change one thing, though, I'd eliminate the home and home series. Just play one series per year, alternating venues. The individual series would mean more and the outcome of these "side" games wouldn't affect the standings as much. Jerry Reinsdorf probably wouldn't go for it, though, as the Cubs series was one of the few guaranteed sellouts the Sox would get pre-2005, and he doesn't want to lose his meal ticket.
Anyways, let's talk about the 2007 edition of the Crosstown Classic.
- Carlos Zambrano ruled Game One of the series with a performance that can only be described as dominating. Sure, the hypothermic bats of the Sox might have had something to do with it, but twelve strikeouts? Gawd. Since kicking Barrett's ass out of town, Big Z has been the ace we were waiting for.
- Alfonso Soriano homered in all three games of the series, leading off the first two games. He now has eleven homers in June after hitting zero in April and only four in May. To top it off, he threw an absolute rocket to gun down the only runner to come within sniffing distance of home plate this afternoon. He keeps this up for the rest of the season, and he'll earn folk hero status on the North Side. (It doesn't take much.)
- I love how the team won game two with the suicide squeeze. I don't have the stats to back this up, but the suicide squeeze seems to work at least half the time. With the problems the Cubs have had scoring runners from third this year, you'd think they'd try it more.
- I was flipping back and forth between Len & Bob on WGN and Hawk & DJ on Comcast today, comparing and contrasting the styles and the moods. I tell you what, the Sox better start winning fast or Hawk is going to go Santo on them. It's such a depressing broadcast, I felt like jumping off my roof. The only thing to liven them up was the controversial call by the ump in the 8th. Let me set it up.
- I watched the play live on WGN. Mark DeRosa hit a rocket to the corner with two on and nobody out. Uribe got in runner Angel Pagan's way rounding second and obstruction was called. The play continued, though, and that's when the Benny Hill theme song started playing. The three little Cubs made four bone-headed base-running moves on one play. Two outs, runner on second. Then the umps got together and discussed the play for five full minutes. They decided to load the bases with Cubbies, no outs. Time to flip to Comcast because it's about to get good.
- Holy Schnikes. Hawk started going nuts. Guillen got tossed, and Hawk repeatedly kept screaming "this is BS!" They had completely missed the obstruction on the play, and they were totally clueless as to what the hell was going on. They were yelling things like "protest!" and whatnot. Pagan ended up getting doubled off second again on the very next play, and Hawk was telling him to go back to second because the Cubs are getting extra outs. He was steamed. Finally, after the commercial, the found out about the obstruction and understood the call (read: dead ball), but they wanted to rip the umpire a new one for allowing the play to continue despite what should have been a dead ball. I gotta say, the whole sequence was as entertaining as heck. If the umps made calls like that every game, Sox games might be tolerable to listen to. Or not.
- After today's game, I send a friendly little SMS jab to Perry about the Series. He held back on the snide commentary, and he thankfully didn't play the 2005 card. (Never does, actually. Refreshing!) Anyways, he talked about Buehrle's impending trade, and he brought up the unthinkable. What if he gets traded to Milwaukee? That would seal the deal for the Brew Crew. Not that the Cubs have much of a chance at coming back, but Buehrle heads north and you can stick a fork in this division. The Brats would win. Hopefully the Red Sox swoop in with their bags of money and keep him out of our division.
So now, with the Colorodo Rockies coming in, the time is ripe for a letdown. Just keep it interesting, Cubbies, till training camp starts. That's all I ask.
Eamus Catuli