The Cubs are having fun out there.
I haven’t seen a Cubs team this relaxed in my 8 years as a season ticket holder. Even in 2008, when nothing could go wrong, the team didn’t appear to be having as much fun as they are right now.
Today, I just wanted to list through a number of observations I made at the game last night.
-Good sized crowd. And I wonder why…and in the end, I think it came down to the fact that the tickets for that game were cheap.
-Quade loves talking to fans before the game.
-A lot of new sod installed…the grass was looking quite ragged during the last home stand.
-Starlin Castro’s hip seems to still be bothering him. He was running down to first well, but he was noticeably favoring it when jogging back to the dugout after making an out.
-The rooftops are doing a good job at getting people to buy tickets…but I’m guessing they are not making much money after offering stiff discounts to get people in the door.
-Buddy Guy threw out a first pitch and sang “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”…that was cool.
-Zambrano was the first player out of the dugout yesterday after the final strikeout.
-The Cubs are getting killed trying to sell parking spaces around the ballpark…every non-official lot is seriously underpricing the Cubs lots.
-My inexplicable support for Koyie Hill is starting to wane.
-Darwin Barney = Ronny Cedeno
-Augbey Huff at first for the Cubs next season? Hmmm……
-I think the Padres and Rockies will both beat out the Giants for the NL West and wild card.
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Some other interesting odds and ends:
Supposedly Jim Hendry is going to interview Don Wakamatsu. Who, you ask? He was the manager of the Mariners for about a season and a half before being fired this year. I think most people around baseball were very underwhelmed by his handling of things in Seattle. So, with that being said, I’m sure he’s Jim Hendry’s favorite now.
Also, former Padres GM, Kevin Towers, was hired by the Diamondbacks for the same role. Why do I mention this? Well, he told Bob Nightengale of USA Today that he’d like to hire Greg Maddux as a pitching or bench coach. I know many people in the Padres organization raved about how great Maddux was as a teacher when he had his short stint in San Diego a few years ago…so obviously Towers picked up on that. The thing is, I don’t recall Maddux ever having any urge to actually be an official coach at the major league level. If Maddux does want to coach, I’d hope he would stay with the Cubs to do it. I’m not sure he could ever be the pitching coach though, because I believe Larry Rothschild was sold to the Ricketts family as part of the ballpark.
That’s it for today.
