‘What happened?’ That seems to be the question the MSM has focused on of late when it comes to the Cubs. Last week Ryan Dempster opened up this can when he gave his honest opinion on what happened to the Cubs in the NLCS:
“Maybe we underestimated how prepared you have to be, how ready you have to be, especially in a five-game series,” Dempster said. “It’s like a short heavyweight bout. Ding, the bell is ringing, you’ve got to go.”
Added Demptser: “I think sometimes we almost expected it, go out there and play hard and we’re good enough and just expect it to happen, and we’ll win this series and then the next one and all the excitement will happen once we get to the World Series,” he said. “Maybe L.A. was just a little more prepared for us than we were for them.”
Well as you can imagine, that started the storm. The idea that the Cubs weren’t prepared didn’t sit well with the skipper Lou Piniella. That of course is a direct reflection on his staff preparing the team. So, he responded:
“Look, the team was prepared,” Piniella told WMVP-AM 1000’s “Waddle and Silvy Show” on Wednesday.
Though likely unintended, Dempster’s statement reflected poorly on Piniella, who as manager is responsible for getting his team ready for the postseason. Piniella pointed to the lack of offense as the main culprit for the Cubs’ collapse, and reiterated they need more left-handed hitting to balance the lineup.
“It’s very much alike, one through eight,” he said. “It’s right-handed, it’s power-hitting and it’s not very quick.”
Add a left-handed bat and athleticism, “and the whole thing changes,” he said.
While everyone has an opinion on what happened in October, Piniella said “the bottom line is we didn’t play good baseball.”
So that’s the end of the story right? Wrong! Lastnite WGN sports guy Dave Kaplan has Ryan Theriot on his show and he has to bring up the NLDS debacle. I will have to paraphrase Theriot: he says something to the extent of the team not being pumped up enough and maybe looking past the Dodgers.
My answer to what happened: WHO CARES? THEY LOST. The Cubs got beatdown NLDS. We all saw it, well as much of it as you could take. For some of us, that was less than others. Every player, manager or coach probably has their own opinion on what happened and why it happened. At this point, that really doesn’t matter. It doesn’t make me feel any better to know what Ryan Theriot or Ryan Dempster thinks happened. The Cubs played like shit and they lost. It’s like the MSM wants one of these guys to say they were all put under a magic spell and lost.
I apologize for my frustration and rehashing this whole thing. But I think it shows how poor sports writing and reporting has gotten today. These hacks have turned this thing into ‘he said-he said’. The funny thing about interviewing ballplayers is you are gonna get very little from them that is of any substance(this is just another case in point). These guys honestly have less of an idea what happened than most fans and media members. For the most part when ballplayers are on the tv or radio it’s time to turn the dial IMO. Once in awhile there is an athlete that is articulate and worth listening to. But that seems to be 1 out of 100 or so.
Exactly, CCD. Who cares? It happened. Lou is right and the rest of it is just excuses. The team played like shit. It was 3 games. You can find a stretch of 3 games that the Cubs played as bad or worse so were they not prepared in those games either? It’s nonsense. They lost. It sucks, but you keep doing what you did last year and sooner or later it won’t suck.
sports media in general maddog has become so star struck that they no longer report on things that are actual stories. they would rather sniff jocks and kiss players asses while looking for some form of tabloid controversey to sell papers or get viewers/listeners. this isn’t a story. it’s the media trying to turn sports journalism into omg.com.
sports media in general maddog has become so star struck that they no longer report on things that are actual stories.
Has become? The whole concept of these journalists from days gone by who somehow held themselves to a higher standard is kind of laughable to me — sure, they might try to teach integrity in journalism school, but I’m not sure that the media have ever been more than a bunch of hacks. Ever. Stories of the glory days of the sporting press strike me more or less the same way as my parents’ assertion that nobody was having premarital sex in the 1950s (that is, as silly).
These guys have always been nothing but either jock-sniffers or egomaniacs, and occasionally both. There were exceptions then and there are now, but for the most part reporters have always been no more useful than tits on a boar hog.
Of course, none of this is to say that you’re wrong, CCD. It’s just that it’s even worse than you’d think, and always has been.
I’m sure there are plenty of editors out there who cannot abide the thought of reducing baseball writing to a bunch of numbers and are still in thrall of the old-school journalist getting the scoop. So we get the all-importance of the interview.
Like you said, ccd, players don’t have much of anything interesting to say. Ever. So our old-school journalists dance around whooping like buffoons in overreaction to every banal word. Especially in Chicago!
Stories of the glory days of the sporting press strike me more or less the same way as my parents’ assertion that nobody was having premarital sex in the 1950s (that is, as silly).
point well taken uncle dave.
i do think sports journalism has gone from reporting the goings on between the white lines to part game stories/pat tabloid trash. were the hacks more noble when they protected the masses from knowing what kind of an ass hole ty cobb was or what kind of a boozing/womanizer babe ruth was? i don’t think so. but i don’t think i want to really know much about these athletes off the field. they are all human with flaws like any of us.
sports for me is an escape. nothing more or less. i don’t see greater meaning in any of this shit. but i would like to know the final score and how it happened.
Like you said, ccd, players don’t have much of anything interesting to say. Ever. So our old-school journalists dance around whooping like buffoons in overreaction to every banal word. Especially in Chicago!
exactly oog. i am amazed that papers or talk shows waste their readers/listeners time with these conversations. it has come down to being nothing more than the crap Crash Davis teaches Nuc LaLoosh while on the bus in Bull Durham. It really is that bad:
Crash Davis: It’s time to work on your interviews.
Ebby Calvin LaLoosh: My interviews? What do I gotta do?
Crash Davis: You’re gonna have to learn your clichés. You’re gonna have to study them, you’re gonna have to know them. They’re your friends. Write this down: “We gotta play it one day at a time.”
Ebby Calvin LaLoosh: Got to play… it’s pretty boring.
Crash Davis: ‘Course it’s boring, that’s the point. Write it down.
I agree with dave in that journalism has never been better or worse than it is now. It’s very much like older people glamorize the age in which they were usually children and somehow things were better then they are today. Every generation does this. I’m 33 and I’ve caught myself doing that from time to time and then laugh about it.
The good sportswriter, or the good journalists in general, have always been few and far between. The articles in the past that stand out aren’t the ones like every other article, but the ones that offer something special and sometimes something timeless. In 50 or 60 years Joe Posnanski’s writing will be looked at from this generation as an example of how sportswriting was better in the 1990s and 2000s than it is in the 2050s or 2060s.
What stands out between recent comments by Dempster, Theriot and Lou is that the crazy old man is more sane than the younger ones. What Lou said is mostly rational and is a far better account of what happened than what the 2 Ryan’s are spinning these days. It stands out also because most managers aren’t that rational when it comes to speaking to the media. Lou has always come off as honest, sometimes brutally so. He seems to understand small sample size and while he was undoubtedly upset at how the team performed, I think he knows it was as much a fluke as Ryan Theriot’s near .390 OBP.
As crazy as Lou’s reputation is, he seems to understand this game in ways that other managers his age never did. That’s not to say he’s perfect. Far from it. Nobody is. But I do think he’s a lot better than 90% of the managers around. Keep in mind that the highest paid managers (Lou is one of them) get paid as if they are worth 1 win. Yet another example of why managers are not that valuable when it comes to winning or losing. If they were, they’d get paid like the stars in the league.
What stands out between recent comments by Dempster, Theriot and Lou is that the crazy old man is more sane than the younger ones. What Lou said is mostly rational and is a far better account of what happened than what the 2 Ryan’s are spinning these days.
Great point md. It’s rather shocking isn’t it that the one the masses think is crazy is actually correct. I think it just shows that ballplayers are not worth a dime when it comes to explanations of why things happened on the field. Lou has been around this game long enough and thought about all of this more times than any of us. He knows what he thinks it takes to win. That is probably much more rational than what a middle infielder with a bayou education thinks.
I don’t think there’s any doubt at all that Lou knows what it takes to win. He understands it takes good players and has gotten Hendry to get him a few good ones and after that it makes his job much easier (a job he would not have taken without assurances from Hendry of doing what he wanted). Lou also understands that you’re going to play like shit some of the time. While others looked for excuses, Lou knew it was nothing more than a fluke.
It still cracks me up how much time some have spent and how much some still spend (bloggers, players, media) explaining what when wrong when it’s so simple: it was 3 games. THREE! The worst team in baseball can sweep the best team in baseball. They’d have about a 20% chance of doing so. I think the Dodgers had a 30% chance of sweeping the Cubs. It’s not like 30% is very low odds or something. I’d be searching for answers if the Cubs had a 0.08% chance of being swept, but at 30%? I’d take 30% odds of winning the lottery. Wouldn’t you?
it’s so simple: it was 3 games. THREE! The worst team in baseball can sweep the best team in baseball. They’d have about a 20% chance of doing so. I think the Dodgers had a 30% chance of sweeping the Cubs. It’s not like 30% is very low odds or something. I’d be searching for answers if the Cubs had a 0.08% chance of being swept, but at 30%? I’d take 30% odds of winning the lottery. Wouldn’t you?
funny isn’t it md, it is sport and sometimes for whatever reason things just don’t go your way. that might be the only lesson people could actually take from their days playing little league and apply it to the majors. instead they like to apply it to all of this other shit about hustle and the like. in any form of competition there is always a chance that the better team loses. been that way since before any of us were here and will be long after we are gone.
i won’t use the ‘L-U-…’ word because it pisses people off. but you could insert it here if you want to.
I assume you mean luck and I’ll say it. It is luck in the sense that over a small sample nearly anything can happen. The Dodgers played great baseball, but they were lucky the Cubs played like shit. The Cubs played like shit because it was only 3 games and well, that’s just the luck of short series’.
All you can do is keep getting there. Sooner or later things will work out. I’ve complained for years that this wasn’t a team that was serious about winning. We all have and for good reason I think. They’re serious about putting a contender on the field now and you don’t suddenly change course because you’ve failed in 6 games over 2 years. You keep doing what made you a 97-win team and arguably the best team in baseball since June, 2007. Not that you can sit tight. You have to keep trying to improve and I think the Cubs are. Whether or not they get that done, I’m not sure yet, but they’re trying and that’s all I’ve ever asked for. The Braves were the best team in baseball a few times during their run and they won it all once. Keep getting to the postseason. Forget about hustle, grit, excuses, and whatever else these people come up with. The Cubs went into the postseason with about a 20% of chance of winning it all. The Dodgers had a 30% chance of sweeping the Cubs. How can one struggle to comprehend this? Many Cubs fans believed in the 20% over the 30%. One is impossible and the other, well, as Al would say, “it’s our year.” lol
What stands out between recent comments by Dempster, Theriot and Lou is that the crazy old man is more sane than the younger ones.
Thank God for that.
in any form of competition there is always a chance that the better team loses. been that way since before any of us were here and will be long after we are gone.
Forget about hustle, grit, excuses, and whatever else these people come up with. The Cubs went into the postseason with about a 20% of chance of winning it all. The Dodgers had a 30% chance of sweeping the Cubs. How can one struggle to comprehend this?
It’s all part of the Big Lie. I could tie it all up by unifying economic theory, the office of the commissioner of baseball, and why Amy whatserface didn’t go to the prom with me in nineteen-dickety-one, but…well, I’ll save that for the folks I yell at as they come out of the train station.
All kidding aside (sort of), it is an intensely interesting question — most people could understand, but it seems like they go out of their way not to. Why?
I think people like to feel they have some control over things. It’s easier to say “the Cubs lost because Soriano is not a leadoff man” or “they lost because they’re too right handed” or any number of examples like that. It’s easier to accept that–to feel as though there was some reason they lost and if they only improve that area things will be better.
The alternative is something that people have no control over. The Cubs lost because in a small sample nearly anything is possible. People see guys like Suppan and Eckstein excel in the playoffs and they think they’re “winners” or some such mythical nonsense. It’s easier to accept that than accepting that players like Suppan and Eckstein are really good players on occasion, over a small number of games and that those games just happened to be at the right time.
I’m not really sure why this is. I’m sure people smarter than I have researched similar things.
It’s really frustrating though. The average person understands statistical odds when it comes to something simple like flipping a coin. If one lands heads 5 consecutive times we don’t hear people talking about how you need to flip it differently, or add spin, or kiss it for good luck. They understand that in just 5 coin flips that it’s possible for all of them to be heads, or tails. They understand that if you flip the coin thousands of times though, that it will be 50%.
Why people can’t then understand this basic concept when it comes to other things is really difficult to comprehend.