News

PUTIN AND MANFRED: DICTATORS SEPARATED AT BIRTH.

· Baseball Rules, Joe Sez, News · , , , , ,

Not unlike Russia’s Vlad Putin, who pretty much put the “dic” in “dictator”, here in the US-of-A we got ourselves Rob Manfred, who’s doing a bang up job of puttin’ the “dic” in “dictatorial.” In fact I think he’s tryin’ to slip a high hard one into to the sacred and holy game of baseball. One thing is for sure: these two guys are snipped outta the same blood stained cloth, my friend. It’s basically, stand back or take your friggin’ chances.

If you wanna get a feel for how high Manfred’s “Putin factor” is, cast your eyeballs on the statement (below) he made about the new pace-of-play rules he’s ramming down the throats of Major League Baseball. It’s right outta the Kremlin; autocratic totalitarianism veiled in diplomacy, but with spaces between the lines you could parallel park a mobile ICBM launcher in.

“I am pleased that we were able to reach an understanding with the Players Association to take concrete steps to address pace of play with the cooperation of the players,” Manfred said. “My strong preference is to continue to have ongoing dialogue with players on this topic to find mutually acceptable solutions.”

What does that mean in English?

It means that Manfred, in true Omega House fashion, would prefer it if ball players just winced out a “Thank you sir. May I have another?” with each of his Neidermeyer rules, delivered with a sting in the name of speedin’ up a game that’s never ever ever never been based on time. Baseball has a seventh inning stretch, for Chrissakes. It’s a game that unfolds, my friend. It ebbs and meanders. Occasionally it explodes, other times it languishes. Except for trades, though, it doesn’t have a deadline. No clock. No timekeeper. No buzzer. Time doesn’t run out on baseball, no matter how much Manfred and the Snap Chat, instant-gratification, short-attention-span millennials that call themselves “fans” would like it to.

As a result, Lord Manfred is in the midst of makin’ up rules to make baseball more like football — an inferior sport in every way, with the notable exception of cheerleaders. It started with Rule 7.13 and Rule 6.01, both of which take away the freedom of a runner to break up a close play. The reason for these rules, they say, is to protect players. This is a sport, mind you, where guys are throwin’ what basically is a rock about 97 miles an hour within inches of your location. And sometimes they can get a little Wild Thing on you. Follow Manfred’s “protection” logic and it’ll only be a matter of time before hard balls are outlawed and he places an 80 mph speed limit on fastballs. It’s kinda like the NFL and their sissy penalty for tripping. You got 300 lb guys tryin’ to rip each other’s heads off, but you also got a penalty for tripping? What?!

Tictoc, tictoc.

Hell bent on turnin’ baseball into a 30 second commercial, Manfred will see some of his clock management dictates implemented this season. There’s gonna be a timer for pitching changes, for example. Brilliant. What’s that gonna save…a few seconds for each one? It’s not the time it takes to change pitchers that’s too long, it’s how many friggin’ pitching changes are made in one game. If you got a couple of Mike Scioscia’s in the dugouts, you might not get home before your carriage turns back into a pumpkin.

But that’s not the clock that matters. Womanfred also wants to hamstring the drama between pitcher and hitter by instituting a 20-second countdown timer between pitches, and a between-batter clock, so hitters can’t screw with a pitcher’s rhythm. These are time honored traditions that are part of the game, not somethin’ you send to baseball Siberia on a personal whim. The good news is the trouser snake didn’t get either one. Not yet, anyway.

Manfreds misguided mandates.

What he did get was a win on mound visits, now limited to six non-pitching-change pow-wows per nine-inning game, with one added visit permitted (gee-wiz, thank you, your worship) in each extra inning. And I’m not just talkin’ managers and coaches trottin’ out to the bump, either. It means any player (including the catcher) leavin’ his position to chat with the pitcher counts as a visit.

It’s also considered a mound visit if the pitcher leaves the mound to confer with another player. Question: How the hell can it be a mound visit if it ain’t on the mound?! That’s like sayin’ a ball landing in foul territory is fair. Of course as long as you have CB Bucknor out there, that’s always a possibility. But I’m just sayin’.

There will be free trips to moundville to check on an injury, or after a new hitter is announced, or if there’s confusion between pitchers and catchers over signs. (I predict about 30-40% more confusion this season.)

Thankfully, the MLBPA ain’t exactly skippin’ to My Lou with Womanfred on this crap. In fact the Union hasn’t formally consented to anything. They’re goin’ along … for now. But as Player Association Chief, Tony Clark, put it, the players “remain concerned about rule changes that could alter the outcome of games and the fabric of the game itself.” Of course he might as well have been speaking Russian as far as the Commish is concerned.

I’ll point out here that Womanfred has the right to institute rules changes without an agreement from the Union with one year notice. Which means, next year, you can count on havin’ the pitch clock, two strikes and you’re out, games shortened to seven innings, and the death penalty for giving up more than three walks per nine innings.

The pièce de résistance.

The proof that Manfred and Putin are evil twins comes into sharp focus when you take a look at this year’s new extra innings rule in Minor League Baseball, which is really the rule testing ground for Major League Baseball. They already have the pitch clock, for instance.

This season, extra innings throughout the minor leagues will start with a runner at second base. CAN YOU FRIGGIN’ BELIEVE THAT?! That’s the kinda crap you did for your younger brothers when you played whiffle ball — a game whose ball looks exactly like Manfred’s brain. And just to make this pinheaded rule more convoluted, the runner who starts an extra inning at second will be counted as reaching on an error for purposes of determining earned runs, but no errors will be charged. How the F does that wash? The guy technically reaches second on a two base error, but nobody is charged with one?

How ’bout Manfred? Now THERE’S a guy that should be charged with an error. A fatal one. One that boots his communist ass back to Moscow where he and his long lost brother can reunite and lay plans to get that bozo in the White House re-elected. Or maybe shorten the Indy 500 to the Indy 200. Or perhaps mandate shorter winters, 20 hour days, and partial amputations for anyone over 5’6″.

Joe

PS. I leave you with a quote from the great philosopher, Stormy Daniels: Shorter may be easier to take, but it isn’t necessarily more fun.”

JOSE ALTUVE, THE SMALLEST GUY IN BASEBALL, PUTS UP ANOTHER GARGANTUAN NUMBER.

· 2018 Cubs, Joe Sez, News · , ,

Hey there, piggy banks. It’s time for a little pre-season math lesson, brought to you by the twin gods of baseball negotiations; Insanity and Yurshittinme.

Baseball is a numbers game, right?

Baseball men count everything — at bats, hits, runs, steals, earned runs, wild pitches…probably even how many times a guy adjusts his junk in an inter-league game with less than two outs and a man on third. It friggin’ ridiculous. They even make up things to count, like Value Over Replacement Player (VORP). This make-me-laugh stat zeroes in on how much batters and pitchers contribute to their teams compared to a fake position player or pitcher of league-average talent. Now that’s GOTTA be somethin’ created by agents. Anyway, baseball is a game that lives and dies on numbers — national debt-size ones when it comes to contracts.

So here’s a number for ya: 151,000,000.

That’s what the Stros’ are shellin’ out for their sawed-off second baseman, José Altuve, for the next five years. Not $150 million (cuz that woulda been an insult). One hundred and fifty-ONE million. Not bad for a guy who still has to travel with his Graco Nautilus booster car seat. Did the Tuve have a stack of other big numbers last year…especially during the playoffs? Totally. But holy craptoids!

Baseball is also a game of inches.

That means at 5’6″ (66 inches) José Altuve is now the highest paid player in baseball, based on height, and will be rakin’ in $454,545.46 per inch, each of the next five seasons. That would be 2,945,436,200,000 bolivars in Venezuela — where Altuve is from — according to the unofficial but often used exchange rate of dolartoday.com. Surprise, surprise…official Venezuelan government exchange rates are considered overvalued. Of course I could say the same thing about pint-size second basemen gettin’ paid 3 trillion bolivars a year. Nobody is worth that. Not even Scarlett Johansson.

Is America great or what?!

No matter how Lester Holt tries to paint it, America just ain’t that bad. And Little Joe’s contract extension illustrates that in 4K living color, my friend. Take Venezuela, for instance, where the latest increase in minimum wage to 97,531 bolivars a month — an amount equal to $12.53 in Houston, Texas, America — means that Altuve, all by himself, makes as much money as 200,851 of his countrymen. Pretty friggin’ incredible.

America: Land of the free, home of the highly overpaid. Especially if you pretend (act) or play baseball for a living. But hey…I say more power to Altuve. Right up until they meet the Cubs in the Series this year. (Not that the little bat swingin’ munchkin needs anymore power, with his obscene slash line and all.) As far as his contract goes, though…if I were in his size 3-1/2 shoes, I’d take every penny they wanted to bury me in. Includin’ that extra million.

Are you still with me?

I know I lost White Sox fans, Cards fans and probably Major League umpires — who can only count to four and require one of those umpire counter things to do it — the moment I mentioned “math.” But for the astute Cubs fan (and is there any other kind?) what all this means is that Altuve is gonna be a Stroh for a while, the Stros are likely to be contenders for a while, and the people of Venezuela are worse than dirt poor. Whatever is worse than dirt — which I don’t know what it would be — that’s it.

Saving the best for last.

As long as we’re talkin’ about mucho bolivaro, here’s a piece of good news for the rest of us: After gettin’ boystowned by the Ricketts family the last two seasons, Cubs tickets are stayin’ relatively flat, with 2018 prices gettin’ goosed by less than one percent. This means the average ticket will set you back 518,946 bolivars, or $66.67. Consider yourself lucky, pallie. A minimum wage Venezuelan has to work through June 10th to make that much scratch.

Joe

ARRIETA’S DEPARTURE FOR THE PHILLS HAS LEFT ME WITH A SCORCHING CASE OF GONORRHIETA.

· 2018 Cubs, Joe Sez, News, Trades · , , ,

Hey there, cheese steaks, Joe Schlombowski, here. Unlike you Arrieta groupies out there — and you know who you are, my friends — I seem to have developed some sorta rash. Yep, now that the bearded J is wearin’ that stupid friggin’ liberty bell on his head, I get what I’d call “free clinic” symptoms every time (enter name of sports media conglomerate here) mentions his name. Let’s call it Gonorrhieta.

Gonorrhieta is a baseball transmitted disease (BTD). No, White Sox fans, you can’t get it from bleacher seats. You get from having a baseball fan’s love affair with any major league pitcher named Jake Arrieta who decides to walk out on you (putting the “gone” in Gonorrhieta) even though management was willing to stuff $27.5 million down his jock strap each of the next four years. Some people call it “the clap.” And while there was plenty of well-deserved clappin’ going on when he donned Cubbie blue, Arrieta’s departure for redder pastures is definitely causin’ some pain in places too dark and waaaaayyyy too sensitive to mention in this august rag. Not because he’s gone, but because he definitely chose to be gone.

The Cubs 4-year, $100 million offer was one year longer and $35 million more than what he took from the Phillies. Now I don’t know about you, but I can feel that decision in a part of my anatomy that’s reserved for Dr Golberg and his latex glove.

I’m tempted to blame Scott Boras, cuz I friggin’ can’t stand what he and the other vermin that represent ballplayers have done to baseball. But like Steve Rosenbloom pointed out in the Trib today, Boras or not, it was up to “Arrieta to say deal or no deal, and when it came to the Cubs, Arrieta said no deal.”

After signing on the line which is dotted, Arrieta said, “This is a special situation for me. It’s a tremendous honor and I look forward to making this organization proud.” OH MY FRIGGIN’ GOD! The guy goes 22-6 and wins a Cy Young in 2015, then helps end the longest championship drought in the history of history when the Cubs win the ’16 Series…and now I’m supposed to believe that goin’ to a team with a 66-96 record last year is “special?!”

Bite me, Jake.

Straight up. I’m never gonna win a Fields Medal. But I know enough about math to know this: If Arrieta, or Phillies management or the drooling sub-creatures that fill Citizen’s Bank Park (Rolls off the tongue like peanut butter coated duct tape, don’t it?) think they’re gonna turn that 66 upside-down with the addition of said fireballer, they better break out their calculators cuz their missin’ a decimal point or two. Arrieta would have to win 33 games…and do it with a team that ranked 27th in offensive production last season. There’s a better chance of Scarlett Johansson scrubbin’ my backside in the shower tomorrow morning.

So I say good riddance to Jake the Snake, who apparently so badly wanted outta Chicago that he took a deal that two years ago he wouldn’t have pissed on. Especially if he had Gonorrhieta, cuz it burns like hell when you do that.

Joe

PS. Here’s hoping for a butt-load of bell ringin’ when Arrieta takes the mound against us, my friends.

DID BOSTON THROW A PARADE FOR BUCKNER? THEN WHAT’S WITH THE RING FOR BARTMAN?

· 2017 Cubs, Joe Sez, News · ,

BARTMAN-RING

C’est la vie. Forgive and forget. Que sera sera.

That’s the sound of the Chicago Cubs gettin’ all moist over Steve Bartman, and handing over about a nine million carat diamond encrusted World Series ring to the guy.

WTF?!!!

And that’s the sound of me, Joe “the elephant” Schlombowski — a nickname I got cuz I never, ever, ever, never forget. (Also cuz I’m tippin’ the scales somewhere between ‘hippo’ and ‘elephant’. “Round up,” the missus always says.) Anyway, I’m standin’ here scratchin’ my noggin, wonderin’ why … WHY … that human skid mark is gettin’ a Series ring. Unless it’s a Rodeo Drive kinda “thank you” for stayin’ the hell away from the ball park during last season’s Series run, I’m at a loss to explain it.

Not that any fan should get a World Series ring … but you’re tellin’ me there’s not one other Cubs fan … not one … that’s more deserving than Bartman, the guy who singlehandedly tacked on another 13 years of “wait until next year” to the longest losing streak in the history of sports?! There’s not some 90 year old granny that hasn’t missed a game since FDR was in the White House? None of the hawkers sweatin’ out the Chicago summers in the Friendly Confines have any merit? Not a single, gear-wearin’ human Cubs billboard who’s faithfully returned, year after disappointing year, to drop thousands on seats, dogs, beers and nachos buried in that melted cheese crap have given more for a ring? And what about Bill Murray for chrissakes?!

Whatever Bartman deserves, it sure as hell ain’t a World Series ring, my friend. A few things come to mind:

1. A unmentionable rash.

2. An atomic wedgie.

3. Six weeks on a desert island with the Village People.

3. A one-way, all expense paid trip to Syria.

4. Three minutes in a cage with Stipe Miocic.

5. Bullet ants.

6. A full body wax.

7. Eight non-stop hours on the “It’s a Small World” ride at Disneyland.

And imagine if you’re Bartman for a second; disguise and all. (Humor me.) Are you seriously gonna wear that damn thing in public? “Hey, look what I got for derailing the Cubs in 2003!” I would predict more death threats.

Full disclosure: Bartman didn’t act alone. 2003’s horrific collapse against the Marlins took some wicked crappy pitching and brain-dead play on the part of the Cubs for the wheels to come off. But Bartman was definitely standin’ on the side of the road with a lug wrench in his sweaty little paws.

I guess this gesture by Cubs management is some sort of parole. Bartman has served 13 years for murdering a season — long enough according to Ricketts. And maybe he’s right.

Then again, maybe he’s not.

Personally, I’m still a big fan of an atomic wedgie for Bartman. Seems much more fitting than a World Series ring.

Joe

LAST NIGHT MIGGY GAVE US A CARNIVAL RIDE. TODAY HE’S GETTIN’ ONE OF HIS OWN.

· 2017 Cubs, Joe Sez, News · , ,

MONTERO-GO-ROUND-2

Hey there, popcorn balls. You know how ballparks are addin’ all kinds of entertainment crap to pacify the simpleminded between innings? Well last night the Nats took that whole genre of stupid a step further by introducing us to the Montero-go-round — a cruel carnival ride of base stealing madness like nothin’ ever seen outside of Ricky Henderson’s nap time. And it wasn’t between innings, it was during the friggin’ ball game! It was, in a word, embarrassing. If it had come with that obnoxious carnival ride music that I can’t get outta my head for three days after, it would have been the ultimate in base stealing torture.

7 swipes in one game. It was like unleashing a bus load of escapees from Sing Sing on a 7-Eleven with a blind cashier. Anything that could be stolen, was. Worse yet … half the time, Montero didn’t even so much as fake a throw! He just stood there like a friggin’ zombie, wonderin’ what the hell just happened again. And again. And again. And when he did let loose, it didn’t always hit the mark. Unless left field (in one instance) was the mark.

I don’t wanna make it sound like it was all Montero. Guys who steal are stealin’ off the tandem, not just the backstop. In this case, it was the dynamic duo of Montero and his faithful ward, Jake Arrieta. And Arrieta has a certain measure of turtle in his delivery. But Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Every time Turner or Tailor got on base they’d swipe 2nd AND THEN SWIPE 3rd! It was makin’ me dizzier than a convention of blondes. After a while I had to run and get the Dramamine so as not to puke up my brats.

So … Montero came into the game with an 0-24 record tryin’ to nab base stealers. Left the game 0-31. It was painful to watch and wasn’t the kinda ride you wanna go on again. Thankfully, we won’t have to. After the game, Montero unleashed a river of venom on Arrieta, blamin’ him for the carousel of Nationals runners, resulting in gettin’ his ass … and his mouth (Is there any difference?) designated for assignment. Too bad, too, cuz today’s visit to the White House was a chance for Montero to rub elbows with another guy whose mouth is often confused with his ass.

The downside is all of the potential promotional opportunities the Cubs are gonna lose out on:

1. Whenever Montero catches, it’s “Dramamine Night” at Wrigley.

2. Half price tickets for anyone out on parole for grand theft.

3. Montero “Carnival” Night: The first 10,000 fans with fewer than six teeth get a Montero Bobble Head doll, which is just like a regular bobble head except the head doesn’t bobble, the right arm is missing, and the left hand is pointin’ a finger.

Anyway, the Montero-go-round has been shut down for the time being. In fact, last night could possibly be his last game in a big league uniform. I hope not. I got all my fingers and toes crossed that the Cards pull his sorry, whining, selfish ass off waivers.

Joe