Cubs insist there's a new attitude, plenty to prove
Alfredo Villasmil, a respected Venezuelan baseball writer for that nation's largest newspaper, recently spent a couple of days in Cubs camp checking in on Carlos Zambrano, as he does every spring.
But for the first time, after this visit, Villasmil said, ''I'm going to tell you something: This is El Toro's year. That's the man I met [as a minor-leaguer], when he was hungry.''
I already made fun on this. On a different post. Still, it's 'Quote of the Year' so far this season. And yes I know the season hasn't started yet.
Can you take that to the bank, along with Zambrano's $91.5 million contract?
Can you take a comment by a journalist to the bank as sure fire proof that Zambrano is going to return to his old form? Of course, he's a journalist, that's why you used his quote.
Not until he proves it over the next six months and avoids the lapses that have undone previous seasons.
But as he takes the mound today for the opener of a make-good season for almost every returning player on this team,
I just like that it's a make-good season for "ALMOST EVERY RETURNING PLAYER", except for the ones that were so bad they traded them away.
Zambrano isn't the only Cub who seems at least hungry after a sour, bitter 2009.
Apparently, the Cubs goal this year is to beat Kobayashi in a hot dog eating contest.
Whether they can do it might start with how well they can break from their past, from all the billy goats, Bartmans and Bradleys -- all the real or imagined curses that seem to dog this franchise every season.
"Real for imagined curses"!?!!? Curses aren't real. The White Sox threw a frickin World Series and still got there before the Cubs.
And don't start with the stuff about that being a media creation. It wasn't the media who claimed an improbable catch wasn't made in 2003 because of a fan trying to catch a foul ball, or who brought in the Greek orthodox priest before the 2008 playoffs, or who committed errors around the horn in Game 2 of that series, or who gave Milton Bradley $30 million.
OK, I won't start with it. But it's true, they're a media creation. Just because Cubs management bought into it, doesn't make it real.
In fact, this was the first spring since manager Lou Piniella took over in 2007 that the media didn't ask him about curses or goats -- which might be a sign that the culture change Piniella talked about when he took over has begun to take hold.
Great, in what most people expect to be his last season as a Cub he finally changed the culture from losing thanks to curses to losing thanks to under performance, congrates.
Or that nobody expects enough from the Cubs this year to bother.
BOOYAH!!!
Either way, there's a palpable sense of starting over in 2010, which seems to have only a little to do with new ownership and absolutely nothing to do with that ''Year 1'' marketing slogan.
What a horrible slogan. Thank god they play at Wrigley Field.
''I thought guys came in with a little bit of an edge,'' first baseman Derrek Lee said.
Ugh...this is completely meaningless as to how the Cubs are going to do this year. That's just some standard quote from one of the blandest interviewee's in the game of baseball. Great player, but kinda bland.
Even some of the new guys noticed the businesslike, game-faced approach this spring from those with even a year or two of experience with this team. Camaraderie, jokes and Cubs Idol in the clubhouse were balanced against hours of sunrise sessions with new hitting coach Rudy Jaramillo and a constant buzz of purpose.
New hitting coach. A decent reason that the Cubs might have a better year. Camaraderie and jokes are NOT good reasons. Let's see if Greg expands on the hitting coach thing, maybe that he's instituting a new approach at the plate for some of the hitters that struggled last year:
One new outfielder, Xavier Nady, said the Cubs' clubhouse this spring reminded him of the Yankees team he was on last year.
Nope, just some crap about Nady claiming this spring reminds him of the Yankees. Minus, you know, all the Hall of Fame talent.
New center fielder Marlon Byrd said it reminded him of the 2003 Phillies, the year he broke in as a starter. That was the year the Phillies brought in Jim Thome and 18-game winner Kevin Millwood -- and started a run of seven consecutive winning seasons, including World Series berths the last two.
Of course they reached those World Series AFTER Byrd had already been traded to the Nationals, where he couldn't find a permanent spot on the team and floated between the Majors and AAA. On the NATIONALS!
The last 102 years don't disappear because you say it's Year 1. But new eras don't start before the old ones are killed off, either.
So how do you forget about '09, or even '08 for that matter?
It's Wrigleyville, so I'm gonna guess lots of booze and roofies?
''I don't think you can forget everything, and I'm not sure you want to forget everything,'' said Lee, the only player on the Opening Day roster who has experienced winning a World Series. ''There's some lessons to be learned from last year. You look at it both ways: You learn from it, and then you move on.''
Lee is so sensible it kills me. He's like an baseball playing Vulcan. (yeah, Battlestarwarscapricatrek reference!)
That's where the edge Lee saw comes in.
Geovany Soto (.218 in '09) lost 40 pounds since last season; Zambrano (nine wins), 20.
No wonder they're so hungry.
Soto, Alfonso Soriano (.241, 20 homers) and other returning Cubs might have spent more time in the cage with Jaramillo than they spent on extra hitting their previous spring trainings combined.
''At 6:30 [a.m.], you park your car and you're hearing balls flying in the cage out there,'' pitcher Randy Wells said of the difference this spring. ''People are just ready to go and ready to make a big season of it.''
Said Lee: ''I think guys have something to prove, and as a team we have some things to prove.''
Darn your sensibility Lee, say something weird or dumb so I have a good quote to leave on you jerk.
Case Closed!
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