Gary Scott and the Hoff

Micah Hoffpauir is turning into Mr. February down in Arizona. He hit another homerun yesterday against the Rangers to raise his Cactus League batting average to .364 and his RBI total to seven in three games.

That is all very nice, and I am very happy for the man (I can't really call him a "young" man since a 29 year-old ballplayer is not considered young anymore), but his performance so far has been making me think about Gary Scott.

Gary Scott was a third base prospect in the early 90s that was hyped by the Cubs and their propaganda newsletter, Vine Line, as the next coming of Ron Santo. Scott was the prototypical kind of player the Cubs like to hype to their fan base: a hard-playing, team-oriented, defense-minded, high-character white guy.

Scott would go down to Mesa and tear the cover off the ball all spring long and make the team as the starting third baseman. Then the airlines would apparently lose the luggage in which he stored his talent on the flight to Chicago. In 1991, he batted .165 until May 14, when the Cubs sent him down.

In 1992, he had another great spring and made the team again as the starting third baseman. Again, somewhere between Arizona and Chicago, he misplaced his talent. He was batting a robust .103 on the season when I stepped into the picture.

On April 20, 1992 I headed for the bleachers with a group of my college friends for what the Cubs billed as "Opening Night IV" (first night game of the year), and I decided that I was going to be a Gary Scott fan. The guy needed a fan, and I was going to cheer for him, no matter what.

Greg Maddux started the game and when he struck someone out, I would yell to Gary that he did a great job standing there. I took every opportunity to try to boost his confidence.

Gary's first at-bat resulted in a weak grounder to short where he was thrown out easily. I yelled to him that he did a great job hustling, and that he had been robbed. (I was not above stretching the truth a bit in my efforts to help him out.)

It is important to note that I did not have a single drop of alcohol in my system. I was not of age quite yet, and I was not a cool kid who managed to get a fake ID or talk older people into buying drinks for me. I was drinking nothing stronger than Pepsi that night.

The game went on and Greg Maddux hit a towering homerun over my head and out of the stadium towards the Budweiser building, so the Cubs had the lead and we were all in good spirits. I was consistently telling Gary Scott how well he was playing, despite not doing anything more impressive than spitting and scratching himself on occasion.

Later, the Cubs had two runners on and Doug Dascenzo at the plate. After the count went to 2-0, I realized Gary was on deck. So, I yelled out, "Go ahead and walk him! Gary will hit a grand slam!"

At this point, most of the folks in the bleachers were probably pretty convinced I was either drunk, crazy, or a combination of the two, but I could care less. Dascenzo walked to load the bases, and as Gary came up to the plate, I rose to my feet for the pre-emptive one-man-standing ovation.

On the very first pitch, he cranked a deep drive to left that from my perspective definitely had homerun distance. As the ball sailed, all I could say was, "No way! No way! NO WAY!....... It's FOUL! F---!"

"Thats OK, Gary! You can do it again. Straighten it out a bit! You own this guy!"

Gary returned to the batters box and ran the count to 2-2, and then fouled off eight straight pitches. When I say he "fouled off" the pitches, it would be more accurate to stay he barely managed to touch the ball eight straight times. He hit a conglomeration of piddling grounders and pop-ups that barely made it into the stands. It was not awe inspiring in any way.

As the at-bat wore on, the attitude in the stands started to change. Around the tenth pitch of the at-bat, the rest of Wrigley joined me on the Gary Scott Bandwagon, and began chanting, "Gar-y, Gar-y, Gar-y." Quietly at first, as though everyone was still a bit embarassed to be rooting for a guy batting .100, but it steadily rose in volume.

Every swing he took caused me to have a brief heart-attack until I saw he would live to swing at least one more time. I was barely alive to see the thirteenth pitch in the at-bat. He finally hit one that was not going to be foul. He hit it pretty well and it arched out towards the left-field basket, getting pushed ever so slightly by the wind as it went. When it landed in the first row of the bleachers for the grand slam I had predicted, the entire stadium exploded into bedlam.

Beer was tossed everywhere. High-fives and hugs were had all around like the Cubs had just won the division. I was suddenly the most popular guy in the bleachers.

Gary did a little curtain call that has to be one of the earliest curtain calls in a Cubs season, and the place went nuts again.

I figured that was the moment when Gary would turn the corner. He came up next (with the stadium again joining me in our displays of admiration), and sure enough, he hit the ball pretty hard.... right at the second baseman for an out.

He then went the next three games without a hit and was sent back down to the minors again. After a couple of brief call-ups later in the year, his major league career was over.

So what does this mean for Micah Hoffpauir? Probably nothing, which is about how meaningful these three games are to the overall track of his future career success.

Perhaps he'll become a fixture at Wrigley for the next few years, providing numerous clutch hits to thrill the crowd. Perhaps he'll have that once-in-a-career opportunity to thrill us in the moment, and wax nostalgic about seventeen years later. Perhaps he'll never make the team and we never hear from him again.

If he learns anything from the Gary Scott story, he should definitely pack his talent in his carry-on bag if he makes the major league club.

Chicago Loses Two Legends

If I were to sculpt a Mt. Rushmore for the Chicago Bulls, it would include Michael Jordan, Phil Jackson, Johnny "Red" Kerr, and Norm Van Lier. There is an argument to be made for Scottie Pippen over Van Lier based on pure talent, but I go with Van Lier on his talent plus his heart and soul belonging to the Bulls.

Losing Kerr and Van Lier on the same day would be like the Cubs losing Billy Williams and Ron Santo on the same day. The only macabre coincidence that overshadows this one that I can think of is John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both dying on the same July 4th.

Yesterday started out poorly enough with the news about Van Lier early in the day. I had always admired his fire and love of the Bulls. I never saw him play, so I have no real appreciation for his on-court skills, but his tenacity and effort has seemed to be what set him apart from other players of equal calibre. In his broadcasts, you could tell his love of Chicago Bulls basketball ran deep and he was unafraid of expressing his opinions about the current incarnation of the team, good or bad.

It was also surprising because he had seemed in good health overall and he was only 61. It was far to soon for us to lose Stormin' Norman.

Late last night, I was about to close up my laptop and a twitter message came across from the Sun Times that Johnny Kerr had reportedly died and they were working to verify the story. Now, the Sun-Times is not usually what I would call journalism at its finest, but it certainly is not a rumor-mongering rag so I was fairly confident that it would prove to be true in the end.

Of course, it was confirmed and I sat transfixed on my couch with my twitter account buzzing with posts of shock and sadness from across the internet. Comcast Sportsnet had a very somber tone as they chronicled the lives and deaths of both Bulls legends.

I was not as surprised by Kerr's passing. He had been battling prostate cancer, and was visibly looking more frail on television broadcasts. Nevertheless, I never thought he was going to pass away quite so soon at the age of 76. Combined with the earlier news about Van Lier, it was extremely shocking and depressing.

I'll remember Norm for expressing the same exuberation or disgust (whichever was applicable at the time) in his post-game broadcasts as mine. All I ever had to do as a fan was yell my approval of his words at the TV.

I'll always hear Johnny's voice screaming above Jim Durham in my mind as Jordan hit "The Shot" over Ehlo, "It's Good! The Bulls win it!"

Bulls basketball will never quite be the same.

That Didn't Take Long

Despite his best efforts, Milton Bradley still does not hold the record for Least Amount of Activity to Cause an Injury. That record is still held by Moises Alou, who once injured himself while standing in the outfield.

Bradley does have to be awarded the silver medal though. Taking a walk in his first plate appearance of Spring Training (while not swinging the bat once) resulted in what was later described as "mild tightness in his left quad." He was removed from the game as a precautionary measure.

I'm sure this is nothing and he will play again during the spring exhibition season (unlike some former Cubs' pitching phenoms I will only identify by saying their names rhyme with "should" and "crier"), but it nevertheless brings the seemingly inevitable specter of injuries into our collective consciousness far earlier in the season than even the most jaded of us fans expected.

This is where many fans will start waiting for when this gets worse. When will we lose our $30 million left-handed bat that was supposed to bring balance to the lineup? Will Milton Bradley be our version of Randy Myers, who got paid about $14 million by the Padres for essentially doing nothing for them (14 1/3 innings and 6.28 ERA in 1998, zero innings in 1999 or 2000)?

I will not be letting myself lose sleep over this. I doubt that Milton Bradley is the difference between success and failure for the Cubs. Plus, I'd rather see Bradley sit out most of the spring anyway. Give him some at-bats to get used to live pitching, but there is no sense on wasting the finite number of games his body has left on meaningless pre-season games.

Maybe they should wrap him in bubble-wrap too. I'd say it couldn't hurt to try, but I bet he could find a way.

Cubs Baseball is On the Air (almost)

As Pat Hughes will undoubtedly say at some point during the Cubs' first game broadcast, "Its not just Spring Training for the players." Usually, he is referencing a goof by the umpires, scoreboard operators, or even himself, but it would also fit well for the fans.

I know I am not in my full baseball season mode. I have only recently even begun to formulate a strategy for my fantasy baseball teams. At this point, I have my team name chosen in my keeper league (Boom! Roasted), but no semblance of an auction strategy yet.

My other team is even worse shape. I have no name, and I have not even begun to put together a draft sheet. My draft is less than a month away and I haven't even looked at any pre-rankings of players yet.

I think part of the problem is that it is still frickin' freezing out. There is not much in the Chicago weather to suggest that baseball season is around the corner. April is never warm at Wrigley and I have stopped even hoping to be semi-warm on Opening Day. I'm now happy if it is not snowing and the wind chill stays above freezing, but even by those standards, it is not close to baseball weather yet.

I also haven't received my season tickets from the Cubs yet. That is usually the day where I turn the mental corner into baseball mode. I don't run out into the snowy street and hug my FedEx driver like Jimmy Fallon in Fever Pitch, but I usually have the opening to 2001: A Space Odyssey playing in my head as I open the package.

Myy mental preparation has also been further slowed by an inability to make it out to Arizona this year for Spring Training. I have been making so by living vicariously through the Boys of Spring blog that posts a lot of pictures and goings-on from Fitch Park and Ho Ho Kam.

So I'll be tuning in to the game today on WGN radio to hear Pat describe the colors of the teams uniforms, Ron being unfamiliar with most of the minor league players, and some scintillating conversation about tuna fish sandwiches. I can't wait.

And the Oscar Goes To...

I had the Oscars on last night as I worked on homework, so I could glance up to see the highlights. Natalie Portman and Ben Stiller in his Joaquin Phoenix beard provided the best moments for me, though Tina Fey and Steve Martin were also pretty funny. I was also pleasantly surprised at how entertaining Hugh Jackman is when he is not killing people with metallic razors protruding from his knuckles.

I started to think about how long it has been since there has been a really good baseball movie. Fever Pitch with Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore is the last one that comes to mind, and that was put out in 2005.

I understand that the underdog stories are done to death and have become horribly cliched by now, but you would think someone would be able to come up with something fresh about the national pastime.

But until the next baseball movie classic comes to theatres (and because there is not much else interesting going on around the Cubs right now), I thought I would throw out my nominations for Best Baseball Scene. This is not a measure of the movies' quality in their entirety, but rather of the indelible scenes within the movie.

Bad News Bears - Final inning for the Bears - In the final game of the Little League World Series, the most talentless of the underdog Bears mount a two-out rally against the evil Yankees. The bases are loaded and the superstar-bad-ass Kelly Leak is at the plate. The Yankees try to intentionally walk him, but Leak leans out over the plate and smacks a drive into the gap. The bases are cleared as Leak comes streaking around as the tying run, only to be thrown out at the plate. The Bears lose, but take the 2nd Place trophy and tell the Yankees where to collectively stick it. I love the lack of a fairy-tale ending, and the kids drinking/spraying celebratory beers after the game. You wouldn't be able to have that in a movie made with kids today.

Pride of the Yankees - Gehrig's Luckiest Man on Earth speech - I know this is an odd choice in a Cubs blog, and one that seems overly sentimental for our modern, jaded tastes, but this really is a great finish to an excellent movie from its time. Gary Cooper, delivers the speech perfectly, and it is enhanced by having the actual Babe Ruth as part of the scene. It is heartbreaking to see the Iron Horse at the end of his career, and life, facing it with dignity and class.

A League of Their Own - "There's no crying in baseball!" - The AAWBL Rockford Peach's manager, Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks) verbally chastises his right fielder for missing the cut-off (wo)man, resulting in her breaking into tears. Unable to process how this turn of events could be possible, he breaks into a rant about no crying in baseball that has propelled it into our cultural mainstream.

The Naked Gun - Lt. Frank Drebin searching players for weapons while posing as an umpire - I know this is not a baseball movie, but it has the funniest baseball-themed scene, in my opinion. This could be due to the fact that I believe that many MLB umpires have gone to the Frank Drebin/Leslie Nielson School of Theatrical Umpiring the way they seem to believe that the crowd has paid to see them call a game. Also anything that features Jay Johnstone and the Queen of England doing the wave should get some sort of recognition.

The Natural - Roy Hobbs walk-off homerun into the light tower - I am not as in love with this movie as a whole as some people are. Robert Redford playing someone who could realistically even be an "old" rookie in baseball is a bit much, but the final at-bat is the stuff little boys' dreams are made of. With two outs, two strikes, and the game, the season, and his legacy on the line, an injured Roy Hobbs breaks his magic bat on a foul ball. The following homerun into the light tower to win the game, save his manager, and defeat the evil owner is sheer beauty. The crowd shots, his teammate's reactions, and his own slow trot through the showers of sparks is pure poetry.

Anybody else want to toss in their favorite scenes?

My Mom and the Cubs

People ask me how I became a Cubs fan. I was born in the South suburbs of Chicago and lived there in White Sox territory until the summer before junior high.

My mother took me to my first baseball game near the end of the 1979 season. It was a White Sox game against the Mariners at Comiskey Park. Wayne Nordhagen hit two homeruns and the White Sox won 3-1. The scoreboard exploded after every homerun, and during the 7th inning stretch, there was a crazy old guy in the press box that sang along and danced to Take Me Out to the Ballgame. The night sky lit up with fireworks after the game, and everyone sang the Na-Na-Na song after the victory.

It was a great game for a seven-year old as a first game.

The next year, my mom and my aunt and uncle brought me to my first Cubs game at Wrigley Field. It was a day game (of course) and the soon-to-be World Champion Philadelphia Phillies opened up a can of whup-ass on the hapless Cubs.

Willie Hernandez started for the Cubs and got hammered around. The Cubs trotted out the likes of Lynn McGlothen, Bill Caudill, and Doug Capilla from the bullpen. Mike Schmidt hit two of the roughly 300 homeruns he hit against the Cubs that day, and Steve Carlton could have thrown a shutout against a lineup including Mike Vail, Jerry Martin, Steve Ontiveros, and Tim Blackwell, but was lifted after seven innings. Oh, and Pete Rose also got a couple of hits and the Phillies won the game 7-0.

I learned a few things that day. I learned that day baseball is inherently better than night baseball. I learned that the Cubs could never get Mike Schmidt out. I learned from the guy in front of me that Dave Kingman was "worthless" and that Bill Buckner was "over-rated." I learned that drunk girls can sometimes be enticed to take off their shirts at a baseball game.

I learned that I was a Cub fan.

During the 1984 season, my mom moved us to Jamestown, New York. The first thing I checked upon getting there was whether the local provider included WGN in its cable package. It was on a more premium package, but she agreed to purchase that package so I could still watch the games.

My dad still lived in Chicago, so I got to go to a game each year when I visited during the summer, but it was hard knowing I couldn't go more often. I watched the 1984 playoffs, the first night game, and the 1989 playoffs on our family room TV in Jamestown.

But my mom would often arrange for us to go see a Cub game or two in Pittsburgh. Sometimes my brother would come, and sometimes not, but the trip was always planned for me.

As a teenager, you don't often appreciate the important things at the time. Back then, it seemed like kind of a raw deal that I had to go to see Cub games at the concrete multi-purpose monstrosity at the convergence of the Allegheny and Mononghela rivers instead of at Wrigley Field.

It seemed unfair to have to watch a game with someone like my mom, who enjoys the games, but doesn't know much about it beyond the basics. I couldn't get into a conversation with her about whether Don Zimmer should leave in Mike Bielecki or call for Paul Assenmacher. Meanwhile, I had no interest in her observations that Mark Grace had a nice butt.

Since then, I realized she was trying to find something she could share with me that I enjoyed. She could probably have cared less about the games, and I'm sure she could have used the money we spent on gas, food and lodging in Pittsburgh for other things.

So while she didn't play catch in the backyard or have an opinion on whether the Cubs should have traded Rafael Palmeiro, I definitely have her to thank for contributing heavily to my love of baseball and the Cubs.

I'll leave it up to you to decide if that is a good thing or not, but I think its a good thing.

The Annual Ticket Scrum

After maxing out on season ticket sales, providing advanced sales of a 13-game package to people on the season ticket waiting list, and pre-selling seats to their own ticket scalping service, the scores of remaining single-game tickets will go on sale to the public at 8:00 AM on Friday morning.

The Cubs instituted a wristband policy a few years ago to prevent people from camping out in front of the ticket offices overnight. This has proved to be one of the wisest moves the Cubs have ever made, since the demand has risen so high that there would be people living in a makeshift shanty town established at the corner of Clark and Addison moments after the final out of the previous season.

I love the Cubs. I think I've established that, even among those who only know me through this blog. Nevertheless, the annual feeding frenzy for the single-game tickets amazes me every year. There will be people standing in line in the frigid cold, or waiting hours in the online virtual waiting rooms hoping to get the right to buy an obstructed view seat for a game againt the White Sox or Cardinals.

Let me tell anyone who may be considering purchasing an obstructed view seat at Wrigley Field on the rationale that it gets you into the park: That is all it does. It gets you in the park. When you get an obstructed view seat that actually says so on the ticket, they are not kidding around. The only thing you will be able to see is whatever graffiti may have been written on the pole by the person who sat there for the game before.

If the pole is only partially or mostly in your sight lines, the ticket will not indicate it as obstructed view. You have been warned.

Also, be prepared to not get anything you want. As many rules and regulations as the Cubs dream up to prevent the non-Cub sanctioned scalpers from buying up all the tickets to the good games, those same scalpers always manage to find a way around those rules to suck up whatever remaining scraps of tickets are left.

Anybody hoping to get tickets online will have a two hour disadvantage to the live braceleted ticket buyers because the tickets start selling at the box office at 8:00 AM, but the online sales begin at 10:00 AM. If you're looking for Opening Day (and I am, by the way, if anyone has an extra), or Crosstown tickets online - I wish you luck and hope that you like scattered single seats in the 500 sections.

Those three people who get the tickets they want will dance around like Charlie Bucket after finding the Willy Wonka Golden Ticket. I only ask that you not wave them around in front of those who are not so lucky. People have been known to get shot for lesser things in this city.

Good luck to everyone. I will be trying to get that extra Opening Day ticket, so I'll see you around the virtual waiting room.