Love those ass-over-teakettle Giants.
You have to love the San Francisco Giants. If the Cubs somehow emerge from the wild card scrum and claim a playoff spot, we will have to look no further than the three games the Giants should have won at Wrigley Field this week. They actually did win one of them, but instead of shoving the Cubs off a ledge, they pretty much tossed them some rope and started pulling.

The Cubs lose yesterday if the best defensive shortstop of the last 15 years doesn’t let a routine grounder go through his legs. They also probably lose if the Giants don’t botch the play the Cubs are completely defenseless at stopping–the suicide squeeze. Throw in a flyball that dropped because the right fielder lost it in the sun (though, the Cubs didn’t really take advantage of that one, but it was still funny) and Felipe Alou’s stubborn refusal to pitch around Jeromy Burnitz to get to Neifi! and the Cubs won a game they had all but gift wrapped for the Giants in the eighth, when Carlos Zambrano was left to die on the mound with nothing left and a one run lead.

It was almost like Felipe Alou spent the series trying to give wins to Dusty. He didn’t. It just proves how dumb he is that he could accomplish it without trying.

The big story was what happened after the game. No, not Ryan Dempster giving Jeromy Burnitz the old shaving cream pie to the face during his TV interview. Derrek Lee, Dusty Baker and Ryan Dempster all came to the defense of former Cubs blowtorch LaTroy Hawkins. Derrek said the fans’ treatment of LaTroy during his eighth inning appearances in each game was “classless.”

I have no problem with the players or Dusty defending LaTroy. He was their friend. Just because a guy gets traded it doesn’t mean you don’t like him. I’ll just appreciate LaTroy squandering the lead in all three games, and I enjoyed the “Hawkins sucks!” chants.

Was it classless? Of course it was. It was also fun and effective.

As for Dusty’s concern that when opposing players see Cubs’ fans boo some of their current and former players, that it makes some of those players unlikely to want to play for the Cubs, I say “good.” If you’re so mentally weak that you will avoid playing in a city because if you suck you will get booed, stay away. It wasn’t going to work out here anyway.

Gone are the days when a player who was just sick and tired of playing hard and playing well can sign a long term deal with the Cubs and nap his way through it, cashing big checks.

The case in point for how to handle it is the guy who got the game-winning hit yesterday. Jeromy Burnitz is not having an MVP caliber season. He’s having a good season at the plate, and he’s busting his ass every day and the fans have warmed to him to the point where even without Derrek Lee-like numbers, he’s one of the favorites around there.

Did LaTroy act like a prick the whole time he was a Cub? Yes he did. Would it have been OK if he’d gotten lots of outs? Sure it would have. But when you act like a prick, or in another famous case you refuse to try and correct your flaws, you are going to get booed and jeered and made fun of, because Wrigley’s not the country club people always thought it was.

Should we get mad at Derrek or Ryan or Dusty for defending an old friend? No. Should we stop booing? Nope.

Cubs’ fans are never going to turn into the strange, cultish crowds the Cardinals have. If Rickie Weeks hits one 519 feet at Wrigley he’s not going to get a standing ovation in his next at bat like he did in St. Louis. That’s just wrong and strange and creepy. But even those fans, the self-proclaimed “best fans in baseball” (when “most likely fans to have an extra chromosome” is more accurate) started booing during Lee’s at bats last weekend because the Cubs’ fans in attendance were “gasp!” cheering him. It even started a very insecure and humorously pathetic “MVP!” chant for Albert Pujols right before he hit into the game ending double play on Saturday.

I was going to write that it’s interesting that the guys complaining about the booing are all relatively new, but if you look at the Cubs’ roster, everybody’s relatively new. Who’s been around the longest?

Carlos Zambrano…and he’s 24! Sure, Maddux was around in the late ’80s and early ’90s, but he went away for a dozen years so it’s not like he’s a lifer.

So who are they to say how it used to be? I’ve got news for them, guys have gotten booed every year and former Cubs have been booed every year. In fact, you can ask Maddux about that. I’m pretty sure there was a day in 1993 when he didn’t think the fans were as “super” as he thought they were Tuesday night.

You want to know why the fans took such pride in booing LaTroy? Because it worked. He melted down in all three appearances and allowed a runner who scored the tying run each time. Why should the fans stop?

You can act like this is new, but it’s not. Ask Dave Kingman or Danny Jackson or Calvin Schiraldi or anybody who played for Lee Elia about the happy Cubs crowds. It was always a myth that Wrigley coddled its players. If anything, the complete and utter lack of success for a century has done one thing. It’s lowered the bar as to what you need to do to get fan adoration. At Yankee Stadium you pretty much need to be a key part of a World Series team. At Wrigley, you just need to run hard to first base and act like you’re pissed if you strike out.

OK, so that’s what changed. The Cubs’ fans no longer just want effort, they want results, too. But you’re not going to get the LaTroy-Corey treatment lightly. Those guys earned it. Just like Mel Rojas and Todd Hundley before them. Wow, that’s quite the fun little club to be in.

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I found this very interesting. Both ESPN’s underwear supermodel Len Pasquarelli and SI’s incredibly shrinking Peter King were in Atlanta yesterday at Falcons’ training camp (OK it’s in some town named Flowery Branch, Georgia–whatever, Atlanta) and both had observations about Michael Vick’s throwing ability. Mind you, these guys watched the same two practices.

Pasquarelli:

Vick was, in a word, brutal at times. And that might not even accurately describe his afternoon. He was too high. He was too low. He was long and he was short. Vick looked anything but ready to ratchet up his completion percentage to the levels that typically accompany a West Coast-style passing design. His body language belied his frustration. At one point, tight end and favorite target Alge Crumpler, following one particularly scattershot effort, returned to the huddle and placed his arm around Vick’s shoulders.

But even more disappointing than his performance in throwing the ball was Vick’s slipshod footwork on too many occasions. Hard to imagine, we agree, for a player so agile and nifty, but the guy looked like he had two left feet at times. Vick still tries, or at least he did Monday, to do too much just with his arm. You generate velocity and even accuracy, from the feet up. But Vick rarely squared up, didn’t get his feet set, had too many skewed release points. There is also a kind of “jump” in Vick’s drop-and-plant, one that, mechanically, forces him to divert his eyes.

King:

I think one of the great things about watching this team practice is the beauty of the ball that Mike Vick throws. Gorgeous pass after gorgeous pass.

Huh? What?

Either Pasquarelli is on a one-man seek and destroy mission about Vick, or Peter King is getting ready for the post-Brett Farvuhuh NFL when he’s going to need another famous QB to suck up to. You decide.