– Some of the interview sessions, or whatever they call them were pretty entertaining, as usual.
On Saturday, Mark Prior told the story of being stuck in the snow in Kerry Wood’s car with him and Kerry and Glendon Rusch and Michael Barrett, on Friday night. When WGN’s John Williams said he wondered how worried Cubs’ management would have been with about $30 million of pitchers pushing a car in the snow, Prior laughed and said, “We weren’t pushing. Michael was.”
Michael also remarked that he got flipped off by half of Chicago as they drove by while he was pushing the car. Good times.
Ryan Dempster proved to be the funniest of the Cubs interviewees. He blamed the loss of a no-hitter when he was in Florida on Cliff Floyd being the only high school all-american basketball player who can’t jump.
Glendon Rusch theorized that Sammy Sosa’s boombox wasn’t broken by anyone. He said it was old and probably just fell apart from being played too loud.
Dempster wondered if it was still under warranty.
Both Todd Walker and Kerry Wood refused to take credit for smashing the boombox. Walker hinted it may have been a tag-team job by whoever did do it.
Dusty said “dude” at least 400 times in his Cubs’ coaches session and Ron Santo said, “Believe me” about 1900 times in the session with the announcers.
Santo joked that this is the first offseason in a long time where he’ll be going to spring training with “all of the same parts I had when the season ended.”
Walker taunted Ryan Dempster by asking him who the only player to ever hit a grand slam off of Dempster was. It was Walker.
Dempster taunted Rusch by reminding him that the loser in his one-hitter was Glendon, and Rusch pointed out that five of his losses in 2000 came in games he started against Dempster.
Prior constantly referred to Glendon as “G-Unit.” I don’t even want to know why.
Santo did little to hide his well-known disdain for Steve Stone by referring to Bob Brenly as “the best analyst in baseball” about four times during their session. To his credit, Stone used to taunt Santo, knowing that Ron didn’t like him in the first place.
– I saw Gail Fischer on Saturday and she’s taller than I remembered. She’s also still prettier on TV than in real life. She was buying five of those blue “Cubs Believe” wristbands and she asked the guy how many they sold on Friday. The answer? Improbably, it was 30,000. Woof.
And yes, I bought two. I’m a dope.
– Every year WGN-TV does a taped piece about the season before, and 2004 was no exception. Sammy got booed every time he appeared in the video and when they got to the end where they did a thing about looking forward to 2005, you saw a lot of the guys: Prior, Wood, Carlos, E-ramis, D-Lee, Barrett, Walker, Nomar, even Neifi…but no Sammy. Hmmm?
The calendar they give everybody had 12 chances to honor Sammy. Nope.
If Sammy really wanted to stay (which he doesn’t), would it have been a perfect chance to prove it by showing up for the convention and apologizing to his teammates in private and then the fans in public? You know how spineless most Cubs fans are, they’d have been hugging him and blowing him kisses by the end of it.
– Prior made fun of the video asking, “Hey, did anybody notice how half of the video is Barrett trying to pick fights with the umps and other players?”
– Barrett said he’s still mad that Zambrano got a five day suspension for hitting Lassie, but Roy Oswalt didn’t get anything for hitting him one pitch after an E-ramis grand slam. Michael pointed out that Bob Watson, the MLB discipline guy, is a former Astro. He also said he had one regret about his incident with Oswalt in the rematch, and he left it clear that if he had to do it all over again, Roy would have gotten a face full of fist. But…he’s let it go. Sure sounds like it.
Barrett also said that his toughest job is to get Carlos to focus on the mound. He used an example that when the Cubs play in Pittsburgh, Carlos will stand on the mound and watch himself on the big screen. Michael said that in an early season start last year he got so mad at Carlos that he went to the mound and “cursed him out in Spanish. I used words I didn’t even know I knew.”
– We found out that Jason Dubois sounds just like Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade. It’s actually very disturbing.
– The Ice Man has grown a disturbing mustache. It’s not as much intimidating as it makes him look like a used car salesman. Not a good look. Almost as bad as Bob Brenly’s goatee.
– Granted, they’re not the 23-Caucasian Astros, but the Convention Cubs…especially the ones who did the talking in the sessions were pretty white. The only panels they put Corey, Derrek Lee or Zambrano on were the “For Kids’ Only” one.
Then again, except for a “woo”-ing idiot, most of the fans were as white as the snow outside, too.
——————-
I also gave you a 50-50 chance of guessing what was on Brett Favre’s TV on Sunday.
If there’s a stripper pole on the TV, then it was his daughter…practicing.
Dolan, you didn’t really say “We’ll get ’em in game six” to Frey, did you? That’s frigging hilarious.
Can I go to Scotland yet?
You just have to wonder what the hell Big Sharon was thinking with that outfit. I don’t even think a Butch would come up and hit on her it that get-up. That’s embarrassing.
Actually that that guy that we were drinking with went to high school with my BROTHER, not me. He was my brother’s best man and he’s about 6 years older than me.
Otto’s a 1982 graduate of Elk Grove. My oldest brother played high school ball with him. When he was a senior, Otto singlehandedly took the Grens to their only downstate appearance in school hostory, only to lose 1-0.
So you were basically being exposed to an impromptu Elk Grove High School circle jerk, Andy.
Dear Mr. Desipio, under the words “Leave a Reply” there appear the words, “Welcome back cubbiebluestew (Change)”. I don’t think that I am being overly sensitive when I say that I am offended by that order. You barely know me yet you feel qualified to tell me to change. Change what? My age? My height? My attitude? My lifestyle? When you approach perfection then you can suggest to me that I do the same. Until then I’ll thank you to keep your suggestions to yourself.
I really AM sorry I missed it. Shit.
It was a good time. Otto’s a good guy. He was struggling on Sunday morning during the “Down on the Farm” session (shouldn’t Max Armstrong be hosting that?) and his voice kept cracking. He just pointed at his throat and said, “Kitty O’Shea’s.”
He told me that he’s not sure if Comcast has hired anybody to do postgame analysis, but he knows they haven’t hired him yet. Given the horrendously bad Luke Stuckmeyer-Stacy King postgame for the Bulls, and no pregame, you have to worry.
My dad walked by Luke at the convention and I yelled, “Don’t get any Stuckmeyer on you.”
By the way, I saw Pat Boyle…he’s like 6’13. I had no idea. He’s giant.
And I’m disappointed that I didn’t run into Kerry Sayers or her ludicrously active right eyebrow.
Forgot about the Fratello bit. Could you re-send? AOL likes to get rid of mail after, oh, 12 minutes in your inbox.
Wanna talk dopes? Yours truly. I just figured out the “Spanish-Yes” line.
Hey! It only took me 18 months.
Tip for Andy. When yelling “Sloth” at fat guys, make sure they are rather tall.
FWIW, I respond to “Rabbi.”
Oh, I only yelled at tall fat guys. And that’s why I was nearly killed. I can beat up the short fat ones.
So I was apparently the Casanova of Kitty O’Shea’s Friday? I’m a real Don Juan aren’t I?
Did Don Juan ever get shot in the neck?
It is not your fault that you yelled “Sloth” at strangers, the reason he is called that is because of the number of toes he has. I assume, given the weather, all of the tall fat guys that you yelled at were wearing shoes.
KD?
It was on the Kings, and the fact that they were beat by 30 yesterday kind of, heheh, changed things. It’ll be up tomorrow.
Nice.
You’d better be nice to me, otherwise…
…well, you know what happened the last time someone slandered me?!?
I’m dead!
Chicago Bulls, 20-19. Discuss.
Why was I not mentioned in the article???????
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