"People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do, I stare out the window and wait for spring." - Rogers Hornsby

:: Saturday, November 13, 2004 ::

The Sosa Saga

The New York newspaper Newsday reports that Sammy Sosa's agent has indicated a willingness for Sosa to forego some of the 2006 option money in his deal in order to facilitate a trade.

This is a very carefully crafted minuet the two sides are dancing, isn't it? First the almost-apologies, then both sides saying they feel Sammy might be right back with the Cubs next year -- of course, after mending fences with his teammates, something that's about as likely to happen as John Kerry being elected the next governor of Alabama, and while we Cubs fans want instant gratification, this thing is going to take some time to figure out.

Remember how long the Alex Rodriguez saga lasted last winter? And how he almost became a member of the Red Sox? (And incidentally, if he had, I don't think the Red Sox would now be World Champions, either.)

This is a similar situation, only it will become easier to do, because as the Newsday article points out:

The union views Sosa's situation differently than Rodriguez's because Rodriguez was giving up guaranteed money. The trigger clause is not guaranteed money, so the union wouldn't be as bothered by a waiving of it. That would lower the money owed Sosa to a relatively small $21.5 million.

What you have to read between the lines there to see is that Sosa has to realize that there's no way anyone is going to guarantee his 2006 money. If he stays here in Chicago and doesn't get off to a rocket-fast start (unlikely, since even in his good years he had horrid Aprils), he's likely to have boo-birds on him unmercifully, which will cause him and the club untold grief, and the Cubs would unceremoniously cut him loose after 2005. If he leaves and goes to a new situation, he at least has the chance of free agency after 2005, which would perhaps result in a new deal better than the one he's got now.

And in any case, including only his 2005 salary of $17 million, Sammy's made over $123 million in his career -- enough to buy a fair chunk of the Dominican Republic. How much more do you need, really?

This leads to the next question -- for whom do you trade him? The Mets seem a good fit, with the large Dominican community in New York and Sosa's popularity there, but the only Met contract that comes close to fitting in this deal is Cliff Floyd's. Floyd is, well, he's a DH trying to play the outfield, and the Cubs can't use a DH, and when Floyd's not butchering up the outfield, he's injured -- he's played over 140 games only three times in a twelve-year career.

If Jim Hendry could flip Floyd to an AL team to use as a DH, this might work better, but that might stick the Cubs with Chan Ho Park, who as recently as 2001 was a fine pitcher, but has sucked since he went to Texas. He's 31, and maybe the change of scenery would help him.

But that's complicated. The deal that makes the most sense, if Sosa really is serious about foregoing some of the contract money, would be to send him to the Dodgers for Shawn Green. That's what used to be known in the pre-megacontract days as a "challenge trade" -- i.e. trading players who play the same position, with the idea that the change of venue would help both of them.

In this case, I think it would, and it would free up Cub dollars to go after Carlos Beltran and others, and it'd bring a left-handed bat who could help the ballclub and not bitch and complain about batting sixth.

One thing Hendry has done is surprise us with deals, so maybe there's something else out there that I haven't thought of, and like the Hundley for Karros/Grudzielanek deal, will be of great benefit to the Cubs.

We can only hope, and continue to await developments.

:: posted by Al at 11:10 AM [+] ::
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Never Mind

Thanks to John Aldrich who sent me this article stating that Brenly will indeed work for both WGN and CSN next season, and that certainly means that whoever is hired for play-by-play -- and indications are now that it may be Dave O'Brien, who currently works for the Mets and for ESPN -- will also work all games.

:: posted by Al at 11:21 AM [+] ::
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Read Between The Lines

The Cubs website article on the hiring of Bob Brenly as analyst has one ominous omission.

It mentions only WGN-TV. Nowhere in the article is Comcast Sports Net mentioned, even though CSN will carry half the TV schedule.

Does this mean that the Cubs will hire a different analyst -- or even a completely different two-man team -- for the cable games? That'd be foolish, as we found out during the two disastrous years of Joe Carter and Dave Otto splitting time as TV analyst. It's even more foolish considering that CSN is part-owned by the Cubs, so they don't have to get someone else's approval for announcer hiring.

Ed Sherman's column in today's Tribune implies this won't happen:

Brenly won't do any outside network work during the season, working the entire Cubs' television schedule. The same setup is expected to be true for the new play-by-play man.

But even in Sherman's article, apart from that paragraph, only WGN-TV is mentioned as a broadcast outlet.

There will be a press conference tomorrow introducing, or more correctly, re-introducing, Brenly, to the Chicago media. I hope this is clarified then.

:: posted by Al at 9:43 AM [+] ::
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A Few Cub Notes

It's not official yet, but it appears that soon, former Diamondbacks manager Bob Brenly will be named Cubs TV analyst.

Good. Brenly's smart, funny and won't hold back his opinions. He's not Steve Stone, but he's probably about as close as you can get; he does have a connection to the Cubs, having been a radio analyst on WGN in 1990 and 1991, and he also has a connection with Dusty Baker, having served on Baker's coaching staff in San Francisco from 1992 through 1996.

This hiring will undoubtedly fire speculation that Brenly is being put in place to replace Baker someday, but I won't engage in that. Unlike a lot of people, I'm still a Baker fan, and putting Brenly in Stone's place will, I hope, quiet down a lot of the rancor with which the 2004 season ended. So far, no play-by-play partner for Brenly has been chosen.

Also yesterday, the Cubs put passes for their 2005 Convention on sale -- very quietly. There were no notes in the local papers, and no specific time was ever mentioned on the Cubs website, only to call the Cub office on November 8 for "information". Nevertheless, the event sold out in two hours, the fastest sellout ever, despite the fact that the price increased from $40 to $50. Within a short time, more than 20 listings for passes popped up on eBay, with the going price appearing to be around $150.

Ah, we do live in an entreprenurial age, don't we?

:: posted by Al at 8:48 AM [+] ::
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Movie Review: "Ray"

Run, run, run, RUN to see this film. If you like movies, do NOT miss this, even if you don't think you like Ray Charles' music -- and really, who doesn't? Charles' songs like "Hit The Road, Jack", "Georgia On My Mind", "What'd I Say?", there are so many others, are the standards of several generations.

This movie will be nominated for Best Picture, no question about it, and Jamie Foxx, who was also terrific in "Collateral", for Best Actor, though I wouldn't call this "acting".

Foxx becomes Ray Charles. Yes, it's not Foxx singing -- it's lipsyncing to Charles himself, who was involved in the production of this film all the way -- but you forget about this quickly as Foxx has Charles absolutely nailed. The mannerisms, the body movements, and when you consider that he had to do much of the performance wearing dark glasses and/or with his eyes tightly shut, it becomes even more amazing.

The movie doesn't pull any punches, either. This is no sanitized biopic -- it deals directly with Charles' womanizing and heroin addiction, and portrays his wife Della Bea (Kerry Washington) as exactly who she was -- someone who stood by him no matter what, even when he ignored his family, spending months at a time on the road.

I almost laughed when I saw Curtis Armstrong, most famous for the "Revenge of the Nerds" series, in the serious role of Ahmet Ertegun, chairman of Atlantic Records, who gave Charles his first chance (and who, incidentally, at age 81 is still head of Atlantic today), but he's absolutely perfect for the part.

There's a parallel story here, which shows you how he lost his sight when young, how his mother (Sharon Warren, in her first feature film role, and she could get a supporting actress nomination for this powerful performance) pushed him to learn how to do things though blind (he never uses a cane or dog in the movie, nor in life), and how he witnesses, at age 5, the accidental drowning of his younger brother, and the film tries to show how this event perhaps led him to his life of drug abuse and sexual dalliance, and only when he accepts the fact that the drowning wasn't his fault, could he break the addictions.

The music makes the film and I had absolutely no trouble with the lipsyncing -- you truly believe you are seeing Ray Charles, not an actor. There's a brief scene where you see Charles refuse to play a segregated gig in Georgia, and as a result is barred by the Georgia legislature from ever playing there -- but later, this is shown to be redeemed, and I won't spoil it by telling you how, but it gave me goosebumps.

This is the first great film of the holiday film season. Do NOT miss it.

AYRating: ****

:: posted by Al at 1:59 PM [+] ::
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