#4: LaTroy Hawkins “Do Everything You Can Do Except Close Games”
F@#$ you, Kermit. F@#$ you and your stupid list. You put me at number four on your list? That’s bullshit. Maybe I didn’t have the best years of my career with the Cubs, but you can’t do what I do. I can do what you do, but you can’t do what I do.
That’s why I’m making my own list, bitch. It’s going to be called “The Bottom 126 Bloggers of My Time.” Guess who’s going to be number one, mother f@#$er? You. And this dude is going to be number two. I’m supposed to believe I’m so bad that I actually inspired someone in Colorado to give a shit about baseball enough to write about me? That’s bullshit, dude.
You know who you remind me of, Kermit? That f@#$ing bastard Tim Tschida. Do you know that asshole actually had the nerve to ask me to move my chair in the bullpen!? Me! I was the best mother f@#$ing set up man in baseball at the time. I’ll put my chair up Tschida’s f@#$ing ass if I want to. Just because I was stealing signs doesn’t mean you have to eject me, bitch.
F@#$ing Tschida had it in for me. His strike zone was bullshit. Every f@#$ing time I threw the ball near the plate, it got hit out of the park, so why the hell would I keep doing that? You call a strike when I tell you to call a strike, dickrag! If you don’t, I’m going to go completely f@#$ing mental and charge toward you like I’m going to eat your young! It’s going to take three coaches to stop me from ripping your goddamn heart out! You’re not going to be safe anywhere, Tschida!
You know, you f@#$ing Cubs fans are all alike. You boo me when I’m with the team after Hendry signed me to “fix” the bullpen, so I get traded for Jerome Williams and David Aardsma. Then, you boo me when I come back (even when I try to help you out) and chant “Hawkins sucks!” Words hurt, assholes. Words. Hurt.
My mom once told me, “LaTroy, you’re going to be the best thing that ever comes out of Gary, Indiana.” Well, f@#$ you guys, because Mom was right. I am the best thing to ever come out of Gary, damnit.
I don’t know what you guys expected. Everyone knew that I couldn’t close games. One of my buddies told me that the Cubs should build me a hyperbaric chamber, cover up the scoreboards, and not tell me the situation when I need to come into the game. Or maybe Dusty f@#$ing Baker shouldn’t have used me as a closer. That way, I wouldn’t have blown 13 saves in only 42 chances (only converting 69% of my saves) with the Cubs and lost 8 games for the team.
I better not be the number one pitcher on this f@#$ing list. Why am I so high? Just because my blown saves came in really important games for a 2004 Cubs team which might have higher expectations than any Cubs team in recent memory? This is exactly why I was relieved when I was traded out of town. You guys are dicks.
Or maybe you guys are ranking me up here because of that one stretch in early May of 2005 when, in four straight games, I had three losses and two blown saves? I know it seemed like I had a lot of stretches like that, but it just seemed that way because you Chicagoans are crybaby assholes. “Waa! Waa! I get mad when my closer gives up two home runs and 3 runs in the 9th inning of a tie game against the Cardinals!” Or “Boo hoo! LaTroy should have gotten more than one out against the Astros in the 9th inning with a 3-2 Cubs lead before blowing the game!” Or “Remember that game when we almost got no-hit by Eric Milton until he melted down in the 9th inning, and Corey Patterson, of all people tied the game, 2-2? And remember how we thought the Cubs might win that game, except LaTroy immediately gave the lead back in the bottom of the 9th, and the Phillies won?” Eat my ass, imaginary Cubs fans that I just made up. You hear that? I just made them up. Because I have an imagination, and I can do that. You can’t do that. You know what else you probably can’t do? You probably can’t see the middle finger I’m giving you through my monitor.
Low Point: Even though I had some bad moments during my time with the Cubs, I have to say that I never felt lower than toward the end of the 2004 season. Remember when we had a 1.5-game lead over the Giants for the NL Wild Card, and we were in New York facing the Mets with a three-run lead with two outs in the bottom of the 9th? Yeah, sorry about that game-tying three-run bomb I served up to Victor Diaz. I guess you could argue that the blown save game them the chance to win that game in the bottom of the 11th inning 4-3, leaving us with only a half game lead in the Wild Card standings.
I tried to make up for it in my very next outing on September 29, 2004, when I came in against the Reds with a 2-1 lead in the top of the 9th at Wrigley. We were tied with the Giants for the Wild Card before the game. I got the first two outs, and everyone thought we might jump into the lead. And then I gave up a triple and a double to tie the game. That set up a two-run, 12th-inning home run by Austin Kearns. We lost 4-3, lost the Wild Card lead, and never recovered.
Did You Know? I think if you got to know me better, you might like me. For example, did you know that I was traded for Steve Kline? Don’t you guys love Steve Kline, too?
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BigFlax
PenFoe
StPatrick
CT
CactusMcHarris
Awe.
Some.
HELL YEAH KERMIT!
I dont even have words for how much I sincerely and completely loathed this man. I cannot remember someone who sucked as much as he did, and not only that, was a total whiny asshole about it, and bitched that people didnt like him. Oh my GOD I have all these memories of 2004 flooding back, when I was standing in front of the TV set in the 9th inning, just willing with all the power in my soul that the Cubs would get to the playoffs. I had a little “Magic Number” countdown thing on my door, even. It got down to 4, and it F@#$in STAYED THERE thanks to this butthole surfer and good ol’ Reverend Johnnie B. Baker. 2004 was about as depressing as 2003, except I started drinking sooner, and I’m also Red Sox fan, so at least I did have something to keep me from sobbing into the pillow. But GOD I wanted to throw LaTroy into the river!
He was black
He actually told me to go fuck myself during an afternon of beer and telling him how much he sucks to his face. He also gave me the bird while he said it, and I also was standing next to a little kid at the time. Classy.
If this piece of gator-bait is #4, I can’t wait to see the top 3. Maybe I would have felt sorry for him, forced into a role he couldn’t do, if he wasn’t a perfectly worthless human being as well. As someone who has an English degree, maybe I tend to sympathize with the writers who had to cover this douchebag. Sorry LaTroy, but no, you can’t do what they do. You might be able to do what Jay Marrioti does, but he’s not a writer, either. To be a real writer, you need to be objective and possess the abillity to string complete sentances together. Oh, and did criticizing the writers make you a better pitcher? Since I don’t have a 2004 Wildcard Champions T-Shirt in my possession, I’m guessing not. Thanks. Thanks a bunch. I hope the thin air in Colorado makes you sick every day. Fuckstick.
I’m so angry I spelled my own name wrong. So much for MY english degree. Jesus.
ARRGG that series against the Reds at the end of September. Cubs still had a chance after losing 2 out of 3 to the Mets. Cubs win the first game back home and then proceed to lose the next 3 to Cincy (2 of them in the 12th.) I went to every one of those Reds games and after the last one on 9/30 I’m sitting in Guthries with a buddy trying to tell myself not to take it so hard, the Bears are going to be playing every Sunday so I don’t need to slit my wrists. We are sitting by the front door, its open, the place is full but not packed, its kind of quiet, everbody is miserable. I look up and there are 2 big buses stuck in traffic on Addison right in front of the bar. The door to the first bus opens and out comes this big meathead. Hey thats Sean Casey! He runs up to the front door of Guthries, leans in and yells, HEY CUB FANS… SUCK IT! He turns around and runs back onto the bus and the bus door closes.
Yeah, that made me feel a lot better.
Tell me again why I watch this F#$%ing team.
Flannj, if that Sean Casey story is true, it might be the best baseball story I’ve ever heard.
RW’s story? Also great. I knew LaTroy would be the type to flip off a fan, but had no evidence. There’s the evidence. Douche.
Kerm – its true. At first we were just kind of in shock, I didn’t know whether to laugh or go out and throw something at the bus.
BTW you have done a great job here. It does help ease the pain. Keep up the great work.
My prediction… the drunken bum from Palatine has to be #1.
Thanks, man. The only way your story could be better is if it came with free beer.
Wow BK I don’t know. Best thing out of Gary….isn’t Michael Jackson from Gary? Is LaTroy then still the best, or worst thing from that fine city.
So are Karen McDougal and Morgan Freeman.
LaTroy is delusional.
Best sign I’ve ever seen at Wrigley: LaTrade Farnsworthless.
Much like the pirate army in Return Of The King, this post has officially freed me from LaTroy Hawkins rage purgatory. I can now leave this mortal coil and take my rightful place in heaven next to the milkshake pool on the lesbian cloud. Thank you sir.
Karen McDougal is from Gary? I thought she was Canadian. I would eat soup out of her ass.
I remember that around the 5th inning he would get up in the bullpen and begin a very elaborate stretching and warm up routine…and then get in the game and give it up like a whore on Rush Street.
Where do you start? I know where you finish…with flannj’s post. Here’s where you start: the interview where he said (paraphrased) hell yes, I’m crazy. If I wasn’t messed up, I’d still be a starter. Another stellar signing for JF Hendry.
Also, the entire Jackson 5 is from Gary, and even Tito is better than LaTroy.
I still believe that the Cubs fans should have given La Toya a standing ovation when he came back to Wrigley. That was one of the very few times the Cubs have done that well that late in the game.
LaTroy giving up the tying run in three consecutive games against the Cubs three months after being traded to a chorus of “Hawkins sucks” chants might be my happiest moment of the past two seasons.
That said, he should’ve been number 2.
I hope writing this article made you feel real good and fuzzy inside…because it is a bunch of crap!!! and you know…while latroy didn’t have the best stats in a cubs uni…you were over joyed when wew signed him weren’t you? just like everyone else!
Which part of it is crap, exactly?
Never mind. Just noticed you’re from Gary, IN. Be sure to say hi to LaTroy next time you see him.
Test.
Tesssst.
This is a test.
Good point, me.