Steve Rosenbloom is Gonna Get Medieval on Your Ass
There’s only one thing frustrating about having the Cubs emerge as one of the dominant forces in baseball. More success means more interest. More interest means more coverage. More coverage means more Steve Rosenbloom. At one point in our lives, we all had as much baseball knowledge as Steve Rosenbloom. At that point, I had Transformers sheets. You were probably watching The Smurfs and driving a Big Wheel. Fortunately, I was able to translate Rosenbloom’s latest crap from Douche to English.
I know it sounds impressive to say that the Cubs swept an entire homestand, including four against the defending National League champions, but the Colorado Rockies are the worst team in baseball right now and the Dodgers are under .500 as well. The way I understand it, the NL West is voting to see if it should forfeit the rest of the season.
Fuck you, Cubs! You should have demanded that you play the Rays, the Red Sox, the Diamondbacks, the Angels, and the Phillies during that time period. In fact, since you’re the best team in baseball, you should have demanded that the MLB force you to play yourselves for seven games.
No, no. That’s too easy. You should have demanded that you play all seven games over a hot vent on the surface of the ocean floor. While wearing suits of armor. And being managed by Dusty Baker. Dusty Baker with nurse shark DNA.
In fact, you should just forfeit the rest of the season. Because you’re the only team in the MLB that has played the Rockies and the Dodgers so far. You fucking slackers.
And if last week’s sweep of the jayvees wasn’t enough, now a Cubs team that isn’t real good on the road gets a Club Med trip to San Diego and Los Angeles.
So, while you assholes are getting your massages and working on your tans, I’ll be here working hard! I’ll be getting my eyebrows waxed, getting a pedicure, and drinking a Starbuck’s. You jerks will probably just be yelling at cabana boys and wearing flip-flops. You think it’s easy getting my classes this invisible? It takes hard work, damnit! So, while you jerks are tossing around a pigskin, surrounded by beautiful women in skimpy bikinis, you just think about poor Uncle Rosie sitting back at home, paying over $4 per gallon to drive around his Jetta. Oh, and writing his column. Writing his column.
The Cubs are on a record pace at Wrigley, but no one knows why.
It’s treachery! Don’t quote me your “statistics” like the Cubs having the best run differential in baseball. Forget about scoring 324 runs and only allowing 232 runs. Forget about doing something as simple as outscoring the other 9 guys on the field on 36 separate occasions this year. It’s wizardy! The Cubs are using the darkest of dark magic to vanquish their foes! Lou Piniella is a demon wizard, and he must be cast out before his evil destroys this land!
Cast! Thee! Out!!!
Betcha it’s because visitors can’t use amphetamines to get up for day games—and even night games—after enjoying Chicago’s night life.
Lou Piniella has a bubbling cauldron of wizard’s brew! He feeds it to his army of daywalkers! This new breed of baseball warrior must be stopped before they take over Middle Earth!
Everybody is loving this stat: The last time the Cubs had the best record in baseball on June 1 the way they do now was, yes, 1908. OK. Fine. If past is prologue, then the better the Cubs perform, the higher the hopes, the greater the fall.
I’m a joyless dickbag whose only release from the misery of his own existence is to make predictions of doom. When they come true, it doesn’t bother me, because I get to rub it in your face that I’m right. It’s good to be Rosenbloom.
Clip & save: The critical “Cubby occurrence” will come with Kerry Wood on the mound.
Because I know all of you peasants care about what I, the mighty Steve Rosenbloom, think will happen to these Chicago Cubs. Unsheath your dagger and cut from this parchment the royal decree which has poured from my quill. I have declared this season over! All hail King Rosenbloom!
When you’ve played the Pirates and a whole bunch of the NL West, then you ought to have the best record in baseball, but look out, the Cardinals are only 2½ games behind.
The Pirates are terrible! Never mind the fact that they would be a 23-21 team if they had never played the Cubs this year! The NL West? I, Steve Rosenbloom, don’t even know who is in that division! Who is this “Brandon Webb” of whom you speak? Some sort of arachnid, I wager! And you say one of the teams in this National Alliance of the West represented the entire National Alliance in the battle for Middle Earth only 15 fortnights ago? Fie! Fie!
There is a blood sun rising in the south. A Cardinal-shaped sun that burns with the fire of hatred. Beware, for this sun may consume your fair Cubs.
I still can’t figure out how, and that’s what worries me.
It is impossible that I, Steve Rosenbloom, would ever fail to understand anything. I brought my people the gift of fire. It was I who brought them law, domesticated animals, and interchangeable parts. I taught them how to make unshelled peanuts into shelled peanuts. This new concept both terrifies and amazes me, and I shan’t accept it.
There are reasons to feel great about the Cubs—the starting pitching, the bullpen, the way the offense can come back—but we expected a first-place team. We did not expect the Cardinals to be this close. At least, I didn’t. I mean, they’ve on the verge of starting their seventh rookie pitcher this season.
What is’ve that? You cannot’ve understand what I’m saying? Well, that is’ve because I, Steve Rosenbloom, ha’ve invented’ve my own language! Your peasant ears cannot comprehend’ve Rosenbove, my brand-new tongue!
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Tremble in fear at my new tongue! Your knees will quake and your teeth chatter at the marauding onslaught of the rest of the baseball tribes!
Good sign: Jim Edmonds hitting balls to the gaps, to the fences, to the places he used to torture the Cubs with.
Those who oppose me will be tortured mercilessly, forced to read the columns of me, Steve Rosenbloom, for all of eternity! Those who stand beside me will be tortured as well, but with slightly more mercy!
Colorado’s Omar Quintanilla hit his first major-league homer Saturday against the Cubs, and I’m thinking, Wrigley is the best place to hit your first homer as a visitor because you know you’ll get the ball back.
I, Steve Rosenbloom, cannot be bothered to think about your common game of baseball. I think only of those less fortunate souls who are too busy with their triflings to read the words of Steve Rosenbloom! I am a champion of the common man! All those who homer shall have their balls returned to them!
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Comments
Brick *clap* *clap* *clap*
(Though if you’re going to make fun of his typos…
…getting my Glasses this invisible…
…it doesn’t bothER me…)
/nitpicky assholery
Brick Also, would you mind if I hit the “submit comment” button too soon, resulting in a partial post? Thanks!
Jon I’m so glad you were here to dismantle that column. One of the dumbest things I read yesterday.
JackB Well Holy Shit, Rosenbloom, let’s just fucking forfeit now and give the division to St. Louis. Since no one expected them to be this good, they obviously deserve to win. It’s the first week of JUNE for Chrissake. Uncle Lou and the boys aren’t thinking playoffs yet and none of the rational Cub fans I know are thinking that way either, but we’re also not freaking out and thinking the Cubs are automatically going to fuck this up. I’m sick of both sides of this coin-the one side that’s absolutely convinced the Cubs are going all the way and are already printing their world champ t-shirts, waving their It’s Gonna Happen signs and the flip side where people are waiting for the Cubs to implode, Kerry Wood’s arm to fall off, and Kosuke to spontaneously combust or something. Can’t we just enjoy the fact the Cubs are playing well? Not only are we in first, but we’ve got the best record in baseball. I don’t care that the last time that happened was in 1908. Destiny is a buncha shit. I do care that we have the best record in baseball RIGHT NOW. Like the Cubs, I plan on taking the season one game at a time. This is the best Cub team I’ve seen in my lifetime and I love it.
Jon If you’re going to insist on being sensible, then the internet is not for you.
I demand a sweeping blanket statement about this season’s future.
Slaky You could do this to every RosenTurd, every day.
He’s got a sweet agenda against the Cubs. Huge Sox fan, this guy.
al With the Cubs being in first place and on fire is going to bring attention to them. The thing is that a good portion of the world unfortunately probably want them to collapse. I have a feeling that there are Sox and St Louis fans hoping that it will happen soon. I think that this team is legit. Will they struggle at some point during the season? Yes. It happens in the world of baseball and if the Cubs hit a lull hopefully they aren’t in it very long.
Jon I can only read his columns unKermited like once a month or I want to scoop my eyes out with a melon baller.
Pat Dusty Baker with nurse shark DNA.
I think I smell a photoshop opportunity. Either that or I need a shower…
Reuschel's Jowls A doffing of my chapeau to you, sir, for the use of “shan’t” in your post. One of the language’s most underrated contractions…
As for Rosie, confession time… I’ll embarrassingly admit that I was pissed when the Tribune canned his daily collection of one-liners about ten years ago. Thought it made for a far more milquetoast sports section. Thing is, with that limited real estate and a target-rich environment (Wannestache, Jerry Krause, Terry Bevington, etc.), Rosie was forced to actually be *funny* regularly, instead of just a mean-spirited prick, which is how his resurrected online column comes off. I think he’s honestly surprised that so many readers don’t seem to “get” his new column the way they did the old one.
If he’d pry himself away from whatever this week’s big poker tournament is for two seconds, he’d realize that his print column worked far more often because it relied on humor instead of simply being Mr. Negative Snark all the time. (He’d also realize that he built up some reader goodwill by occasionally bashing the home teams’ rivals and opponents, too, instead of just training his scope on the local fan favorites, particularly when they are playing well and don’t really deserve to be slammed in the first place).
Seriously, both local baseball squads are in first place on June 2nd, and to read Rosie’s column, you’d think it was 1996 with both squads a combined 35 games out…
PenFoe Of all the shitty writers in the Chicago pubs, I honestly think he’s the worst.
Where was his article when the Cubs swept the Mets and D’Backs?
Did those not count since Webb didn’t pitch?
Buzzkilling asshole.
RV Man I hate this asshole. I wouldn’t care how uninformed he is if he was actually funny, but he’s not.
I hope he stumbles into a puddle full of SARS.
Ryan Beariot The Cubs will lose some games and win other ones. and then there will be a record of such victories! oh, what a record it will be! it will be placed in books as if to say “this was the wins and losses of the 2008 cubs team!”
and ye shall all tremble with fear and horror!
and someone will buy me nachos, i hope
Weebs Is Rosendouche the guy who hosts the Chicago Tribune Live or whatever the hell it is on CSN? I was watching it yesterday and Phil Rogers, Plesac, some old idiot Sox fan and some younger guy who never said anything, and the guy I think was Mr. Steven actually brought up that amphetamines shit. Is he serious? Really? The actually made me feel bad for Dan Plesac a couple times, and I never feel bad for that guy. It was unbelievable. I hate this cocknugget.
JaxCubs Impromptu photoshop moment
[img]http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/9616/doucherj3.jpg[/img]
Bad Kermit Weebs, he wasn’t on there. The old idiot was Van Dyck. The younger guy was a Bears dude. Did you watch all the way through the interview with the Bandits coach and the attractive Bandits player? I thought Phil Rogers was going to rub one out right there on the show. I am thoroughly convinced he has never seen a breast. He was asking the DUMBEST fucking questions I’ve heard outside a Muskbag. For example (not exact quotes, but close enough for quotation marks):
“People were getting mad at Elijah Dukes (I think) because he chants stuff at the opposing team during games. How come that’s acceptable for girls’ softball, but not men’s baseball? I’d like to see more of that.”
“Did you hear the story about the girl who blew out her knee at first base after hitting a home run? Two girls on the other team carried her around the bases. How come that never happens in men’s baseball?”
I shit you not. The poor woman tried to answer his questions, but she looked like she’d rather be scraping off her own face with a potato peeler.
Bad Kermit Don’t forget Rozner!
Oh, and remember how Bonds used to be just generally recognized as the best hitter in baseball, so people would just completely forget about him and discuss the A-Rods and the Pujols of the world? Mariotti holds that honor for shitty sportswriting. He’s so fucking terrible, his name need not even be mentioned in these discussions.
Except right there.
Reuschel's Jowls Mariotti is in a category by himself. He’s been so crappy for so long that his crapiness goes without saying at this point.
StPatrick Muskbag. That is beautiful. One of the dirtiest words (for no easily articulated reason) I’ve ever seen in print.
Pell Mell I don’t know which is worse: Rosenbloom’s almost relentless negativity (done only, as you say, to claim I-told-you-sos later) or the simpy thumbs-up he gives when somebody goes on a tear. “Carlos Quentin, come on down” or “Alfonso Soriano, your table is ready” or whatever. So the method is: rip guys until they hit .900 with 12 HRs in a week, then let us all know it’s OK to praise them. That’s baseball savvy, right there.
Except when the whole Cubs team goes on a tear. Then it’s all goats and “Cubby occurrence” and you-know-the-worst-is-gonna- happen-and-I’m-gonna-laugh-at-you. Worthless.
Martin Writing “Phil Rogers rubbing one out” and making a reference to Carrie Muskat in the same sentence puts a wonderful image in my head.
CT
bocaj
BigFlax
StPatrick
TDubbs
*clap* *clap* *clap*
(Though if you’re making fun of his typos…
…it doesn’t bothER me…