I cannot get Mark McGwire out of my head. I felt his tears in the freezing rain last night. I see his pores in every bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios. I remember his 62nd home run with every fat child I lift over my head. I won’t be able to look at Ryan Dempster’s ironic goatee next season without thinking of Mark McGwire.
Oh, one of my Cardinal fan friends won’t stop needling me (snicker) about McGwire. His latest completely-insane argument is that McGwire has a better shot (giggle) at the Hall of Fame than Sammy Sosa does. This is, of course, an argument barely worth having. While some might argue that Sosa would have an advantage because of the speed he had earlier in his career and the fact that he didn’t play defense like a sequoia tree (at least early on), the fact of the matter is that it’s doubtful that either one of these monsters would have grown into (heh heh) a Hall of Famer without steroids.
But my friend actually followed up his stupid argument with a decent question. What if Sosa were to return to the Cubs as a hitting coach?
Just to get this out of the way, unless you hate plate discipline, no Cubs fan in his right mind would want Sosa back as a hitting coach. Sosa’s career on-base percentage was a startlingly Patterson-esque .308 from the start of his career in 1989 through the 1997 season. Then, Sosa showed up to Spring Training in 1998, and couldn’t find a jersey with sleeves big enough to fit him. He started sending baseballs into orbit, and suddenly he wasn’t getting pitches just off the corner that at which he couldn’t help but swing. He was either getting four intentionally bad ones, or pitches so far from the zone, you’d have thought he was facing Carlos Marmol. He managed a .391 OBP during his robust years, from 1998-2003.
But I’m not here to talk about the past. I’m here to pretend I know what would happen if Rudy Jaramillo fell off a bridge, and Lou Piniella replaced him with Sammy Sosa.
My drooling mongoloid friend told me that I would cheer for Sosa the same way the the mouth-breathers in St. Louis cheered for McGwire. I supposed that also means I would boo Andre Dawson as emphatically as they booed Jack Clark for calling out a “confessed” cheater who was with their team for a whopping 545 games. Seriously, Cardinals fans. Every time I think the Cubs have the stupidest fan base on the planet, you put on mittens and a helmet and run face-first into a concrete wall.
I told my extra-chromosomed friend that not only did I feel that Cubs fans would hate the theoretical move on a baseball level, but that they would also hate it on a personal level. As my friend gaped at me with his glassy eyes, bugs flying into and out of his mouth, I reminded him that Cubs fans have a proud history of booing Sosa. He was booed at home after the cork incident. After he left the clubhouse early on the last day of the 2004 season, a picture of him was booed at the Cubs Convention. He was booed by Cubs fans in Arlington in 2007.
Time allegedly heals all wounds. At least according to Lou. But even if all of the bad blood created by Sosa being a cheat and an arrogant turd is completely gone, Cubs fans would hate his hiring as a baseball move, wouldn’t they? I mean, surely they wouldn’t actually be dumb enough to give him a standing ovation.
Would they?
Having Sammy Sosa as a hitting coach is like having Milorad “Rod” Blagojevich teach how to be a politician. A bad fucking idea.
They would not.
Anyone who would approve of the Cubs hiring Sosa as a hitting coach must be a fan of another team. Your friend clearly doesn’t understand the circumstances of Sosa’s exit from Chicago. Also, no real Cubs fan would ever boo Andre Dawson for criticizing Sosa. No real Cubs fan would ever boo Gene Baker or Jeff Baker or Tom Baker for criticizing Sosa.
However, if Sosa had rode it out in Chicago and retired as a Cub in 2005 without pissing everyone off, I wouldn’t be totally surprised if some of the DeRosa-loving hoe-bags would’ve clamored for his return as hitting coach this very season. But, I’m pretty sure the rational people would have the same reaction they have when Ryno replacing Lou next year gets tossed around.
Fuck Jack Clark
Had a similar conversation with a co-worker yesterday, when she brought up Sosa in response to my needling her about McGwire. Unlike your typical slavish Cardinal fan, however, I have had a long and somewhat documented history of being largely annoyed by Sosa’s antics, so it was easy for me to break from (her) script and explain that I could hardly fucking stand Sammy Sosa and his act. Luckily, this circus clown’s me-first persona and his ability to play for his fans instead of his teammates has made it easy for me to avoid the pitfall of having to ski around the slippery slope of his steroids abuse.
I just love how fans of other teams assume we have to defend Sosa–especially Cardinal fans who unthinkingly adored McGwire. Fuck Sosa. Fuck that taint smegma with Andre Dawson’s bat.
I think it would be great idea.
Ranks right up there with hiring (once he’s retired) Ronny Cedeno as our baserunning coach. He could teach the best way to overslide second base and get thrown out.
On a walk.
Asking whether Sammy Sosa would be applauded as a coach and whether the Cubs fans will ever welcome him back again is really two separate questions – or at least they should be.
Sammy, as a player, relied on his pure talent to make up for the fact that he had terrible fundamentals. People bitched about what a terrible outfielder he was at the end, but in reality, he was always taking bad routes to balls and getting late jumps, but early on, he had the speed to make up for it.
His hitting technique barely changed other than Jeff “The Genius” Pentland getting him to tap his foot before swinging at every pitch that was thrown within a foot of the plate. When he was in his prime and (allegedly) on the juice, his quick hands and phenomenal bat speed made up for poor pitch selection. At the end, when he was slower, pitchers were throwing belt-high fastballs past him.
Sammy was not as a student of the game. He didn’t adjust much as he aged and slowed down, so how in the world would be a good person to coach young players? Making a move of this level of stupidity should not only expect booing, it would practically demand it.
As far as welcoming Sammy as an ambassador of the team, that is entirely possible. All that needs to happen is for the Ricketts to start undoing the hatchet job the Trib did on Sammy during his last days as a Cub. A few quotes about healing old wounds, how Sammy was a Ricketts family favorite when they were watching games from the bleachers, maybe find a ball they can claim is a Sammy HR ball they would love to have signed, and sooner or later, the ice will thaw with the fan base.
He’ll start showing up to throw out some first pitches, sing Take Me Out to the Ballgame, and let Santo fawn all over him in the radio booth. Some appearances with Ryno and Maddux would follow and then an announcement that Sammy’s number will be retired regardless of his Hall of Fame status. People won’t be able to jump up and clap for him fast enough.
This is the wrong argument for your Cardinal fan friend to make. The officially Tony LaRussa playbook instructs Cardinals fans to note how many steroid abusers Rudy Jaramillo coached on his way to hitting coach immortality.
Sosa as ambassador for the Cubs? Seriously? That move would be taunted and booed until my throat is sore. I never liked him when he was a Cub. I ceased to care about him at all when he stopped being a Cub. Not only do I fully believe that he cheated, but he was also an arrogant dickhole during his tenure with the team. I would never cheer him the way Cardinal Nation has embraced Big Macne. To do so would be spitting on the legacy left by truly great players like Ryne Sandberg, Ernie Banks, and Billy Williams. If the Cubs need a new ambassador, Greg Maddux should be the guy and I hope the organization never reaches a hand out to Sammy unless it’s to slap him with it.
@Arcturus – But there are more fans that would willingly forget the dark side of Sammy and re-embrace the showman that carried the team by himself for 4 years with guys like Damon Buford hitting ahead of him and Ron Coomer hitting behind him.
Like it or not, Sammy was the ONLY reason to go to Cubs games from 1999-2002. I’m betting lots of people are willing to forgive and move on.
Have you people already forgotten the lessons you learned Friday night? What if you replace “Sosa” with “Reed Johnson” or “Mark DeRosa”?
What kind of idiots give a standing ovation to their hitting coach?
It would be cheered, sadly. While we are the ones who would boo, you have to realize there are fans who are in this shit for the experience. They cant stand the thought of changing Wrigley, they support the douchiest parts of being a Cubs fan, and they’re the tards who love Mark DeRosa. With the PR spin that they would throw on a Sosa move, combined with the fact that he was always not as in the media as much as mcgwire or bonds were for holding the record, Sosa would be welcomed back with several standing ovations.
As to the matter of if he would be a good coach or not, that’s a no, as stated more eloquently by those above me. But the reason to bring McGwire back wasnt because of his necessarily great hitting skills, its a matter of money. When they need to bring back Holliday and next year make Pujols the richest man to ever sign a baseball contract (my prediction? 8 years, 160 million), they need to cut costs where they can. So you find a former Cardinal who worked with LaRussa before yet can’t seem to find the votes to get into the Hall of Fame thanks to steroids, and bam, hitting coach.
The sad part of the whole affair is that when/if the experiment works and the Cardinals are in first place or contending at any point during the season, lazy journalists can write articles about how “McGwire has totally changed as a person” and “LaRussa knew what he was doing” and “McGwire’s approach has led to Holliday going back to the player of old/Pujols putting up career numbers” (completely ignoring that Holliday needed adjustment time last year and Pujols is playing for a new contract)
Unfortunately, the neanderthal cubs fan is a super majority compared with the evolved and, yes, intelligent Cubs fan. Based on that premise I believe Sosa would indeed be cheered. After being hired by the cubs in 2014 Sosa’s first comment would be “Baseball been berry berry good to me”.
Boooooooooo! You suck Sammy! Boooooooooo!
I wish cardinals fans would stop trying to bring us down to their level of loserdom. We have our own level, and its pretty bad, but at least our savior isn’t a roid injecting asshole. Plus I love watching people hassle the morons who still wear their Sosa jerseys to Wrigley.
Kermit, I truly question your taste in friends.
did you really suggest that Sandberg would make public appearances with Sosa? After his hof speech, I can only imagine Ryno’s response to the suggestion.
@joepa58 –
Crane: Hey Ryne, I need you to do something for us.
Ryno: Manage the Cubs?
Crane: Um, no. Not yet. I need you to make some appearances with Sammy Sosa. It’ll be good PR for the team.
Ryno: What? No way! He was a selfish prick who took the easy road to stardom.
Crane: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Save it for the public speeches. Look, we have millions of fans that want to forgive this guy, and frankly we need someone a little younger to do all the public appearances. Ernie is only up for an occasional utterance of “Let’s play two!,” Billy has always been quieter, and Santo may not live through the summer. Let’s face it, Ryne, you and Maddux aren’t exactly contending for Mr. Congeniality. We need Sammy out there doing his heart taps and all his other bullshit and keeping the dipshit fans happy.
Ryno: Wouldn’t it be hypocritical of me? How could I even pretend to have any dignity left after propping Sammy Steroid back up on a pedestal?
Crane: Fine, you can have dignity and no chance of ever managing the Cubs, or you can do this for us.
Ryno: (sigh) I guess Sammy isn’t such a bad guy.
Crane: There you go. I’ll have my secretary work out some dates with you and Sammy.
Ryno: Great. Can’t wait.
For any “True” baseball fan to support any of these ass clowns is ridiculous. If Cardinal’s fans cheer for McGwire and applaud the fact that he is coaching then they are idiots. The one pure sport left in my opinion is baseball and Ass Clowns like McGwire, Sosa, Clemens…etc. Jeopardized that. For anyone to applaud these jackals might as well be al-qaeda. Cause they would be supporting terrorist in my opinion.
Lou Brock invoking the Post-9/11 iteration of Godwin’s Law! Outstanding!
The only reason Sammy would want to come back is to find out who broke his boombox and seek retribution
I would have guaranteed you that Sosa would be booed by Cubs fans until he turned himself white. That makes it tougher call.
Fuck McGwire, Fuck LaRussa & Double Fuck Cardinals Fans!!!!!!!
I can’t speak for everyone, but I have no plans to ever cheer for Sammy Sosa on anything Cubs related. He’s gone and I am glad.