After this week’s trade of Mike Fontenot to the San Francisco Giants, the Cubs have rid themselves of both members of the stupidly-named “Cajun Connection.” Which former LSU double play teammate will you miss most of all, Scarecrow?
 |
VS. |  |
| Mike Fontenot | Ryan Theriot |
God, can we choose neither?
Dusty vs Tony woulda been a good one>
Fuck the both of them.
The Cubs are now 20 games under .500.
No hitting, no pitching, and with 2 errors tonight, no fielding either.
No farm system outside of Iowa.
Pinella doesn’t give a shit.
Hendry’s a fucking moron.
Who the hell would seriously take money to play for such a lost-ass franchise?
Can’t watch the game on TV because the broadcast team sucks.
Can’t listen to the game on the radio because the broadcast team there is even worse.
White Sux are shitting their pants; Bears are preparing for Lovie’s Last Stand; Bulls are an uncoachable mob. Blackhawks’ Stanley cup winners are being gutted.
Fuck this shit. Who do I see abour getting tickets to the Fire’s last home games?
It is as though the Cubs’ plane is plummeting to earth, and Theriot, Fontenot, and Lilly have managed to find the only three parachutes. Fukudome, Soriano, and Zambrano are too heavy to use the parachutes, as is Ramirez. Baker is too dumb to operate one. Fontenot is my favorite player, mostly because of the tremendous odds he had to overcome to play baseball at any level, (and this has nothing to do with his size), but I am glad to see him go to a better place, sort of like a mother who has cut the apron strings. Superstar wannabee, Theriot did not land with a contender, but little Mikey did. It is rarely sunny in northern California, and the Giants play mostly night games. That should be better for our little sun-sensitive guy. He deserves better than he was getting from Lou.
Fontenot is even uglier then I remember, but I still voted for him. Can we finally say that we did quite the riot?
or quiet works too, fuck :(
I never realized how much of a Spin Doctors cover band vibe Fontenot had until I saw this picture.
@santo10 –
Obviously you are not a teenage girl. Anyway, pretty men don’t play as well as rugged looking men.
I just heard something from my source. You can choose to believe it or not, but it does shed some light on the Cubs horrible season. ………….According to him, the Cubs have not done all they could to win since June.. I don’t mean to say that they threw games. However, they were more interested in showcasing some of their harder-to-trade players, such as Fukudome and Theriot, than in winning games. Some of the infielders were told not to dive for balls, especially Fontenot, who had several web gems in April, and now in August, with SF. They told Fontenot that he would not pass the physical after he was traded if he had bruises on his midsection, as he did in April. This was to make Theriot not look lazy by comparison. When Fontenot pretended not to understand, he was given only 2 starts in July, and none in August, until going to SF. This is why Big Z got so mad at his team-mates, and was treated so harshly by Lou. Also, players were told not to steal bases as it was Theriot’s specialty. Theriot purposely screwed up the hit-and-run, to get Tootblans for team-mates. Have you noticed that now that Theriot is at LA, infielders will dive for balls again? Now Fukudome is being showcased, as are Ramirez , Soriano, and Z. I don’t know what players are being told now, and it won’t come out until they are gone, but winning is not the most important goal now. After the rosters are set, they may start winning again.
Edelweiss, I hope your source is wrong (not that we’ll ever have evidence or documentation)…it’s bad enough if you have overpaid pallplayers who simply don’t have the ability or desire to play to win, but if it’s a management decision to give/not give a winning effort, then I see no reason why Cubs fans need bother supporting this team any more this year.
Where do I go for Chicago Fire tickets?
@EdelweiÃ? – Come on. This HAS to be bullshit.
@DVXPrime – Jesus man, baseball is NEVER bad enough to justify watching soccer. I know it’s rough, but don’t get carried away.
@DVXPrime –
I’m afraid it’s not bullshit. Lou didn’t actually tell players not to put forth their best effort, but he told his infielders not to dive for balls, so that they would not look battered in case they got traded, and, therefore, invalidate the trade. For some players, that altered the way they play defense, and caused several errors in the infield in June. Until the Castro call-up, the only errors were by pitchers, catchers, outfielders, and a few by Ramirez.. Fontenot was error-free until being benched, and so were Theriot and Baker, and. if you can remember, Fontenot had several web gems in April, and, now, 2 more in his only start with the Giants. After his altered fielding style caused him to bobble some balls, Fontenot went back to his regular style, and got only 2 starts in a month and a half, where the other bench players got a start every week. Castro was not told to
stop diving, but he has such good range that he doesn’t need to dive. This was primarily aimed at Fontenot, as the trade targets wanted him rather than Theriot, and Lou wanted to showcase Theriot. Now Hendry is trying to unload Fukudome, Nady, Baker, and Zambrano. There is no way they can showcase Baker or Nady, but they are showcasing Fukudome, whose defense is good.
1. This is wrong. By my quick count, Fontenot had at least 5 starts in July, including 3 in a row July 2-4.
2. This is conveniently unproveable. Fontenot had “several web gems” in April? OK, I’ll take your word for it. It’s also impossible to corroborate — what player would ever admit to dogging it, even at his manager’s urging? Okay, Milton Bradley aside, I mean.
3. This is stupid. Lou Piniella — that’d be career hard-nosed baseball man Lou Piniella, respected throughout the game, mind you — tells all the players not to dive for balls or go all out so that Ryan Theriot and Mike Fontenot, nobody’s idea of valuable trading chips, can have bruise-less midsections and thus get traded? Not one part of that makes any sense at all. It’s a tiny bit more believable than the “sexual harassment claim” rumor, but that’s not saying much.
I sort of like the idea that Edelweiß is Carrie Muskat on a vodka-and-cranberry-juice bender, trying to get revenge for all the cheap shots over the years, but now she’s just being ridiculous.
JerBear, In the past 15 years, I have watched two expansion teams (Marlins twice and D-Backs) win the World Series, and two more (Rockies and Rays) win the NL pennant. I saw the Cubs’ archrival Cardinals win the Series with an 83-79 record. I have cheered the Cubs on through all their division titles and playoff spots, then watched them totally disintergrate the next season.
Before I turn my back on the 2010 Cubs, I humbly ask you (and anyone else who still cares at this point)…where is this franchise’s commitiment to putting a contending team on the field?
@Pell Mell –
Lou is a lame-duck manager, and he never thought what he did would get out. None of the players would ever admit to being told not to dive. Lou didn’t tell anyone not to go all out, but he did tell them to go after the ball in a different way. He also advised everyone but Theriot not to steal bases, because they “look stupid” when they get caught. If you can remember, even Brenley and Kasper started to lavishly praise Theriot as a superb defender, and the cornerstone of the rebuilt Cubs. With all the injuries to middle infielders, and the scarcity of replacements,
a little twerp like Fontenot became a valuable trading chip because he doesn’t make much money, and can play 3 infield positions. The Cubs were using him to move bigger contracts, but the package deals didn’t pan out. Most of the teams that wanted him needed a fill-in. Theriot was harder to move , as he would refuse to be a bench player, but the Dodgers wanted Lilly. The players who went along with Lou’s directive got the playing time. Fontenot is a bit absent-minded,, so he forgot all about Lou’s directive, and got completely benched.
Sorry for being The Lurker Who Ate The Blog, but this hacks me off no end.
I don’t remember either Fontenot being a stellar defender or Theriot being praised as one. I haven’t been able to catch that many telecasts this year. But the idea that Piniella had this grand plan to keep everyone bruise-free and planted on their bases, and that the broadcast teams played into it, is well beyond belief. It’s much more likely that a) the Cubs’ middle infield sucked until Castro got here; b) everybody on the Cubs sucks at baserunning except maybe Colvin; and c) Len & Bob sometimes just do happy talk to fill time, like Cubs announcers always have. Also, since when do bruises cause failed physicals and voided trades? In 10 years of being a pretty well-informed fan (after 20 of being kind of an idiot), I have never heard of that happening.
For months you’ve painted a depressing picture of the Cubs as not just bad at baseball, but full of juvenile perversion, irresponsible weirdness, and now outright rejection of the game’s basic tenets for the sake of minor deals. And you put Piniella at the center of it, suggesting that he’s carelessly blowing a career’s worth of well-earned respect just because he’s now a lame duck. Total nonsense.
Wait a minute, I’ve got it! Edelweiss has claimed before to be close to the players and a lot of the previous criticism was directed toward Theriot and Fontenot. But you know who was never criticized? Jeff Baker.
Fact: Jeff Baker was born in West Germany in 1981 (according to wikipedia, so possible half truth as opposed to fact)
Fact: Edelweiss is a European flower.
From these two facts and a specious understanding of the internet, I think we can all see that Edelweiss is actually….. (pause for dramatic effect)
Jeff Baker! (Dun dun dunnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn)
Yes, Edelweiss is trying to get more playing time by accurately pointing out how much Theriot and Fontenot suck, in an effort to get them traded. It’s a Giant (and Dodger) conspiracy!
@Starlin Castrated – didn’t Edelweiss claim that Baker lit his ass on fire? But maybe that was a cover so we wouldn’t suspect him…
Maybe it’s Mark DeRosa. He’s got somme time on his hands, and probably a Cubs-infield ax to grind. Or maybe it’s…Miles!
* or “some time,” as we say in English.
@santo10 – Alright, here’s what I got. The Rand Corporation, in conjunction with the saucer people, under the supervision of the reverse vampires, are forcing Edelweiss to write about the Cubs in a fiendish plot to eliminate faith in the team.
We’re through the looking glass, here, people.
Or……It’s Steve Stone!
Hey…This is kind of fun, and maybe I should just play along with it, but…………I am neither Jeff Baker, nor any beat writer. I am a retired 67 year-old widowed grandmother, whose 4 sons left the nest, and I moved back into Wrigleyville from Northbrook. Living in my building is a brother of
a member of the Cubs front office. I am not close to any past or present Cubs player, and have only met a few of them, quite by accident. Jeff Baker lived in my building last year, and I couldn’t stand him. He and his room-mate let their poodle make #2 all over the sidewalk. As for a conspiracy, the Cubs are not astute enough to pull one off. Lou did, however discourage players from diving for balls in the infield, and stealing bases. He wanted Theriot to look good by comparison. I do not know if he said anything to Len and Bob, but they are around the team to have easily picked up on the current climate. Bob may have his eye on Lou’s job. It may be fun to speculate on who I am, but, unless you watched the Winter Olympics in the 1960′s and ’70s, you would not recognize my name. I have never been in the Cubs clubhouse, and have no need to do so. It has been fun getting information from someone who the Cubs could never identify. The stories aboout some of the shenanigans in the clubhouse are, of course, hearsay, as I was not actually present when they occurred. The video is real, as it was shown to me. I do know that one of the recently traded Cubs players has a rather unusual story, which I saw in a biography of one of his childhood friends. He has a disability that should have prevented him from playing ball at any level above tee-ball. There will be a book about it down the road. Now, if you insist on my being someone else, at least make that someone else be someone I like. One other thing…..Jeff Baker is too stupid and clumsy to be German. He is a U.S. Army brat..
@EdelweiÃ? – You mean…. wikipedia lied to me? Noooooooooooooooooooo!
@Starlin Castrated –
She didn’t say Wikipedia lied; she said Baker was an Army brat. In other words, his father was in the Army assigned to a post in West Germany, where Baker was born.
She ought to be more careful, though, because I suspect she’s now given out enough information now to identify both her and her contact, if anybody cared enough to figure it out. (I don’t.) Assuming, for the sake of argument that she’s genuine, which I’m not about to concede.
At least this keeps you occupied, and not slitting your wrists after watching a Cubs game.