Happy Fucking Lee Elia Day, Ya Jobless Cocksuckers

Holidays are fun.

Before the festivities get started today, I’d like to say that I’ve always admired Lee Elia and felt bad for him getting scorched like he did. And he was right. Not in the 15%/85% split–although that’s funny–but in what he said about his team’s ability, when he insisted that the Cubs–dormant for a decade after the last vestiges of the Durocher-Era Cubs had faded to dust–were beginning to turn things around:

There are some fucking pros out there that want to fucking play this game. But you’re stuck in a fucking stigma of the fucking Dodgers and the Phillies and the Cardinals and all that cheap shit. All these motherfucking editorials about Cey and fucking uhhh the Phili-itis and all that shit–its sickening. It’s unbelievable, it really is. It’s a disheartening situation we’re in right now. 5-14 doesn’t negate all that work……but once we hit that fucking groove, it’ll flow. And it WILL flow; the talent’s there. I dunno how to make it any clearer to you.

Speaking as someone who started following the Cubs as a seven-year old, in 1979, and exposing my sensory memory to the near-constant pummeling of bad baseball during the malaise that was the 1980 and 1981 seasons (the same malaise that had the late, great, Mike Royko, one of the premier Cub fans of all time, switching sides to root for the White Sox for a season before coming back), the hiring of Dallas Green, at the time–simply felt like a fog was being lifted. Everything Green did had a positive effect on the club going forward until his misguided termination following the 1987 season. What Elia is saying above is that the local writers and letter-to-the-editor composers, for the most part, were so obsessed with the “history” of the Cubs (as Elia calls it, a “stigma”), that their sneerish attitude toward’s Green’s management (and bluster) affected the rest of those who, by virtue of having the newspapers as their primary means of information for the team’s fortunes, would consequentially come out to the park and heap abuse on Larry Bowa.

Or so Elia’s thinking went at the time.

It is the stigma of this all-famous rant, for which we are gathered here in celebration today, that prevented Elia from returning to the Cubs as a member of Piniella’s staff. Word was that the Tribune didn’t want to bring any more attention to “The Tirade”, which makes it really too bad that lover-of-profanity Sam Zell hadn’t already been in charge 18 months ago, as Elia has nothing to apologize for. His rant was from the heart and, while the rant surely contributed to his eventual dismissal, it was not until after Elia was proven correct, as the Cubs suddenly did get hot later in that ‘83 season–maybe not “hot as shit” like he promised, but hot–and reeled off a two month period going 30-20, and pulled 2 games behind first-place Montreal on July 3rd, when they hosted the Expos for a doubleheader at Wrigley Field. The Cubs got swept that day and never sniffed contention again for the rest of the ‘83 season. Before the season would end, Green would fire Elia, although you could feel the team was trending upward. Of course Elia’s tirade sealed his fate with Green, who had been a longtime friend of his first Cubs managerial hire, and only the Cubs making the playoffs for the first time in 38 years would have saved his job. To demonstrate how close they were to doing so, the following season, under Elia’s permanent successor Jim Frey, the Cubs did win the division–and had the most wins in the National League–while breaking a 39-year postseason appearance drought.

A man’s man, Elia is to be saluted today. We are expecting an appearance or two by Mean Uncle Lee himself throughout the course of the day today. In the meantime, be sure to recognize “Talk Like Fucking Lee Elia” Day over in the Shoutbox.

And enjoy your Fucking Lee Elia Day, ya unemployed cocksuckers.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to Hire Jim Essian to get future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Powered by Wordpress | WP Premium theme by WP Remix
Copyright 2007. Hire Jim Essian!. All rights reserved

• Home
• HJE Shoutbox
• HJE Shop
• The B126
• The T79
• Testimonials