Jose Cardenal

Today's Tale from a Bad Century at JOBC is about the wacky hijinks of one of my favorite players when I was a boy: Jose Cardenal.

Read all about him here.

Baseball Cards

In addition to writing about baseball, I also write a weekly column about parenting for NWI Parent Magazine called "Father Knows Nothing". This week it just happened to be about baseball; about a box of old baseball cards I gave my eight year old son.

You can read it here.

Bob Kruchten

If you watch the pre-game show for the Cubs-Yankees game on ESPN on Sunday, you'll see my friend Bob Kruchten, along with his father and his son. ESPN contacted me a few weeks ago and asked me if I knew anyone that was a three-generation Cubs family.

My family doesn't qualify (dad didn't care about baseball), but I knew Bob would be perfect, so I recommended him. They interviewed him, and he'll be part of that show. I featured Bob on Just One Bad Century a few years ago telling some of his Cubs stories...

Cubs players address the goat

Yesterday before the game Cubs veterans handed out shirts to their teammates that said "F*** the Goat." It's their way of confronting the ridiculous "curse."

In one way I applaud them for this. But I would be remiss if I didn't point out that it's kind of pointless to address it this season. The curse hasn't even come up because the Cubs haven't even won three games in a row all year.

In Defense of the Cubs Fan

Dave Wischnowsky writes a nice defense of the Cubs fan at the CBS-2 website.

Dave and I share a pet peeve--people who blame Cubs fans for the losing. It's a preposterous and easily disprovable theory that should be put out to pasture for good.

Do some research into the years 1946-1966. The Cubs had twenty consecutive losing seasons despite the fans staying away. It didn't help, and do you know why? Because it's not the fault of the fans. That's why.

I hear this ridiculous "it's the fans fault" argument all the time from White Sox fans and sports talk radio. They point to the White Sox fans as some sort of model for creating a championship. They stayed away, and behold! The White Sox won it all in 2005. Yes they did. After 87 years.

By that logic, let's look at the Red Sox fans. They kept going to the ballpark despite never winning it, and behold! The Red Sox won it after 86 years! That proves that the fans have to keep coming, doesn't it?

Of course not. It's a stupid argument.

It's the fault of the people that put the teams together. Period.

Blaming the fans is like blaming the caregiver for the illness of their patient. The patient was ill before the caregiver even met them. The caregivers are doing the best they can with the situation. The caregivers feel their pain, wish it would go away, and wish they could do something about it.

But they can't.

And you simply can't blame them for that.

Shawon Dunston's son

The Cubs not only drafted Wayne Gretzky's son, they also drafted Shawon Dunston's son. (Full story is here)

I wonder if this is the boy he was trying to pull out of the baby seat when he hurt his back during his Cubs career. (That's a true story--Dunston was once sent to the DL after straining his back messing with a kid's baby seat)

Uh oh, Gracey

One website you never want to be featured on is TMZ.

Mark Grace is there this morning. He was busted for a DUI.