You Know What's Really Counter-Productive? Sucking.

(WARNING: ANGRY RANT DETECTED!)

So Phil Rogers was apparently out of new ideas yesterday, so he decided to recycle everyone's favorite topic...booing.

With five victories in their last six games, the Cubs are 15-12. That's not bad, but the just-completed 4-2 homestand ended with many fans acting as if they were following a last-place team.

"I'll tell you this. It's counterproductive," manager Lou Piniella said of the booing. "Athletics is a tough profession. Playing baseball every day is not easy. Nobody's immune from struggling. The more they encourage our players, the easier for everybody involved."

As I've said many times before, the only thing keeping this team from winning it all is a little encouragement.

I understand that Lou is just answering a question, but he still manages to give the same BS answer we've been hearing in this town for years...

If we would stop booing, the players would play better.

Yeah. Somehow I doubt it was the lack of cheers that made Todd Hundley one of the worst-hitting catchers of my lifetime. I find it hard to believe that Patterson or Pie would have torn it up if we had all buttoned up. Don't try to blame your ineptness on us. We don't make you swing at ball four or miss the cutoff man.

Here's the deal. None of us find losing lovable anymore. In fact, many of us never did in the first place. We were pumped when the Cubs management finally started to understand that. But with all the big deals and big names comes bigger expectations. We EXPECT to win now. Actually, fuck that (sorry, Mom), we DEMAND it. It's been a long time coming.

If that seems unfair, well, it isn't. When the team we root for with every once of our being plays like shit, it upsets us. When we get upset, we boo. We don't boo because we are assholes (mostly) or because we don't like the players (occasionally). We boo because we want the players to want it as much as we do. It's that simple.

Go Cubs.

(Whew. I feel better now, thanks.)