FOTG Presents: The Fungo Files

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.)

Cubs Spring Training: Day Five Pictures

Good to see Santo and Sutcliffe at the park today.



Go Cubs.

48 Hours, 48 Questions

Hey look, it's a post with a theme!

So the FOTG team (or at least two of us) is a mere 48 hours away from our week-long excursion to Arizona. Spring Training is finally here! That being said, I realized that there is still a lot we don't know about this team and it's potential for heart-breakedness (copyright pending). So as I continue to count down the hours until "wheels down" in AZ, I thought I'd count down the top 48 questions I will attempt to answer during our time amongst Lou's crew.

1) What are the chances that Milton Bradley's ice glare will make me pee myself?

2) With sex symbol DeRo no longer with the club, who will be my wife's new creepy crush?

3) Which non-roster invitee will cause me to whisper "I was unaware he was still amongst the living?"

4) What is the over/under on the first Roberto Alomar AIDS-related joke?

5) How will I cope with a Spring Training sans Matt Murton and his ginger locks?

6) Since the NBA All-Star game is in town, will I regret not packing my Kevlar vest?

7) Will anyone outside the Japanese media be excited to see Fuku?

8) How many In-N-Out burgers is too many?

9) Will Marmol's arm fall off on Tuesday or Wednesday?

10) On the scale of 1-10, how awkward will the College of Idiots-FOTG meetup be?

11) Is there a place on the planet other that Arizona that I can both love and loathe at the same time?

12) Is it socially acceptable to drink at 9AM Western time?

13) Mountain time?

14) What the hell time zone is Arizona in again?

15) Can I hug Ron Santo without being tackled by security?

16) How much jail time would I get for punching Mark Giengreco in the junk?

17) At what point does hanging out on the ASU campus go from curiosity to pedophilia?

18) Will I be more excited to see an NBA player or an NBA groupie?

19) So Taguchi?

20) With a name like Rocky Roquet, how can you not make the team?

21) Is Bobby Scales the greatest Spring Training player ever?

22) Is it socially acceptable to drop-kick an eight-year-old while chasing down a foul ball?

23) Who wins in a knife fight, Len or Bob?

24) Why in the name of all that is holy do they have to start at 9 flippin' AM?

25) With Wuertz, Hill, Pie and Ronny gone, who will fill the void of suck?

26) What is the point of the WBC again and why is it a good idea to have Marmol pitching in it?

27) Lou Pinella, boxers or briefs?

28) If the guy sitting next to me at the blackjack table splits 10's, am I within my legal rights to end his life?

29) When staring at a stranger's wife's breasts in the hot tub, how long is too long?

30) Do baseball players work out in the off season or just eat?

31) Just as a precaution, shouldn't they just wrap Bradley, Harden and Soriano in bubble tape for the entire Spring Training?

32) How long after I put on my Murton jersey t-shirt will my friends start ripping me a new one?

33) Considering the level of "talent" present, what is the graduation rate for heterosexual males at ASU? 10%?

34) What kind a moron decides to do a list of 48 questions?

35) Whatever happened to 2005 Derrek Lee?

36) How many more years are left in Soriano's contract again?

37) Aaron Miles, seriously?

38) Am I supposed to be creeped out or honored having a Cubs player in full uniform at the urinal next to me?

39) Does Lou own an actual jersey or just a bunch of warm-ups?

40) Is there anything more inspiring than seeing Santo walking around a baseball field?

41) So, have they traded for Peavy yet?

42) Is there anyone under the age of 65 living in Mesa?

43) When Soriano gets hurt and both Bradley and Aramis need the day off, wouldn't it just be easier to forfeit that game?

44) Why does it seem like the Cubs are always stockpiling middle relievers who have trouble getting batters out?

45) What exactly is fungo?

46) Who in the hell is paying for Ronnie Woo-Woo's airfare year after year?

47) Over/Under on the number of times the phrase "He's gonna find a red tag in his locker" will be used?

48) Why don't we do this every year?

Go Cubs.

Lou Pinella a.k.a. Captain Obvious.

Lou took took a break from "riding his bicycle around his neighborhood" to shed some light on the Cubs. Here are my two favorite comments from his conversation with the S-T.

"You don't play well, you don't win."

"We've just got to figure out a way to score more runs in the postseason."

Thanks, Lou.

Things he left out:

The sky is blue.

Water is wet.


Go Cubs.

Postseason Accolades Almost Make the Pain Go Away. Almost.

Lou Pinella.
2008 Manager of the Year.

Congrats, Lou. Have a drink on us!

Go Cubs.

That About Sums It Up.

Lou Pinella on what happened to the Cubs in the postseason:

''The first game we didn't pitch well. The second game, we didn't defense well. The third game, we didn't hit.'

Ok then.

So let me get this straight. If the Cubs would have just hit, pitched and "defensed" better, we would have won? Thanks for the tip, Lou. Now I know why the Cubs locked you up with an extension...your keen eye for the game's little nuances.

I kid. I kid.

Enjoy the offseason. Oh, and do me a favor, will ya? At the next "organizational meeting," when Big Jimmy H. mentions the name Raul Ibanez, kick him in the junk as hard as you can.

Thanks, Lou.

Go Rays.

If I Keep Saying "Erin Andrews," Then Maybe More People Will Want to Interview Me

Writer's Note: I have had to deal with the stunning incompetence of Com Ed customer service over the last two days as my power was knocked out by Monday's lightning storm/tornado/mini apocalypse, so needless to say, this post is going to be full of sunshine...


In a news cycle that is truly 24 hours a day, this story is like 5,000 years old, but I don't care.

As I was driving home last night, I heard that douche Mike Nadel on the radio defending what he wrote about Erin Andrews last week, i.e. “my blatant attempt to latch on to someone else's fame and hopefully get myself a job outside of a dying media.” I originally didn't care about this story because (a.) there really is no reason to lust after sideline reporters (at least not when there are movies like this and this and websites like...well...its probably better that I don't link to that one), and (b.) the original article just seemed a little, well, sad. Frumpy old reporter gets trumped for stories by good looking young reporter and writes bitter article. Time to move on.

But now this guy is milking the hell out of this story (this was at least the THIRD time I had heard him on either radio or television in the last week) and, frankly, annoying the crap out of me. I just listened to him make two utterly ridiculous arguments:

1.What she was wearing was “unprofessional...you wouldn't see you professionals in sales go to meetings like that.” Well, Mike, you also wouldn't see professionals in sales go to work in Hawaiian shirts, shorts, black socks and 10 year-old Birkenstocks, but that doesn't stop most of the slobs in the press box from donning that “professional outfit” on a nightly basis.

2.“She was trying way to hard to be friends with the players, calling Aramis Ramirez 'Rammie,” and touching Alfonso Soriano's arm suggestively.” First of all, given the massive picture of Mr. Nadel's bulbous head next to the article, I'm guessing that his abilit yto judge when a woman is being “suggestive” is clouded by the fact that he assumed all the girls in the Victoria's Secret catalogues he stole from his sister were looking at him “suggestively.” He's probably not the best arbiter of womens' interest. More importantly, though-”Real” reporters would never attempt to curry favor from their intended interviewees by attempting to befriend them, would they? I've never heard the pack of braying morons overlaugh at some awful non-joke Lou Piniella made in his post game press conference in a blatant attempt to hang out with the cool kids at the bar after the game. That never happens.

The overall point this guy wants to make is that Erin Andrews violated these important professional standards that might jeopardize her ability to ask serious questions of the players she has befriended. There is a simple answer to this point: she is a sports reporter. There are no such things as “serious questions.” When are sportswriters going to realize that they're a press pass away from being idiots like us? When the “serious questions” you have to ask rarely go beyond why a grown man didn't use the 34 ounce stick in his hand to hit a ball thrown by another man into the right place on a field, you need to realize that nothing you will ever do will be considered “serious.” If you want to comment on the ramifications of a journalist's clothing on their pursuit of significant stories, find a field that doesn't devote the equivalent of 2 full days per week to whether or not Brett Favre will play football this year. Mr. Nadel needs to know his position, and the position of his field, in the grand scheme of things. There was literally no reason to write an article about the Cubs-Brewers game trashing a fellow sports-personality. After all, that's why there are 800,000,000 blogs just like this one...its our job.

All in all, this attempt to cash in on his 15 minutes of fame has shown this Nadel guy to be everything Jay Mariotti claimed he was: “crusty and out of touch.” And this might be the worst of all the things Nadel's stupid column and world radio interview tour has done: it made me actually agree with Jay Mariotti. For that, he'll never be forgiven.

He's Still Smarter Than Dusty

A lot of people poke fun at the fine manager of the Chicago Cubs. When he pinch hit for Mike Fontenot on Saturday, forgetting that he had hit a home run in his previous at bat, everyone laughed. When he consistently cites “senior moments” when he forgets how the Cubs scored runs in games, everybody loves it. But I wanted to find out if all of these “senior moments” were actually true or just a schtick designed to entertain the media and fans.

So due to our unprecedented access to the Cubs*, I got a chance to interview Lou Piniella this morning. I’ve just finished listening to the interview and wrote out a transcript. Every word of this interview is true**.

*"unprecedented access": no access.
**"true": false.

Martin (10:30 AM): Good to meet you, Lou.

Lou Piniella (10:30 AM): Nice to meet you, too, Steve.

M (10:34): So I thought I’d start by talking to you about Sean Gallagher.

LP: Who?

M (10:34): Sean Gallagher.

LP: Spell it.

M: S-e-a-n. G-a-l-l-a-g-h-e-r.

LP: Never heard of him.

M: He’s your number 5 starter.

LP: Fuck you.

M: He really is. I swear. See…here’s his picture.

LP: Oh…that’s PigBoy. See his nose? Its like that shit on Seinfeld. PigBoy. Seinfeld’s pretty funny. I can’t believe they got Steinbrenner to guest star as often as he did.

M: Umm…he…

LP: That’s a pretty funny looking kid. Shit, I didn’t know his name was Gallagher.

M: Its on the back of his jersey.

LP: One more sarcastic comment from you and they’ll never find your body.

M (10:40): Okay…thanks for giving me a few minutes to change my shorts. Anyway, so Gallagher’s really come on lately, hasn’t he?

LP: Who?

M(10:41): Nevermind.

M (10:45): So why is Mike Fontenot on this team? He doesn’t seem to provide…well…anything of value on the baseball field.

LP (10:46): Well, he’s not really a good player, but he’s small, so we usually just stuff him in Zambrano’s suitcase on road trips and it saves us a seat on the plane for Daryle Ward’s knapsack full of Toblerones. We’re contractually obligated to provide them for him, so we have to save money somewhere. Fontenot is great for that.

M (10:50): I know that Wrigley fans show up to every game, stay until the end, cheer even when the team is down 7-1, but is there anything else the fans could be doing to help the team play more effectively?

LP: (10:51): Well, you know, we’re doing it all for them. They’ve had to wait almost 45 years for a World Series championship and…

M: Its been 99 years.
LP: Huh?

M: Its 2008.

LP: Even better! Well, however many years its been, they deserve a championship here at Weeghman Park.

M: Whatever.

LP: (10:55) Oh! I got one! Can you do anything about that stupid Southwest commercial that plays every fucking thirty seconds during the broadcasts of our games? I’ve never wanted to punch a child more than when that little shit sings “Let fweedom wiiiing.”

M: (10:57): I’ll see what I can do.

M(11:00 AM): So Lou, what do you think of the way your offense is performing this year?

LP(11:01 AM): We’ve…………

(11:08)done a pretty……

M (11:10): Jesus. Come on.

LP: (11:15)pretty good….

M (11:17): (Nodding off)

LP: (11:22)errr…….

M (11:25): This was a bad idea.

LP: (11:35)job hitting the ball.

M (11:35AM): Good to know.

M(11:36): So, since the Michael Barr…

LP (11:35): Mention that name and I’ll have Ted Lilly kill your family.

M (11:35) : Nevermind.

M (11:36): I know you have a unique relationship with your pitching staff.

LP (11:36): They throw strikes, they’re allowed to eat. From there on, each walk equals another fingernail that gets pulled off. I like to keep it simple…

LP(11:37): Take Jason Marquis for example. You see his last three starts? Haters might say “Ooooh…Lou. Holding his family hostage and treating them like the kid in ‘Clockwork Orange’ is a little extreme.” Well, he hasn’t lost since, has he? And has he been throwing strikes, so they can all suck it.

M (11:38): Well, I gotta go. Congratulations on such a great first half.

LP: Great first half of what?

M: Baseball.

LP: Oh great…how are we doing?

M: Your 20 games over .500.

LP: Shit, really? How’d we do that?

M: You scored more runs than the other team. Often.

LP: Awesome.

M: Yeah.