Pat's New Partner: Someone Completely Different?

This much we know: Pat Hughes has signed a 5-year extension with WGN; the Cubs and WGN are looking for someone to fill Ron Santo's slot as radio analyst (seriously, follow that link and you can apply right now); no one can fill the void Ron Santo left in the heart of Cubdom.

Ed Sherman says it well in his column on the Cubs' task of finding a new analyst:

Let's make this clear: The Cubs never will have another Ron Santo.

They'll never find another analyst who played the game harder and knew and felt more what it meant to be a Cub. There never will be another character in the booth who could make you laugh the way he did. Certainly, it is highly unlikely the new person will be wearing a toupee.

Indeed, Mr. Santo will be missed.

Sherman also informs us that Mark Grace is unlikely to leave his gig with the Diamondbacks, which allows him to moonlight with Fox on the weekends. That leaves a list of proposed usual suspects of Keith Moreland, Dan Plesac, Dave Otto, Todd Hollandsworth, Eric Karros, and Gary Matthews. If I had to pick between any of those prospects, I'd choose Zonk. But I'd much rather see the Cubs go in a completely different direction.

I don't know if the aforementioned job listing is official or facetious and can't say for sure how reliable the listed prerequisite is: "Preferred candidate will have played with the Chicago Cubs -- or played major league baseball with previous broadcast experience as a game analyst." I hope they'll find someone who meets none of those criteria.

Really, are you pleased with the state of baseball analysis as we know it? Do you find yourself saying, I wish a former player could tell me when the big moments are coming and that a hit here would be big or a strikeout here would be big or a win today would be big, big, big, BIG? Will you be waiting all winter for that special ex-jock to pretend he knows what the pitchers and hitters are thinking? Are you going through Joe Morgan withdrawal?

Didn't think so. I understand the value of former players who wish they were still playing can help us better relate to the action on the field, but for most of us who have been following the game for more than, say, two years, that style of insight has become repetitive. Every baseball broadcast I've ever heard follows that formula. Good-with-words guy describes the action, good-with-sports guy interprets it. Listen and watch enough games, and you pretty much know what's coming. Only the personalities change (and some of those have been and are truly entertaining, don't get me wrong).

But wouldn't you like to see something different? Wouldn't it be a stroke of genius to add a little spicy variety to the broadcast booth? What if we actually *gasp* learned something during a baseball game? It could happen if WGN would take a page out of Billy Beane's Moneyball manual.

Let's try putting a stathead in the booth. I'd prefer a witty, friendly one, but even a person with a caustic edge would be new. Regardless, Pat Hughes, for all his brilliance, is not a champion of advanced statistics. I don't get the impression he's closed to the concept, but he's an unabashed traditionalist in the most endearing sense. Imagine if the Cubs countered Pat's calm, old-fashioned play-by-play with someone who brought the conversation into the 21st Century of baseball metrics.

While Pat gives us the colors of the pinstripes, caps, shirts, shoes, and socks, his partner could hit us with win probabilities, linear weights, wOBA, and WAR. How much more interesting would the broadcast be if the analyst could tell us how the run expectancy would change when Quade chooses to sac bunt? I would love to hear someone challenge the antiquated myths of baseball lore, an anti-Morgan of the broadcast world. It would actually teach me something and inform us all. Scary, I know, but I'm willing to try.

WGN and the Cubs should be willing too. There's no reason this couldn't work. Pat Hughes can establish an on-air relationship with just about anyone, though I don't dream any pairing will be as magical as Pat & Ron. So how about some science instead? Do something new, something different, something informative for all who listen. I guarantee, it would have the entire baseball world talking. And some of the discussion might actually be complimentary.

The Final Stage of Grief: Wrigley Field

Ron Santo deserved better.

I confess, when I learned of Ron Santo's death last week, one of the very first emotions to bubble to the surface was anger, and it was directed at four main parties, three of which I openly cursed: death, diabetes, and the Baseball Hall of Fame. The reasons for those three are obvious enough, so I won't explain them. The fourth recipient of my ire, though, may have been the most intense and prevalent, and I'm not sure why I didn't say anything about it right away.

I suppose I didn't want to redirect my grief where it didn't truly belong. Ron Santo was dead, and that was and is the truly sad part. It's natural for us to deflect the blame to a target that might actually yield positive results. There was no shortage of people to rise up and make the case that Ron Santo deserved to be in the Hall of Fame. That's something that can still be changed. It's too late to do it the right way, the way it should have been done decades ago, but it's not too late to do the right thing, and that's to honor Ron Santo as one of the greatest players ever to man the hot corner. But that won't take away an ounce of the grief of his death. It's not even what he really wanted.

If you think about what Ron really wanted before he died, you'll see exactly where I'm going with this. The entity against whom I fumed in unspoken rage was the team Ron loved with all his heart, the team that had kept him on life support with nothing but ivy, hope, and generally subpar baseball. Yeah, I was mad at the Chicago Cubs for failing to deliver what was probably the only item left on Ron Santo's bucket list: a World Series.

It's just a game. It's not important. To borrow from the classic film of the season, in the whole vast configuration of things, the Cubs are nothing but a scurvy little spider. The world doesn't revolve around them . . . but Ron's world did. As long as we're talking in holiday movies, I'd compare Ron Santo's wish for a Cubbie World Series to Natalie Wood's hope in Miracle on 34th Street that Santa would prove to be real. Maybe it was just a glorified childhood fancy, but it was important to Ron, and Ron was important to us.

And really, Ron Santo wasn't asking for a Miracle on Addison and Clark any more than he was asking for reindeer to fly or elves to travel at warp speed. All it really would have taken was for the Cubs organization to give two craps about how the team performed on the field. A lot of fans whine and moan about the sacrifices they've made for the Cubs, and it's laughable. Not so with Ron Santo. The man gave a lot to the organization. He lost his legs waiting for a championship that never came.

Maybe it is stupid to bring it up. The Cubs' failures aren't the reason I'm sad about Ron Santo dying. But they do seem insulting to his memory. And as his memorial services almost literally revolve around his beloved Wrigley Field and his connection to the Cubs, a half-hearted, half-baked attempt at kinda sorta contending does very little to honor a man whose legacy is his utmost passion for the Cubs and excellence in the game of baseball.

Perfect 10: We Will Miss You, Ronny

I'd tell you to rest in peace, Ronny, but wherever you are, you're probably as active and vocal as ever.

Ron Santo's death hurts. Took me about two days to write just that*. I wasn't sure why it hurt so much at the time I heard the news, but as it all sank in, one by one the reasons became clearer.

Santo was a fan. Up until Thursday, anyone who said he or she was the biggest Cubs fan in the world was misinformed. That title belonged to Ron Santo. He played almost his entire career as a Cub. The entirety of his professional broadcast career was for the Cubs. His Cooperstown plaque would have, if not for the worst oversight in the Hall of Fame's existence, featured a Cubs cap. He may have never been considered "Mr. Cub," but no one in the universe had as much emotion invested in the success of the Chicago Cubs as Ron Santo did.

For most people, that kind of commitment to a terminally lost cause would be considered absolute nonsense. For Ronny, it made perfect sense. Cubs baseball was the joy of his life, and his life was a battle. You can forgive him getting more than a little absorbed in a kid's game, because it kept this Old Cub, this dying Cub, young. Even when it seemed like this team was killing him.

In Ron, we had someone who identified with all our irrational joys and frustrations. His every "Yes!" and "Come on!" and, of course, "Nooooooooo!" were our primal reactions broadcast to millions, exclaimed to guttural perfection. Sometimes he would impart the insight of a Hall-of-Fame caliber ballplayer, but the art of telling us what we didn't know was never his forte. No, Ron excelled at shouting out precisely what we felt. More often than not, disappointment. The occasional jubilation. Never a word without at least a trace of hope. Maybe the respectable person should have bottled some of that up, but Santo could pull it off. And even when we chose to be a little more reserved, a little more rational, or a little more at work, where yelling, "What is that man doing!?" just wouldn't be acceptable, we could at least live vicariously through Ron's unbridled, unfiltered enthusiasm.

Being a Cubs Fan Is Depressing

Ron Santo is a pretty joyful guy, but not even he can deny the depressing nature of Cub fandom.

I'm doing everything I can to make this post depressing. Photo of a glum Ron Santo: check. Ironic photo-manipulation isolating a single splash of Cubby Blue: zing. Sad song from Garden State: posted. Discussion of being a Cubs fan: would have gone without saying had it not been for my blatant disregard for the rule of threes.

If I'm discussing the Cubs, all the other stuff is just Spielbergesque manipulative emotional overkill. The depression is happening. If you're a Cubs fan, that is. Non-Cubs fans often derive great pleasure from discussing the Cubs and their fans. For White Sox fans it's cathartic. For people who just don't like baseball in general it vindicates their choice of pastime. For genuinely, clinically depressed people it might even be humorous that a self-chosen preference for the Chicago National League ball club could take the place of a chemical imbalance in immersing someone in melancholy. But for Cubs fans it's just a sad reality.

Cubs Facts that Go Without Saying (that I'll say anyway)

The Cubs won't go undefeated the rest of the season.

It is possible to put a Carlos Marmol pitch in play, after all.

Roy Oswalt and Wandy Rodriguez are not the two worst starting pitchers in baseball.

Ryan Theriot will never be mistaken for Rickey Henderson.

Jim Hendry will never be mistaken for Branch Rickey.

There is such a thing as too much beer.

Christie Brinkley has aged better than Chevy Chase.

Dead ivy isn't any more charming than separated shoulders and concussed outfielders.

Green ivy is more charming (but not all that more comforting) than dead ivy.

He's not on the team, but the spirit of Neifi Perez is waiting in the on-deck circle.

I don't care how good they are, the Cardinals suck.

Starlin Castro should keep a bag packed at all times.

Wrigley Field is not a church. You won't hear the organ playing at church.

No one cares about your fantasy team. Not even the people in your fantasy league.

"Obituary" is the nicest sounding word dedicated exclusively to the description of dead people.

The Cubs will not finish in last place.

Marlon Byrd is one smooth hombre.

It would be cool if the Cubs played the Yankees this year.

By 2015, advanced baseball metrics will be known as stats.

If the Cubs closed the Wrigley Field press box, there's a good chance the baseball IQ in Chicago would go up.

Ron Santo deserves to be in the Hall of Fame and to watch the Cubs win a World Series, and none of this "looking down from heaven" business. Let's get it done, people.

Baseball Season's Under Way . . .

Pitchers and catchers have yet to report, but they're thinking about it.

There's a foot of snow outside my house, but some of it is melting.

I know a lot of people hate the song, but I still feel compelled to get ready for a brand new day.

Vegas is giving 14:1 odds that the Cubs will win the World Series, but they also gave Buster Douglas 42:1 to beat Tyson.

The ivy looks dead, but it'll grow back.

I haven't heard Pat nor Ron nor Len nor Bob in quite awhile, but I know the next "Aw, Geez!" is right around the corner.

Somewhere someone's arguing about how much money Ryan Theriot deserves, and somewhere someone in Wrigleyville is wondering if getting called out by an arbiter is considered a TOOTBLAN.

Yeah, we're in the middle of the Winter Olympics, but when I see Sean White's head crash into the snowboard halfpipe, I can't help but think of Sam Fuld.

The Cubs will not win the World Series, but I refuse to learn.

Hope springs eternal, and so does stupidity.

It's 30 degrees outside, and it feels like baseball.

Play ball.

Shady Acres: Wrigley's Rundown Retirement Village

This is just a quick note on the whole Dawson number retiring blah blah blahness.

The way the Cubs retire numbers is really odd. Ernie Banks entered the HOF in '77, but they didn't retire his number until '82 (the year after the Trib bought the team). At that point, it was pretty clear they didn't take the ceremony very seriously. Not because Banks didn't deserve it, but because it made it look like he was the first player worth recognizing after 100 years of Cubs baseball.

They didn't go back and honor Gabby Hartnett or Hack Wilson, the only two primarily Cub HOF'ers who actually had jersey numbers—though Hack was lucky to get in via the Veterans Committee and Hartnett didn't have enough clout on his own team to keep his jersey number (he had three). My point is, the recognition wasn't based on entry into the Hall of Fame. They just singled out Banks as Mr. Cub. Okay.

Then in 1987 when Billy Williams was inducted, they retired his number almost immediately. That made it look like HOF entry was the main criteria. Gotcha.

Four years later, Jenkins got in. Nothing. They waited another twelve years . . . and retired Santo's number. This signaled a change in policy: the Cubs would now retire jersey numbers based on the likelihood the player would die. Fair enough.

Meanwhile, the Cubs honored Fergie's HOF entry by letting Maddux take #31 to the Braves. Then they let Kevin Foster, Bobby Ayala, Brad Woodall, Mike Fyhrie, Donovan Osborne, and Mark Guthrie all don the should-be-retired digits. Oh, and then Maddux brought it back in style from '04 to '06.

But when Maddux retired, the Cubs retired his number in a joint ceremony with Fergie. I loved both pitchers, but it just didn't make much sense to wait this long after Jenkins entered the Hall or to act this immediately after Maddux left the game. Is the number retired upon Hall entry, upon the player's retirement, or just whenever the crap the Cubs feel like it?

Now, apparently it's just contingent on the hat Hawk will be wearing. Thus far, the criteria for jersey retirement are as inconsistent as Rich Hill. The best thing for the Cubs to do is completely reform the process. Andre's number is the least of their worries.

One thought: completely renovate the outfield wall. Figure out a system to plant ivy over padded wall sections surrounding the wall. Cut out sections in some panels that display the outfield distances and some that display retired player names and/or uniform numbers that are more representative of the Cub greats throughout history. The wall would look just as magical and ivy covered, but you'd have more flexibility to recognize the greats, advertise in a few more spots, and not kill people who run into the wall. Just a thought.

Which Chicago Cub Are You? (It's Scarily Accurate)

I hate those Facebook quizzes that make you answer five questions about something as arbitrary as your affinity for or aversion to cured meats and then proceed to tell you which Saved by the Bell character you are. First of all, the questions are always multiple choices, and all of the choices usually stink. Second of all, I am so not Kelly Kapowski.

But I think there's potential in a "Which Chicago Cub Are You?" quiz, because this team is loaded with personalities I recognize from high school, former workplaces, and maybe a family reunion or two. I've probably seen flashes of Milton Bradley in my own mirror . . . partly because I can be moody, too, or perhaps because he's stalking me for making fun of him. Either way, here are some of the possible results. See if any of these people sound familiar outside of Cubdom:

You are Carlos Zambrano. You have loads of potential and unlimited passion for everything you do. You're the life of the party and you love to have fun. But sometimes your passion and intensity get the best of you, causing you to lose focus, lose control, and even lose a few friends. Your friends love you, your enemies fear you, but you have everyone's attention.

You are Milton Bradley. You want nothing more to succeed, and some day that might happen. But you are easily hurt both emotionally and physically. Some people perform better when they're angry; you are not some people. Those close to you regard you as the ultimate team player who is willing to do whatever it takes to win. Those not close to you have good reason. Still, you have plenty of skill just waiting to emerge, and if you're surrounded by people who believe in you, you will be a shining star.

You are Ted Lilly. You generally let your actions speak louder than your words, which is good—saying, "I'm better than you, and you like it," out loud can be rather unbecoming. What you lack in talent you more than make up for with fierce determination and skin as thick as rhino armor. Outside of a Cub uniform or a bar fight, most people wouldn't recognize you in public. You also have a bit of a temper, but you can usually focus that productively. In those moments when you can't, people know better than to get in your way.

You are Derrek Lee. You're a gentle giant, smart, debonair, quick as a fox, and strong as an ox. Not easily ruffled, you measure your words, your responses, and your emotions. You lead not with speeches but by example. You keep things at an even keel, except when you're exploding on a fastball over the plate or pouncing on a screaming line drive headed for the right field corner. Some people wish you'd be more outspoken and demonstrative, but you're big and strong enough not to have to care what some people wish for.

You are Alfonso Soriano. When it comes to performance, you're a human roller coaster, although you never wear your emotions on your sleeve. When you find you're groove, there are none better, but when you get stuck in a rut . . . well, there are few worse. Your preferences and quirks have earned you a reputation as a prima donna, mostly undeserved. It's not your fault if you get preferential treatment, you earned it? Your flair for the dramatic can, unfortunately, fizzle out on occasion. And your easy going style sometimes comes off as lackadaisical. But if you just keep walking softly and carrying a big stick, eventually, people will appreciate your even bigger upside.

You are Ryan Theriot. People don't expect much from you at first, but you thrive on sneaking up on them with your scrappy, fiery approach. You work hard, play hard, laugh hard, and die hard. You try to be blue collar, you really do, but you just can't seem to shed the image of the consensus clubhouse leader. Your biggest weakness just may be a propensity to forget how hard you have to work. Success will never come naturally for you; but when you chase it, it will never outrun you, either.

You are Ryan Dempster. You're a complete goofball, and a scream at parties. But when you're at work, you're all business. Maybe people underestimate you because of your antics, but your professionalism will make short work of any doubters. You thrive on positive vibes and encouragement in a friendly environment, and conversely sometimes falter under intense pressure or adverse conditions. Focus is your best friend; lose it and you will wilt, but maintain it and you will dominate.

You are Lou Piniella. You know perfectly well who you are, and if I try to tell you, you'll shoot a glare at me that says in no uncertain (yet silent) terms, "Shut up or I'll bludgeon you with Santo's prosthetic." Next.

You are Ron Santo. You are 100% emotion. You rise and fall with the performance of those you hold most dear. People thrive on your emotion and sometimes laugh at the pure theater of your reactions. You deserve to be in the Hall of Fame, but this world sucks sometimes.

You are Carlos Marmol. You are equal parts wild, untouchable, breathtaking, and heartstopping. No one can control you . . . even you can't control you. But can you grasp the wind and put it in your pocket? Can you put sunshine in a bottle? Can you tie a rainbow into a knot and tell it, "Stop being colorful"? No. Such is Marmol.

Okay, you get it. I'm not going to go through the entire 40-man roster, front office, and broadcasting booth. Maybe you could help me fill in the blanks. Go ahead, channel your inner Carrie Muskat.