Goodbye Cubscast (Am I Allowed to Type That?)

MLB may never get it. 

If you've been following this blog for long, you know I'm a big fan of Cubscast, the godfather of Cubs podcasts. And if you followed the link to Cubscast, you know that Lou, Sheps, and Sneetch have cast their last pod. The fact that this groundbreaking podcast met its demise saddens me greatly; the way it happened makes me RAGE ANGRY HULK SMASH!

Call it credit or call it blame, Cubscast is the reason I started blogging about the Cubs. I was spending so much time and energy contributing to their message board, I figured I might as well move my verbose ramblings into my own lonely corner of the Interfrontiers. At that time, I wasn't aware that there were 254 batrillion Cubs blogs clogging the virtual plumbing. I knew Cubscast. That was it. And that was enough.

One of the things that made Cubscast great was that they produced the show like professionals but steered the content like fans. They deftly walked the tightrope between hope and frustration, criticism and cheering, being opinionated and open minded. It was a well crafted show and a good show in every sense of the word. They weren't out to make anyone look stupid. They just made being a fan of the Cubs that much more fun. I often disagreed with their opinions, but they set a tone on their broadcast that prevented disagreements from ruling the day. They never lost sight of the fact that baseball is a game and that the game was meant to be enjoyed.

So I enjoyed their podcast. They were and are great Cubs fans. Which makes what MLB did (MLBAM, to be precise) so mind-boggling. Here's an excerpt from Lou's parting words explaining how they were bullied into submission (my words, not his) by the object of their affections:

Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM from here on out) sent us a cease and desist letter demanding that we immediately stop using the Cubscast.com domain name. The letter also said compliance meant to immediately transfer our domain name to them, or else. A few weeks later we found out that MLBAM did not want us using the name "Cubscast" for our show, either.

MLBAM is the Internet/Interactive/Idiotic arm of Major League Baseball. They suck. They're the ones responsible for trying to charge for the use of public-domain stats in fantasy baseball, streamlining the secondary ticket market through StubHub, and assuring the entire world that they never see a single baseball highlight anywhere but through MLB.com, which they own and crap all over.

Remaining true to their greedy, senseless monogamist prison rape of their own brand, they decided that fans who wish to promote and enhance the engagement with the Major League Baseball product should not use the name of their favorite teams anywhere in their domain, program name, or any other place where such usage would make total sense for any fan looking for another way to express their appreciation FOR THE STUPID TEAM!


Deep breath. Let's continue.

We have pursued every angle possible in trying to find out exactly why this happened and how we could resolve it amicably. We have had several phone calls with MLBAM to gather the facts and state our opinion on the matter, which is that our site is not deceptive in the least and does not cause confusion (we have had a disclaimer at the bottom of our site for several years), among other things. We outlined our position in a letter back in March. We didn't hear much in response, and then several months passed before MLBAM got back to us, basically sticking to the language in their original letter, asking us to fully comply, and to call them if we had any questions.

Yeah, I've got a question. WHY DO YOU HATE YOUR FANS?!? Whew. Another deep breath. One more. Okay, carry on.

Somewhere in the middle of this ordeal we discovered that a major league team besides the Cubs found one of our sister podcast websites and didn't like that they didn't own it, which seems to be the genesis of this ordeal. We offered to immediately shut that site down and transfer the domain to MLBAM, but that is not good enough. MLBAM wants everything, including Cubscast.

That major league team is the twins. Attention all twin fetish porn sites: prepare to be shut down unless you take the word twins out of the domain.

Sorry, couldn't resist commemorating this event with one big sizzling pile of copyright-abuse irony.

Of all the things an organization with such great resources as Major League Baseball can do, this seems like a low note and a waste of talent to me. I love baseball, but I wish they would move quickly to embrace fan involvement, fan communities, and technology. Other leagues such as the NBA are setting the bar high, and baseball has some serious catching up to do. Watching a great sport like baseball is one thing, but being connected to other fans makes watching and experiencing a season a thousand times better.

THIS. I know MLB probably desires to see the postseason ratings plummet even further to prevent people who haven't directly subscribed to MLB.tv from being able to discuss the World Series without the expressed written consent of Major League Baseball, but come on! Why would any organization seek out and shut down the efforts of their own fans and customers who are trying to promote their product? It is beyond stupid. It's like baseball is their girlfriend and they don't want anybody looking at her or referring to her by name . . . unless they're the ones who can whore her out privately.

Maybe I'm not the foremost expert on social media marketing, but this seems counterintuitive. I wish I could say it was old fashioned, but I can't remember a time in any era when any entity expressed such contempt for their own supporters.

Anyway, we are complying with MLBAM's request and shutting down the Cubscast site, effective immediately. I'm doing my part in this despite having my doubts about the legality of MLBAM's claim. I understand that they own the mark "Cubs" and I'm not a legal expert by any means, but in my opinion the jury's still out on whether or not using a mark to describe a fan club is actually an infringement or not. In our case using the word "Cubs" is simply the most accurate way to describe what we are. We host a free podcast about the Cubs. It's a shame that nobody including us ends up having enough fearlessness (and money) to see a judge rule on this issue. It would undoubtedly shed some light on this matter.

There are two things to discuss here: the law and the logic. Legally, either MLBAM is completely out of bounds or there are a lot of blogs who should be getting really nervous right about now. Bleed Cubbie Blue (sorry, you've got "Cub" in there). Another Cubs Blog. Twinkie Town. Metsgrrl. YankeesBlog. Ray's Boathouse, Cafe, and Catering at Rays.com. International Talk Like a Pirate Day. They're all walking a thin line. Sadly, MLBAM will probably go after only those sites/blogs/podcasts that are too small to mount a legal defense. Whether they have legal grounds or not becomes moot when they're big enough to bully an underdog who lacks the resources necessary to challenge the biggest ball of collusion in America.

So yeah, legally (or at least logistically) MLB can tread all over a podcast that dares include the name of the team they discuss and cheer for. Logically, this move is a huge pile of fail. What does MLB gain from this exercise? An image even more tarnished than it already was? A brand that smells like armpit? Fewer fans? Less interest? A more solidified sense that no one under the employ of Major League Baseball has the slightest sense of ethics, decency, marketing, or social awareness? Yes, they gained all that and more.

Congrats, MLB, you managed to attain brand new levels of suck. I have the utmost faith that you can do even worse in the years to come.

The Cubsmos is Trapped in High School

2010: A Fail Odyssey

I never know what to call the group of all people associated with but not necessarily a part of the Cubs organization: the fans, the media, the bloggers, the whoever. Cubdom. The Cubosphere. The Cubbieverse. Cub Nation. The Fail and Losing Community. We. They. The Empty Set. For the moment, I have decided on the Cubsmos. Instead of the Cosmos, not to be confused with the magazine or the drink or the Kramer. But I digress.

The Cubsmos, or at least large factions within it, seems to be trapped in the past. Not a specific date or era like 1908 or '69 or the Bartman game. We're trapped in high school, maybe junior high. As I did then, I'd love to escape the embittered, disenfranchising subculture of vindictive cliques, the suppressed insecure rage, the bizarre false sense of entitlement and melodramatic mock tragedy. But here we are in Cubsmos High. I was going to give ten reasons, and maybe I will at some point, but here are my two favorites.

The Crotchety Old Coach/Gym Teacher thinks ridicule and public punishments are the best motivators. Athletes aren't professionals, they're slimy, cocksure ingrates who need to be put in their place. Lack of hustle? Benched! Brain lapse? Benched and insulted! Don't run out a pop up? You'll do push-ups until I get tired! I'm sorry . . . but didn't we hate that guy? Didn't high school, in a roundabout way, teach us  it might be a better idea to treat people with respect and handle matters in a civilized, private, non-roid-rage manner?

Do What You Love. Now.

More than 8,000 games managed are being celebrated in that hug.

Lou Piniella came up for four games with the Baltimore Orioles in 1964. He didn't make it back to the big leagues until a six-game stint with the Indians in 1968 followed by his rookie-of-the-year campaign with the Royals in 1969. Never again has more than one season of Major League Baseball transpired without the likes of Lou Piniella.

Lou last played with the Yankees in 1984 and took over as manager in 1986. His next year off was '89 in between his time in New York and in Cincinnati, where he won the World Series in 1990. He didn't miss a single game of the regular season in between his transitions from the Reds to the Mariners or from Seattle to Tampa. 2006 was the last year Lou Piniella didn't have a full-time job with Major League Baseball, and even then he worked as an analyst for FOX.

Since he first started playing for the Selma Cloverleafs in 1962, Lou Piniella has made a living in the game of baseball. From 1962 to 2010, the man had three vacations from baseball: 1985, 1989, 2006. That's it. He had a chance to do what he loved for nearly 50 years.

I don't know how a guy like that could say goodbye without crying, especially seeing as though he did not have the chance to end things on his own terms.

Zambrano Fails to Apologize to Starving Children

When do they get their dinner, Carlos? And when do they get their apology?

I said yesterday that Carlos Zambrano said all the right things in his apology to the fans and his general statement that everything about his dugout tirade was wrong, but that was before I had all the facts. It has since come out that Zambrano has yet to apologize to the Cubs as a congregation. He hasn't even embroidered all his shirts and jerseys with the scarlet A for Anger as ordered by Pastor Morrissey.

Sure, Zambrano has apologized to players individually, but what about the team as a whole? What about the Wrigley Field ambassadors? What about the children? Never mind the convenient fact that Zambrano has been separated from the Cubs by an average of 1,000 miles since he was suspended. That doesn't change the fact that he's apologizing in the absolute wrong order.

The first person he needed to apologize to was obvious, but whether he did that or not is between him and DeRosa. After that, he should have apologized to Derrek Lee. Okay, he did that, too, but only once? Another 99 are in order, and they should all be in public and/or under the supervision of a priest. Next comes his teammates, coaches, agents, and every innocent bystander.

Next he should have apologized to the media, starting with the white guys. Sullivan, Morrisey, Telander, Wittenmyer, Kaplan: these guys feared for their lives when Zambrano's rage boiled over. No, he didn't hurt anybody—this time—but he looked like he wanted to. The fact that he made his apology in an interview with Pedro Gomez won't be lost on them. You could cut the racial tension with a knife, which is exactly what the Chicago sports media is afraid of.

But the most overlooked group on Zambrano's apology waiting list, with its chronology screwed up beyond even Quentin Tarantino's comprehension, are the millions of starving children around the world. While they looked on in horror, the biggest, whiniest, most spoiled child of them all went out to dinner with the manager of the opposing team. Zambrano stuffed his petulant face with dinner, completely deaf to the rumbling empty stomachs of those less fortunate than himself.

But himself is all Zambrano thinks about. He's sorry. He was wrong. He is embarrassed by his actions. He is trying to improve the way he handles his anger. Selfish, racist, diva. This apology was all about him. The families of the victims of the Hindenburg disaster? Never even crossed Zambrano's mind.

Just Deserts

My wife and I took the boys to see Toy Story 3 today. It's a fine movie, but it reminded me why I don't go to movies very often anymore. I told my youngest you eat popcorn when you go to the theater, but I didn't tell him it cost $6.00 for a bucket of stale, burnt-toast flavored not-goodness.

And as I shelled out good money for something I knew would make a negative contribution to the cinematic experience (yet fulfill my popcorn promises), I thought about what a terrible business practice it is to so blatantly screw over your customers. But then I inwardly scolded myself. I can't be that critical of a business practice if I'm stupid enough to fall prey to it (and I'm standing in line with my fellow intellectual paralytics). I shouldn't have told my son it's tradition to eat popcorn at the movies. I should have told him that movie theaters treat ticket holders with contempt and that any smart person would refuse to accept it.

But I didn't, and I got what I deserved. And everyone in the Cubs universe gets their just deserts*, too.

Carlos Zambrano invented his own personal brand of crazy and will be punitively sent to the bullpen upon his indefinite return from suspension. Does he deserve it? Why not. You act like that in front of people who don't like you and have the power to make you pay for it, you know there will be consequences.

Cubs' management showed with this bullpen shift that Zambrano's initial stint as a reliever had nothing to do with baseball. Hendry and Lou wanted Z in his place even though they knew he didn't belong in the bullpen—he belonged in the doghouse. So they got what they deserved, an angry, ineffective, jerked-around anti-ace. They should have seen this blow-up coming, because Z isn't exactly an easy-going flower of a man. Doing something so stupid as giving their $91-million pitcher the Samardzija treatment makes much less sense than signing either of those guys in the first place.

Zambrano, meanwhile, deserves both his money (he pitched very well in his early career and would have commanded an even larger contract on the free agent market) and the foul treatment. He gave the Cubs a hometown discount (yeah, believe it or not, a discount), but he should have known it came at a higher price than just a few million dollars. He signed with a team he should have predicted would screw him over. Shame on you, Carlos. You and the Cubs are each other's just deserts.

Jim Hendry, you've created something of a trend with your indefinite suspensions, ironic since you were responsible for signing the players you suspended. Why you would make someone a mega-millionaire and then ground him is up to you, but when the message you send fails to result in winning baseball, the dizzying mess of bleating, whining, and winless chemistry will be well deserved.

Lou will walk away from the Cubs at the end of this season with a lot of extra millions, a couple of extra headaches, a slightly higher blood pressure reading, and only the slightest hint of regret. He knew what he was walking into when he took the helm in Wrigleyville, and he knew the glory and the criticism that would pour down upon him with every win and loss.

Derrek Lee and his fellow teammates, all of whom received a vicious tongue-lashing from Zambrano, fully deserved to be criticized publicly by a crazy man.

Kevin Millar deserves to be working TV with the opportunity to laugh at the misfortunes of his former spring-training team.

The Ricketts family profess to have been fans of this team and yet still saw fit to pay nearly a billion dollars to make it their own. They got what they paid for. They're the proud owners of a one-of-a-kind masterpiece of awful. Congrats. Your just deserts just happen to be plunging in value at the moment. Go ahead and raise ticket prices again, why don'tcha?

I mustn't forget my favorite group of friends, the fans. We cheer for a team we know won't win. Some of us, myself included, are willing to pay upwards of $60 to sit in the blazing hot sun and bask in the glow of a 12-0 suckfest. I deserved what I got, a good time with friends, an uber-fast lopsided loss, and the freakiest farmer's tan I've ever seen.  Should I be upset that the Cubs are now running a promotion to dispense those same tickets at a $10 rate (which is nearly doubled by fees) or that other fans can buy scalped tickets for even less, sans convenience fees but with twice as much convenience?

No, I should be just a bit more aware of the idiocy I've allowed to run my life. This feeling of anger and apathy swirling together in a delicious angst-ridden suckcicle is my just desert and I must suck it.

*No, I didn't spell it wrong. Look it up.

What Is the Problem with Cubs Fans?

Just to be clear: not all jerks are Cubs fans.

I've been determined not to talk about Milton Bradley, and I'm not. I have no intention of addressing the specific indignities committed against or by Mr. Bradley. The simple fact is that far too many people, fans and bystanders alike, have proven themselves incapable of rational thought whenever Milton's name is involved. So any comments about Mr. Bradley have no relevance in this discussion. None.

Instead, let's talk in generalities. A lot has been said about Cubs fans lately. There's the argument that a minuscule fraction of the Cub-fan population, a mere handful of aberrant freaks, have given Cubs fans a bad name. I'd like to address that possibility. However, some proponents of that argument have constructed a straw man that any accusation of racism at Wrigley is an irrational blanket accusation against all Cubs fans. I have no desire to address that theory, because nobody really thinks that all Cubs fans are cross-burning racists and/or rabid slobbering jerks. Nobody. Thinks. That.

But a lot of people do think and have insinuated that the jerk-to-decent-human-being ratio is higher at Wrigley and among Cubs fans in general than it is at other ballparks and among other fan bases. That line of thinking warrants a serious look, although I won't wage a full-scale investigation to settle the argument. I just want to know why that might be the case.

In the realm of statistics, intelligent people don't give credence to small samples of data that lack a clear cause-effect relationship. For instance, Mark Grace hit well on Mother's Day. Sammy Sosa hit well on his birthday. Ryne Sandberg may have had a .750 average in the seventh inning of road games in July against left-handed pitchers for teams with blue uniforms. We like those stats because of the sheer coincidence of it all. No one with a functioning cerebellum really thinks those stats mean anything. But when it comes to baseball matters outside of statistics (such as the behavior of fans of certain teams at certain stadiums) the demand for reliably determined cause-effect relationships too often goes out the window.

Is there any conceivable reason why Cub fans would be more prone to racism than would other fans? Is there something about the Cubs that is more attractive to racists? Should we expect Cubs fans to be more apt than the general public to assemble grassroots hate-mail campaigns? An argument could be made that Chicago is a racist city, but it is most definitely not the only one.

As a quick aside, I'm not going to pretend racism is all that less prevalent in America today than it was 30, 40, or even 50 years ago. But for the most part, decidedly racist people have learned it's better to employ silent, subtle racism than the officially posted, vocally oppressive, publicly violent version of the segregated era. Just because  speaking the N-word has been ruled unacceptable by almost every subculture of America doesn't mean no one ever thinks it or ascribes to the hate behind it. (I like Tom Lehrer's prophetic views on the subject: publicly ignoring hate has little effect on people's private views.)

But I also don't think all the rage about Cubs fans is or should be confined to race. The fact is, it's the same attitude that drives a fan to spit on a player of his own race as the one that motivates a white fan to send hate mail to a black player. People don't do something like that because of race, they do it because of a vindictive, prideful jealousy. As much as fans love to live vicariously through their heroes and share in the glory of their success, we (yes, I'm making a universal claim here) like to do the reverse with the players we don't think deserve the money, fame, and fulfillment that comes with being a Major League Baseball player. Booing makes us feel superior, like we have the power to strip them of their glory.

It's the same thing that drives homely people to leaf through People's 50 Most Beautiful issue and complain about the ugly, horse-faced, overrated choices. It's what causes music fans to slap the "talentless" label on Grammy-winning musicians they don't like. That's why, I'm sure, I critique American Idol performances. Who doesn't enjoy taking the undeservedly famous down a notch or two?

There are some who take their glory-envy to the extreme. These are the ones who hurl racial epithets at star baseball players when they would never have the nerve to do the same to an average Joe. And yes, those same people would never think of doing that to the team's best players (even Archie Bunker thought Sammy Davis Jr. was a god). But for the players on the opposing team, the guys they just don't like, or even the fans who get in the way, common decency goes out the window. That's not unique to Chicago. But is it more prevalent with Cubs fans?

To those who think it's just a few fans, I think you're in denial. But you're probably in denial about people in general and not just Cubs fans. There are plenty of unsavory people in this world, and quite a lot of them prove themselves as such when attending baseball games. Being a jerk might not be Americans' favorite pastime, but it's in the top 10. I've been to a lot of Cubs games and the ones that weren't at all marred by obnoxious, rude fans have been somewhat rare. The same goes for the games I've attended in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Cleveland, St. Louis, Comiskey, the Cell, Milwaukee, San Francisco, and Oakland.

I don't hear racist comments at every game or even most games, but it happens. Usually someone speaks up in a "Hey cool it" kind of way. Other times it's just a bunch of cold glares and awkward silences. But the moral outrage over racist or offensive behavior is much more common in message boards and comment threads than it is in the stands at baseball games. In my experience, this is pretty uniform no matter where you go, but over-the-line rudeness is anything but rare.

Okay, here's the big question: why does it seem, at least to some, that offensive behavior at the stadium (and from the fans writing in at home) is worse among Cubs fans than in other fan bases? The Cubs do get more media attention than a lot of teams, but not all. And the other Chicago team has a manager who has the amazing knack of absorbing any negative publicity that comes his team's way (seriously, the top story all spring in Cubs' camp has been Milton Bradley, while the only White Sox news item of note has been Ozzie's Twitter account). Could it be a century's worth of frustration or just a stronger desire in Wrigleyville? I'm not buying it.

To me, there is one big difference at Wrigley Field that might invite an extra measure of obnoxiousness: the bleachers. I don't think any outfield seating area is closer to the outfielders than the Wrigley Field bleachers. There's something about the mob mentality, the fans' high angle looking down on the lowly players, and the massive amount of liquid courage that instill in bleacher fans, a sense of superiority, entitlement, and invulnerability. The majority of fans in the bleachers are perfectly delightful, but the real snarly and hateful ones find the perfect forum atop the ivy.

The bleachers have their outspoken apologists, but plenty of other Cub fans take pride in the adversarial power wielded in the non-beer hands of the bleacher bums. Growing up, I took that view. I thought the real Cubs fans were the shouting, genuflecting soldiers in Andre's Army, the fans who yelled insults at, dumped beer on, and generally made life hell for opposing outfielders. At some point I realized that was stupid, but I'm sure there are plenty of fans who still identify with that mentality, even some who don't frequent Wrigley Field.


I would guess that there is a lot more rude, offensive, and even racist behavior in the bleachers than in other areas of the ballpark, so why wouldn't I expect it to be more prevalent in the Wrigley bleachers than in other stadiums in general where the fans' proximity to the players isn't so pronounced? And why wouldn't I expect that to spill over to the fans watching at home? I can't think of a reason.

The only way I know how to conclude this monstrosity is this: I doubt Cubs fans in general are inherently any more racist or rude or offensive than any other fans. But I do suspect that Wrigley might bring out the worst in a lot of us. I think as fans we have to make a conscious effort to curb that trend.