Out Standing in the Field
When Cliff Floyd is the best defensive outfielder in your starting lineup, you’re a disaster waiting to happen. And when Bob Howry appears from the bullpen, the wait is over.
Once again, in the Friday night late show from Dodger Stadium, seeing is disbelieving: Alfonso Soriano loafing after a ball in left field; Jacque Jones tossing a dribbler toward somewhere between home plate and the third base dugout on a throw from center field; and then Howry coming in with his flamethrower to ignite a four-run eighth inning by the Dodgers when the Cubs had used a seven-run inning to build an 8-5 lead after seven.
Lou Piniella is starting to sound like Casey Stengel, with his immortal line about the ’62 Mets: "Can’t anybody here play this game?" Of course, when your outfield and your bullpen are on a par with the ’62 Mets, what else is left to say?
Because, oh boy, is this team ever bad at Playing The Game. Put them on the bases, and they act as if they’ve never been there before. Picture Michael Barrett on second base in San Diego: ground ball to the right side, making everybody move in that half of the infield — second baseman, first baseman, and pitcher — and Barrett just stays there dancing around and watching, instead of automatically going to third base the way he’s supposed to. So naturally, just moments later, a pitch bounces in the dirt and heads toward the backstop, but of course, Barrett can’t score and he only winds up on third base.
Put their power hitters in a no-brainer RBI situation, and that’s exactly the way they react: With no brains. Picture Soriano hitting a leadoff triple in San Diego, then standing on third base while Mark DeRosa, Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez all strike out. No contact; no ground ball toward the middle; no medium-deep fly ball — nothing but whiff, whiff, whiff.
Any lectures coming from Piniella and/or hitting coach Gerald Perry? On the other hand, how does it happen that the same patterns get repeated through the ongoing regimes of Don Baylor, Dusty Baker and now Piniella? Maybe ongoing player personnel decisions have something to do with it?
Regarding Perry, in a quirky way he is actually connected with a Cubs disaster deep in the past. Back in ’83, some time after tirades about jobless Cubs fans at Wrigley Field for day games, and kissing the back of his shorts downtown, manager Lee Elia presided over a couple of one-sided home losses to Atlanta. Leading the damage for the Braves was a recent call-up at first base named Gerald Perry. Elia sat behind his desk, spread his hands and offered a post-game shrug to the media: "Who’s this Gerald Perry? We never heard of him before. I don’t have any information on him. Our scouts never heard of him. We don’t have any reports on him. What do we do with him?"
General manager Dallas Green had a two-part response for Elia, who had come over with him from the Philadelphia organization: First: "We do know who Perry is, we have scouted him, and I’ve got the reports right on my desk." Second: "You’re fired."
Nice irony, in a Cubbie kind of way. The Cubs seem to be perfecting the art of turning irony into destiny.
Black & Blue (formerly BlueMax) 