I love Wrigley Field. I do. It's one of my favorite places in the world. I say that to inform you that nothing in this post is out of spite for the venue I revere as a mecca of the baseball world. And as much as I give Cubs fans a hard time, I don't really think they're worse than the fans of any other team. There are some great Cubs fans and some abominable ones just as any fan base is prone to including members from both ends of the spectrum of tolerability.
But the home-field advantage at Wrigley, for the last several decades, has been the worst in all of baseball, and I've got the numbers to prove it.
I started out investigating home-field advantage in general in the hopes of proving something about the significance of psychology in baseball. The first wave of research showed that as far back as I could look (1901) there always has been a home-field advantage league-wide. In every season of Major League Baseball, the home teams have, collectively, registered a winning record. There have been 4 seasons in which the teams of either the National League or the American League had a collective losing record at home, but it has never happened across baseball.
Read more: Wrigley: the Worst Home-Field Advantage in Baseball
Monday on B-Squared, the Cubs talk Carlos Zambrano as he gets ready to pitch against the potent Pirates of Pittsburgh. Blake DeWitt and Kosuke Fukudome were very good in the month of August, but did anyone really notice? Also, today is "Andre Dawson Day" in Chicago as proclaimed by Mayor Daley. Bernie and Bedo debate whether or not the Cubs should retire his #8 jersey number. And finally, former B-Squared producer and co-host of the newest show on 312sports Radio "Hang Ten with Fish & Gotty" Kevin Fishbain joins in to talk about his show which debuts Monday as well as the Big Ten football landscape for the upcoming season.
Mike Quade can ride his chariot back to Chicago with his head held high, the owner of a 4-2 managerial record. It looked like the Cubs had a good chance at 5-1 after heroics by Kosuke Fukudome. Unfortunately, Fuky also decided to not be heroic.
Kosuke Fukudome hit a 2-run homer in the top of the eighth inning to tie Sunday's game at 5-5, but a tough throwing error by Fukudome enabled the Reds to score 1 of 2 runs in the bottom of the inning as Cincinnati won to open a 5-game lead over St. Louis in the National League Central.
Read more: Cubs Monday Headlines: Triumphant 4-2 Road Trip Finished
TGIF. Eric Wedge was interviewed by Jim Hendry for the Cubs managerial post. How serious are his chances of landing the gig? Joe Girardi comes to Chicago tonight!.....as his team plays the Sox. Would he be crazy to leave the Yanks? Or would he be stupid to not listen to the Cubs? Julie DiCaro from 312sports.com and ChicagoNow joins the guys to cover these issues and more. Stephen Strasburg is our for the rest of this year and next. We'll tell you how bad it is for baseball. Also, the Cubs try to make it four in a row tonight as they battle first-place Cincinnati as the Starlin watch continues. And last but never least, Scott Spinelli from MLB Network chimes in as part of Fantasy Friday.
Quade did it his way Wednesday night, lifting Dempster for a pinch-hitter in a scoreless duel against Jason Marquis in the eighth inning. Dempster had thrown only 79 pitches and seemed to be upset.
"He wanted no part of coming out, and he wasn't happy about that," Quade said. "And that's OK. I don't want guys happy (to leave). ... I couldn't live with myself if we're tied in the eighth we don't try and do something to win the game. It wouldn't matter who (is pitching), but it's always more difficult when it's somebody who's giving you a heck of an outing."
Read more: Cubs Thursday Headlines: Cubs Sweep by Nats in Wild Card Race
CHAMPAIGN, ILL.-University of Illinois head coach Bruce Weber announced Tuesday that former Fighting Illini standout Chester Frazier has joined the UI staff. Frazier, an Illini point guard from 2006-09, will serve as graduate assistant/video coordinator. He is enrolled in the university's master's degree program in educational policy studies.
Allow me to elaborate on my post from yesterday (which came in almost muted reaction to the Chicago magazine article on Sammy). This will require some imagination on your part. When you see Alan Shore, I want you to picture Sammy Sosa. When he talks about the legal profession, I want you to imagine he's talking about baseball. And when he describes Eugene Young and pie and embezzlement and lying, I want you to replace it all by conjuring up thoughts of Jim Hendry and retired numbers and egotism and steroids. If you can do that, you can understand how I feel about how the Cubs treated Sammy Sosa.
If you can't, well, it was worth a shot.
WASHINGTON -- Mike Quade isn't going to pretend he's not auditioning for the Cubs job in 2011."I guess," he said. "The thing to say is, 'Oh, no, no, no. But, no, it probably absolutely is. And for me, the thing you've got to be careful about is you've got to do what you've got to do. It's a generic statement, but it really is (true). I know what I've done in the past and how I've gone about it. And I've been around so many good people. You have to be yourself. You just have to approach it and do it my way and whatever happens happens."But in some way, shape or form, it absolutely is an audition."
Read more: Tuesday Cubs Headlines: All Quade On The Western Front
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