Thoughts on the Chicago Cubs and other topics in baseball. E-mail Tom at: tomsmithcubs@ hotmail.com

 
CUBS TRADE WITH MARLINS: SCOTTSDALE -- The Cubs have made a trade with the Florida Marlins. The Cubs traded 1B Hee Seop Choi and a player to be named later for 1B Derrek Lee. The Cubs are expected to sign Lee to a multiyear contract. We do not know who the player to be named later is but it is rumored to be a mid-level prospect. Right now the deal looks like a good one for the Cubs, but we will have to wait a few years to see how it comes out. Choi might turn into the player he was hyped to be but the Cubs are looking to win in 2004. Lee hopefully will be the offensive threat we have been missing at first.


MARIOTTI RE-RUN TIME: SCOTTSDALE -- In today's Chicago Sun-Times, Jay Mariotti does give credit to Jim Hendry for making the deal with Florida for Derrek Lee. The rest of the column is another classic Mariotti re-run. The Tribsters are cheap. The Tribsters are cheap. The Cubs should spend like drunken sailors. Other teams might spend like drunken sailors, the Cubs should spend like drunken sailors too! The Tribsters are cheap. The Tribsters are cheap. And oh did I remember to throw into my column, the Tribsters are cheap? Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.


TRIBUNE/CUBS WINS TICKET SUIT: SCOTTSDALE -- The Cubs won the ticket lawsuit on Monday.


COUCH ON VERDICT: SCOTTSDALE -- So you have been writing endlessly for months that Tribune Company's decision to set up Premium Tickets is a "scam". You wrote on Friday, "The Cubs are guilty". A few months back you were so certain of victory you wrote, it might be time to get the Illinois Attorney General involved. In another column you gleefully gloated about the possibility the Cubs would be convicted if charges were brought by that office. The Cubs as criminals. Ho Ho! Then you dreamed about the possibility the Cubs would lose the ability to stage baseball games in the state of Illinois. Then said that won't happen. Maybe. Hee Hee! Well the verdict comes down and what you had long thought would happen, did not happen! The Cubs won! So what do you write about the decision if you are the Chicago Sun-Times' Greg Couch? You change the subject! Write about Tribune lawyers leaving without taking questions. Then throw in some sob stories about some people who will not be going to Cubs games at Wrigley Field because prices are too high! Like going to Cubs games and sitting in box seats at a low price is a constitutional right. Next Couch writes, "Did I mention that people are already sending e-mails to me and calling?" Couch did not need to inform us of this since he writes about people writing him on this topic all the time. Sure enough Couch shares some more whining from people who contacted him. You do not have to go to Cubs games folks! Toward the end of the column Couch throws out the pathetic populist lines of, "No, the little guy lost." and "Meanwhile, the law protects multibillion-dollar corporations, not cabbies and late-shifters." A chicken in every pot and a Cubs box seat ticket to every fan who wants one! After months of writing about the Cubs ticket "scam" Couch should have ended his column on Tuesday by writing the old Emily Litella line from Saturday Night Live, "Never mind."

posted by Thomas at 10:57 AM

 
COUCH NEEDS A COUCH, BECAUSE HE IS DEFINITELY OFF HIS ROCKER: SCOTTSDALE -- What to make of Greg Couch's ridiculous column in Friday's Chicago Sun-Times? Couch, like his Sun-Times colleague Jay Mariotti, is an extremely mediocre columnist who re-runs old columns repackaged as new columns. Couch has been beating the ticket broker story for months, endlessly calling it a "scam". Couch says no matter how this case comes out the Cubs are "guilty". Now I admit to owning Tribune Company stock, but I have said the ticket broker business was not a great idea for Tribune Company to get into. That said I do not think Tribune Company's setting up a ticket broker business is "sleazy". Tribune Company wants to make as much money as possible off its product. As for the state law which prohibits the organizers of an event from reselling tickets it is really rather silly. An organizer should be able to hold back tickets and then sell them via a ticket broker at an increased rate. Nobody is forced to buy Cubs tickets. Cubs baseball is simply another entertainment option for people to choose to attend. If one wants to pay $1,500 for two box seats for Yankees-Cubs nobody is hurt in this transaction. The buyer got what he wanted at a price he was willing to pay; while the seller got what he wanted. If one thinks the price the Cubs/Tribune Company are charging is too high for Cubs tickets here is a solution: do not buy them. Anyway back to Couch's column. After Couch tells us Tribune's accounting methods, he informs us he talked to Studs Terkel (like Terkel is some unbiased neutral observer, instead of an old-time lefty) about the Cubs ticket situation. After being informed of the Cubs ticket business, Terkel screeches, "Oh my god. That's Enron for Christssakes. Oh my god. This is shameless." Then Couch adds, "It's business in America." Wrong. Enron's accounting had to deal with overstating earnings and taking debt off of the books which should have been listed. Neither Terkel or Couch show any evidence that Tribune's accounting is like Enron's, or unethical, or illegal. Why not? Because it is legitimate. Toward the end of his column Couch writes, "And in the final week of the season, the Cubs had a rainout and no games left to serve ticket holders as a makeup date. But fans went nuts, chanting and cursing because they don't trust management anymore." This may come as a shock to Greg Couch but the reason fans at Wrigley Field were disappointed when the Friday, September 26, 2003 game was rained out and no tickets were available for the final two games because those games were sold out was not because of the ticket broker story but because the Cubs were in the race for the NL Central Division title and those fans who had tickets to that game wanted to see a game played not see a rainout and get a refund. So did Greg Couch write another mediocre column full of misinformation and distortions? Guilty.
posted by Thomas at 9:43 AM