No, Seriously, Winning it All with the Cubs Would Be Otherworldly and Other Bullets

wrigley marquee featureIn case you’ve been hankering for a health update: Saturday was probably the first day since the onset of my crazy fever one week earlier that I felt something close to approximating normal for the majority of the day. This morning, knock on wood, appears to be the first morning that I woke up feeling like I usually do (tired, because the little rascals got up too early, but typical). Fingers crossed for no pain medication today, because that’s been the one thing that’s been hard to kick after taking so much for so long to combat the fever, and then taking more to deal with the ensuing headaches.

  • Chicago Cubs GM Jed Hoyer was on The Game yesterday with Dave Kaplan and David Haugh, discussing a variety of topics you can listen to here. I thought it was fun when David Price’s comments about Chicago being the “coolest” place to win a championship (he was referencing the Cubs) came up in the discussion. Although Hoyer can’t comment on Price, specifically, he did say that he thinks Price has it right, and no one can really dispute that this would be the coolest place to win it all. Hoyer said that’s a big part of the reason he and Theo Epstein came in the first place. Obviously this is something we, as Cubs fans, know to be true, but I think it’s been buried under a morass of crummy big league performances over the past few years. With a feeling growing that the corner is coming soon, I think it’s worth reminding the sports world just how insanely, amazingly, ridiculous it would be if (or dare I say, “it’s gonna be when”?) the Cubs won it all. That’s not something you can promise to the fans or to future players, but you can look at the organization and say, “Yeah, this is an organization that is primed for a serious run of sustained success.” From there, good things can happen. And players out there – players like Price – should really, really want to be a part of it.
  • Now’s the time to get on board before the train leaves the station. (OK, if you’re really good, we’ll slow down enough to pick you up on down the track.)
  • The Jack Daniels Patio is set to open soon at Wrigley – behind the press box, with a view of the city, not the field – and offers one of the many new amenity/branding opportunities that will be coming over the next few years at Wrigley Field.
  • The men behind the Old Scoreboard. Ever wonder how they get the balls and strikes up so fast? I was just telling my Wrigley-virgin friend about that last week: “By the time you look up at the board, immediately after the pitch, the ball/strike will already be up there, even if the ump hasn’t finished his call. Just watch,” I told him. It’s true, and it’s pretty amazing.
  • Kyuji Fujikawa (TJS) threw an inning yesterday at AAA Iowa, so he could be getting close to a return to the big club.
  • A great read from Mark Gonzales on Daniel Lewis, the former serviceman the Cubs just signed (discussed here yesterday), which gives a little more info on his path, and also mentions that he was hitting 98mph when the Cubs saw and signed him. Man, it would be really awesome if Lewis becomes a relevant pitching prospect.
  • Patrick Mooney profiles Cubs hitting coach Bill Mueller, about whom we seem to hear very little, although we all know how important he is. Good read.
  • Jason Parks on how you can miss a quality prospect.
  • Your visual BN Blogathon update … so close to locking down that 34th hour of coverage:
  • written by

    Brett Taylor is the Lead Cubs Writer at Bleacher Nation, and you can find him on Twitter at @BleacherNation and on LinkedIn here. Brett is also the founder of Bleacher Nation, which opened up shop in 2008 as an independent blog about the Chicago Cubs. Later growing to incorporate coverage of other Chicago sports, Bleacher Nation is now one of the largest regional sports blogs on the web.

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