The Cubs and Dodgers Might Not Exchange Christmas Cards and Other Bullets

Aug 06, 2012

The Little Girl is sick today, so my attentions may be a bit divided. There should still be normal posting, but probably reduced commenting, etc…

So, now the Cubs say they *didn’t* let Ryan Dempster listen in on calls with the Dodgers on Tuesday’s Trade Deadline, in the hopes that he would understand how much the Dodgers didn’t want him. Instead, the Cubs now say that, when Theo Epstein said, “Once he came into our office and actually heard the conversations we had with L.A., he came to realize, ‘OK, that’s not actually going to happen, let me consider a couple other places,'” he wasn’t being literal. Additionally, the Cubs say they had Dempster call Dodgers GM Ned Colletti directly about 30 minutes before the deadline, to hear Colletti’s thoughts straight from the horse’s mouth. That’s fine, and I have no reason to doubt this story. But I do wonder: what exactly would that conversation look like? Ned: “Yeah, Ryan, we don’t really want you, but we’ll take you for table scraps.” Ryan: “Oh, for reals? That’s kind of crappy. I guess I’ll go elsewhere.” Ned: “Groovy.”

The Dodgers, according to the Sun-Times, are still pissed, though, and are skeptical that the call to Colletti was the only access Dempster was given to the trade talks. ‘‘If I was the Dodgers, I’d be upset if I thought players were listening in on our conversations, but that’s clearly not what happened,’’ Cubs GM Jed Hoyer said. ‘‘As I made clear [Tuesday] in my press conference, I kicked Ryan out of my office and put him in a separate office before we made any phone calls. Ryan was in the offices so that he could be there on a moment’s notice. He certainly wasn’t there to listen in on phone calls, and we would never let that happen.’’ As I said this weekend, I don’t think Dempster listening in is, practically-speaking, all that big of a deal, but I can certainly see that the story is a big deal for the Cubs’ ongoing relationship with the Dodgers. This isn’t about Dempster, it’s about the Cubs and Dodgers being able to work together in the future.

Jeff Baker, who was yesterday traded to the Detroit Tigers, had some complimentary things to say about the Cubs’ rebuilding process. “They’re doing it the right way,” Baker said, according to CSN. “You kind of got to tear it down to build it back up. It’s that tough blend. It’s a major market [and] it generates a lot of revenue. You just hope that the fans are going to be patient with ‘em – and some of these guys that are coming up and getting an opportunity here are going to be able to blossom …. It’s going to be Rizz’s team, Castro’s team. For those two, the leadership qualities are going to have to step up, and hopefully they can take it and run with it.”

Darwin Barney has set the team’s single-season errorless streak mark, with 91 straight games without an error at second base this year. He’ll have to go a fair bit further to break Ryne Sandberg’s overall record, though, of 123 straight games.

The MLBullets at BCB look at Josh Hamilton’s catch-22 with quitting tobacco – he’s been playing really poorly ever since quitting.

written by

Brett Taylor

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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