Not that I ever presumed that anyone from the Chicago Cubs’ organization reads Bleacher Nation (except Randy Bush), but you can cross Cubs manager Dale Sveum off the list of guys you might come across in the comments.
When asked yesterday about his news-gathering proclivities – does he seek out stories on himself? Watch sports news in Chicago? Read any blogs? – Sveum, unsurprisingly, indicated that doing so just isn’t him.
“I don’t do anything like that now, so I’m not going to start,” Sveum told reporters. “Basically all I know how to do is get on the Internet and check scores on my phone and e-mail a little bit. But I’m not searching out articles. To me, it doesn’t even make sense why you’d read good or bad [articles]. Obviously we know there’s going to be more bad than good, so it’s going to be irrelevant to ever look at articles or seek any kind of media that way.
“I’ve got better things to do than seek out articles on myself or the team. I’m living the team the nine innings every single night. I know what goes on. I don’t have to look and find out what somebody else thinks.”
Sveum’s presumption that there will be more bad than good articles is (1) a little pessimistic, and (2) a reflection of his beliefs about large-city media. I’m certainly not saying he’s wrong, but it’s interesting. Sveum’s thoughts were probably formed, in large part, by his time as a coach in Boston, where the media can be as tough as it is in Chicago.
“There’s more media, there’s more scrutinizing, there’s going to be the second-guessing of everything,” he said of coaching or managing in a large market like Chicago. “It’s nothing you don’t know. It’s not like I’ve never been in or played in a big market before. You know what all goes on.”
Based on how he’s comported himself so far, I don’t really see Sveum having too much of a problem with the media. Sure, if the team is bad, he’s going to have to answer the same, annoying questions a few more times than he’d like, but Sveum strikes me as a pretty straight-forward and even-keeled guy. I doubt Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer would have selected a guy they thought could be rattled by the pressures of a large market.
I’d say good luck to Sveum, but, well, he wouldn’t see it.
(As a far too self-serious aside: It is, in some ways, a relief to learn that new Chicago Cubs’ manager Dale Sveum won’t be reading BN any time soon. I like to think I could remain objective enough to say what needs to be said, regardless, but it can give you pause if you know that the subject of your words will be reading them. They’re real people, you know, and I’m not interested in being a jerk for the sake of being a jerk.)