Bob Brenly on Why He Left and Other Bullets

There was some huge, huge news yesterday, which was inexplicably obscured by the election: ‘Boy Meets World’ is coming back (kind of)!

  • Former (sigh) Cubs color man Bob Brenly was on with Waddle & Silvy yesterday, doing a bit of a debrief on his time with the Cubs. The most important question? Why are you leaving us, Bob!? “Everybody has to make decisions in life based on what’s best for their family and what’s best for them,” Brenly said. “Circumstances change throughout your life. I mean, if I was 38 years old there is absolutely no way I would have walked away from that job job regardless. I would have stayed there forever. But I’m sneaking up on 60 here and this is where all the old people go to retire anyway, so I thought I would just get a jump on the crowd. But I’m absolutely going to miss everything about Chicago. I’m going to miss my partner [Len Kasper] desperately, and I know whoever comes in there to take my place, he is going to mold them into a really good analyst.” Brenly added that 2012 was an exciting season to see the transition in the Cubs, and he thinks the future looks bright.
  • Brenly also said that he regretted saying, back in 2008, that you could throw a dart in the Cubs’ dugout and hit a better defender than Alfonso Soriano. Other than that, though, he said he didn’t really regret anything he’d said (you’ll recall, he famously ripped Aramis Ramirez for being a numbers-gatherer, and not a good leader for the young players).
  • The Cubs have signed former Brewers utility player Edwin Maysonet to a minor league deal, which might include a non-roster invite to Spring Training. I feel like we already knew about this move, but I can’t find any evidence of that. Maybe I’m just precognitive.
  • Phil Rogers brings up Cubs minor leaguer Yoennis Negron, the starter whom the Cubs signed before last year out of Cuba, and then who mysteriously pitched in Mexico all year, despite being 27 years old at the time. He pitched well, and he’s now tearing up the Venezuelan Winter League, which isn’t entirely meaningless (the level of competitiveness there varies wildly, but it’s around AA/AAA). He’s 28, and doesn’t have much pro experience, but he might get a look in the Spring.
  • Jonathan Eig, the proprietor of ChicagoSide, sat down with Cubs’ VP of Ticket Sales and Service Colin Faulkner to discuss the why-should-we-pay-so-much-money-to-see-a-crappy-team thing, which makes for an interesting philosophical discussion, but not a particularly interesting practical one. Why? Well, Eig says it, himself: “Imagine owning the second-worst team in baseball. It has a waiting list of 115,000 customers. Would you reduce prices?” The Cubs, although I do think they do form some kind of public trust, are not a charity. Their decisions on ticket prices will be governed, primarily, by supply and demand. And, frankly, as a fan, I remain of the mind that I want them to generate as much revenue as possible (while preserving the fan base long-term (because that, too, impacts revenue)), so that they can put that revenue right back into the organization as they’ve repeatedly promised to do.
  • Cubs Convention passes go on sale this morning at 10am CT. Anyone know the Sheraton well? Where can we all try and meet up for a drink on Friday night?
  • The MLBullets at BCB note that David Ortiz thinks Bobby Valentine might be crazy.
  • 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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