Even Cardinals Fans Should Want the Cubs to Be Good Again and Other Bullets

Oct 01, 2014

The obligatory question after a game like last night’s: if the Cubs had the A’s season this year – dominant early, fading hard down the stretch, trades that hurt the long-term for minimal short-term gain, playoff appearance, but immediate playoff exit – are you happy about it? Would you take that over the year the Cubs actually did have? Usually my answer in these situations is an obvious yes. But … this time around, I’m actually not sure. I still feel pretty good about the season the Cubs had, when you consider everything.

Paul Sullivan writes about the Cubs/Cardinals rivalry, or, more accurately, the lack of a rivalry right now. Good read, and it makes me think about that situation. Fans want the Cubs to be successful for a host of reasons wholly unrelated to the Cardinals, but, I’ll confess: putting some juice back in what should be one of baseball’s best rivalries is a small reason to want the Cubs to be good again. Hell, I bet there’s a non-zero contingent of Cardinals fans who actually want the Cubs to be good again for that very reason. It’s become easy to forget in the last few years, but when both the Cubs and Cardinals are rolling, and it’s July/August/September? Those series are incredible, and match the energy of any Red Sox/Yankees series you could find. That’s good for baseball, and it’s good for the Cubs and Cardinals. And it’s fun.

I mentioned in yesterday’s Bullets that there were reports out of the Dominican Republic that seemed to indicate Manny Ramirez would be playing Winter Ball down there this year, and Theo Epstein indicated as much yesterday at his press conference. I’m not sure how that will interplay with an interesting note in the Sun-Times: Ramirez asked Javy Baez if he wanted to work together some this offseason in Miami, and Baez said yes. Obviously you’d love to see that happen, and, if there’s a chance that Ramirez could be the Cubs’ next assistant hitting coach, all the better.

Anthony Rizzo joins Keith Olbermann.

In case you missed last night’s live recording of BNTV, you can watch it here. A whole bunch on the expectations for 2015 and the best moments of 2014. Also: disco dancing.

I am obnoxious:

By the way: the official cheesy playoff pun hashtag for the Cubs is going to be #Cubtober. Trademarked.

— Brett Taylor (@BleacherNation) October 1, 2014

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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