With the Cubs sporting a 10-1 lead in the eighth inning of their April 16 showdown with the Cincinnati Reds, Adam Dunn's solo home run in the Wrigleyville night should have been a minor roadblock to another round of "Go, Cubs, go!"
But when the feebly armed fan who caught Dunn's dinger, which had rolled down Sheffield Avenue, couldn't lob the ball back onto the playing field per Wrigley tradition, the fans inside the park - all of them - came to his rescue. Before long, a cascade of batting practice baseballs were peppering the outfield grass in right field (and a few in left), forcing Cubs newcomer Kosuke Fukudome to duck and cover.
Now, it didn't really bother me that the Wrigley Field bleacher creatures did something like that. After all, I am a Cubs fan and have been exposed to their periodic loss of common sense. (It happens when you're as drunk as they are.) Cubs shortstop Ryan Theriot thought it was "hilarious" and actually wanted the fans to keep going, and Fukudome wasn't mad at all, chipping in with an "I didn't know there were that many home runs" line after the game. If the players on the field - the only ones in danger of any type of injury - don't have a problem with it, then I don't see any reason I should.
The baseball blitzkrieg did get the attention of Reds play-by-play man Marty Brennaman though. (Honestly, I didn't know Thom Brennaman had a dad.) Brennaman blasted Cubs fans on the air, calling them - among other things - "far and away the most obnoxious fans in baseball in this league" and the reason "you want to see the Chicago Cubs team lose."
I don't know what Brennaman has against Chicago (maybe he's been hanging around Joe Buck a little too much), against the Cubs or its fans that would make him say something like that. It's not like the Cubs fans were throwing baseballs at Reds players - which would piss me off if I were an announcer. It's not like they had to stop the game for a ridiculously long amount of time to collect the projectiles. Nor was that particular moment in the game critical to the outcome of the game. Maybe Brennaman was expecting new manager Dusty Baker to resurrect the Reds from their 72-90 record, and getting beat 12-3 set him off. I don't know, but for some reason, though, he just doesn't like the way things happen at Wrigley.
But wait, there's more. Brennaman, for some reason, turned his filibuster into a direct attack against the Cubs as an organization. "I've said all winter, they talk about this team winning the division. They won't win it because they still are the Chicago Cubs and they will figure out a way to screw this whole thing up."
Now that I have a problem with. First off, believing the Cubs won't win the division because of our long-standing tradition of choking under the pressure is unfounded at best. Hello, were you watching last year when the Cubs won the division? Did we suddenly become more jinxed than last year that won't allow us to capture the NL Central? Or what about in 2003, when the Cubs advanced to the NLCS and lost to the Marlins in seven games? Sure, we didn't make it to the World Series, but winning the division wasn't really an issue. Brennaman let his deep hatred for our franchise smother what shreds of baseball intelligence he might have, which as an announcer, you simply can't do and retain any respectability from your peers or your listeners.
Second, it's obvious that Brennaman brought this subject up because he can't handle the reality that the Cubs are better than the Reds. The oldest franchise in baseball history, the Reds haven't sniffed the playoffs since they won the division in 1995. In that period, the Cubs have won two division crowns and the wildcard in 1998. This year, the Cubs will again be better than the Reds - that much is clear - and if Brennaman really thinks the Cubs are so bad, then his team being worse than the Cubs would certainly bother him. But if he wants to vent his insecurities as a member of the Reds organization, he should do it somewhere other than the airwaves where his words poison the minds of the clear-thinking people of Cincinnati.
But the worst part of this whole situation is what he said two days later on WMVP, Chicago's branch of ESPN Radio. After saying that he didn't regret "a damn thing," he backtracked, making the distinction between "the real Cubs fans" and the obnoxious ones he couldn't stop lecturing.
"The only qualifier I will offer is that to the true Cub fans I apologize to them because I know there are great fans in the town. … While you have tremendous Cub fans, you also have people who go with the intention on getting drunk and raising hell in that ballpark."
Being one of those "great fans" (at least I like to think I am), it is my duty to tell you to shut your mouth. First, you completely misrepresent an ultimately insignificant event, then you insult my team with nothing more than cheap one-liners and guile, and now I'm supposed to thank you for putting me on a higher level than "those other fans"? Yeah, you're a real hero, buddy.
Save it. Your reputation in this city is way beyond saving anyway.
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