Wince some, lose some
Cubs' 'W' campaign can't stop 'L' of an outcome
Published April 9, 2007
I'm all about winning now. You know how I know this? Because there's a big "W" printed on my Wrigley Field media parking sticker, that's how.
And I'm not the only one who has been shown the light. Tickets to the off-season Cubs Convention had big W's on them too. Vendors at Wrigley wore blue W buttons for the home opener Monday. And there's a huge framed W on a wall inside the Cubs' clubhouse as a reminder that wins are the important thing.
"We're going to play to win," manager Lou Piniella said Monday morning, clearly in the spirit of things.
The W campaign plays off the W flag that is raised above the center-field scoreboard after each Cubs victory. It was a profoundly lonely flag last season.
But things are different now, more upbeat. It's going to be hard to say bad things about the Cubs this season even if we wanted to, what with that W reminding us to stay positive and all.
But something dark made me ask Cubs reliever Bob Howry whether he had noticed any of the booing after he had given up a two-run eighth-inning home run to the Astros' Adam Everett on Monday.
"No, I couldn't hear the 30,000 people that were booing me," he said.
I'm pretty sure I detected some sarcasm there, but I had it coming. That homer ended up giving the Astros a 5-3 victory and mailing the Cubs a different letter: L.
Someone asked Piniella afterward what the worst part of the loss was, and he said, "The loss." Probing-question-wise, we in the media are not in midseason form yet.
Tribune Co. really, really wants to win the World Series this year because if it doesn't and the Cubs win next year under new ownership, there will be Hades to pay, in perpetuity. In the past, you didn't have to be WGN-TV meteorologist Tom Skilling to know it would be a cold day in hell before the Cubs won a championship, though you did have to be Skilling to know the barometric pressure there and understand his accompanying isobaric chart.
But that was the past, and this is the present. Anyone who even accidentally sees one of those W's can't help but have the "Cubbie swagger" that Piniella likes to talk about.
Mine is more of a strut than a swagger.
"Cub fan?" someone said to me as I walk in front of Wrigley Field.
"No," I said, "but I do have a W on my windshield."
It certainly was a cold day at Wrigley on Monday for the Cubs' home debut, 40 degrees at the time of the first pitch. A few snowflakes fell. The outfield might have been permafrost.
Center fielder Alfonso Soriano led off the Cubs' half of the first inning with a bloop single, completely disregarding Piniella's recent pronouncement on Latin Americans and weather. The other day, Piniella tried to explain Soriano's .214 batting average.
"You have to remember that he's from the Dominican Republic, where it's warm," Piniella said. "And a lot of those Latin kids ... they start swinging a little better when it warms up a little."
You might recall that former manager Dusty Baker took heat a few years ago for making similar statements. Baker and Piniella both should know that very few people do well in the cold. If it were otherwise, there'd be a few Starbucks franchises on the Arctic Circle.
But let's not dwell on that because this is a new day, and anything that gets in the way of the W's is superfluous.
"Look, we're going to do everything we can as a team to bring a world championship to this city," Piniella said. "That's our goal."
I have to warn you, Lou. If the Cubs were to go on a terrible losing streak (which won't happen!), just know that White Sox fans will have T-shirts printed with large L's on them.
With the bases loaded in the seventh, Cubs reliever Michael Wuertz got Carlos Lee to ground out to end the inning. The Astros' lead stayed at 3-2. The Cubs tied the game in the bottom half of the inning, thanks to hustle and guile by Soriano.
Then came Howry's struggles.
At least Ted Lilly pitched well for the second outing in a row. See? I'm on board. One letter, my friends: W.
And that stuff I wrote about Wrigley being a dump? Temporary insanity.
Bears coach Lovie Smith was on hand for the ceremonial first pitch Monday and said, "Kerry is our starting pitcher." OK, no he didn't. Please forgive me. That's negative talk about the Bears and the Cubs in one sentence. Completely uncalled for.
This is going to take some work.
rmorrissey@tribune.com
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