Kudos to Piniella
AURORA — A tip of the cap to Lou Piniella for getting the Cubs into the NL playoffs. He took an improved, but still flawed ballclub further than it deserved. In the process he made Cubs critics, including yours truly, eat crow.
Where do Piniella and the Cubs go from here? This ballclub needs a “go-to guy,” someone who can carry the team and lead by example. While you’d like that guy to be Derrek Lee, Aramis Ramirez or Alfonso Soriano, this threesome hasn’t shown they’re capable of doing it.
On the mound, the Cubs still need a real No. 1 starter. Carlos Zambrano has yet to show he can shoulder that load, and Ted Lilly, Jason Marquis and the rest of the starters remain iffy in clutch situations. Somewhere in the bullpen there’s a dominant closer. Perhaps it’s Kerry Wood or Carlos Marmol.
— Dean Dranias
Otherwise, everything is OK
NAPLES, Fla. — The blame for the Cubs’ underachievement this year belongs primarily to Jim Hendry, for signing so many mediocre veterans, and to Hendry, Lou Piniella and the coaches for not requiring the players to play fundamental baseball. No other team is so bad at the basics.
The pitchers don’t hold runners on, issue too many walks and can’t bunt. The outfielders can’t hit the cut-off man and can’t play the caroms off the wall, and one can’t even find the wall when backing up for fly balls.
The hitters won’t or can’t work the count, won’t bunt, routinely pull outside pitches into easy double plays, don’t hit to the opposite field, don’t steal, can’t hit-and-run, don’t advance the runner, can’t hit sacrifice flies, can’t lay off the outside curve and fall asleep on the bases.
Worse still, the Cubs are stuck with these players for years because of long-term contracts. Yet none of this is new. I have been a Cubs fan for more than 50 years, and they have never in my memory played solid fundamental baseball. I have learned to expect disappointment by necessity, but my patience has run out. Being a Cubs fan is really just a waste of time.
— Robert T. Johnson
Piniella was wrong, period
SKOKIE — I thoroughly disagree with Tribune writers who defended Lou Piniella’s decision to pull Carlos Zambrano after six innings of Game 1 of the Division Series against Arizona, in accordance with Piniella’s plan to save Zambrano for the fourth game.
Piniella’s plan was wrong for several reasons. In a five-game series, you first win the game you are playing, especially a first game. Zambrano was pitching exceptionally well and had an excellent chance to win the game. If the Cubs won the first game and lost the second game, they would have two games at home with an excellent chance of closing out the series at home.
Pulling Zambrano when he was doing well had a demoralizing effect on the team and put additional pressure on the other eight players, regardless of who replaced Zambrano.
— Charles Bloom
Scribe should check stats
PALATINE — Please give Cubs beat reporter Paul Sullivan some badly needed time off. If he still thinks the Zambrano-for-Marmol switch in Game 1 of the division series should be the main focus of the analysis of the Cubs’ playoff swoon, he definitely has been on the front lines too long.
Paul, check the Cubs’ playoff batting averages and lack of clutch hitting, then tell me how meaningful it was pulling Zambrano after six innings of Game 1.
— Danny Kramer
Cub fans look into the mirror
CAVE CREEK, Ariz. — As a resident of the Phoenix area, it would be tempting to take a shot at Lou Piniella by saying that Carlos Zambrano will now be sufficiently rested for his next game, but I’m sure the second-guessers in Chicago will take care of that for me. What I’d like to say is shame on the so-called fabulous Cubs fans who booed their team off the field when Arizona’s Jeff Salazar squeezed the last out of the division series.
Your Cubs won the division by coming through strong to catch Milwaukee. The best hitters make outs. The best pitchers give up hits and runs. The best fielders make errors. You can’t win every game or series. Be glad you had a playoff. Your history isn’t all that good, you know.
— Lou Lagrave
You’ve gotta have heart
GLEN ELLYN — The Cubs had a chance to end “the curse” and nearly 100 years of frustration and blew it. Now, thanks to Jim Hendry, they’re stuck with a team of overpaid underachievers for years. Too bad “heart” is so difficult to evaluate.
— Frank Roty
Don’t criticize marathon
MALVERN, Pa. — I ran in the La Salle Bank Chicago Marathon — my 30th marathon, on Chicago’s 30th anniversary — and I’m getting very tired of all the complaining about the way Chicago race officials handled it. Every participant who started that race did so by their own choosing — no one twisted their arm. Every participant knew what the general weather forecast was. It was made very clear at the expo, on the news, and sent to us by the marathon committee in a “heat advisory” e-mail. No one was forced to run — 10,000 made the decision not to.
I decided to run. I knew that if I was going to survive and finish I was going to have to adjust and go out very, very easy, which is what I did. I purposely ran at a pace of almost a minute and a half slower than I normally run a marathon. I finished.
I thought this was just common sense, that people who have trained so intensely for so many months should be in tune with their bodies enough to know that if they are determined to run regardless of conditions, at least know in what conditions to take it easy. Marathon running is an outdoor sport. The weather is out of everyone’s control, including the race committee.
This was my fifth Chicago Marathon. It is one of the most organized, well-run marathons in the world. I am one runner who commends and thanks Executive Race Director Carey Pinkowski, his race committee and all the volunteers for a job well done in brutal conditions.
— Johanna Hantel
There’s a catch to this run
CHICAGO — The only time people should run 26 miles is if they’re involved in a prison break.
— Jim O’Neill
Not true voice of Iowa fans
NORTHBROOK — Teddy Greenstein’s story on the fading Iowa football team (Tribune, Oct. 10) is interesting. His choice of a source for Iowa fans’ feeling toward coach Kirk Ferentz is, at best, questionable. Marty Tirrell is indeed a talk show host on Des Moines radio station KXNO, a station that has been awarded one star out of five by viewers reporting on the Internet. Tirrell is known as “The Mouth of the Midwest” and that isn’t complimentary.
I have been an Iowa season ticket-holder for 25 years and I think I have a good ear for what the fans think. As I sit in the stands I hear the usual second-guessing that Iowa should have passed or should have run.
This is just confirmation that it is easier to coach from 50 yards away with little knowledge of the opposition. I can count on one finger the times I have heard suggestions that Ferentz should leave. He is admired for many things, not the least of which is the way he runs his program.
— Mike McMichael
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