Cubs score big for the All-star game

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Your favorite Cub is in all likelihood going to represent the National League in the all-star game on July 15. Alfonso Soriano, Kosuke Fukudome, and Geovany Soto were all voted in by the fans as starters for the game. Ryan Dempster, Kerry Wood, and Aramis Ramirez were all selected by their fellow players, and Carlos Zambrano was tabbed by Rockies manager Clint Hurdle.

That's seven Cubs who will take part in the All-Star game. (I do think it's curious that Carlos Zambrano was not voted in by his fellow players. Perhaps they feel like his mound antics are too much.) Seven Cubs... that's nearly a third of the active roster. Pretty spectacular. The only Cubs that might have received consideration, but didn't make it were Derrek Lee and Carlos Marmol.

In other news, ticket sales are apparently doing quite well for the Ryne Sandberg Peoria Cubs game to be played at Wrigley Field on July 29th. I had reported earlier that the Cubs were only selling tickets for the bottom deck at Wrigley, but this week they announced that they were beginning to sell tickets in the upper deck. Consequently, you can now get in the gates of Wrigley Field for only $5.

Posted by Byron at 4:24 PM | Comments (0) | |

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Cubs and Budweiser renew their vows

Friday, July 4, 2008

The Cubs and Anheuser Busch have extended their marketing agreement through 2013. Very little has changed, except that A-B has purchased the naming rights to the Batter's Eye suite in centerfield. (No announcement has been made whether it will be the Bud-Lite batter's eye, the Budweiser batter's eye, or the Natty Ice corporate hangout.)

The five year extension will also apply to A-B's relationship with WGN radio.

The full announcement is available on Just-Drinks.com.

Alright, have a happy Fourth everyone!

Posted by Byron at 4:08 PM | Comments (0) | |

Pirates struggling to put butts in the seats

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

In other news, man bites dog.

Ron Cook of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writes a column bashing new Pirates President Frank Coonelly for being satisfied with progress outside of the win-column. At the end of the column, he points out that the Pirates 'progress' hasn't made it as far as the gate.

The paying customers know the truth even if Coonelly doesn't want to admit it publicly. July is a long way from April and Pirates attendance is way off from the same point last season, down more than 2,300 a game after 43 home dates. Despite the two sellouts against the Yankees, the team's average attendance of 18,528 ranks next-to-last in the big leagues. Only the Florida Marlins, playing in a lousy stadium, are drawing worse.

For Cubs fans, who are intimately familiar with the struggle just to land Cubs tickets, the situation can seem surreal. Imagine showing up on game day and having your choice of good seats or cheap seats, not just standing room only... but the impact to the franchise is even more devastating. Let's whip out our calculators.

Ticket Prices: Source – TMR FCI:
Pirates average ticket Price for 2008: $17.07 (2nd least expensive in MLB ahead of the Braves)
Cubs average ticket Price for 2008: $42.49 (2nd most expensive in MLB behind the Yankees)

Attendance: Source – ESPN:
Pirates average attendance per home game: 18,529
Cubs average attendance per home game: 40,462

Estimated ticket revenue per game:
Pirates: $316,290
Cubs: $1,719,230

That's an astounding difference of over $1.4 million per game, which adds up to $113.6 million over the course of a complete season... enough to pay the salaries of every single Cubs player making over $1 million this year, and still have enough to pay Adam LaRoche (the Pirates 4th highest paid player.) (2008 Cubs Payroll)

And there you have it, the price of losing Barry Bonds, the price of incompetent management compounded over nearly two decades, and the price of playing too many night games. (Yeah, I had to throw that last one in there.)

Posted by Byron at 2:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | |

Chicago Fire vs. San Jose Earthquakes, June 28, 2008

Sunday, June 29, 2008

"Who doesn't have a Yellow?" I asked, minutes before the end of the first half. That about sums up the semi-entertaining match I attended between the Chicago Fire and the expansion San Jose Earthquakes on Saturday night. The match ended in a nil-nil draw, and featured seven yellow cards, four to the Fire and three for the Quakes.

For the Fire, the match was another squandered opportunity to pick up three points in pursuit of the Supporters Shield. The offense, so potent in victories against the New York Red Bulls, New England Revolution, and D.C. United earlier this season, has disappeared once more. The Fire have now gone 333 minutes of league play without a goal, and have scored only once in the last four matches.

Coach Dennis Hamlett clearly attempted to address the recent struggles by starting Tomasz Frankowski and Andy Herron up top versus the Quakes. However, about ten minutes into the match, Andy Herron attempted a bicycle kick in the box and landed awkwardly, apparently losing consciousness. Stretchers were brought onto the field, but Herron walked off the pitch under his own power and even returned to the match for a few minutes before being substituted for Chad Barrett in the sixteenth minute.

Barrett played better than he did in his disastrous match against FC Dallas last week, but failed to find the back of the net, or get off any quality shots.

Chris Rolfe was substituted in for the ineffective Tomasz Frankowski in the 65th minute, but only manufactured one quality opportunity, which unfortunately did not make it onto the scoreboard.

Even though the offense was as disappointing as the last few matches, the defense was much improved. Gonzalo Segares returned from Costa Rican national team duty, and Wilman Conde is healthy again. Segares and Conde were joined on the backline by Bakary Soumare and Diego Gutierrez, who were both solid as usual. Combined, the back four effectively shut down the Quakes and thus Jon Busch was not required to make any show-stopping, jaw-dropping saves that are quickly becoming his trademark.

The midfield of Just Mapp, John Thorrington, Brandon Prideaux, and Cuauhtemoc Blanco were solid but not spectacular. Blanco seems to be showing some wear and often needs one more step than he has time for in order to deliver magnificently placed balls, and Justin Mapp contines to slow the momentum of the attack by dribbling too much.

With the tie, the Fire now have 20 points on the season and have fallen into a tie for fourth place in the Eastern conference table.

I've uploaded a bunch of photos from the game to the photo gallery. Click here for Fire vs. Earthquakes photos.

Posted by Byron at 5:46 PM | Comments (0) | |

Injuries piling up for Cubs

Thursday, June 26, 2008

As the Cubs roared through the early part of the schedule, amassing the best record in baseball, I've been smiling at our good fortune and relative health. However, with the injuries to Alfonso Soriano and Carlos Zambrano, the team is beginning to feel the effect of over one fourth of their payroll on the disabled list. (I would argue that yesterday's game would have been a victory if Zambrano had started.)

As an exercise, I compiled a list of the 2008 Cubs Payroll, (thanks to the USA Today Salary Database), assuming league minimum salaries for players not listed. I then recreated the active roster for each game of the 79 games the Cubs have played to date. (I used the Cubs official transactions log. What follows are two charts. The first shows the Cubs payroll amount on an annual basis for each game played for both the active roster (25 man) and the disabled list. The second chart is a pie chart showing the income allocated to the active roster, the disabled list, and the minor leagues where the minor league amount only represents those players who have seen active roster time at one point this year.

Yes, you can file this under elaborate explanations of things we already knew intuitively, but that's what I do here.

Cubs players currently on the disabled list: Carlos Zambrano ($16 mm), Alfonso Soriano ($14 mm), Reed Johnson ($1.3 mm), Angel Guzman ($401K).

Even with 26% of the payroll injured, we're nowhere near where we were in May 2004.

Posted by Byron at 8:00 AM | Comments (0) | |

Recycling the empties at Wrigley Field

Monday, June 23, 2008

Have you ever wondered what the Cubs do with all those empty beer cans after a game? Me neither... but I was waiting in line for day-of-game Cubs/Sox tickets yesterday and a truck from Bucktown Recycling pulled up to the gate. (The gate by the Harry Caray statue, I think Gate D.)

Anyhow, the Cubs were apparently expecting this truck as a few minutes after the driver parked it, they started carting out pallets full of empty beer cans. I counted four pallets just like the one being loaded onto the truck in this picture.

And now you know. (More about my Cubs/Sox adventures later this week. It was a good weekend for discovering some things around Wrigleyville.)

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Finally, I'd be remiss to mention that today is the 24th anniversary of the Ryne Sandberg Game. Here's some links for further reading:

• The greatest Ryne Sandberg fan page on the interwebs.

• A reflection on my first time seeing the Sandberg game. (hee, hee, hee :^) - I'm so juvenile.)

• The Ryne Sandberg Appreciation Day program (4 MB download).

Posted by Byron at 8:00 AM | Comments (0) | |

Cubs Sox coincidence, 10 years later

Friday, June 20, 2008

As the Cubs and Sox get underway this weekend, it's a bizarre coincidence that both managers from the 1998 showdown have recently found their first managerial jobs since the last time they were with their respective clubs.

Earlier this week, the Mets fired Willie Randolph and have replaced him on an interim basis with Jerry Manuel. Manuel has not been a Major League manager since the White Sox let him go in 2003.

In a freaky coincidence, former Cubs manager Jim Riggleman finds himself in the mirror reflection of Manuel once more. The Mariners fired Bill Bavasi on Monday and interim GM Lee Pelekoudas relieved manager John McLaren of his duties. Who replaced McLaren? Not former Cubs hitting coach Jeff Pentland, who was also fired, but Riggleman. Like Manuel, Riggleman hasn't managed in the majors since he was replaced by Don Baylor after a disappointing 1999 season.

Despite each receiving interim tags, neither former Chicago manager may be there long. In Seattle, they're apparently considering anyone who's been affiliated with Major League Baseball in the last two decades... including the Peoria Chiefs manager, Ryne Sandberg.

From the Seattle Times
One more intriguing wild-card name: Ryne Sandberg, Hall of Famer and pride of Spokane, now managing, and reportedly well, in the Midwest League with the Peoria Chiefs, a Cubs Class A team.

What do you think, should Ryno take the job in Seattle if it's offered to him? Would he?

Posted by Byron at 1:29 PM | Comments (2) | |