Is It Spring Yet?

I am telling you what; I am starting to catch Cabin Fever. This cold weather and snow is starting to really get on my nerves. I am so ready for spring to be upon us that I can not see straight.

With spring comes the kickoff to baseball season, with Spring Training that is. It has been almost 5 long months since the 2004 season came to a close. I am really starting to miss it and am so ready for it to start up again.

This off-season hasn’t been necessarily as good as most Cubs fans would have hoped for. My Cubs did something that I never thought would happen and that is trade Sammy Sosa. That is right; they traded Sosa to the Baltimore Orioles. I cannot sit here and honestly say that I am disappointed because I’m not.

Granted, Sosa did a lot for the Cubs and the city of Chicago for the past thirteen years. Sammy had his good times in Chicago for most of those thirteen years, but that started changing.

He started to decline in the last few years, last year being the worst. His performance AND attitude were the worst that I had seen out of him. He started to think that the fans were booing him unjustly, which was not the case. He was being booed because he was not producing to help the team anymore. Not only that but he did not listen to anyone other than himself when it came to playing the game. He was making himself look foolish at the plate, swinging at pitchers that we six inches off the plate. The biggest problem with that and the reason it happened so often was because he refused to move closer to the plate. Everyone saw this but Sosa. Dusty Baker, Gary Matthews, and anyone else that was around him on a daily basis tried to tell him this and how he could fix it, but he refused to listen.

On the last day of the season, he didn’t dress for the game and left fifteen minutes after the start of the game without permission. This incident outraged Cubs players, management, and Cubs fans. Sammy was supposed to be the Captain of the team and was supposed to be a team player. A Captain and team player does NOT walk out on his team, no matter how bad the circumstances. His ego has gotten the better of him and has made him look like such an arrogant jerk.

I will always remember all the good times that Sammy had in a Cubs uniform and will be forever grateful to him for what he did. I thank him for all that and wish him the best in Baltimore. I will also always remember how it ended and that is something that I wish I could forget, but I know I won?t.

I think that with Sammy being gone that the Cubs will be better for it. The Cubs will finally be a team, something they could hardly be with him on the team.

The 2005 Cubs are going to have quite a different look to them this year. The Cubs will be playing without Sammy Sosa and Mosies Alou, who lead the team in Home Runs and RBIs last season. The Cubs signed Jeromy Burnitz to take Sosa?s spot in right. As it stands now, the Cubs have three choices to play left, those being Todd Hollandsworth, rookie Jason Dubois, and Jerry Hairston, who was acquired from the Orioles in the trade. I am not sure how this is going to play out and it kind of worries me. I am hoping that this new outfield works out and can produce on a consistent basis. I am sure that it cannot be any worse than last season. I hope that it does nothing but improve on last year.

There are a lot of question marks to the 2005 Cubs but I am hoping those will be taken care of in Spring Training before Opening Day. Only time will tell.

GO CUBS IN 2005!

Till next time

Jason