Is it just me or do the Chicago Cubs and the Boston Red Sox always have similar stories, situations, fan experiences and so on? Recently the Red Sox brought back Buckner for forgiveness from 1986 as he threw out the first pitch. He was welcomed by a standing ovation. When Lee Elia returns I wonder if it will be the same, and he will love Chicago fans. Were here for you know Elia! Is baseball trying to put on a good face now?
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=hruby/080409

I wasn’t living in Chicago when it happened, but I remember thinking it was more funny than anything else because it was so over the top. A friend of mine who worked in radio got me a copy of the full tirade and I remember playing it several times and just laughing. And honestly, Elia was basically just standing up for his players, which is the right thing for a manager to do….a little more diplomacy towards the ticket-buyers would’ve been good, of course, but honestly, I’d much rather hear some good honest ranting than the usual cliche-heavy media talk.

I actually used a quote from the 1983 monologue as my signature here, but I was so impressed with Elia’s recent comments that I’ve added them in.

...one year removed from Chicago at the time. I’ve been told there was a distinct impact.
I did not hear the actual rant until about 2 weeks later, when a friend in the Chicago media sent me a cassette.

Today, with 24-hr sports media and sports radio - this would have made a bigger impact. It was only a line of type in the West Coast papers. In 1983, ESPN wasn’t even available in the Chicago market - no CATV in the city, and most of the suburbs. The sports media beast hadn’t been created (Besides, the new ESPN was only a shadow of what it is now) And, of course—the incident would now have been posted on the Internets in split seconds. I wouldn’t have had to wait for a copy of the debacle.

It was a simpler time - and with the Cubs off to a (normally) horrible record, it blew over in a short period of time. I’d think had this happened now, Elia would have been fired immediately. As I write this, Elia’s on WGN’s noon news - he said that GM Dallas Green did threaten to fire him, had they not talked about the incident shortly after it happened. (At first, Elia didn’t want to meet with Green)

I would think most of the Cubs fans of the era, who lived in Chicago might say the same thing….

.. what the Cubs were back in those daze.

It makes me ill thinking about the stink of the Cubs franchise then.

As has been mentioned in other threads, the spirit of lovable losers haunted Clark and Addison all that time. The teams of 1980 – 1982 were three years running of train wrecks only Cub fans could stomach and man was it tough then being one. For a Cub fan to say that, you know it would have to be awful. And it was – I only was able to catch one Cub game live during that time in San Diego (7/29/80), one of three they were swept in .. and Lord, they were awwwwful, a collection not of has-beens, but never weres. It was a team that epitomized that absolutely pathetic state of ennui that the Cubs organization seemed to have lapsed into, filling a roster full of utility journey men, fresh faced kids who bloomed and faded overnight, veterans whose days were short and HOPING they could “turn things around.” Feh.

The Cubs Nation itself was radically different. The idealism and the pining for victory of course was never dimmed, but as I said, If you were a Cub fan then, you were a REAL fan. There’d been nothing remotely close to a winning season for almost five years since the brief toying with the NL pennant in the late 1970’s. Before then had been the awful gulf between then and 1969. If you were a Chicago Cubs fan during 1980-1983, it was out of a visceral romance inspired by dreams and barely nurtured by the teases of those years. It was like a wild chase of a blindly lovesick man hearing the voice of Angelina Jolie husky and sweet on the phone, all the while knowing she looked more like Roseanne Barr.

There was no pleasant memory of a Sandberg and a Grace and a Dawson on the bench, of a slugging Sosa, or a dream rotation with Prior, Maddox, Zambrano and Wood that made you ache to wonder at what could be .. These were the flashes of potential greatness that grew the Cubs Nation base with the new generations. Back then there was just absolute mediocrity beyond belief. But it was there. We saw it all.

I give Elia a pass on his tirade because the man really was, in the end, doing his job as a manager letting them know he stood behind them .. even if his profanity and insulting of working class Cub fans was pretty over the top. Man, imagine what you’d do if you had to scale the mountain that decades of bizarro Cubs baseball had vomited up in Chicago! Dallas Green, his old college buddy and boss, had not made things any easier for him in the drive to “Build A New Tradition,” and the man snapped. He’s sorry about it, we need to remember (and forget) the times, and leave it in the past.

Lee’s in town to raise money for a good cause. All of you fans back home need to go shake his hand, leave the “working Cub fan” buttons home, and donate freely.

May it never return.