Cub Tracks gets exercised

Maybe I’m bats, but daily I lose what respect I had for the thieves, embezzlers, boondogglers, ambulance chasers, and assorted miscreants that run professional baseball. And there hasn’t been much for a very long time...

I once had the opportunity to speak at some length with Bill Veeck, after he gave a lecture at the Community House in west suburban Hinsdale. I was maybe 15 or 16 years old — I’m too lazy to look up the exact date but I only lived there for a year and a half so it has to fall in that period.

You may feel free to imagine the kind of things Veeck would say, even to an audience of high-schoolers and assorted faculty. And afterward they threw down a feed, and the luck of the draw meant that I sat catercorner from Bill, and he explained some of the things he knew over plates of runny lasagna and honeymoon salad, to those of us at his end of the table, in his inimitable fashion.

Bill didn’t fit in, even then. His peer was Charles O. Finley, and that was basically all she wrote when those two gentleman left the game.

It isn’t that Veeck (or Finley) didn’t like money, but for him it was a tool that enabled him to do what he wanted, and what he wanted was to win games and entertain people, ideally simultaneously. And buy cigars. (Finley wanted more money but he wanted fun, too.)

To say that such isn’t the endgame current sporting people pursue would be to soft-pedal the truth. However, I fell off that bike onto the floor, which enabled me to see that the treadmill has become an escalator, running in reverse.

Thank you Rob (the poor) Manfred and company for allowing the likes of A. J. Hinch and Tony La Russa back into the managing game, and for the fabulous possibilities that Steve Cohen offers, and for the queasy feeling I experience when I watch my favorite team perform.

I’d rather have orange baseballs and midgets and bat-flips to the moon. Your mileage may vary. We now take you back to your regularly-scheduled programming.

Here at Cub Tracks News and Notes, we are closing in on our eighth anniversary overall. As always, * means autoplay on, or annoying ads, or both (directions to remove for Firefox and Chrome). {$} means paywall. {$} means limited views. Italics are often used on this page as sarcasm font. (In the comments section, use @ before and after your remarks @ to produce sarcasm font.)

“We’ve had conversations about coming back and being a part of this organization,” Lester said on MLB Network Radio. “We haven’t had any contract talks, but the feeling is mutual on both sides that we want to get something done.

• Brett Taylor (Bleacher Nation*): The 2020 in-person MLB Winter Meetings … have been cancelled. “Instead, the December 6 to 10 Winter Meetings might just become a virtual affair ... “ Evan Drellich {$} elaborates.
• Evan Altman (Cubs Insider*): Sinclair reportedly considering restructure to escape crippling debt from RSNs. “Marquee, other Sports Channels called broadcast giant’s ‘Achilles Heel’.”
• Brett Taylor (Bleacher Nation*): Cubs SVP Jason McLeod interviewed for Angels GM Gig. “ESPN reports that McLeod is among seven candidates for the job.” Evan Altman also tackles this.
• WGN-9: Cubs’ Jon Lester will buy 1st round of beer at 4 Chicago bars this weekend. “Just tell em to put it on #JonsTab,” Lester tweeted.
• Tony Andracki (Marquee Sports Network*): State of the Cubs: Starting rotation. “The rotation might be the No. 1 item on the Cubs’ offseason priority list.”
• Maddie Lee (NBC Sports Chicago*): Film study: Framing raised Willson Contreras into Gold Glove contention. “That’s why I put (in) 120 percent during the offseason working on my framing,” Contreras said in August, “because I knew that I had to get better at it.”
• Mark Gonzales (Chicago Tribune* {$}): Chicago Cubs shortstop Javier Baez wins his 4th Fielding Bible Award, receiving recognition for his play at shortstop. “Baez was the only Chicago player to receive a Fielding Bible Award.”
• Evan Altman (Cubs Insider*): Report: Tommy La Stella appears to be on Cubs’ radar. “This is going to be a really wild offseason...” Gordon Wittenmyer dreams of free agents and (with Tim Stebbins and Maddie Lee) makes bold offseason predictions.
• Jordan Bastian (MLB.com*): Which Cubs’ options will get exercised? “As soon as the Dodgers hoisted the World Series trophy earlier this week, baseball’s offseason clock began to tick.” As featured on the front page.
• Jim Callis (MLB.com*): Cubs instructional league prospect report. “ ... position-by-position reports from instructional league camps ...”
• Cubs birthdays: Dee Fondy, Fred McGriff, Steve Trachsel, Alex Hinshaw, Tony Kemp.

Food for Thought: