Cub Tracks nihil est

Yes. The 2020 baseball season is finis (I’ve been saying so for quite a while). If we have MLB baseball this year, I’ll eat Dep’s hat. Holy gamethread word, Batman! Talk about your moral turpentine! Don’t touch that remote!

Sad times, Cubs fans. Baseball is eating itself. And we get to watch. No simGame Monday, so we’ll move on. Nobody is less interested in my opinions than I am.

There is a game today, with Noah Syndergaard due to face Ryan Yarbrough at beautiful simWrigley Field. Al will have more about the game in the game post at 2:30 p.m. CT, and then I’ll post the actual url to the stream at 3 p.m. CT. Or you can catch the game at the BCB Media Center and also catch past games and game videos, if you want the full #simCubs experience.

And now, here’s Cub Tracks News and Notes, the only links column that really matters. 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 here as sarcasm font.

“As a sport, baseball is lagging behind, specifically the NBA and how they’ve grown their game at an exponential rate,” Ian Happ said. “For baseball, there’s a little bit of an old school mentality, but we can do a better job of marketing our game and getting players in front of fans and making those connections.”

• Tim Stebbins (NBC Sports Chicago*): Cubs’ Willson Contreras, Yu Darvish blast Rob Manfred’s statement: ‘What a JOKE’. “Cubs players are using their social media platforms to blast MLB commissioner Rob Manfred.”

• Jack Baer (Yahoo Sports*): The Cardinals have welcomed back Mark McGwire, will the Cubs ever do the same with Sammy Sosa? “... Sosa implied that a change in ownership was more likely to end his exile than what Ricketts wants.”
• Molly Walker (NY Post*): Turk Wendell eviscerates Sammy Sosa: ‘One of the worst teammates ever’. “It’s sad because he was talented,” Wendell said.
• Phil Rosenthal (Chicago Tribune* {$}): ESPN’s ‘Long Gone Summer’ lacks ratings juice with Chicago viewers. “Sunday’s first-run of the “30 for 30” documentary averaged approximately a 1.8 household rating in the Chicago area running simultaneously on both ESPN and ESPN2, according to Nielsen estimates.”
• Scott Powers (The Athletic {$}): Powers: I was a Wrigley Field usher during the summer of Sosa. “That was probably my favorite time ever as a Cubs fan.”
• Jordan Bastian (MLB.com*): New Cub Ed Howard: ‘I’ll definitely be a role model’. “That’s definitely something I’m big on,” Howard said.
• Mark Gonzales (Chicago Tribune* {$}): Burl Carraway put in the work to earn his bachelor’s degree in 3 years. Now, the lefty reliever hopes to take the fast track to the Chicago Cubs bullpen. “I figured I’d spend my fourth year working on my master’s,” said Carraway.

• Sahadev Sharma and Patrick Mooney (The Athletic {$}): What did we learn from the Cubs’ draft? Jordan Nwogu is one of a few upside bets. “It is easy to forget during the COVID-19 shutdown, but baseball is still a place for big dreams.”
• Brett Taylor (Bleacher Nation): Cubs signing two more undrafted free agents: OF Jacob Wetzel, RHP Bailey Reed. “... the Chicago Cubs have signed at least nine undrafted free agents so far since things opened up yesterday...”
• Moshe Wilensky (Cubs Insider*): MLB owners should subsidize 2020 baseball season as public service. “Owners claim that without ticket sales and concessions they will lose about $640,000 each game. In a strictly technical sense, they are correct. On a deeper financial level, they are (as usual) full of #$%@.”
• Steve Greenberg (Chicago Sun-Times* {$}): Baseball has seen 2020’s bet and raised it with an offensive, ridiculous clown act. “At a time when so many would appreciate being able to turn to baseball, when it actually could be quite like a “national pastime,” it instead is daring us — all but begging us — to never give a rat’s tail about it again.”
• Paul Sullivan (Chicago Tribune* {$}): Let’s just get this illegitimate baseball season going already. “... it really doesn’t matter if MLB has the final say on when to start the season, making the negotiations a farce.”
• Evan Altman (Cubs Insider*): Report: MLB allows Teams to resume scouting activities. “ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel ... reported Monday that MLB will allow as many as three scouts per club at any amateur event.”
• Pat Evans (front office sports): Blue Wire hopes to amplify baseball’s voices, starting with Cubs’ Happ. “There are no baseball voices; Ian is willing to step on this content creator stage and show personality,” Blue Wire CEO Kevin Jones said.
• CBS Sports*: Former Cub and current Professor Doug Glanville says it’s important athletes don’t just stick to sports. “I feel like it is mythology (that athletes) have to “stick to sports”, when athletes talk, people listen.”
• Cubs birthdays: Pete O’Brien, Jack Rowan, Fritz Mollwitz, Ken Johnson, Joe Decker, Calvin Schiraldi, Jose Nieves, Kerry Wood.

Food for thought:

Thanks for reading.