Burning Questions

Well, Greg Maddux just threw his first pitch and I’m sitting down to finally write something for the site here. Feels good. There’s stuff I should be doing, or at least could be, but at a certain point, enough is enough.



I’m going to start by posting answers to a series of questions KJM posed me last week. I sent him original answers with follow up questions, but it stopped there as he’s been as busy as I’ve been, so now I’m going back to flesh my answers out and then just post it as-is. Here goes.

FIRST TOPIC

What would you think if Mark Cuban bought the Cubs, aggressively signed a bunch of new free agent starters, outspent the Yankees and brought home a World Series that very same year, would that taint things?

Yes.

That's the short answer. I don't want to support a club that exploits the systemic problems of MLB. I would still follow the Cubs, but it would be bittersweet. A team is a team, and it would form an identity and personality, and it may be engaging, but in the back of my mind would be the notion that the wins were somehow less earned than they ought to be.

I understand free agency is a necessary part of the game now, but there has to be a balance between scouting and development, being loyal to the right kind of players and paying them enough to keep them for an entire long contract (if not career) -- call it an era? -- and then going after the right kind of free agents. First guys you can get to long-term contracts. Next, guys like Eric Karros, who understood what his role was and wanted to be there. Guys like Todd Walker, who took less money to come to the team, or stay with the team. That sort of a thing. Guys you can tell want to win, and win the right way -- as a part of something -- more than anything else.

Would your opinion of the Yankees/Red Sox or the Cubs change more?

My opinion of the Yankees / Red Sox wouldn't change at all. I'll never like them, and currently I also don't respect them in terms of team general management and development strategy. That could change, but I'll never like them.

My opinion of the Cubs would change, however.

There's always the distinction between "ideal Cubs" and "actual Cubs" because I recognize the Cubs organization is FAR from perfect, even though they do pretty well in managing that balance in my estimation.

SECOND TOPIC

Less filling or tastes great?

I drink MGD if I have to drink a widely distributed domestic. If it has to be one or the other, I take less filling. Now Old Style, that tastes great. Of course, so does Shiner Bock.

THIRD TOPIC

With some ado being made about Corey "9 games in a row with a stolen base" Patterson being hot, would you have still let him go over the promise of Juan Pierre?

Yes. I'm happy for Corey and believed he had it in him as late as anyone following the team, but I still think Juan Pierre is a better complement to the Cubs other lineup pieces (Lee, Ramirez, Barrett being the mainstays, and now maybe Jones, Cedeno and Murton for the next few seasons at least). CP still strikes out a lot, and is (and has never been, in my opinion) naturally disposed to batting leadoff. Why try to push him against his natural grain? A center fielder & leadoff hitter is exactly the right fit, even if Pierre has underperformed somewhat. (Of course, that's thinking abstractly, as in assuming normal performances from Lee & Ramirez.)

The Orioles batted CP 6th last night, I see, and batting him in the middle of the order is what I always thought the Cubs should try more consistently.

Would Patterson have been able to turn it around ever in Chicago or did he need the wake up call of being cast off and then benched in Baltimore to start caring again?

I'm going with the latter. Who's to say? But while Corey gets 100% of the blame for his slump, the media also gets a share, as do Cubs fans, and the Cubs coaches. Patterson and Hawkins will always stand in my mind as symbols of when the Chicago Cub fan mindset changed, and I suggest it’s a turn for the worse.

I still wonder what might have been if Corey hadn't blown out his knee in 2003... and in a bigger sense than just his career.

Is this resurgence temporary or will it have any semblance of staying power?

I haven't watched an Orioles game since April, so I'm not sure. [My former roommate who lives in Federal Hill, a few blocks from Camden Yards has] been high on him lately, though.

FOURTH TOPIC

How many licks to get to the center of a tootsie roll pop?

3. And I work with a lesbian who wore a t-shirt once that asked that very question. Very funny. On a side note, she tattooed the leg of the drummer for Limp Bizkit in Jacksonville before they ever made it big.

FIFTH TOPIC

Would you rather see a perfect game in person (by any pitcher of your choosing) or would you rather watch the Cubs win the World Series on television?

This is actually a tough question for me, even though I immediately answer World Series on Television. A Cubs World Series is a dream of mine, and so is a perfect game. Going back to the earlier question about a mercenary Cubs team winning a series, then I think I would take the perfect game, especially if I get to choose the pitcher. At that point it becomes about being able to tell the story, and in the perfect game I could say, "I was there."

Otherwise, if it was a Cubs team I had invested so much into and both liked and respected, I would pull for the World Series and watch it on TV. It's bigger than being about me at that point, and I can't selfishly say I'd rather have my story than wish for something so big as a Cubs World Series.

Would you rather see a perfect game in person (by any pitcher of your choosing) or would you wake up from a coma and find out the Cubs won the World Series like that Red Sox fan last year?

This one, perhaps contradicting what I just said, I'd go with the perfect game. The thrill of the moment bigger than ourselves is why I (we) invest all this time, and if I was in a coma that would be pointless. At that point, I would lean towards the selfish. But can you blame me? I mean, how can you condemn a man for selfishness if he was in a coma for so long? Isn't that like a free pass?

Of course, I’m already feeling guilty for sabotaging the Series for everyone else while I float along in my coma.

If you were in the actual ballpark, would you root for an opposing pitcher to finish off a perfect game against the Cubs after the 7th inning? 8th inning? Two outs in the 9th?

What's the score? Who's the opponent? Who's the pitcher? Is it a game before the All-Star Break? Are the Cubs good that year?

Actually, this borders on the fantasy baseball conundrum, where people want their fantasy players to do well against the Cubs.

I would pull for the Cubs, right up to the end, but then if the pitcher *did* pull it off, standing O. It's a tough one, weighing out being witness to history over pulling for your team.

Honestly, if the conditions were right -- a pitcher I liked, a team I didn't hate, a game early in the season, with a weak Cubs team already down a few runs -- I could see myself trying to turn off all of my rooting instincts and simply watching to see what happened.

I guess I can't really answer that fully until I was there and it was happening. In the meantime, I'm hoping to watch a Cub pitcher throw a perfect game, or a pitcher in a game where the Cubs aren't playing.

For that matter, even if it were a Cardinal or Yankee pitcher, if the Cubs weren’t involved I'd pull for the perfect game because as much as I hate them, that is an irrefutably noble accomplishment and to root against it on the grounds of the pitcher being a Cardinal or Yankee is something I couldn't do.

SIXTH TOPIC

Which is the better way to spend a summer, live music in Austin every night or 81 Cubs home games at Wrigley?

The question is loaded, of course, especially since Summer isn't the magical season in Austin like it is in Chicago. Maybe it'd be better to ask about spring in Austin or summer in Chicago. But since I get the gist, I'll take it on after that caveat.

First point, both baseball and music to me are just the vehicle to the higher plane, so to speak. Neither are the end in themselves. That's why it doesn't bother me that I invest so much time in a game that I don't play and stopped playing at a young age, or in an art which I don't participate in by playing an instrument. My outlet -- the place I find "the zone" as people call it -- is writing, and has been since I was 18. That’s when I started traveling, and when I had just finished a series of college courses that taught me how to write well, and the tumblers turned in my mind.

Even if I don't even end up recording the passage, when I watch baseball or listen to music, or when I travel or see a striking piece of art, occasionally a passage comes and takes me to another place. It’s like I’m listening or channeling something rather than creating it. And the experience of writing something like 30,000 words in 7 nights or so to nearly finish the first draft of "Just Drive South" last fall was about as powerful an experience as I've ever had.

So which is a better vehicle to transcendence, if I can use amplified terms?

I don't know. Some nights one, some nights the other.

Chicago in the summer, I would still argue, is perhaps the finest city-season in the world, at least among those I’ve had the pleasure to enjoy. The baseball, the music, the vibe of people on the streets, the life in the air, the festivals, the bars -- it's all wholly fantastic. Better than that, even. For those months during daylight savings and especially around the Solstice, any night has the potential to be as good as it possibly gets.

Austin, on the other hand, is perhaps the most fun city overall in which I've ever lived. Part of that is me and what I enjoy -- subjective -- and part of that is what it has to offer, both in climate and culture -- objective -- ... and of course there are the people. I can't think of any other city that could logistically pull off something like the South by Southwest Music Conference, for example. It just couldn't happen in a Chicago or a Manhattan or an L.A. or even a Dublin or a London or an Amsterdam. Not unless all the bars in Wrigleyville traded in their high-def plasmas for sound equipment and better speakers, and someone built about 6 full size hotels over on Broadway.

I can't be in both places at once, which is an obvious thing to say, but it means more than just what it means right now because what follows is that I have to choose. More appropriate, I get to choose; I'm fortunate in that respect to have a life with these kind of options. Good problems to have, no?

Austin is the right fit for now because it was new, and I needed an adventure (I estimated) in order to finish the writing projects I wanted to finish, and then embark down a different path than the one I was on. I felt the pull, and what it felt like (then) was now or never. So far, every step along the way has reinforced my belief that it was the right move. I can see myself living here for the rest of my life, to be honest. On the other hand, maybe wanderlust will return after law school and it'll be time to move on. Who knows?

For now, I'm more than just happy and content in Austin; I'm utterly thrilled to live here, and feel supremely blessed to have been able to accomplish what I have in the last year that I've lived here.

To return to the question: A better way to spend the summer? Chicago. Austin is a great second choice though, even in the summer. A better way to spend the year? For me, this past year in particular, Austin. No doubt about it in either case.

This is the kind of e-mail you get when you don't post regularly [to] A & I.

Fair enough. I'm posting it now, though. Meanwhile, the Cubs are down 5 to 3 and Fan Cam just went 3 for 11.