We give a lot of crap to Philly fans; getting after them for their willingness to boo McNabb, likely their own children, and Santa, or their affinity for battery tossing and other general assbaggery.  Most All of that is well deserved and it’s even good form to make fun of their 10,000 losses.  On Wednesday night, however, Philly fans came through with a resounding victory the way they know best: booing the hell out of something. 

Obviously, as a member of the Ernie Johnson fan club I wouldn’t applaud a berating of the best on air talent in the business.  This was aimed directly at TBS.  Despite the network being owned by Mr. Turner of Atlanta Braves allegiance, I’m going to go with the idea that the people of Philly were booing the atrocious coverage TBS has provided throughout the playoffs and for the NLCS. 

The MLB playoffs have drawn terrible ratings this year and while the product may not be what it once was, you can’t convince me that TBS didn’t hurt MLB’s cause.  No one is thinking of TBS when they’re looking for a game.  TBS is the home of countless My Name is Earl reruns once the Friends and Seinfeld (God bless em) marathons are over.

For all their shortcomings, I’ve really come around to the idea that every major sporting event should be covered by ESPN.  Sure, the hype train blows its whistle twice as loud when something is on ESPN/ABC–look at all the athletes on Dancing With the Stars!…next on SC, Brett Favre takes out garbage–but they put together the best broadcast by far. 

In no way should this be an endorsement of Joe Morgan calling baseball games, or talking.  Seriously though, die TBS and well done Philadelphia. 

h/t: Awful Announcing

Listen guys, I know you all hate Milton Bradley.  Even I have piled on from time to time.  The thing is, I believe there is enough blame to share for the whole team: Jim Hendry, the bullpen, Lou, injuries, Lee’s slow start, Soto’s sophomore slump, etc.  As a fan, you are entitled to be upset with the guy who just signed a $30 million contract and came in botching flyballs and hitting well below the Mendoza line for most of the first half of the season.

The problem, fellow Cubs fans, is two-fold.  The first is that Bradley is hitting now.  I mean hitting pretty well.  His on-base percentage has been among the elite of the National League all season, and now his power numbers are finally coming along.  In the 18 games he has played since the Cubs were in 1st place on July 31, his numbers have been some of the best on the team: G: 18 / HR: 3 / RBI: 9 / BA: .303 / OBP: .410 / SLG: .500 / OPS: .910. The second is these quotes the Tribune and Sun-Times bring us.  Let’s be honest: Paul Sullivan, Gordon Wittenmyer and Phil Rogers are not exactly the greatest sportswriters.  They are grubbing for quotes and cornering a tired, beaten down Bradley for quotes that will make him look bad night after night.  Could you deal with it?  I would lash out for sure, and in all reality Bradley hasn’t even done that.  He’s just answered honestly.

So if you want to boo Bradley when he screws up a play in the field or strikes out in an important late-inning situation, then by all means indulge.  But if you hate Bradley personally based on either his play on the field or his personality, relax.  He’s just a regular guy going to work everyday and being attacked from all sides.  Instead of hating, why not just enjoy the hilariousness of the quotes that the Cubs writers are able to cobble together from their interrogations of him.  Here’s a few recent ones:

On why he came to Chicago: “Ain’t nothing I’d rather do. If I could do anything, one, I might cure the lupus my aunt has; two, another aunt got both legs cut off because of diabetes; I might give her legs back. But No. 3 on the list would be win a championship in this city so that people can have what they deserve. The good people. The bad people can jump on the bandwagon when the time comes. But everything in my heart is to win a championship here. And I ain’t done yet.”

On racial taunts from Cubs fans: “America doesn’t believe in racism,” he said sarcastically before repeating the remark.

On being the victim of racial slurs from the bleachers: “All I’m saying is I just pray the game is nine innings, so I can be out there the least amount of time as possible and go home,” he said.

In reference to the Cubs losing 15-6 to the Nationals: “We got a Rodney King beatdown tonight.”

He does seem a little preoccupied with the racial issue, but who am I to say that he shouldn’t be?  It is the official stance of NQTC that there are most likely racist Cubs fans in the bleachers, and if I were in Bradley (or Jacque Jones) position, I’d be pissed off too.  So we can boo him when he under-performs (hell, I even made the case for booing him), but let’s not judge too harshly.  You know when you just have a terrible day all around, and then you come home and you forgot to DVR some show and that makes you fly off the handle and go crazy, but really it wasn’t the DVR thing but just everything that has happened all day?  That’s like the Cubs and Milton Bradley.  You can blame Bradley if you want, but that wasn’t really the central issue, was it?

• The May Cubs TOOTBLAN report is out.  While the Cubs are stealing at a better rate than April (12/15), there were still a ton of baserunning errors to account for. [WV23]
• Brian Cole of the Bulls has been awarded the Team Physician of the Year.  Really?  They didn’t seem to catch that minor Deng injury and didn’t Gooden seek a second opinion outside the organization? [By The Horns]
• Someone else weighs in on the booing debate.  And as most other people that have read about it, he thinks booing is acceptable in certain circumstances.  Obviously. [Zoner]
• The White Sox call up Gordon Beckham.  I don’t know anything about him beyond the fact that Sox fans think he’s the second coming.  I guess we’ll see. [Tribune]
• Joakim Noah is already back in the gym.  Love that kid. [Blogabull]

If you haven’t been reading this site lately, perhaps you missed the ongoing debate between myself and Another Cubs Blog regarding the appropriateness of booing.  Well Bleacher Nation took an interest in that story, and ran its own little story about whether fans should boo or not.  The blogger who initially personally attacked me on Another Cubs Blog decided to comment on Bleacher Nation’s story.  Here is the entire ridiculous scathing comment painting me personally as the reason baseball fans cannot take their families to games anymore:

That’s not true, Norman. Think about it. Do you honestly think the Cubs care if you pay for a ticket, buy drinks and merchandise and then boo? They’ll take your money every day and let you boo. They couldn’t care less since you’ve paid them money. They’re laughing all the way to the bank. The only real way to show your displeasure is not buy tickets, not purchase any merchandise and not watch the games. That would actually hurt the Cubs in a way they might care about. I can’t stand booing as you know, but if you want to pay me $50 to come into my place of employment and heckle me and and boo me every day, I’ll gladly take your money, and your abuse.

You want to boo someone who isn’t trying, fine. I don’t like it, but it’s at least understandable. The only problem is that we really can’t tell when someone is trying or not. If Soriano jogged after a fly ball we might think he’s not trying, but then we might find out he has a sore knee and has played through it for a month and rather than be subjected to abuse, we might praise the guy for playing through pain. Simply put, as a fan we have no way of knowing what is actually going on down on the field when it comes to effort. We don’t have enough information. What we do know is that MLB players bust their ass more than the average person and in more ways than the average person just to get there and to stay at that level. That we know for a fact. We know for a fact that they all bust their ass and in reality, work harder than any of us in perfecting their craft. What happens in an individual game we don’t know why it happened and unless we know why it happened it’s kind of silly to boo, don’t you think?

You may think you’re booing someone who isn’t trying, but as I already pointed out with Soriano, we didn’t know the whole story and despite not knowing it, he’s showed little sign of it. He’s busted his ass in ways that the average person simply could not do. and you know what? He’ll get repaid for that by fans booing the next time he fucks up.

What annoys me most of all about booing isn’t that it’s ridiculing or abusing the players. It’s that I have a reasonable expectation of going to the ballpark with my family and being able to enjoy the game. i don’t ask for much. I’m not asking for anything other than the people around me to consider that I may find that behavior atrocious. Unfortunately, I no longer have the reasonable expectation that will happen. I can now reasonably expect the fans around me to be complete assholes and not care at all about me. It’s selfish. It’s rude. It’s annoying. It’s childish. And a whole lot more. Most of all, I can no longer go to a game because people feel they must pay lots of money to a team and then show their displeasure in the way that has the least amount of impact.

You may feel as though I went too far as you said in your response, but it was you who went too far. It was you who disregarded how others feel about obnoxious behavior. It was you who then justified those childish actions. It was your selfish actions that makes me think two or three times about actually going to a game. It was your actions that have made me not attend a game in Chicago in 8 years (I go elsewhere to watch the Cubs because of you). It was you who told me flat out that you didn’t care if you ruined the experience for me and others around you. You’re like the person at the movies who keeps talking. you don’t care about the people around you. I didn’t feel as though I owed you an ounce of respect at that point. You’re the one who has to look in the mirror and justify childish, obnoxious and unruly behavior. You’re the one who said Fuck You to me.

I simply pointed out how much it irritated me that someone would have no disregard for others around them.

Ok let’s take this apart piece by piece:

Point 1: The only way for baseball fans to express displeasure is to not buy tickets or merchandise and stop following their team.

Really?  You’re telling me I have to either stop being a Cubs fan or pretend to be happy when a player I paid 100s of dollars to see dogs it on the field?

Point 2: We don’t really know if someone is trying or not or whether they are just hurt.

Fair enough, but we work with the knowledge we have and if Soriano doesn’t want to let on about an injury, then he needs to be man enough to withstand the criticism when it appears he isn’t putting forth full effort.

Point 3: Baseball players bust their asses more than the average person.

Ummm, what basis is there for that?  Baseball players are just people like the rest of us, they aren’t gods.  Just like in any other profession or in school, there are some people who are gifted and don’t put forth a ton of effort but get great results.  There are also others that bust their ass and have less natural talents but succeed anyways.  Why are baseball players different?

Point 4: The fact that I, Stormin Norman, personally boo at games is “childish…selfish” and that booing is a big “fuck you to me”.  This has prevented him from attending a baseball game in Chicago in 8 years.

Wow.  First of all, I do not approve of using foul language or saying horrible things to players.  Calling someone a bum or yelling at a player to run out a pop up is acceptable, but I never said anyone should have a right to use profanity or be inappropriate.  As Ace said in his post on Bleacher Nation, we should be able to express displeasure with a modicum of decorum.  If you are afraid to go to ballgames because people might boo, maybe you should consider not leaving your mom’s basement.  I’ve got news for you: people have a right to express displeasure in appropriate ways, and I think it’s pretty clear that booing at a ball game is not all that abhorrent according to our societal standards.

As a final note, I would like to point out once again that I rarely if ever boo anyone, so it isn’t actually me personally that is ruining your experience.  By the way, be careful if you leave your basement today, I heard it might rain, and we wouldn’t want God to disrespect you so horribly by making it rain on YOUR Saturday.

I know a lot of NQTC readers are loyal Cubs fans and read other Cubs blogs besides mine.  One such blog, Another Cubs Blog, has taken it upon themselves to dissect a post of mine and rip me personally for my views on booing professional baseball players.  If you haven’t read my post on that yet, here it is.  Essentially the main points in that post were that players are somewhat accountable to the fans of the teams they play on and expectations/contracts can play a role in that.

Well ACB took exception to that.  Besides calling me “pathetic” for expressing my feelings towards someone when they let me down, they also pointed out that players should not have accountability to the fans.  Here is the quote I like best:

So, baseball players are now accountable to the entire city in which they play?  Holy crap!  Seriously though, Milton Bradley isn’t an elected member of the Cubs.  He’s an employee of the Chicago Cubs.  Let’s take 2 people.  Person A makes $15 an hour.  Person B makes $10 an hour.  Is it then OK to treat Person A like shit because he makes more money than Person B?  I didn’t think so.  Money has nothing to do with this and accountability sure as hell has nothing to do with it.  At least not accountability to an entire city.  You’re a Cubs fan.  These guys are not accountable to you in any way, shape or form.

Okay let me put this in perspective for you guys over at ACB.  I spend 100s, probably 1000s of dollars on Cubs tickets, concessions, and merchandise each season.  Do you think Milton Bradley would be making that $10 million dollars a year if me and people like me weren’t shelling out so much cash on the Cubs?  And your example has a lot of holes in it.  Who exactly is treating your “Person A” like shit?  If I was a client and spent money at Person A’s company and he did a shitty job, yes you can be damn sure I would call him up and express my displeasure.

On another note, the irony in your little post is so thick I can cut it with a knife.  The whole point of your piece is that people do not have a right to rudely treat players like shit just because those people don’t think the job the players are doing is satisfactory, right?  And yet here you are rudely and personally attacking the views of a fellow Cubs blogger (and loyal reader of your site) just because you think the post he wrote is less than satisfactory in your opinion.  I have no problem disagreeing and taking a stand, but come on, this was a little over the top.

Just to clear the air on something, I do not personally boo very often.  In fact I didn’t even boo Rex Grossman, which 99% of Chicago seemed to do.  I do however, feel that loyal fans and paying customers have a right to express their displeasure with a product that they are paying exorbitant rates for.

Way to rip on someone else’s legitimate opinion and viewpoint that is shared by many intelligent sports fans by attacking them personally, man.  That was wicked cool.

So everyone is making a big deal out of Cubs fans booing Milton Bradley in the first 6 weeks of the season.  Some are looking to blame blogs, and some just think the booing is inappropriate.  Either way the question of whether Cubs fans are too quick to boo has arisen again.

Booing is not necessarily a bad thing, however.  Everyone’s gut reaction to it is that its insensitive and/or just plain rude.  The argument that always appeals to me is when someone says, “How would you like it if you were doing shitty at your job and 10s of 1000s of people gathered around your little cubicle and booed you?”  The problem with that is, at least at my job, I’m not being paid $30 million dollars to be accountable to the entire City.

Booing can be a reflection of an intelligent fan base.  Cubs fans get so much shit for being “too loyal” to the team, even when the team trots out miserable squads year after year.  Well just because we love baseball and are willing to watch a 65 win team all summer doesn’t mean we are idiots.  If someone deserves to be booed, then Cubs fans will boo them.

Which brings me back to Milton Bradley.  He knows what he signed up for.  He signed a gigantic multi-year deal and with those kinds of things come expectations.  As he even put it himself after last night’s home run:

”I didn’t come here to suck. I know I’ve sucked so far, but give me some love, you know what I’m saying? I am a Cub.”

I mean we love you as a Cub, but you’re going to need to start hitting and earn that contract.

So why was it not okay to boo Jacque Jones and okay to boo Milton?  Expectations.  Jacque Jones signed a 3-year $16 million dollar deal.  He had been the kind of guy that hit about .285 with 20 home runs a year before he signed that contract.  Not to say that isn’t a huge contract, but when he struggled in April by hitting around .230 Cubs fans mercilessly booed him.  It was 1 month and he wasn’t supposed to be an all-star.  Bradley’s contract is twice that and he has been even worse, hitting well below .200.

I guess my point is it’s ok to boo Bradley, but booing Jones wasn’t cool.  Unless I’m completely wrong and Cubs fans are just racist.