"He Flipped Us And Got What He Deserved": A Royal Mugging In Chicago

The Polo Grounds: A Calm Review of Baseball ^ | 20 September 2002 | Jeff Kallman

[#3Fan]

The knife was apparently out in plain sight -- the article says they "loosened a pocket knife from one of the pair's belt loops." Belt loops are on the outside of your pants, not in your pocket.

How the hell do you know that's where it was when they arrived at the stadium. You're just a negative person that's looking for a reason to hate someone.

How did the guys at Candlestick know I had plastic knitting needles in my bag? They asked to look inside and then disallowed my bringing them in. That was way back in '84. They also checked your cooler, looked at the stuff you were bringing in to munch and would make sure you weren't sneaking in alcoholic beverages if you were toting in a jug of Kool-aid or lemonade in those days.

Do they do that at every stadium now. If a guy has a pocketknife hidden in his boot or the crotch in his pants, would stadium security find it?

[diamond6]

I agree that it shouldn't matter, but I also firmly believe that the hallucinatory effects of drug use appreciably increases the probability that a crime against persons will occur.

As an attorney, I can tell you that whether the alcohol/drugs made them do it or not is irrelevant as far as their intent to commit assault. If they knowingly used alcohol or drugs, then that intent is transferred to an intent to commit assault, should they use that as an excuse. Thugs are assumed to have considered the consequences of their actions the moment they consume, and are then held responsible for what they do thereafter.

[MozarkDawg]

But how to explain the four skeins of yarn?? (You see, sir, I need to make myself a sweater, and right now -- it's an evening in the middle of July). LOL!

I think they were probably just ticked off that I didn't intend to keep my eyes glued to the grass every second. (Man, watching them water the infield is just soooooo fascinating, doncha know!)

[MozarkDawg]

You're just a negative person that's looking for a reason to hate someone.

Huh? Okay, Kumbaya -- and good-bye.

[#3Fan]

Huh? Okay, Kumbaya -- and good-bye.

There's a difference between not being a peacenik and just outrighly assuming that no one has any morals or bravery. You see what you want to see. You're a negative person.

[BluesDuke]

I liked the ambience around Wrigley as well as inside the park. Even if I was a visiting Met fan (I was actually wearing a Brooklyn Dodger cap my first visit), the Cub fans were pretty friendly folk. Even if - well, they were Cub fans - they couldn't resist giving me an odd look and then, "Well, at least your usual team seems like they're playing." (This was at a Cubs-Astros game during a 1985 visit.) And you could quaff a couple of beers after the game in any number of sports bars surrounding the park and the worst that might happen might be, well, someone playing "I Gotta Get Drunk" on a jukebox...Great baseball town, Wrigleyville is...

[BluesDuke]

But how to explain the four skeins of yarn?? (You see, sir, I need to make myself a sweater, and right now -- it's an evening in the middle of July). LOL!

You ever heard of a windsock? *grin*

[#3Fan]

That's the good thing about having losing seasons most of the time, the shallow bandwagon jumpers aren't around to lower the enjoyment of a Wrigley visit. :^)

[BluesDuke]

Now, I wonder...just what would a managing school resemble, since arguing with umpires would have to be a course major at least?

Let's see...

Ump Jumping 101 - Proper techniques for jumping up and down bellowing and hawing. Instructor: Ralph Houk; teacher's assistant: Yogi Berra. (Houk, as a reserve catcher, once went into a tantrum so wild with a home plate ump that a photo angle made you think Houk had jumped so high the ump could have walked beneath him with an inch of headroom to spare.)

Cap Turning 101 - The correct and uniform way of turning your baseball cap around, leaving the bill behind your head and more room to get grille-to-grille with the judicial tyrant known as the umpire. Instructor: Tommy Lasorda.

Ice Tossing -201 - Angles, trajectories, and techniques for the proper and most efficient way of throwing ice at an offending ump. Instructor: Well, since Billy Martin can't be raised from the dead (and who'd want to, God rest his self-lacerated soul), we'll have to designate Reggie Jackson.

Base Throwing 201 - Height, thrust, angle, and all proper physics and flight formulae applied to the maximum effect of throwing bases for dramatic effect. Instructor: Lou Piniella; teacher's assistant in training: Rickey Henderson.

Smartass Remarking 301 - Perfect for the budding rhetorician in the dugout. Instructor: Well, since Casey Stengel can't be resurrected, either (and more is the pity!) - he who delivered such cracks as (to a second ump trying to horn in on his argument with a first ump) If I'm gonna get buggered, I don't want an amateur handling the Vaseline pot - maybe the man for the job is Whitey Herzog. (I have heard where he once barked at an ump, The wheel is turning but the gerbil has died!)

Kicking 401 - Anyone can just swing his foot. It takes a true artiste to kick when arguing with a brutalitarian umpire! Instructor: Ralph Houk; teacher's assistant: Leo Durocher's corpse. (Just the sight of him should be enough to make students get with the program.)

[BluesDuke]

I began to learn about chronic losing when, outside the Polo Grounds as a boy waiting to get into a Mets game, out popped Casey Stengel himself, in full uniform, hectoring the customers: Come an' see my amazin' Mets! I been in this game a hundred years but I see new ways to lose I didn't know were invented yet.

Early 80s tow-plane sign flown over the Meadowlands, anguishing over protracted New York Giants futility: FIFTEEN YEARS OF LOUSY FOOTBALL - WE'VE HAD ENOUGH!

Opening day banner at Shea Stadium the following baseball season, during a long top of the first: FIFTEEN MINUTES OF LOUSY BASEBALL - WE'VE HAD ENOUGH!

Of all the words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: Wait 'till next year. For us Cub fans, the saddest words are: "This year is next year!" - George F. Will, "The Chicago Cubs - Overdue."

[Illbay]

...whether the alcohol/drugs made them do it or not is irrelevant as far as their intent to commit assault.

It's hardly "irrelevant" to the victim, who'd likely not be a victim if the substance abuse hadn't occurred.

It isn't that these people aren't jerks to begin with, but they are eager to demonstrate it while under the influence.

[#3Fan]

It's the same thing every year. Summer comes causing the air to thin causing too many homers in the already small park causing the pitchers to lose confidence causing the yearly second half swoon. We need to make Waveland a two lane instead of a four lane, move the brick wall out and we might win two or three World Series over the next century. Maddux may have stuck around if he hadn't been afraid of the walls.

[andysandmikesmom]

Blues you sure do have a way with words...love your scenario for the school...and for those who dont like your writing, then they can just go on to some other thread...for the rest of us, we love your writings....you absolute passion and love for the game of baseball, always does show through....write on, never mind about the grumpers...

And yes, those were the saddest of words, coming from us Cubs fans....'Just wait till next year', always said by us, always said, each and every year...

I grew up during the time of Ernie Banks being with the Cubs...we would have the old black and white TV fired up, and me and my brother would be lying on the front room floor, watching the game....my brother just loved the Cubs, and when they won, which was not as often as we wished, he was just ecstatic...but when they lost, more often than not, my brother would become livid, run to his bedroom, slam the door, and not come out for the rest of the day...mom could barely drag him out for dinner....he was just so mad when they lost...

We loved going to Wrigley Field for a ball game...loved the antics of the Bleacher Bums, just loved everything about it...

When my older boy was in the hospital, being treated for leukemia, we had by that time moved away from Chicago, and were living south of Seattle...But while my son was in army hospital on Ft. Lewis, one of his docs was from Chicago...he and my son got into some long arguments and discussions about baseball teams...my son, altho born in Chicago, left there at age 8, and by the time we arrived in Seattle area via 5yrs in North Carolina, his allegiance was to the Mariners...

So this doc, an army doc, who was from Chicago, would sit with my son who was at the time 14, and they would have big old baseball discussions....one day, this doc came in, with a present for my son....when he opened it, it was this docs official Cubs baseball cap, that he had when he was a kid...and he wanted my son to have it, and whats more insisted he wear it(my son was bald from chemo, so he began collecting hats to wear)...this doc had actually called his dad and told him to send that hat to him out here in Washington, so he could give it to his favorite very ill pediatric patient...well my son was so touched, that he wore that hat, even tho the Cubs were not his favorite team...

We had at first refused to accept the hat, as it was this docs childhood souvenir, but he insisted vehemently that my son keep it and wear it...

My son did not survive...but we kept all of his momentos, among them, this Cubs hat....whenever we sometimes go through his box of momentos, that Cubs hat always is there, reminding us of the great kindness that this doc showed my son, and making us smile, at the remembrance of my son and this doc, involved in their 'baseball' arguments...

[BluesDuke]

Maddux may have stuck around if he hadn't been afraid of the walls.

Maddux wasn't exactly afraid of the Wrigley walls. What he was afraid of was front-office boneheadedness. Here is Greg Maddux in his five prime Cub seasons:

Pitching   Glossary

 Year Ag Tm  Lg  W   L   G   GS  CG SHO SV   IP     H   ER   HR  BB   SO   ERA *lgERAa *ERA+
+--------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+------+----+----+---+----+----+-----+-----+----+
 1988 22 CHC NL  18   8  34  34   9   3  0  249.0  230   88  13   81  140  3.18  3.63  114
 1989 23 CHC NL  19  12  35  35   7   1  0  238.3  222   78  13   82  135  2.95  3.78  128
 1990 24 CHC NL  15  15  35  35   8   2  0  237.0  242   91  11   71  144  3.46  4.10  119
 1991 25 CHC NL  15  11  37  37   7   2  0  263.0  232   98  18   66  198  3.35  3.87  115
 1992 26 CHC NL  20  11  35  35   9   4  0  268.0  201   65   7   70  199  2.18  3.61  166

Maddux in his five prime Cub seasons was 87-57 with a 3.02 earned run average (0.77 below his league's ERA) - that's excellent in a no-questions-asked hitter's park. (Think about it this way: he moved to a park which was at least as favourable to hitters, especially power hitters, as Wrigley Field - they didn't call old Fulton County Stadium the Launching Pad because it used to be the site of an intercontinental ballistic missile base.) He also helped himself with that very solid strikeouts-to-walks ratio and by being one of the no-questions-asked best fielding pitchers of the period (his range factor is practically double the league's range factor for his position).

According to Peter Golenbock's book Wrigleyville: A Magical History Tour of the Chicago Cubs, it was the Cub management's mishandling of contract negotiations with Maddux for 1993 and beyond that drove Maddux - who was looking for a raise but even that was less money than the Braves were offering him - including their apparent failure to return his agent's phone calls, that killed their chance to resign a better pitcher than any the Cubs have had since.

Fascinating Prospect To Ponder: Maddux becomes a free agent after this season. So does Tom Glavine. Now - will the Braves nail down their two best pitchers, two certain Hall of Famers, both of whom probably have at least three or four more very good seasons left in their arms, and make sure they retire and go to the Hall as Braves...or, will some other club in need of tight pitching come romancing one of the two in the event the Braves decide that resigning both of them will push them too far into luxury taxville? And this could prove an interesting pickle. Consider, for one, the Boston Red Sox. They need another topline pitcher. They have Pedro Martinez and Derek Lowe, but unlike the Arizona Schillingjohnsons they don't have quite enough to pick up the slack when those two aren't pitching. Who would the Red Sox pluck - Glavine, the hometown kid (he's a New England boy, grew up rooting for the Sox); or, Maddux, the righthander who may be a better pitching fit for beloved idiosyncratic Fenway?

[BluesDuke]

That doctor exemplied what the real meaning of being a baseball fan is. Your son was so lucky to have him. So was your family. :)

[jackbill]

"He Flipped Us And Got What He Deserved"

And the coach is back coaching and you are going to be looking at the game through bars. And your demented son is going to meet up with Bubba. Have a nice day.

[BluesDuke]

We need to make Waveland a two lane instead of a four lane, move the brick wall out and we might win two or three World Series over the next century.

Actually, I think what Wrigleyville needs more is pitchers who know how to throw ground balls. The Cubs since the park opened have actually won five pennants and two division titles in Wrigley. It isn't exactly impossible to succeed there.

[#3Fan]

I don't know why Maddux left, all I know is the field needs to be bigger if they want to win. I'm a Nascar and Bears fan mostly. I watch the Cubs every year until they're out of it, which is usually before the all-star break, so I don't know much about the other players.

[#3Fan]

There were some years that they were the highest paid team but finished last. It's the same pattern every year, they do well until the all-star break, then too many of the pitchers have no confidence left. Like Kile when he was in Colorado.