Sunshine Day

It’s clear that Scott Boras is an Ivy Chat reader. He’s trying very hard to play down the conventional wisdom of December 28th that said the Cubs are no longer pursuing Carlos Beltran. In an article in today’s Trib, Boras talks about how the Cubs "fly below the radar". This is another way of suggesting that option #2 (the Cubs are sitting by the side trying to keep Beltran's price down) is the real game that Jim Hendry is playing.

What’s scary is that Boras is the voice of reason.

"I don't know why people are writing the Cubs aren't in it because they have to trade Sammy Sosa first," Scott Boras said. "We're only talking about one more year [on Sosa's contract]. Who in their right mind would think you could not accommodate signing Carlos Beltran because of that?"

Exactly.

I still don’t believe that Beltran is coming here because the Cubs aren’t talking about him. However, a ray of hope is buried in the article. Hendry is quoted as saying the Cubs remain "interested" in Beltran. I don’t count this as a typical leak yet, but it does allow a tiny bit if light in through a door that seemed to be shut tight just two days ago.

Eddie Munstergate

Also in the Trib today is some info on Jay Mariotti’s departure from WMVP. I won’t venture into the politics between Jay and station management because it’s just not very interesting. What is interesting is that part of WMVP’s problem with the show was that the last 40 minutes of the show (11:20 AM to 12:00 PM) was not live. Rather, it was taped earlier. Why? Mariotti had to tape Between the Lines at 11:30. Here’s my question. If the station didn’t like that, why did they extend Jay’s show from 11 to 12? The Between the Lines contract preceded his WMVP contract?

Other nuggets from the article include a display of Mariotti’s ego with the anecdote of Jay once telling his co-host to stifle it, that WMVP will keep the Nine to Noon slot for local programming, that Jay had posted better ratings than Jim Rome did in the same time slot (my faith in humanity is restored), and that those ratings were still way behind WSCR’s Boers and Bernstein.

Lastly, it’s interesting that the Trib has all this and the Sun Times does not.