Enough

The Trib had an article on Sammy Sosa again over the weekend. This time, it was to show that Sammy isn't popular back in the Domincan anymore. Once again, Dave Pinto nails what this page has said for months.

Folks, you've made your point. Sammy has nothing to do with the Cubs anymore. You traded him for nothing, and no amount of negative publicity is going to change that or make the Cubs any better. Cubs fans aren't going to be loyal because the scourge of Sosa has been removed. They'll be loyal because you win. And if they see Sosa having a great year in Baltimore and the Cubs struggling to stay above .500, they're going to start wondering if the wrong person was run out of town.

The Trib successfully smeared Sammy (this ignores whether or not he deserved it - he did) to make trading him palatable. The scheme worked.

Now shut up and move on, or you could actually undermine the good work you did in unloading the schmoe.

Stoney Returns

As had been announced, Steve Stone signed a deal with WSCR to be their lead baseball analyst. This is a sharp move for the station, a station badly in need of a kick start. They are down to one compelling show, Boers & Bernstein, and that show has lost a lot of its edge.

Stone could actually draw listeners, but it depends on how they use him. If he takes Jimmy Piersal's spot and just phones in a few times a week, and also does a Ditka and joins one of the shows on remote once a week, it may not work.

Stone and Hot Dog Boy would be a waste of airtime. Hot Dog Boy doesn't know how to run an interview and ask questions other than play celebrity and restaurant name dropping.

Getting Stone on with Telander could be called the Tryptophan Show. The show would get you good information, but put you to sleep.

Mike Murphy seems to be the best bet. Stone could be positioned to do analysis just ahead of Cubs' night games. The problem would be hearing Stoney waste time talking about Murph's conspiracy theory of the night.

The station needs new hosts.