Baseball doesn't need cops

The baseball season is only five weeks old, and fans of the Chicago Cubs are already looking ahead to October baseball.

After all, why not? Despite losing both ends of a doubleheader on Wednesday, the Cubs are a major league-best 25-8. Though they haven’t won it all since 1908, they appear to have the pieces in place to — in the words of the Nationals’ Bryce Harper — make baseball fun again.

But John Lackey didn’t join Chicago for fun. He’s all business. Don’t you dare forget that.

So when he allowed a homer to career .224 hitter Christian Bethancourt, a blast that landed somewhere on Waveland Avenue and turned out to be only run either team would score, Lackey yelled at Bethancourt because he had the utter gall and temerity to watch the ball he hit.

The nerve of him.



"How many home runs does he have?" Lackey asked sarcastically after the game, according to ESPN’s Jesse Rogers.

That would be three this season. Five for his career. But Lackey wasn’t finished and uttered this threat.

"I got a long memory," said Lackey, 37, who added that the 24-year-old Bethancourt will “learn.”

Learn what exactly? The unwritten code of faux sportsmanship in baseball? Stop it. Lackey has been a noted jagoff for much of his 14-year career. Anyone remember in 2012 when he and buddies Jon Lester and Josh Beckett would hang out in the Red Sox’s clubhouse with fried chicken, beer and video games instead of being a good teammate and staying on the bench.

Lackey is one a group of players in recent years who have taken it upon themselves to be baseball’s lawmen. Bud Norris, now with Atlanta, took Houston outfielder Carlos Gomez to task for his exuberance last season.



“I think it’s a culture shock,’’ Norris told USAToday in September. “This is America’s game. This is America’s pastime, and over the last 10-15 years we’ve seen a very big world influence in this game, which we as a union and as players appreciate. We’re opening this game to everyone that can play.

“However, if you’re going to come into our country and make our American dollars, you need to respect a game that has been here for over a hundred years, and I think sometimes that can be misconstrued. There are some players that have antics, that have done things over the years that we don’t necessarily agree with.”

I chuckle at the term “our American dollars.” Will Latin players have to build a wall and pay for it, too?

Then there was the infamous bat flip by the Blue Jays’ Jose Bautista in Game 5 of the AL division series against Texas last season. That caused long-retired big leaguer Goose Gossage to call that a “disgrace” and fellow Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt said it showed “flagrant disrespect.”

Turn off the siren, officers. Baseball players today come from all Latin America, Asia, all over the globe. That means different cultures. If some players, past and present, have a problem with that, don’t watch. You won’t be missed.

Does anyone really care what Gossage or Schmidt have to say or have they become the old men wanting kids to get off the lawn? Is anyone rushing to buy a ticket to a Braves game to see Norris pitch before he’s cut? Having a 1-5 record and a 7.31 ERA on the worst team in the majors isn’t exactly good for one’s job security.

And as for Lackey, get over being embarrassed, and keep collecting your $16 million this season and next. If Lackey feels he’s been shown up by a kid with 91 career games in the bigs under his belt, don’t give him something to hit.

Don't be this guy. That only works in movies.

Problem solved. 

Anyone got a tourniquet?

The first newsroom I entered in 1995 had one computer with Internet access. There was no thought of reporters taking pictures and shooting video with their phone. Word people worked with words and picture people did their thing.

Stories, even for an entity where turnaround needed to be lightning-quick, went through one set of eyes — minimum — before going out over a wire, being set for print or posted to that vast new online world.

The game has changed, indeed. You cannot stop technology or progress. In all cases, it must be embraced without fear whether you’re fresh out of Mizzou or Syracuse or Northwestern, or if you’ve been chained to a desk for decades.

Not sure how this happened, but my 30’s gave way to the 40’s and now the early 50’s. I don’t consider myself too long in the tooth. If genetics hold true, I could very well be walking the earth for another 35 to 40 years.

But back to the state of industry, and it’s not good. Teresa Schmedding (@tschmedding) is leaving a 25-year-career in legacy journalism to become managing editor at Rotary international in Evanston, Ill. An article by her titled “The news industry can’t cut its way to quality” was posted on Poynter.org today. She gets it.

“He (James Robinson, Managing Editor for Content, Bay Area News Group) includes a serious warning that clearly states the value copy editors bring. Unfortunately, it’s not valued enough to pay for. Is this a tectonic shift in copy editing? No. The tectonic shift took place some years ago.

"According to the American Society of News Editors, copy editors have been bearing the brunt of legacy media job losses. Newspapers are now being produced by half the copy editors they were in 2007. More than 7,000 copy editing jobs were cut by 2015. And more current numbers, when available, will be more stark. 

"What this is is another nail in the coffin of legacy media. The industry is hemorrhaging revenue and readers. And all the cuts over the past nine years haven’t stanched the bleeding. 

The reason is simple: You cannot make a case that your stories are worth paying for by delivering crappy content.” 

Amen, sister. 

When reading an article online. there is one thing that drives me up a wall. It’s seeing errors get by, such the Twins playing in Target Center rather than Target Field, and Columbia as a country in South America instead of a university or a shade of blue. And those are just two examples that leap to mind. And it's not just me who feels this way. Look at comments on social media when one of these mistakes crop up. It's pitchforks and kindling time.

Why do things like this make me and other readers cringe and suck in a deep, dismissive breath? Quality — which includes accuracy — in story, headline and deck is everything in my industry. Plain and simple. Non-negotiable. Presentation is nice, but facts are indisputable.

Too many news organizations, though, have decided the middle layer, people who have to be experts at everything and in many cases have been reporters at one time, is an expendable underbelly. Problem is not every reporter or writer has the makeup or desire to be an editor as it's definitely not a glamorous job.

Asking and, in some cases, telling a reporter to keep their story to 17 inches because there is a finite space in print shouldn’t be met with “I need more room.” If you’re blowing the lid off something, sure, but 99 times out of 100, that’s not the case, and the writers know that.

Anyone can write long. Writing concisely without losing any meaning is a skill. If you can write it in 800 words, you should be able to do it in 500. If the reporter cannot do it, that’s where the desk is needed, be it New York, L.A. or Natchitoches.

There also needs to be an understanding between news organizations and veteran “desk folk,”  referred to in some places as the Island of Misfit Toys.

News organizations must, and I cannot stress that enough, understand the desk will invariably save the paper from embarrassment several times over. Each and every week.

I have also been in newsrooms where the old copy-editing guard still thinks it’s 1996. Or 1986. Or 1976. You get the idea.

To management, don’t strip resources that provide incredible value in so many ways. To the desk folk, learn to post stories and embrace technology and become indispensable. Readers are not always waiting for the slap of the paper at the front door.

It’s a start. If anyone has better ideas, serve ‘em up.

Is this still a thing anymore??

It’s been a long time — too long — since I have posted.

***
Cubs storm out of the gate: Despite a two-game split with lowly Atlanta on Sunday, the Northsiders are off to an NL-best 17-6 start and are drawing comparisons to Cub teams from the early 1900s. All well and good: Theo Epstein, Joe Maddon, et al. are following through on the plan to try and bring a championship to the corner of Clark and Addison for the first time in 109 years.

Anchored by NL Cy Young award winner Jake Arrieta (5-0, 1.00 ERA, no-hitter), the Cubs’ staff has a 2.39 ERA and a WHIP of 0.98. If the opening month is any indicator, though, the Cubs will need their pitchers to keep stepping up.

Sure, Anthony Rizzo has eight homers and 24 RBIs, but he’s hitting just .220. Addison Russell (.216) is also off to a slow start, and the same could be said for Kris Bryant (.287) as compared to last season, when he was the NL Rookie of the Year.

The loss of Kyle Schwarber — five HRs in nine postseason games lat year — to a season-ending knee injury cannot be underestimated. But what should be most alarming is the lack of production from Jason Heyward, anointed with an 8-year, $184 million deal to jump from rival St. Louis.

Yes, I am well aware that there are 139 games to play, but after Sunday, Heyward is 0-for-17 in his last five games. He’s hitting just .211 so far, has yet to homer and driven in 13. Defensive metrics aside, he’s averaged almost 14 homers and 52 RBIs through his first six seasons.

Standing 6-foot-5, 240 pounds, lefty bat? Hey, hey — that’s not nearly enough bang for the buck.