If there are parallel universes out there, we don’t have access to them, so we’re never really going to know whether the Cubs would have won a World Series without Jason Heyward. He definitely made the Cubs worse—his contract was a whale, he was perennially below average at the plate, and theorists theorize that his struggles led to stingier mandates from ownership in the realm of free agent acquisitions. When you get down to individual baseball games, though, the math crumbles. We know with precision and accuracy what Jason Heyward was worth over each regular season of his career. We don’t know what difference, exactly, his rain delay words made in the seventh game of the 2016 World Series.
It’s the old problem of the Moneyball A’s: Constructing the best team in the world, on paper, can get you to the end of the championship road. To succeed once there, though—to climb the steps, to capture the crown—everything changes. A large-sample sport becomes a small-sample game. Things get a little mysterious.
We still don’t know, quantified, what impact “chemistry” has on a baseball team, even drawn out over the course of the season. We certainly don’t know, quantified or otherwise, what little mental shifts can be the difference between a batter recording an out or the batter reaching first base. Would the Cubs have won the World Series without the Aroldis Chapman trade? We don’t know. Would the Cubs have won the World Series had Kyle Schwarber not hurt his knee in the first place? We don’t know. Would the Cubs have won the World Series without Jason Heyward’s clubhouse speech? We don’t know. The rain delay speech is a fun legend—the kind of thing sentimentalists love to believe, the kind of thing at which cynics spit—and it will remain mythical, remain a piece of Cubs lore, remain a question for those of us who ponder such things.
So, as Jason Heyward’s time with the Cubs ends, as the Cubs prepare to release the outfielder after this season, as the philanthropist and mentor and overpaid mediocre hitter ends his time in Chicago, it’s with a lot of unknown that we wish him farewell. Farewell to Jason Heyward, whose signing cost the Cubs some level of long-term success, and who also might have won the Cubs a World Series.
The Bears Will Bears
Even with Heyward on his way out, the big news around Cubs circles this morning is that All-Pro linebacker Roquan Smith has requested a trade from the Bears. Such is life when your Iowa-born, Willie Mays-loving dad raised you a Packers fan but the Giants played too late at night for you to not naturally fall for Pat Hughes, Ron Santo, and the Cubs.
I don’t know if the Bears front office is being shrewd or dumb by not offering Smith what he wants, but that’s not really the point here. The point is that Bears fans are livid, and few do blind wailing as well as Bears fans. I mean, you guys crush blind wailing. Remember when Cody Parkey’s kick got blocked on the double doink and you refused to believe it or acknowledge it mattered?
SMU Got a “Bag”
SMU’s NIL collective is evidently going to pay each football and men’s basketball player $36,000 a year, as though they’ve never heard of inflation. $36K? And you guys think you’re going to get a power conference invite?
They’re dressing it up by saying that the total is $3.5 million, which is smart but also makes the $36,000-a-year thing funnier. What they should be doing is saying, “Hey, we’re putting each player’s floor at $36K. They’re going to make way more than that, though.” Terrible messaging on SMU’s part.
To answer your next question, yeah, I’d call SMU an NIT contender. A contender for an NIT bid, that is. If everything breaks perfectly and their ethos isn’t too much that of being absolute losers in a mid-major league.
Am I Gonna Kick a Music Industry Insider’s Ass?
Something called “Fast Company” (sounds inappropriate) has a feature out today on something called “Sweety High,” which the article terms a “youth media juggernaut.”
If they’re a youth media juggernaut, how come they’re so old?
The picture accompanying the article shows two people, probably a combined 90 years old (if not more), looking old as shit. The article then goes on to credit them for making “Before I Knew It,” by our king Mason Ramsey, go viral:
“In the past year, they’ve also worked with…Atlantic Records to boost the profile of 15-year-old country singer Mason Ramsey. Sweety High tapped its influencers (including [21-year-old Texan singer Jena] Rose) to drive attention to Ramsey’s 2019 single ‘Before I Knew It’ on TikTok; they got young country music fans to post videos of themselves dancing to the song. The song has now appeared in more than 500,000 TikToks. ‘Mason and his team would never think to do that because they don’t know [that fan base] exists,’ Simonetti says. ‘It sounds very simple, but if you’re not in the culture 10-feet deep, you really wouldn’t know all this.’”
Mason Ramsey’s team would never think to get a bunch of influencers to promote his song on the most popular social media app among Gen Z-ers? Are you kidding? How stupid do you think I am, Sweety High? This is like when people tell us to use hashtags on Instagram.
Either Mason Ramsey is surrounded by idiots or Sweety High is a con with connections. Impossible to know at this stage which is which, but rest assured, I’m keeping an eye on it.
Cheese, Dishwasher, Fetch
It’s unclear if we have enough dishwasher detergent to run a load (they should make the bottles clear, just saying), and reinforcements could arrive tonight but they could also never arrive, depending on the whims of our old friend Fetch. In the meantime, I’ve washed a few dishes by hand and man, if anyone comes up with a cheese that’s easy to get off the side of a microwaved burrito bowl, please get on that. I know a2 milk is already taken. Maybe this is a3?
This obviously provokes two questions in you, and I’ll address them both: First, you know what? Yeah, right now I am the kind of guy who orders dishwasher detergent online. I’ve got shit going on, buddy. Can’t be running to HEB every day. Second, yes, the feud with Fetch is ongoing. Just got an email that they’re gonna make a representative hold office hours in this very building one week from tonight. Full update to come from that. I’m a little nervous that I won’t be able to control my emotions and/or that I will threaten them and/or that I will cuss. If the Roanoke Airport Incident™ taught me anything, it’s that customer service and customer service-adjacent representatives will take any cuss word as license to call security on you. We can’t have that again.
Fargo Snoozle Report: Good Things Abound
We did the same walk as yesterday, but I think it was a little hotter, so Fargo needed immediate recuperation, which was a good trial run. She napped for thirty minutes, then was up and at ‘em again, but her up-and-at-‘em didn’t last as long as the puppiest of the puppy days. Don’t have an exact timer on how long it took to wear her out, but it was roughly three hours again, which matches yesterday. Keeping it there or below is a good sign for this blog.
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Viewing schedule:
4:10 PM EDT: White Sox @ Royals, Game 1 (MLB TV)
7:40 PM EDT: White Sox @ Royals, Game 2 (MLB TV, second screen)
Doubleheader for Joe Kelly today. Assuming he will only pitch once.
8:05 PM EDT: Nationals @ Cubs (MLB TV)
The first game of the Franmil Reyes era. What a day. This is like Arrieta’s first start with the team, back in ’14.
