Mesa Mayor lays the Smackdown on Jerry Reinsdorf

Yesterday, White Sox owner and alleged tool Jerry Reinsdorf complained about the plan for the Cubs to raise money for a new spring training facility by adding a surcharge to the ticket price of every game in the Cactus League this spring. Nevermind that the Cubs are the only reason that half of America knows which state Mesa is even in, and that their crazed fans bring in lots of revenue for the area.

Mesa mayor Scott Smith is a man who realizes what an important role the team's spring training activities play in keeping his town a habitable place to live. And he's probably up for reelection sometime soon so what better way to keep his constituency happy than to slam the owner of the most hated team in Mesa?

"Is this the same Jerry Reinsdorf that skipped out on Pima County taxpayers who had spent tens of millions of dollars to provide him with a taxpayer-funded stadium, to come to Glendale, where Maricopa County taxpayers provided him a Taj Mahal spring-training facility?" Smith said.

Smith also said Reinsdorf's White Sox play in a publicly funded ballpark in Chicago, and that Reinsdorf looked into buying the Phoenix Coyotoes, who play in a publicly funded facility in Glendale.

"The irony is delicious," Smith said.

[via Chicago Breaking Sports]

Still Hibernating

That napping polar bear picture below was posted over a year ago, and I haven't updated since. Quite frankly, I'm glad I made the decision to leave last season alone. And by made the decision I mean I'm glad I was too lazy to ever get around to writing things.

This year is going to be different. I'm not saying the Cubs are going to do anything spectacular, I know better than that by now. When I started this blog I was a young, optimistic fan in the middle of college. Then in the dreadful October of 2007 I had the opportunity to experience my first Cubs playoff game. I was only able to get one ticket so I went alone to the third and final game of our series against the Diamondbacks.

This is where I lost my innocence

We never stood a chance.

The highlights of the game had nothing to do with the game itself. I sat next to an old couple who were in their regular season ticket seats, and the gentleman next to me was kind enough to buy me a beer considering I was technically under the drinking age at that point. Technically. After the game I hung around Wrigley, walked over and stood behind the home dugout and watched Steve Stone give an on the field report of our great failure. That's when I took the above picture with my phone, it has served as the wallpaper on there since.

Fast forward to today. I am finishing up graduate school, I am much more knowledgeable of good beer and can even buy my own! (For the record, Old Style is a godawful excuse for beer, traditions be damned). The past few years have turned me into a more pessimistic and cynical fan, not exactly great character traits to have in life but hopefully they will translate into more interesting writing this season. You can look forward to less waxing poetic and more biting criticism of the Ricketts family and their attempt to modernize this team.

Above all, in the words of the late host of the Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, Conan O'Brien: "Let's have fun on television". And by television I mean the Internet. And by have fun, I mean tell all your friends to come here so I feel like less of a failure.

Thank you.