After it was announced that Bob Brenly would be leaving its television broadcasting team, the Chicago Cubs immediately discontinued any plans to bunt in the near future.
The club has also shifted focus away from baserunning, the hit-and-run, defense and other “small ball” aspects of the game. Brenly, a former World Series-winning coach with the Diamondbacks, was notoriously hard on Cubs players in this respect from his position in the booth.
“Well, the mood around here is obviously much looser without the looming threat of a Brenly critique,” said an even more unshaven Dale Sveum from Arizona, where he is overseeing the instructional league. “We were planning on another bunting tournament for the kids, but instead I think we’ll break for lunch. Hell, who wants to arm wrestle?”
“We opened Brenly’s ‘No-no storage locker,’” said Alfonso Soriano. “Starlin got his field headphones back. And I’m so happy to have my lawn chair. I haven’t sat back and watched one of my own home runs in over a year.”
It’s a wonder how an entire organization could be held prisoner by one overly-critical broadcaster. But to a team that has, at times, been hostage to contracts, the media, a gum company, a goat and its own success, this isn’t the strangest thing that has happened.
“We tried doing things the ‘right way’ for a while when Bob was here,” said Cubs owner Tom Ricketts. “But that era is over, and it didn’t win us much. So we’re going back to the old school: booze, pills and spitballs.”
