By Steve Rhodes

Willson Contreras didn’t just become the 119th player in history on Sunday to hit a home run in his first major league at-bat, he became the 31st player to hit a home run on the first pitch thrown to him in his first major league at-bat.
He wasn’t the first Cub to perform the feat, though. Jim Bullinger (a pitcher) also did it, in 1992.
Stepping back from the first-pitch metric, Jorge Soler and Starlin Castro also hit home runs in their first major league at-bats.

Read More

Posted on June 20, 2016

By Marty Gangler

It was Terence Mann in Field of Dreams who said, “The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again.”
This quote rang true for me this week, and it wasn’t anything the Cubs did. It was something that my son Mitchell did – or, rather, didn’t do. He didn’t make the All-Star team in his baseball league. An 8-year-old looked reality in the face and said, “I don’t think I’m going to get picked.” And he was right, he didn’t get picked. And he, um, well, didn’t get “snubbed.”
Mitchell is the kid going through the motions out there just happy to hang with the guys in the dugout and just show up and see what happens. When asked about playing catch and taking some swings he just was never interested on off-baseball days. But that All-Star team deal, well, that sparked a little something. And I’m happy to see it. Because baseball is really on the radar. And I was a little worried that it never would be.

Read More

Posted on June 13, 2016

By Marty Gangler

The weirdest thing about this historic Cubs season is dealing with the losses. Every loss makes you think, well, how the heck did that happen? These guys lose a series to the Giants two weeks ago and then win 10 of 11 games going in to Sunday. And then they lose the Jake Arrieta game to make it a 10-2 stretch of games. Really? The Jake Arrieta a start? And sure, 10-2 is super awesome and impressive, but really, how the heck does that happen?
And then you think, you know, this same ridiculous thing could happen in the playoffs. And that makes you crap your pants. Because what else is there worry about right now? The Cubs are up 9 1/2 games over the Pirates and it’s the first week in June. It could be a 15-game lead by July.
Well, it could be a 3-game lead as well, but are we really worried about that right now? No. Not really, and why should anyone be? According to the nerds, the Cubs have actually won fewer games than they should have. They’ve actually been UNLUCKY this year.

Read More

Posted on June 6, 2016

By Marty Gangler

As you may remember, last week in the Cub Factor I mentioned that I was going to the game on Friday against the Phillies. And I did go and the Cubs won, because that’s what they do. But something really struck me while I was down in Rickettsville. It was, Why bother?
They are rebuilding everything so much in and around the park that there is kind of no point. Wouldn’t they just be so much better off building something brand new in Schaumburg or Naperville, or wherever else in the area? The behemoth parking garage is just a huge monstrous “thing” that takes up so much of the old look of the place, it’s like, why go through the trouble?
I mean, it’s huge, and only like 5% of the people going to the game are going to park there anyway. OK, I didn’t really do the math, but it can’t be that many fans, right?
And then there’s nothing you can do about some of the park, like getting in by the old (looking) marquee, which has fans waiting in line at the metal detectors and pouring into the street to do so. Yeah, that’s safe.

Read More

Posted on May 31, 2016

By Marty Gangler

So this is what a slump feels like when your team is still really good.
Can’t say that the Cubs themselves and the fans didn’t need some reality in their lives. Week after week of insane record-breaking or matching or last times since 1907ing was starting to feel really weird.
Like, let’s just have a good year, get completely healthy come October and stay a good six to 10 games in front of everyone in the division and we can call it a good season and take our chances in the payoffs.
The pressure will be enormous anyway, why tack on the extra burden of an insanely good record and all of that? Not sure if it would matter, but yeah, I’m kinda OK not lighting the baseball world on fire and just cruising to the playoffs.
But first things first, these guys need to get out of this slump. With this in mind we here at The Cub Factor have come up with a few slump-buster options for the 2016 season:

Read More

Posted on May 23, 2016

By Marty Gangler

Before we get into this week let’s take a quick look back at the last week. If you are a loyal reader you know that I ripped good ol’ Dusty one more time.
As if like clockwork, as myself and others pointed out, why in the world would you not put Daniel Murphy, who is batting .407 right now, behind Bryce Harper. If you also remember, the Cubs walked Harper a billion times in that four-game series two weeks ago. So yeah, Baker finally sees what other people see. You know, like reality, and bats Murphy fourth.
But you know, he’d been thinking about it for a while . . . sure, Dusty. And it seems to have worked. Way to be on top of it, dude.

Read More

Posted on May 15, 2016

By Marty Gangler

One of the more interesting – or maybe more correctly – infuriating things that happened last week was that former Cubs manager Dusty Baker came to town. And of course Dusty can’t not open his yap and spew complete and utter BS.
I mean, he should ride in this thing because he’s so full of bologna.
Granted, it’s grasping at straws these days to find anything to make you angry about the Cubs, but hand it to Dusty to light that old fire.

Read More

Posted on May 9, 2016

By Marty Gangler

I would consider myself a baseball fan. Sure, I’m a Cub fan first, but I play fantasy baseball and keep up with other teams, watch the highlight shows, yadda yadda. But I have to say, who are these guys? Not the Cub guys; I know those guys. I’m talking about the Brewers and Braves, Twins and Padres, Reds, etc. It’s like you woke up one day and looked around and everything changed while you sleeping. But you were not even sleeping, it was while you were awake and still kind of paying attention.
And just no way you can’t blame the Cubs for this. It’s all their fault. Maybe partial blame on the Astros, but so far that’s not working out this season. Tanking has officially taken over baseball. Which I guess is good for no-longer-tanking teams like the Cubs, but it’s just super weird. What happened to finding lightning in a bottle for that one season? Or having like three guys on your team all have career years to vault your team into contention that one time? Or the blind and idiotic optimism of a franchise that thinks it could put together a 2007 Colorado Rockies-like 14-game or so win streak to make it into the playoffs? It’s all gone.

Read More

Posted on May 1, 2016

By Marty Gangler

As this magical season keeps moving on I’m constantly hearing of all the things the Cubs have done for the first time in ____. Like the last time the Cubs were 14-5 to start the season was 1969, and some other year I think. I just can’t care about these things. They seem so meaningless because the Cubs have been so bad for so long. It’s almost laughable. But with this in mind we here at The Cub Factor have put together our own type of list.

Read More

Posted on April 25, 2016

By Marty Gangler

As I look at this 2016 incarnation of the Cubs, it’s hard for me not to think about my shoulder.
Sure, that sounds a bit odd, but I just had shoulder surgery. So I can’t think of much of anything right now without thinking about my shoulder.
For a little background, I initially hurt my shoulder 20-some years ago playing inline street hockey on a tennis court. I wiped out and my shoulder popped out of its socket. It would continue to do this over the years and I’d have to pop it back in myself. This got to be a bit too much to deal with and I had surgery to tighten up the joint. But now the issue has become too much to deal with again and I needed a clean-out. Weird thing these days is they give you a DVD of the surgery as the doc goes in with a camera himself to work his magic. Turns out I had a ton of scar tissue, loose debris, bone chips, even an old license plate from Louisiana in there.

Read More

Posted on April 18, 2016