Samardzija Update and Cubs/Cardinals

I won’t brag about every Jeff Samardzija accomplishment on Ivy Envy.  Let’s be clear, my man-crush is on Matt Murton.  But I have never owned any Cubs shirt/jersey with a name on the back and when Jeff Samardzija makes it to the Cubs and is issued a number, I will own one.  I almost feel like I should apologize to Ryne Sandberg for saying that. 

Jeff Samardzija took the hill in Oklahoma City against the Rangers Triple A Affiliate.  Samardzija earned a win, going over 6 innings, giving up 4 runs on 8 hits.  He walked 3 and struck out 6.  He is now 2-1 with a 3.93 ERA with Iowa.  Samardzija was gifted

Hope Springs Eternal

Traveling across the river to watch the fireworks in Bettendorf threw a monkey wrench into our typical Cubs-viewing routine.  We had to discontinue our television viewing just after Edmonds received his standing ovation from the St. Louis crowd before his first at-bat (ho-hum).  A small, portable radio informed us of Soto’s hardball home run as we played a game of whiffle-ball home run derby.  Finally, as the immoderate grand finale was happening, a man sitting near us with earbuds engaged announced to us that the Cubs had won the game.

Honesty from This Cubs Fan

I posted the following in my personal blog on Opening Day.  I had been waiting for the right time to put it on Ivy Envy, but that time didn’t present itself, mainly because the Cubs are sitting 16 games over .500.  But things have looked shaky lately, so here it is…Honestly from this Cubs fan.

______________________

The temperature struggles to hit 40 degrees and a blanket of cold rain smothers the Midwest. It must be opening day for Major League Baseball. I am a Cubs fan.  I root for the team that has now gone 100 years without winning the World Series.  I’m the type of Cubs fan that is optimistic about an upcoming season, but before the ivy has turned green and the first pitch has even been thrown out, I have already prepared myself for a disastrous outcome.     

I’ve seen teams fall apart. I’ve seen teams under-achieve in monumental ways.

July 1st Game Blog

July 1^st, 2008

Cubs vs. Giants  

Game Blog

 

Locale:  Fineran’s Backyard Pub and Grill (FBPG)

 

Present: Corey, Andrea, Steven, Beth, Andy, Tawny, Mallory (Infant), and Wrigley (Dog)

 

Time: 9:04

 

Occasion: Cubs march to the playoffs/Corey’s biennial (happens every two years) new phone

 

1^st Inning: 

 

Game Event—Fukudome takes some chin music from Cain. 

 

Corey: Do you like Fukudome as a leadoff hitter?

Andy:  I do… I like him there a lot more than Soriano  

Corey: all about OBP and speed

Andy:   If I had to rank my top 3 leadoff hitters for the Cubs—1. Theriot, 2. Fukudome,

3. Johnson

Corey: I like Theriot in the two spot though. 

Andy: Yeah me too.

 

G.E.—Ward hits into double play to end the inning.

 

Middle of 1^st: Corey informs us about how a man exists who smuggles baseball players out of Cuba

The Big Margin Hangover

The Cubs scored 9 runs on Monday night.  Come on, you knew the offense was going to sputter and score no more than 1 run on Tuesday night.  Historically, it’s a sure-thing for the Cubs.  If the Cubs rack up tons of hits and runs, it’s guaranteed the bats will be silent the next night.  We had a few big margin wins this season and the Cubs didn’t suffer what I will refer to as “The Large Magin Hangover”.  The fact they had continued to score and pile up wins

Wake up the Echoes, Jeff Samardzija

 

I don’t believe I have mentioned this on Ivy Envy yet, but I am a huge Notre Dame fan.  So you can imagine how excited I was when Jeff Samardzija was drafted by the Cubs.  I am sure the picture above will get us more hits from the HotJocks WordPress Blog that appreciates some of our pictures and sends us some traffic.  They are big fans of

Vote for Matt Murton, NL All-Star

I’m going to look past Mark Derosa’s great performance last night in San Francisco and instead focus on the accomplishments of my favorite Chicago Cub:

 

Matt Murton has continued to work through his season-long extra-base dryspell and busted out with

Ivy Envy State of the Union

First off, we’d like to thank all of you that read Ivy Envy.  We really enjoy sharing our love of the Cubs with you, and it’s been fun to share conversations with you that we normally have with each other.  Thanks for reading and please, jump in with your opinions whenever you’d like.  Also, please share Ivy Envy with any Cubs fans you know. 

We have a lot of ideas that we would like to do with Ivy Envy, but at this point, we are pretty limited with what WordPress will allow.  We are looking at doing something to free ourselves up a little bit to do what we would like.  The first thing we are going to try is

Reality Sinks In

The Cubs have successfully sucked the life out of me after this weekend.  The only thing keeping me from a complete meltdown after being swept by the White Sox is that the Cubs swept them the weekend before.  The White Sox hit the cover off the ball and our pitching staff

D

Let’s talk about the defensive play of the Cubs yesterday.  Most articles I read focus on Dempster’s poor performance, but let’s not forget the fielding mistakes that cost the Cubs runs.  When the score was still 0-0, Patterson caught a fly ball and very slowly and nonchalantly tossed it back in while one of the Sox took second base.  That runner would eventually score the first run.  Plays like that don’t show up in the error column, but they cost the team.  I realize that Patterson