Why I hate the Cubs.

It all started out when I was a kid living in Battle Creek, Michigan on Vermillion Road.  My best friend in the world was Greg Roderick.  He rarely come over to my house and I think I lived at his.  It was the sports complex of the area that was why Greg and I spent so many hours of the day together.  His dad and mine had worked together at Clark Equipment together and were good friends and I looked up to him as a father figure after mine past away.  Greg and I would play football across the street, basketball in his drive way and baseball in the back yard.  Greg's backyard was the beginning of my displeasure of the Chicago Cubs.  You see when we picked teams Greg was always the Cubs.  I was everyone else.  The Tigers, or Cardinals, even the Expos.  I had an Expos hat from a team I would bat boy for and liked Tim Wallach.  Later in life when I settled on a number that I have preferred and it was 29 for TimWallach.  Greg had the Cubs jersey and hat and the pride to go with it.  I just wanted to be the Cubs once and wear the hat.  He was much bigger than me and showed great potential as a player.  We had many battles in his back yard and even today I think about how it shaped me as a player.  So I just wanted to beat the Cubs all the time.  In the beginning it was just like the real season.  Cubs were about a .500 team.  We were even but in true Cubs fashion he would fall apart or I would get hot and well you know the story.  Cubs loose.  He would probably tell the story a different way and say it wasn't that bad but it was.  Greg was a right handed hitter and pitcher. I was a left handed hitter and right handed pitcher.  He would have to hit the breaking ball going away and his would fall inside on my front leg.  A pitch that every low ball hitting lefty loves.   My second reason is in 1996 I was given a private workout in Arizona with the Cubs.  I came down in great shape and determined to make the team.  I wanted to get on the Cubs for one time in my life.  So Tom Gamboa gives me a shot.  He doesn't run me or check out my arm he just puts me in a group of big league hitters.  Dave Magadan, Matt Franco, and I thought the third was Tyler Houston.  These guys crushed the ball and I was a little nervous and even intimidated.  I preceded to foul of eight of my ten swings.  Tom Gamboa is walking away now.  Dave Magadan was this ball of positive energy and when I get out of the cage he pulls me aside and says, "You have a great swing kid just let it loose."  Then he steps into the left side of the box and starts hitting the hardest line drives to the left center gap and have so much fun doing it.  My second round starts and then after a few well hit balls Gamboa gets up and walks back over to the cage with interest peaked a little.  Then round three and four with better and better results and I'm feeling good.  Mags is hugging me and loving every minute of it.  "This f'n kid can hit!"   He walks over to Tom and says, "Gammy you gotta sign this kid, he can swing it."  Now I will never forget the next words that came from Tom Gamboa.  "He's too old."  I was 24.  I had never been drafted, played two years of Independent Professional Baseball and hit .416 and .329 in those two years and I was still refining my swing.  The look on Dave Magadan's face was utter shock.  The look was that look of what the heck I am 33 am I to old?"  Dave was loosing his hair and was even a little grey.  I would say he looked 40.  I was a little disappointed too.  I thought if he just wanted to see me hit then I had done a great job of showing him.  I only hit one out and it was an opposite field line drive. These fields are not normal dimension of 330 feet on the lines in and 400 feet to center.  This field was 360 feet on the lines and 420 in center.  They want to see if you have pop or serious pop.  That's when I really started to understand the power of intention.  I opened my mouth and and uttered these words, "Well maybe the White Sox will sign me."  Eight days later my agent called me and said I have a job for you in South Bend, Indiana.  Class A for the Chicago White Sox's is the assignment.  I got on the phone with the player director of the White Sox and sold him on who I was.  He signed me on a phone interview and no tryout at all.  So that is why I hate the Cubs so much.  Funny and true story was this.  Remember Tom Gamboa?  Check this out at a White Sox game FAN ATTACKS TOM GAMBOA .   That was one of my fans.   No not really I just thought it was coincidence that he was attacked at a Sox game.  I have no ill will towards Tom.  He did my workout as a favor to my hitting coach Perry Husband. I was so upset I probably never thanked him so this is my public acknowledgment of his favor and my many thanks.  I was blessed to be on the field will Dave Magadan, Matt Franco and Tyler Houston who is a personal friend today.