On Soriano, Ramirez and boos
Add comment May 19th, 2008
It seems ridiculous that only two weeks ago some Cubs fans were saying Chicago would be better without Alfonso Soriano. They were angry about Soriano batting leadoff, angry about him swinging at bad pitches, angry about his defense and angry that he didn’t take more walks. Cubs fans have also vented often at Aramis Ramirez over the years whenever he’s gone into a slump. They even blamed him when he had a career-high 38 HRs and 119 RBIs in 2006 because he played poorly when Derrek Lee first went out with an injury and many fans — and media — said he didn’t step up when he was needed and padded on meaningless stats when the Cubs were out of the race. (Well, the AL MVP that year had an even worse start and so did his team, yet Justin Morneau — whose stats were no better than Ramirez’s — and the Twins recovered to win 96 games and their division, so if the Twins weren’t out of the race in June, then neither were the Cubs — if someone besides Ramirez had started to hit later on.)
Anyway, the point here is it never — or almost never — seems right to boo Soriano and Ramirez. If you don’t want a wild swinger, you don’t trade for him. Soriano has played this way for 10 years. As long as he continues to hit 35-40 homers, fans need to live with his faults. Ditto for slumps and occasional lack of hustle by Aramis Ramirez. Last year, when the Indians took a 3 games to 1 lead over the Red Sox in the ALCS, a Cleveland-area columnist wrote about how he would never want Manny Ramirez on his team and that the Indians were glad to not have a problem child like Manny and have so many boy scout-types. Well, I’d love to have Manny Ramirez on my team, even with his Manny Being Manny antics. And he showed Boston why, as the Red Sox came back to win their second World Series with Manny. Cleveland, by the way, has been to two World Series in 60 years, both with Manny, zero without. It’s like the Bulls putting up with grief from Dennis Rodman. Or even Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird over ruling their coaches in timeouts. You have slightly different rules for superstars. Their talent makes it worth it. You can boo a Felix Pie or (on the Southside) a Juan Uribe for swinging at stupid pitches. But not Alfonso Soriano. That’s not a double standard; Soriano has proven his way works. The other two have proven it doesn’t work for them. Or at least haven’t proven that it does.
I don’t believe in booing any player on my own team unless they aren’t very good and it appears they aren’t very good because of their own fault. Call it the Uribe rule. Or the Cade McNown rule. But if Rex Grossman throws an interception, I wouldn’t boo Grossman; at this point, he is what he is. You can’t expect him to be Peyton Manning or Tom Brady. If I did boo, I’d be booing Lovie Smith and Ron Turner for playing the wrong quarterback, not the quarterback for being the wrong guy.
 That said, former Cubs who deserved to be booed were players who complained about Steve Stone, Sammy Sosa during his final self-indulgent season and pouty, swing-from-his-heels Cory Patterson. But this team has no player who acts like a jerk or underperforms because of his own stubborness. Aramis Ramirez has averaged .305 with 33 HRs and 104 RBIs in his four seasons in Chicago and helped the Cubs win the division twice. Soriano set a team record for home runs in September to help the Cubs come from behind and win the NL Central last year. The Cubs have been the best team in the NL Central ever since they signed Soriano. Neither deserves to be booed, with the possible exception of after occasional defensive lapses. But even then, Soriano deserves leeway, because he’s a converted second baseman.
