Special rules for special talents

August 1st, 2008 at 01:55am Matt Trowbridge

You can’t watch any American League games in Bourbonnais. Almost all of the Bears writers are big Cubs fans, and they all kept turning the channel in the media dorm back to the Cubs-Brewers series. Anyway, it was surreal to see one huge Cubs fan who hates Alfonso Soriano, spewing non-stop venom at him for being “a disgrace to the game” for all his show-boating. He did this during the opener, when Soriano was the key to Chicago’s victory, hitting a double and a homer his first two times up, then drawing a leadoff walk to spark the late-inning winning rally. He was set off because Soriano stood at home plate to admire what he thought was going to be a first-inning home run and had to hustle to barely make it into second for a double. OK, so Soriano isn’t perfect. Still, you should never sneer at talent.

A Cleveland columnist, gloating in the Indians’ 3 games to 1 lead over the Red Sox in the playoffs last year, wrote about how he was so glad Cleveland no longer had Manny Ramirez, but rather class players. Three straight wins later, Manny and the Red Sox were on their way to their second World Series title in four years.

Soriano is by far the Cubs’ best player. He can carry them by himself for a week at a time when he gets hot. Any team in baseball would love to have him.

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