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Chapter 1: Will the Cubs' offense finally break out in Colorado?
The views and opinions of Layla Rahimi, Marshall Harris, and Mark Grody should not be taken too seriously. Especially when they give advice. Do not take Marshall's analogies literally. Especially when it comes to Russell Dorsey. The sports thoughts of Rahimi, Harris, and Grody may change at any time. It's just sports. Okay, thanks, bye.
Rahimi Harrison-Grody, 10-2 on 104.3 The Score. The National Football League asked players who they believe should be ranked the number one player in the league. The number one on the list this year. The number one player in the NFL is... Probably Matt. Number nine, Matthew Stafford. Dijon Robertson. God willing, I would say me. Just humbly. Really? Yeah. Oh, wow. JSN's probably up there.
Chapter 2: What challenges are the Cubs facing against the Rockies?
Yeah. CMC. Not just because he's my locker bud and he watched me do the list. Yeah, Iceman. Micah Parsons says, we think, we got him on record. Caleb Williams is the best player in the National Football League. We got you, Micah Parsons. You can't take that back. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Yes, that record stands. First reactions, I'm suspicious. I find that a little suspicious. No, should I?
What's he trying to do here? Yeah, is he like, oh yeah, he's the greatest. Just ask him. I'm suspicious. Why did you, you could have said anyone was the best player in the NFL. You think he's just messing with reverse psychology sort of sitch? I don't know. Reverse psychology is an awesome tool.
I don't know if you guys know about it, but basically you make someone think the opposite of what you believe, and that tricks them into doing something stupid. Works like a charm. Do I ask Ben Johnson about it? You have to ask Ben Johnson about it. Mandatory minicamp.
He's going to ā I don't know if I can ā Yeah, after you've already asked about elite quarterback, top five quarterback, is that ā Right. I did that last week. And he gave a really good answer to that question, by the way. He did. But I know you're right. I understand he probably didn't like the question because he doesn't do that stuff. No. I love Tyson. Layla Rahimi. Marshall Harris.
Mark Grody. Midday's 10 a.m. to 2 on Chicago Sports Radio. 104.3 The Score.
Good Tuesday morning today to you. This is Rahimi Harrison-Grody on 104.3 The Score. We love the I Love Tyson soundbite. We can't get enough of it. Mandatory minicamp for the Bears. Don't forget Mark Grody will join us from Halasol at 1 o'clock. In the meantime, we have to figure out what the Cubs are going to do with, quote, the easy part of their schedule. Here's the problem, Marshalls.
I feel like the Cubs have now become the easy part of the schedule for other teams. Sea Giants, Astros, this is frustrating, A's. I know the comeback win notwithstanding. But, okay, you're facing a bad Colorado Rockies team. But how bad is it...
that we don't necessarily know if this is going to be the wake-up call for this series in Colorado, no less, where you should get at least a few doubles to your name, if not a home run or two, for this team to get right. What does it take for this team to get right today?
Laila, it's not easy for a player to win the National League Player of the Week, correct?
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Chapter 3: How important is the upcoming series for the Cubs' season?
Because that means you have to be the best player in an entire league. You have to be the best player on 15 teams for an entire week.
Not just any 15 teams. The best 15 teams.
There is a reason they call it the Senior Circuit. That certainly applies to this season. And so when I look at what Pete Crow Armstrong was able to do last week... and had the best week, arguably, of his career.
And you could only come up with two wins in six games against two teams under .500, one of them having the second-worst record in what you just said was a secondary league in the National League compared to the American League. When you only get two wins, and the reason you got two wins is because PCA went all the way off... It gives me a lot of concern about what's next.
Remember, June is that month. June is the month in which they face 22 straight games against teams with losing records. June is that month in which, after dealing with an athletics team that, to be fair, is in the hunt in the American League West.
They're better than you think they are.
They're facing now the two teams with the worst records in the National League for 12 straight games. We are a quarter of the way through that, and they have one win to show for it.
Yeah, and that's it. We've heard guys like Jameson Tyone say this is a wake-up call. We heard the really strong comments from Alex Bregman holding himself accountable. We have heard all of that. But at the same time, yes, I do agree with everybody. It is a wake-up call. We've got to get an update on Jamison Tyo now because of the hamstring injury.
We hope to get that ahead of this series against the Rockies. But in the meantime, there's only so many times where you can say it and you're not showing it against the best opportunities that are in front of you. And I keep thinking about that September 2023 where... The Cubs had this beautiful schedule after they had taken down a good Giants team at the time on Labor Day weekend.
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Chapter 4: What does it take to win the National League Player of the Week?
I'm convinced that getting older is just... All it is is your meniscus is constantly threatened. But... It's not even... They can't even think about the Brewers right now. We'll talk to Ian Happ. That's for 125 today, Ray. So Ian Happ, we thought was going to be at 1125. We'll give him the benefit of mountain time. He gets to change. So he's at 125 today instead. But it goes back to...
What is your main character energy here for this team? Like, you didn't get it right against the Giants. You didn't get it right against the A's. You couldn't take two out of three with those two. So tell me how you make this make sense. Now, Matt Shaw is also coming back, and I think that that is good because, if nothing else, he has earned the trust of Craig Council.
And we can't say that for the players that they bring up. That's part of my question as well is ā It's these players who get brought up. Like we see Kevin Alcantara go back down to minor leagues. These guys don't get regular reps when they come up. They're not challenging anybody else either.
So if they're not getting regular reps and then we know that they've got potential, then where's the fire that is lit with either the talent coming up on this team or the talent that is existing in order to help that sense of urgency that we've talked about that hasn't been there at times or at least hasn't been publicly shown at times come through?
It feels like Pedro Ramirez may have gotten the trust of Craig Council only because I saw him out here starting two of the last three games. He played in all six games on the homestand in some shape, form, or fashion, whether it was as a defensive replacement, pinch hitter, starting games, played three of the games in full.
I think he's earned a bit of trust in an era where so many people are struggling right now. But you're right about Kevin Alcantara. We knew the book on Kevin Alcantara when he got called up. He's really fast. His nickname is the Jaguar. But if you can't trust a guy on the base pass whose main asset is speed, the value goes away.
And what I'm desperately searching for, Marshall, is for one of these people's main asset to be bat speed.
That's a different kind of speed.
And frankly, Matt Shaw, that was never really his bread and butter either. The bat speed was not what got him to the big leagues. That's not his fault. We know that about him. So does the organization. But when you've got guys like Alex Bregman saying the quote, and I think it stands to be repeated even today, I've been terrible. I need to play better. Offensively, it's been awful.
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Chapter 5: What strategies can the Cubs adopt to improve their offense?
I can imagine that means spending more of your money and your time on the other project. That would make it make sense. But until they define that for us. We're left in this space that doesn't make a lot of sense.
And Kevin Warren, who is the Bears president and the lead on this project, and George McCaskey, who is the CEO and, frankly, the owner, you know, now that Virginia has passed, we haven't heard from them. All we've gotten are these statements. And they've been accessible in other places, especially the president and Kevin Warren, but we just haven't had that same accessibility here.
You can find him in a locker room. You can find him during football season. But when it comes to finding him for this... He is not present on camera. Thankfully, we've heard from other politicians who wanted to talk about this. Jim Tenaglia was one we wanted to hear from, the mayor of Arlington Heights. And he was on this morning with Mully and Haw. And...
I think it's important first to talk about where he is from an understanding of what the next move is. You heard what Brett Bugansky said of Fox 32. And Tenali added to that and just also talked about the emotion and where they're at when it comes to trying to get this moving forward.
Nobody buys $200 million worth of property thinking, oh, I might want to go to Indiana. This is just unfortunately... The consequences of not being able to complete the task. And I'll just say it this way. You had the House side with one type of bill, and it was certainly a complicated proposal. But then five weeks later, you've got a Senate side with a completely different bill at the
I'm not even going to say the 11th hour, because it was almost midnight on Sunday night when that finally surfaced to the house side. And the house looked at it and said, you can't make me do this, and they went home. So it really is an unfortunate set of circumstances for all of us.
When you hear that, he's making sense, right, in the way he lays it out. My thing is he's in the dark like we're in the dark in terms of what happens next. And as a mayor, there's only so much he can do. He's got to wait for state legislators to make something happen.
Well, also for everybody who was mad that I kept bringing up the fact that they bought land or that it was a bluff or some of these ideas.
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Chapter 6: Why is the Cubs' pitching a concern going into this series?
Does him saying it make you understand the significance of it? Because they've been operating based on that very concept that you bought land, specified it for a stadium, and you've been trying to get it done. Now, he had another comment regarding who wanted to get this bill done. And I think it's very important to listen to because he is at the center of this.
Arlington Heights is at the center of this as much as the Bears are and as much as anyone else. They were the ones affected by this the most. Here's what he had to say regarding the mechanics of the deal.
Well, I can tell you that in our community here, we have done everything we can. I think we have been the very, very patient, hardworking partner on this thing. And I said this at one of our board meetings recently that I'm really disappointed. I honestly am disappointed that this job could not get done. And it wasn't because... This was the first ask. This is the third ask.
We've gone through three Mays, three spring sessions, and each time it was declined or not even brought up. This time, Governor Pritzker was behind it. Cam Buckner was behind it. There were a number of people who were behind it. Certainly, we had Mary Beth Canty and Nicole Grassi from Ireland Tonight, who are state reps. They were cheering for this to get it done.
But we just couldn't get it done. So I don't know if there's, you know, I'm sure there's plenty of blame to go around. I'm sure people would blame the Bears for, you know, whatever they want to blame them for. But the ask here was nothing heroic.
And for those people out there who think it's about donating money to the Bears or compromising their requirements and their responsibility for taxes, then those are folks that just don't want to listen and don't want to pay attention to the truth. The Bears want to pay taxes. They want to finance this thing privately. This is not something that they're asking for handouts on.
All they wanted was the ability to negotiate with the school districts here who have said they are all in for this. And the state of Illinois, unlike 34 other states, in the country here, decided that they didn't want to let that happen for now. And I know J.B. Pritzker is unhappy about this. He was behind this. He wanted this to get done. So like him, I'm disappointed.
That's really the best thing I can say. I'm disappointed that it couldn't happen.
And while I understand that position from the mayor, it depends on what you define as heroic. Because the Bears do want a tax break or else they wouldn't be in this position. For example, Joe Mansueto didn't need help. He bought the land outright. He is building on it. The end. The Ricketts family asked for that.
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Chapter 7: What updates do we have on the Bears' stadium development plans?
He said Luke Cornett has rib protection, blocked shots, and he liked how he guarded Giannis and Tadakufo in the first half against the box gentlemen.
What? Neil Funk, Stacey King.
Oh, my goodness. Robert Ory? Robert Ory was a great two-way player. One rings, too. Oh, my goodness.
I did not expect Robert Worre to have heard about that. That took on a life of its own. But Stacey was all of us in that moment. All of us. And that's just the kind of teammate he was. He wouldn't leave you hanging. And as he said on this station, and it was many years ago in an interview that we did with Stacey. You heard Neil Funk there. He spoke yesterday in the tribute on CHSN.
But Stacey said, Neil, just let me be myself. And he got to entertain and be himself and say all the famous lines that we think of. The G stands for gets. Did you not get the memo? Cookies. He made the game so fun for all of us.
Cookies.
He was every bit himself. The Stacey that you saw is the Stacey that we knew. And he... This just is not fair.
312 with the text I think will be highly relatable in this moment. As one who normally is the strong one in moments of loss, I think as a whole, we've all had to just sit in this moment of grief. There's no shaking this off.
And also, Stacey had come fromāand we had fun with this. We don't have time to play it. Maybe later. But he joked about the L.A. Dodgers hat being the Lawton area. We had fun with that. Lawton, Oklahoma. There's a huge part of a group of people where I come from who know Stacey for playing for the late, great Billy Tubbs at OU and being a part of an excellent Oklahoma team.
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