Chicago Cub manager Lee Elia going off on the Wrigley Field bums is the most poetic rant of all time As a kid growing up in Chicago, I could recite the Pledge of Allegiance and this:
They are really behind you around here. My f------ a--. What the f--- am I supposed to do? Go out there and let my f------ players get destroyed everyday? And be quiet about it? For the nickel dime people that show up. The mother f------ don't even work. That's why they are out at the f------- game. They outta go out and get a f------- job and find out what it's like to go and earn a f------ living. 85% of the f------ world is world is working. The other 15% come out here.
Warning: This is the version without 10,000 bleeps.
Lee Elia is an underrated orator. Perhaps lost in the torrent of F bomb is some very skillfully delivered arguments."Right now, we have more losses than we have wins. The f------- changes that have happened in the Cubs organization are multifold. Alright, they don't show because we're 5-14. Unfortunately, that's the criteria [pronounced criterier] of them dumb 15 mother------- percent that come out to day baseball."
Beyond the F bombs, Elia had a pretty simple, sound view of baseball: "The name of the game is hit the ball, catch the ball and get the f----- job done."
UPDATE: Chicago Trib writer Teddy Greenstein looks back, including a great Sportsphone reference...as a kid I would call that 976# every 15 minutes to get score updates, much to my mother's chagrin. Jeff Davis, a good friend who wrote detailed biographies of Pete Rozelle and Papa Bear, was then Channel 5's sports producer. Davis recalls: "I never heard anyone go off like that with that kind of language. And I was in the Navy."
On the 25th anniversary of Lee Elia's rant, he has come clean with a NEW message--one put on a Talking Baseball that will raise thousands of dollars for cancer.
Go to www.Leeunplugged.com to see or call 1-800-581-8661.
They are holding a press outing in Chicago on Monday, April 28, at Harry Caray's Restaurant and Lee Elia himself will be talking about the 1983 incident and his NEW message for Cubs fans which will raise monies for the Chicago Baseball Cancer Charities.
This is really a nice item to get!
Posted by: Bob Ibach | April 23, 2008 at 12:40 PM