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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!spuxll!radio
From: radio@spuxll.UUCP (Rick Farina)
Newsgroups: net.sport.baseball
Subject: Cubs Purge Begins
Message-ID: <709@spuxll.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 15-Aug-85 13:27:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: spuxll.709
Posted: Thu Aug 15 13:27:28 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 18-Aug-85 05:32:16 EDT
Organization: AT&T Information Systems, South Plainfield NJ
Lines: 27


The Cubs have summarily released Larry Bowa. Gee, in just a few more 
weeks the teams expand to 40 players, and that means roster room for 
both Larry Bowa AND Shawon Dunston. Oh well, SOMEONE had to pay for 
the recent home-and-away humiliation by the Mets. One wonders further 
if there is a message in Bowa's public hanging-at-sundown for some other 
veteran Cubs: Lopes, Cey, Hebner, Spier, Matthews, et al.

Indeed, if the Cubs do finish with a pathetic show, say, 10-15 games out, 
the urge to purge will be irresistible. Already we can hear a shrill, 
unrelenting sound from Dallas Green's office: the sound of the sharpening 
of the hatchet! Circumstantially, such a witch-hunt may consume Jim Frey. 
After all, SOMEONE has to pay for all of that wasted energy spent debating 
The Merits Of Lights At Wrigley Field, a debate which raged on our own 
little net as well as in the sports world at large, just a few months ago, 
when the Cubs starters were all healthy, and everybody thought that 
Sutcliffe could really go 16-1 again.

For the nonce, Shawon Dunston is the shortstop. Someday, he might be a 
great player. Otherwise, he is the first 25% of the answer to the 
trivia question (posed here only rhetorically) "Name the 4 players 
who were selected ahead of Dwight Gooden in the June 1982 draft?"
No one deserves to perform under such a burden, not even the starting
shortstop of the despised Cubs.

raf
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