re: Cubs 2013

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"25 Laziest athletes in pro sports"

#11 Alfonso Soriano

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Cubs TV analyst Bob Brenly ripped into Alfonso Soriano during an interview Tuesday on WSCR-AM 670, saying the left fielder displayed a "selfish attitude" and suggesting Soriano should've been yanked from Monday night's game after admiring a long fly ball instead of running hard out of the box.


That remark led to a discussion on Soriano's second-inning at-bat, in which he turned a possible triple into a double by watching the ball at home plate before jogging toward first. Asked if he would've pulled Soriano if he were the Cubs' manager, Brenly said: "I wouldn't hesitate to do something like that. I think it sets a bad precedent to the team... and a bad message to the younger players.

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Leadership can come in many different forms and from several different places. It can come from the manager, teammates or coaches. But when the only ones articulating their disapproval are the fans, you know you have a problem.

And so it goes for the Cubs, who seemingly have nobody with the guts to walk up to Alfonso Soriano and tell him that he simply must hustle on every play. He owes it to his organization, to the fans—heck, he owes it to himself.

If you didn't see the play in question, Soriano ripped a liner down the third-base line in Saturday's game that, for a second, appeared to be caught by Red Sox third baseman Will Middlebrooks. But Soriano didn't even step out of the box, standing there like a statue and being thrown out at first base easily.

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LOS ANGELES — Cubs manager Mike Quade was seen talking to Alfonso Soriano in the dugout shortly after the left-fielder jogged out of the batter's box on a third-inning pop fly to left that eluded Tony Gwynn Jr. for a single instead of what could have been a double.

Soriano compounded the mistake when he was thrown out at second moments later trying to advance on a fly to left.

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"It's the other things — we want to be able to run balls out to the left side of the field. We want to be able to stretch singles into doubles, take hard turns, run the bases really hard.

"I know the fans don't like that, but sometimes they have to understand that that's a habit."

Former Cubs managers Lou Piniella and Mike Quade couldn't change Soriano and didn't really try. Can Sveum break that habit?

"Yeah, you talk about it," he said. "And hopefully in that spur of the moment he thinks about maybe something I said. But that's not always the case. A lot of things are tougher than just talking about it."

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2 people have defended him clearly do not watch the games

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