radio@spuxll.UUCP (Rick Farina) (08/15/85)
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 ---