Brenneman vs. Cubs II

While the Cubs were swinging and missing during most of the series against the Cincinnati Reds, announcer Thom Brenneman landed a cheap shot.

I have it on good authority that one of those Brenneman folk (and his sidekick Chris Welch) followed in his daddy's footsteps and basically implied (without any substance, mind you) that Cubs catcher Geovany Soto has used performance enhancing drugs.

Courtesy of Hire Jim Essian!

"THOM: You look at his career numbers, I’m talking about his minor league numbers, he just came to the majors for the first time this season. And you wonder, you know, where did all of this offense all of a sudden come from Geovany Soto?…You look at his minor league numbers, .260 one year, .269, .242, .271, .253…he had never hit more than nine home runs in a minor league season..NINE, until last year when he hit TWENTY-SIX in Triple-A Iowa and hit .353. Now all of a sudden, in his first full-year in the major leagues, granted it’s only a month and a week, but he’s hitting almost .340 and leads the Cubs in runs batted in with 24.

CHRIS: I don’t mean this in a bad way, but before steroid testing, you see a blip in the radar like that you say, well..

THOM: Right…

CHRIS: …one of the possibilities might be he’s juicing, but obviously that’s not the case anymore, everyone’s tested. And you know that doesn’t happen very much with baseball players because usually, whether it’s at the minor league level or the major league level, by the time you’re 28 or so…I’m not sure how old Soto is…he’s only 25, you reach a certain plateau of productivity. You pretty much stay within range. Maybe now that he’s getting closer to the prime of his career…around…he’s 25, so it’ll be a couple years until he’s in that…but maybe he’s reaching a new plateau.

THOM: Well another guy that was similar to that was Sammy Sosa…now people can accuse Sosa of “did he do this or did he do that”. To my knowledge he’s never been tested in a positive way for any kind of steroids, whether people believe or not he did is an entirely different question.

But the point being, that Sosa was one of those guys coming up through the White Sox organization who never hit many home runs, then all of a sudden got to the big leagues and started knocking the cover off the ball."

Oh no he didn't!

The first thing that came to my mind (and it's not because I'm a jealous Cubs fan) was Albert Pujols coming from nowhere to destroy the league, and the only comments we can get about him are from jealous Cubs fans who take shots at what Pujols' real age is and take notice that he's under the guidance of a manager whose players have been known to be (at least allegedly) BALCO'd Up!

But this isn't about Albert.

If this was Red Sox/Yankees and a broadcaster threw something like that out, it would have been the top story on ESPN. Heck, they made a big deal out of Gary Thorne's allegation that Curt Schilling's bloody sock was just a scam.

Instead, the World Wide Leader sweeps it under the rug. And to be honest, it's not that big of a deal.

Unless Brenneman takes a glance at Brandon Phillips.

The slugging second baseman only posted six home runs in 462 at bats during his time as a Cleveland Indian.

Two years later, as a Red, he's parlayed that into a 30-30 campaign in 2007 and is currently raking on my fantasy team as I attempt to capture the crown.

I'd say those numbers came out of nowhere, wouldn't you?

Let this be a lesson to Thom, who I consider to be one of the best play-by-play announcers in sports.

Don't think you can throw outrageous claims to the public without someone noticing and picking you apart.

Have a wonderful day!

-LMed