Controversy over trade Cubs made with the Yankees for Aroldis Chapman

I was reading this column in USA Today Sports by Bob Nightengale, who’s a pretty decent baseball writer for the publication. He was writing about the Cubs trading three very good minor league prospects and a good pitcher on their staff to the Yankees for Aroldis Chapman, the closer who has thrown it 105 MPH this year, and is superb, almost un-hittable in the ninth inning and sure to give the Cubs a massive boost. He can help them win the World Series, but it’s the Cubs, and I still don’t trust them or Joe Maddon, and there are a lot of very good other teams that can win it.

Chapman committed domestic violence against his girlfriend last fall (2015). Chapman was accused of choking and pushing her in the garage at their house and shooting eight shots into the air with a gun. It’s a pretty controversial move by club president Theo Epstein and the Cubs and the Chicago media says if the Cubs win the World Series it should be tainted because they’ve done so at the expense of character, or lack thereof in this case on both the club’s and Chapman’s part. Nightengale said, “Look, major league teams are in the business of winning, no matter what it takes.” That’s where I draw a line and was thinking about something I said to my wife two nights ago about  about Jimbo Fisher and Art Briles and how they were in difficult positions. I thought better of it today and realized, you know what, what they did and what the Cubs have done doesn’t cut it. Soft discipline on guns and drugs should be unacceptable, too.

It goes back to the fact that these baseball players make a terrific living and all they’re asked today is work hard at their trade and be good citizens. How hard is that. And the same for college football players. They get a free ride to college, education, free lodging for four years, all the food they want to eat, and now a stipend that they can use at their own discretion. And if they use it wisely, they can enjoy college and still be good football players and have a chance to play at the next level if they are gifted enough and they work hard. Playing college football is not easy, but life isn’t easy, but overall, they’ve got a pretty good deal. It’s really a privilege and not a right. There are a lot of college students who take on student loans or their parents are financially stressed to get them through four years and they’d gladly take this deal. The players talent is God given. They are fortunate. Those are the facts of the matter.

When it comes to a critical issue like protecting women, there are standards and laws in society that must be followed. Chapman is a low character guy, and winning does not trump moral decency or the laws of the land. Treating women with abuse is unequivocally unacceptable. I think it happened in Miami and they didn’t press charges because they said the witnesses were not cooperative,  the girlfriend being one of them, and there wasn’t enough evidence. That always seems to be the case these days. Seems to be the standard line by DA’s offices.

I’m back to integrity in sports. Football coaches need to enforce what I’d call not just rules, but laws, that if you touch a women inappropriately, meaning using physicality, you’re  kicked off the team or you’re suspended for a year in the pros. Another incident in the pros and you’re banished for life. And the legal system should prosecute. Guns and drugs are issues that absolutely need to be punished also. I’m not going to be soft about that like some may be. Character matters and it matters a lot and that will be one of the paramount goals of this blog going forward along with analyzing, predicting and reviewing the great games,  and the athletes who not only excel on the playing field, but guys who do the right things, and there are a lot of them. But I will call out the minority who don’t. I’m not trying to be holier than thou, but doing the right thing, following the rules, will be a part of this blog along with the great sports that we write about here.

The Cubs acquired Chapman to win the World Series, and they didn’t care about the domestic violence case. That’s the extent of the Cubs’ character. Theo Epstein, their GM, and Maddon, said they thoroughly vetted him, but all Chapman, a Cuban,  remembers through an interpreter, is they talked about winning the World Series exclusively without any mention of his abuse against his girlfriend. I hope it doesn’t work out for the Cubs. I’m starting to think Maddon isn’t as great a guy as he’s perceived to be in the media and by the public, though there are some who question his decisions in games, like me, and see him as an overrated manager. 

They’re so desperate to win in Chicago, it’s been since 1908 since they’ve won the World Series, that they’ll do anything to get over that 108 year drought.

But I totally disagree with Nightengale’s comment that it’s all about winning. I’m not clueless; winning is important to every team and every athlete in sports, but not to the point where you ignore an assault on a woman just to win the World Series. Vince Lombardi’s famous quote that “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing” is misquoted. What Coach Lombardi actually said is, “The will to win is everything, it’s the only thing.” He never said winning at all costs is the everything. That never crossed his mind. That was NOT his intention in that famous quote. 

The Yankees are at fault, too, for signing him in the first place. MLB did give him a 30 day suspension to start the season, but with all that has been happening to women at the hands of athletes, that wasn’t enough either. It should have been a year suspension. I  have little respect for Nightengale after his comments on the situation . I don’t have any respect for the Cubs, Epstein, Maddon and the owner, Tom Ricketts, either. Their arrogance will come back to haunt them if they don’t win it all. Predictions at the end of September.