During the Fri 10/28/16 game, a Cubs hitter (call him "Mr. Stupid") hit a towering drive into the deep right field corner. Being lazy and/or stupid, he paused at the plate to (choose one): admire his hit, daydream about whether it would go foul, bask in the crowd's admiration of his homer, moronic [choose your own] muddied daydreaming.

A few moments later, Mr. Stupid decided to amble toward 1st base. Then jog. But not run or sprint.

The drive was fair, and the right fielder, hampered by the bizarrely tight foul line, was unable to catch it. Nor to field it cleanly...indeed, he botched it and the ball got away. Mr. Stupid, familiar with the odd geography of Wrigley Field, knew this result was likely, and had even more reason to run like h..l.

Mr. Stupid eventually noticed the botched catch, and at 1st base begrudgingly started running. Even after wasting so much time by pausing at the plate and ambling toward 1st, Mr. Stupid had an easy triple.

Had Mr. Stupid hustled from the gitgo he almost certainly would have had an inside the park home run. He threw away the run, was stranded, and the Cubs never scored, losing 1-0. Even the announcers gently pointed out what he cost the team, but were too chicken to argue what paroxysm of stupidity led to Mr. Stupid's misbehavior.

Ballplayers like Mr. Stupid are paid $ Millions per year. He showed the middle finger to fans, manager, and teammates by not even pretending to give his best effort. Is it too much to ask that these coddled overpaid athletes be expected to do their best? Rather than indulge themselves in laziness and stupidity.

Some managers would respond to such an effort with a benching.   Apparently, the manager does not demand a serious effort from his players.

You think "not hustling" is bad?

Lord help anyone who's around me whenever I see a batter dive into 1st base trying to beat out a throw. Its like, you do realize you're allowed to go all out & overrun the bag right?

(Out of watching A LOT of baseball, I only see that diving into 1st base thing work in 1 in maybe 100 times I see it in which case the batter would have been safe anyways)

take a pill, dude, and think of the play. first of all, if you know anything about wrigley field, especially when the wind is blowing out, all kinds of shenanigans can ensue. every single soul in that stadium (not just mr. stupid, as you repeatedly refer to him) thought that ball was going to land 12 rows out of the field of play.

the dufus in right field could have easily made the catch, if the ball had a standard trajectory off the bat, and didn't have the wind blowing it 30 feet back onto the field. the wall/line had nothing to do with that. chisenhall has proven a few times this series that he's a defensive liability.

and assuming soler (that's his real name) could have turned that into an inside the park hr is just that; an assumption. by the time he got to third. the ball was back in the infield. a standard relay toss from a second baseman to home plate takes about 2 seconds. assuming he would have scored--if he had run out of the box--is a reach.

now, granted, a lot of dudes make dumb moves (standing there admiring their blast) when they end up hitting balls that don't go out of the park. if every guy who does that got benched, there'd be a lot of folks who miss games on a regular basis.

it's just how the game is played now. i'm 54, and have to stop talking to a lot of guys my age--or older--who A.) don't watch baseball (i watch a lot) and B.) have their silly, anachronistic takes on the modern game. take as many games a year that you may watch, then extrapolate it out to 162, with 30 teams. roughly 2400 games. this isn't new.

me, personally? i hate how guys won't take a bunt against the shift, every time they can, with less than two outs. it's a free hit. take the god damned thing and get on base.

guys today are not afraid (nor reprimanded for) to strike out over 100 times a season. allowing for me to be an anachronistic red-ass guy, that's totally unacceptable. there were guys "back in the day" that hit more home runs than they struck out, over an entire season. strikeouts are just collateral damage now. they fit into the analytics paradigm of modern baseball.

Another example, yesterday. Cubs' Rizzo at bat. Hits a huge drive, and pauses to watch it, before bothering himself to jog towards 1st base. Ball hit the wall ivy, was not caught. Rizzo was lucky to make it to 2nd base, safe thanks to an awful throw from the outfielder. A good throw would likely have nailed Rizzo, because of Rizzo's lazy dilly-dallying.

Had Rizzo done his job and RUN, he'd likely have been waved on for a triple.

Don't the fans and his teammates deserve Rizzo's BEST efforts?

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Second example, from same game: Hard grounder to 1st baseman who was playing deep. Pitcher's job is to sprint to 1st, to take the 1st baseman's throw. Instead, the pitcher stood on the mound enjoying a spell of daydreaming... And the runner easily reached 1st on what would have been a routine ground out, had the pitcher moved his nalgas.