It Should Be Against The Law That Jon Lester Will Retire A St. Louis Cardinal
Big day in Barstool Chicago as we spent the morning hanging with Olin Kreutz and breaking down the Bears' disaster. Although depressing, it was a marvelous distraction from our perpetual misery. The interview should be out later today and definitely worth a listen.
While all of this is going on though, we get blindsided by some of the most tragic news in my life covering the Cubs. And I truly mean Tragic in every sense of the word. Downright, awful, terrible news that Jon Lester is retiring and his last pitch will be with the St. Louis Cardinals.
Fortunately I know a major contingency of the daily-Barstool audience can identify with my emotions via firsthand personal experience. So many of us watched Big Jon take the mound in October, and with supreme regularity, that big motherfucker basically always delivered. There were a number more dominant arms and better statistics and more effective careers. But in measuring a pitcher at the time of their greatest need, there's literally one comparison I can muster over a similar timeframe and that's Madison Bumgarner. Those are the two swinging dicks that transcended Big Game moments and they have no equals in their peer group.
The Cubs had a chance to let Lester retire a Cub. They had a chance to keep him around for one more season in front of a consistently packed Wrigley. There was plenty of money and opportunity to let him ride off in the sunset as the Cubs competed for 4th place but instead we let him walk to the Nationals. Instead the front office sent a message to the remaining core that Nobody Is Safe Around Here and 12 months later it's actually so much worse than we anticipated. This turned out to be an embarrassing stain to kick off the Jed Hoyer era and there's no other description.
Listen I know Jon doesn't have the same stuff. We all knew he was trending down. But to just let a guy compete for your most hated rival for pennies on the dollar? To pretend like that stuff doesn't matter to the Cubs? To ignore history and success in the face of such prolonged, objective failure? That's just being straight up assholes to one of the best veterans to ever wear the uniform. Certainly one of the most respected and polished Cubs of my lifetime.
And now he goes down in history as a former Cardinal. This is not how you envision remembering Jon Lester but unfortunately that's the way it is. We all have to work just a little bit harder to ignore his time in St. Louis while forgiving the Cubs for letting this play out so horrifically. And it's a different type of pain. Like fucking up Heyward and Schwarber is one thing. Fucking up the farm system for years is another. But to categorically turn your back on a bonafide franchise legend in his last year? That's not being wrong, that's being terrible.
These kinds of things make it easier to criticize the Chicago Cubs. We haven't done anything right in years and this is just a casual reminder.
So maybe take it from me, Jon. Sucks you won't here this from the Cubs, but thanks for everything. Too bad it didn't end better because you most certainly deserve it.
Compassionately,
Carl