Saturday, April 29, 2006

AND PRINT IT! Twenty-three years ago today, Chicago Cubs manager Lee Elia produced easily the greatest postgame tirade in the history of not just baseball, but organized sports, making today Lee Elia Day here at ALOTT5MA.

You can read the unedited transcript here and also download an MP3 version.

Lost over the years has been the exact circumstances that led to the rant. Here is the boxscore from that game, in which the Cubs lost 4-3 to the Dodgers with the winning run scoring in the eighth on a Lee Smith wild pitch. The loss, in front of 9,931 fans or as Elia liked to call them the "dumb 15 motherf--kin' percent that come out to day baseball," dropped the Cubs to a robust 5-14. And who do you think was batting third and playing left field for the Dodgers that day? None other than current Cubs skipper Dusty Baker, whose team is appropriately down 13-0 to the Brewers as I type this.

And let's not have this day pass without a hat tip to local broadcasting legend Les Grobstein, whose trusty tape recorder that day captured Elia's colorful words for all eternity.

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