Friday, Feb. 25, 2011Posted: 1:06 p.m.
By David Kaplan
CSNChicago.com
The latest from Cubs camp for Thursday, and Friday February 24, 25...
Thursday
Mesa, AZ: Today the entire team spent a considerable amount of time working on base running with first base coach Bobby Dernier teaching and instructing the entire team on what is expected of them.
Camp is run in stations and with no time wasted moving from field to field. Pitchers I saw on the mound today included Randy Wells and Jeff Samardizija who are both hoping to make the team after very disappointing 2010 campaigns. Samardizija is showing excellent velocity while Wells looks trim and very eager to put last season behind him.
Baseball Tonight has their Baseball 2011 bus here today with Tim Kurkjian and John Kruk and they interviewed Ryan Dempster, Mike Quade, and Marlon Byrd as they preview the Cubs. Dempster did a spot on impersonation of Chris Farleys Matt Foley character that was so good that it will probably go viral...
MLB
Aramis Ramirez looked great in a live BP session as he ripped line drive after line drive. Also, looking good was Tyler Colvin...
Manager Mike Quade was right in the middle of a base running drill and was nearly smoked by a line drive that came right back through the box. Quade was on the pitchers mound teaching and deftly snagged the shot with his glove, drawing a large cheer from the fans in attendance at Fitch Park...
Quade also announced the scheduled pitchers for the first four exhibition games:
Sunday: Carlos Zambrano, Matt Garza
Mon: Randy Wells, Andrew Cashner
Tuesday: Ryan Dempster, Todd Wellemeyer, and Casey Coleman
Wednesday: Carlos Silva, James Russell
Friday
Today is moving day for the Cubs as they officially end the Fitch Park portion of camp and move over to Ho Ho Kam Stadium with Cactus League play opening on Sunday when the Cubs play the Oakland As. The locker rooms are filled with boxes as the clubhouse staff led by the incomparable Tom Otis Hellman and Gary Stark are packing up the stuff they just unpacked a few weeks ago and moving it just a mile away to the stadium where the Cubs play their spring training home games. Having to move in the middle of camp just further demonstrates the need for a new spring training facility. The people who run the current facilities are extremely dedicated and very nice but the Cubs have extremely outdated facilities compared to the rest of the teams in the Cactus League.
Lots of work in the batting cages again today as all of the players seem to really be buying into Rudy Jaramillo and his philosophy. In fact, one player said to me that upon his arrival in camp last week, Aramis Ramirez went to Jaramillo and asked to work with him to make sure he gets off to a great start. Thats a far cry from a year ago when he and Derrek Lee went about their work themselves despite being mired in terrible slumps.
Just watched a GREAT teaching moment this morning as Mike Quade stopped a contact drill (where the Cubs have men on first and third and have the runner on third going home on contact) to instruct top prospect Brett Jackson who was the base runner on third. Jackson tried to score when he clearly had no chance on a ball hit right back to the pitcher. Quade stopped the drill to instruct Jackson and told me this after he finished his teaching moment.
I had to tell him that the base runner on third has the responsibility on a hard hit ball that he cannot score on to get caught in a rundown long enough to allow the man on first to get to second. That makes the best out of a bad situation because the man on third will be tagged out. He was hustling on the play but I have to make sure he understands the correct way to run that play. We saw great energy from Quade and it is great to see him stressing fundamentals to this degree.
Again, I cannot stress to you enough the energy that is evident in camp. Long time baseball writer Tim Kurkjian told me yesterday that he has visited all of the camps in Arizona and the energy at Cubs camp was something he hadnt seen in a long time. That is all a tribute to Mike Quade who is a non-stop ball of energy from the moment he arrives at camp, which is around 6 a.m. until well into the evening.
Tune in for a live report from Cubs spring training today on CTL at 5:30 and on SportsNet Central at 6:30, 10:00 and midnight
David Kaplan is the host of Chicago Tribune Live on Comcast SportsNet. Follow him on Twitter @thekapman.