Cubs Media Monday: America, Fuck Yeah! Edition

In anticipation of the new season, we're introducing Cubs Media Monday, our effort to show you the best Cubs stuff that we find whilst we should be doing productive things. We'll offer commentary aside from the usual YouTube "Bush sucks, I hate this video!" offerings. This will, with your positive feedback, become a new weekly feature. And we're committed to the future here - we foresee keeping this up for upwards of three, even four weeks! Good stuff.

For our inaugural offering, we're going to highlight an event that a lot of younger fans seem to have forgotten about, an interesting footnote in Cubs history that will stir the patriotic spirit and tug at the hippie-hating heartstrings. It features former Cub CF Rick Monday - and no, that's not his Cinemax name. I'll let the video tell the story. Apologies in advance for the embarrassingly bad production.

Okay, perhaps the dramatic music was unnecessary, and maybe Tommy Lasorda just had to try and grab some credit for himself, but the important part is that Rick Monday Saved America. If anything, the swelling patriotic music just takes focus away from an event that needed no embellishment.

You Bogart the hell out of that flag, Rick Monday!

(Rant excised ... yes, seriously)

Buy this man a beer - and a sideburns trimmer

Rick Monday had the balls to run over and grab a flag soaked in lighter fluid from two flame-wielding morons. The Dodgers were impressed, which sort of makes the coda to this story bittersweet. After Monday briefly became a national hero (so far as the media in 1976 could create a darling), the Dodgers made a concerted effort to land the brave flag-snatcher. We got two players (most notably Bill Buckner) for him, and he won the 1981 World Series with the Dodgers. He became a hero among Dodger fans that season for a 9th inning home run in game 5 (back then the final game) of the NLCS. After a couple more seasons in California, he became a broadcaster for the Dodgers, a position he holds to this day. One of the greatest and most dramatic things ever done by a Cub in effect took that player away from Cubdom for good. Rick Monday became yet another player who achieved in a Cubs uniform, and made a legacy for himself elsewhere. Oh well - we'll take it. Crack an Old Style for Rick Monday, dear readers. He deserves it.