Lost amid the hubub yesterday (yes, hubub) of the Matt Lawton steroid fiasco, the collective exuberance over the Bulls’ season opener and an appearance here at Desipio by Gallagher III, was the fact that baseball handed out their Gold Gloves for the National League.

I heard the announcement that two Cubs had won awards and my inital fear was that Neifi had joined Derrek Lee in the winner’s circle. Now, I have nothing against Neifi. I just cringe at any tangible evidence Dusty Baker can be provided that Neifi should be anything more than a backup middle infielder.

My fears were not realized, as Greg Maddux won his 15th award. Maddux has now won the award five times as a Cub. He even deserved it the first three times.

That’s not fair, he’s still an excellent defender, and one of the few pitchers who actually gets into fielding position at the end of his pitching motion. In his prime he was an amazing defensive pitcher. Depending on what pitch he was throwing and where he was locating it he would literally leap off the mound in one direction or the other, convinced he knew where the ball would be hit. He was right most of the time.

He’s not even the only geezer on the list. Omar Vizquel won the award at shortstop. Both Greg and Omar were born during the Eisenhower administration. OK, not really. Greg’s 39 and considered the best fielding pitcher in the league. Omar is 38 and has the same status at shortstop. Time for the new breed to start taking infield before games again.

The best news was that Derrek Lee has won his second award at first base. He won it in 2003 for the Marlins, then Todd Helton wrestled the award back last year and now it’s Lee’s again. As much as we enjoy summing up the Mark Grace era in terms of fat girls and Winstons, we knew he was a great defensive first baseman.

Lee’s certainly in his class.

While there’s a Cubs’ conspiracy that goes back four TV announcers now to give the award away to Albert Pujols, Lee’s clearly the better defender. So, it was nice to see that the people who actually vote on the award figured it out, too.

I’ve never understood, given the differences in each outfield spot, why they just pick three outfielders regardless of position. I don’t just say that because then Jim Edmonds wouldn’t win Gold Gloves, but rather, because I’d like to see the best leftfielder, the best centerfielder and the best rightfielder be recognized.

It’s not lost on me that the Bobby Abreu choice seems a little daft. Bobby’s a great player, but he’s no great shakes in right. Jeromy Burnitz is every bit the defender that Abreu is, and I doubt anybody’s clamoring for Jeromy to get an award.

Mike Lowell suffered through a miserable season in Florida, one where he was replaced at third by Miguel Cabrera, and he wins the Gold Glove because Scott Rolen’s arm fell off again. Rolen will win the award next year, no matter what. In fact, if he learns to tear his right arm off and use it as a club to knock down line drives to left field, Tony LaRussa will tell us all how much more efficient that is than anything anybody else can do.

The Tribune today has an article penned by Seabiscuit’s Jockey that says not only do the Cubs have a big man crush on Braves’ free agent shortstop Rafael Furcal, but that Furcal says “the feeling is moochal!” His agent cites Rafael’s friendships with E-ramis Ramirez and Neifi as reasons he would like to come cash huge paychecks in Chicago for the next four to six seasons.

The Mets are also interested, but they want him to play second base, and we’re pretty sure they also want him to load all of the bags and equipment trunks on the team plane, and something about cleaning the toilets and giving former Met Sid Fernandez sponge baths. Sounds like Rafael ought to just sign with the Cubs.

The Jockey opines that if Furcal signs with the Cubs, that the team will make Ronny Cedeno the every day second baseman and trade Todd Walker. But you kind of figure that if the Cubs sign Furcal, they’ll sign Neifi to be his buddy, AA sponsor and backup. Then, if you take Todd Walker away from Dusty, he’s going to play Neifi at second instead of Cedeno. You know, without Neifi who will provide the “veteran leadership” that is so necessary to have standing in your infield?

Going with a middle infield of Furcal and Cedeno makes perfect sense. The Cubs’ need to play better defense and playing two guys with legitimate shortstop range in at short and second seems like a fine idea. But since it makes sense, Dusty won’t see it as having any merit.

Can you believe we still have 362 days of this guy?

One way the Cubs could go would be to sign Furcal, re-sign Nomar and Neifi and then make a series of trades so they can field an all-shortstop lineup! They could even disguise their defenses by having all nine players line up before every pitch at shortstop then sprint to their positions. Hey, does that make any less sense than teams who line up for extra points and field goals right by the sidelines then swing the whole formation across the field to the ball?

Muhsin Muhammad’s not at the end of his rope yet. He only has 34 catches, but last year at this time he only had 31 and ended up with 93 on the season and 16 touchdowns. So he won’t get really frusted for a couple more weeks.

Peanut Tillman was named NFC Defensive Player of the Week and he gave all the credit to Alfonso Boone and Walleye Ogunleye. But I’ll bet he didn’t break the plaque in half and hand it to them.

The Bulls roared back from a 25 point deficit, including 21 in the fourth quarter alone and beat the tremendously lousy Charlotte Bobcats in overtime. Of course this is the kind of thing the guys at On-Hoops do best. Including Matt Turvey’s Behind the Boxscore, the best daily column on the NBA that you’re not reading. So go read it. Be the first. You’ll tell your grandkids about stuff like this. You know, if you get really senile and stuff.

Besides, they brought LJ back. What more could you ask for, really?

Groucho says the Bulls might be a little undersized. Gee, really? What made you think that? When in OT they had Chris Duhon do the center jump against Emeka Okafor.

By the way, I spent the first 40 minutes of the game complaining to the TV that Chris Duhon sucks. Then, he had seven assists in the fourth quarter, finished with a triple double and I stopped yelling.

Mariotti put down the doughnut to show up at the United Center and hang out with his new best friend Ozzie Guillen. Whatever.

Remember Tuesday, when the Steelers said Ben Roethlisberger was just fine and would start Sunday in Green Bay? Yeah, he had knee surgery yesterday.

DodgerBlues.com is just a little concerned that the Dodger GM search is going to be a complete clusterf#$%. I think it’ll be fine. As long as they hire somebody who thinks Dusty’s not a complete moran.

A gambling site is offering Theo Epstein $2 million a year to help them set betting lines on baseball games. Hey, me and my buddy Pete will do it for half that!

Saints’ owner Tom Benson says he will not attend any of his team’s games in Baton Rouge this year or next because he felt the security was inadequate and worried that his family would be killed or worse. He won’t be in attendance Sunday when the Bears face the Saints there. If security is as bad as it seems, I encourage the entire McCaskey family to make a day of it and head down to Tiger Stadium.

Marty Burns on Phil Jackson and Larry Brown and their “new” jobs. In the Knicks’ OT loss to the Celtics last night I saw Celtics guard Delonte West make one of the best passes, ever. In overtime, with the Celtics up four, Stephon Marbury knocked a pass away from Ricky Davis and it was bouncing out of bounds. West ran over and was going to let it go out, but he saw Marbury just standing there, not guarding Davis, so in one motion, West leaped up, saved the ball by throwing it just over Marbury’s head to Davis who was already set and buried a three. The lead was seven, the game was over. One possession later I had the fun time of seeing Antonio Davis chew out Marbury on the court for not boxing out Davis when a rebound went right past Steph to Ricky for an easy seven footer.

The Mets are considering signing the rehabbing Octavio Dotel. I thought this was Jim Hendry’s specialty? You know, signing gimps to two year contracts. And yes, I think this would be a good move.

AJ Burnett likes the Blue Jays for now.

America’s finest news source says the next WNBA draft will also double as a bachelorette auction. No men will be bidding.