Nothing to see here.  Look away.The Cubs are a courteous bunch.  Some teams waste most if not all of your summer before going into the tank.  Not these boys.  They managed to pack it in before Cinco de Mayo.  Now that is thoughtful.  Just think of all the things you’ll be able to do this summer now that three hours of every day have been freed up for you.

You can read all those books you’ve been meaning to get to.  The garage probably needs painting.  You can spend more time on the Internet and maybe you can meet a nice 14 year old and get to be on Dateline NBC?  The options are endless.  Who do we have to thank for this?  Who’s the guy we should give the big, shirtless hug of appreciation to?

For once, it’s not Dusty Baker.  Oh, sure, it’d be nice if he or one of his endless array of former batting coaches could coax more than one run out of every 30 innings, but it’s hard to blame Dusty for this mess.  If anything, he seems to have actually tried to actively look for lineups and batting orders that might work.

Nope, it’s time to lather up and give a big bear hug to Jim Hendry.  See, in the offseason, the Cubs had several gaping holes to fill.  They needed starting pitching because two of their guys were always hurt and another was Glendon Rusch.  They needed a right fielder and a center fielder.  They needed some bullpen help.  They  needed a real bench.

To his credit, Jim did good work in getting Juan Pierre, Scott Eyre and Bob Howry. 

But puzzlingly, he spent a lot of the winter trying to fill a hole that wasn’t there.  Shortstop.  The first half of the winter was spent throwing money at 12-stepper Rafael Furcal.  Granted, had it worked, the Cubs could have moved Ronny Cedeno to second and had a very athletic double play combination.  When Rafael signed with the Dodgers, Jim turned his attention to Miguel Tejada.  Tejada is leading the American League in hitting.  Can’t argue with that.

Except.  While most GMs seem to be able to work on several things at once, Jim does not seem to be one of those people.  While he chased Furcal and Tejada the rotation went untended and right field remained ignored.

He ended up losing out on Tejada, too (meaning that he knows which guys he wants, he just can’t get them—that’s great?), and looked up and said, “Damn, I still need a right fielder and a starting pitcher or three.”

This, friends, is how you end up signing Jock Jones for three years.  Jock’s only other tangible offer was from the Kansas City Royals.  The Royals!  Even they didn’t want to give him three years.

Then, he signed Wade Miller.  The same Wade Miller who had shoulder surgery and won’t be able to pretend to be ready to come back until the dandelions are out of your yard.  Not only did he sign Miller just months removed from an arm surgery, but he only signed Wade for one year.  Meaning, that Wade will use the Cubs as a chance to get paid and rehab, then sign with somebody else next year.  Oh, this is brilliant stuff.

Derrek Lee got hurt on April 10.  It’s May 5 and the Cubs still haven’t made a move to replace him.  But now rumblings are they’re going to make a move and trade for somebody.  Sure, why not wait until the player is halfway through his time on the shelf before you make a move to replace him?  Seems logical.  It’s not like they could have used an extra bat for any of the 13 games they’ve played so far without Lee.  Nah.

The interesting thing is that even at full power (yes, even had the miraculous occurred and Kerry Wood and Mark Prior had been healthy to start the season) the Cubs came into the season as a team that would need additional parts to be really good.  But not only haven’t they added on, they’ve lost parts, and now look unlikely to keep their heads above water long enough for the returns of Wood (May 17), Lee (sometime in late June) or Prior (sometime in 2008) to matter.

Right now they can’t hit and they can’t pitch.  They can’t run the bases, either.  Other than that, they’re aces.

While the Lee injury was huge, it happened at a time in the season when you figured they could get by.  They flew from LA to St. Louis for three games the night he broke his wrist, but then they had an eight game homestand with the Marlins, Brewers and Pirates, followed by a trip out west, to play teams so bad they can’t beat the Rockies.  So far, they’ve gone 5-8.  Of those eight losses, several have been doozies.

A 9-3 loss to the Cardinals in which it was 7-0 after two innings.

Back to back losses at home to the Brewers where the Cubs were outscored 25-2.

A six game stretch of games (they’re still in it) in which they’ve lost six times and scored five runs.  Holy shit.  We haven’t seen anything like this since…well, last year when the Cubs went five games without ever having a lead.

It’s ridiculous and foolhardy to give up on a season on May 5.  The Cubs, for all of their faults are still above .500.

But, while it may be ridiculous and foolhardy, it seems pretty realistic.  The Cubs are 14-13, but they’re in fifth place.  They’re already five games out of first, they’re playing terribly and show no signs of that ending anytime soon.  They’re also not all that terribly good even when they play well. 

How tolerable would all of this be, had they just gotten those five more outs in 2003?  Probably not as tolerable as we tell ourselves it would be if we at least had that pennant to look back on fondly.  We’d still want them to win.  Is it worse now that the Sox have won something and the Cubs aren’t really even competitive?  Of course it is.

Maybe they’ll turn it around.  Maybe they’ll go on some ludicrous Reds-like 20-9 run and inject some hope.

Sure.  Whatever.

The good news, of course is that now you have your summer to do whatever you want with it.  Learn to water ski, develop a crack cocaine habit, whatever.  The Cubs have released you from the burden of paying attention to them.  How nice.

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In the end, the Bulls were no match for an interested Shaquille O’Neal.  The Bulls have nothing at center or power forward, and after two minutes last night–when Shaq came out all frisky–you knew the season was over.  The Bulls deserve credit for going on an overachieving run that got them into the playoffs and helped them make a little noise. 

As much as Barry Rozner wants to continue grinding his axe against Scott Skiles and Kirk Hinrich, it just seems to be more of a trend for Barry.  He’s missing the boat, again.  Why is it so hard for Barry to see that there’s a difference between benching Ben when he’s not making shots and giving Kirk a longer leash?  Why can’t he see that Ben doesn’t play any defense, which makes him a double liability when he’s not not scoring?  For all of Hinrich’s faults, not trying to guard people isn’t one of them.  Instead, column after column, Barry acts like Skiles hates his black guard and loves his white one too much.  If Ben were white and Kirk were black, Kirk would still get more minutes. 

Alas, the decay of Rozner into Rick Morrissey is nearly complete.  At least Rozner has the decency to hardly write anymore.

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