A bullpen implosion of epic proportions. Infield play that reminds us all of the immortal Tanner-Lupus-Stein double play combo of cinema fame. The ghost (even though he’s alive) of Dandy Don Meredith even turned the lights out to remind us that indeed, the party was over with the Cubs down three in the ninth. Now these are the Cubs!

Let’s hope it doesn’t last. Every team has nights like that. The Cubs, they just have them all of the time. You’ll know Dusty Baker is really mad if he compares them to last year’s Cubs again. They hate that. And they should.

The game was on wonderful channel 26 last night and out in the far western suburbs where I live (Poonsocket, Wyoming) we don’t get “The U”. But, I did get to watch the Brewers telecast. Darren “my dad has the worst hair on TV” Sutton and Bill “I hit .119 in my best year” Schroeder were on the call for Fox Sports Yukon or whatever FSN affiliate serves Milwaukee. They’re not bad. In fact, Schroeder was pretty funny when he found out the official scorer had ruled the play that loaded the bases in the second for Milwaukee was ruled an error.

Here’s the thing. The Brewers had runners on first and second and one out. The batter hit a slow roller into the hole between third and short. The runner at first was running on the pitch, but the runner at second, Geoff Jenkins had missed the sign and he wasn’t running. When Alex Gonzalez got the ball deep in the hole he was too deep to throw to first with any reasonable chance to get the runner, he had no play at second because that guy was off with the pitch, so he turned and threw to Mark Bellhorn at third. Bellhorn was retreating towards the bag and stopped to make sure he caught Alex’s throw. But when he caught it he was too far from the bag, so he had to lunge at it. Replays showed his foot beat Jenkins to the bag and that it should have been the second out. But the ump missed the call. The scorer gave Bellhorn an error. That’s complete BS.

And I don’t say that as an uneducated observer. I have 17 games of minor league official scoring experience. What I know about being an official scorer is that it is a completely s@#$ job. Every call pisses somebody off. If you rule it a hit the pitcher and his pitching coach are mad. If you rule it an error the hitter and his manager are mad. And the managers want to bitch about everything. Being an official scorer is akin to going to a baseball game and getting a very good seat and then driving a nail through the back of your hand for four hours.

However, the official scorer blew that call. He likely did it because he thought the throw would have beaten Jenkins to the bag had Bellhorn been on it. You can make a case for that. But not a good one. Gonzalez is running into left field and trying to make a throw, Bellhorn is back peddling towards the bag. An error on that play should only be charged if Bellhorn dropped the throw, or came off the bag too soon. Basically, all that happened was the hitter (Eddie Perez) beat out an infield hit. The only play was at third and Jenkins beat Bellhorn to the bag.

Schroeder accused the hometown scorer of giving Perez an error so that there was a better chance that Jenkins’ run would be unearned if he eventually scored. He did. It was. So on even routine hits, Schroeder would crack, “Let’s see if the scorer gives somebody an error.”

I don’t want to make a habit of listening to Sutton and Schroeder, but for one night, they were pretty good.

The Sun-Times is reporting that Charlie Villanueva is not only going to visit Kansas but that there’s no chance he’ll come to Illinois to play for the Illini. And this surprises who, exactly? People acted like new Illini Chief Bruce Weber was being daft by not fawning over Charlie. He gave Charlie a call, but he knew that the kid picked Self, not Illinois. Bruce put in the effort, but short of a Chevy Blazer full of cash, the Illini were eliminated from consideration the minute Bill Self transferred his Hair Club For Men membership from Champaign to Lawrence. Get over it.

Weber will land lots of good recruits over the years. But it shouldn’t shock anybody that the number three prospect in the land didn’t want to play for a coach he would only meet about 10 days before his deadline to sign came.

Speaking of draftees, what the hell is Chris Thomas thinking? Why would he go pro this year, get drafted 25th, sit behind a more expensive point guard for three years and hardly play? Go back to Notre Dame, win the Big East, be a lottery pick and roll around on piles of cash. You go to Notre Dame for chrissakes, you should have at least taken a simple econ class by now. Yikes.

I’m going to pretend I didn’t see Corey Patterson or Moises Alou make those throws to the plate last night. Wow.

Tonight on the West Wing somebody gets taken hostage in the White House. This, two weeks after somebody shot at the White House from across the street and one week after the Vice President had to resign because he was having an affair and bragging there’s life on Mars. I’m not making any of this up. And really, losing Aaron Sorkin, the guy who writes this crap, is supposed to be a bad thing for the show? Did I miss a memo?

Oh, did I mention that two weeks ago they hired Chandler Bing to be a staff lawyer (or something?) Here’s a visual picture for you. Aaron Sorkin is in the West Wingmobile and he looks out the window and sees all four wheels rolling away.

I don’t want to point fingers, but really, if you need a rally against the White Sox, hitting a pop-up to D’Angelo Jimenez might not be a bad first assault.

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Rosey thinks the Sox could use a trade. Gee, ya think?

Rick Morrissey thinks Sammy is kidding himself. I think Rick Morrissey has been sniffing the Elmer’s again.

The Cubs fans weren’t boo-ing they were saying…um…let’s see…no, they were boo-ing.

Sammy says the umpires like Barry better. Sammy, nobody likes Barry, period.

Joe Borowski: superstar. Or something.

“I got it! I got it! Oops!”

Sorry,
Charlie.

He’s not hiring an agent. He won’t need one.

Jerome Holtzman is doing better after suffering a stroke. I’m guessing he got up, took a look in the mirror and thought caterpillars were eating his face. Hopefully, now, he remembers he has the biggest eyebrows on the planet.

Greg Couch says that Rex Grossman is a Florida quarterback, but he’s not a Florida quarterback.

Mariotti puts down the doughnut to plead for patience for Sammy and the Cubs. Huh? Really? Are you serious? Jay wrote this? Maybe he’s on vacation and his dog wrote it.

If you’re Abe Pollin, you’d be advised to hold on to your pudding spoon with both hands today.

The Wizard of Roz tells Sox fans that he tried to warn them.

Bob Ryan knows better than this. What the hell happened?

If Mike Shula is the answer, what the hell is the question? If they’re going to hire a failed Bears offensive coordinator, how about John Shoop?

When I heard Chauncy Billips had hurt himself, I was sure he’d sprained one of those enormous teeth.

Stewey fired up the ‘Bama faithful. Think about how mad they’d have to be to unplug the mini fridge in the trailer to plug in their computer and find some seven year old kid to show them how to use it so that they could send him an e-mail. Wow.

Tom Verducci with good stuff on AJ Burnett’s elbow.

If Tim Floyd is the answer, I know what the question is. “How can we trigger the apocalypse?”

Dick Cheney’s coming back for more. He has asked that the 2004 election be held around his surgery schedule though.

Ashton Kutcher on the Bush twins. Not literally.

I want to party at Glenbrook North!

America’s finest news source says that Chicago’s got bigger things to worry about than some girls painting and kicking each other.