I'm not getting in this time machine.Now, it’s a Cubs season.  Summer doesn’t officially start until the Cubs’ hopes are hinging on some $14 an hour tech being able to read an MRI.  So, with Carlos Zambrano flying back to Chicago today to stick his arm in that big photographic microwave we are all comforted by the fact that yes, we all have something to obsess over.

Truth is, the MRI won’t mean crap on a cracker.  A doctor will tell you that MRI stands for Magnetic Resonance Imaging.  Athletes will tell you it stands for Maybe Really Injured.  The damn things never show anything conclusively.

“Hey, look at that squiggle!  I think he’s torn his rotator cuff.”

“Nah, I got a pube on the lens.  That reminds me, wanna see what the inside of my peenie looks like?  We were slow around here yesterday.”

But hey, we don’t need to look at some stupid MRI to tell if Carlos is injured.  Let’s just ask him.  I’m sure it’ll clear things up.

“I felt good, and there was a funny pitch that I felt something in my arm.”

So you felt good, or you felt something in your arm?  Or was it a funny pitch like “hah hah” funny?

“The last pitch I threw in the game to Hinske, I dropped my arm a lot because I couldn’t go back on the top with my arm.”

So you felt fine, but on your last pitch you couldn’t lift your arm high enough to throw it the way you normally do.  But that’s ‘fine?”

“I feel good. I have confidence that nothing is wrong, and it’s tendinitis, hopefully, and they will put me on some medicine, and I can make my next start.”

So, tendinitis means “nothing is wrong” and it feels good?  I’ve got to get me some of this tendinitis.

Well, I feel better.  That clears things right up.  Thanks, Z.

Here’s what’s going to happen.  Carlos will take his MRI today and tonight during the game the Cubs will announce that it didn’t show anything.  Because an MRI is just a really expensive Rorschach Test.  It looks like whatever you want it to look like.  So to most people, it looks like a vagina.

Looks like...

So the Cubs will put him on some anti-inflammatories and at the most he’ll miss his next scheduled start against Baltimore.  It won’t be until that next start, whenever that is, that we’ll know what the story really is.

Hey, we’re Cubs fans, we’ve been through this before.

If it is a serious injury, I have a hunch it’ll be just like that Kerry Wood start in May of 2004 when he was pitching, everything seemed normal and all of a sudden the game came back from commercial for the bottom of the third and Glendon Rusch is standing on the mound.

He’s not even the only guy the Cubs need to worry about.  Lassie heard something pop in one of his paws last night.  We know the guy is an injury waiting to happen.  I mean you can’t run around at his age with half the T-cells of a normal human and not get hurt from time to time.

Any serious Edmonds injury would queer (hah!) Lou’s plans to have Kosuke Fukudome lead off until the return of the prodigal All-Star in left.  Lou made the move because Edmonds was hitting and he could bat him behind E-ramis.  If Edmonds is out and the Cubs have to bring up Felix (now batting a red hot .225 in Des Moines–which is actually up 50 points from last week, guh) or the completely useless Eric Patterson, you can’t bat either of them first or fifth, so you either end up with Micah Hoffpauir in the outfield, or with Kosuke heading back to the middle of the order.

Reed Johnson hurt his back on his collision with Admiral Ackbar…er…Manny Aybar at first on Tuesday, and he might not be ready to play until the weekend.

What the hell, they’ve lost three outfielders in a week.  Who does that?  Oh, the Cubs.  Never mind.

Meanwhile, Greg Couch has his panties in a bunch over the Cubs dumping some tickets for the Sox series this weekend to their ticket broker pals at StubHub.  Greg’s just keeping an eye out for the common man and all that good stuff.  I’ve been to Cubs-Sox games on both sides of town, as have many of you.  I’m in no hurry to go back.

I got in a fight at one of them.  Not a big fight, just a quick little skirmish that resulted in me calling a guy an Albino and his friend taking a drunken, errant swing at me, and both of them being thrown out of the park.  Oh, did I mention it was at US Cellular…and that the other guys were Cubs’ fans?

Just an hour earlier I’d seen the best fight  I’ve ever seen at a ballpark, or even a bar.  It happened between two people in different rows, just throwing haymakers at each other.  If this fight was offered on pay-per-view you’d easily pony up $59.95 for it.  It was a Cubs fan and a Sox fan, and they weren’t just throwing wild punches, they were connecting.  Oh, did I mention they were women?

I’m content to stay at home, crank up the central air and watch the games in comfort.  It’s not like the old days when you were stuck with Hawk and DJ if the games were at Comiskey.  These days you just pick the channel with your announcers.  So who gives a rip how much the Cubs are selling those tickets for?  Maybe if they crank the price up high enough the albinos won’t be able to afford them.

Good news, though.  The White Sox are bringing their own security to the games.  Now I feel better.  That crack staff has always been great at curbing violence.

Father son bonding the Russerts would be proud of.

Quality time with pops.

You can’t beat fun at the old ballpark.