Look ma, no ink!Ever since that brutal two-grand slams in one inning Sunday night humiliation against the Mets–you remember it, stop pretending–I’ve been fascinated by shots of Joe Morgan in the booth during ESPN telecasts.

Here’s baseball’s highest paid network analyst, a man who has a weekly forum during the only game being played at the time, and he never has anything on the desk in front of him. No notes, no press packets from either of the teams, not even a scorecard. It’s just him, babbling for three hours.

Two weeks ago, the Cubs played the Dodgers on Sunday Night Baseball, and they showed Joe in the booth, and what do you know, he had a scorebook in front of him. He looked like a real announcer. Except, the shot lingered on him a little too long. In HD it was pretty clear…there was nothing written in the scorebook. This was the fifth or sixth inning. He hadn’t even written the lineups in the book. It was a prop.

So last night, I was looking forward to whether or not ESPN would continue the ruse and have an empty scorebook in front of him.

Incredibly, after the opening “stand up” where Morgan and his sidekick Jon Miller face the camera with the field behind them, ESPN never showed either one of them again. So we’ll never know. Well, not until next Sunday at US Cellular.

The weekend, really couldn’t have been much better for the Cubs. They had gotten swept in Tampa, their ace pitcher had gotten injured and they staggered into town about 2 a.m. Friday morning. Then, they went to the sixth inning of Friday’s game down 3-1 and looking dead in the water.

For a team that hadn’t lost three in a row until Thursday, four in a row was looking pretty certain.

But then Octavio Dotel came in to pitch, Derrek Lee and E-ramis jumped on him for a pair of solo homers to tie the game, and the Cubs proceeded to kick the Sox in the ass for the rest of the weekend. From that seventh inning of game one until the final out last night, the Cubs outscored the Sox 21-8.

Both teams were in first place for the first time in the short history of this Interleague matchup. The Cubs will still be on Friday when they head to the south side, as their lead grew from 3.5 to 4.5 over the weekend. The Sox? They might not be. They led the Twins by 4.5 when they showed up on Friday, and it’s down to 1.5 now.

Friday’s win was the most dramatic. With AJ Pierzynski striking out on a check swing in the top of the ninth against Kerry Wood. (Whether AJ checked his swing in time or not, the pitch sure looked like it should have been a called third strike in the first place.) Then, E-ramis unloading on Scott Linebrink to lead off the bottom of the ninth.

Saturday’s was fung, mainly for the twenty minute bottom of the fourth bookended by Lassie homers to left field. Lassie deeked us on the first one, he hit it and the way he turned to run to first he looked disgusted like he thought he was going to fly out to left, but the thing ended up about 15 rows back in left center. Who knows? He’s still a prick.

I’ll tell you, that Elias Coblentz video from the other day was a gift to us, the Cubs fans who aren’t real wild about having Edmonds around. Just seeing a Cardinals’ fan tortured that much by Edmonds playing for the Cubs, has made me enjoy it all the more.

By Sunday night, the edge was off. The Cubs had already won the series, and thanks to a pratfall by Rick Ankiel in centerfield in Fenway earlier in the day, the Cardinals had lost. And…we knew we were in for three hours of Joe Morgan.

But you know what? Joe was surprisingly lucid for much of the broadcast. He made a point about how E-ramis isn’t just a slugger, he’s a hitter, which made sense. Although, Joe kept talking about the Cubs would really be screwed if E-ramis got hurt. Almost like he was trying to will it to happen. Don’t you put that voodoo on us, Joey!

I’m conflicted over the new Peter Gammons. I’m glad he’s healthy and working, but I can’t decide if ESPN has diminished his role or if he’s just got nothing to say. It was probably inevitable. But for most of our lives, Gammons has been the best baseball reporter. Sure he floated a lot of rumors that never came true and his writing was always full of strange non sequitirs (Ask anybody in baseball, and they’ll tell you that Mark DeRosa’s mom makes the best brownies east of the Colorado River). But now he’s just kind of there. I’ve never understood why they bring him to every Sunday night game, but don’t let him sit in the booth. Although, you get good stuff like in the Sunday nighter in LA two weeks ago, Lou came out of the dugout, visited the mound and on his way back to the dugout stopped and told Peter, “I’m going to let Marquis pitch to one more guy.”

The best tidbit Peter had last night was about how great the Sox have played since Ozzie went on his rant in the visitor’s clubhouse in Tampa Bay. Here’s the problem. With the loss last night, the Sox are 11-8 since then. Big whup.

ESPN had some impressive shots of the double rainbow that appeared over Wrigley late in the afternoon. Miller said that, “The rainbow seems to be pointing straight to Wrigleyville. Nah, they always point to Boystown.

I said Joe was “surprisingly lucid” but not completely. Early in the game they showed Billy Williams sitting in a box. (Not a cardboard box, that would be sad.) Joe said, “Billy’s number is flying on a flag along with Ernie Banks down the left field line.” Of course, we know that’s wrong. Billy’s is in right field with Ryne Sandberg’s. But hey, it’s not like Joe was sitting in a place where he could see that.

They showed, because it is mandated by federal law, a replay of the Michael Barrett-AJ Eyechart fight. Of course, they only showed the real cause of it once. Barrett didn’t punch him because he ran over him at the plate, he punched him because AJ got up and then intentionally bumped into him again afterwards.

Joe said of the fight, “If that had happened at the White Sox park, the fans would have been standing and applauding [AJ].” Uh, Joe. It did. Note the white uniforms on the Sox and grays on the Cubs?

Joe then talked about how good the Cubs have been at home and lousy on the road and said, “They haven’t played nearly as many games on the road yet as they have home games.” At the time he said it, the Cubs had played 39 home games and 36 road games. That’s not “nearly?”

In the second inning, Ryan Theriot broke his bat on a soft single that looped into right field. Joe was impressed. “Watch how he doesn’t have control of the bat and throws it at the ball.” On the replay, the one Joe was describing, Theriot’s bat explodes into two pieces and he carries the handle of the bat about five steps down the first base line before tossing it. Apparently, Joe knows that Ryan has a superpower that allows him to throw parts of the bat at the ball. That’s pretty cool.

Gammons says that Ryan Dempster is “the metronome of a Cubs staff with a 100 year itch.” I expected Joe to make one, or both of these statements:

a) Sorry, Pete. The Twins play in the Metronome, the Cubs play at Wrigley Field.
b) 100 year itch? You could use some Aqua Velva after you shave!

[Youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2lViEJtl8g]

Joe also reminds us that like Troy Aikman he will read anything you show him out loud. I’m sure ESPN was thrilled when they were panning the rooftops to show how many people were out there, only to have Joe read, “Sky Box On Sheffield Dot Com!” as he saw the banner. They’ll probably send the Skybox on Sheffield folks a bill.

Also, did you know that the Cubs have gone 100 years without a World Series title? No, it’s true. Jon Miller said so…1234 times last night. I mean, seriously, you’re doing a Major League Baseball broadcast. Who is watching you? Baseball fans. I would imagine they know that. I have a hard time there’s two baseball fans in South Dakota watching TV and going, “Wow, it’s been 100 years? That seems like a lot!”

And in the fifth inning, as soon as Eric Patterson’s first career homer landed in the basket in right center, I knew this was coming. Thankfully, I wrote it in February, and can just cut and paste. Joe started to the tell the story of how in his day, they called the basket “Banks Boulevard” because Ernie Banks hit so many homers into the outfield basket, back in the day.

Here we go, from February 26, 2008.

A couple of years ago Joe went on a long winded diatribe about the basket that the Cubs have that hangs over the outfield and keeps drunk fans from falling out of the bleachers and onto the field.

Joe famously said that when he was playing “everybody” in baseball referred to that basket as Banks Boulevard because Hall of Famer Ernie Banks hit “so many of his homers into that basket.”

That story, as do many of Joe’s sounded plausible. But like most of those stories, this one was pure, grade A bullshit.

Ernie Banks played for the Cubs from 1953-1971. He hit 512 homers. Of those 512, Joe thinks that a lot of them landed in the basket at Wrigley Field. He’s implying that without the basket, Ernie wouldn’t have hit so many homers.

In 1970 and 1971, Ernie only played in 111 games for the Cubs. Why is that important?

Because the basket wasn’t installed at Wrigley until May 1970. Banks hit eight home runs at Wrigley Field in those two seasons, but one of them was in April of 1970 before the basket went in.

So, of Ernie Banks 512 career homers, the most that possibly could have landed in the basket was seven. Actually, we’ve all seen the replay of his 500th homer, and he hit that on May 12, 1970 and that didn’t end up in the basket, so I guess it’s six.

Six of 512 means that a little over one percent of Ernie’s homers could have possibly ended up in the basket. Now you can see why they called it Banks Boulevard. Can’t you?

A few minutes later, ESPN showed the Ernie Banks statue at Wrigley and Miller said, “I’m glad to see that the statue looks like him. A lot of times, when they make statues for guys they don’t look like him.” I kept waiting for a confused Morgan to say, “Why would every statue look like Ernie Banks?”

In the postgame on Comcast, we got to watch Bill Melton squirm, again. Since Comcast went to these hour long postgames after every Cubs-Sox game, the Cubs are 8-1. Melton hates the Cubs, hates Cubs fans and probably hates Dan Plesac, after Dan pulled a broom out of his jacket last night and waved it at him. I half expected Melton to snap and give him the Amadou Diallo treatment.

This reminds me of my own personal brush will Bill Melton’s greatness. I’ve told it before, but like Joe Morgan and Banks Boulevard, the classics need repeating, so like Joe, I’ll give it to you again.

The year after Old Comiskey fell down (now there was a dump, and you know Ozzie’s Wrigley jokes are just ones he recycled from his playing days in the old south side shitbox), they were selling stuff from it in the parking lot next to the new Comiskey. Mainly they were selling seats. My buddy Wheels wanted to buy a set of two, so I went with him. He found two that didn’t appear to be covered in feces or AIDS and was ready to buy them. Just then, roving ambassador Bill Melton came sauntering through the parking lot, greeting people. He came over to us and Wheels asked him if he could have an autograph. Bill was very nice. He signed an autograph for him, and talked to him, then he turned to me and said, “Hey, how about you? You want an autograph?” To which I replied, “Nope.”

Screw you, Bill Melton.

In the postgame press conference, David Schuster of the Score asked this question to Lou Piniella.

“Big series. Can you take any extra solace from getting a sweep?”

Solace? Is that the right word, there David? You try to take solace from a loss, not from a win. Solace means, “to alleviate, to comfort, to console or soothe.” Nice try at the four dollar word, leave those to the Grobber.

But you know, sometimes, apparently, a win feels like a loss. At least, that’s the theory of a young Mr. Timmy Wolfmeyer, who writes for the DeKalb Daily Chronicle. Yes, the DeKalb Daily Chronicle. Or, as we called it at NIU the Daily Comical. Timmy was pretty sure that even though the Cubs won on Saturday, they lost because they put Carlos Zambrano on the DL, and because Carlos Marmol walked three guys in an inning.

I didn’t read it. Our resident Red Sox fan on the message board found it and posted it.

Anyway, here’s Timmy:

Did I use the rake or the nail to comb my hair today?

Here’s the e-mail I sent him:

Dr. Mr. Wolfmeyer,
I just read your insightful column about the Cubs-Sox game on Saturday. Is there a newsletter of yours I can subscribe to so that I can read more of your brilliant deductions?

They lost.

In more ways than one.

They lost their ace, Carlos Zambrano – he’s out until Independence Day, placed on the 15-day disabled list with a mild shoulder strain.

Yeah, they lost their best pitcher…for two starts and found out that his injury isn’t severe. Really depressing, I’m sure they hung crepe paper all over the clubhouse to mourn.

And they lost, or are losing, patience with their key reliever, Carlos Marmol, who continued his Rick Ankiel impersonation, walking three in an inning of work.

Yup, he continued his Rick Ankiel impersonation. Continued it for two outings in a row. I forgot that once a pitcher establishes himself as good, he’s never allowed to struggle, ever again. Thanks for reminding me.

Manager Lou Piniella knew it – the first thing he wanted to discuss after the game was not his team’s nine-run, four-homer inning. The first thing he wanted to discuss was Marmol, why his once lights-out reliever suddenly can’t find the plate.

Well, since the press conference was televised, you might want to write the truth for your readers. The first question Lou was asked was about Marmol. By Gordon Wittenmyer–yeah, we can even tell who asks the questions.

Otherwise nice job, you pantlode.

Oh, and buy a comb. Or is that technology beyond your feeble grasp?

Love,
Andy

But I thought of something, and now I want to publicly admit that I was wrong. I had assumed Timmy would have been in the press conference and should have known that Lou was asked about Marmol’s performance by our Albino friend from The Bright One.

But then I thought about it. There’s no way in hell that Timmy had a press pass for that. He either watched it on TV and isn’t as bright as we are, or more likely he read Lou’s comments in somebody else’s story and didn’t have any context to put them in.

By the way, I enjoyed Lou answering that question from Wittenmyer, who wondered if Marmol was hurt and then yelling at him, “He was throwing 96 miles an hour. I don’t think so. Why does it always have to be an injury with you?”

Lou saves the good stuff for George “You watch the damn games!” Castle, but Gordon’s growing on him.

Like a boil.