Sure, Dusty Baker does some strange things. He has a fascination with a 12-man pitching staff, when he can hardly find enough innings for ten guys. He seems content on running Lenny Harris out to third base until Lenny digs a hole and buries himself out there. But it’s hard to complain when a guy is taking a medicore baseball team and has them in first place on June 16. So, instead of picking nits, let’s explain why Dusty needs to kiss all of us, right in the hiney.

Dusty was taking the media to task, and rightly so, for harping on the Cubs lack of offense, when the real story is that this team is a lot better, a lot faster than anybody had the right to expect. Then, Dusty said, ”You find me a team that won 67 games last year and were world champs the next year and I’ll kiss your butt right here.”

Ahh, here’s the rub. No team has ever won fewer than 69 games one season and won the World Series the next. However, that’s not what Dusty said. What Dusty said is to find a team that won 67 games one year and won the World Series the next.

Guess what, Dusty? Every World Series champion of the last century won 67 games the year before they won the World Series. In fact, most of them won a whole hell of a lot more than that.

I’ll stop by the dugout, and you can pucker up.

Just as we told you yesterday morning, Bobby Hill is up with the Cubs. This means one of three things.

1. The Cubs would like to lead the world in utlity infielders. They now have five guys who can play second and third, (Mark Grudzielanek, Lenny Harris, Ramon Martinez, Bobby Hill and Mark Bellhorn).

2. Mark Bellhorn should not unpack when he gets back to Chicago. The Cubs are actively trying to trade Mark, though with that .211 batting average and no real track record of any Major League success, it’s a hard sell.

3. Lenny Harris is about to have the bullet put in the back of the head of his baseball career.

Unfortunately, I think number one is the reality. Even with five guys for two spots, the Cubs still can carry 11 pitchers. What it means is that Bellhorn is now buried so deep on the bench that he could probably go to a movie instead of the game tonight and nobody would notice.

As for Lenny, he’s valuable as a pinch hitter, but completely miscast as an every day, or platoon, third baseman. The more he bats the less he hits. Dusty would just as soon give up his toothpicks as give up Lenny.

The Cubs could put together a relatively interesting batting order once Big Choi and Sammy are back in the lineup.

1. Hill 3b
2. Grudzielanek 2b
3. Patterson cf
4. Sosa rf
5. Alou lf
6. Choi 1b
7. Gonzalez ss
8. Miller c

What this does, of course, is merely shuffle the same crap around. Hill is a better leadoff man than Gruddy, however. Though Mark posted a respectible .355 on base average in May (up from a woeful .308 in April), he’s struggled in June and is getting on only 26 percent of the time. He’s also not much of a base stealing threat.

Hill got off to a lousy start at AAA Iowa, but played well from May on, and whether his call-up is a chance to showcase his talents for Florida in the forever pending Mike Lowell trade, or if he’s really going to get a shot to win the third base job is a mystery.

As far as his ability to play third, nobody’s sure. But Hill was a shortstop in college and handled the move to second pretty smoothly. It’s easier to go from short to third, and once he gets used to the ball getting to him quicker, he should be fine.

But if we saw anything in his brief fling with the Cubs last week, you could see why the Cubs wanted David Kelton to be the third baseman so badly. One look at that stroke and you could see why you’d want him to fill whatever offensive hole you had. But, given his speed and overall athleticism, you have to figure that a couple of months as a AAA left fielder and he’ll make himself pretty good at that spot. That doesn’t help fill the Cubs most gaping void…but oh well.

Meanwhile, we have a spy on the ground in Cincinnati.

Intrepid reader Dennis Goodman is staking out the series at the Great American Ballpark for us. He chimed in with this from last night’s game.

This is an official Desipio rogue agent reporting on a bewildering moment in last night’s games. All of the Reds have a theme song that plays as they come to the plate. Too bad they don’t wear masks and whack each other with chairs – although that would be bad given Larkin’s groin and Griffey’s body.

Anyway most of the songs are rap, some of the guys play AC/DC or country. Last night in his first AB,
Juan Castro strolled up as “Total Eclipse of the Heart” came over the speakers. I was dumbfounded.
There are numerous jokes one can make here and 35% of them involve Mike Piazza and his injured groin.

Later in the game, he came out to some salsa type music so maybe the audio guy goofed, maybe his
teammates played a joke or maybe every now and then he falls apart. I will keep you posted if it is played again this evening.

Later,
Intrepid Reader Dennis

This is interesting on a couple of levels. First of all, who knew that Juan Castro was such a Bonnie Tyler fan? Secondly, I think we all need to take a moment to decide what into song we’d pick for all of our home at bats.

One thing I know for sure is that when Desipio buys out the Tribune’s stake in the Cubs that we’ll start a new tradition and whenever a Cubs player parks one onto Waveland or Sheffield you’ll hear the chorus to Bruce Springsteen’s “Out In The Street.” But that’s just me.

When I’m out in the street
I walk the way I wanna walk
When I’m out in the street
I talk the way I wanna talk
When I’m out in the street
When I’m out in the street

When I’m out in the street, girl
Well, I never feel alone
When I’m out in the street, girl
In the crowd I feel at home

For my actual at bat intro, though, I think I’d either go with the Old ’97s “Timebomb” or in the Juan Castro tradition, maybe Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain.” Yeah, probably “Timebomb.”

The Old ’97s would have a good one for Chip. He could come up to “Let The Idiot Speak.”

By the way, there should be a law that any good leadoff hitter use “Start Me Up” by the Stones. But that’s just me.

The other day I spoke briefly of CMT’s special on the 100 greatest songs in country music. There are some great ones, no matter how you feel about that genre of music. Sure songs like “Boot Scoot Boogie” and “Achy Breaky Heart” do irreperable harm to our eardrums and our sensibility, but you have to be completely daft not to enjoy songs like:

Johnny Cash — Ring of Fire
Charlie Rich — Behind Closed Doors
Glen Campbell — Galveston
Buck Owens — Act Naturally

And, my all-time favorite hick song, Amarillo By Morning, by George Strait.

Guess what number one, was? When I saw it, I wanted to throw things at the TV. But then I thought about it and one famous scene from a great movie, made me realize that it probably is the greatest country song of all-time.

Tammy Wynette’s “Stand By Your Man” got the nod. But it was the version done by the “Good Old Blues Brothers Boys” in Blues Brothers that convinced me that it was the greatest country song of all-time. That, or the theme from “Rawhide.”

By the way, I found it ironic that “You Never Even Called Me By My Name” written by the great songwriter and tortured Cubs fan Steve Goodman, which proclaims itself the “greatest country and western song ever written” in the song itself, did not make the list. It’s a damned crime is what it is.

As we mentioned before, Jerry Springer is going to run for the state Senate in Ohio, and he’s got his exploratory commission sponsored Web site up. I only wish I lived there so I could vote for Jerry. He’s a guy that if you meet him in person, is just a great guy. Maybe this time, he’ll remember to pay his hookers with cash, though.

Some Evanston researchers have found the difference in what arouses men and women. First of all, the thought of guys at Northwestern researching sex is as absurd as the oceanography class I took at NIU. Which ocean were we studying in DeKalb? Secondly, I don’t have millions of dollars worth of research funding, but I can tell you the difference.

1. Men are aroused by anything.
2. Women aren’t aroused by hardly anything.

Somebody call JAMA!

Mike Downey breaks down the secret Trib plan to ignore the White Sox.

Eric Karros is just old enough that Dusty’s going to have a hard time not cramming him into the lineup every day.

The Cubs are paying a fan who got beaten up in the great Chad-Kreuter-hat-keep-away melee, more than they are paying Todd Wellemeyer.

Dusty’s tired of the press harping on the bad offense. Hey, the Cubs scored four times last night!

Chris Thomas finally came to his senses and is coming back to Notre Dame. Phew.

Party time! Mark Buehrle is 3-12!

Mariotti puts down the doughnut and actually thinks the Sox could trade Frank Thomas. Excuse me while I laugh myself silly. I know Frank hits better when he plays first, but have you seen him play first? Jimmy Anderson is more athletic. Heck, Jimmy Kimmel is more athletic.

By the way, during last night’s game, Ron Santo said this about Jimmy Anderson. “That’s the fattest guy I’ve ever seen in a baseball uniform.” Ron and Pat then spent about ten minutes after Jimmy was removed from the game wondering aloud if Jimmy could eat the entire Reds’ postgame spread before the rest of the team finished the game.

More on Dusty and the offense and kissing his butt.

Tyson Chandler is disappointed that more guys didn’t heed John Paxson’s request to all train at the Berto Center by June 1. This means you, Jalen. You selfish, pointy headed moron. By the way, the ETA on Tyson’s superstardom is January 2004. You heard it here first.

Nobody could definitively tell Chris Thomas where he’d likely be picked, so he’s back on campus.

Eric Hansen wonders that just because Thomas’ body is back in South Bend, if that’s where his heart is, too. My advice, don’t doubt this Thomas.

Now the ACC might only want Miami. This is going to save the Big East? Honestly, a football conference that can’t get Miami or Notre Dame to play in it is a dead man walking.

Jayson Stark’s wild pitches.

Dontrelle Willis is good, and despite the fact that his motion makes my elbow hurt, his arm hasn’t fallen off yet. But consider that the guys the Cubs got for him, El Pulpo and Abe Clement have done good work for the Cubs. Besides, Pulpo’s the Cubs comedic gift to me. So I don’t regret this trade.

Hume Cronyn is dead. Is this new news?

Paul Newman is in serious need of a shave.

Russell Crowe scrimmaged with a rugby team. In his hotel room. Yikes.

Somebody likes “Fargo” a little too much.

I can’t decide what’s odder here, that it’s not illegal for a 34-year old New Zealand woman to have sex with a 13-year old boy, or that a women’s coach isn’t a lesbian?

Somewhere there’s an “I had an altar boy on my lap” defense strategy being worked out for this Arizona bishop.

The world’s greatest newspaper is reporting that our soldiers are exhausting the world’s prostitute industry. Good for them.