I had the surreal experience last night of having Pat Hughes and Ron Santo tell me that the Cubs had finally made a big trade. It was surreal because as I sat there, Pat explained the trade very slowly and I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Kenny Lofton and Aramis Ramirez for
Jose Jerkoff (really?–Pittsburgh wanted him?), Matt Bruback (who?) and a player to be named later.

Unless the player to be named later is Sammy Sosa or Kerry Wood, who really cares?

OK, maybe that’s an exaggeration.

This is what happens when you are the GM of a Major League team and your owner tells a newspaper reporter that you need to cut the payroll by $30 million dollars. Now.

Thirty million? Yikes.

Is that all? Hey, do you want me to see if I can find somebody to buy the Willie Stargell statue, too?

And so the Cubs made a trade. At long last Jim Hendry got tired of waiting and pulled the trigger. OK, that’s probably not fair. It’s obvious on Monday the Pirates said “f@#$ it” and just started trading guys. Mike Williams to Philly. Scott Sauerbeck to Boston. Lofton and Aramis to the Cubs. Omar Moreno and Al Oliver to Montreal. Huh? Never mind.

Here’s the best part of this trade.

Ron Santo (God bless him–he said the funniest thing ever last night, but we’ll get to that) kept asking Pat who the Cubs traded. It was like he didn’t believe that you could get two actual major leaguers, not to mention a 25-year old third baseman for Jose Jerkoff and Matt Brubaker (or whoever he is).

Then he started bragging about Aramis’ defensive abilities. Uh, Ron. He’s made 23 errors already this year. It’s July! That’s not a good thing.

There’s really nothing to criticize Jim Hendry for in this trade. Sure, some Cubs fans are worried that the player to be named later will be Felix Pie (mmmm, pie), Dave Kelton, Bobbie Brownlie or someone of that ilk. It won’t be. The reason the Pirates agreed to a list of prospects to choose one from is so they could scout the guys on the list for a couple weeks. Believe me, if Pie, Kelton, Brownlie or even Nic Jackson were on the list, they’d have just grabbed one. The PTBNL won’t amount to a hill of crap. They never do.

This was highway robbery on a grand scale. Hendry almost sounded guilty explaining the trade when Pat and Ron had him on late in last night’s game. He kept stressing that the Pirates now had $10 million for next year to spend on new players.

In Ramirez, the Cubs get a 25 year old (well, he’s Dominican so it’s “25” year old) third baseman who is not Lenny Harris. For this, we should throw a parade. But Aramis can hit. Two years ago he hit 34 homers and drove in 112 runs, last year he played on a bad wheel most of the year after getting the Sheets kicked out of him by Ben and the rest of the Brewers in a brawl early in the season.

PNC Park in Pittsburgh is not a great place for a righthanded power hitter. Left field is a long ways away, and Aramis has always enjoyed clubbing balls in the cozy environs at Wrigley. Unfortunately he won’t have Shawn Estes and El Pulpo tossing meatballs at him, but still…

As for Lofton, you know your season is shaky when Tom Goodwin pulls a hammy and it seriously hurts your team. That’s what the Cubs were faced with. Given that they gave up mostly nothing in this trade, getting Lofton in it is a no-brainer. But don’t expect Kenny Lofton circa-1997. As the Sox found out last year, this version of Kenny isn’t as fast, has absolutely no arm and gets hurt.

But he does have one redeeming feature. The Cardinals hate him. With a passion. Ever since he hit that game one homer in the playoffs and did the Rickey Henderson slow trot, he’s been under The Genius’ skin. How can you not love that?

So the Cubs have a real lineup now. I won’t go to the trouble of making it out with Corey Patterson in it, because it will make you cry. So here’s the one Dusty will use, starting tonight.

CF Lofton
2B Gruddy
RF Sosa
LF Alou
3B Aramis
1B Karros
SS Gonzalez
C Miller

It’s not the ’27 Yankees, but it ain’t the ’02 Cubs, either.

In other news yesterday Sergio Meat Tray got lit up like the Fourth of July as the Cubs assumed the position and took it hard and often against the Braves. But hey, WE MADE A TRADE! Or something.

Mark Prior’s MRI (maybe really injured) came back and in true Oakland Raiders team doctor fashion determined “it’s only a bruise.” Todd Wellemeyer has been called up to replace the Meat Tray, and could get Prior’s start on Sunday, mainly because Prior hasn’t really thrown since he did his cartwheel over Marcus Giles. But it was still good news that nothing “structural” (doctor term) was wrong with The Franchise’s arm. Whew.

Oh, and Matt Morris broke his hand will miss six weeks. It’s like Christmas in July!

OK, because I promised, I’ll tell you what Santo said yesterday that nearly caused me to go into convulsions.

Pat: So it looks like Goodwin left the game with a bad hamstring. That happens to fast guys, they tweak those once and a while.
Ron: It never happened to me. (Laughs). I never had any trouble like that.
Pat: I said “fast guys” Ron. (Laughs)
Ron: But really, I never had any leg problems at all.
Pat: Didn’t you play every inning of a couple of seasons.
Ron: Yeah. The only significant time I missed was when I missed seven days after I got hit in the face with a pitch. But I never had any leg problems. Ever.

OK. Take a minute. Ron HAS NO LEGS! HE HAD THEM AMPUTATED! I would think he’s at least had two leg problems. Yikes.

Ron is a good sport about it. He once mocked Lenny Harris’ range and said, “I think I still have better range than that.”

Speaking of fielding at third base, there’s the little problem of Aramis’ 23 errors. People in Pittsburgh have blamed them on his throwing, but a couple have blamed his struggles this year on the iron glove of our sausage beating friend Randall Simon. They mused that Ramirez might have had half that many if his first baseman could make anything but a routine catch once and a while. Apparently, the Cubs scouts agreed.

Think of Shawon Dunston. He was a very good defensive player, but if he hadn’t had Mark Grace at first, how many of those strange throws would have been E6’s instead of 6-3’s? One a week adds up. Given the abilities of Karros and Big Choi, I think Aramis will find a new comfort level.

Paul Sullivan says that the Cubs tried to kill two birds with two Bucs. Or something.

Phil Rogers likes the trade. That makes me nervous.

Sammy likes that he and Aramis have the same agent. Uh…that’s great?

Rosey likes the trade, too. But he’s got a funny line about E-ramis, anyway.

The Meat Tray is on his way back to Tennessee. Yee haw, indeed.

The Sox are winning, but really, they’re just drafting for the Twins.

Bryan Robinson will avoid the Big House. Yay! Or something.

Kirk Hinrich plays hard. Good for him. Pardon me if my excitement level is set on nonexistent.

Angry Andy Bagnato thinks The Ohio State Buckeyes will be pretty good. Gee, that’s deep.

The NIU Huskies are the favorites in the MAC this year. What’s stranger? That? Or that the MAC has an actual media day?

Mariotti puts down the doughnut to admit he’s stunned that the Cubs are finally acting like big time, rich, baseball guys. Actually, if they acted like that we’d have Brian Giles, not Kenny Lofton. But still. It’s a start.

Look, Dusty has some flaws, but I love the guy. I also think that low-key guys like E-ramis will thrive under a guy like Dusty, and not under a blowhard like Lloyd McClendon. Just watch.

Bad news for a great guy. Lou Henson wasn’t a lot of things at Illinois. He wasn’t dynamic, he wasn’t Mr. Personality. But he won, he did it with class and he did it with a hairstyle that defied imagination and gravity. Here’s hoping everything comes out alright for a little guy who once threatened to kick Bobby Knight’s ass. And I think we can all respect that.

Who is Ted Cox and why is he on my computer? How could a guy be more wrong about Chip Caray? How? Does he not listen to the games? There’s no way he does. Guh. Argh. Pffffttttt!!!!!

MARK KOTSAY FOR PRESIDENT!

Jesse Orosco? Really? What, is Whitey Ford not available?

The Beaver County times (not making this up) aren’t so sure what the hell the Pirates are doing.

Peter Gammons nearly steals my “it’s good to be the Cubs” in the video part of this.

Spree to the T’wolves, Big Dog to the Sixers, Van Horn to the Knicks and an injured point guard who’ll never play again to the Hawks. Sounds perfect!

The Jets, and for that matter undewear supermodel Len Pasquarelli didn’t get my “Chad Pennington sucks” memo.

Flannel Boy says the Cubs lack only a number five starter. “Paging Juan Cruz! Juan Cruz to the white courtesy phone!”

Kobe’s on the cover of SI this week. Uh…I guess isn’t good, though.

The West Wing gets a little Mystic Pizza.

Cheech and Chong are coming back. Uh…great?

A Georgia man has been arrested of stautory rape. He’s 20. She’s 14. They’re married. Oh, shoot me dead. (When I read this article there was an add for “Mr. Handy Man” on the page that made it look like Mr. Handy Man was the stautory rapist. He might want to rethink where he puts his ad dollars.

Ann Wilson, the subject of the funniest “Behind the Music” ever has gone all Carnie Wilson and gotten the lap-band surgery to lose a couple hundred pounds. The Heart Behind the Music is hilarious because when most bands are pulled apart by drugs, or death or screwing each other’s spouses, Heart broke up because Ann ate too many pies.

Another proud day to be Catholic.

Does anybody really believe that if Saddam weren’t dead or injured that we wouldn’t have seen him on TV by now? Somebody needs to drop a bunker boster on Al Jazeera.

Niedermeyer! Dead!
Wormer! Dead!
Marmalard! Dead!
Uday and Qusay!

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