All weekend all we heard was, “How’d you like to be a Boston Red Sox fan right now? They must be crushed.”

I pondered this for a moment, and sat back in my chair in deep thought. Then I said, “screw ’em,” and took a nap.

Sure it must suck to be a Red Sox fan and have come so close to trading for the best player in baseball, only to see him get traded to your arch-enemies a month later.

But I’m a Cubs fan, and my time is better spent worrying about important stuff.

You know, really important stuff. Stuff like:

-Can we get the Cubs to ban those stupid pajama top looking blue jerseys?
-What number is Todd Walker going to wear?
-Did Tom Ridge get my e-mail about deporting Chip Caray?

This is 2004, and because it says so at the top of our home page it must be so, this is the Year of the Cubs. This is not the Year of the Yankees. No, 1920-2003 were the “year” of the Yankees. This year it’s all about the team with the quaint little ballpark, the juggernaut pitching staff and the baby bear for a mascot.

You know what’s kind of cool? The A-Rod trade actually does impact the Cubs, because they’re going to have to figure out how to get him out in October.

Right?

Jim Hendry’s pretty sure that Greg Maddux is finally going to put his autograph on a Cubs contract, in fact, it could happen before the sun goes down tomorrow night. You can just tell that Hendry knows he played this one perfectly.

He made Maddux a very sizable offer for a guy who’s 38 and has more miles on him than Sharon Stone’s mattress pad. He didn’t pressure him into taking it, didn’t set any deadlines, and didn’t freak out when the Boras camp floated BS rumors that five teams were in on the negotiations, or that the Cardinals were getting players to defer money so they could sign him. Hendry had kept back about three million dollars so he could up his offer and make Maddux look he didn’t waste a month of his life begging for cash that nobody wanted to give him.

Some people who have access to a 50,000 watt radio transmitter might say that Hendry’s a dope for raising his offer when it doesn’t look like Maddux has any other options. These are the same people who will freak out and scream to the heavens if Maddux signs someplace else. You can’t win.

Bobby Knight (king of the salad bar) once said, “If you start listening to the people in the stands, pretty soon you’ll be sitting next to them.”

So soon Maddux will sign with the Cubs and they’ll have a feel good press conference in which he’ll put his old number 31 back on. Somewhere, Kevin Foster will throw a beer can at his TV and wonder why the Cubs didn’t retire his number. Then, he’ll go back to his bus route in Evanston.

Then, Maddux will settle in as the fourth best starter on the Cubs and by June the same nitwits who panicked for a month that he might sign someplace else will exclaim, “Why are they paying this old guy so much?”

The A-Rod trade is pretty fascinating. It’s the result of an ego-maniacal, win at all costs, owner with too damn much money.

This looks like a no-brainer, but there are some potential pitfalls.
– A-Rod’s not exactly getting traded for chicken feed. Alfonso Soriano did hit 38 homers and steal 35 bases last year, and he is only 26 years old. Nobody in their right mind will tell you that he’s as good as Alex Rodriguez, but who’s to say that Soriano at $800K isn’t a much better value than A-Rod at $19 million?

– The Yankees are (for now anyway) playing the wrong guy at shortstop. This would be like the Cubs signing Vladimir Guererro and making him play left field to accomodate Sammy Sosa. At some point, the Yankees have to convince Derek Jeter that second base is the place he needs to be. Don’t ask him to play third. Third base sucks. Third base is like being kicked in the crotch 150 times a year.

If anybody could ever convince Sammy to blow kisses to the left field fans it’s Dusty. If anybody could ever convince Jeter to play on the west side of second base, it’s Joe Torre. But unlike Dusty, who could set Andy MacPhail’s pants on fire (with Andy in them) and not get fired, Big Stein is just itching to show Torre who’s Boss.

-A-Rod will have to do that Roger Dorn drill at third base where one of the coaches smacks fungoes at him that he blocks with his chest until he’s so bruised he looks like he spent the night clubbing with Ike Turner.

-A-Rod can’t pitch, right? The Yankees dumped three fifths of their starting rotation and replaced them with Javier Vazquez (the Yankees will have more people in one luxury suite than he played in front of in entire games in Montreal), Kevin Brown (good, and old, and injury prone, and weird) and Jon Lieber (soft as a pillow.)

-How many runs do you need? The Red Sox scored almost 100 more runs last year (962 to 977) than the Yankees and won six fewer games.

If you’re a Red Sock you really can’t panic too much. If you outpitch the Yankees you’ll beat them.

Of course, the new guy at third just made that task a little tougher.

-However, if you put A-Rod on the Yankees last year instead of Soriano, they win the World Series. It’s that simple. Soriano was so overmatched by the Marlins’ pitching staff that Torre had to bench him during the World Series. So there’s that. And you know what? That’s kind of important.

I watched most of the All-Star weekend stuff, and Matt does a nice job of breaking it down. But I think we all know who the real star of the weekend was.

It was the nine year old kid who introduced the Rookie and Sophomore teams on Friday night. He was awesome. I missed his introuction and when I heard this little voice belting out names like “Car-melll-ooooo AnTHonNY!” I thought for a deep voice it seemed a little squeaky.

Then, they showed the announcer and he was NINE! He must smoke like four packs a day to get his voice to do that at nine. He was tremendous.

The other highlights, of course, included Nick Carter wearing a sign that said, “Hey, my music career’s over but I’m banging Paris Hilton!” as he ran up and down the court in the celebrity game.

If Michael Rappaport is getting all of the rebounds in a celebrity game, nobody’s trying.

Stephen A. Smith needs to be sedated, pronto.

I refused to watch the shooting skills competition because it’s just humiliating to see Magic Johnson still putting on a uniform at his age.

X-tina did a great job on the anthem last night…except for the part where she got the words wrong.

Nelly Furtado shouldn’t ever wear a skin-tight anything. And I think she screwed up the Canadian anthem, only she did the parts she couldn’t remember in French so we wouldn’t notice.

Wait, did somebody propose to Star Jones during the All-Star Game?

I didn’t know it was Star Jones. I thought it was Warren Sapp. Oops.

This, is an undeniable example of how much the NBA has fallen. Not only is the All-Star Game on cable TV, but Star Jones is considered a “celebrity” worthy of airtime?

Jim Hendry feels pretty good about the position he’s in. I felt the same way this morning, and yet when the alarm went off, I had to get up.

Groucho says that the Basketball Hall of Fame inductions could be very Chicago intensive. It’s about time Sedale Threatt and Jawaan Oldham get in if you ask me.

Rick Morrissey says that the A-Rod trade just proves how screwed up baseball is. I think this column proves how talentless Rick is.

Mike Kiley sees a potential end to his long, personal, nightmare.

I try not to watch much TV golf, but I watched the last five holes of the Buick Open yesterday because John Daly was in the lead. Here’s a guy who has made money, gambled it away, made some more, drank it. He went into the DTs on the golf course one time. He quit a round in the middle one time. His most recent ex-wife is going to jail. And yet, on the course, he’s one of the most popular golfers ever. His gallery yesterday was bigger than Tiger’s and it roared every time he made a shot. The reason is simple. Daly hits the ball impossibly far, plays every shot with his balls instead of his brains and for all of his problems he’s never once blamed anybody else. Yesterday you could actually see him smoking on the course. He was in California and you can’t smoke anywhere in California. He’s just good TV. And when he won yesterday, you had to feel good for him. Even the two guys who lost the playoff felt good for him. That doesn’t happen very much anymore.

Mariotti puts down the doughnut to say that if the Yankees are shopping for talent at Tiffany the Cubs and Sox are at Marshall Field’s. Actually, the Cubs are at Fields, the Sox are trying to find a Big Lots.

Lacy J. Banks just figured out the Lakers are in trouble.

The Rangers need a shortstop, so of course, they’re taking to the Devil Rays. Huh? Who?

The Satanic Red Fowl are getting ready for a long season. Muahahahahahahaha! Get used to it.

The Expos aren’t sure if they have a manager. Hey, what a well run organization!

A pitbull ate an old lady’s arms off. Bad boy! Bad boy!

John Kerry’s “lover” (don’t you just hate that word) isn’t that hot. When will these guys learn? If you get some prime tail, we’ll forgive you.

Take that Annika!

Does anybody really think that Keifer Sutherland is a “tough guy?” I mean, Julia Roberts thought Lyle Lovett was more of a man that Keifer.

The world’s greatest newspaper says that parachute-less sky diving is the newest extreme sport.