On Friday, their manager nearly disrobed on the field during and argument with the umpire selected as baseball’s worst in a Sports Illustrated poll last summer. On Saturday, their ace pitcher nearly pounded an umpire into the turf in front of home plate and was thrown out of a game that he was already out of.

You could hear the fear and dread in the voices of namby-pamby announcers Chip Caray and Steve Stone as they decried the lack of composure shown by the Cubs during those two games.

Well, sounds to me like Steve and Chip just don’t get it.

These Cubs don’t get pushed around because they’re too busy doing the pushing.

Knee jerk reactionists say that the Cubs are coming unglued. They say that the team can’t handle the expectations. How else do you explain their behavior? How can you explain Kerry Wood pointing at the home plate umpire after two blown strike calls in the ninth inning and letting the ump know that he knows what the ump and his mother do after hours?

How else can you explain Carlos Zambrano yelling nasty things into his glove, or Dusty throwing his hat, classes and lineup card at an umpire?

They just can’t handle it. They’re not up to it. It’s all too overwhelming.

Right?

Wrong.

The Cubs act like this because they care. They’re competitive. They’re combative. They don’t back down.

These aren’t the Jim Riggleman Cubs who would never retaliate, or the Don Baylor Cubs who seemed too sleepy to care.

Take an emotional team, add 40,000 drunken, crazy fans every day and this is what you get. It’s must-see-TV. The Cubs are appointment television. You cannot look away for fear that you might miss something.

And this is a bad thing?

I don’t think so.

The fury and frenzy of Cubs home games is unlike anything seen in a baseball park in this town for…ever. Cubs games are more like Bears games used to be. The supposedly sun-worshipping, Old Style swilling, cell phone yakking fans who didn’t know what the score was, who the opponent was or what the hell was going on are into every pitch. You might not have noticed, but it’s been that way since about mid-May last year. The park isn’t full every day because the tourists and yuppies need a place to sit down. The park is full because of the team on the field.

With the new seats behind home plate, Cubs fans are now closer to home plate in some spots than the pitcher is. They feel the need…no, the duty…to help the home plate umpire out with things. They help him dissern the strike zone. They help him remember that it’s time to pull his head out of his rectum. They remind him that his new nickname is either “Boo” or “c@#%^&*()_” or both.

The games this weekend were fun (even if two were wholly unsatisfying), and while the Cubs are currently the definition of mediocre at 6-6, all signs point to this summer replacing the last one as our favorite.

Kick back, enjoy the ride and watch the Cubs kick sand at the bullies.

—

Friday’s game against the Reds was one of the wildest, most improbable Cubs wins of recent memory. From Dusty’s lineup screwup (the second one in three days) to the heroics of E-ramis, Sammy and most of all Moises, it was the kind of game that leaves you wanting to say more. Chip said that if Friday’s game didn’t make you fall in love with the 2004 Cubs, you never will.

Chip also went on yesterday about Craig Biggio’s new batting stance (not making that up) so who cares what Chip thinks?

But really, isn’t it time to hand the ninth inning over to LaTroy now? Simple minded nitwits will say, “He failed as a closer in Minnesota! He can’t do it!” But that was four years ago, and simply put, LaTroy’s a better pitcher now than he was then.

It was a nice story to see Regular Joe get to be the closer for a year and do a good job, but it’s over. It’s not that his velocity is down, it’s that he can’t or won’t throw strikes. He was successful last year because he never walked anybody, that’s not the case this year.

The only reason (no matter what he says) that Dusty left Kerry in to pitch the ninth on Saturday–or at the very least left him in after Casey led off with a single) was that Joe would come in and throw gas all over the lead.

How about Joe try and get his bearings in the seventh inning (when at the Cubs will have a couple of at bats to try and undo whatever he does) for a while?

Any time Derrek Lee wants to get a hit will be just fine by me.

Just what does Jose Macias bring to the table, anyway? A spork?

As much as we all might want to see it happen, when Mark Grudzielanek comes back he’s not going to play shortstop. The Cubs offense would be tremendous with both Gruddy and Todd Walker at the top of the order, but there’s a reason Gruddy moved to second in the first place…he was a butcher at short. Factor in that the Cubs didn’t see the need to even have him try an inning there in the spring, and you can see that it won’t happen.

What is a fact though is that Todd Walker can rake. No matter how awkward he is at second, he really can hit well enough to make up for it. How can you take him out of the lineup?

What is going to happen is that sometime before the All-Star break, Jim Hendry is going to have to pull the trigger and trade for a shortstop. In a perfect world he would wait until the offseason, and take his money saved from the expiration of Alou and Gonzalez’s contracts and go after Nomar or Edgar Renteria, but at the very least, he needs to deal for a one-season stopgap at short. Who that might be is anybody’s guess.

The ones known to be available are either old (Omar Vizquel) or bad (Chris Woodward) or scrappy but bad (Craig Counsell) or just scrappy (Jack Wilson).

So it really leaves just one guy, and his availability is of some question. Expos shortstop Orlando Cabrera would fill the immediate and future hole at short. The Cubs have no real prospects in the minors at shortstop so he wouldn’t be blocking anybody. He’s a free agent to be and the Dodgers are wetting their pants just thinking about it.

What would it take to get him? Some of that arms stockpile the Cubs have in AA and A would get it done–if he’s available.

But let’s not daydream about this lineup, yet.
1. Gruddy/Walker, 2b
2. Cabrera, ss
3. Sosa, rf
4. Alou, lf
5. Ramirez, 3b
6. Patterson, cf
7. Lee, 1b
8. Barrett

Oh, well.

—
Last night, Tim Daly was on The Sopranos playing a TV-series writer who went through rehab with Christopher. He apparently replaced his drug addicition with a gambling one. His character’s name? JT Dolan. Great, the family finally gets a Soprano named after us and he gets beaten up by Chrissy and a guy in a jogging suit and beaten over the head with a framed picture.

Great?

—
When Juan Castro beats you both at the plate and in the field, it’s just not your day. Maybe he could play shortstop for the Cubs?

Moises missed the easy part of the cycle.

Sammy hit two more homers, but the sun cost the Cubs at least one run.

Stevie Loiaza’s deal with devil is still in effect.

The Bears…like always…are trying to trade down.

Jerry Angelo says the Bears don’t want Maurice Clarett. I don’t blame them for once.

Rick Morrissey says that Greggie’s getting better! Yeah, he only gave up seven earned runs yesterday. That’s great!

Groucho wants the Bulls to trade for Shareef Abdur-Rahim. Huh?

Mariotti puts down the doughnut to lead the nitwit chorus.

Larry Walker found a dead body on his property and it wasn’t Jeff Fassero.

Drew Rosenhaus says the Bears want to trade for Wally Ogunyleye. Like Joniak will ever be able to pronounce that.

Ray Lankford got punched out by a lady.

McDonald’s CEO died of a grabber. I’m going to splurge on the dollar menu today in his memory.

Kevin Spacey may or may not have been mugged in London. Check out the subtle way the London paper works his homosexuality into the article. Twice.

Now Spacey says some “kid” stole his phone. Sure. Whatever.

Is Larry Eustachy back on campus?

Here’s some video of the “riot.”

America’s finest news source says both Bush and Kerry have new targets for insult ads. Us.