The Cubs are four and a half games out of first place. My calendar says it’s June 29 today. I checked the schedule and there are still more than five games left. Besides, even if the Cardinals continue to play over their heads (which they won’t) the Cubs are the frontrunner for the wild card.
Yesterday’s discussion about the merits of being a Cubs or Sox fan had some entertaining stuff in it on both sides. At least once we got over the barrage of lame (i.e. unfunny) gay jokes. But you know what? We covered it all yesterday. So how about we move on? It’s a sad fact that the same city has the NL team with the longest drought between World Series titles AND the AL team with the same. When it comes to a history of losing, we’ve got the whole thing covered. So let’s just leave it at that.
Today, the Dose will be brief because after a long absence, the Cubs Report returns today to run down all of the players and more.
But that doesn’t mean we don’t have something to cover in this space. It’s even Cubs related.
Quick-E-Mart employee Sanjay H. has a trade proposal for Barry Rozner today in the Wizard of Roz’s new column. The trade itself isn’t any more ludicrous than the one I cooked up yesterday with the Braves. It’s this “throwaway” comment at the end that really pissed me off.
“Meanwhile, the Cubs inject some life into a dead team, and boast a rotation of Johnson, Mark Prior, Kerry Wood, Carlos Zambrano and Greg Maddux in the second half and in 2005.”
“Inject some life into a dead team?” Uh…have I been missing something? Have the Cubs really been playing that poorly? Sure, they had a rough go of it on the road last week, going 2-4, but two games under .500 after going 9-1 in the ten games before it isn’t exactly a disaster. Oh, boo hoo, the Cubs are in a horrible slump! They’ve lost five of their last 16 games! Oooh! The sky is falling! What will we ever do?
It is at times like these when my journalistic training comes in handy because I am able to find a calm, rational way to express my personal feelings on a subject without becoming confrontational. So I’ll pen it in a simple, rational manner.
Dear All of You Jumping Off of the Cubs Bandwagon,
I hope you all get caught under the wheels and die a horrible death and I hope that your families insist on having an open casket so we can all see the treadmarks on your oblong melons!
This team’s not dead, it’s not underachieving and most of all it isn’t even close to being out of the race in the NL Central. The Cubs still have the most talented team in the division and with some EIGHTY-SEVEN games remaining, I think the time to freak out is a long ways off.
So do us all a favor and just shut the hell up.
Sincerely yours,
andy
There, I feel better.
Morans.
—-
Dusty says that big leaguers don’t need a third base coach. Well, then firing Wendell and replacing him with one of those “slow/stop” signs seems very doable.
Billy Corgan and Sanjay H. can go take a long walk off a short pier together. Billy’s excused though, he’s done enough acid over the years that reality and he are scarcely in the same room. These days, reality, he and decent music are seldom together, either.
Gee, can you imagine a dream booth pairing of Chip Caray and Hawk Harrelson? Chicago doesn’t have enough razor blades.
The Bears signed their tank.
KC and the Sunshine Band think Jamal Crawford will end up with the Knicks. Just what they need another point guard who shoots all the time. He and Steph will get along famously.
Groucho trots out the 342th consecutive “let’s trade Eddy Curry” column. Doesn’t he get tired of it, ever?
Mark Cuban is tired of Groucho’s act, too. This is priceless.
Mike Kiley says the Cubs are looking for bullpen help. Oh, really? You don’t say. My favorite part though was this Jim Hendry line about the bench.
“I don’t know where you could get better bench players than we have.”
Try the morgue.
In recent months I’ve begun to find Gail Fischer strangely attractive. It could be that after 30 years of life she finally figured out which end of the hairbrush to use. Anyway, she’ll be back next season to cover the Cubs, this time for Comcast Sports Net.
When Todd Walker almost hit for the cycle a couple weeks ago in Houston everybody talked about what a big deal the cycle is. But look at the three losers who’ve done it this year: David Bell, Daryle Ward and Chad Moeller. Oooh, prestigious!
Mariotti puts down the doughnut to write about Tiger Woods. True story, on SportsCentral last weekend, Jim Memolo and Glen Kozlowski thought it’d be hilarious to stop referring to Tiger Woods as Tiger since he hasn’t won a major in so long. So they started calling him Eldridge Woods. That’s great. But his name is Eldrick. How do people this dumb even get to work each day, much less actually get a job?
The Wizard of Roz seems to think we all care about Andro.
The NBA is getting ready for a lockout…next summer. Oh, shut up.
Sam Mitchell is the new Raptors coach. What, Terry Catledge wasn’t available?
This three part series on the saga of bringing back baseball to Washington is great stuff. Man, Bud Selig is a scumbag, ain’t he?
Wait. Am I supposed to be “preparing” my sperm? Hmm?
Got a hangover? Go suck on a cactus!
Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton had a baby. Wow, is that kid going to be a freak.
America’s finest news source asks men on the street about private space exploration. The Wal-Mart line is a keeper.
I do know one guy who follows the Cubs should be panicking once he looks at the calendar (although right now he’s happy Biggio’s in town).
Aren’t we on the final 24 hours of the Chip Caray vigil?
Even if they don’t renew my contract, you get me the rest of the year anyway!
Kisses,
Chippy
No link to Ms. Slezak’s latest masterpiece? I’ll oblige.
http://www.suntimes.com/output/slezak/cst-spt-carol29.html
The sky is falling! The sky is falling!
Speaking of guys playing over their heads, I have stopped doing that for a while now.
My June numbers may be yet another reason to upgrade the position held by Gabor sooner rather than later:
.220 AVG
.270 OBP
.293 SLG (0 HRs)
Just when I thought Murph & Fred’s show couldn’t get any worse, they read Mike Imrem’s column on the air today, then interview Mike Imrem himself. I didn’t think it was possible for that much suck to come out of a radio at once.
You ain’t got nuttin’ on me, Barret.
I was looking at the ESPN matchups…Are any two teams more evenly matched?
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/preview?gameId=240629116
Sanjay H must have a lot of free time at his 7-11 to come up with some of his ideas. That trade is ridiculous. I don’t see Hendry parting with Angel Guzman.
Alou’s bat has slowed down considerably and he looks more and more like he’s guessing at the plate (a lot of check swing foul balls and weak grounders). As for Barrett, moving him around as much in the order as they’ve done this month can’t be helping him any.
Sorry. I gotta pass on another heartwarming family story from The Cell:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-040629soxbeating-story,1,2859739.story?coll=chi-news-hed
Holy Crap, Dave B, that is priceless.
Cop this!!
I personally like "Sam Vicario’s head struck a bench while the officer attempted to bring him under control in the security room, prosecutors said."
AKA, they f’ed him up in the security room.
Nice catch, Dave. I saw that myself today.
That is interesting, and telling, about Barrett and Alou, since frequently they hold down the #2 and #3 spots in the lineup, and with the slowly evolving Sam-Me hitting 4th, that’s not a very productive trip thru the heart of your lineup.
Trade Paul Bako for a piece of dry white toast.
Good story. I’m glad someone took a worse beating than I did over there.
And a whole chicken.
And some dry white toast please
Hey, I’m worth more than Bako straight up! At least gimme some butter or jam, or that stuff in the pink packets.
No, I don’t mention the Rockies!
and a coke
Damn, I’ve got to stop hanging around Piazza…
Ailing Yankees first baseman Jason Giambi was diagnosed with intestinal parasites and out of the starting lineup Tuesday night when New York played Boston.
I’d just like to thank you for taking the time to create this internet website. It has been extremely helpful
Great website, it was actually quite real helpful.
Hello! I figured it would be nice if I signed your guestbook. I just thought that I would visit your homepage and see what all you have been up to, well – it’s awesome!