Exhibit A in the “why the Cubs can’t trade Matt Clement” case walked off the mound last night after five outs in the Cubs 4-1 win over the Brewers last night. Because he left after running towards first on a grounder to the first baseman, everybody immediately assumed The Franchise had reinjured his Achilles tendon.
But somewhere, little George Ofman stood on a phone book and peered over the press box counter and yelled, “I TOLD YOU THE CUBS WERE LYING!”
It turns out that Mark Prior’s elbow is what was bothering him. It turns out it was bothering him in his four inning stint in Milwaukee last week. So are the Cubs evil people for sending the erstwhile greatest pitcher of all time out on the mound with a sore elbow?
Do you want to know what percentage of big league pitchers pitch with soreness in their arms? Ninety-nine percent. (The exceptions are Kyle Farnsworth and Steve Kline because they’re too dumb to notice their arms hurt.)
It could be that The Franchise is hurt badly and will need to have something in that elbow fixed. It could be that his tedonitis is back and he’ll have to wait for it to go away before he can pitch again. It could be that he’s a pansy and thinks that any pain in that billion dollar arm of his is a sign of the Apocalypse. Who knows?
The fact is that in modern day baseball, if you pitch long enough, you have an operation. It wasn’t supposed to happen to The Franchise because he has perfect, effortless mechanics. That’s a pile of crap and we knew it all along. The “perfect” way to throw a ball is to underhand it. Your shoulder’s not built to constantly rotate over the top while hurling a pelota, and your elbow’s not to keen on twisting it to make the pelota spin. If it’s Prior’s turn to hang with Dr. Jobe and Dr. Andrews, so be it. That’s not a good thing, obviously, but it’s not the end of the world. As bad as it might make you feel, at least a doctor won’t be slicing your arm open, ripping out a ligament and sewing a new one in there for you. So yes, it sucks to be Mark Prior. But if it happens, it’s just a bump in the road on his Hall of Fame career. It just comes at a inconvienient time for the rest of us.
Hey, this works!
The knee jerk reaction would be to trade for Randy Johnson right now. He’s owed about $6 million for the rest of this year and six of the $16 owed to him next year is deferred. So you’re looking at $8 million for a 40 year old lefty with a bad knee. He also still happens to be really freakin’ good. It’s not my money, so I say go for it.
You just know that given the luck of the 2004 Cubs that if they trade for the Big Unit he’ll blow out his knee in his first start, or if they trade for Nomar he’ll tear his Achilles. It’s God’s punishment for those blue jersey tops. He hates them. And in very God-like fashion he doesn’t smite those who insist on the team wearing them, he smites the other guys to send them a message. Carlos and Matt are safe, but they could save everybody by wearing the home whites and road grays. I feel very strongly about this.
Truth be told, the Cubs can make the playoffs without Prior. In fact, they can win the pennant without him. I did a study that showed for more than 100 years, a team without Mark Prior won not only the National League pennant, but also the American League pennant every single year. That’s staggering.
I remember on May 11 when Kerry Wood left the game after two innings that I got this horrible knot in my stomach. It’s just a sign of how things have gone this year that when Prior left last night I was like “oh, well…what else is new?” It’s to the point where if it’s something serious, just fix it and get it over with.
Isn’t Glendon Rusch like the angel of death? Twice this year he’s come out of the bullpen to replace a Cubs’ stud (he relieved Wood in LA that night). This time he pitched great. Whatever his deal with the devil is, let’s hope it runs through October.
Realistically, can a Cubs team without Prior go far in the playoffs? No. He’s just too good to lose and not miss. The Cubs are 48-40 and even though he made eight starts he was only “Mark Prior” in three of them. So they are clearly good enough to get to the playoffs without him. It’d just be nice if he’d be around for them, because this not winning the pennant thing is getting a little old.
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The Cubs did, however, finally solve the mystery of both Doug Davis and the mighty Brewers. That Brewers’ offense is so bad, you figure if you score four runs against them, it’d be hard to lose to them. The problem is getting the four runs. But Derrek Lee came up big and the Cubs were aided by Davis planting a fastball in the screen behind home plate with a runner at third, because Sammy had already decided to strike out again. So that helped. But for the Cubs it’s one down and 52 more to go to make me look like a genius.
Hey, it’s 50-50 that it can happen.
It might, or it might not.
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The Cubs five-man rotation of Wood, Prior, Zambrano, Clement and Maddux was together for 10 and two-thirds innings. Great?
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The past few days I’ve spent a little time checking out the message boards for the Cubs and Red Sox. This much I know…the Red Sox fans are not just obsessed with the Yankees, they’ve literally been driven insane by them. It’s kind of funny, actually.
As for the Cubs message boards? They’re sad and pathetic. You spend more than two minutes at CubsTalk.com and you feel like you’ve stumbled into a Star Trek convention.
Here’s the strangest thing you’ll see. Say a guy has some news and he wants to share it with the pathetic losers at CubsTalk…he goes through all the crap you have to go through to sign up and get a password and whatever else they make you do, and he posts it. And then 20 angry “regulars” jump on him saying, “Where’d you hear that? You’re making it up! We don’t know you! Go away! Freak!”
It’s a “rumor”! You don’t have to believe it. It won’t physically harm you if you can’t decide whether to believe it or not. Hell, if we had to only post things that we could verify here there’d be no here.
I’ll admit it, Chicago sports teams have some real doozies for fans. How many fat guys with mustaches have you seen in your life wearing faded blue Bears t-shirts (at least nine sizes too small)? How many mildly retarded people have you seen drooling on their Cubs t-shirts? How many police lineups have you been to where numbers one, three, five and six are wearing a Sox half-price night giveaway shirt?
It reminds me of a conversation I once had with a Sox fan friend of mine.
He said: “Have you ever noticed that when you see a short bus full of retarded kids that most of them are wearing Cubs shirts? What’s that tell you?”
I said: “It tells me that even retarded kids are smart enough to not root for the Sox.”
I don’t know where I’m going with this. I have no idea, really. Ah, what’s new?
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The Sox lost in Oakland…again last night, that’s 13 times in their last 14 games there. I saw some of the postgame and I have a couple of questions:
1) I thought Damon Andrews got a job in Seattle? Can’t he leave? Does he have to save up money so he can ship himself freight out there?
2) How do they keep Bill Melton awake to do a post game after a west coast night game? I suspect somebody has to bang on his dressing room door like ten minutes before show time and then knock the door down, only to find Bill hanging off the couch, asleep, shirtless and covered with empty pudding cups.
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How sad is this Bulls “pride” in the fact that Kobe nearly flew out to Chicago to meet with the Bulls about signing as a free agent? Not only did Kobe never sincerely think about signing with anybody but the Lakers, but all he did was think about flying to Chicago and that’s supposed to impress us?
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This will impress no one, but I recommend the course of action. I have radios in almost every room in the house. When I’m in the can, I turn the radio on. When I’m in the kitchen, I turn the radio on. My alarm clock is a radio. When I play PlayStation 2 I turn a radio on. Last week, I switched all of them from the Score to WGN. WGN is so bad when the Cubs aren’t on, that I no longer turn any of them on. In my car, I’ve sworn off AM. I don’t need to listen to Murph, or Bernstein. I don’t need to have them whine until they ruin my day. I remember when I thought it would be so great to have an all-sports radio station in Chicago. Now I just think it would be so great to have a good all-sports radio station in Chicago. We’re oh-for-two.
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What’s that sound? That’s the other shoe dropping! Yes, the Cubs apparently wear 12 shoes.
Good to see John Mullin goes to ESPN.com for his news.
Nomar is still in the picture. Though you’d have to think now that a Cubs’ trade involving the Diamondbacks would bring the Pituitary Freak to town, not Nomar.
Todd Walker can’t hit if he doesn’t play. How about he just hits when he plays and shuts his yapper?
Phil Rogers says the Cubs need Randy Johnson now. Gee, ya think?
Teddy Greenstein says the SAP thing with the Sox didn’t work. It couldn’t be any worse than the Primary Audio Programming on a Sox cast.
Ooh, Kobe almost came to visit Chicago! I’m all tingly!
The Bulls still don’t want Moochie but they don’t want the Argentinian guy. Hey, I’ll learn his name IF they sign him, alright?
Todd Hollandsworth might be back before the first frost. Mike Kiley thinks that Alex Gonzalez’s remaining contract $2.5 million for this year, might nix the Nomar trade. Oh, shut up.
Bruce Miles says upgrading the team won’t be easy. Really? You don’t say.
Richard Justice seems to want to trade Jeff Pornstache, every day. I don’t blame him, he’s the worst defensive second baseman going. Just brutal. That whole Astros defense is hilarious.
The Mets don’t think the Unit is coming their way, they won’t sign John Olerud. The Cubs should sign him and give him the Brooks Kieschnick role. Olerud was a great pitcher in college, you’d think he’d remember how to do it. Besides, if he can’t get lefties out, he’ll fit right in!
Balding X-tina is going to move her wedding date so she can get married before Britney.
CSI whacked George Eads and the prettiest lesbian on TV, Jorja Fox.
What a shock! Ninety percent of kids who take a “chastity” pledge still do it. I’m stunned.
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Ofman was almost giddy in his post-game update last night. He couldn’t wait to say "I told you so" and was Oliver Stone- like in his conspiracy theory of how the Cubs had hidden this all along. He was just the first of the media vultures who are jumping on this story.
The only fact that’s known in this whole scenario is that tests done in February and March showed no structural damage to Prior’s elbow/arm. He has pitched fairly well in his rehab starts and a little less effectively in his major league starts in 2004. He experienced some pain in Milwaukee in his last start, shut it down for eight days, then felt some discomfort last night. Does this mean Tommy John surgery? I don’t think so. But who knows? In the meantime, I refuse to listen to or read any speculation from the doctor/sportswriters.
That’s odd, I could swear that earlier this week I wrote an article in which I said that the rumors of a 3 way trade between Chicago-Boston-Arizona was all lies and an absolute impossibility. Now I think it’s just a matter of dumping A-Gone’s salary? Am I dumb enough to have my own radio show on the Score yet?
I’m going on the assumption right now that Prior is out for the year and will need surgery. But what if the MRI doesn’t find anything? Then we’ve got a starter with a mystery ailment that allows him to pitch one inning comfortably. Can we start the Prior as the closer rumors now?
At least Billy Corrigan’s cool.
And then it’ music the rest of the day. The hell with sportstalk in this town.
Frankly, I vote for "pansy". I’m sick of this shit.
If me and Doug were pitchers, we’d join Farnsworth and Kline in the 1 percent.
Where there’s no sense, there’s no pain. That’s exactly right!
Well, it was too good to be true. Randy Johnson nixed the trade so Nomar will not be a Cub. Here is what the teams agreed to:
Boston sends Nomar and some catcher to the Cubs…
Cubs send Beltran, Welley, and Harris to AZ…
AZ sends Johnson to Boston
I TOLD YA SO ALERT – told you all Todd Walker was a bitch.
BTW: you want a REAL Cubs discussion, head on over to the Coven on Yahoo. We don’t jump down yer throat.
F$#@ that pituitary freak. Let his ugly a$$ rot in Arizona.
We have arms?
Maybe *I* should try hitting when I play, because my .232 BA since my DL stint shows that I haven’t much been doing that.
Dave:
Assuming that’s true, what as RJ agreed to? Yankees only? Or is anything else still in the mix?
Jesus, am I ever a moron. Here’s my answer from my chat wrap re: shouldn’t the Cubs just cut out the middleman and trade for Randy directly. Hold onto your heads:
"The Cubs need help. I can’t decide what they need to add to complete their rotation, but let’s just say they need help. Who fits best right there for them, I don’t know. I have an opinion but I can’t tell the Cubs what to do. I can’t tell them what they need. All I can say here is the Cubs need help."
By the way, my groin still hurts. Again, some more.
The Mariners have released me. I’d just like to say that it would be my honor to take the place of Gabor Bako as the useless catcher on the Cubs roster.
Do we know if the Yankees have made an offer on Johnson yet? My thinking is that the Yanks may be Johnson’s first choice, so he doesn’t want to agree to anything until they make an offer to the D-Backs. If it turns out those 2 teams can’t work anything out, then Johnson will agree to go to one of the other contending teams, which means this will probably go down to the deadline.
3B Macias
2B Grudzielanek
CF Patterson
RF Sosa
LF Alou
1B Lee
C Barrett
SS Martinez
P Clement
…woof, again.
…at the old ball park.
Hey Dusty. How about trying
2B Grudzielanek
1B Lee
RF Sosa
LF Alou
C Barrett
CF Patterson
3B Macias
SS Martinez
P Clement
I mean, Patterson third? Wy coddle this kid? He’s gonna be gone in 2 years anyway when Pie gets here.
Speaking of pansies, what the hell is going on with Ramirez? Aramis couldn’t run to begin with, and it’s not like he’s going to be sprinting after flyballs in the outfield, why isn’t this guy playing?
Actually, I was the one of the only guys who DID anything yesterday. Dusty is using this lineup because of all those 4 runs we scored yesterday…too bad it was because of misplays by the Brewers’ defense, not our mad hitting skillz.
Hey, I did all right in the 3 spot yesterday. If Sammy could hit a fly ball with a man on third, we might have score more runs.
#18, isn’t Macias, Grud and Sosa an automatic 3 out first inning? Macias, Grud and Patterson probably is, too, but come on now.
How the hell am I supposed to play this afternoon? I hit a triple last night for godssake. I haven’t run that hard since I was in Montreal!
Corey was 3-4 last night. I think he can bat third again today.
I will never understand the all-out bile some of you have for the only every day player the Cubs have developed since the Truman administration.
He’s not Willie Mays, but he’s no Chico Walker, either.
Oops, I mean Grud, Lee and Sosa. In that case, 18, I hear ya. Sometimes D Lee hits those home runs and then we’d be up by 1!
My groin was 85 percent last night buddy, you think it improved the rest of the way in the 14 hours between the end of last night’s game and the start of today’s?
Does the lineup even matter? I’M pitching. I’ll give up 1 run, walk 18 batters, work my ways out of 9 or 10 jams and go 7 or 8 innings. The lineup will score 0 runs, and I’ll cruise to my 9th loss.
E-Ramis, cut the shit and suit up.
Who cares if that freak Johnson only wants to go to new York? You think my boss Jerry Colangelo will let me help out Steinbrenner after he conspired with that fat tub of goo David Wells to make a monkey out of Jerry? Pituitary Freak may have some leverage, but he goes NOWHERE until WE’RE ready.
And my dad’s hometown team Cardinals don’t have the minor-leaguers to compete. What are they going to offer, the rotting corpse of one-time prospect Jimmy Journell? Please. Like CT said above, this will go down to the wire and it’ll come down to whether Johnson wants to stay in Arizona or play for whatever contending team that we want to send hom to.
And I doubt he’s any more happy to stay, after our bullpen blew another game for him yesterday.
Ahem, Andy.
Hmm, I wonder if the Cubs would be as banged up with me in charge?
Thanks for firing me, assholes.
Don’t get too high and mighty there Dave, technically, Mark Prior was injured on your watch.
To be fair, that was because I crashed into him, not as a result of a bad trainer.
On radio this morning, Gammons said that the Nomar trade was dead (as noted above). He also said that RJ wanted to go to the Yankees or Cardinals – but the Yankees have no prospects and the Cardinals have no money.
One thing’s for sure: I am not coming to Chicago to deal with this anemic offense. No thanks.
No. 4: I listen to XRT a lot too, and Billy Corgan knows baseball compared to Murph and Fred. (But Bob Verdi’s morning reports were actually worth listening to back in the day…) And hell, Lin Brehmer could have a more informative sports talk show than those on the Score.
But WXRT cannot escape the sad reality that it is so closely tied to the Score.
![]("http://northtonorth.com/photos/images/Photos/page5/scan39.jpg"/)
On the left is Norm Winer. On the right is Lin Brehmer. The venue: Mike North’s hotdog stand, which was close to the XRT studios. That was where they went to eat and heard the owner talk sports that they suggested he join this new sportstalk venture going on this daytime-only station.
The rest, they say, is history.
Do you guys want to sign me now or later? It could be alot more expensive later. Remember (knock on wood) I havn’t been hurt. Prior and Wood are babies. Dusty has made me throw 115+ pitches the last few starts. Those babies can’t make it past 80. 4 years for 30 million should do.
Thanks for the offer, goat-chin boy, but that’s why Hendry signed ME.
We don’t have money OR prospects.
Dempster "hit a wall" in the 5th inning of his rehab start for the I-Cubs last night after four good innings. It would be pretty risky to count on him as a starter anytime soon, even 2005.
And you thought that Republicans don’t have fun.http://sfgate.com/columnists/morford/
That SF Gate column is crap. Don’t waste your time.
By the way, Prior’s MRI shows no structural damage to his elbow.
That’s like telling people not to go see "Fahrenheidt 911"
Sorry, Andy. The buck stopped at Dunston. And Palmeiro.
So far, knock on wood, the Brewers have been stymied. Mel Hall Jr., in for late scratch and blossoming Cub Killer Wes Helms, erred to help us score, and that little phuck Counsell just got pegged by Clement, a day after starting ANOTHER Cubs rally.
The SF Gate column is great — and anyone who thinks the GOP is the party of moral virtue is kidding themselves. Republican politicians have higher rates of divorce than Dems, more closeted gays, more incidents of graft (ever compare the number of felony convictions among Reagan’s people to Clinton’s?), etc.
Also, in depressing news you won’t find on CNN or Faux: Iraq’s new duly selected prime minister, Iyad Allawi, reportedly executed six prisoners just days before assuming office. Judge, jury, and executioner all in one — they don’t even need no stinking PATRIOT ACT!
We now return you to your regular programming. Go Chicago baseball teams! (Got Matty Clement in my keeper league, after all.)
The MRI results revealed today that Mark Prior’s right arm fell off. I don’t think he’ll miss his next start, though. His left arm has been resting for 23 years, so he’ll be able to go at least 145 pitches on Tuesday.
In other news, I am searching for a way to play Mark Grudzielanek every game at all nine positions on the field.
>That’s like telling people not to go see "Fahrenheidt 911"< Nice spelling George. I told you to run everything past me before you go public with it.
We think he’s a pansy, too!
GO CUBS!