It is 5,448 miles from Chicago to Athens, Greece but in the span of about two hours yesterday two groups of “athletes” pulled off impossible feats and were joined in our consciousness for eternity…or until Tuesday night, whichever comes first.

The Cubs bullpen continued an implosion that first started on in Friday’s ninth inning and was delayed 48 hours until it returned with even greater force. While literally half-way across the globe, the US Olympic men’s basketball team managed to lose to Puerto Rico by NINETEEN!

I wasn’t sure whether to be saddened or sickened. So, I settled on the third alternative…drunk.

First off, in Chicago, The Farns couldn’t throw a strike…again. Maybe he was trying to be a good teammate and get the fans off of Sammy Sosa’s back. Given how lustily The Farns was booed yesterday, he might have actually accomplished it. His manager said of The Farns, “his problems are probably mental.”

Gee, ya think?

Can you disable a guy for being a dumbass? How about Jim Hendry makes a phone call and tries that?

Dusty would later go on to say that the Cubs were in trouble because without LaTroy Hawkins (suspended–petulance) the Cubs were “short in the bullpen.” First off, I don’t know what height has to do with anything. Secondly, he ONLY had SIX guys available in the bullpen. Six!

Let’s count them.

Lefthanders: Glendon Rusch, Kent Mercker, Mike Remlinger
Righthanders: The Farns, The Ice Man, Ryan Dempster

Isn’t that the same number just about every other bullpen in the world has in it? Six?

But here’s the deal. Dempster shouldn’t even be in the big leagues because he hasn’t shown he can actually get anybody out. The Farns has one of those contracts that firemen and air traffic controllers have to get, the ones that say “No Strike” on top of them. Mercker’s actually done a decent job lately and he somehow wriggled out of a bases loaded one out spot in the seventh with minimal damage (and would have been no damage if Nomar hadn’t gotten a double play relay throw caught in his glove.) Remlinger was apparently being saved to close a game that turned wide open, and Rusch still can’t cover first base.

That leaves us with The Ice Man. He’s still the best pitcher in the Cubs bullpen, but despite the pyromaniac efforts of The Farns yesterday, it was an 0-2 pitch thrown by Leicester that sent me into hysterics. Here’s why.

Leicester comes in with the bases loaded and one out and does a good job getting fat Olmedo Saenz to fly to center. The runner from third tags and scores and it’s 5-4 Cubs. Now banjo hitting Cesar Izturis is up and the Cubs can get out of the eighth with the lead.

Ice Man puts a fastball on the outside corner for strike one. Izturis is mad, he thinks it’s a ball. Ice Man’s second pitch is a fastball even farther off of the plate for strike two. Now, here’s Izturis standing up there, thinking that if the next pitch is anything short of the Cubs dugout he’s got to swing at it. The defense is playing Izturis to go the other way if he hits it.

So what do Mike Barrett and the Ice Man come up with? An inside breaking ball. It’s just slow enough that Izturis can pull it, and not low enough for him to miss it. He singles to right just barely over the glove of Gruddy who had he been playing Izturis to pull, or even straight up, he catches, the tying run scores and all hell really breaks loose.

Does that mean the Ice Man lost the game? Well, he didn’t help. But no, it’s hard to pin this one on anybody but The Farns.

In the GameCast thread from Friday, you, the home reader went nuts at Dusty for even using The Farns. After the pantloading experience the Farns and Glendon put us through on Friday, you had to wonder why Dusty didn’t just go Prior-Mercker-Ice Man-Remlinger to end the game.

However, this is on Jim Hendry. Why is Todd Wellemeyer in Iowa? If Dempster’s not ready to use in an important situation (and he proved last week he’s not) he shouldn’t be on the big league roster. Just when Dusty actually started to use Wellemeyer they sent him to Iowa. Huh?

What do you do with Farnsworth? You can’t send him to Iowa because you’d have to release him and somebody would pick him up. And it’s not like the Cardinals or Padres or Giants would get him, because right now that would help the Cubs. He probably didn’t even get through waivers so you can’t trade him.

Honestly, there’s only one thing you can do with him, and it’s what Dusty’s been doing. You just run the dumb bastard out there when you need him to get some outs and hope he does it.

Hey, it sucks. But it’s reality.


Saturday’s game was enjoying for so many reasons. Kerry Wood pitched great and did something Matt Clement only dreams he could, he gave himself all the run support he needed. Corey continued his great play in center, Sammy looked like he had a clue. Nomar and Derrek Lee made great defensive plays. But the real gift was that Fox gave us the horrendously bad (and hilarious) duo of Dick Stockton and Tim McCarver.

Stockton referred to E-ramis Ramirez as…(in order)…E-ramis Gonzalez, E-ramis Martinez and then, finally, E-ramis Ramirez.

He and McCarver talked a little football and Stockton mused that the NFC East is kind of a “Mount Rushmore of coaches, with Gibbs, Parcells, Andy Reid and Tom Coughlin.” Andy Reid and Tom Coughlin? Wouldn’t that be like if the real Mount Rushmore had the faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Calvin Coolidge and Millard Fillmore on it?

Hey, today’s an off day for the Cubs (so was yesterday), so let’s think about something positive today! So here’s Karry Ling with his Olympic Update:

Hello again, everybody! It’s your old friend Karry Ling here from Athens, Greece. Boy it’s been a great weekend. Pepe and I have seen a lot of country and it’s a beautiful land here. Sunday night we went to the US-Puerto Rico basketball game and Pepe had a good point.

Why do we have to play Puerto Rico? Aren’t they part of the United States? Didn’t Teddy Roosevelt kill a bunch of Spaniards to claim it for us? What the hell are they doing pretending they’re another country? They’re a commonwealth, right? Well, so’s Virginia and they don’t have their own Olympic team.

Anyway, the game did not go well for the United States. Apparently, even though our nation has more than 290,000,000 people in it, we can’t find 12 of them who can make an 18 foot jump shot.

In the first half alone Carmelo Anthony, Lamar Odom and Dwyane Wade all shot airballs from less than three point range. Hit the cutoff man, for chrissakes!

I wanted to talk to Olympic coach Larry Brown, but I went to the wrong interview room. Thankfully, Pepe caught up with the coach in the hallway just outside the US locker room. He filed this report.

Larry Brown: Whose yak is this? Isn’t this a great country? They’ve got yaks just wandering around the arena! Will somebody please move this yak, he’s starting to drool! It’s bad enough I just inducted into the John Thompson Hall of Shame, and now I’ve got a yak drooling on me!

Thank you, Pepe, for that report.

I also found the time to head over to the pool for some swimming and a chance to see American swimmer Michael Phelps try and tie former Bears’ quarterback Mike Phipps with seven Olympic gold medals in swimming.

Editorial note: We think he meant Mark Spitz.

However, tragedy struck during the first leg of the 4×400 freestyle relay when American swimmer Ian Crocker drowned in the pool. OK, he didn’t drown, but it took him long enough that you’d have thought he was wearing those inflatable water wings to stay afloat. Crocker’s effort was not helped though when he had to waste precious swimming around the nearly drowning body of Sun-Times “columnist” Jay Mariotti who had been pushed into the pool by USA Today reporter Christine Brennan. Brennan has been awarded this year’s Pulitzer Prize for Attempted Homicide.

I should also note that during the rescue, Pepe bit Jay in the leg. Pepe reports Mariotti “tastes like gravy.”

Our final event yesterday was the USA-Australia softball game and let me tell you it’s not fair to the rest of the world that we have the manliest lesbians in the world. Wow. You thought the old Dick Williams’ A’s teams had lots of facial hair? They’ve got nothing on Lisa Fernandez. She couldn’t play for the Yankees, let’s put it that way.

The USA-Australia game turned on a key play in the third inning when 280 pound USA catcher Stacey Nuveman blocked home plate and most of right field on a play at the plate to keep the game 2-0 USA.

Nuveman has a fun nickname. Since we’re in Greece, there’s a statue of Aphrodite not far from the softball diamonds. Aphrodite is the greek goddess of love and rapture. Nuveman’s nickname is Hermaphrodite.

Anyway, that’s all for today! Back to you, Andy.

Karry is going to hell for that Hermaphrodite joke. But I think it was worth it. It can’t be topped, so why try?

The bullpen was not good yesterday. That’s an understatement.

Moron the bullpen.

Moises says he didn’t say anything, then says what he said and it clearly was something. And really, who wouldn’t want to see Randall Simon trying to play left field? Apparently the Cubs don’t.

Greg Maddux whipped the crowd into a frenzy with…OK, he didn’t.

My favorite part of this article on Ron Rivera’s speech to the team yesterday was when he talked about one of Wannstedt’s teams quit and embarrassed the franchise. Actually, most of them did.

Mike Downey wakes up to write a column about the USA Hoops team.

Mariotti puts down the doughnut to leave out the part about Christine Brennan’s shove and the yak bite.

Apparently one of the Japanese swimmers was riding a dolphin or something. Yeah, that does seem illegal.

Dusty finally figured out the Cubs miss Todd Hollandsworth.

The NY Post on the “Creamed Team.” No, Sloth, it’s not that.

Gary Payton doesn’t want to play for Boston. Must have Nomar on his speed dial.

Deion might come out of retirement to play nickel and return kicks for the Ravens. Deion, as always, is a dope.

The Bears don’t like Lovie’s defense. Well, tough s@#$. We didn’t like theirs last year.

Jayson Stark on how waivers work.

Peter King’s Monday Morning Quarterback.

The Greeks are going to have to start giving tickets away. Nice.

Hey, the Sawx are looking better!”

Cocaine is a hell of a drug.

The world’s greatest newspaper says NASA has built the world’s biggest paper airplane.