The Cubs have this new guy, I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but he’s pretty good. He plays shortstop and–as hard as this is going to be to believe–he’s better than Dave Owen. I know. Can you believe it?

Anyway, the only thing that I find unusual about him is that he is blatanly eschewing the league’s rule on uniforms.

You see, they call them “uniforms” because everybody wears the same thing. The Cubs have some sweet uniforms. Their home whites with the pinstripes might be the sharpest in all the land. Their gray road ones are pretty good, a huge upgrade over the ones that said Cubs in cursive on the front, and it looked like it said “Cuba”. They have a third “alternative” one that’s a blue top and it’s ugly as hell. Anyway, they have a home hat and a road hat (it’s the home one with a red bill). So the only parts of the uniform that never change are the blue stirrup socks and the blue shoes.

Here’s the thing. Nomar doesn’t wear blue shoes. He wears black ones. I would expect Bob Watson will handing down a seven game suspension any day now for “being out of uniform.”

Personally, I think blue shoes can only be worn (and pulled off) by Elvis Aron Presley and Carl Perkins. That’s it. Nobody else even gets to try. I’m with Nomar, here. Time to switch to the black shoes.

Last night the Cubs made a freakin’ god out of Russell Branyan. Branyan is a German name which translates to (“worst third baseman in the universe.”) The alternate pronounciation of Branyan is “Ran-duh.” Last night, two fat fastballs from Matt Clement and Mike Remlinger made a freakin’ icon out of Branyan. Clement’s was bad enough. He had him 1-2 and looking silly and then threw him a pitch in the only spot Russell can hit one. Remlinger’s was unconscionable. I’m getting ill just thinking about it. So, I’m going to pretend it didn’t happen.

Because it didn’t happen, the Cubs won 7-3 last night in 11 innings, and for that to have happened either they played two extra innings just for fun, or Corey Patterson hit a grand slam to win it. Let’s give Corey the grand slam. After all, if the gossip is true, he’s been grand slamming a woman who’s just not attractive enough to be bedding the third-best centerfielder in the NL Central (and climbing.)

Wait, who’s climbing, Corey or Gail? Oh, never mind.

The big news was of course that Sammy Sosa asked to be demoted in the lineup from fourth to fifth. Little Davy Kaplan and the rest of the anti-Sammy Society think this is great. I think it makes about as much difference as literally moving the deck chairs around the Titanic. Because in my mind the move of Alou to fourth and Sosa to fifth isn’t any different than hitting Sosa fourth and Alou fifth. Moises isn’t exactly tearing things up. Now, if E-ramis Ramirez were healthy enough to be counted on in the lineup and on the bases every day, Sammy moving to fifth would have been huge news. Dusty did make one very nice move in moving Derrek Lee up to second. The Cubs lead the world in 1-2-3 first innings, and Lee actually gets on base.

If E-ramis could hit fourth, the top of the order would be Patterson, Lee, Nomar, E-ramis, Sammy. Now that’s accomplishing something. It currently goes Patterson, Lee, Nomar, Check Swing, Sammy. It’s good. But it’s not any damn different than Patterson, Lee, Nomar, Sammy, Check Swing would have been.

It is nice that Sammy actually picked up the phone and told Dusty to go ahead and make the move. Dusty would have had to have done something anyway, and this way it just eliminates a needless conflict between either Sammy and Dusty or Sammy and the Cubs’ inbred beat writers. I said before that I didn’t blame Sammy for not asking to be moved. You want your players to think they’re ready to come out of a slump. In fact, I’m a little concerned about Sammy basically admitting he’s not. But that’s for another time.

IF there’s ever a time when Moises and Sammy get hot, this Cubs’ lineup wouldn’t have to take a back seat to anybody. Last year the Cubs had three unsettled offensive spots, and now those spots are filled by Nomar, Michael Barrett and Lee. One of these days…maybe today…they’ll get a chance to show that off.