You could see it coming, and the only postive is that the Cubs didn’t succumb to 12 road games in 11 days earlier. All in all, an 8-4 trip is probably better than expected. The truth is that they left for the road trip a game and a half out of the wild card lead and returned with the lead. Even as kick-to-the-groin painful as Saturday and Sunday’s games were, the Cubs knocked two days off the schedule and still have the lead in the erstwhile Wild Card Division (as baseball sage, pointy headed Jon Miller calls it).

As for the Bears, the loss in the Rollerdome was predictable, but the real tragedy is the injury to Rex Grossman’s knee. Remember last week when I wrote that anybody who always said, “I don’t care if the Bears go 2-14 as long as we beat the Packers twice,” might get tested this year?

Let’s just say the Bears are calling around for procters.

Back to the Cubs, you can spend today making a lovely LaTroy la-effigy. The Victor Diaz homer on Saturday is the ultimate “Oh s@#$” moment of the 2004 season (we hope–let’s not top it). What made the whole thing absurd is that Ryan Dempster had to walk two bums just to get LaTroy into the game. Hawkins was pitching for the sixth time in seven days and you knew something bad was going to happen. Then, Diaz hit it and didn’t think he hit it out. That’s even more fun.

But the reason the Cubs lost two of three in New York had nothing to do with the pitcher’s mound. They only gave up eight runs in three games. It had everything to do with playing with six hitters every night. I suggest that the next time the Cubs go on a two week road trip that Corey Patterson and Sammy Sosa come with. Playing without a right fielder or center fielder seems a little cocky, to me.

Corey hit one ball to the left side in 12 games, a double in yesterday’s game. He’s even forgotten how to bunt. If not for a lucky chopper he hit late in Friday’s game, his failure to get the bunt down could have cost the Cubs another game.

As for Sammy, can the Cubs bat him tenth? Can we look into this?

Anyway, the Cubs went on the road for two weeks and played 12 games in four cities and only lost four times. It’s frustrating because they could have won each of the four they lost. However, they also pulled four games absolutely out of their asses on the trip.

In the “how-the-hell-did-they-win-that to agonizing-loss” plus/minus, the Cubs came home +2.

The truth of it is that they’re still the only team in the Wild Card race who doesn’t need any help from anybody else. They’re in a better position with seven games to go this year than they were last year. I also suggest that if they get into the playoffs again, that they vote full shares to Eric Gagne and to our old pal Wes Obermueller, who inexplicably, came through with another dominating effort over the Astros.

As for Moises Alou’s assertion that the umps are out to get him? They probably are. You can’t piss and moan about every call for five months and expect to get any slack cut your way. That said, the full count pitch from Al Leiter with the bases loaded yesterday nearly bounced on it’s way to the plate. Were I Moises, the home plate ump would have been calling for a cup to put his teeth into.

By the way, Barry Bonds pulled his groin beating out an infield hit in his last at bat yesterday. So the Cubs have that going for them…which is nice.

—-

Apparently, the only Bears who actually know how to tackle are Brian Urlacher and Mike Brown. I say that because nobody could tackle yesterday. Sure, Todd Johnson can nail guys with the top of his helmet and Hunter Hillenmeyer can dive onto a pile once the guy has already fallen down, but that’s about it. The Bears looked like a bunch of graduates of the Deion Sanders Tackling Academy yesterday. They turned three-time-NFL-drug-test-flunkee Onterrio Smith into Jim Brown.

I can empathize with Lovie Smith this week. It has to be hard to take on the Vikings and lose to them when you look across the sidelines and see Mike Tice standing there, with a blank stare on his face, a pencil sticking out from behind his ear and the Young Frankenstein “Fire bad” scowl. It’s like losing to Mike North in Scrabble.

Anybody catch any of the Miami-Pissburgh game last night? They had to move the game from noon to 7:30 p.m. because of Hurricane Jeanne. Well, it sure looked like Jeanne and nine of her friends were the only ones at the game. The best part was Wanny in his rainsuit. He looked like the Gorton’s fisherman.

Let’s just say by the end of the game…things were moist.

I did enjoy the Packers-Colts game. Especially the first half when the Packers played some of the most through-provoking defense since the day when Greg Blache decided that rushing the quarterback was a waste of time.

Peyton Manning changing the play at the line of scrimmage every time is effective. I won’t argue that. But it’s also annoying as hell. It’s like playing a guy in NCAA Football 2005 who nervously hits the L2 button before every play because he can’t remember what players are running what pass routes. This same guy has to zoom to the green fourteen times before every shot in Tiger Woods golf, too.

There’s a DirecTV commercial where Peyton’s playing Xbox with a contest winner. You half expect the kid to end the commercial by trying to strangle Peyton with the controller cord.

CBS had a show last night called “Clubhouse.” From what I can tell it’s about a 16 year old kid who somehow is able to fool his mother than spending 14 hours a day as a Yankees’ batboy is actually him playing Scrabble with Mike North.

“But ma, he had the letters A-T-C and couldn’t figure out a word to spell with them!”

In the pilot the kid shows up for his first day on the job and gets hazed by Dean Cain. Here’s a sample of the dialogue.

Dean Cain: “Hey kid, I’m Conrad Dean.”
Batboy: Awestruck “Uh…I know…gee!”
Dean: “And you are?”
Batboy: “I’m Pete!”
Dean: “Nice to meet you, Pete. Did you know that I went to Princeton with Brooke Shields and legend is that I was the first guy to bang her?”
Batboy: “Huh?”

The limp armed guy who played the quarterback in “Playmakers” stars in this as the big free-agent-acquisition for the Yankees (err…Empires…whatever). He plays the same kind of ass that he was in Playmakers and he has the batboy drive his car to a mechanic in Brooklyn. The kid gets there and the shop is closed, so does he put the keys in the night deposit and call a cab? No! He takes the car home and sleeps in it. He drives it to Catholic school the next day and doesn’t think anybody will notice it. Then he drives it to the shop after school. He gets pulled over for running a red light and gets busted for having steroids in the car.

Now, you know that most of the people watching the show last night think that the plot was dumb and could never happen. Those people have never met former Cub Manny Alexander.

Next week’s show involves the bat boy having to climb through the heating ducts in the stadium to swap bats after the umps confiscate one that is believed to have been corked. That would never happen either, would it, Albert Belle?

As believable as the plots are, there are some problems with the show. For instance, the team plays in New York and some of the exterior and interior shots are of Yankee Stadium, but most of them are of Dodger Stadium. The palm trees in the background make it tough to believe you’re in the Bronx.

Christopher Lloyd plays the clubhouse manager. Why not base him on Yosh Kawano? You know Pat Morita needs a job. Lloyd’s still cashing those “Back to the Future” checks. He’s fine.

Mare Winningham plays the bat boy’s mom. Mare Winningham went to high school with Kevin Spacey. OK, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just a little disorienting that the people from St. Elmo’s Fire are old enough to play characters this old. Oh, god, it’s happening to us all, isn’t it?

I suppose it’s still more believable than 31 year old Drea DeMatteo having a 20 year old son on “Joey.” But they, some of those Italian girls mature quickly.

—-

Can we really stand six weeks of Jonathan Quinn?

OK, Walleye can tackle. Anybody else?

Offsides? What’s that?

The Vikings were not fond of the Todd Johnson Experience.

Moron Jonathan Quinn.

Moises sings the Rockwell classic “Somebody’s watchin’ me!”

Dusty’s fired up about the last homestand.

Suddenly, the Notre Dame-Purdue game looks more like a real contest. I hate Purdue.

Mariotti puts down the doughnut to say that Bears quarterbacks are cursed! Yawn.

Peter King’s Monday Morning Quarterback.

Nobody wants to see a sweaty John Kerry.

Dan Rather will retire in the spring. Big whup.

America’s finest news source with some views on childhood depression.