In an elaborate ruse to confuse us into thinking the players have changed even though they haven’t, the Cubs are taking the names off of the home jerseys this season. It’s a nod to a simpler time when the Cubs were bad and nobody seemed to mind too much. Chances are, all this will accomplish is that instead of waiting until they’re too drunk to read, yuppies in the bleachers will be able to ask, “Who’s this guy?” from the very first pitch.
There is a benefit, however. For example, if you go out and buy a Neifi Perez jersey (and come on, you know you want to) and it turns out that he blows as much as all know he’s going to, you can pretend it’s a Turk Wendell jersey. Everybody loved Turk. However, there’s a risk, too. People might think it’s a Jeff Fassero jersey and bludgeon you to death.
In truth, the home whites never looked right with the names on them. And other than the 6,000 drunken bleacher dopes, did anybody really need the names on the jerseys to tell them who was who?
We had our very own Karry Ling place a phone call to prominent Cubs’ reliever Mike Wuertz to ask him about the move.
Karry: Are you excited about not having your name on your jersey this year?
Wuertz: Why, did I get traded to the Yankees?
Karry: Yeah, like the Yankees are interested in you. No, the Cubs announced the home whites won’t have names on them anymore.
Wuertz: Really? Well that’s good. That ought to cut down on the number of a@@holes who break out the “From bad to Wuertz” jokes when I warm up in the bullpen. Hey, how did you get this number, anyway?
Thanks, Karry.
Before I forget, I just wanted to make a couple of observations about Sunday night’s Golden Globes.
First off, it’s almost impossible to do what Star Jones did on E! that night. No, she didn’t eat one of the Golden Globes (though at an after party she was seen trying to peel the gold off of one to see if it was filled with chocolate). No, what Star did was make us actually miss Joan Rivers. Star’s still embarassed about her crying fit on “The View” after the big tsunami when she revealed that the beach where she and her husband honeymooned at was destroyed. It wasn’t that Star was shocked that a place where she had blocked out the sun for a week a couple months ago was destroyed, but rather she was worried that she would be suspected of causing the Tsunami by jumping in a bathtub.
Star and Kathy Griffin were on E!, Billy Bush was chasing people around for Access Hollywood and Pat O’Brien was setting up a creepy little bar and photo booth for The Insider. What is with these people? I mean, I know movie stars love to have their asses kissed, but can’t any of them ever show an ounce of self-respect? About the only ones I can stand are Nancy O’Dell, who gives every actress the “I look hotter in my dress than you do in yours” look, and Griffin who randomly asked her interviewees if they had any pot on them. And she asked 10-year old Dakota Fanning if she’d been in rehab yet. See, that’s the stuff we want to know.
Anyway, Joan and her freakish offspring Melissa were back, this time on the TV Guide channel. Every cable system in the world has the TV Guide channel (so do DirecTV and Dish Network) but nobody ever watches it. It’s the channel with the infomercials that run just above the scrolling list of what’s currently on the channels you actually do watch.
A surreal moment for me came when Jason Bateman won best actor in a comedy while I was watching his show, Arrested Development. If I was him, I’d have urged everybody in the Eastern and Central time zones to stop watching his speech and start watching his show before Fox cancels it. By the way, the fact that Desperate Housewives beat out Arrested Development for “best comedy” made me throw things at the TV. Not only isn’t that ludicrous soap opera not a comedy, but even if it was, it’s not a tenth as good as Arrested Development is.
That’s not to say that there aren’t some redeeming qualities about Desperate Housewives. I mean, has Teri Hatcher ever looked this good? Ever?
Though, Eva Longoria dressed like she was going to a sock hop.
By the way, the softball sequence on Arrested Development Sunday night was a classic. It included a flashback to Gob dousing the female employees white t-shirts with the Gatorade bucket and then had him chip a front tooth which gave him whistling lisp that caused him to say the word “shit” on broadcast TV and not get it bleeped. It ranks right up there among Arresteds best gags, including the one with the Peanuts theme in the background while Buster walked past a beagle sleeping upside down on a huge red doghouse, Gob naming his boat The Seaward and the fight last year when Tobias called Lindsay a “Country music lover!” even though he had a very long pause between the first and second syllables of the first word.
Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah, the Cubs don’t have names on their home uniforms anymore. Here’s hoping they throw those ridiculous blue pajama top “alternate” jerseys out. If they’re going to have a third jersey, why not make new ones that look like the grey flannel ones from the ’60s they gave out as glorified door prizes on Ernie Banks day last year? Those were pretty sweet. I’d like to see them make an updated version of the home whites they had in the ’60s. They would wear those on Sundays. I’d buy one of those.
Maybe.
The Cubs are also in on the Lance Armstrong LIVESTRONG bracelet craze. At the convention, which starts Friday, they’re going to start selling blue “Believe” bracelets for a buck. The proceeds will go to Cubs Care.
I’ve got a better idea. How about the proceeds go to fixing the concrete so that they can get rid of the netting that makes Wrigley look like the insides of every Long John Silver’s? Is that too much to ask.
The Sammy Sosa trade rumors will heat up again this week, only because everybody expects that Jim Hendry will want to be rid of Sammy so he can avoid answering questions about Sammy at the convention. Consider that any trade of Sammy will involve a 72 hour window where Sammy tries to hammer out a contract extension with his new team, and if Hendry has any thoughts about how the convention will affect the potential trade, it seems likely to me that a trade might purposely be put off until after this weekend. That is, if they can trade him at all.
I SHAVED IT OFF, OK?!?!?
So, now Dose come in two pages? How “Wonkette-after-the-jump”-ish.
Not only that, but Gob’s “stupid tweety bird dance” and his patting another gal on the ass as she rounded the bases. But he couldn’t knock over “The Wall”!
Best show on TV by leaps and bounds. Maybe now, sandwiched between “The Simpsons” and “Family Guy”, a FEW more people will watch!
My favorite running joke this season is Michael’s constant suble mocking of Anne. Calling her “Anne-Hog” and saying “thinking of her as a backup is a good idea” are nice.
And is it me, or is Buster being underexposed, and has Maybe’s relevance disappeared?
I dont like this new format, at all.
Yeah, why is that at every Long John Silver’s it seems to have netted ceilings and scattered concrete? The only one I can say I’ve never seen it at is on Douglas Ave in Des Moines, I think.
Also count me as the one person who did watch a lot of TV Guide channel, though only as background noise before and after Cubs and other baseball games. I don’t watch TV besides that, if that hasn’t become obvious!
Bob Dernier, you’re high on Elmer’s Glue and Sharpies. The new site design is great. As a graphic designer by trade, Desipio used to hurt my eyes, but now it’s the first thing that I think of when I wake…that’s depressing–but good news for the site.
Also, may I take a moment to say how excited I am the Asstros are a nearly all-white team and that the Cubs got Henry Blanco…aka Hank White. Now I can make all sorts of white jokes and they’ll have all kinds of intended and unintended double meanings.
This way, those of you who just read it for the links can click right past my insipid ramblings. It’s progress.
Kind of like fire…and helium…and the Hindenberg.
Or something.
I’m just SO excited for this year’s Cubs to start, I can barely contain my enthus…zzzzzz……
Yeah, you shaved me off, then reassembled me and put me in a plastic baggy you keep under your pillow. I just hope you aren’t drying me out to smoke me. Freak.
“This way, those of you who just read it for the links can click right past my insipid ramblings. It’s progress.”
Where can we click to go straight to Prince Valiant?
Yeah, I’M the freak.
Dwyer is obviously ripping off my act. DK57, KD, soulpatches, all that. I bet he’s sired a kid named Kanon.
Hey, I’m with you guys now!
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