Looks like the world's worst talk show set.Someday, Sammy Sosa should run for the president of the Dominican Republic or congress, or dogcatcher or something, because the ease with which he can placate a room full of knee-pad wearing reporters is amazing.

Those of us who’ve paid attention to Sammy the last 14 years or so knew what we were going to get in yesterday’s press conference from Baltimore. You’d get a lot of questions where he talked a lot and didn’t say anything. And the more controversial the question, the less coherent his English would become. Sammy’s not stupid, he just knows where the emergency exit drop floor is in any interview. You start to hit a nerve and every sentence ends with “buddy” then it’s his house and somebody else’s house and the word love starts flying at you like you’re a starlet that Leonardo DiCaprio has cornered at 4 a.m. in some LA bar.

But by far the most interesting part of yesterday’s Sosa press conference from Baltimore was that the Orioles apparently have a cheesy talk-show set that they can set up for these things. Didn’t you expect to see one of the Marsalis brothers leading a band off to stage right? All that was missing was Alec Baldwin sitting one spot next to Sammy on the couch.

The Cubs, meanwhile, held their press conference in a cinderblock lined room that for all the world looked like a holding cell. Jim Hendry tried the same BS routine that his former employee was pulling off to great enthusiasm in Baltimore, but Jim just can’t fake it.

He explained that he feels bad that Sammy had to leave this way and that the team is better right now than it was at the end of last season. Nobody believed either comment. But here’s why. Because he didn’t explain it the way everyone could have understood it. He didn’t explain it like this:

I know a lot of fans out there are upset that we let Moises and Sammy and Matt Clement all leave, and you can’t figure out how we’re going to even win the 89 games we won last year. Am I right?

Let me tell you something. Do you have any idea how much Moises sucked last year in any game not played at Wrigley? And even when he was hitting the ball at Wrigley, he was busy falling asleep at second base, or pretending a ball got caught in the ivy when all the world could see it lying right next to his foot. For every game he won for us with a big hit, he lost one with some dumb assed mistake that a 39 year old man should not make. It’s not like they changed the rules. You don’t think we lost the Sunday game against the Mets because the ump was happy as hell to ring him up on his 4,327th check swing of the season because of all the pissing (literally) moaning Moises had done all year?

What did Sammy hit down the stretch last year? He hit .230 in September and .218 in August, right? We could have played Bako in right field and gotten the same production. The more he struggled the harder he swung and the less contact he made. He had a bad back and a bad hip.

And Clement? Matt Clement is a hell of a nice guy, and he’s very talented. But he’s a pussy. Did I say that out loud? What was Clement’s ERA in August? You don’t have it there? Well I do. It was 5.60. How about September? It gets better. It was 7.36! Oh, gee! How are we going to replace that? Where are we going to find a guy who can give up LESS THAN SEVEN RUNS A START?

Look, here’s what I don’t get about you people. What have we won with any of these guys? We came close two years ago. Guess what? They came close 21 years ago, and you don’t see Keith Moreland and Dick Ruthven on the team still, do you?

How about you let me put this team together and wait and see what happens and in the meantime, just shut the hell up?

Wait, that was harsh. I apologize. I know you just want to win, just like I do. Here, here’s a $2 Cubs wrist band, that ought to keep you occupied until about July.

On second thought, it’s probably good that Jim didn’t do that isn’t it?