Thanks to the hard hitting work of the Sun-Times investigative unit the world has a list of just exactly what the Cubs equipment staff have packed for the trip to lovely, destitute Mesa, Arizona.  And, it leads to ghey-est headline we’ve had here since “Will Corey ever see a third ball?”

While the list of what they are packing is…well, duller than another seventh inning stretch interview with Joe Mantegna, the analysis of why the Cubs need what they are bringing is absolutely riveting.

Riveting! I tell you.

• 20 dozen baseballs (600 dozen shipped to Mesa)  — So they’re bringing 240 baseballs, just in case the post office loses the more than 7,000 they mailed there.  At least that’s what they’re telling you.  The real reason is that the trucker needs some for the trip.  BJ likes to pull into rest stops and let the Bear play with his balls.  (Awesome.  One item in and we’ve made two lame jokes about baseballs.  Somebody alert the Internet Pulitzer folks, this only gets better from here!)

• 60 dozen bats  — In the old days, the Cubs would just bring one bat and the guys would share it.  If it broke they’d put a nail in it and tape it up and keep using it.  Those good old days were the 1970s, and it explains a lot, actually.

• 2 dozen fungo bats — Fungo is just a great baseball word.  How can you go wrong with a word made up of the words fun and go?  You can’t!  Just like the greatest mini-mart gas station chain in the world!

• 24 bat doughnuts and 24 power wraps (the white sleeves) — Here’s where the obligatory joke about Geovany Soto eating the bat doughnut joke goes.  But I’m above that, and I’m not going to tell you that on his new diet he eats the wraps because they’re healthier.  That would just be lame.

• 50 rosin bags — I’ve never quite understood why rosin is legal?  You can’t just stand on the mound and hock a big loogie on the ball because it’s too “dangerous.”  But you can step off the mound, slobber all over your hand as much as you want, then cake that bad boy up with bag full of chalk, pretend to wipe it off on your pants and go to town.  Ahh, baseball and it’s charming traditions.  Well, at least they finally banned pepper.  That shit was going to get somebody killed.

• 5 hitting tees — In case you were wondering, these are the things that place a baseball right where the batter wants it so he can practice whacking the hell out of the baseball.  They are more informally known as David Patton, Mike Parisi, Vince Perkins, Jeff Samardzija and Carlos Silva.  Try the veal!

• 10 catcher’s masks — Can you believe that for the first 40 years of baseball catchers didn’t wear masks?  They’d just be crouching back there taking balls off the face, then they’d spit out a tooth, smile and keep going.  (Here’s the weirdest thing, right after I typed that last sentence Bing opened a new search window to ‘Tanya Harding Wedding Video’ results.  Weird.)

• 10 chest protectors — These aren’t for everybody, they’re just for Geovany Soto.  The Cubs aren’t really optimistic that he’ll keep the weight off, so he’s going to wear however many chest protectors each day that, when tucked into his pants, make them fit.  He’ll probably start with seven or eight, and by March 10 he’ll be catching shirtless.

• 10 pairs of shin guards — I don’t have a joke here, so I’m going to let a typical reader of Bleed Cubbie Blue write it for me.  Typical reader of Bleed Cubbie Blue: The shin guards are for the umpires to wear during games so Lou can practice kicking the dirt at them!

• 16 dozen pairs of batting gloves — Real men, like Mark Grace didn’t wear batting gloves.  They would take batting practice for hours with blood just pouring down their forearms.  Then they’d go to a bar smoke an entire pack of Winstons, pound 12 Budweisers and then chase leathery skinned Arizona townie skanks until dawn.  Those were the days.  When men were men, and only three things could keep you out of the big leagues.  Not being able to hit a curveball.  Not being able to throw a curveball.  Or a raging case of syphilis.

• 120 helmets — These aren’t for the players they’re for the 120 fans sitting behind first base when Josh Vitters is taking infield practice at third.  Am I right?

• 425 batting practice hats — The concept of the batting practice hat is an interesting one.  It was designed, apparently, because game hats weren’t getting the job done in the twenty minutes of ass grabbing, standing around, “practice” that each team does before games.  Oh, and because you the consumer need to waste money on a hat that’s much homelier than the real ones.

• 425 game hats — Hey, it’s either these, or the new ones with what is apparently a monkey throwing a baseball. What the hell is that thing?

• 295 jerseys (40 blues, 40 grays, 130 whites, 85 spring/bp) — The math on this confuses me.  Why would the Cubs need 130 white ones and then only 40 blue or grays?  The 85 spring training ones make sense, because they’ve got like 60 guys in camp and then they drag some other minor leaguers into games to confuse Pat Hughes and Ron Santo.  Then, after spending some time thinking about this, I got depressed that I was giving it that much thought and I went looking for some Drano to drink.

• 600 baseball pants (300 white and 300 gray) — This is where a hack would go for the “This is just how many they need to sew together just for Jim Hendry to wear!”  joke.  Sad.  Really, just a terrible, hack joke, lacking any effort or thought.  Awful.  (I’m better than that, and frankly, you deserve better.)

• 200 belts — This is just how many they need to chain together for Jim Hendry to wear!  (Nailed it!)

• 800 pairs of socks — That’s 1600 socks for at most 85 guys, right?  That comes to 18 socks per guy.  Here’s just a thought.  How about taking 400 pairs of socks and buying a washing machine?

• 0 pairs of shoes (players bring their own or are shipped to Mesa) — Since the White Sox are yanking numbers down off the wall and letting journeymen utility infielders wear them, maybe they’ll play the season barefoot as a tribute to another great former Sox player?  I am of course referencing the great, tragic figure of a Hall of Fame legend who will never be enshrined — Chet Lemon.

• 450 athletic supporters — I thought the Hohokams lived there?  They have to truck them in from Chicago?

• 36 cups — This number troubles me. I know most players outside of catchers and corner infielders don’t bother to wear cups.  Some guys find them too constraining.  Hell, Kyle Farnsworth used to try to pitch without pants on, much less a cup.  But I’ve got four words for all you youngsters out there.  Josias Manzanillo Wikipedia entry. Just read the last line.  And then try to keep from recoiling in horror.

• 250 jackets — It doesn’t say what kind of jackets.  But I’d assume that because they’re a professional organization, that it would be these.

• 500 T-shirts/undershirts — Likewise, these are obviously the t-shirts.

• 450 underwear — Really?  The highly paid baseball players can’t bring their own underwear?

• 60 boxes of detergent — Now if they’d just buy the washing machine they could get by with 400 pairs of socks.

• 300 towels — Somebody prep the rimshot! Mark Prior is coming back?

• 7 hampers — Hampers?  I thought Mike Fontenot and Sam Fuld were enough of a hamper.

• 4 vacuum cleaners — They truck vacuum cleaners back and forth from Chicago to Mesa?  We have three in our house.  One is just for the upstairs so we don’t have to lug up and down the steps.  But the Cubs can’t just leave some vacuum cleaners in Mesa?  They’re probably worried the Hohokams will use them as bingo prizes.

• 5 two-wheelers — Two wheelers?  Like bicycles?  I guess this good news, it means they finally were able to take the training wheels off of Theriot’s.

• 1 steamer — My gift to you.  Make your own poop joke here.

• 1 hat stretcher — A hat stretcher?  I’ll bet the Giants had to buy one finally, now that theirs is gone.

• 1 shoe stretcher — See hat stretcher.

• 48 pine tar sticks — I’ve tried those.  They’ve got a really tart flavor and they’re kind of messy.

• 100 pairs of shower shoes — Truthfully I was looking for this.

Your shower shoes have fungus on them. You’ll never make it to the bigs with fungus on your shower shoes. Think classy, you’ll be classy. If you win 20 in the show, you can let the fungus grow back and the press’ll think you’re colorful. Until you win 20 in the show, however, it means you are a slob.

But how could we resist this?

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLMl0CLIDLg]

• 24 stopwatches — This is just how many it takes to time Soto running the mile.

• 24 pitch counters — This is twenty-four more than they had during the Dusty Baker regime.

• 24 shoe brushes — Seriously, you need 24 of these?  At any one time there are 24 guys brushing their shoes?  Well, maybe it just takes that many for the clubbies to get the tassels on Crane Kenney’s loafers looking “just so.”

• 72 bottles of shoe polish — Is now a good time to remind everyone that the Cubs have never won a pennant since they switched to those awful blue shoes?  No.  OK, let’s move on.

• 10 cases of gum — That seems low.  I don’t think 10 cases would get Carlos Zambrano through the third inning.

• 1 waffle maker — This is sad.  Because we all liked the old waffle maker so much.

And finally… (mock applause fills the Internet)

• 1 microwave  — Of course they have a microwave.  How else would the guys make breakfast?

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xlN_ltZ3Ug]