look, im enjoying the cubs' terrible season as much as the next guy

but i can't help get angry when i read bad sports writing. in this fine piece of garbage on espn.com, gene wojceichowski waxes dumb about why the cubbies are having such a bad season. let's check out the numbers, shall we? the cubs' run differential is +20, theyre in the middle of the pack in most hitting statistics (around 15th in runs scored and OPS), and in the upper-middle of the pack in most pitching statistics (10th in ERA, 7th in BAA, 4th in Ks, 14th in fewest walks). but theyre 7 games under .500, which suggests theyve lost tons of close games. sure enough, looking at the schedule, theyre 2-11 in one run games. and their bullpen's numbers are pretty bad: 5-13 record, 4.27 ERA. without the stellar efforts of carlos marmol and rocky cherry (who hasn't played in 3 weeks) those numbers drop to 3-12 with a 4.61 ERA. hmmmmmm. maybe they should have spent some of that offseason money on guys who can get people out late in games, no? well, if you dont want to blame that or the holes at C, SS, and CF in their lineup, what DO you want to blame, gene?

Egos, team disarray have knocked Cubs down to size

oh. i almost forgot. intangibles! egos... no team has ever won with a bunch of those on it. and the nebulous concept of "team disarray"... although i think team togetherness means a ton in basketball and football, im not so sure about baseball. not to say it behooves a team to be jackasses to each other. but with so few plays in the game involving more than one or two players on a team, its pretty easy to co-exist with a bunch of teammates you hate. relatively easier than in other sports anyways. and even then, its certainly not an insurmountable obstacle. im trying to be moderate here; its not that problems among teammates never ever affect on-field performance. but given that record in one run games and the cubs pen's numbers, and given the fact it's written by wojceichowski... i'm pretty sure this article is going to be shitty.

The Chicago Cubs are the worst team in baseball. This is an indisputable, irrefutable fact, as obvious as the ivy on the outfield walls or the steel trough urinals in the Wrigley Field men's bathrooms.

this is standard "i must make extremely controversial and questionable statements to get attention for my column!" stuff. skip bayless and woody paige would be proud. i must have a different conception of "indisputable" and "irrefutable" than gene does. i would rewrite the beginning of the second sentence to read "this is a highly arguable, extremely subjective idea..." what about the 21-37 kansas city royals? theyve scored 30 runs less than the cubs and have allowed 80 more.

I was leaning that way even before Carlos Zambrano turned Michael Barrett's mouth into marinara sauce Friday afternoon in the home clubhouse. But now I'm sure. This team is a 25-man pileup of mistakes.

surprisingly, the part about marinara sauce isnt the most awkward metaphor gene uses for barrett's bloody mouth. that will come later. also, alfonso soriano, aramis ramirez, and derrek lee are all OPS+ing over 125. although they probably won't continue at this pace, rich hill, jason marquis, and ted lilly all have ERA+s over 120. those are 6 pretty big non-mistakes right there. but go ahead wojceichowski, throw the baby out with the bathwater. no one's paying attention anyways. they just want to hear you rant and rave.

The Cubs might not have the worst record. Their star player might not yell "ha!" during games and later visit -- what did the New York Post call them? -- "jiggle joints." And they might not trail their division leader by double-digit games (yet), but it doesn't matter.

the part about not having the worst record: yes it does matter, to an extent. the part about yelling "ha": completely irrelevant. the part about strip clubs: even less relevant. the part about trailing in the division: barely relevant, because that depends on the strength of a division leader, which other teams in the same division dont have very much control over. so basically: gene disproves his own point in the first sentence, then brings up a bunch of other irrelevant stuff. great.

They're the worst because they're so much better than this.

very, very unclever.

They're the worst because the quality of their roster and the bulges in their $100-million payroll and $300-million offseason spending binge say so.

although the bullpen sucks and the rotation is questionable, there is plenty of talent on the roster. ask any scout. i will bet you 1,000 legal pads (i have access to lots of office supplies at my job) that there are zero professional baseball scouts out there that think the cubs have the lowest quality roster in the league.

And they're the worst because they lack a soul and simply can't handle the acidic, confrontational style of manager Lou Piniella. (Piniella was suspended on Sunday following a meltdown Saturday when he kicked dirt on third base umpire Mark Wegner during a loss to the Braves).

im going to steal the made up stat bit that the other fjm sometimes uses, not because i want to be just like them, but because its the best way to make fun of this portion of the article: i just looked up the cubs' "soul having index" on baseball reference. turns out they're 29th out of 30 teams in the league, at 2.145. (the devil rays, for obvious reasons, are last in the league at 1.822).

It isn't much of a baseball secret that Zambrano is a pitching diva and captain of the All-Knucklehead Team. When he was just breaking into the big leagues you could pass off his tantrums as the youthful ignorance of someone who wore his emotions on his jersey sleeve. "Fiery" is the word Cubs assistant general manager Randy Bush used Friday to describe Zambrano.

its also not much of a baseball secret that for the past couple of seasons, zambrano has been a fucking dominant pitcher much of the time. barry bonds is a massive diva and somewhat of a "knucklehead" too and i dont think anyone would argue hes been really good at baseball for a really long time. guys like this dont always make the best teammates, but if theyre good at baseball, they tend to get by just fine in the league. talented jerks win games. crappy nice guys dont. unless theyre david eckstein- but he has magical powers. little known fact about the guy.

But the truth is Zambrano has a long and well-documented history of throwing hissy fits when things don't go his way. It can be anything: an infielder botches an easy grounder ... an umpire squeezes the plate ... or, in this case, a catcher perhaps screws up a sign, lets a pitch squirt away, and then throws the ball into left field for an error and unearned run. The difference is this time Zambrano not only threw a fit, but he threw a punch. Lots of them, if you asked Barrett's lip.

fighing with your teammates is never a good thing. pretty much inexcusable (although gene hurts his own point later on in this article when he makes light of the fact that barrett is a jackass too). the rest of this stuff... who gives a rat shit? lots of pitchers get mad at people making errors behind them, or umpires that they feel are screwing them. wojo seems to be headed down a path towards claiming that the cubs stink because some of their players are hotheads. anyone reading this article that has followed baseball for more than about a month should realize that this is a load of nonsense.

The first shove-fest came in the Cubs' claustrophobic dugout and in full Wrigley and TV camera view during the bottom of the fifth inning. The actual fistfight came slightly later in the privacy of the clubhouse, which is too bad. Watching the Cubs' battery (now there's an appropriate word) go at it would have been more interesting than watching yet another Chicago loss, its fifth in a row and ninth defeat in the past 11 games.

Zambrano is listed at 6-5, 255 pounds. Barrett is listed at 6-3, 210. This was no small altercation between two free agents-to-be. It not only provided a telling glimpse into the non-relationship between Zambrano and Barrett, but it became an X-ray machine and exposed a serious fracture in the psyche of this team.

if the cubs were 31-24 instead of the other way around, i basically guarantee that this fight would not have occurred. frustration is more often a function of losing than than the other way around. if your team is winning youre definitely less likely to be mad at other members of it. i dont care how much of a "diva" you are. the fight didnt expose a problem with the team. its a function of the problem, which is losing baseball games.

Zambrano showed up his catcher in front of his teammates and those Comcast cameras, which is a cardinal sin in baseball. And what kind of idiot celebrates his 26th birthday by turning a teammate's lip into Minute Maid pulp?

THERE'S the worst lip metaphor in the article that i warned you about way back. wow. minute maid pulp... what kind of minute maid? pink lemonade? the more traditional orange juice?

But Barrett, whose catching skills aren't exactly held in high regard by Cubs' pitching staffs both past and present, is also a drama queen. He's had his share of tantrums, beginning with his part in the destruction of Sammy Sosa's boom box in 2004, with his home plate brawl with Chicago White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski in 2006, and now this. It doesn't help that he's hitting .241 (.217 in May) and has been brutal on the basepaths.

this is what i was talking about. do you think that maybe its possible barrett was as responsible for the fight as zambrano? i sure do. when two guys with "fiery" personalities collaborate in helping their team lose, sparks may fly. i dont think you can blame a crappy season on it.

Zambrano, the supposed ace of this staff, is 5-5 with a 5.62 ERA. Against the Atlanta Braveson Friday, he gave up six ernies and a career-high 13 hits in five innings.

no one calls ERs "ernies." no one. i dont even think joe buck would stoop that low.

Just in case Zambrano had a memory lapse, Barrett appeared to point to the scoreboard and remind him of the gruesome numbers.Then came Round 1 of the Rumble in Wrigley.

Zambrano says there's absolutely nothing physically wrong with his right arm, which has lots of mileage on the pitch odometer. If that's true, then the Cubs really are doomed. If there is something wrong, and he's hiding an injury during his contract year, then Zambrano has to come clean.

a fair point. ill give credit where its due. now back to the shit.

But the smackdown between Zambrano and Barrett is merely the flashpoint of a team in full implosion mode. You can accuse the New York Yankees of underachieving more than any team in the big leagues, but you would be wrong.

youd be a lot closer to being right than if you wanted to give the cubs that title. since last year's trading deadline the cubs lost juan pierre (hey, he's overrated, but he's still not bad), greg maddux, and todd walker. they replaced them with cesar izturis (worse at the plate than pierre), ted lilly (roughly equivalent to maddux), and mark derosa (a small upgrade over walker). they also added jason marquis, who has been great so far but is unlikely to continue being great, alfonso soriano, and got derrek lee back from injury. so basically they added 2 great hitters to a team that won 66 games. they are currently on pace to win about 71. disappointing? somewhat. but not oh-my-god-how-did-this-happen disappointing. meanwhile the yankees lost randy johnson and gary sheffield. they replaced them with andy pettite and bobby abreu, and got hideki matsui back from injury. that should all add up as more or less a wash (minus a little bit of expected decline because many of their key guys are old). last year they won 97 games. this year they, like the cubs, are on pace to win 71. THAT is the definition of disappointment. i dont give a hoot how much money the cubs spent in the offseason. they didnt improve their team (particularly in the bullpen, it would seem) enough to warrant being labeled most disappointing in the league so far. not even close.

No way should this Cubs starting lineup, this Cubs starting pitching and this Cubs bullpen have just 22 wins after 52 games. They're 7½ games out of first in the ordinary NL Central. They might as well be 75 games behind.

so now were saying that they are talented? huh? basically this part of the article reads: the cubs have better players than their record indicates. however, the season is hopelessly lost and there is no hope they will play any better than this for the rest of the season. even the crappiness of their division isnt cause for hope. because talent doesnt win baseball games: grit does. grit and hustle. gristle. hut. whatever. oh- and not being emotional and fiery because that means youre a bad ballplayer.

Former Cubs manager Dusty Baker was criticized for over-protecting his players. His replacement, Piniella, is being criticized for doing the exact opposite. So what's next? A pregame Bikram yoga session for the players so they can find tranquility while doing the Tadasana tree pose?

sometimes exaggeration is a good way to express comedy. sometimes it is not. ill let you guess which situation this joke falls under.

The baseball-impaired Cubs and their $100-million payroll have run out of excuses and are beginning to run out of time. They border on unwatchable these days. Too many mind-numbing mistakes.

theyre less than 10 games out with 100 to play. they have an ok, decent amount of talent and theyre in a shitty division. should they be expected to win the division? absolutely not. but should they expect to maybe work their way into the race somewhat at some point? maybe. the real problem for the cubs was thinking overspending on a mediocre class of free agents would instantly make them contenders. unreasonable expectations are as much to blame for their problems as anything. the bullpen, as ive stated, has been bad. but even if it were above average, theyd probably be only a few games over .500 and in a dogfight for a crappy division. not saying much here. also, some examples of these mind-numbing mistakes would be nice.

"I only have so many players that I can play. You know?" said Piniella, his voice rising in the postgame press conference seen around the country by now. "And it's about time some of them start playing like major leaguers! Or, get somebody else in here that can catch the damn ball or run the bases properly! All right? That's all I can say!"

the manager is frustrated with his below average team. how is this news? its not really a criticism of piniella himself, it doesnt really expand on whats wrong with the cubs other than talking about fielding and baserunning problems. i dont know why piniella is such a fucking lightning rod. there are plenty of managers in the big leagues that are just as angry as him. for some reason theyre just not famous for it like he is.

That's all he can say publicly. Just think what he's saying to himself.

hes probably really mad. i imagine him using a lot more profanity with himself than he does with the media. but i still dont know how this expands on the ideas advanced in the article as a whole. in conclusion, gene wojceichowski is a sneaky kind of bad columnist. you dont really hear much about him. he doesnt get complained about much on sites like this one. but go through his archives and try to find one single column that doesnt make you want to go outside and get some fresh air, like somehow gene just farted at you through the computer. i triple dog dare you.