I'm Sleepy, But Mariotti's Dumbness Keeps Me Going

It's nearing 3 a.m. CST here. I could either a) sleep, or b) make fun of Jay Mariotti. I've determined option b) is more important for my mental health right now.

The town belongs to the Cubs again, as if it ever didn't. You realized as much Tuesday when the evening sun gleamed upon a playoff race, the summer ivy, some ugly '70s Night wigs in the bleachers and a scoreboard where MILWAUKEE was the community focus. This while the White Sox swung and missed at the trade deadline, keeping in step with their swinging and missing all season.

You've been saying "the town belongs to the Cubs again" for weeks. No one "realized this" Tuesday, people have understood for awhile. You only said that as an excuse to transition into a bunch of anecdotal crap.

The White Sox, at least according to rumors made public, didn't get favorable offers. What did you expect them to do?

It was fun while it lasted, the afterglow of a South Side championship. But it turned out to be a momentary blip in time, more a cute accident than a long-term, earth-moving tremor in the social order of Chicago baseball.

Jay is acting as if the afterglow of one World Series championship is SUPPOSED to last for years and years. This is Dr. Jay Mariotti, speaking 2 seasons after the Sox won the World Series.

"::adjusts glasses:: ahem....It seems that after much research and study, the 2005 World Series was a thing that happened once, instead of some sort of earthquake that changes peoples' baseball allegiances. All of this research is the reason why I have little time, and am forced to write the same 5 articles over and over again"

Sure, the Cubs were negligent themselves in not helping facilitate their own World Series surge with a significant deal. I'd have preferred to hear that Lou Piniella paced the clubhouse floor instead of getting his weekly rubdown.

Jay is now implying that Lou Piniella needlessly worrying about the trade deadline instead of relaxing would have had some sort of effect on something.

And, yes, I'll also say there are reasons Cubs general manager Jim Hendry has won one division title in six seasons as general manager while his Hall of Fame counterpart, Atlanta's John Schuerholz, won 14 straight division titles, five National League pennants and a World Series. It's a resume that might need updating after Schuerholz acquired slugger Mark Teixeira and relievers Octavio Dotel and Ron Mahay at the deadline, making the Braves a pennant favorite again and a better ballclub than Hendry's.

pnoles: Jay, can you tell us why you think Jim Hendry has only won one division title in six seasons, while John Schuerholz won 14 straight division titles, five National League pennants and a World Series?
Jay Mariotti:, Well pnoles, I'll say that there are reasons.
pnoles: Reasons, you say?
Jay: Reasons.
pnoles: Ah, reasons, care to explain further?
Jay: Nope. There's just "reasons". It's just a sentence, man. Like there are reasons that the White Sox aren't good this year, and there are reasons I was hired to write for a newspaper, and there are reasons that plants don't have to eat other things to stay alive.
pnoles Ah. Thanks for being informative.

But at least the Cubs are relevant and vibrant, something the Sox can't say anymore. The Piniella karma is infectious, and all you need to know about the latest victory is that Jacque Jones lost a ball in the lights, leading to a run, then made up for his gaffe with an RBI double in the sixth inning of a 7-3 victory over the Phillies. That's ''Cubbie swagger,'' as Lou planned all along.

I'll remember this. Lou Piniella planned for Jacque Jones to lose a ball in the lights so that he would hit an RBI double in the next inning. Jay Mariotti, you are an idiot. A complete idiot.

Just once, you'd like to see both teams reach the postseason in the same year, but the Sox seem far from the fray after a bizarre day of inactivity that left a familiar face batting sixth and playing right field at Yankee Stadium.

A familiar face who is better than injury-prone Wily Mo Pena and so-so prospect Craig Hansen. A familiar face who has been tearing the cover off the ball since the All-Star break, and is making a strong case for the first half of this year being flukily bad.

Just so you know, they didn't award World Series MVP trophies in the early 20th century. And no, Mr. Smart Aleck, they didn't give one to Eddie Cicotte or Claude ''Lefty'' Williams for the Black Sox fix. Which means Jermaine Trevell Dye, by default, ranks as the only such honoree in this city's baseball history. Not that I understand one bit why he's still with the Sox today.

Not that I'm suprised, because you lack an understanding of most things. Like that World Series MVP trophies are dumb and can wind up in the hands of mediocrities like David Eckstein.

Whether the GM has been kidnapped, abducted by aliens or reduced to a Ken Doll, I'd really like to know what happened to Ken Williams. He made his name and won a championship with a feisty, kamikaze arrogance that made proactivity and aggressiveness a franchise trademark. But Tuesday, when the retooling of the White Sox was expected to begin with the trading of Dye, he once again failed to pull off a major deadline deal.

Let me summarize this. "Whatever happened to Ken Williams? He's failing to do the same things he was failing to do before!"

For the record, I'm standing pretty neutral on not trading Dye for Hansen and Pena.

A fair return for Dye, who is starting to play older than his 33 years, would have constituted landing power hitter Wily Mo Pena and young reliever Craig Hansen from the Red Sox. Seems Williams preferred another bullpen arm, Manny Delcarmen, yet when the Dye market shrank to nearly nothing as the afternoon closed, he should have cut his losses, made the trade and signaled that his club was starting anew.

Maybe they aren't starting anew. Maybe they'll re-sign Dye and land a free-agent outfielder and trade minor-leaguers for the Pirates' Brian Bixler and be a competitive team. Ever think of that?

Instead, in an awkward turnabout, Dye remains with the club. The missed opportunity to acquire new talent may or may not have contributed to the latest flipout by Ozzie Guillen, who needed one iffy ball/strike call in the first inning to raise a disproportionate amount of hell and earn an ejection after an in-your-face encounter with an ump. The Sox responded to Dye's unexpected return by dying another death themselves, losing 16-3 to the Yankees to drop their record to 85-103 since July 2 of last year.

EVERY SINGLE FUCKING WHITE SOX ARTICLE YOU WRITE CONTAINS THEIR RECORD RETROACTIVE TO JULY 2 OF LAST YEAR, THE MOST ARBITRARY CHERRY-PICKISH DATE IN THE WORLD.

Since August 3 of this year, the White Sox are 2-0. Fuck you, Jay.

Fabulous as Dye was in the Series and last season, when he contended for American League MVP honors, he shouldn't be a keeper for the future. As Guillen says, the Sox need to be younger and faster. Even if Aaron Rowand returns as their center field, they also need to think about a right fielder, a shortstop, a second baseman and a left fielder, among other needs. A good start for the rehab plan would have been dealing Dye, particularly when the Sox won't receive offseason draft picks for him if they don't offer arbitration.

Re-signing Dye plugs the same exact hole that trading for Pena would have fixed. I don't see how this is a hard concept to grasp.

Side note: Ozzie Guillen is an IDIOT if he really thinks his ballclub lacks youth and speed. Remember that no-talent clown you have batting leadoff every day who projects to be a 5th outfielder at best?

Williams held firm anyway, rejecting the Red Sox. He knew what he was doing in 2005, but we never were quite sure what he was doing before that. Now, after doing nothing at last summer's deadline and making little impact this past offseason, we're back to doubting Kenny GM.

''It was not the day we had hoped for,'' Williams said. ''I'm not frustrated. The way we operate, this isn't a one-day affair for us. This is a process we've been working on for weeks. We weren't going to just make up a deal for change sake. There wasn't one that made sense for us.''

There, as much as I hate agreeding/siding with Kenny Williams, you posted in your own column his rational explanation for not doing anything. He's not going to just fucking make a trade for the hell of it. It has to be a GOOD trade. These are things a 1st grader could understand. Don't trade your M&M's for Good n' Plenty if you don't value the Good n' Plenty more than the M&M's. Why can't you understand this?

So are the Sox going to keep Dye? With Jim Thome and Paul Konerko creeping up there in age, I wouldn't recommend it. In my dream of dreams, they would pursue Alex Rodriguez, but I don't suspect chairman Jerry Reinsdorf will fork out $200 million when he's nearing his 72nd birthday. Rather, I suspect the Sox organization is thankful for its one World Series winner and is ceding Chicago to the Cubs after borrowing it for one autumn.

"ceding Chicago to the Cubs". There we go again. The goal of the White Sox is to win baseball games, not suck in whatever bandwagon moron fans follow the trendy team. To repeat. When the White Sox win baseball games, they get a lot of ticket revenue. When they suck, they don't. Their objective, therefore, and bear with me here Jay, it's complicated, is to WIN BASEBALL GAMES. NOT TO "CONTROL CHICAGO FANSHIP".

Of course, there always will be things that drive me nuts about Cubdom, such as Greg Brady -- Barry Williams in real life -- being allowed to sing the national anthem and during the seventh-inning stretch. And why didn't you make a move for an outfielder or reliever, Jim Hendry? Instead of the Red Sox helping their AL chances with Eric Gagne, wouldn't he have looked good in the Wrigley bullpen?

''I have a lot of faith in the guys we have,'' Hendry said.

Faith. That's all the North Side needs to sustain. And it's something the South Side no longer has.

Things I learned about the fictitious world that Jay lives in.

1) Greg Brady singing the national anthem is a federal crime.
2) Hendry should trade for Eric Gagne, because when you trade for a player it doesn't matter what you give up or if the other side is offering you an appealing deal. There's no further analysis needed, because not making trades for good players is always dumb. 29 teams in baseball failed to acquire Adam Dunn at the trade deadline. Therefore, they all are failures.
3) The North Side just needs to sustain "faith" and they will be fine.

This was totally necessary. I can finally say that I'm now losing sleep over how useless this man is.