Now the Cubs are Really Screwed

In honor of our new friends at jaythejoke.com, I've decided to take some valuable (sarc) time out of my day and pick on the latest Jay article. Cub fans, whatever shred of hope you still had remaining should be gone. Yes friends, Jay is throwing in the towel (after 3 months of sucking Piniella's dick).

You want me to roll out the gush and the goo, the ``Go Cubs Go'' chorus, the Pat-and-Ronnie bop. You want me to suggest an emergency Bill Murray visit, an Ernie Banks pep talk, a Harry-and-Jack seance and all those desperate devices Cubdom pulls from its tail when 99 Seasons of Fear on the Wall are about to become 100.

First off, "Fear on the Wall"? Has "Cubdom" been terrified of something through all of these past 99 seasons? This, ladies and gentlemen, is why Jay Mariotti sucks at writing. I'll even throw out that Jay is wrong about 99 about to become 100, because it's 98 about to become 99.

Here's how that little phrase got in there. Jay realized that it's been (or going to be) 99 seasons of losing. His brain searched for a phrase with the number 99 in it. "Hmmm....99 bottles of beer on the wall, maybe? 99 seasons of....something on the wall? I need a word that rhymes with beer. Cheer? No, that's the opposite. Queer? No, that's what I had to convince the world I'm not after Ozzie made fun of me. Fear? Hmmm...seems like the best one. But it doesn't really make sense. Ah well, I'll toss it in there and hope people just read it as a clever phrase and don't think about it."

Too bad.

But why would I do that?

Gee, Jay, because you've been saying nothing for months but that Piniella is a baseball Yoda who will carry the Cubs to the promised land, first past the Arizona "Smoke-and-Mirrors" (as you have been calling them for weeks). I don't know, I'd think a dude with any sort of spine would stick with his prior convictions and maintain some sort of shred of hope. But you don't have a spine. (BAD JOKE ALERT!) That's why you flop on every issue.

You say the Cubs are due. I say they're too deep in doo-doo.

Jay, can you imagine yourself saying that terrible play on words out loud, like on Around the Horn or something, in front of thousands of people? You're a fucking embarrassment.

It's easier to make a case why Bartman should throw out the first ball today than why they'll win Game 3 behind erratic Rich Hill, win Game 4 behind a short-rested Carlos Zambrano and then return to Arizona and conquer the Diamondbacks behind The Mad Leather Whipper.

Really. The Cubs still have like a 10% chance of winning the series and you think it's easier to argue that Steve Bartman, a man upon whom most at Wrigley Field wish serious harm upon, should step out into the middle of all of them and throw out the first pitch of the game?

Meh, you've never really made sense before, not like I expected you to start now.

The Cubs need to sweep the next three games. I'm thinking January thongs on Oak Street Beach are a more likely scenario.

Right, if I might be of the opinion that you're overreacting juuuuust a tad, you wouldn't hold it against me, would you?

The Cubs haven't even been competitive in crawling into their 0-2 crater.

Really? Wasn't Game 1 a 1-1 tie until the late innings? Ask Carlos Zambrano if he was competitive that day.

Sure, they do. Rule No. 1: Pitch the ball out of the strike zone and make a lot of stinkingly wealthy hitters look silly, striking out 23 Cubs in two games. Rule No. 2: Make the Cubs' pitchers pay by scoring on four of six walks Thursday. Rule No. 3: Play grinder ball, throw down a suicide squeeze, have fun and apply even more pressure to an uptight team that is feeling the weight of 99 years.

Grinderball????? That's how the DBacks are doing it?

Game 1: 2 solo homers, then walk-double-sac-fly

Game 2: single-walk-sac bunt(rendered meaningless by...)-homerun. Single-triple. Single-walk-triple. Walk-walk-single. Okay, we've scored 7 runs and we're up by 5. Now let's play some fucking GRINDER BALL and lay down a suicide squeeze. GRINDING IT OUT. That's what the Diamondbacks are doing. GRINDING for all these runs. Look up the fucking definition of GRINDER BALL, would you? I mean, you'd have to look it up in a fictional dictionary containing stupid media-invented terms that don't mean anything, but for the love of shit, ask yourself, "when you are putting down a suicide squeeze after scoring 7 runs (hence, proving you don't need to "grind out" runs) and attaining a 5 run lead, is this GRINDER BALL?" IS IT?????

The only saving grace: The games are on TBS. No one's watching.

Yes, no one is watching baseball, because baseball becomes less interesting when it's not on a major station, where we could hear Joe Buck and Tim McCarver struggle through broadcasting while the former doesn't know shit about baseball and the latter spews ridiculous expressions that don't make sense. I mean, yes, the audience is more restricted, but most people owning a TV have basic cable, Jay.

As if life's odds aren't already stacked against the Cubs, examine the history they must overcome. In the wild-card era, no NL team has come back from an 0-2 hole and claimed a best-of-five series. When the Cubs have started 0-2 in a postseason series, they've lost all five times dating to 1910. There is a shred of hope involving Piniella, who overcome an 0-2 deficit in 1995 to beat the Yankees. But he was managing the Mariners then.

What does past Cubs teams failing in this situation have to do with the chances of the present Cubs team? No. Tell me. Why the fuck does what the Cubs did in 1946 (year picked at random, don't sue me) have anything to do with the odds of the 2007 Chicago Cubs beating the 2007 Arizona Diamondbacks in the 2007 National League Divisional Series in 2007???

Okay, brace yourselves everyone, because for the first time ever, Jay is about to do some analysis, and it's actually interesting and informative and shows that he's researched something.

Should the Cubs find their thrill on Rich Hill, Zambrano returns Sunday on three days' rest at home, where he is wildly inconsistent. When Piniella tried Big Z on three days last month, it didn't work out. Nor does the three-day theory succeed much in the playoffs. When managers have brought back starters on short rest in best-of-five series the last 10 Octobers, those teams have lost nine of 14 series. Expand that to all rounds, and teams have gone 4-17 in short-rest games.

See? That wasn't so hard, was it? Good paragraph, Jay! (except for the thrill/Rich Hill wordplay) Just think, if you made sense like this more often, the entire city of Chicago wouldn't want to dump a large container of hot tar on you!

I'm actually guessing that this was written by either Jay's editor, Jeffrey, or Jay's secretary, Rachel.

When asked if he'll view the year as a success if elimination comes quickly, Piniella said yes. ``Look, this team finished last in the division last year, the most losses in the National League, and here we are in the postseason in one year,'' he said. ``If that's not a success, well, I really don't know what it is.''

Then, a minute later, he waxed philosophical about what this all means in the grand scheme. ``It's only a game,'' said Yoda Lou. ``It's not life or death.''

If the Cubs lose tonight, he'll come to realize how many millions think otherwise.

I'm guessing the latter quote is taken totally out of context. And also, I assure you that zero people in Chicago feel that Game 3 is of life-or-death seriousness. Millions of people, however, think you should be thrown out on your fat ass, because the Sun-Times is getting less talent per dollar spent on you than the White Sox are getting from their players! BURN! PWNED KENNY WILLIAMS!