I'm tired but feel obligated to post something

Hmmm. How to resolve that tension... I know! Another podcast with Cousin Sal! Writing is hard, but talking is really easy. When you've got a voice made for photography and a personality made for solo deep space exploration, there's nothing people want more than to hear you yap at them about nothing for 45 straight minutes. BONUS: some guy who is just like me but somehow less engaging will join me for the podcast and also yap! You're welcome.

Just kidding with all that snarksnarksnarksnark. When I'm tired but feel obligated to write, the actual solution is to do a grab bag post.

Picking on atrociously untalented members of the Chicago media used to be PNoles's thing, but seeing as how we couldn't pay his appearance fee for tonight you're going to have to let me walk you through some snippets of this Phil Rogers disaster. (Shout out to Erik if he's still reading. Now go win another fancy showbiz award and mail it to me, please.)

Talking baseball:

While I appreciate that he leads his article with a statement of its subject matter, I'm pretty sure I would have figured it out within the next six words.

These aren’t baseball cards we’re watching. They’re people.

That's the best opening line in the history of sportswriting. I love it. I'm going to get a tramp stamp tattoo that says it, and somehow work it into a seven letter acronym so I can somehow display it on a vanity license plate.

These aren’t baseball cards we’re watching. They’re people.

Fantastico.

These aren’t baseball cards we’re watching. They’re people.

Last one. Promise.

That’s why I really like the Dale Sveum/Theo Epstein dea of giving Alfonso Soriano a shot to hit leadoff again.

But what if Soriano was literally a baseball card? Would he not want to hit leadoff anymore? Would they only use him as a pinch hitter? How unsurprising would it be if Jim Hendry gave a small piece of cardboard a nine figure contract?

Like it or not, the Cubs still owe Soriano $54 million.

I'm pretty sure 0% of Cubs fans like the fact that the team owes him $54 million. I think that figure of speech is better used when it refers to something that the target audience could conceivably like or not like, such as "Like it or not, they're expanding instant replay" or "Like it or not, Dale Sveum is managing your team."

And, like it or not, he’s still one of their most productive hitters.

/checks Soriano's 2011 stats, then checks stats of rest of Cubs likely 2012 lineup

Jesus. As of spring training 2012 he's right. That is truly amazing.

So dropping him down in the batting order, as Lou Piniella and Mike Quade did over the last two years, really accomplishes little other than make angry fans feel better.

Well here's the thing: if you have Carlos Pena and Aramis Ramirez, like Quade did in 2011, Soriano is no longer "one of your most productive hitters." He's 4th best on the team, and 5th best if Geovany Soto manages to get his head out of his ass. That means Soriano doesn't belong in the middle of the lineup, and with that robust .300ish OBP, he doesn't belong at the top either. Seventh sounds like a pretty good spot for him. So let's rephrase Phil's statement: in addition to making angry fans feel better, dropping Soriano down in the batting order if it's 2011 makes a whole ton of sense. Dropping him down there in 2012 when he inevitably hits something like .250/.290/.440 will still make angry fans feel better, but will have less on field utility since Ian Stewart and Brian Lahair are now playing the infield corners.

Epstein would love for Sveum and hitting coach Rudy Jaramillo to get more out of Soriano.

And I would love to be an MLB GM, or to talk to a real live woman without first giving her my credit card number.

That might make it possible at some point to trade him to an American League team that could use him as a combination DH/left fielder, a role that clearly suits him better than being a full-time left fielder.

Just pick up something like $48 million of his contract and I think that dream might become a reality.

Pride is always a part of a baseball players’ emotional package, and for a hitter that does have something to do with where his name is written on the lineup card. The most professional guys work their best to perform the same regardless, but the lineup card always has something to say about a guy’s self esteem, as well as his standing within the clubhouse.

And moving him to 7th when his OBP is under .300 is a good way of saying "Dude, you're fucking terrible and you swing at everything. Stop."

That was clear when Alex Rodriguez was talking about his desire to continue to bat cleanup for the Yankees this year.

Joe Girardi: earning every dirty cent he gets paid.

I was in Tampa at the start of camp when Rodriguez was talking about how he felt he could be the most valuable to the Yankees as the No. 4 hitter, behind Robinson Cano.

“I’ll do what the manager wants me to do,’’ A-Rod said. “I take an enormous amount of pride hitting fourth.

I love dissonant statements like that. "I'm not going to blame the refs. They blew a ton of calls and probably cost us the game, but we don't have any excuses."

I think it’s been shown that lefty-righty-lefty is a very good way to the build the middle of your order.

Soak it up, people! Connie Mack over here is giving away free managerial tips.

I also think the track record shows I’m not very effective hitting eighth.’’

That, of course, was a reference to Game 4 of the 2006 Division Series against Detroit,

Not that A-Rod is a child or anything.

More than five years later, Rodriguez is still embarrassed.

More than five years AND A NEW MANAGER LATER, Rodriguez is still embarrassed. Lordy, I hate it when the media panders to dipshit mouthbreathing fans by piling on A-Rod, but man, that is some pretty pathetic bullshit right there.

Soriano never complained about Quade’s lineups last season.

What? THESE AREN'T BASEBALL CARDS, PHIL. THEY HAVE FEELINGS AND EGOS AND HEARTS AND BLOOD. I also like progression of the article. Hitters care about their batting order spot. In fact, a guy who doesn't play for the Cubs REALLY cares about it. Soriano, by all accounts, does not care much about it. But the Cubs should definitely treat him like he does.

He had more plate appearances as the No. 7 hitter (221) than anywhere else in the lineup, with sixth (186) the next most frequent.

Why not let Soriano hit first?

Because he never gets on base?

No, he’s not a strong on-base guy.

Why not let your worst pitcher start on opening day? No, he's not very good at pitching. Why not tell your catcher to attempt to steal every time he's on base? No, he's not very fast. Why not sign Soriano to a contract extension right now? No, he's not worthy of a roster spot on a contending team.

But he hits home runs and doubles, and that’s a pretty nice way to start an inning.

You could always trade for Mark Trumbo and hit him leadoff. He's like a better version of Soriano. Plenty of doubles and bombs. No, he doesn't really get on base much... but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Problem: solved. Now, to trade for Trumbo. Hmmm. Hey, why not just offer Soriano straight up? Wait, what? The Angels fired Tony Reagins? Fuck. Back to the drawing board.

Hitting him in the leadoff spot isn’t going to keep the team from winning.

It sure as fucking shit isn't going to help.

Finally, here’s one last benefit of hitting Soriano first, and it’s not a small one.

He's NOT a baseball card; therefore, he's able to swing a bat and run the bases.

He is clearly one of the Cubs’ most dangerous hitters. And by hitting him first, not seventh, you can get him four plate appearances and pull him for a defensive replacement one or even two innings earlier than normal. You get him to the plate four times and lessen your exposure in the field. That’s smart.

Oh. Oh my. GOODNESS GRACIOUS. I think I'm going to have to leave it at that.

Well, now I'm out of time and energy and I'm not even going to get to the other stuff I had planned to include in the grab bag. How very Simmonsy of me. Sorry kids. My schedule is a little full these days. Fun Larry B trivia: between June 2008 and December 2011, I didn't have a full time job. Kind of made it easier to blog. But look, now I have a job and I'm still writing. Don't I deserve awards and accolades for leading such a balanced life? God, I am so great. My sheltered, privileged existence has been extremely difficult but I'm still out here plugging away at this little game I like to call "life." Full time job AND spends 45 to 60 minutes a week writing bullshit about the sports media? HOW DOES HE DO IT, FOLKS? HE'S GOT THE WORK ETHIC OF TWO THOMAS EDISONS!

/was obviously born in the 80s and deserves to get his entitled face beaten in with a crowbar

Hey, I've Got a Great Solution to the Problem, Let's Yell at It!

I don't know who of you out there has been following the Chicago Cubs lately, but if you haven't, let me bring you up to speed. Their record is 18-1932, their batting average is -.432, and their team ERA is 3.87. Yup. Pretty good pitching. But anyway, who cares about the logistics. We need a solution! Dan McNeil just got promoted to having his own 4-hour long talk show on the radio in Chicago, and he has the answer: yelling! Take it away, Danny Mac!

We need a new Lou. This one won't do. Lou Piniella just isn't selling the Zen thing. Not to me or to anybody else. Most important, the 25 athletes under his stewardship don't appear to be processing his messages.

Lou Piniella: Hey Soriano, quit swinging at pitches in the dirt!

Alfonso Soriano: ::strikes out by swinging at ball four low::

Lou Piniella: Hey Theriot, quit swinging for the fences and slap it to right, like the good ol' days!

Ryan Theriot: ::swings as hard as he can and pops it up to the pitcher::

Derrek Lee: ::takes strike one::

Lou Piniella: ::Runs out of the dugout screaming to argue the call, now is kicking dirt and peeing on home plate simultaneously:: YOU PIECE OF $#@( what kind of #(@#ing #!#$ $#@! #$@* #$*( #$*$ing (percent sign) #@$! Barbara Streissand's #$@$@!!!!

Jake Fox: Hey, Lou's getting pissed off! I'm energized!

Geovany Soto: Hey boys, we've got this shit!

Cubs Players in unison: HUZZAH!

::Cubs win game 131-4::

And that's how it all went down.

I'm pleased when anybody reads anything, even a cocktail napkin,

You have very low standards.

but those books Piniella said he read last offseason should have been saved for Phil Jackson. He wears a satin robe better.

Joe Torre didn't singlehandedly win all those AL East titles by acting all calm, that's for damn sure.

Try as Piniella might to convince the world he's walking on rice paper without leaving a trace, he always has been most comfortable near the edge. Or completely over it. That's who he is.

Factors in winning a Major League Baseball division, in order of importance.

1) Manager comfortability
2) Yelling
3) Being in the four-teamed AL West
4) Removing bases from their proper locations
5) Runs scored

Unearthing bases. Kicking dirt. Spitting. Scratching. Fighting one of his own players, as he did in Cincinnati with the behemoth-sized Rob Dibble.

6) Fighting Rob Dibble

None of those outlandish behaviors will solve the Cubs' most urgent problems,

At least you admit this.

but when a historically fiery manager ceases to breathe fire, then you have a brand new problem to tack onto the list: resignation.

Or worse: a manager that doesn't instantly verbalize everything he thinks in a hyperpassionate matter. That fucks over the media hardcore.

We want to know you're still in there, Lou. C'mon, Lou.

You know Soto the Pothead is starting to turn things around......maybe you should cheer for him? He actually plays baseb-....ah hell. C'mon Lou.

Time for Piniella to take one of his struggling bullpen arms over the fence, the way the Tigers' Ryan Raburn did Tuesday night, to beat Kevin Gregg in the bottom of the ninth.

The play on words here was just simply effortless.

As Piniella awakens to a call to action, perhaps it also alerts general manager Jim Hendry to a problem on which he may want to act. Who's this team's closer if it's not going to be Gregg, who has blown three saves and is averaging more than 20 pitches per inning?

Good Danny. This is baseball. This is definitely something worth talking about. Maybe we should elaborate on this. Maybe talk about some possible solutions to the problem.

The more cerebral Lou can spare embarrassing Gregg with critical words. Just give him the ball in garbage time at the next opportunity. Actions speak louder than words.

Danny Mac's solution: Embarrass Kevin Gregg.

The original ''Plan B'' was Carlos Marmol, but he also has underwhelmed. I'm all for seeing Piniella wave Marmol in for mop-up duty, too, if there aren't more performances like Tuesday's, when he whiffed three of the four Detroit hitters he faced.

Alright so the nominal two best relievers on the Cubs are pitching with the team 5 runs down in the 4th inning. Danny Mac, you deserved every bit of that promotion.

We need more actions, those like Monday night when Piniella benched Alfonso Soriano for the Cubs' one-night stand in Atlanta. Good. Soriano needed it.

If this was a routine rest day (I don't know for sure), this is very funny.

Next move is to hit him fifth or sixth in the order.

Agreed. Every Cub fan in the universe knows this should have happened 2 years ago.

Of Piniella's regulars, only veterans Derrek Lee and Ryan Theriot have proven reliable. They are the only Cubs position players who should be an automatic when Piniella pencils in his daily lineup.

Kosuke Fukudome: .279 EqA
Milton Bradley: .263 EqA
Ryan Theriot: .263 EqA
Reed Johhhhnson: .269 EqA
Micah Hoffpauir: .262 EqA

You heard the man. Theriot's your lock to play every day. None of those other guys quite stack up.

Without acting, Piniella is running the dangerous risk of creating the impression he's losing interest. I couldn't believe it when he didn't want to talk about his team's habitual struggle to not capitalize on scoring opportunities the other night.

I can't believe that either, man! When your team is hitting .011 on the season with RISP and this is happening pretty much every other game, I can't imagine why Lou wouldn't want to talk to the media about it!

Maybe it's time for the guy to talk about going fishing.

Woahhhh

Maybe he should go fishing.

WOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

I'm not encouraging Piniella to barbeque his players publicly. It won't mean squat if he rips one of his guys, unloads on an umpire or kicks Roger Bossard's majestic granules of sand all over Bridgeport this weekend.

This pretty much is the opposite of everything you've said thus far.

Nobody is asking for the postgame spread to be hurled against the wall of the clubhouse. Nothing contrived or falsely manufactured is necessary.

It's gotta come from the HEART!!!

Just show us you're not going to lie down and take it. Use the pencil like a carving knife. Messages are delivered when they land right in the gut.

Send a message! Instead of those losers, start Andres Blanco and Aaron Miles every day! That'll show 'em you care about winning!

Find new roles for those not handling their current ones. Keep shakin' up that lineup card and that bullpen. An untrustworthy pen has cost many managers their jobs.

Neal Cotts, you are now the closer for the Chicago Cubs.

So has indifference.

Alright Danny Mac, I've been pretty sarcastic this entire time, so let me level with you. It isn't that Lou doesn't give a shit. It's that unlike you, he understands that throwing an angry hissy fit isn't going to make professional baseball players play better. And if he doesn't otherwise feel like it, he won't do it. You stink.

I'm off to Hawaii, bitches!!!

Saying Hello to an Old Friend

Ladies and gentlemen, it's time we revisit a story that was told billions of times already, but hasn't been told in almost a year. A story told by a man who once showed up here quite frequently, and is still allegedly our flagship target. Ladies and gentlemen, please wwwwwwwwwwelcome back.....Jay Mariotti.

Bad Vibes Abound in Friendly Confines

For those of you who don't believe me......

Let's

check

the

FireJay

archives

again

shall

we?

::sniff:: Those were happy times. I sort of miss you, Jay.

CHICAGO -- I'm actually a hopeful guy at heart, confident we'll one day have an economic recovery,

Likely very soon!

peace on earth

Likely not happening!

and better late-night TV from Jimmy Fallon.

The least likely of all!

But my faith in humankind never has extended to the Cubs. Let me lay this out right here: They won't win another World Series in our lifetime or anyone's else,

Interesting. Jay should bet his life savings against the Cubs winning every year and live like a king. But I don't quite understand that sentence. Can you please give me three very random and completely unrelated references to clarify this?

doomed like pork rinds, Vanilla Ice and the last U.S. president as irreversible national debacles.

Thanks.

On a cold, rainy Tuesday, it was Country Music Night at Wrigley Field, the perfect promotion for the saddest ongoing song in sports. Living here, I am sensing more than a smidgen of burnout in Cubdom, a world-weariness that suggests even the most loyal masochists in sports are sick of pledging their entire beings to a cursed cause -- only to be inevitably bludgeoned every autumn.

I stopped reading the second you used the word "cursed". Unfortunately, it seems I already read roughly 89% of those words.

Wasn't there some sort of "curse" on that there Boston baseball team?

Naw, couldn't be. They won the World Series twice recently.

Now, there's a queasy feeling that the Cubs are regressing and might not even make the playoffs this season. They've lost eight of their last nine games, with a rain-shortened 6-1 win over the Pirates finally breaking the streak, and they too often strike the appearance of a sluggish, broken-down, overpriced blob that has overstayed its welcome as a National League contender.

They're four games out of first place on May 31. And they're behind teams that aren't even good.

This begs for a snarling, spitting, belly-bumping tantrum by manager Lou Piniella, who went bonkers in June 2007 and saw the Cubs use it as an emotional turning point in a division-title season.

Jay seems to be of the opinion that the Chicago Cubs won the division in 2007 because Lou Piniella kicked dirt on an umpire. Good for you, Jay.

But here's the rub: His wife, Anita, won't let her hubbie throw bases or fits anymore at 65, which not only is the clubhouse's loss but SportsCenter's, too.

Translation: The Cubs are fux0red.

At 22-22, the Cubs are only four games behind Milwaukee and St. Louis, locked in a first-place tie in the NL Central.

Dan-bob, please explain to the audience what is wrong with this sentence.

But the Cardinals, with Albert Pujols as the resident machine and pitching coach Dave Duncan working more miracles with mediocre arms, are poised for a division-title run.

I'm glad you think that Joel Piniero and Kyle Lohse aren't in for some sort of rude awakening.

The Brewers aren't bad, either, even without C.C. Sabathia.

Actually, they are kind of bad, especially when you consider Rickie Weeks isn't playing anymore. They have four guys hitting the ball acceptably well, and one of them is Craig Counsell, who is totally going to hit .327 all year. Trevor Hoffman will never give up a run, and the team will definitely stay in first place with Manny Parra and Jeff Suppan pitching this awful.

Let me read that sentence again.

The Brewers aren't bad, either, even without C.C. Sabathia.

Wow Jay, you've totally convinced me that you know one thing about the Brewers.

The Cubs are one of baseball's worst offensive teams,

WRONG!

ranking 11th in the league in runs and 14th in batting average and total bases, a far cry from the mashers who powered their way to glory.

Geovany Soto is going to hit .210 all year, and Aramis Ramirez will never come off the disabled list.

One issue is the deterioration of Derrek Lee, who hit 46 home runs four years ago, into a glorified singles hitter. Another issue is Aramis Ramirez, a dangerous hitter who can't stay healthy. Then there's the maddeningly streaky Alfonso Soriano, who is striking out like a fiend and remains misplaced as a leadoff man. The reigning NL Rookie of the Year, catcher Geovany Soto, is hitting .214 with one homer.

There is absolutely no reason to think that any of these players will produce at such a sluggish/disabled rate over an entire season.

Then there's Milton Bradley, who has brought nothing but poison to the Friendly Confines and threatens to spoil the good vibes that have pervaded Wrigley the last two seasons. Only Bradley, who should be accompanied by a shrink 24/7, still can carry a grudge in late May about an umpiring spat that happened on April 16.

Bradley is hitting home runs at a higher rate per plate appearance than he ever has in his career. His OBP is 119 points higher than his batting average. If you think that Milton Bradley is a .224 hitter, then please, by all means, panic.

But, hey, at least Mr. T was there on Monday night, in his red, white and blue get-up and bandana, mucking up the seventh-inning song with the worst of them. You thought Denise Richards was bad? Jeff Gordon, Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Romo, Mike Ditka, Dick Vitale? Mr. T brought "PAIN!!!" in the worst way.

See? It isn't all bad!

Again? Really?

I thought I'd seen the last of this crap when Mariotti left. But I forgot one important thing: Rick Sutcliffe still exists.

When you look back at the Cubs the year before Lou Piniella took over as manager, they lost 96 games.

That's true. The team had a .319 OBP. Juan Pierre logged 699 at-bats. .245/.271/.339 Ronny Cedeno had five hundred thirty-four. Derrek Lee, the best player on the team, was hurt a lot and only batted 175 times. 80 starts were made by a pitcher with an ERA 5.32 or higher. They were very, very bad.

Two years ago, Piniella's first year, I was in uniform with the Cubs during spring training. We had a four-run lead in a spring training game and a lot of the guys that were on the field weren't going to be part of the team by April, but most of the team was still there sitting on the bench. Next thing you know, we started kicking it around out there and we'd given up the lead. I'd never been in the dugout for one of Piniella's eruptions, but he got up and started going up and down the line saying, "That's those Cubbies that lost 96 games! Now it's all coming out. Now, I can see what they were talking about. Boys you can't win baseball games like this. You've got to pay attention! Is anybody paying attention?" In other words, he went off.

That's how you turn around a baseball team, all you managing hopeful! Make crazy gestures with your hands! Ask if people are paying attention a lot!

Even the coaches came up to me afterward and said "Now you know, man. That's Lou."

How inspiringly irrelevant.

But Piniella was making the point that if they were going to keep playing like that, they were going to have him all over them every day.

While he certainly knows how to motivate, it's Piniella's ability to evaluate that's helped this team evolve from 66-96 to where they are today.

The additions of Alfonso Soriano, Ted Lilly, Jim Edmonds, Reed Johnson, Kosuke Fukudome, Geovany Soto, Rich Harden, and ::gasp:: Jason Marquis had nothing to do with it, I'm sure.

This is the first time since 1908 that the Cubs have gone to the postseason in back-to-back seasons. If you had to just pick one person responsible for the transformation, it would have to be

Derrek Lee being healthy? Soto breaking out? Ryan Dempster putting together a stellar season out of nowhere? Carlos Marmol emerging as a force in the bullpen?

Piniella.

BAAAAAAHHHHHHNNNNTTTTT. WRONG!

A couple of years ago, Piniella noticed Ryan Theriot starting to press a couple of weeks into spring training. Piniella took him aside and told him to relax, that he was coming to Chicago with him. When everyone was focusing on Theriot's limitations, saying he had a weak arm and no power, Piniella looked right at me and said that he knew Theriot was the kind of guy he could win with.

HAH! Those crazy suckers that thought Theriot had no power and no arm were.....exactly right.

Theriot is slugging .351. That's Scott Podsednik territory. He has a very good .375 OBP, and coming out of 2B or SS, he's fairly valuable. But given all that, his complete and total lack of power reduces him to being a league average hitter, even at that OBP clip. He's also not a good defensive shortstop by any means (which isn't really his fault, he should be playing second base on any team with a shortstop than can hit better than Ronny Cedeno). All of this makes him one of the 15 or so most overrated players in baseball.

And if you look at Theriot, he's won championships in college at LSU and in the minor leagues.

This is not a big deal at all.

He reminds me a lot of Craig Counsell or David Eckstein.

Ya don't fucking say, shithead.

When you see a big inning from the Cubs these days, he always seems to be right in the middle of it.

Gotta love this statement. You can't disprove it! And I guarantee you it holds absolutely no water.

Piniella also recognized the problems with the starting rotation he inherited with Mark Prior and Kerry Wood. He knew something had to be done. They parted ways with Prior, but he saw something that told him that Wood could be the closer. It was his idea to put Ryan Dempster back in the rotation and move Wood to the bullpen, knowing Wood's arm couldn't hold up to the innings needed out of a starter. Piniella figured if he was only going to be able to throw two innings effectively, why not make it the last two.

That move was pretty smart, but it completely takes whatever say Jim Hendry had out of the equation, and also negates the fact that Ryan Dempster has pitched better this season than ever in his entire career. Piniella does deserve some credit for making the move, but you're fucking acting like Piniella is pitching for Dempster or something.

Piniella would be quick to tell you that the players deserve the credit.

Because he likes saying accurate things.

But the one thing a good manager does is put the players in a position to succeed. Take a look at center field, for instance. Back in May, Piniella saw that they had only five home runs from left-handed hitters. He said they couldn't win like that. That's when he decided to give Jim Edmonds a try.

WOAH WOAH WOAH. Stop right there. You're acting like Piniella had this nobody named "Jim Edmonds" just rotting away in triple-A or at the end of the bench and was like, "you know, nothing else is working, let's run this kid out there and see what he's made of!" Jim Edmonds was signed by Jim Hendry. Does Jim Hendry get any credit for any of this? Any at all?

Now, if you look at their production out of center field since the All-Star break, it's completely changed, and they're doing it with two guys that had been released in Edmonds and Reed Johnson.

Reed Johnson was also snatched up by Jim Hendry, not manufactured in Lou Piniella's "Players-I-Need-O-Matic Machine" (TM).

He's not throwing Johnson out there every day, especially against the tough right-handers. That's where Edmonds comes in. Likewise, Edmonds doesn't have to face the best lefties. They are put in a spot where they can succeed.

Woah...careful everyone. Sutcliffe just stumbled upon the idea of a "platoon". It's a very vague concept and entirely new to managing. Very few managers can pull off this hyper-creative and complicated tactic.

As great a job as Joe Torre is doing with those characters in Los Angeles, Piniella is my National League Manager of the Year.

This is so ridiculous. Not so much the Manager of the Year part, but how can you be completely and totally ignorant to how much better the intrinsic quality of the players on the Cubs has become over the past two years? Do you know what a difference a healthy Derrek Lee makes? How about having one of the best catchers in baseball just break out before your eyes? Is that Piniella? What did Lou Piniella have to do with snagging Rich Ha-(Hold on a second, "Home Improvement" just ended, and it has been replaced on the television by "George Lopez." This needs to stop before I can finish that word)-rden? Don't get me wrong, the man has pushed a good amount of the right buttons in his time on the North side, but there are umpteen more important reasons to why the Cubs are good. You, Rick Sutcliffe, are the quintessential example of why ex-players should not be given writing jobs simply because you used to play baseball.

Unfunny Jokes, etc

HatGuy's officially back, I think. This is his second baseball column of the week.

Cubs or Brewers will blow their playoff spot

Why?

Both star-crossed franchises have a lot of practice at falling apart

Let's stop you right there. The Brewers have historically never been in a position to
do that. 2007 is pretty much the only thing that comes to mind. Lots of practice.

This thought just in: Somebody is going to blow a certain playoff spot in the National League, and it’s going to be almost as ugly as the Mets’ all-time meltdown last year.

That isn't possible.

The candidates are the Cubs and the Brewers, and they’re well qualified for the job. The Brewers have never won a World Series and they haven’t been there for more than 25 years. And the Cubs have a century’s worth of losses packed in their emotional baggage.

See? The 1983 Brewers and 1956 Cubs have more bearing on this year's pennant race than you thought!

Don’t think they don’t know it. The newspapers and electronic media are regurgitating all the stories of past failures. The Brewers are reminded almost daily that they once had an 8 1/2-game lead in the NL Central last year only to blow it all to the Cubs and finish out of the playoffs entirely.

Isn't it counterproductive to argue that TWO teams are good at falling apart by saying one dramatically overtook the other for the division lead?

The Cubs are already hearing about billy goats and black cats and Bartmans and every other evil stroke of fortune that’s befallen them over the decades.

Don't forget "baseball." That starts with 'b' too. Right, Jay Mariotti?

Let’s face it. Both of these star-crossed franchises have a lot of practice at this sort of thing. They’re good at falling apart in the clutch. It’s in their DNA.

Oh you are just the worst type of person.

Watching the Brewers and Cubs trying to get to the postseason is like watching someone with an inner-ear problem and poor hand-eye coordination walking a tightrope stretched over an alligator pit while juggling chain saws. Blindfolded.

.
..
...
....

Throw your tomatoes, people!

("chainsaw" is one word.)

It’s not fit viewing for small children and people with weak stomachs.

You are an unfunny human being.

When September began, both teams were sailing serenely through the schedule, the Cubs 4 1/2 games ahead of the Brewers, and Milwaukee well ahead of everybody else fighting for the wild card. St. Louis was 11 games out and Houston was just a dim speck in the rearview mirror, 14 games behind the Cubs and 9 1/2 behind the Brewers.

Since then, both the Brewers and Cubs have been unraveling like a $2 sweater in a briar patch. Both are falling into panic mode, and with good reason.

$2 sweater in a briar patch. Awesome. Who says these things? I don't even have to do any work on this post. Just copy and paste the words, and let HatGuy embarrass himself.

In Milwaukee, it’s a sudden failure of the offense. CC Sabathia, the best trade-deadline pickup in memory, has been unbeatable, and Ben Sheets hasn’t yet imploded, but the team’s not scoring any runs.

I'm sorry, where do you get off saying this? Ben Sheets hasn't yet imploded? Is the fact that Ben Sheets is pitching very well like, unbelievable or something? Ben Sheets is a very very very good major league pitcher. He's either good or injured. Implosion-free, relatively speaking.

It will be hard for both teams to finish out of the playoffs, if only because so many teams are fighting for two spots, and most of them have to play each other. But it’s not out of the question for the Brewers and the Cubs to go into their final three games in Milwaukee with one playoff spot on the line for both teams.

Fate would have a tough decision if it comes to that. Which perennial loser would you favor? The guys who haven’t won in 100 years, or the ones who haven’t won in forever?

The one with the best team this year for crissake. I guess in your eyes things like that are irrelevant completely.

Holy Fucking Shit You Guys.....

Is HatGuy really NOT a Yankees fan?

Did he really just say that he wanted the Red Sox in the World Series???

It may be early, but Red Sox-Cubs is my dream
Boston, Chicago currently baseball's best — let's hope it holds

My God......the entire sports journalism world just broke down.

It's like our number system. Every complicated mathematical proof rests on a few basic axioms. What a plus sign does. What zero is.

In sports journalism, one such axiom is, "HatGuy loves the Yankees more than whipped cream and chocolate sauce."

I am not sure if this site can continue to exist.

It's dangerous and probably dumb to draw conclusions about a baseball season when barely one-third of the games are in the books.

::panting:: Whew. Sorry guys. I just ran all the way back from Mike Celizic's house. I stole his personal dictionary, and the.... ::vomits:: ...the fucking guard dogs chased me all the way back here. But I've got it, and I'm safe.

Let's see here....here's a random section of words to read!

predicament
predicant
predicate
predicatory
..
predigest
predilection
predispose

Huh? What's that? There's a word missing in there? Heh. Well, whatever it was, I can only assume it was dangerous and probably dumb.

But it’s also fun, especially this year, when it's possible to legitimately dream in June of what may be the best World Series matchup in memory.

Oh I don't know if that's safe there Hattigan. The thought police are all over this town, and if they catch you doing such a dangerous and probably dumb thing, they'll lock your brain up in brain prison.

How does Red Sox-Cubs sound to you? They’re arguably the two best teams in baseball. My colleague, Tony DeMarco, disagrees.

It actually is tough to beat Red Sox-Cubs right now in terms of team quality. Tony DeMarco, usually intelligent, is clueless. The Angels are only +11 in run differential right now, a few starting pitchers are performing over their heads, and they have a .247 team EqA. I'm convinced msnbc.com hires Angels fans deliberately, because Michael Ventre loves them too much as well.

HatGuy pauses here and actually uses stats and run differentials and the stuff that happened last year, which is more shocking than anything I'll print here. But we get down to the meat of his argument here.

So if you want to argue nothing will change this year, there are numbers to back you up. And if you want to argue that everything will change, there are numbers to back that up, too.

Damn it! Take a side for once, numbers!

But there are reasons to believe that the magical matchup between the Red Sox and Cubs is realistic.

Because they're in first place in their divisions and anyone can make the World Series once they're in the playoffs? Bold claim there Mike.

Both teams have offenses that should be pretty much recession-proof

I'm sorry....recession proof? On the Cubs, Soriano and Ramirez are famous for their month-to-month inconsistency. On the Red Sox....did you see the way Ortiz started this year? How about the way J.D. Drew was last season....that can't happen again? Don't get me wrong, they both have very good offenses, but there's really no such thing as a recession-proof offense nowadays.

The Cubbies have four guys who have scored 40 or more runs — Ryan Theriot, Aramis Ramirez, Kosuke Fukudome and Derrek Lee —

Oh goody....cherry-picking individual runs! Couldn't think of a better way to say an offense is performing.

Moving on....he's talking about how no team in the AL matches the Red Sox.

The Red Sox lead the AL in on-base percentage and are second in runs scored. They have four guys with 39 or more runs scored and six with at least 36 — remarkable balance up and down the lineup.

Whoopde fuckin' doo. They have 334 runs. That's the bottom line. Who gives a shit who scores them?

You could say the White Sox may be Boston’s match, especially with Carlos Quentin carrying the offense with his 16 homers and 53 runs batted in. Chicago leads the AL in home runs with 78, but

Whatever follows after this "but" has to be pretty good. Maybe talk about how the White Sox are 22 OBP points behind the Red Sox. Talk about Joe Crede and the chances he can keep up this power surge. Maybe something about the pitching staff being likely to regress.

Quentin is also the only player on the roster with at least 40 runs scored

Here's a fun exercise for the next Reader Extra Participation Friday. What unpleasant things would pnoles rather do than continue to read this crap?

and the next-best RBI man is Joe Crede with 39

They have 305 runs.

after him is Jim Thome with 32

Three-oh-five.

and no one else has 30.

Three hundred five runs.

Bottom line:

The Red Sox have scored 334 runs this season. The White Sox have scored 305.

Boston has more people who can hurt you — other than the Rangers, who have no pitching.

You have not proven that at all.

No team is close to Boston in slugging percentage

I know that you just mentioned the Rangers, but this is an independent thought. Boston is 2nd in the AL in slugging to the Rangers. And it's only a 15 point difference between the Red Sox and the Yankees/White Sox. Here's how you get to the White Sox from the Red Sox XBH column. Subtract 24 doubles, subtract 3 triples, add 12 homers. It honestly isn't a big enough difference to talk about.

the real mark of power, whether team or individual.

I prefer IsoP, because that doesn't let you inflate your SLG with AVG, but to each his own.

There are a lot of teams that have never met in the World Series, and plenty of teams that have either never been to the game’s biggest stage or that haven’t been there in a generation or more. Philadelphia is one of them.

Still have that dictionary open....another random excerpt.

relevant - bearing or relating to the matter in hand; pertinent; to the point.

But even with two championships in the past four seasons, the Red Sox have a unique sentimental hold on baseball fans everywhere.

We all hate them. Except Bostonians and psuedo-Bostonians who show up at all our fucking ballparks with megaphones and cowbells (well okay....that was ONE TIME).

If You Want to Sound Ridiculous As a Writer, You Only Need to Say This One Phrase

"Team of Destiny".

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere's ROMAN!

I think it was like June 25 of last year, and I think it was a wild win over the Rockies (ok I just looked it up and it was June 25 and it was another 10-9 win over Colorado), when I called the Cubs a team of destiny in this blog.

They weren't. Unless "destiny" means getting your ass handed to you by the Diamondbacks.

It was the type of game you point to in October as proof of something special. Was today's Cubs win over the Rockies along the same lines?

Good God, Roman, have you ever even HEARD of the term "variance"? It was a 10-9 win. Just because the Rockies got all of their runs before the Cubs got their 2nd run doesn't make the win count for anything supernatural. Exciting to watch? Yes. Inspiring? Yes. Something worth talking about during the playoffs? Absofuckinglutely never in a million years. I repeat. The Chicago Cubs are just as likely to win the World Series now as they would have been had they won that game 1-0. How is this difficult to understand?

Last year was different because after that wild win, the Cubs were still around .500

Probably not the best thing to go around admitting that you claimed a .500 team was a "team of destiny" last season.

This season they have the best record in baseball and are supposed to win.

"Supposed to win"? The 2007 Cubs were not "supposed to win"?

But still, they've won so many games they should have lost. That usually bodes well in the big picture.

Saying a team "should have lost" a game is pretty stupid unless the umpires fucked up or somethting, first of all. Second, if the Cubs are winning games that they should be losing, then it would make more sense to predict a downfall in the future, not success. And finally, the Cubs are actually underperforming their Pythagorean, suggesting they deserve at least every win they've gotten this year.

A team of destiny? Who knows.

::raises hand:: Ooh! Ooh! Roman! I do! I do! Can I explain something to you? Can I? Hmmm? PLEASSSSEEE?????

THERE IS NO SUCH FUCKING THING AS A TEAM DESTINED TO WIN THE WORLD SERIES.

Hold on, you've been saying this for awhile despite me telling you otherwise. For your convenience, the above message will be copied and pasted until I get sick of typing CTRL-V. Ready? Go!

THERE IS NO SUCH FUCKING THING AS A TEAM DESTINED TO WIN THE WORLD SERIES.

THERE IS NO SUCH FUCKING THING AS A TEAM DESTINED TO WIN THE WORLD SERIES.

THERE IS NO SUCH FUCKING THING AS A TEAM DESTINED TO WIN THE WORLD SERIES.

THERE IS NO SUCH FUCKING THING AS A TEAM DESTINED TO WIN THE WORLD SERIES.

THERE IS NO SUCH FUCKING THING AS A TEAM DESTINED TO WIN THE WORLD SERIES.

THERE IS NO SUCH FUCKING THING AS A TEAM DESTINED TO WIN THE WORLD SERIES.

THERE IS NO SUCH FUCKING THING AS A TEAM DESTINED TO WIN THE WORLD SERIES.

THERE IS NO SUCH FUCKING THING AS A TEAM DESTINED TO WIN THE WORLD SERIES.

THERE IS NO SUCH FUCKING THING AS A TEAM DESTINED TO WIN THE WORLD SERIES.

THERE IS NO SUCH FUCKING THING AS A TEAM DESTINED TO WIN THE WORLD SERIES.

THERE IS NO SUCH FUCKING THING AS A TEAM DESTINED TO WIN THE WORLD SERIES.

THERE IS NO SUCH FUCKING THING AS A TEAM DESTINED TO WIN THE WORLD SERIES.

THERE IS NO SUCH FUCKING THING AS A TEAM DESTINED TO WIN THE WORLD SERIES.

THERE IS NO SUCH FUCKING THING AS A TEAM DESTINED TO WIN THE WORLD SERIES.

THERE IS NO SUCH FUCKING THING AS A TEAM DESTINED TO WIN THE WORLD SERIES.

THERE IS NO SUCH FUCKING THING AS A TEAM DESTINED TO WIN THE WORLD SERIES.

Kay?

Maybe they're not a team of destiny,

Whew. I think I got through to him!

but they sure are a scrappy bunch.

I never thought I'd have to point out an actual misuse of the word scrappy, but here it is. Roman, if you paid attention, 7 of the 9 runs the Cubs scored during their comeback were on homers. When the hell have you heard "homeruns" and the adjective "scrappy" associated with each other? Maybe they're just good at offense!

Down 8-0, down 9-1 and win 10-9. They have some type of special mojo going.

No. They have a good offense going. This is evidence of a good offense. Why is it so hard to attribute baseball-related successes in baseball to baseball-related reasons?

This wasn't a turning-point game, but it was another wild one.

Whew. Thank God there's nothing wrong with this sentence. My blood was just about at the boiling point.

Jay Mariotti Talks About Alfonso Soriano, Can't Research Anything, Etc.

By popular demand, I'm not linking Mariotti anymore to keep his numbers down.

Consider it another example of a nervous front office pampering a one-dimensional, $136 million china doll

For those of you who are new to baseball, Alfonso Soriano is one-dimensional. He is a straight line with no width or depth. This makes him look very funny when he tries to swing 3-dimensional baseball bats and catch 3-dimensional baseballs with 3-dimensional baseball gloves.

In 150 ABs.....

11 HR
9 2B
.273 Avg
3 SB, 0 CS, has only grounded into 1 DP.
Selfish Asshole Index: 64 (on a scale of 1-33)
Only Real Deficiency: Walks

I'm not sure where people get off saying Soriano's only good at one thing. He's clearly decent, if unspectacular at several things.

who sometimes plays defense like an underage reveler stumbling down Division Street -- but does do a cute, little bunny hop while trying.

Defensive stats are pretty sketchy, yes, but metrics don't seem to think Soriano is dismal out there in left. BP has him at +5 FRAA. The Hardball Times has him 8th out of 11 eligible left fielders in Zone Rating. I'm not trying to say that he's good, but abuse like this is unjustified.

Wait....unjustified abuse from Jay? Nah....

As I wrote 10 days ago when Cubdom was gushing over him, Soriano will lead you to the highest highs and then, inevitably, raise your blood pressure and break your heart.

There is little to no proof that a consistent player is more valuable than an inconsistent player that finishes with the same rate and counting stats at the end of the season.

Just because he hit seven home runs in a week didn't mean he wouldn't follow up by, oh, losing a ball in the sun and blowing a game in Pittsburgh.

It sounds like Jay Mariotti would trade having a guy hit 7 HR in a week for not dropping ONE POP FLY.

Which came not long after he botched two fly balls in St. Louis and other flubs. No one doubts that his offensive skills, when he's healthy, remain unique in the sport's history.

Yeah. I can't think of any players in baseball history who have a similar offensive skillset to Alfonso Soriano.

Soriano isn't Ichiro or anything, Jay. He's hardly a revolutionary hitter. You think he's the first low-OBP slugger in history with good speed?

I wonder if general manager Jim Hendry, in his zeal to outbid teams for Soriano, did enough research. Was Hendry so wowed by his 2006 season of 40 home runs and 40 stolen bases that he ignored the weird mojo that always has accompanied Soriano?

Things that Hendry ignored when he signed Soriano:

1) $136 million dollars is superstar money.
2) Alfonso Soriano is not a superstar.
3) Alfonso Soriano cannot draw walks.
4) Alfonso Soriano's 31-year-old-ness.
5) Alfonso Soriano's 38-year-old-ness in the last year of the contract.

Things that are not relevant, and should never be talked about, lest one sound like he comes from the species sporticus ignoramus.

1) Weird mojo that always has accompanied Soriano.

He always has been a man without a real position, which qualifies him as an ideal designated hitter.

Soriano is a passable corner outfielder, and could certainly play first base if he had to. A player with a .319 OBP is not an ideal designated hitter. Why not just fucking hire this guy to designated hit instead? He's cheaper.

But the National League, last I looked, has no DH,

Bad news, Jay. The NL rules have changed since you last looked. There are now 3 DHs in the lineup, as well as a designated fielder (abbreviated "RO" in the lineup, for "Rey Ordonez").

It isn't that simple, not when Cubdom has experienced well-chronicled demons through the years and can spot another potential saboteur when it sees one. Soriano was a prime goat last October in the Arizona sweep, and if the Cubs fall short for the 100th straight season, he probably will be faulted again.

Alfonso Soriano, September 2007: .320/.354/.754

Good luck retroactively making the playoffs without that, Chicago Cubs.

Alfonso Soriano: Selfish, Solo-Home-Run-Hitting Asshole

The Cubs are 16-10, and have fared slightly better over the last 14 games, during which Alfonso Soriano has not played. So naturally, it's time to freak out about him, and bring up curses and hexes and jinxes and dippity-doos. Now appearing for the first time on this site ever, Jay Mariotti.

Fukudome/SI jinx? Nah, the issue is Soriano

I totally agree, Jay. The concern of a player starting off the season slow is way more important to the team than the cover of a magazine. But isn't it fun that Jay is entertaining the thought that the opposite might have a legitimate argument?

The Sports Illustrated cover doesn't bother me. That's because the Japanese phrase above Kosuke Fukudome's steely-faced photo -- translation: "It's Gonna Happen" -- is from an inaccurate sign waved by one of his bandana-wrapped fans in right field.

Inaccurate? Gee, Jay, it's April! Isn't it a little bit early to write off a first place team?

Briefly there, I thought he was trying to one-up Ryan Dempster, Sam Zell and Ronny Cedeno in their inane game to create World Series fever in April.

I am so sick and tired of hearing about this. I read Jay's columns every day. Literally the only thing he's written about baseball this season (presumably because the Sox and Cubs have played well) have been complaints that Dempster, Zell, and Cedeno are trying to arouse excitement in the fans. Boo fuckity hoo.

But it turns out The Fukudomer wasn't even aware of the 100-year spell when he signed with the Cubs, meaning he has no interest in burying it with boasts.

Let's throw out the fact that nothing in this sentence is irrelevant to everything. That doesn't even follow by cause and effect. Observe.

Step 1: "The Fukudomer" signs with the team, unaware of the 100-year spell.
Step 2: Mark DeRosa, apparently fluent in Japanese, tells Fuck You, Do Me! that the team hasn't won the World Series in 100 years.
Step 3: The Fuck-You Dome thereby increases his motivation to end said curse.
Step 4: Riding the wave of the team's and his own early successes, Fukudome is now interested in predicting a World Series win to fire up the city.

Contrived? Yes. Impossible? No.

Yet when Fukudome himself has interpreted the so-called "It's Gonna Happen" banner to mean "It's An Accident," just how seriously should we treat any of this stuff?

Not seriously enough to even print it in a newspaper.

If John Madden ever expands his video-game empire to include baseball and places him on the cover, then you can fret about a Fukudome jinx.

Got it. SI cover = pseudo-jinx. Madden cover = MEGAJINX.

Until then, the biggest worry on the perpetually paranoiac planet known as Cubdom is Alfonso Soriano. During his most recent two-week stay on the disabled list, this time for a right calf strain, the Cubs missed him about as much as, well, the San Francisco Giants miss Barry Zito in the rotation.

ZING!

It isn't fair, I realize, to compare a slow-starting, $136-million Soriano to the $126-million pitching bust that is Zito, who might represent the most disastrous signing in professional sports history.

Why is this not fair? Those two signings are so similar it's sick. Both were above average, if unspectacular players at the time of the signing. Both were severely overrated by the teams who signed them. Both contracts are too long and ridiculously expensive. For the record, Zito also has a bit of a history of being a slow starter. And after 6 starts in 2008, you're calling it the most disastrous signing in professional sports history?

But successive stumbles out of the gate, along with lingering injuries and his playoff stinker against Arizona last fall, are prompting media and fans to ask if the Cubs -- and no one is even whispering it -- are better off without Soriano.

Which further prompted me to ask, "could the media and fans offer up any better proof that they lack the ability to think?"

Why are we talking about a "playoff stinker"? Yeah, he was 2-for-14. That's also 14 at-bats. I'm just sayin', I've seen larger sample sizes. Aramis Ramirez didn't have a hit in the series. You want him gone too?

This as they stumble through a rough stretch, with a 10-7 loss Tuesday night to Milwaukee giving them four losses in five games.

This is evidence against your point, Jay. Not for it. You should have written this column a week ago.

At the very least, why risk clogging up a potent lineup by keeping him in the leadoff hole,

Clogging up the....lineup? I've never heard of this phrase before. You sure you didn't mean...bases? No, can't be, Soriano's fast and never walks. We'd better fly Humperdink McBuggins down from Toronto to use his lineuplunger.

where he has slugged an extraordinary number of solo home runs

Sooooooo selfish.

but performed few of the job's fundamental functions?

This is a very valid shot at Soriano's OBP abilities. But it's almost as if Jay thinks that there is some better outcome to Soriano's at bat than a solo home run when no one is on base.

In one mighty span during his absence, the offense scored 65 runs in eight games, including seven or more runs six times.

Oh my God! I think Jay discovered "variance" for the first time ever!

Hey Jay, what happened the next 5 games, hmmm? Oh wait. Those don't prove your point. So they're irrelevant. My bad.

It gave Cubdom a chance to fall deeply in love with Reed Johnson, who successfuly led off and cemented his place in cult lore last week with a catch so spectacular, the YouTube mechanism paused in shock.

If they like winning, they'd better not get used to Johnson. Johnson is great for a 4th outfielder. Probably top 5 or so in baseball (only better ones I can think of off the top of my head are Coco Crisp and Ryan Spilborghs). But he does not belong in the lineup every day.

Wrigley folk always love the Reed Johnsons, Ryan Theriots and Mike Fontenots of the world

Wrigley folk love bad players. And they wonder where they get their stereotype for being stupid.

knowing them as underdogs who define the Cub existence better than a free-swinging, selfish outfielder who signed the sport's fifth-richest financial package ever.

What the hell has Soriano done to earn this "selfish" label? I'm sorry, that's bullshit. Soriano is who he is. He has a lot of power and little walking skills. Why does that make him selfish? You don't make sense.

So, when Soriano returns as the leadoff man and left fielder Thursday, Cubdom will have its first official crisis of 2008.

CODE BLUE! CODE BLUE! OUR ABOVE-AVERAGE STARTING LF IS BACK!

If he no longer is a unique force capable of 40 homers and 40 stolen bases -- the reason general manager Jim Hendry spent so much coin on him -- why not bat him fifth or sixth in the order and maximize his power abilities?

This is actually a very legitimate point. Too bad Jay's probably cheating off of his neighbor's paper. And by his neighbor I mean "everyone in Chicago."

How many steals do his fragile legs have left in them?

Who cares? Soriano gets caught enough to the point where his steals barely help the team.

How often is he not uncoiling that rubber-band-man swing and trying to launch a pitch over the fence?

Home runs.....so selfish. Home runs don't help the team win. They only help Fonz.

Isn't he just a solo artist playing as a warm-up act for a superband?

Well hey there Jay, it isn't his fault that there aren't people on base when he hits them. You can thank 7-8-9 for that. Or Lou Piniella, for batting him 1st. That's the problem I have with all of this. If Soriano was batting 5th, he'd probably have the same fucking approach, and you wouldn't deem any of it selfish, just because you expect that kind of stuff from a 5-hole hitter.

Is any of this selfishness really conducive to winning?

Home runs are very, VERY conducive to winning. Soriano's selfish .278 career EqA is far more conducive to winning than Reed Johnson's .254.

Wouldn't he be an explosive complement to the monstrous Derrek Lee, who now has eight homers, and the likes of Fukudome and Aramis Ramirez in the crunch of the order?

Yes, he would. BUT HOW DOES THIS NEGATE HIS SUPPOSED SELFISHNESS???????

As yet, Lou Piniella isn't budging. He has no desire to use Soriano anywhere but atop the order, even though he's known as an innovatator open to any option.

If Piniella really does have this reputation, people need to wake up and realize this isn't the case. He pulled Mike Fontenot from shortstop after ONE INNING in which he made an error. If Soriano moves to the 5-hole, my guess is that a strikeout in his first at-bat results in him not going out into the field the next inning.

It suggests that Soriano, whose statistics are appreciably better as a leadoff hitter, has a verbal understanding with Hendry dating back to his signing that he prefers leading off. Or, perhaps closer to the truth, Hendry is trying to force-feed the continuing 40-40 fantasy as a way of justifying Soriano's staggering price at a time when Zell and Tribune Co. are reeling.

Interesting, interesting. Let's see how you fuck this up.

When a shift in the lineup makes this much sense -- based on Soriano's inconsistent first season, bad postseason and a second season in which he's batting .175 with two homers and two steals -- it's curious to see Piniella so adamant when his expertise is rooted in flexibility.

No, no, no, no, NO! First of all, I have absolutely had it with using the word "inconsistent" as a knock against a hitter. It's not like a pitcher. If a hitter has a bad game, it doesn't completely fuck over your team. If you've got one hitter that has a .275 EqA and then a wildly "inconsistent" hitter that has a .275 EqA, it doesn't fucking matter. With the second guy, your team simply wins DIFFERENT games than it otherwise would have. Not necessarily more or less.

Second, we've been over the fucking postseason. Why are you justifying a lineup move based on 14 fucking at-bats? This is senseless. Why does David Ortiz still get to hit 3rd? He had an AWFUL first 20 games.

And third, you're absolutely flipping about about this year's stats, which are not only a small sample, but so wildly out of line with his career performance that even you, Jay Mariotti, have to understand that the guy's gonna bounce back. People like you make me want to explode.

"If we hadn't been winning, they'd say, `Boy, these guys really miss Soriano.' It was unfair," Piniella said. "These guys have all done a nice job here, but if Soriano had been in there, we'd be playing the same way or a little better.

::gasp:: Whew. Thanks Lou Piniella. I really needed that non-dumbassedness.

"He gives us more power. He can put runs on the board with a swing of the bat. He brings speed to the equation, plus he has fun. That can be infectious for us. He can carry you when he's hitting the ball the way he can."

But Lou, he's selfish! He makes a lot of money!

We saw as much last September, when he earned his money with 14 homers, 27 RBIs and a .320 average.

Stupid, unclutch, selfish asshole. I'm really doubting the Cubs make the playoffs without Soriano in September.

We saw as much last June, too, when he hit .336 with 11 homers. But between a strained right quad last August and the calf strain this month, Soriano seems vulnerable to injuries at all times. "If I play the rest of the season healthy, I can steal 30 bases," he said. "My speed is there."

At $136 million, no one is in the mood to hear disclaimers.

That isn't a disclaimer. You know for a fact that this is not how Soriano meant it.

What's maddening is that Soriano told the media that he'll accept anything Pineilla wants. "I'm like the military. Whatever he wants, I'm open," he said.

Selfish fucking asshole.

He also expects to be batting in the middle of the lineup in a couple of years. So if he's amenable to a dramatic change, why aren't Piniella and Hendry?

Selfishly selfish of him to be amenable to that dramatic change. You're basically pointing the finger at Piniella and Hendry, so where, where do you get the conclusion that Soriano is so me-first?

I really don't like Alfonso Soriano that much, but Jay's got me rooting for him, just so Jay can be wrong. Again.

News Flash: The Cubs Have A Good Business Plan and a Terrible Baseball Record

A recent article from the Cincinnati Enquirer: Wrigley has Reds green with ivy

This is not going to stand. I will not go quietly into that blogged night.

Wrigley has Reds green with ivy

On a 50-degree Tuesday night with the wind blowing 20 miles an hour, the Chicago Cubs played baseball in front of a full house at Wrigley Field. On a 60-degree Thursday afternoon in the full sunshine two weeks ago, the Cincinnati Reds worked before a crowd of 12,000.

Well, that sucks. It's too bad that Daughtery will not mention that 2.8 million people live in the incorporated areas of Chicago, while 332,000 live in Cincinnati. Even if you divide the Chicago fans evenly between the two teams [and that's a generous split for the Sox], that's 1.4 million per; approximately four times the number of sheer people available to go to the game.

Thursday afternoon, the finale for the Reds in Chicago, the bleachers at Wrigley will fill like a suitcase on a trip overseas. Half the people packing the seats won’t know who wins. Or care.

Paul- get a clue. This is a bad thing. This is the reason that the Cubs have lost for a century: their fan base does not hold them accountable for winning.

The following night in Cincinnati, the Reds will host the Milwaukee Brewers. If 25,000 show up, we’ll throw a parade.

This is not true. Paul is exaggerating.

Cubs ownership might have lucked into mastering the biggest factor in drawing big baseball crowds now.

There is no "might". It happens that the "relatively undeveloped area" around the ballpark when it was built in 1914 is now a relatively developed neighborhood with a fair amount of affluent people around it.

Or they might have drawn up a detailed plan and executed it like an around-the-horn double play.

They didn't. Cub ownership is, to put it frankly, stupid. Ernie Broglio.

Beats me. It doesn’t matter.

Yes, it does. You're about to argue that the Reds need to mimic the Cubs' model. It does matter.

The Reds are at an interesting crossroads. They have an engaged ownership that wants to win. Ownership has hired bright, enthusiastic people to push the product. But winning takes money and money means ticket sales and these days, ticket sales means attracting people who wouldn't know Johnny Cueto from Johnny Appleseed. It's what they do at Wrigley Field.

If this was true, the Cubs and Yankees would win a lot more World Series. But, as we know, winning doesn't take money. Ask those asshole Marlins who flaunt their rings around to the seventeen fans who came to their games.

Where does baseball rank on a trip to Wrigley? In front of a pilgrimage to Murphy's Bleachers, or behind? Ahead of a Ferris Bueller afternoon, or a distant second? The Cubs could finish out of the money every year for a century and still fill The Friendly Confines. In fact, they've done exactly that.

THIS IS A BAD THING. THIS SUGGESTS THAT CUB FANS DON'T CARE ABOUT BASEBALL.

Going to Wrigley is about seeing your Cubbies win, but only tangentially. It's more about the neighborhood, the Old Style, the ivy, the bleachers, Waveland, Sheffield, celebs singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," day games, sunshine, the lake, Harry Caray's ghost, memories of Sammy and The Hawk and Ernie Banks. Let's drink two. At least.

Ugh. This is making me ill. I'm proud to say the Cubs have gotten their shit kicked in every time I've gone to Wrigley and I've enjoyed the schadenfreude thoroughly. Going to Wrigley, for me, is about seeing the myth of Cubs-fans'-fun die a miserable death at the hands of real baseball teams. And I'm not the only one:


This is exactly the atmosphere the Reds have to cultivate to succeed.

Not true. Not true at all. It's simply not true that you have to cultivate a culture of ignorant-but-disposably0-wealthy fans to win games.

Because here is a hard truth in Baseball Town: The game's not enough anymore.

I like the name Baseball town. I'd rather have my city called Baseball Town than Crumbling Stadium With Generally Losing Team That's Fun To Go Watch Town.

It must kill the Reds' marketers to see the Bengals sell out entire seasons when the football team generally stinks and its marketing plan consists of printing schedule cards and opening the gates. In the midst of yet another unsuccessful season, the Bengals last season drew the two largest crowds in the history of Paul Brown Stadium.

The NFL has eight games and a salary-cap. Not a useful comparison at all in this situation. I am getting pissed off. This is a terrible article.

But unless the Reds succeed at making GABP a destination for entertainment first and baseball second, they will lag. This is why vetoing the Broadway Commons site always will be the biggest sports mistake the team and town have ever made. With its proximity to a then-thriving Main Street bar district, Broadway offered a vision of a Wrigleyville South: Come for the party, stay for the game. Return to the party.

Now, Daughtery goes back to the 1996 vote where Hamilton County taxpayers selected a Riverfront site over a slightly-uptown site. He has a point about developing a sustainable neighborhood around a ballpark. That is a good thing. This could have been a reasonable article about creating sustainable development around GABP.
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But no, it was an ode to ignorance. The Cubs have built a culture of losing, Paul. The Reds need to avoid that. At all costs. I'd like to see another World Series title in Cincinnati. I don't want to wait eighty-two more years.

Uh Oh, Jay Made A Stupid....

Multiple stupids, in fact. Before reading, be careful. You're about to enter a zone with a very unhealthy concentration of WRONG.

As the most tortured and masochistic fans in sports, you demand love and tenderness in Cubdom. You want hope, optimism, faith. You want 100-year amnesia. You want a combination of Ron Santo, a Wrigley Granny and Eddie Vedder in the bleachers.

They're fans. ZOMG! THEY WANT TO HOPE FOR A TEAM THAT WINS IT ALL!

You want me to say 98-64,

No one cares what you predict, because it's probably more based on Piniella's post-game speeches than baseball.

a sweep of the Rockies

Rockies?

a Game 7 victory over Johan Santana and a Game 7 win over the Red Sox, after which you can die peacefully.

For such goo (woo!), please call Ronnie Wickers. I cannot help you.

Mentions of Ronnie Woo Woo in Jay's columns are reaching July 2, 2006ish annoyingness levels.

But what I can do is this: You tell me what you want to hear, and I'll follow with what you SHOULD hear. It's called telling the truth, assuming you can handle it.

Jay is about to do this many, many times. We're going to see how often he actually says something truth-related.

You say Kerry Wood will become the toast of Clark Street. I say Huston Street is available on the trade market.

There are two very good reasons to not trade for Huston Street

1) Billy Beane will probably rip you off.
2) Wood, Marmol, and Howry are good enough between them to handle the late innings.

Jay literally thinks teams can just trade for awesome players all the time, and if they don't, then they're fucking up.

You say Wood will be pain-free all season, save 40 games and uphold the confidence of enabler Jim Hendry, who said this after the general manager's pet rock was named the closer: ``For his sake and ours, I hope he stays healthy because that's world-class stuff.'' I say Wood symbolizes All Things Cub in the 21st century and, sadly, will have arm soreness to accompany his world-class stuff by May 1, which is May Day, prompting the electric Carlos Marmol to inherit the role he deserved all along.

Marmol had a very good 2007, but middle relievers tend to be wildly inconsistent from year to year. He's bound to see some regression. Saying that he deserved the role all along is crazy. Cliff Politte had a great 2005 for the White Sox, should he be a closer?

I apologize....not enough "angry" out of me yet. I know, I know. Read on.

You say Sam Zell, in his detached role as temporary Cubs owner, will provide a refreshing change after 27 years of ineptness from previous Tribune Co. chiefs.

I basically live in Cubsville. No one is saying that. What's your "truth", Jay?

I say Zell looks like the billy goat,

Maybe.

actually might be the billy goat

What?

and already is plotting to eliminate the jobs of at least a dozen Cubs players through voluntary separation programs, involuntary layoffs and attrition.

Jay Mariotti: ::closes dictionary:: I have no idea what I am writing.

`Who needs relief pitchers? Let the starting pitcher finish every game,'' Zell will declare. ``And if you're paying eight players to be in the field, all others are superfluous.''

I'm sorry...my eyes must be going. I could have sworn you said at the top of this column you were going to tell me something called the "truth".

::checks again::

Yes, yes, that's what you wrote. It clearly says "truth", not "wildly stupid and un-funny exaggerations." Stop deceiving me!

You say the rotation is loaded with a Cy Young Award candidate in prediction-free Carlos Zambrano, a potential 18-game winner in Ted Lilly and a potential 15-game winner in Rich Hill.

Zam's chances of winning the Cy Young this year are probably something close to 1%, especially low due to the Santana trade. But other than that, there really isn't anything crazy about this sort of optimism.

I say you're right about Zambrano and Lilly,

All of last year, you slammed Zambrano for not being a true ace, now you think he's a Cy Young Award candidate?

but that you deserve to be conked in the head by an errant pitch from Hill, who last was seen walking six of 11 Colorado batters and has a 7.50 ERA in his last four Cactus League starts.

Rich Hill winning 15 games this year is definitely very possible. Spring starts from an established starting pitcher couldn't be less indicative of regular season performance. Please, PLEASE win 15 games this year, Rich Hill.

I'll never forget how this newspaper splashed Hill across the front page last October, wondering if he could save the Cubs. After he allowed three runs and six hits and was yanked after three innings, the Diamondbacks supplied the musical answer amid much Wrigley angst: ``We found our thrill, on Boo-berry Hill.''

Damn you Rich Hill! You pitched poorly in your first postseason start! You'll never win 15 games this year!

You say the Cubs have an awesome lineup.

Jay's right, this actually is a serious problem among Cub fans. Their lineup is severely overrated, mostly because of Soriano and the disease sweeping Chicago that
causes people to think Ryan Theriot is good at baseball.

I say they do as long as Derrek Lee doesn't remain a doubles hitter,

Derrek Lee posted the 2nd highest slugging percentage of his career last year. He also got on base at a .400 clip. You wouldn't take a doubles hitter with a .400 OBP?

Alfonso Soriano rips fastballs instead of muscles

::chirp::

and Aramis Ramirez is kept away from secret cockfighting arenas.

These are such stupid substitutes for actually analyzing these three hitters. For once, will you do your fucking job?

You say it's a sign of special camaraderie when several Cubs pitchers maul a '95 Nissan Sentra belonging to Tim Buss, the team's strength and conditioning coach, and his wife. You say it's very cool that they purchased him a 2008 Nissan Xterra.

How can you possibly argue that it wasn't?

I say it's a metaphor for certain pitchers who will be destroyed accordingly this season and require new replacements.

What the fuck??? This makes no sense.

Among them is a starter, Jason Marquis, who somehow won a rotation job after telling management that he, the great Jason Marquis -- who was left off postseason rosters the last two years -- would request a trade if he was moved to the bullpen. I say trade Marquis to Boston for Coco Crisp, center-field insurance for Felix Pie, while his ERA is still under 5.00.

Jim Hendry: Theo, what do you think of Marquis for Crisp?

Theo Epstein: Umm....gee Jim, ::snicker::, I'm going to have to think about that one. I have 6 starting pitchers, all better than Jason. I have an awesome bullpen. But yeah, I totally have a higher need on my team for a bad pitcher than one of the best defensive outfielders in baseball.

Jim Hendry: You don't have to be so mean...it wasn't my idea, anyway.....Chicago Sun-Times columnist Jay Mariotti totally came up with that idea. It seems that I care so much about what he thinks that I just had to pitch that one to you.

Theo Epstein: HA! Jay Mariotti!?!? That guy's a moron! There's this wicked sweet blog on the internet that constantly says he should be fired. I read it all the time!

You say I'm being mean to Wood. I say I'm rooting harder for him than anyone but family, friends and Hendry.

You are not rooting for him, because you're rooting for you to be wrong, which everyone on the fucking planet knows isn't the case. How did you sneak this lie in there? You're supposed to be telling me the truth!

I'm now about to copy and paste the most worthless paragraph of all-time, and won't comment on it. Read at your own risk.

You say Piniella, in introducing ``Cubbie occurrence'' to the lexicon, has coined a phrase for eternity. I say you're right. Pie's twisted testicle -- has it untwisted yet? -- is a Cubbie occurrence. Zell is a Cubbie occurrence. Blaming the Evil Stoney in '04 was a Cubbie occurrence. Trading Lou Brock and not keeping Greg Maddux in 1992 were Cubbie occurences. All the various animals associated with a century of futility are Cubbie occurrences. Thanks, Lou, for new material. Unless Piniella, too, is a Cubbie occurrence.

Moving right along....

You say Kosuke Fukudome will have no problem acclimating to Cubdom. I say he runs for cover the first time trash is thrown from the bleachers. You say you'll be very cordial to him out there. I say some of you become filled with rage when the mood strikes and will treat anyone like Jacque Jones. I also say you don't want any international incidents when we're trying to land the 2016 Olympics.

You might find this paragraph shocking, as Jay just did something he's never done before. He took an incident that happened awhile ago that has nothing to do with the situation at hand and used it to argue a point which also has freakishly little to do with the situation at hand.

You might find my last paragraph there shocking, as I used something called "sarcasm", which is completely new to my writing style.

He does that shit all the time. In case you guys wanted a recap of that paragraph, filled with things that have so little to do with each other, here it is.

"You say Kosuke Fukudome will blah blah blah, I say blah blah blah run for cover blah blah filled with rage blah blah international incidents blah blah 2016 Olympics".

You say the Milwaukee Brewers are frauds. I say slugger Prince Fielder, who last year became the youngest major-league player to hit 50 home runs, is now a vegetarian after reading his wife's book, ``Skinny Bitch: A No-nonsense, Tough-love Guide for Savvy Girls who Want to Stop Eating Crap and Start Looking Fabulous.''

See? They're not frauds! Prince Fielder is gonna lose weight!

You say I'm making this up. I say it's impossible to make up something this weird

Last year, you said that there was black magic associated with a baseball that rolled in from the bullpen towards third base because "baseball" starts with the letter 'b'. You also said that Torii Hunter is better than Nick Swisher, a statement that I consider equally weird.

You say the Sun-Times got Punk'd when a Tribune intern, Katie Hamilton, won this newspaper's video contest condemning Zell's attempt to sell Wrigley's naming rights. I say Hamilton is more clever than most writers at the sleepy broadsheet. I also say the Tribune is too cheap to give her a raise, and that Zell is contemplating laying her off because she has had her day in the Sun(-Times).

Oh yeah Jay, I forgot to tell you. Irrelevance called, it wants its nonsense back.

You say the Cubs are winning it all. I say they'll repeat as division champs, their first back-to-back claiming of cloth since 1907-08, but lose in the playoffs. You say I'm being negative. I say you need to get a life one of these centuries.


Jay seems to think that winning a playoff series is an impossibility for a given team that makes the playoffs. Why, Jay, can the Cubs win their division and then have a 0% chance at beating another baseball team in a best-of-five series? There's a shit-ton of luck involved....it's not like the NBA, you can't say things like, "oh, the Cubs, they're only an NLDS team, nothing more." One day I want you to wake up and realize that.

On a side note, I saw the comments left on this article. Everyone really, really dislikes you, Jay! And I mean we're talking threats of physical violence!

FINALLY, Heyman Said Something Wrong Again

Whew. My absence has been due to a lack of ability to find material, not because I haven't been looking. Anywho.....it's time for "Hey, man!"

MESA, Ariz. -- If Chicago's beloved North Side team can't make the playoffs this year, I am going to start believing in the black cat, the Billy Goat, Bartman and all the rest. The Cubs are simply too talented and too deep not to make it back to October.

Isn't it just crazy that all of those things start with 'b'?

But seriously, Heyman. I agree that they're favorites. They aren't locks. Go on.

Perhaps no team has a clearer path to the playoffs than the defending NL central champions.

Angels, Heyman, Angels. Just because the Mariners got Bedard doesn't mean they'll be any good. They were outscored last year, and their lucky record confused the Mariners into thinking they were built to win. There isn't a team in the AL West that is even threatening. The Brewers, on the other hand, are right on the Cubs' heels, with a young and improving lineup and a revamped bullpen.

They already have a lot of great things going for them, not the least of which is a division in which the only serious threat may be the Milwaukee Brewers, an organization with even less World Series familiarity than the Cubs.

Ooooh....right.....sorry Milwaukee. Guess the talent level of your team has been overshadowed by the fact that the prior teams in the history of your franchise (most of which contained no current Brewers players, mind you) have not made the World Series. Not only can you not win the division as a result....you can't even be considered a threat either.

Chicago's rotation is sound, led by tough guy Carlos Zambrano, who, after the A's used a DH the other day, batted because no one wanted to tell him he couldn't (besides, he can hit).

"Chicago's rotation is sound, led by tough guy Carlos Zambrano, who, (insert something that has nothing to do with why Zambrano is good)." "Tough guy" doesn't cut it. And Zam's strikeout rate slipped a good deal last year, which is concerning.

Also, saying the Cubs' rotation is "sound" is a great (read: obvious) way to avoid talking about the problems it has when you're trying to argue the team is very good. There's every reason to think Rich Hill will have a solid year, as should Lilly, despite some likely regression. When you're talking about contenders, however, a 1-2-3 of Zam, Lilly, and Hill is well below average. Dempster and Lieber are at best, question marks. Plus, there's always the chance that Jason Marquis will complain his way into the rotation, which should be enough to gag any Cubs fan who knows his track record.

The bullpen, unlike in recent years, has at least two viable closer options -- Carlos Marmol has been light's out this spring, and Kerry Wood hit 98 recently. And the lineup looks awfully powerful, no matter how manager Lou Piniella pencils them in (more on that later).

Kerry Wood and Carlos Marmol combined career saves: 1

Yes, either one MIGHT be good in the role, but come on, you can't list this as a reason that the Cubs are superior to other teams. This isn't better than coming into the season with an established closer, as the majority of the teams do (Todd Joneses and Joe Borowskis aside).

Despite the Cubs' history, which includes 99 straight seasons without a World Series championship, star first baseman Derrek Lee agreed that they should be prohibitive favorites in the NL Central.

Intriguing, the Cubs are able to be favorites to win the division DESPITE the fact that the 1941, 1982, and 1916 Cubs did not happen to win the World Series! Truly remarkable!

When are writers going to realize that the losing legacy of the Cubs has absolutely no significant effect on the players on the field?