Sammy Sosa's Cream, New Formula

Sammy Sosa has spoken out regarding the photos taken that show him as white as newly fallen snow.  He spoke with Enrique Rojas of ESPN Deportes and shed some light on the cause of his new look.  Apparently he is using a new cosmetic cream:

"It's a bleaching cream that I apply before going to bed and whitens my skin some," said the former slugger during the "Primer Impacto" program at the Univision Spanish network.

Apparently, he couldn't be happier with the results:

"I'm going to market it, I'm a businessman," Sosa joked about the mysterious cream, about which he revealed only that it was bought in Europe.

Made up sources close to Sammy Sosa have told Aisle 424 that the mysterious cream is actually from a line of beauty products by comedian, Steve Martin.  We're looking forward to a new spot featuring Sammy Sosa, but for now, please enjoy the original commercial for this wonderful product.

The Wreck of the Milton Bradley

It seems the Milton Bradley saga has been dragging out since the Edmund Fitzgerald headed out onto Lake Superior for the last time 34 years ago, but it has actually been less than a year since he signed with the team.  Can you even f---ing believe that?  Both events had about the same level of success, so since today is the 34th anniversary of the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, enjoy the Gordon Lightfoot classic ditty that never fails to cheer folks up at parties:



Late last night, I posted my support of the idea that the Cubs hold onto Milton and at least attempt to work things through with him rather than take whatever crap trades are being floated by opportunistic GMs that smell Hendry's blood in the water.  On paper there is no way the team gets better by trading Bradley, so I argued that they should do their best to make it work.

Since writing that, I have since seen a piece by Sports Illustrated's Jon Heyman that makes that possibility seem almost as impossible as traveling back in time and never signing the asshole in the first place:

Apparently, several key members of the team -- including Aramis Ramirez and Carlos Zambrano -- barely speak to Bradley.

"I don't think they dislike him. But Milton's a unique guy who doesn't fit in, like the oddball kid in class,'' one Cubs-connected person said.

"He doesn't try to fit in. The other guys tried to take him in, but he's one of those kids that simply doesn't want to be part of anything,'' one Cubs person said.

First, that Cubs-connected person needs to be hunted down, fired and placed in an enclosed room with Ronnie Woo all hyped up on Red Bull.  What the f--- are you saying that to a reporter for? 

Realistically, the Cubs probably can't make it work with Bradley.  Even yesterday as I wrote my support of trying, I knew it was a longshot, but they can all at least start acting like they could. The Cubs need to start spinning this for all they are worth and stop providing reasons for other teams to not give up any value for him.

If I wanted to sell you my house, I wouldn't welcome you to the viewing by saying, "Thank God you came to see this place. The bank is crawling up my ass for money I don't have, and frankly, I can't live here one more day anyway. The roof is leaking, there are cracks in the foundation, and I don't know if there are more termites or roaches. The electrical is all ancient and not up to code and good luck trying to heat the place with all of the drafts. Oh, by the way, you didn't hear it from me but the neighbors are all pedophiles. So, what kind of offer can you make me?"

Billy Williams is the only one trying to build up the product they are trying to sell. Everyone else is running to reporters and telling them how shitty he is and how they absolutely have to get rid of him. Hard to imagine why the trade offers suck more than Aaron Miles.

I know the entire world knows he's a shit, but come on! Pretend other teams are your own fanbase and turn that Vine Line brand of steaming horseshit propaganda into something helpful for once.

This is the publication that told us that Gary Scott was the next Ron Santo, that Lance Dickson was a good pitcher, and someone named Earl Cunningham would be coming to the rescue at any moment.  I have issues at home that sing the praises of Kyle Farnsworth and I'm sure that Steve Buechler was highly regarded as well.  Clearly, no lie is beneath you!

At least tell your players to start lying their asses off.  Ryan Theriot getting on the phone with Dave Kaplan on Sports Central and talking about how Milton is difficult, but a quality player would go a long way.  Ryan Dempster could call up Waddle & Silvy on ESPN Radio and talk about how he's kind of hoping the Cubs keep Milton because he really can be a key component for the Cubs to win a championship.

If they can find a way to have Fox News spin the trade of Milton Bradley as a part of Obama's socialist agenda, all the better.  Anything hitting the media that suggests that the Cubs would be better off with Milton than without Milton is a good thing right now.  Even if such a suggestion is as disingenuous as when people used to tell Britney Spears people liked her for her singing voice.

Billy Williams May Be On to Something

The guys at Wrigleyville23 drew my attention to a piece by Fred Mitchell of the Chicago Tribune which reported that Cubs legend Billy Williams would like to find a way to keep Milton Bradley in a Cubs uniform and have him become a productive member of the team.

"If we could salvage something here and get a good ballplayer after what has happened, I think it would be a good thing," Williams said Monday. "I am going to continue to try to talk to him and give my opinion on what he should do and what he shouldn't do. I know that he listens and he will tell me a lot of things."

Now, I know that seems incredibly unlikely, but that is the scenario I am rooting for at this point.  The reason, plain and simple, is that I have not seen a trade rumor involving Bradley that doesn't make me throw up in my mouth a little.  The very best case scenario so far would involve Bradley rebounding and becoming a viable member of the offense (and by extension, winning back a significant portion of the fan base in the process).

Let's look at some of the players the Cubs would get back in various rumored scenarios:

• Aaron Rowand - this seems to be the favorite option of Al over at BCB, but for the life of me, I have no idea why.  Rowand is basically a .750 OPS guy who had two non-consecutive good years that he combined with a "scrappy" reputation into major free agent dollars.  He has three years and $36 million left on his deal and he will be 32 this year, so the odds of a major resurgence is unlikely.  He is also right-handed, which leaves the Cubs back in that all-righty situation they were trying so hard to avoid last year.  On the plus side, he is universally regarded as a good clubhouse guy and you can't fault his effort on the field.  There is nothing the Cubs marketing department loves more than a hustling white guy who is trying to play above his talent level.
• Pat Burrell - Burrell actually has a semi-quality bat.  Prior to last year with the Rays, he averaged 28 HRs, 92 RBIs with a .257/.367/.485/.852 line.  Not great.  Not terrible.  The problem is that he is also right-handed and would be best suited for left field where his brutal fielding would cause the least amount of damage.  Unfortunately, the 136 Million Dollar Man is stationed out in left, so Burrell would have to play right, which would be disastrous with Fukudome remaining out of position in center.  I do think he could rebound with a change of scenery and a return to the National League, so I'm not as worried about the loss of offense.  The problem is that he is only owed $9 million for next year, which means that the Cubs would be paying Milton Bradley's $21 million for Milton to play in Tampa plus have a worse player in the Cubs lineup.  I'm personally not interested in paying Milton to help another team unless the player we get back has higher upside, which isn't going to happen.
• Vernon Wells - The man is owed $98.5 million over the next five years.  This would only serve to make Soriano's contract the second worst on the team.
• Luis Castillo - this latest rumor provided by Ken Rosenthal involves a three-way deal with the Mets and Blue Jays that would send Lyle Overbay to the Mets, Bradley to the Blue Jays, and Castillo to the Cubs.  This deal brings Luis Castillo and his $12 million over two years to the second base position.  In theory, Castillo's OBP and speed could be useful, but his defense is declining with his age, and it would take playing time away from Jeff Baker, which would be a crime, given that he was the only guy on the team who remembered to bring his bat to the park on most days last year.  Also, the contracts don't add up, so we would again be paying for Milton to play elsewhere.

None of these options make me think the Cubs would be any better off than they would with Milton Bradley providing even just the level of offense he provided last year. Plus, I have a feeling that Milton is more capable of rebounding than the marginal players the Cubs would get in return for him.

Remember when Moises Alou first arrived in a Cubs uniform in 2002?  He was not good.  He had the worst year of his entire career. He rebounded and became a crucial part of the 2003 playoff run and carried a big part of the offensive load after Sosa's drop-off in 2004.

Derrek Lee showed up in 2004 and couldn't hit a damn thing for the first month as a Cub and then managed to pull off an average year before putting up Pujolsian numbers in 2005.

Because Aramis Ramirez was stepping into the black hole of third base, we don't recall that his worst numbers as a Cub came in 2003 right after he arrived from Pittsburgh.  His OPS was .805, which doesn't suck, but it isn't the .900+ OPS we have grown accustomed to seeing out of him.

With the exception of Andre Dawson, I have a hard time thinking of any Cub hitter that became a Cub and immediately became a force in the lineup.  For some reason, it is not an easy thing for a major league hitter to get used to being a Cub.

Blame it on the day baseball, the shitty accommodations of Wrigley, the intense pressure from the fan base, a combination of those factors or "The Curse," but there is something that makes becoming a Cub something that is difficult for most major league hitters.  It is also something that can improve for no apparent reason other than simply becoming accustomed to the Cubness.

I don't know why Milton Bradley would be any different if he decided he wanted to give it a shot.

Of course, there are a lot of big "ifs" involved.  IF Milton even wants to be here and is willing to try to make amends to his team mates.  IF the Cubs decide that they aren't going to get anything better for him and make an effort to repair the relationship.  IF the rest of his team (who did not seem upset in the slightest when the Cubs sent him home) is willing to give him a second chance.  IF he can stay healthy for a second year in a row (he did manage to stay about as healthy as one can expect of him last year).  IF all of those factors can come together, he could manage to become the hitter that Jim Hendry thought he was signing last year.  Believe me, IF those all come together, the fans will come around too.

As unlikely as all that seems, it seems even less likely that the Cubs will improve their team by trading Bradley.  So, that is almost assuredly what they will do.

Rejuvenatin' Sammy

You know it is the baseball off-season when Sammy Sosa's skin color becomes a major topic of conversation.

It seems that Sammy showed up at an awards show in Vegas and he had his photo taken with his wife on the way in.  The photos, originally run on SI.com, showed Sammy a good five shades whiter than any photo I had ever seen of him.

Speculation ran rampant about the cause of Sammy's Michael Jackson look.  Was he sick?  Was this some side-effect of the steroids?  Is Sammy trying to look whiter for some reason?

Well, we can all go back to watching the Bears' season death spiral because the Tribune has revealed the reason behind the strange look of the photos:

"He's not trying to be Michael Jackson," said former Cubs employee Rebecca Polihronis, who talks frequently with Sosa.

Sosa was photographed recently during an appearance at Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas.

"He is going through a rejuvenation process for his skin," Polihronis said. "Women have it all of the time. He was surprised he came out looking so white. I thought it was a body double. Part of (the photo appearance) is just the lighting.

"He is in the middle of doing a cleansing process to his skin. The picture is deceiving. He said, 'If you saw me in person, you would be surprised. When you see me in person, it is not going to seem like the picture.

So, it's a rejuvenation process.  Good enough for me.  Of course, I don't care all that much.

Towel Drill!!!

The Cubs announced that Ted Lilly had arthroscopic surgery on his left (throwing) shoulder and that he should be ready in April.

There is no context given as to what "ready" means.  Ready to pitch in a real live game against real live opponents in the regular season?  Ready to start throwing and getting back into game shape and maybe rejoining the rotation around June?  Ready to have a second procedure that will force him to miss the entire season?  It's hard to say.

The definition of "ready" is nearly as important to the Cubs season as the performance of Dr. Lewis Yocum during the procedure itself.  My guess is somewhere in the middle.  I doubt the surgery is career threatening, but you never know with shoulders.  I'm not expecting to see Ted in a game that matters until about Memorial Day.  Anything before that is a bonus.

Of course, anytime Cubs fans hear about surgery for their pitchers, the looming spectre of Mark Prior and his towel drill haunts our sleep and causes us to wake up in a cold sweat. 

Personally, I'm going to try to believe that his surgery will actually tighten the muscles in his arm to such an extent that he will be able to sling a ball with such velocity that no hitter will be able to touch him, and thus lead a rag-tag bunch of underachievers and their long-suffering fans to World Series immortality.  I'm looking to turn this idea into a movie.

Of course, I may still just be delirious with fever.

--------------
UPDATE
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Bruce Levine re-iterates the original report by the Chicago Tribune, but adds this nugget to give a little context to what "ready" means:

"The Cubs sources also said Lilly is projected at this point to be back in the rotation in April."

This may finally be the good news he promised us about a week ago.

Some Nonsensical Ramblings from the Hot Zone

I have been laid up with some sort of illness that may or may not have been swine related, but was nonetheless extremely annoying and exhausting.  You know you have no energy when the thought of logging on to a laptop that is sitting five feet away from you seems like an ungodly chore.

In the course of laying around, not eating anything and forcing myself to drink Gatorade so I didn't die of dehydration, I had a chance to reflect on some of the events of the last few days:

• I wish I had been feeling better so I could have made an actual tally, but it seemed like for every real question a media member had for the Ricketts regarding ticket prices, Wrigley renovation, etc., there was a softball lobbed up a la Dave Kaplan's question (which I'm paraphrasing): "You once told me a story about your dad going to one of the rooftops before the sale process even started, can you tell us that story again?"  I'm not saying they had to grill the man, but a few more real questions instead of a rehashing of the time he met his wife in the bleachers would probably have been better use of the press credentials.  They're not going to be your buddies no matter how much sucking up them you do now.
• I liked how every media member read the Ricketts his or her resume before asking a question.  Les Grobstein practically went back in his career to his junior high paper route.
• None of the Ricketts said anything overly surprising, and all came off as true fans of the team. Time will tell if that is a good thing or a bad thing.
• I realized I may be the only person in the world who doesn't give a damn if they spend one penny on the bathrooms at Wrigley.  I honestly don't spend much time in there, and when I do, I find the trough system to be about as efficient as possible in moving drunken fans through while reducing the amount of splashback that you can get from a normal urinal.  Sure, the sinks should probably not look quite so similar to the urinal troughs, but that would be a simple cosmetic change.  Otherwise a couple of runs through with a power washer and maybe some fresh paint would be fine with me.
• I actually found myself agreeing with something Joe Morgan said during last night's ESPN Radio broadcast.  After A-Rod got hit with a pitch for the third time in six plate appearances, the umpires warned both benches despite the fact the Yankees had not hit a single batter in the whole series.  Joe summed it up with, "That's bull."  And it was.
• My god, the Browns suck.  The Bears are pretty bad right now and they kicked the hell out of the Browns.  It did nothing to make me feel better about the team or its propects in beating the Cardinals next week.  The Cardinals lines are both pretty decent, and the Bears' lines are unbelievably not.  I don't know if this team wins seven games the way things are going.
• The first Bulls game against the Spurs is now making me wonder more about how bad the Spurs are going to be rather than how good the Bulls could be.  The Boston game was an outright slap from the Celtics as punishment for the Bulls' uppity showing in the playoffs against them last year.  Then Miami didn't seem to be working very hard to hold off a lot of effort from the Bulls.  This mini trip did nothing to make me feel very confident about the annual Circus Roadtrip de la Muerte.
• It seemed like Indiana might be able to overcome some very questionable calls on pivotal plays to take down Iowa, but then Iowa started going with the wind and had two TDs in two plays totaling something like 160 yards and Indiana crumbled.  I didn't care much, but changing the channel would have meant reaching for the remote control and I wasn't up to it.
• Vernon Wells for Milton Bradley.  Holy Jesus - no, no, no, no, no.  A thousand times no.  This may actually be what made me sick in the first place.

Levine Gives Some Bad News, But Calls it Good News For Some Reason

I'm not sure, but I think Bruce Levine needs a dictionary to understand the meaning of "good news."  He starts out his blog post on ESPNChicago.com with:

"The news is almost all good for Chicago Cubs fans with the team now in possession of new owner and chairman of the board Tom Ricketts."

 Awesome!  I've been waiting for some good news. What is it, Bruce?  The suspense is killing me!

"Ricketts will start the process of revealing his long-term and short-term plans on Friday with a news conference at Wrigley Field, where he'll begin his one-on-one interviews with the press followed by a full day of TV and radio one-on-ones."

OK, that is really only good news for you as a member of the media, but you're building to something, I can tell.  I bet it's going to be REALLY good news.

"Hard facts of a turbulent economy and a veteran-laden roster dictate some economic concessions from the fans and baseball operations in 2010, according to sources with knowledge of the situation."

Bruce, I have to tell you, that does not sound how one would expect to hear good news being delivered.  The phrases "turbulent economy" and "economic concessions from the fans" should not appear in any lead-in to what we would consider good news.  You might as well also include the phrases "anal cancer," "five-state kill spree," and "towel drill" in your lead-in.

"A slight raise in ticket prices can not be avoided as built-in costs and spending projections continue to mount. Over the past two seasons under Sam Zell and tribune Co., ticket prices increased over 30 percent across the board. That amount included a 23 percent raise after the 2008 season."

 I see, the good news is that the ticket price increase will merely be "slight," instead of "gargantuan" or "enormous."  That is fantastic news.  I'm going to start working on my "Only a Slight Ticket Price Increase Jig" right now.

"Ticket prices were frozen for 2007 after a horrendous season in which the Cubs lost over 90 games."

Well, that was kind of good news in 2007, but I'm not sure how that does me any good for this year.  Maybe it's good news that the Cubs were merely "under-performing," "flat," and "disappointing" this year instead of "horrendous."  To be honest, you're kind of stretching that definition of "good" though, Bruce.

I know!  Maybe the good news is that the ticket prices are going up so that the Cubs can afford to take on some additional payroll if necessary to keep the window of opportunity open for one more year.  Bruce, you sly dog!  You had me going there.

"According to major league sources, the Cubs' payroll will be locked in at close to $140 million, the same that was spent in 2009.

In order for the team's baseball operations department to have flexibility with this payroll, the Cubs will have to be creative and make trades that ware in the framework of the $140 million figure."

 Bruce, I'm going to come right out and say this is definitely NOT good news.  I mean, this is not even technically, news.  We've pretty much suspected as much all along, but being right all along doesn't make it good news.

"General manager Jim Hendry and his baseball department have been working on trades with Tampa, Toronto and three or four other clubs with players with big contracts that they would like to move."

Wait, I thought the Cubs couldn't take on any more big contracts.  Is the good news that you've been kidding up until now?

"A Milton Bradley-for-Pat Burrell trade has been on the table for three weeks."

Ohhhh, trading a talented player on the roster for a player that is white, has less talent, is more media-friendly, and has a similar salary is the good news.  That is probably more good news for you, but not so much for us who will be paying more money to watch the more friendly Pat Burrell strike out alot and not catch fly balls that are hit anywhere not directly at him.

"Toronto will talk to anyone who will take outfielder Vernon Wells off its hands. Wells has a multi-year contracts that pays close to $15 million per year."

Well, that is actually more than Milton Bradley makes, so in theory, the Cubs would need to unload more than just Milton Bradley's contract to afford Vernon Wells.  Maybe the good news is that the Cubs will soon be parting with Milton Bradley AND Carlos Zambrano!  I'm getting my champagne ready.

"Toronto at some point will be looking at moving ace right-hander Roy Halladay. It's unknown at this point if the Cubs will be involved. Halladay is one season from free agency."

Bruce, this is the last paragraph of your post and not only does it offer no information that is relevant to the Cubs at all, it still comes no where close to qualifying as good news.  Maybe the good news is that your post about all the good things Cubs fans have in store isn't longer.