July 1 – The Cubs plan to have Carlos Zambrano go to the minor leagues and then return to the bullpen after his timeout is over. Also, no TV for a month.
July 2 – Chad Tracy cleared waivers and became a free agent. He couldn’t find a major league team interested, so he signed with the Marlins.
July 4 – Marlon Byrd is named to the National League All-Star team because someone from the Cubs has to be and Pat Hughes, unfortunately, doesn’t count.
July 5 - Dusty Baker reveals to the Sun-Times that he knew EXACTLY how to fix the Cubs, but they wouldn’t let him when he was here and now he’s not going to tell. Other things Dusty knows how to do but that he is keeping secret: how to fix Social Security, cold fusion, and making Paris Hilton go away.
July 5 – The Cubs option Jeff Berg and call up Justin Stevens… or send down Justin Berg and call up Jeff Stevens… or something. It doesn’t fucking matter.
July 6 – Scott Rolen tells the Trib he knows why the Cubs suck. Their facilities stink and there are too many game time changes. Plus old guys can’t handle the grind and young guys party too much. Dusty Baker can neither confirm nor deny that he already had that theory.
July 8 - Tom Ricketts hosts a Season Ticket Holder Appreciation Day at Wrigley Field where members of the Cubs organization talked about Northwestern Football, concerts, future appreciation days and anything else they could think of besides talking about how they would improve the actual team.
July 9 - Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Aramis Ramirez’s batting average rises above the .200 mark for the first time since April 9th, thus signifying only six more weeks of the Cubs sucking. Six weeks later, Mike Quade takes over and the Cubs finish 24-13.
July 11 – The Cubs finish the first half of the season by getting shut out 7-0 by the Dodgers to lose 3 out of 4 in the series. Way to finish strong, boys.
July 13 - George Steinbrenner dies when Dusty Baker refuses to tell him the location of the Fountain of Youth.
July 13 – Marlon Byrd forgets he is representing the Cubs and makes an actual heads-up play by forcing David Ortiz at second base on a bloop line drive to center that fell in front of him, thus paving the way for a National League victory over the American League for the first time since the invention of the wheel.
July 14 – Joey Votto says he would never pat a Cub on the back to congratulate him on a good play. Bruce Levine thinks he was serious. Paul Sullivan thinks he was joking. Nobody can explain to me why it is important in the slightest.
July 14 - FOX Sports reports that Derrek Lee’s father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate says he would accept a trade to the Angels.
July 16 – Derrek Lee says he never said he would accept a trade and that nobody knows what he is going to do. Dusty Baker says he knows, but he isn’t going to tell.
July 18 – THE CUBS BEAT ROY HALLADAY! THE CUBS BEAT ROY HALLADAY! THE CUBS BEAT ROY HALLADAY! I’M NOT MAKING THIS UP! THE CUBS BEAT ROY HALLADAY!
July 19 – The Brewers manager, Ken Macha complains that Prince Fielder is getting hit with too many pitches. It turns out Fielder has his own gravitational pull.
July 20 – Lou Piniella announces he is retiring at season’s end and Cubs fans immediately complain that the best manager in most of our lives isn’t quitting soon enough.
July 21 – Tom Ricketts announces that Jim Hendry will hire the next manager of the Cubs and Ryne Sandberg sends an “old school” message that he is interested in the position via telegram.
July 22 – Carlos Zambrano pitches an inning for the Iowa Cubs in his quest to return to the major league team after his suspension. He faced five batters, threw fifteen pitches, gave up two hits, didn’t walk anyone, and adjusted his cup seventeen times.
July 26 – Cubs prospect, Josh Vitters, breaks his finger when he is hit by a pitch that is, ironically, the first pitch all season he didn’t swing at.
July 27 – Zambrano reveals that part of his anger management is to write down every time he gets mad. Zambrano’s normally quick pace on the mound slows considerably as he journals after every pitch he thinks should have been called a strike.
July 30 – Crain’s Chicago Business reports that Cubs game ratings are down almost 40% from the same time last season, revealing the sad truth that 60% of Cubs fans have had their remote controls hidden by Dusty Baker.
July 30 – The Cubs release Bobby Howry and the Rockies honor him with a fireworks display in scoring 12 runs on 13 hits off of three separate relievers in the bottom of the 8th inning in Colorado.
July 31 - Ted Lilly's awesomeness is traded to the Dodgers in exchange for Blake DeWitt and them agreeing to take Ryan Theriot as well.
Coming next month... the return of Zambrano and the departure of Lou.
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5 comments:
"July 13 – Marlon Byrd forgets he is representing the Cubs and makes an actual heads-up play by forcing David Ortiz at second base on a bloop line drive to center that fell in front of him, thus paving the way for a National League victory over the American League for the first time since the invention of the wheel."
I think Byrd was playing RF and Ethier was playing CF for some reason. I recall that Byrd caught the ball on a hop in RF for sure before spinning and firing to get Ortiz, who is already slow and took a step in the wrong direction before trying to snail towards 2B.
"July 14 - FOX Sports reports that Derrek Lee’s father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate says he would accept a trade to the Angels."
Dark Helmet, sports journalist.
So Lou was the best Cubs manager in most of our lifetimes. Big deal. Let's remember that a lot of Hendry apologist claim that Jimbo deserves to stay as the GM because he's the best Cubs GM in our lifetimes. That's really damning a person with faint praise because team management, both on the field and in the main office, has been so pathetic for generations.
Yes, Lou was great in 2007 and 2008, at least until the playoffs started. But something happened to Lou in 2009. I'll say the something was Milton Bradley, but maybe it was something else. At some point, Lou seemed to lose his fire. He stopped being a dragon. When things went badly for the Cubs and reporters asked him what he was going to do to turn things around, Lou would respond with questions (such as 'what do you want me to do?') rather than answers. He seemed to run out of ideas and the team seemed rudderless.
And then we move on to 2010 and he pretty much gave up. I think it would have been better for all concerned if he had retired before the season. Maybe another manager would have either lit a fire under the behinds of ARamirez and DLee or sat those behinds on the pine. A lot of the time it seemed like Lou was just going through the motions. Maybe he was distracted by his mother's health. But whatever the reasons, he did a terrible job last year and it was time to go.
On the other hand, by leaving in August, the Cubs were able to audition Mike Quade for the manager's job. Thus we were denied having Ryno as the next manager. It remains to be seen whether that will be a good thing or not.
Ow, Tim, that eye-gouge pic was a bit much for an early Monday morning! But then, so is rehashing the Cubs previous season in the middle of winter, so I guess it's appropriate.
I disagree, Frank. Lou held the 2009 team together with duct tape to finish over .500 when the team really seemed to want to just go into a death spiral. In 2010, stuff just stopped working. He moved Zambrano into the bullpen because he thought it would help, he batted Colvin leadoff, he started benching Soriano for defense. Nothing worked. You can argue that those were dumb moves, but you can't argue that he wasn't trying.
As far as his questions to the media, I think he may have given up on trying to deal with them rationally. So he just didn't give a damn how he came off in the press. They seemed to be hellbent on portraying him as a doddering old man and he quit fighting it.
I'd still rather have Lou in the dugout than Quade or any of the other options the Cubs had this offseason.
Lou did some really awesome things, like putting Marshall in LF or doing the Baker-Soriano 2B-3B cha-cha when he ran out of position players one game. Granted he did some crazy shit too, but 2009 was surprisingly good considering all the injuries and bad luck that transpired. Can't even blame that all on Milton Bradley.
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