Godspeed, Little Noodle

Cubs fans have clearly decided what is and what is not important.

Last night, friend of Aisle 424, @CubsInsider, tweeted out the following message:

In his first start for the #Cubs this season, Jeff Samardzija tosses 5.2-shutout innings in Chicago's 5-1 victory over the #Cardinals!

That is really good news.  It may or may not be a harbinger of things to come, but 5.2 innings of shutout baseball from a prospect most of us have pretty much given up on is certainly better than what we were expecting out of him.  Should we pencil him in to the rotation for 2011?  No, but at least he wasn't out there throwing batting practice and allowing hits to guys like Brendan Ryan, Pedro Feliz, and Aaron Miles.  (I'm kind of amazed LaRussa isn't batting the pitcher sixth in a lineup like that.)

So Cubs fans had to be pretty psyched about Samardzija's nice outing, right? Well, if two retweets of the message is a representation of a fanbase being psyched, then yes,we were psyched.

Today, @CubsInsider tweeted out this message along with a twitpic:

Farewell to the Kraft Noodle, it is leaving Wrigley Field today. http://twitpic.com/2oekb1

In less than 3 hours, the message was retweeted at least 24 times in various forms, plus additional commentary and smart-ass responses from followers (yeah, I was one of the smart-asses).  The best was from @kofchicago:

Godspeed, little noodle!

I think the looks on Bart, Homer, Ned and Todd's faces pretty well sum up how Cubs fans feel about the season and that little comment is probably the best we can muster.

If the Cubs wanted to create a buzz, the stupid noodle thing certainly did do its job.  People noticed, they talked about it and mainstream media and bloggers went on the interwebs and talked about it even more.

Kraft may be the only people happy with the Cubs right now.

Oh, and the Cubs were officially eliminated from post-season play last night with Cincinnati's victory.