Fonzie Rates the Cubs

One week of Cubs games are in the books and since I have a lot of howework to do before Opening Day at Wrigley tomorrow, I'm bringing in a special correspondent to handle the analysis of the past week.  Ladies and gentleman, I am very pleased to have the one and only Arthur Fonzerelli provide his analysis of the Cubs so far.  (Sorry if anyone clicked on this expecting something about Alfonso Soriano.)

Fonzie, what do you make of the Cubs offense?

 Yeah, that sounds about right.  What do you think of their defense?

We're with you on that too.  How about the starting pitching?

They were pretty good after that first game.  How about the bullpen?

Surely, you're not down on all those guys.  What about Marshall and Marmol?

After watching them this week, what do you expect from the rest of the Cubs' season?

We don't know either, but you should probably be careful while you're skiing, there are lots of dangerous... look out!  Shark!!!

That was an awfully long way to go for a pretty lame joke.  Was it worth it?

Thanks, Fonz!

Rangers Fans Must Miss Byrd; Milton Tries to Help

Apparently, Milton Bradley still has a soft spot in his heart for Texas Rangers fans.  It appears they have a Marlon Byrd shaped hole in their hearts this year, so Milton graciously has attempted to fill it...

...by flipping them the bird. (photo from Lookout Landing)

This is widley believed to be the most gracious and humanitarian action of Milton Bradley's life.

If You Build It, People Will Have Sex In It

A tweet from friend of Aisle 424, Alex Quigley, this morning, alerted me to a column by John Kass in the Tribune about a little romantic interlude between a couple at the White Sox Opening Day that they shared with a bathroom full of urinating men.

Apparently a Sox fan brought his six year old son to the White Sox Opening Day on Monday, and I'll let Mr. Kass take it from there:

One thing about taking little boys to the game is that little boys have to go to the restroom at the wrong time. When my sons were that age, every time they had to go, Frank Thomas or Paulie Konerko would hit a home run.

On Monday, Nemeth's son had to go, and his father took him to the nearest restroom. They stood in line for the first urinal next to a row of stalls.

As they waited, Nemeth said, he noticed noises coming from the last stall. A man's legs — clad in blue jeans and sneakers — were sticking out from under the stall door.

"The toes were pointing up," said Nemeth. "The legs were shaking and quivering. From a visual standpoint, all you had to see was the legs quivering to know something was going on."

As a trained physician, he had an idea what was happening in there, but he worried it might have been something else.

"It was bizarre. It caught the attention of a lot of people. I tried to turn my boy's attention away from it, then I thought, ‘Is someone having a seizure?'

"So I kicked the door, just to get a reaction. I just wanted to make sure nobody was dying in there. That's when I heard a woman's voice yell, ‘HEY, STOP!' Something was going on and I had interrupted."

Moments later, the stall door opened, and a tall, thin, blond man exited. The tall man held his arms up in triumph.

So, Mr. Ricketts, you may want to think twice about making the bathrooms at Wrigley too nice and cozy.   Sox fans invade Wrigley for three games every year and we wouldn't want them to think that the Wrigley bathrooms would be a perfect place to bring some romance back into a stale relationship.
 
I don't even want to think about what Cardinals fans would do in there.

Finally, the Cubs Are Best at Something

The Cubs have stated before that they believe their tickets are recession-proof and they are doing their best to prove it to the world by pricing them higher than any other team in baseball.

Paul Sullivan reported yesterday:

Despite the sluggish economy and a disappointing 2009 season, the Cubs now have the highest average annual ticket price in major-league baseball at $52.56, according to an analysis by Team Marketing Report.

The Cubs barely edged the Red Sox ($52.32) and the Yankees ($51.83), while the White Sox rank fourth at $38.65.

I'm not sure how the averages were done, but what may have pushed them over the top was their reverse sale where they added 20% to ticket prices if you wanted to buy them the week before they went on sale for the printed face value.  But however it happened, they have elbowed past the Red Sox, who have traditionally led the league in recent years, and the Yankees, who sold some individual seats for $2,700 each last year. So that's almost like winning the World Series, right?

I'm sure the Cubs have to be pleased with the timing of this news as they have managed to stumble out of the gate with two very horrible losses that have done nothing to give people much optimism for the rest of the year (unless Twitter had ruined our optimism already).  People have to be asking themselves what they get for these most expensive seats in all of baseball.
 
Well, I got a "thank you" for the first time in twelve years.  That was nice.  Though maybe I would rather have a rude guy and cheaper tickets.  But there is no going back now.  These tickets are super-expensive and at least we are getting thanked for handing over these large piles of money.  So there is that.
 
Also, Sullivan mentioned later that Wrigley will be featuring giant photos of players and Lou Piniella hanging on the exterior of Wrigley.
 
The 19-foot-by-14-foot photos of Alfonso Soriano, Carlos Zambrano, Derrek Lee, Carlos Marmol, Aramis Ramirez, Ryan Dempster, Ted Lilly and manager Lou Piniella will flank the historic marquis at Clark and Addison streets for the opening week as part of the Cubs' new marketing slogan: "It's a Way of Life."
 
"It is a way of life, and everyone has unique memories of coming to Wrigley Field, and we wanted to capture that," said Wally Hayward, the Cubs' executive vice-president for sales and marketing.
 
That is true.  I have several unique memories of my games at Wrigley Field.  There was my first game when I was seven when I learned from the drunk guy in front of me that Dave Kingman was "worthless."  The Cubs lost that one 7-0.
 
There was the one where a foul ball changed the life of a dude who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  The Cubs lost that one 8-3.  They lost the next night too while I was there.
 
Now that I think about it, most of the memories seem to involve losing.
 
But the game on the field is not important in this new era of increased revenue streams.  Wrigley is a place of wonder.  It is a place where people can forget about their everyday cares and worries by experiencing baseball as it was intended (with a few well-placed advertisements thrown in).  You have to expect to pay pretty good money for that.
 
And you will.

Rick Telander Hates Carlos Zambrano Almost As Much As I Hate Rick

The worst part about watching the Cubs get obliterated on Opening Day was the anticipation of the professional media jumping up and down on their new favorite target now that Milton is gone, Carlos Zambrano. 

While I am increasingly worried that Zambrano is just not right, the media seems to take a certain glee in pointing out Zambrano's failures.  They seem to believe that the difference between the talented pitcher that earned the gigantic pay raise with his performance for this team is purely mental.  Yesterday, Rick Telander did his best to organize the villagers with torches and pitchforks:

Being the Opening Day pitcher is supposed to mean something.

Yes.  Generally, it means being the best starting pitcher on the team and as much as you don't want it to be a fact, there is no rational argument that can be made that a healthy Carlos Zambrano isn't one of the top pitchers in baseball, much less the Cubs.

You're the tone setter, the bell cow, the big swinging medallion chosen by the manager as the symbol of the team.

After the "tone setter," I'm not sure what the hell he is talking about.  The bell cow leads because it has a damn bell around its neck, not because it is the best cow in the herd.  The swinging medallion reference just makes me picture Telander in a leisure suit talking about the massive bulge in his tight pants as he looks for hot American foxes.  Aside from the ill feeling in my stomach that resulted, I'm not sure what that has in common with Opening Day.

You mow 'em down, your buds rack 'em up.

[Joke removed as it has been validly pointed out that it is unfair]


But Carlos Zambrano -- who now has started more consecutive Opening Days (six) than any other Cub -- is not a bell cow. He's a rambling, tin-can eating goat who has lost his way.

How exactly is one smelly animal somehow worse than a different smelly animal?  Oh, you're working in a reference to goats.  Cubs.  Goats.  Very original.

And with him, in a symbolic way, has gone the franchise.

So, the team that hasn't won a World Series in 101 years has lost its way as a winning ballclub because of Carlos Zambrano.  Seeing how you support this statement should be almost as much fun as watching the game yesterday.

''Mind-set?'' repeated manager Lou Piniella when asked what Big Z's mind-set might have been before the 16-5 horror-show loss to the Braves at sold-out Turner Field. ''I don't know.''

What the hell did you want him to say?  If someone asked me about your mindset before you wrote this bullshit column, I probably would have said "focused on being an arrogant toolbag," but the truth is I don't know because I'm not a fucking mindreader.

How could he?

By being a mindreader, which apparently, you think is plausible.

Lou's pretty old-school. Probably thinks two plus two equals four.

What does that even mean?

Zambrano is unknowable.

I guess Rick can decipher exactly what went on in the head of Ted Lilly when he got in a fight with his manager or when he got ejected from a game in which he wasn't even pitching, but that Zambrano is one Latino loco!

The 28-year-old from Venezuela speaks to the media in a voice so quiet and even-toned that it is nearly a whisper. 

That is INSANE!  He should be beating up Gatorade coolers and Michael Barrett!

''I will think about Cincinnati now,'' he said at his locker after he finished with a 54.00 ERA. Big Z said it the way one would if one were preparing to think about, oh, doilies.

Seriously, what do you want him to do?  If he froths at the mouth, he's an insane lunatic who doesn't deserve the money he earned.  If he brushes it off like it was ONE FREAKING START out of about thirty to come this year, he's a lackadaisical prima donna who doesn't deserve the money he earned.  If he reacts like a disappointed professional who is ready to not dwell on the past and work on improving in the future, you bitch about doilies.

He had been handed a three-run lead on new center fielder Marlon Byrd's home run, and then he took the mound and blew up.

He actually walked a man and induced a bunch of weakly hit balls that probably should have been fielded by major league players, but instead the balls went unfielded by the Lil' Louisiana Lads and our pudgy right-fielder that is being played in center.  The first really hard hit ball of the inning is the one that is tattooed on everyone's memory, but by my count, Zambrano had already induced what should have been four outs before Heyward launched it into orbit.

We should not judge a person's character by how he performs as an athlete, but if you're paid $17.8million a year to be the star and you've got a 95 mph Jedi sword in your holster and you've thrown a no-hitter and you always tell us how good you feel and you aren't even fat this year, then, Lord-a-mighty, how can you walk the first man you face and then give up four hits, a home run and another walk in the first inning on Opening Day?

It would be like if a professional columnist who has been writing for a living for over thirty years and who will gladly point out that he has written a book and for Sports Illustrated and that Sports Illustrated rated that book as one of the top 25 of all-time and had his smug face on television in the company of actual good journalists would write a horrible, self-righteous, run-on sentence.

No one knows.

As much as no one knows why anyone pays you a salary for this crap.

Yet the Cubs have latched themselves to this yo-yo -- meant in the sense that the classic spinning toy goes up and down and all around and even walks across the floor like a baby -- and the team itself cannot be counted on because of that.

More "crazy" metaphors combined with an immaturity simile.  It is amazing how these same attributes are considered to be good for a clubhouse when the crazy man is also white.  Ryan Dempster has been the picture of consistency for the Cubs over the years?  He didn't also just sign a gigantic contract that carries a ton of expectations with it that have largely been unmet?  People say that Cubs fans are racist.  If they are, it is because they are taking words like these from hacks like Telander to heart. (Photo from The Heckler)

It was a huge decision to sign Zambrano to a long-term contract in 2007. General manager Jim Hendry did it, and he was looking at the fact that Big Z had been an All-Star at 23, the youngest in Cubs history, and Hendry had prayed Zambrano would become the ace who could dial the code and lead the Cubs out of their century-old panic room.

Yes, it was a huge decision.  Not sure what you are getting at here.  Are you saying you would have let the then 26-year old walk away with his 82-55 record, 3.41 ERA and 1.28 WHIP?  Because that is insane.  Carlos wasn't making outrageous contract demands for his production and he always has said the right things about wanting to stay a Cub.  Any other choice in that decision process could only be justified through the glasses of hindsight and revisionist history.
But Zambrano, who has been an All-Star three times and in the Cubs organization 13 years, teases, then yanks it away.

If anything has been yanked, it has been Zambrano's arm.  The man threw over 200 innings for five consecutive years from 2003 to 2007.  Even the last two years when the almost inevitable decline in his durability has taken a hit, he has put up a total of almost 350 innings.  But, yeah, the problem is probably his head.

He has won only 23 games the last two years, and the Cy Young talk has vanished.

Since you value wins so much, I'll just point out that in Carlos' win percentage until 2007 was .599.  Including the Opening Day loss, his win percentage is .622 since.  It was .639 before Opening Day.  Wow.  Talk about a precipitous drop in production.

And how do you deal with the other things he does? The punch thrown, the water dispenser battered, the glove hurled into the dugout, the emotional and physical control lost -- they all pop from nowhere.

Earlier in this same column, you criticized him for being "quiet and even-toned!"  What the fuck do you want from him?

Zambrano had an astounding second inning against the Braves, even by his standards. After hitting leadoff batter Martin Prado, he covered first base on Chipper Jones' grounder and then launched a rainbow to third that soared over Aramis Ramirez's head and nearly into the stands. To tie it up with a bow, Zambrano offered a homer to Brian McCann before Piniella mercifully yanked him.

There is no getting around that Zambrano had a bad day.  I still contend that a large part of his bad day would have been extremely manageable if the Lollipop Guild weren't his middle infield defense, but exaggerating these two innings out of the 1,552 innings he has pitched in his career as a microcosm of his entire career?  Aren't you supposed to be the veteran writer who can add some perspective to a situation while the emotional fans are all jumping off cliffs?

Opening Day pitcher?

I guess you would have preferred Ryan Dempster who has never walked everyone in the ballpark in a tone-setting situation before.
''It happened,'' Zambrano said. ''I gave up eight runs. Like I said, I will concentrate for the next start.''
Concentrating for this one would have been nice.

Nice cheap shot. You know what?  I can do that too.  Fuck you.

No, it's not like one game means much.

But you are about to explain why it should mean so much to your half-witted argument.

But the 16 runs are the most the Cubs have given up to anybody on Opening Day, going back to 1884.

I guess it is also Carlos' fault that the Cubs would be better off with Devin Hester in the bullpen over Jeff Samardzija?

''Somewhat of an embarrassing loss,'' Piniella said.

Not as embarassing as this column.

Oh, Zambrano had help. Reliever Jeff Samardzija's 108.00 ERA is in the mix, as is gazillion-dollar left fielder Alfonso Soriano's .000 batting average.

I guess Theriot's .000 in the leadoff spot doesn't warrant a mention, or his leprechaun brother booting routine groundballs.

But this was Big Z's day -- in front of new owner and stunned fan Tom Ricketts.

How stunned could he possibly be?  He has watched this team before, right?  I mean, we were all told what a big fan he was.

Seemed a little like Closing Day, it did.

I'm hoping this means you have given up on the 2010 season and won't be writing anything more about them.  By the way Jay Marriotti called, he wants his assholic vitriol back.

Cubs Somehow Worse Than My Internet Connection

About an hour before the game started yesterday, I finally arrived home from a visit to the land of mullets and drunk driving located across the Mississippi River.  It was a long journey home that involved a massive headache, a choice between country music on FM or a ridiculous French accent on WGN during the ride, and an interminably long wait in a parking lot formerly known as the Stevenson Expressway.

I just wanted to sit down on my couch, check the progress of my various fantasy teams, and settle in for a few hours of the first Cubs baseball game to mean anything since about the end of last August.

My wonderful internet provider (whom I won't name here except to say it rhymes with Shmay Tee & Tee), decided that they did not want to grant me internet access.  All I wanted to do was maybe change the banner on my blog and publish a post before the game got started.  It really is a shame you all had to miss it, I had some really good sections on civic duty and volunteerism.

I wanted to be able to have Tweetdeck all queued up so that I could have some actual interaction with the three or four non-spambot Cubs fans across the country who look forward to my snarky comments during a game.

I wanted to be able to read through some of the the other Cubs blogs I enjoy and catch up on what was being written and if I may have managed to insult Sarah Palin fans while honoring another excellent blog.

But I couldn't even do that, thanks to Shmay Tee & Tee.  So I was pissed and I was sure that they were the worst thing that had ever happened to the world since Hitler.

Then I watched the Cubs game itself. 

You know how when you sometimes watch the news and you see a story about some seemingly normal person snapping and going off and killing a bunch of people in a fit of rage and you wonder, "How can somebody get so angry that they would do such a thing?"  I get it now.

I am not going to rehash the whole thing, but I can tell you that a couple of midget infielders and a very rich shampoo-model-posing-as-a-pitcher should be very glad that I don't have access to weaponry of any sort.  I'd be pissed at Zambrano, but by my count, he had registered what should have been four outs in the inning before Hank Aaron's heir apparent blasted one into the ozone as the 7th batter in the inning.

Meanwhile, the Braves took advanatage of the little known three-hop rule that says that a ball can bounce up to three times and still be recorded as an out, provided that the umpires are all blind and stupid.

Somehow, the Cubs managed to make my loss of internet connection a distant second in things that went wrong yesterday. 

But today is a new day.  There are obviously some very real concerns about the Cubs' defense, their bullpen, and whether there might actually be something wrong with Carlos Zambrano, but if the Cubs can win tomorrow, the worries can be pushed back down again for a bit.

Shmay Tee & Tee still sucks.

It Turns Out 2009 Was Just An Elaborate Prank

April Fools!

The Cubs had the last laugh for once when they revealed that the entire 2009 season was one big practical joke.

"Got ya!" yelled Jim Hendry, as he, Lou Piniella and Crane Kenney doubled over in laughter at the press conference announcing the prank.  "We couldn't help ourselves. It was just too good.  But we can't take the credit, it wasn't our idea.  We just went along with the master plan dreamt up by this guy..."

Hendry gestured dramatically at the side door, and in came none other than Milton Bradley with a huge grin on his face.  He strided over to Jim Hendry and gave him a big bear hug before taking the microphone.

"You got PUNK'D, Chicago!  You totally fell for it!"  Bradley wiped away the tears of laughter, high-fived Piniella, and continued, "You people really thought someone could be THAT insane?!  'My son is being called racist names by his teacher and other three-year olds.' 'I don't know how many outs there are.' 'The umpires are out to get me.' 'It's Chicago's fault I had a bad year.' Come on!"

"But seriously," said Bradley as the rest of his 2009 teammates filed in while laughing uncontrollably. "Everyone played a part.  These guys are the greatest teammates, but they should get some motherf---in' Oscars for their performances last year.  I really thought this guy [pointing at Aramis Ramirez] actually hurt himself there in Milwaukee.  It turns out all that writhing in 'pain' was him trying to keep people from seeing him laughing."

But why such an elaborate prank?  Why submarine an entire season for the sake of a joke?

"To be honest, it started out as a prank on Paul Sullivan," said Bradley.  "He was riding me kind of hard last Spring, talking about my history of bad behavior and whatnot.  I just wanted to have a go at him and it just kind of escalated."

"Where is that little guy?  Man, you got so pissed at me!  No hard feelings?"

He then went over to Sullivan, shook his hand and then picked him up over his head pretending he was going to body slam him, but then set him back down gently.  Sullivan looked flustered, but smiled afterwards.

"He really got me," said Sullivan later rather sheepishly.  "Hey, were the Cubs bloggers in on it too?"

Lou Piniella revealed that Geovany Soto had been wearing a fat suit all year, Alfonso Soriano never hurt his knee, and Carlos Marmol was hitting all those batters on purpose.  "Look, we were just having some fun.  Heck, that Eric Miles kid went above and beyond.  I think that's what the comics call 'dedication to a bit,'" he chuckled.

"We hope you aren't too attached to Carlos Silva and Marlon Byrd.  They were good sports to go along with everything this Spring, but they'll head back to their original teams now and do their best there," said Hendry.  "We've got some real work to do here in 2010."

"Oh, and where's Phil Rogers?  Phil! Kevin Gregg is back in the bullpen again this year.  Does that add enough veteran leadership for ya?"

So, is this the kind of thing Cubs fans can expect from the Cubs on a regular basis now that they are under the ownership of the Ricketts family?

"Oh yeah," said Kenney, "We forgot to mention that part.  Maybe I should let someone else explain it better..." And then Sam Zell walked into the room to take the microphone as the team collapsed in laughter again.