Okay, cubcakes. So a couple of days ago the Commish dealt your reigning National League MVP a one-game suspension and an “undisclosed” fine for his post-game MF-ing of home plate umpire Brian Knight on Monday. To that I say, WHAT A FRIGGIN’ D-BAG! No, I’m not talking about Robbie Womanfred (for once). And please don’t get me started on umpires — hasn’t been a good one since Dutch Rennert forced me to stuff napkins in my ears to soften the blow my eardrums took each time he called a strike. I’m talking about the pretty boy from Vegas who thinks baseball is “tired” and in need of more players who express themselves.
Express yourself? Really? What … the metrosexual haircut and shaved chest ain’t enough, Brycie?
You know who gets tired of Harper’s expression, besides me and … oh, I don’t know … Jonathon Papelbon? Dusty Baker, that’s who. The Nationals’ skipper doesn’t give a rat’s ass about Harper expressing himself in any other ways besides hittin’ the orb out of the house, and gettin’ his friggin’ batting average above .265; a mark usually reserved for all-pick-no-stick shortstops, not someone on the verge of signing the fattest contract in sports history. Dusty’s old, man! He’s got no patience for a 23-year-old punk who thinks his crap oughta be sold next to Chanel No. 5. He’s not interested in damage control, which Harper’s mouth heaps on him regularly. Dusty just wants to win. To a veteran baseball guy, that’s the best form of expression. It’s just harder to do when your best guy gets tossed with the score tied in the ninth.
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Holy crap! The Cubs lay a couple of goose eggs on Wednesday and you’d think the friggin’ sky was falling. Hey, Cubs fans, what the hell is wrong with you people?! Did you really think we were gonna go the entire season without losing 2 in a row? Is that realistic? I can understand that maybe … just maybe … your perspective might be a little off. After all, the Cubs are havin’ their best start in 109 years, we’ve got a run differential as wide as Bartolo Colon’s butt, and we’ve had both our offense and pitching in annihilation mode since we broke camp. It’s easy to get caught up in that, I know, but you gotta stop the Varuca Salt impersonations when every little thing doesn’t go our way. Grow the hell up.
My advice: Crack open an icy cold Old Style and try to enjoy what’s happened so far. Think about it. With just a Donald Trump-sized handful of exceptions, the Cubs have basically sucked for over a hundred years. This year? We’re good. I mean for real, we’re good. For the first 5 weeks of the season the Cubs have been the main topic of conversation on just about every sports program known to man. Why? Partly because when the Cubs win with monotonous regularity it’s pretty unusual. Partly because we’re really kicking the crap outta just about everybody, and then rubbin’ their noses in what we kicked out of ’em. We’re so good, in fact, that ESPN’s resident pinhead, Stephen A. Smith (middle name always initialed due to obscenity reasons) felt compelled to attribute Arrieta’s performance to PEDs. He just had to pin that kind of exceptional play on something … anything but the fact that we’re actually good. Too monstrous of a concept for the feeble minded.
If I’m Maddon, I’m takin’ a trip to the mound to settle you down. Try to remember that for a team that’s been defined by our ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, we’re doin’ pretty damn good. We lost a couple in a row … to a crappy team. Don’t jump off the Sears Tower just yet, pal. Take a deep breath, do some of that zen yoga meditation crap or somethin’ and have a little faith, baby. Did we fold when Schwarber went down? No. Have we found ways to win some close ones? Yes. Have we mostly treated opposing pitching staffs like a baby treats a diaper? Absolutely. So let’s have a little more Alfred E. Newman and a little less Chicken Little.
In the words of Nuke LaLoosh, “You win some, you lose some. Sometimes it rains.” It’s a long season, my friend. You gotta trust it.
Joe
I don’t know what it is … maybe I’m just a product of the 60s, when ballplayers were loyal to their teams (even if it was because the owners were as much slave owners as they were team owners). Still, when I read that Jake Arrieta — who’s havin’ by FAR the two best years of his career — is willing to walk away if the Cubs don’t offer him a minimum of $200 million and 7 years, I just wanna slap his greedy little Wall Street face.
I get it. Arrieta won the trophy last year, and he’s looking like Cy Young himself this year, while Strasburg — an inferior pitcher, if you go by the numbers — just penned a seven-year extension with the Nats for Jesus money. Plus, if you throw in the deals Price and Scherzer got (both 7-year stints for more than $200 million) then mix all that information together in the context bowl, then yeah, it sounds like Arrieta is worth what he and that bottom-feeder Boras are gonna be asking for. However, it’s totally friggin’ unreasonable in a world where garbage men are gettin’ 60-some grand a year to wade through Chicago’s trash, no matter what it’s doin’ outside. And what really rubs me raw is when I hear some of these guys, who drive Bentleys outta their 10 car garages to the ballpark, talk about how much they care about the fans. Quite frankly it insults my intelligence. Limited though it may be, I got enough gray matter up there to tell when a guy who plays a game for a living is dropping his kids off at the pool … and I’m the pool.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gasAm4DIVsg
If the Cubs win the Series, Chicago is gonna be pretty much as depicted in this TV spot. Only it’ll be real.
Until this year, asking that question was an indication that 1) it was 1945, 2) you were referring to your kid’s Little League team, 3) you were completely friggin’ nuts, or 4) it was before the bottom of the 8th, October 14th 2003. It’s not a question one would really ask — even on those occasions when it’s been warranted — cuz there was always a feeling way deep down inside, down where brats get processed and weird sounds emminate, that the Cubs would figure out a way to F it up. And they never failed to live up to that expectation.
If hope springs eternal, Cubs fans have perfected the art of it. We even created “wait until next year” in an attempt to throw down a gauntlet; a warning that the following season would be different. But that’s always been false hope, intended primarily to take the sting out of our yearly belly flop into the Sea of Ineptitude.
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Tonight’s game against the Friars was like a trip down memory lane, only this lane was more like a dark alley smack dab in the middle of Fallujah. I don’t know why, but the bull pen decided it would be a hoot to reenact one of its performances from 2012. Now, I would try to do the duck thing and just let this roll off my back, but I’ve been a Cubs fan way too long for that. I remember trading Maddux, I remember Bartman pretending to play left field, I remember getting broomed in the first round of the playoffs after winning 97 in the regular season. So nothin’ is rolling off my weary, old, hairy back, my friend.
You have to take this stuff seriously. Especially if you’re Maddon. In fact, I’d like to see him channel a little Lee Elia … and like right friggin’ now. I mean, Joe had an awesome first season, right? Better than anyone, including management, expected. So I’m not sure he’s 100% dialed in on the historical voo doo that swirls around the club like the winds in Wrigley. If Joe doesn’t bring a little Old Testament, wrath-of-God kinda whoopass down on the bull pen for that performance tonight, and just laughs it off, that’ll just invite complacency. You get enough of that and pretty soon there’ll be no joy in Mudville, pal.
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The Cubs and Padres have been postponed, so let’s talk about brooms.
This sweep thing the Cubs have going is getting monotonous. First it was the Reds, then the Brew Crew, followed by the Pirates. And yesterday it was the Nats — the mighty Bryce Harper Nationals. Each and every one of ’em broomed by the Cubs. Yeah, yeah … there were a couple of rain outs in there. Still, I’m thinkin’ Ricketts oughta consider hiring a witch to fly over Wrigley and skywrite “Surrender (team name here)” during the last game of a home stand. It’d make for an awesome promotion, and would be fantastic optics for Hillary Clinton. Hold your water there, snowflake. Before you Hillary lovers get all micro-aggressioned and try to have me water-boarded, I’ll also point out, while we’re skippin’ down the yellow brick road, that the other candidate is in desperate need of a brain. There … Is everyone sufficiently triggered?
I digress.
The ‘sweep’ thing sounds a little cocky, I know. Especially since it’s so early. We’re also Schwarberless, Montero is injured, and Bryant and Heyward are not 100%. Still, there’s definitely something in the water this year; some kinda special sauce or magic dust … or spinach maybe. Something that’s turned the Cubs into the baseball version of the Avengers. By the way, spinach flavored water? … Bleeeaaaaaacccckkkkk! Whatever it is, though, this has been one of the best 5 week stretches of my 55 years. There was that incredible thing with the missus and that medication snafu, but other than that, this is tops.
Anyway, enjoy it. I am.
Joe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3niGu9d_pY
The other day, I made a wise crack about the play the White Sox made at first base which, I admit, was pretty awesome. Mark Buehrle chases down a ball up the line and, on a dead run, scoops it to Konerko between his legs to nail Eric Hosmer at first. Highlight reel stuff.
Nonetheless, seeing as how it’s against my religion to say anything nice about the White Sox, I went to their Facebook page and posted the following comment: “BFD. When your right fielder pegs a guy at third with that kinda throw, then pop off. The class of Chicago plays at Clark & Addison my friend.” Figured I’d see if anybody on the South Side had any detectible brain activity. That, and the fact that I absolutely LOVE poking Sox fans cuz they’re so easily agitated. Not sure why that is, but rumor has it it’s the cheap material in those Victoria’s Secret panties they like to wear for good luck.
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There was this great episode of Star Trek called “Mirror, Mirror” where a transporter malfunction swaps Captain Kirk and his crew with their evil counterparts in a parallel universe. Except for the “evil” part, sometimes I wonder if there was some kinda ion storm thingy that threw baseball into a sorta upside-down world, parallel universe where Chicago’s Cubs — the used Charmin of the National League — are now the equivalent of the ’27 Yankees.
I guess that would make Maddon Captain Kirk. I don’t know who Arrieta is. Probably Spock, with that Vulcan nerve pinch of a fastball. Then you got Rizzo, Bryant, Ross, Fowler, Lackey, and so on, as Scotty, Bones, Chekov, Sulu and the rest of the crew of the Star Ship Wrigley … going where no Cubs have gone before. Fascinating.
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One of my favorite things about baseball is that no matter how long you’ve been following the sport, somethin’ happens in most games that you’ve never ever seen before. I used to think this applied to everyone but the Cubs, cuz year-in and year-out, you could pretty much count on tomorrow’s game being a carbon copy of today’s game, which was a bona fide duplicate of yesterday’s game; another notch in the loss column. Not any more, pal. Last year we took a major detour from the yellow brick road, and this year … well … this year we fired up the John Deere, set the height to “zero” and have been mowing down anyone and everything in our path. In that regard, I guess we’re still sorta monotonous, but in a really friggin’ good way.
So anyway, yesterday I’m watchin’ us against Pittsburgh, right? It’s early — just in the 2nd — so the wheels haven’t come off the Pirate ship yet, when a grounder gets tapped up the middle. Lester grabs it (nice job). But now he’s gotta throw it to first and, as we all know, that can definitely present some things you’ve never seen before … like the ball ending up in Section 134. But this time, it’s so friggin’ jammed in the webbing of Lester’s glove, he can’t get it loose. Unbelievable. But does he panic? Hell no! He wads the whole thing up — mitt and all — and heaves it to Rizzo for the out. Now I’d never seen that before, but here’s what really blew the foam off my medicine: The same two guys (Rizzo and Lester) did the exact same thing last year — almost to the day — at Wrigley. I don’t know how the hell I missed it. I coulda been playin’ hide the salami with the missus, which is about the only thing that can throw me off my Cubs game. Who could blame me?
I’m not sure what this does to my theory about something new happening in every game. For those of you that saw it last season, it doesn’t hold. But for those of us who missed it due to a land slide or tornado or some other force of nature — oh … it was a force of nature, alright — it was new to us this time around. Anyway, it was such a genius move it was worth a little deja vu all over again. In Yogi we trust.
Joe
PS. You wanna see something you’ve never seen before, and that will make you get down on your knees and pray you never ever have to see again? Take a look at Lester’s post game attire. A fashion “don’t” of galactic proportions, it illustrates the single most amazing achievement in all of sport: A blind man can pitch in the Major Leagues. No wonder the guy can’t throw the ball to first base. He can’t friggin’ see it.
So, I’m watchin’ the Cubs unload on the Pirates tonight and, at some point, one of the announcers says, “… and the Cubs have a commanding lead.” At which point the lovely Mrs Schlombowski utters, “That’s a phrase we’re gonna hear a lot this year.”
No wonder I love this woman.
You might think this would be expected. No, not the fact that I love my wife. Rather that the missus of a ginormous Cubs fan would be an equally ginormous Cubs fan. Not the case, my friend. The wife puts up with my Cubs obsession the best she can. For example, she only went partially ballistic when I shaved the Cubs logo in my chest hair. She let’s me hang my W flag on our front door. She knows players; Rizzo, Bryant, Arrieta, LaStella. I even get her to a game now and then. And … AND … she wears the Cubbies t-shirts I get her. Let me tell you, my friend … “Cubs” on a t-shirt on the missus … best use of typography I’ve ever seen. Still, to say the missus is a Cubs fan would be like sayin’ Hillary Clinton is a swim suit model. Uh-uh.
My rather long-winded (thus typical Joe Schlombowski) point is this: The missus may not be Chicago’s biggest Cubs fan, but that didn’t keep her from dropping a Socrates-like observation on me tonight. It’s the kinda thing that never occurs to someone conditioned to saying “Wait ’til next year” by the mid-season classic. Anyway, the missus really pine-tars my bat … especially when she’s wearin’ a Cubs t-shirt. Hoo boy, I love that woman.
Joe
