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.

Can you believe this? Rizzo’s got his name and mug on a cereal box. Let’s hope it’s the breakfast not just of champions, but of World Series champions in particular, my friend.

Joe

You know, when I was a kid, my parents used to get National Geographic. I used to thumb through it (for the articles, pal) and now and then there’d be a piece on volcanos. There were these awesome photos and fancy diagrams explaining how all this pent up raw power, buried inside the Earth, has to get out once in a while. And when it does, you got yourself a major league natural disaster.

Well, my friend, I think what we’re lookin’ at with this year’s Cubs is exactly that: the geological equivalent of Mt. Vesuvius or Mount St. Helens or Krakatoa or something. I mean the Cubs have been dormant for 107 years. Yeah, we shook up the Richter Scale in 1945, and had a few minor rumblings over the last 30 years, but it wasn’t until last year that people started wondering if the tremors on Chicago’s north side are for real. Based on pure scientific observation so far this season, I’d say it’s time to sound the Amber Alert system, cuz it’s looking like there’s a Prince Fielder-sized butt-load of molten Fowler, Rizzo, Zobrist and Arrieta that’s starting to explode on the rest of baseball.

You wanna talk natural disaster? I point you to last nights victory against the snakes. Rizzo lights up the entire state of Arizona with 6 RBIs and the Cubs go full-on ka-BOOM, lifting a 14 run ash cloud so thick they had to cancel flights outta Sky Harbor airport. That puts the Cubs at 3-0 this season (the first two against the Angels). Am I happy? Damn right. Am I counting on roasting a billy goat at the end of the playoffs? Not yet.

Why? Cuz in those 3 games, Maddon’s molten rock has left 71 men on base. SEVENTY-ONE! Sheesh. That’s like more guys than we put on base the entire month of June a couple years ago. Look at it that way and it ain’t that bad, especially with our pitching staff. But c’mon! You don’t have to be Bill James to figure out that stranding the equivalent of the entire paid attendance of a Durham Bulls game in just 3 nights will catch up to you after a while. Gotta do better bringing those guys around.

On top of that, Schwarber is down for the season. You don’t wanna see that no matter how deep your bench is. It’ll be good for Soler, Baez, Sczcur, and even Ross in terms of playing time, should improve their games and, as a result, improve the team as a whole. But it’s tough to replace the modern day Babe Ruth, in terms of his numbers at the plate and the effect I think he has on the rest of the guys. We’ll see how they respond tonight. If they channel the 2004 Red Sox, they’ll rise above Schwarber’s ACL. If they act like a bunch of girly scouts that didn’t sell enough cookies … well … I’m gonna kick in my friggin’ TV. And then I’m gonna go golfing cuz there won’t be any sense in watching them play like the Cubs.

That said, I’ve been following this team since I was in diapers (and I’ll be following them long past when I’m wearing them again) and I’ve NEVER seen anything like this, my friend.

Joe