Life is good, Cubcakes. I used to wake up, slide out of the fart sack and pray to the Polish gods that we might actually win a game. Now? Well, I can’t wait to jump out of … of … okay, it’s still a fart sack (hey, I drink Old Style and eat Red Hots from a Pez dispenser, what’d you expect?) then pay my respects to Joe-Joe Maddon, the Polish god IN OUR DUGOUT, and wonder not if were gonna win today, but by how much. Yep, life is good north of a .700 winning percentage.
But let’s put the present aside for sec, uhm-kay? With the 2016 MLB Amateur Draft starting today, June 9 is all about the future: the stars of tomorrow that will lead each club to the Promised Land.
Or so they hope.
It ain’t that easy, Moses. I mean, who in the wide, wide world of sports can forget Shawn Abner? Just about everyone, that’s who! Abner was the first pick in the ’84 draft, ahead of guys named Bell and McGwire and Mullholland and Charlton and Maddux and Glavine and Moyer. Hearda them? Save for his mother and a handful of pals he grew up playing Whiffle Ball with in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, Smokin’ Joe Schlombowski is one of the few people on the planet who remembers if Abner knew which end of the bat to hold. He did, but barely. Point is, first-round picks ain’t a sure thing.
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Well, cheese doodles, tonight was either a bona fide come-from-behind, never-say-die, skin-of-the-teeth victory, or a brutally honest look at our bull pen. Depends on how you wanna look at it, but since I have an almost mythical knack for finding the cloud wherever there’s a silver lining, I feel the need to point out the obvious flaw in what seems like a World Series team; our bull pen. Watchin’ them tonight was like eyeballin’ a petri dish coated with some disgusting stuff you can’t pronounce swarming around in random ways you can’t predict. And whatever that stuff is, you don’t want to touch it, and you sure as hell don’t want it wearin’ a Cubs uniform.
All I can say is thank you, God, for Joe Maddon. This was like some sort of baseball experiment tonight, where the Cubs were in a Phase II trial to figure just how comatose they could be and still win. Maddon, though, was the mad scientist, mixing things up in crazy ways, and putting parts where they don’t belong until he effectively willed a win out of what appeared to be a collection of inanimate objects. Seriously … how can the Cubs make like friggin’ Ironman for the first 5+ weeks of the season and then turn into Boy George against one of the worst teams in the league? Boggles the mind.
As good as we’ve been (and we’ve been damn good) and as masterful as Dr Maddon is (like a Casey Stengel version of Einstein … or vice versa) tonight’s showing against the Brewers illustrated with the clarity of a Miller High Life bottle that our bull pen is definitely the weak link in the Cubbies chain reaction. They walked 6 guys. SIX! I thought bull pen guys were supposed to throw strikes. That’s why they get brought in in the first place … cuz the previous guy couldn’t throw strikes. I mean if we wanted to keep walkin’ guys we’d just leave the first guy in, who was doin’ a fine job with that already, Right? Even Wood, who got the win by gettin’ out of a spectacular hole he dug for us, and gettin’ walked himself with the bags loaded, probably woulda had a different outcome if it hadn’t been for some of Maddon’s chess moves.
On the other hand, the Cubbies did come away with a win tonight, even if the bull pen was channeling Mitch Williams most of the time. Question is, what kinda pen do they wanna be? The kind that’s directly responsible for an increase in Chicagoland cardiac deaths, or the kind that inspires the sale of (name of Cubs reliever here) jerseys? We’re gonna find out. No question about that.
Joe
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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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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I find it mildly ironic that the candy-assed St Louis Cardinal organization has banned Joe Maddon’s “Try Not to Suck” t-shirts from their ball park. Cardinals spokesman Ron Watermon said the word “sucks” is on a list of curse words forbidden to appear on clothing in … get this … “Busch” Stadium.
That’s right. “Busch.”
I think you know where I could take that, my friend, but I’m not as petty as Mr Watermon or whoever came up with their list. The word “suck” happens to be part of everyday language in America. It’s part of the jargon. So, Mr Watermon, while you’re un-wadding your delicate little panties, you should know that it doesn’t take on any meaning beyond “you’re no good at something” unless you have a sewer for a mind, or you also define what’s being sucked.
Hey, Watermon … I got a definition for ya.
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Now that we’ve got that “Back to the Future II” prediction out of the way, here are a few truths (and not-so-truths), from the Sun-Times perspective, about the ’16 Cubs. I’d like to note that the Sun-Times likens Maddon’s “embracing the target” approach this season to George Custer embracing the target of the Sioux Nation in 1876. I’m canceling my subscription.
Joe
