Hey there, flap jacks. I freely admit that I’m not ever 100% sure what Theo is doin’. Hell, I’m not even 27% sure. But then that’s why he’s runnin’ the best baseball team in an 800 light year radius and I work in a sausage factory. I’m not complaining. Me and sausage are like Bert and Ernie, milk and cookies, Rogers and Hammerstein. But I think we can all agree that runnin’ the Cubs is a better gig, and definitely comes with the kinda fringe that puts my annual Christmas bonus case of red hots on the top of the shame pile. And hey, kudos to Theo. The Cubbies are treating the rest of baseball like a baby treats a diaper. Love it.

But this Shalamar trade with the A’s for Chris Coghlan? I don’t get it.

Why trade for a .260 hitter? (Only a .146 hitter if you’re talkin’ just this year in Oakland.) Does the name Mendoza ring any bells? Yeah, I know … the Cubs have a few banged up guys, and a little backup will help get us over the aches and pains. But c’mon. Coghlan … that’s it? Mmm-kay, he knows the system. I’ll give you that one. He can play a few different positions. Especially the 7 and 9 spots where, with Schwarber gone for the duration, Soler hurt and Heyward outta the lineup occasionally cuz of his Ironman imitations, he can band-aid things for us. Versatility is good. But if he’s SO friggin’ good why the hell did we broom him in the first place? Riddle me that, Batman. (Hey, me and sausage are like Batman and Robin, too.) It’s got a bit of odoriferous desperation to it, which I hate smelling … not because it’s questionalble … but because Theo made the move even though it seems that way.

This is where me not being even 27% sure what the hell Theo is doin’ sandpapers my hiney. Cuz either I gotta just bow to the altar of Theo’s brain, and trust that he knows somethin’ about Coghlan that ain’t very apparent in his numbers, or there’s somethin’ happening around the corner that no one but Theo can see, and he’s layin’ the ground work for it. I hate friggin’ uncertainty. For the first 54 years of my life I could count on the Cubs being 20 games out by the mid-season classic. This year and last, I’m surprised if we lose. I like that. I don’t like wonderin’ what the Cubs see in a .146 hitter that they traded less than a year ago. Now there’s something magically delicious about him?

Is it gonna be better the second time? We’ll see. I love the taste of crow (or pigeon, in this case) when it comes to this kinda thing.

Joe

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.

Good thing, too, cuz thanks to John Lackey, we don’t get one.

That’s right, bat racks, the draft wheel will turn nearly three full times before the Cubbies make their first pick — the 104th overall. Hell, I could be dead by then. Like all sports drafts that matter, clubs pick in reverse order of their previous season’s finish, which is why the Phillies get first whack this year, and why Braves and Twins scouts, caffeine-high as they’ll need to be, are already hittin’ the road with an eye on the 2017 class. There will be no rest in the Big Peach or the North Star State for at least a year. Makes me feel all tingly inside.

Theoretically, the Phillies would get the first pick in all forty rounds. But then there’s this thing called “compensation picks” which turns the draft order into somethin’ that resembles the Christmas lights I unpack on Thanksgiving Day. This year, we gave up our first two picks to the Cards when Theo signed the Dental Giant and Jason Heyward. I get that. But someone’s gotta explain to me why MLB rewards teams by givin’ them preferred draft spots for not signing their top picks from last year’s draft. Makes zero sense to me, but then Carlos Marmol couldn’t close a a friggin’ umbrella either, and we paid him $9.8M in 2013. Idi-friggin-otic.

But I digress.

The point is, don’t put too much stock in this week’s draft, pallie. We’ve only got five first-rounders on our 25-man roster. And we sure as hell ain’t home grown (only four Cubs were drafted into the organization). Like it or not, it ain’t Ernie’s Cubs anymore. Free agency’s our thing. We’ve got money and we spend it like Jason Kidd at the Pink Monkey. Enough with the future; it’s draught time, as in icy cold Old Style. Now, where’d the missus hide the remote?

Joe

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.

Still, we hope. And we have good reason to. When Harvard got here, and brought all that new-fangled baseball science with him from Boston, we expected something to happen. Of course, we expected something to happen when Lou was here, too, when the Tribune Company dropped $300 million on payroll, but it didn’t. Lou was like the embodiment of 100 years of pissed off Cubs fans; kicking dirt and screaming at umpires. Even though we loved that (and the umps always deserved it) that wasn’t  gonna get us to the Series. Fun to watch, but ultimately about as effective as Carlos Marmol. Epstein, on the other hand, took a crap ball club, won a couple of rings, and then brought his Ivy League ass to Chicago, arrogantly thinkin’ he could do the same thing here. Full disclosure; I wasn’t convinced until after July last year. But now … now I worship at the altar of that arrogant Ivy League ass. Maddon has had a lot to do with it, too, but Harvard was the one who brought him and all this talent here. So, hey, credit where credit is due, my friend.

Which brings me back to the original question: What happens if the Cubs win the Series? Well, first I’ll have to change my underwear. After that, I can imagine walkin’ out onto the stoop where my big Polish nose will be greeted by a preponderance ($10 word!) of barbecued billy goat in the air — a foul perfume, and yet as sweet as honey. I expect there will be a fair number of morons settin’ things on fire, as if burning cars says anything other than how stupid you are. And I think Ricketts, Harvard, Maddon and the entire team may live the rest of their natural lives without ever … EVER payin’ for another beer.

It could happen. It could happen this year, if our bull pen doesn’t start serving up meatballs, like they did last night. Even without Schwarber, we got a shot. And if we WIN? Well … Like SI said, it’s the last great American sports story yet to be told. The Red Sox have already done their thing — three times, in fact. (Greedy bastards.) We’ve had the Miracle on Ice, Bo Knows, and Don Larsen’s perfect game in the ’56 Series. And who the hell can forget Nipplegate; the “wardrobe malfunction” (yeah, sure it was) at the Superbowl?! Really, the only thing left is us winning the last game of the playoffs.

That could change Chicago forever. People might actually start expecting the Cubs to win on a regular basis, not just once every century or so. Those may be uncharted waters, pal, but I’ll take ’em over that lukewarm kiddie pool we’ve been swimmin’ in for a hundred years, any day.

Joe

So here’s my take.

Obama? He’s your Mark Mulder type — smooooooth delivery; deceptive. Plus he’s a lawyer (like Scott Boras). I trust him about like Billy Martin trusted Steinbrenner. Then you got McCain. He’s like Joe Torre — been around a while; nice guy; spent time in a prison camp which, by all accounts, was almost as bad as working for the aforementioned Yankees owner. I think he’s here for the old-timers game, but that’s almost over. Anyway, it doesn’t really matter what happens, or whether you like one of these guys and hate the other one — or vice versa — you will be disappointed in the end, I guarantee. In 4 years we’re all gonna be shakin’ our heads wondering what the hell happened. Again. High hopes followed by disappointment: one helluva lot like being a Cubs fan, my friend. Plus, I don’t see either one of them getting serious about legislation that would outlaw the designated hitter, which is what America really needs.

Me? I’m gonna cast a write-in vote for Billy Beane, or Theo Epstein, or that toddler running the Rays. Hey, no matter what the situation or how much money they have to spend, they win. I mean comparatively speaking, all those A-holes sitting in Washington couldn’t build a 3rd place Little League team. And they’re spending trillions! You give Epstein a fraction of that bank roll and he’d have Ted Williams and Babe Ruth in the lineup again. I’m not kidding.

Anyway, I’m just sayin’ that picking Obama or McCain isn’t gonna make any difference. It’s all empty promises, french fry; a lot of I’m gonna do this and he’s gonna do that. A pissing match of global economic proportions, and none of it is gonna be good for Joe the voter. Hell, he didn’t even get mentioned. They talked about Joe six-pack and Joe the Plumber, but not Joe the voter. Personally, I’d like it a whole lot better if these two guys were a little more concerned with Joe the Schlombowski. How about freezing ticket prices at Wrigley … or making Wrigleyville a tax-free zone … or 50% rebate checks for Cubs fans? You know, something tangible. Plus there’s that totally inequitable situation with football having cheerleaders while baseball just has prehistoric ballplayers on the sidelines. That, my town-hall-meeting friend, is what you call discrimination. Has either one of those bozos brought that up? HELL no.

But more important than all that stuff is what happens tonight between the Rays and Red Sox. I say that because a Series between Tampa Bay and Philadelphia is a tragedy of catastrophic proportions. It’ll make the credit crisis seem like you didn’t get the prize out of your cereal box in the morning. I mean, the Rays and the Phils?! Who gives a crap?

Go Red Sox.

Joe