Frustrated in Peoria…

I love Randy – our resident Cardinals fan who posts on this Cubs blog under the sub title “FROM THE RED STATES” - and I really enjoy his insights, but if you look at the last 4 posts, this blog is quickly turning into a Cardinals blog and I hope the other two alleged bloggers who profess to be Cubs fans are reading my frustration as I write this [AHEM].

Randy God bless you, you’re making us get off our rears and pound out sheer pabulum if nothing else.

SO, as a self-respecting Cubs fan (ok maybe self-loathing would be more apt in light of how the season is going), I simply had to post something, even though I don’t have much to say. So here we go: The Offense is Outrageous – the Bullpen is…well, they’re just plain Bad – and the Defense has been nothing short of Disastrous – but other than that – everything’s been peachy.

If you noticed, alliteration is about the only thing I can manage right now in my current state of mind - so please bear with me.

Oh yeah – the dude on this blog who has been the most positive about the Cubs team this year is a Cardinals fan! What the @#$%! does that tell you about the sorry state of this team? This team has only managed an 8-6 record their last 14 games and it’s been against the Pirates, Astros, Nationals, Mets, and White Sox – and of that bunch only the White Sox figure to be a legitimate playoff team if they can keep up that pitching (and yes interleague play is a joke and totally unfair as Randy pointed out. Six games can be the difference between making the playoffs and not - and this year [like the last] the Cubs have gotten hosed).

Oh and by the way, the Cubs’ record drops to 9-8 if you include the 2 out of 3 they dropped to the hapless Phillies in the series prior to the Mets – then it plunges to 9-11 if you include the sweep by Milwaukee, and then it gets even worse (10-13) if you trace their record back to the Astros series where they dropped 2 of 3 to what is turning out to be a really really bad team.

Disgraceful.

The pitching has been a problem – especially the bullpen. However, as bad as it's been, it's not the team’s most pressing concern. The number one concern has been (before the season ever began I might add) and it continues to be a consistent lack of offensive punch and until Jim Hendry adds a few legitimate power bats to this roster this team is going to continue to disappoint.

That’s a fact and all of the hoping against hope isn’t going to change it. Just watch it play out my friends.

Are we having fun yet?

Well the first month of baseball has come and gone. Indeed, it has gone about exactly as we expected before the season ever began - miserable. If you'll recall, when all the off season free agents were slipping away and the folks at 1060 W. Addison were repeating the same ridiculous mantra, "We're happy with the team we've got - blah, blah, blah..." to an increasingly frustrated fan base (or at least some of us) - we were insisting that the club shore up the offense and the bullpen. They did neither, because after all they were "happy with the team [they] had" (a team that looked slightly worse than last years underachieving squad), and as a result - after a month of baseball (and the schedule has been relatively soft no less) the Cubs find themselves 3 games below .500 and 6 games out of first place. Yipee-ki-yaaa...[You know the rest].

Gee, let’s see – what are the chances this team makes the postseason this year?

[Voice of reason answers incredulously and sounding very much like Jim Mora, Sr.]: Playoffs??!!!

And to make matters even better – the White Sox have the best record in baseball!!!

I can't wait for 5 more months of this!

Anyone who has been reading this blog somewhat regularly should have guessed that we were in for a rough season when the contributor from this blog who was the most optimistic about the Cubs team this year was a Cardinals fan!

:-/

Ok – enough of that. On another note, perceptive visitors will notice that we have recently changed the byline to this blog. It used to read, "News and Commentary about the Cubs Pompously Opined from the Home of the Cubs Low A Affiliate!" and we have since changed it to what you currently see above.

Do you remember that ESPN special last year entitled “Whose Curse is Worse?” It was a program which argued (in front of a judge and jury) which curse was worse – the Cubs or Red Sox. It was a great idea, and they even had John Williams from WGN radio on the program. Alan Dershowitz (who could successfully defend the devil in front of a human jury) represented the Red Sox while some schmuck (of course) represented the Cubs.

This should have been an open and shut case – there is absolutely no question the Cubs curse is worse (and last years World Series only serves to vindicate this truth by the way). However, since the Cubs curse truly is worse, they lost the case, and the jury denied them (by a vote of 11-1) even that ignoble distinction. So the Red Sox were awarded the worst curse honor and they proceeded to show their appreciation by winning the World Series – they didn’t even wait a year.

The counsel for the Cubs tried to seize upon the fact that there never was actually a formal curse pronounced against the Red Sox as there was with the Cubs. I knew we were screwed when in the closing arguments, the schmuck representing the Cubs tried to employ the late Jonnie Cochran Jr. strategy of using poetry in his closing arguments (“If there’s no verse, there is no curse…” – to which I was thinking “What the @$%&*??!!…”) – Dershowitz didn’t need to say a thing after that – the jury returned the verdict and the kangaroo court was dismissed. I hung my head in disgust – this verdict was another tangible reminder of whose curse truly was worse – the Cubs couldn’t even win at this! It was only fitting if you really think about it: The verdict was in - The Red Sox curse was worse – or so they would have us believe.

But for true Cubs fans, we knew the truth. Heck, we have lived the curse for goodness sakes – we don’t need a jury to tell us whose curse is worse!

So here we are - The season’s getting flushed down the tubes faster than Barry Bonds’ former stash of flax seed oil. Don’t blame Dusty – Don’t blame Jim Hendry – Don’t blame the injuries, or the bullpen, or Kerry Wood or Corey Patterson (ok – maybe you can blame him just a little bit) – these poor simpletons are only pawns – pawns who are simply playing out their roles in this great cosmic drama which has been predestined from eternity past.

It’s the curse folks – simple as that. And they only exacerbated things by blowing up the Bartman ball last year and then serving it up for consumption. There's no turning things back now.

Don’t look for meaning in any of this – just try to take some measure of satisfaction in the fact that there is a certain honor to be had in rooting for the only truly cursed team in baseball.