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CABRERA’S TANTRUM REVEALS THE HIDDEN “S” IN “ASDRUBAL.”

· Joe Sez, News · , ,

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Hey there, double wides. What’s shakin’? (Besides Asdrubal Cabrera’s voice, that is.) The Mets activated the self-proclaimed center of the universe from the DL before yesterday’s game and listed him as the starting second baseman. And what did he do? He got his jock strap twisted all up in knots, and started cryin’ to the press about it.

Full disclosure: I don’t have any first or even second hand knowledge that Asdrubal (Wouldn’t his natural nickname be “Ass?”) actually claimed to be the center of the universe. But any trouser snake that huddles the reporters to announce he’s “not happy about the move to second base” and “has asked his agent” to facilitate a trade, thinks he’s the friggin’ big bang itself.

News flash, Asdrubal … you ain’t no Ernie Banks, my friend.

He ain’t Derek Jeter, Ozzie Smith or Cal Ripken Jr, either. And as much as I can’t stand that gargantuan cheat, A-Rod, the fact of the matter is that he was a helluva good 6. Better than Asdrubal could ever hope to be … even in his wildest fantasies. (The baseball ones. Not the ones involving a whip cream-filled hot tub and every last model from the 2017 SI Swimsuit Edition.) In spite of how good he was, the Yanks still moved A-Rod to third. Did he go all Veruca Salt on ’em and demand a trade? No, he did not. He acted like he was part of a team. (He also acted like a total douche bag, but that’s a whole other TMZ topic.) Anyway, the last time I checked, baseball was a team sport. Even the version the Mets try to pawn off.

This year’s record aside, the team sport thing is a concept that the Cubs have perfected. Take third baseman, Kris Bryant, for instance. He spelled Rizzo at first yesterday, but you’ll see him roamin’ the outfield a lot, too. How ’bout Baez? He’s a shortstop that plays second base, cuz we got Addy at short. He’ll play third, too, like yesterday when KB was covering for Riz. Last year’s World Series MVP, Ben Zobrist, was brought to Chicago to play second, but when Baez came along, Zo headed to the outfield, though still plays second, too. Contreras and Schwarber, both catchers, also play the outfield.

Now, you could load up Chicago’s clubhouse with all the NSA spy shit you want, bug every cell phone, intercept the collective social media streams of the entire roster, and you ain’t gonna hear a single whining peep about gettin’ moved to whatever position. That’s called team baseball. You do what’s best for the team in team baseball, unlike whatever it is that Cabrera plays, in which he does — or at least expects to do — whatever is best for Asdrubal. Not only that; in a move that would put him at the top of his class at the Alex Rodriguez School of Douche Bags, he punctuates his ass-holian behavior by publicly announcing his dissatisfaction with the Mets’ decision. He’s gotta be a natural blonde.

So on one hand you’ve got former Rookie of the Year and NLMVP, Kris Bryant, playing first and left and right, instead of his natural position, third base, without turnin’ into Kanye West. And on the other you’ve got Cabrera, a mediocre glove, an average bat, and an arm like my sister demanding to be traded cuz he’s been asked to start at second base instead of short. Can you detect an attitude difference there? Any at all?

Joe

SOMEWHERE IN A CORN FIELD LIES KYLE SCHWARBER’S SWING. HE’S HEADED TO THE FARM TO FIND IT.

· 2017 Cubs, Joe Sez, News · , , ,

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Hittin’ a Major League worst .171, it’s no wonder there’s a cast on Schwarber’s bat.

Word is out this mornin’ that the Schwarbmeister is headed to Iowa to see if that’s where he left his swing. A temporary setback for the Kyle-driver and the Cubs, but maybe a good thing, nonetheless. Funny how a guy can lose his swing in Chicago and find it in Des Moines. Somebody oughta invent a Find My Swing app or somethin’, where if you’re normally the spittin’ image of Babe Ruth, like Schwarber, but then somehow turn into Mario Mendoza, you just open the app and — presto — there’s your swing! In the corner of the friggin’ dugout the whole time!

Or maybe there could be some kinda lost-and-found for stuff like swings, exploding fastballs, command of the strike zone, or your gold glove — whatever happens to be missin’ and because of that has turned, say … the former human no-hitter, Jake Arrieta, into the current no-way-he’s-gettin’-a-$250-million-contract Jake Arrieta. If we had one of those, Schwarbs could just go rummage through the big, overflowin’ box of sun glasses, cell phones, umbrellas and the occasional folded and dog-eared picture of Scarlett Johansson and … voila! … the swing! Findin’ it there would always be a huge relief cuz there are a ton of guys who, if they happened across Babe Ruth’s swing lying around, wouldn’t turn it in. They’d show up at a Major League tryout tryin’ to pawn it off as their own.

Isn’t that right, Mets fans?

Anyway, Schwarber is on his way to Field of Dreams country. Hopefully it won’t be too long before he starts hearin’ voices — something on the order of, “If you come, we’ll rebuild it.” Seems like if you can get a bunch of dead ballplayers to come back to life in Iowa, doing the same thing for a swing oughta be a piece of cake. And — no disrespect to Schwarber — he does look like he knows his way around a cake. Know what I’m sayin’? If it works out, I can think of another 24 guys who could use a little AAA tune up.

In fact, I’d like to see the whole AAA thing bein’ applied to other jobs besides baseball. For instance, that team we got in Washington — mind you I’m talkin’ about the whole friggin’ ball club; Republicans, Democrats, the lot of ’em — is about as productive as a box of hair. They don’t even have the friggin’ fundamentals down. You’d have to send ’em all the way down to low A. You know, for the ultra-basic crap … “This round thing with stitches … this is a baseball.” That kinda stuff. To which half of ’em would reply, “Hey, coach, can you take it a little slower?”

I’m lookin’ forward to seein’ Mr Schwarber back in Chi-town, with his swing back to the “stand back or you could get hurt” setting. In all honesty, I don’t know if Iowa is gonna make that much difference, cuz 99 times out of 100, when a swing is misplaced, you don’t have to look any further than that patch of grass between your ears to find it. But, hey, if the smell of corn or the sound of hogs (7 of ’em for every man, woman and child in Iowa) will put the fear of God back in Schwarbs’ swat, I’m all for it.

Joe

CUBS LAUNCH A PROMOTION THAT P.T. BARNUM WOULD HAVE ENVIED.

· 2017 Cubs, Joe Sez, News · ,

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Hey there, weed whackers. The other day, I was readin’ in the Trib that the Cubs are sellin’ individual ivy leaves from last season. FOR $200 A PIECE! Shipping, handling, taxes and brain surgery (which is what you need if you buy one of these things) are not included. I was so flummoxed ($10 rare word bonus) that it’s taken me until now to gather my thoughts.

“There’s a sucker born every minute.” — P.T . Barnum

A box of rocks. That’s what comes to mind, right off the bat. And in spite of the fact that no one would ever confuse me with Stephen Hawking, at least I know how to count to ten without usin’ my fingers, I know the Earth ain’t flat, and I know that anyone payin’ $200 for a single leaf of ivy, allegedly plucked from Wrigley’s outfield wall after the Series last year, is dumber than a friggin’ box of rocks. Or maybe a hub cap.

I feel compelled to warn any of you rocket scientists out there that already plunked down a couple of bills for your hologrammed yard clipping (and you know who you are) that, in spite of the deceptive name, urinal cookies are not for human consumption. It’s a head-scratcher purchase of gargantuan proportions, my friend — like I could wear a hole in my noggin with that kinda scratchin’. Seriously. You gotta wonder how the hell anyone who’s sittin’ next to their mailbox — probably drooling — anxiously waitin’ for their leaf-in-a-box, ever got successful enough to achieve “premier” status (which I thought was somethin’ you got for spending half your life in the friendly skies, by the way) or afford Cubs season tickets. That’s who gets a shot at this botanical rip-off. 2016 of ’em. Cute number, if not a bit obvious. Anyway, I’m at a total loss to explain why some weed whacker who probably spends his days asking the question, “Would you like fries with that?” has the scratch for season tickets. Makes no sense.

Which brings up a few questions of my own:

1) Can anyone be 100% sure — hologram and all — this ivy is actually from Wrigley and not Mrs Yonkers side yard? 2) Let’s say it is … how do you know it was clipped last year; the World Series year? 3) If it really was, why have the Cubs waited until now to go moron hunting? 4) Is it because moron season doesn’t open until mid-June? 5) Which is longer — moron season or baseball season? 6) Is there a limit on morons? (Not in St Louis.) 7) Besides foliage clippings and shiny objects, are there other equally-effective ways of attracting morons? 8) Wouldn’t DC be a waaaaaay better place to hunt morons than Chicago?

And here’s one more: What about the nickel-and-dimin’ Cubs? The least they could do for fans — no matter how bird-brained — who leverage the college fund to buy season tickets is GIVE ’em an ivy leaf. Every damn one of ’em, too, not just a couple thousand. I mean, how opportunistic can you get?! I don’t need to remind you that it took this franchise every last minute of 108 years to bring us a World Series title. How do they thank us for stickin’ with ’em through 4 generations of abject suckitude? They jack the wombosi outta the ticket prices, that’s how. And they’ve topped that off by preying on idiots, and servin’ up a team that looks a whole lot more like the 2012 Cubs than the 2016 Cubs, thank you very much.

“Nobody ever lost a dollar by underestimating the taste of the American public.” — P.T. Barnum

This all takes me back to P.T. Barnum, who invented “the greatest show on Earth.” And it might have been, until last year’s Cubs-Indians World Series which was — no friggin’ question — the absolute greatest, most electrifying, ulcer inducing, bouncin’ off the walls show on Earth, Mars, Jupiter and any other planet you can come up with. Barnum created the circus and made his fortune off what he called “suckers.” As a lifelong Cubs fan who’s gotten to celebrate as many as ONE championship in 56 long, wait-until-next-year seasons — including the current reasonable facsimile of 1977, which so far has pretty much been a circus itself — I’m seeing a lot of similarities between Ricketts and Barnum, and Cubs fans and suckers.

Of course, I could be wrong. But I’m not.

Joe

DUMPIN’ BRYANT FOR THE HARP IS DEFINITELY NOT MUSIC TO MY EARS.

· 2017 Cubs, Joe Sez, News · , , , ,

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I have, for my entire 56 years, believed that Cubs fans have more character than … well, Mets fans, for example; that mid-westerners (except, of course, for St Louis fans), by nature, are way nicer than your average finger-flippin’ yay-hoo in a Phillies cap, and smarter than your typical show-up-late-and-leave-early Dodgers fan; that people who faithfully stick with a team through multiple lifetimes of abject futility, bad trades and nonexistent bullpens are the sort you want in your fox hole.

The Peter Gammons Principle.

This week, ESPN’s Peter Gammons brought all that into question by absent-mindedly suggesting Bryce Harper would like to play for the Cubs. The REAL story, though, isn’t whether Harper actually wants in, it’s how some Cubs fans are responding to it. Gammons’ statement has shined some light in the dark corners of the collective Cubs fan mind, revealing a few disgusting thoughts scurrying around like cockroaches. I gotta tell ya, I’m pretty friggin’ appalled, and feel the need to Orkin these guys. More on that in a minute.

Gammons’ initial remarks, and clarified, retracted, back pedaled, follow-up explanation on the subject of the Cubs signin’ Bryce Harper, and the possible ramifications of such a move, started a firestorm — albeit a speculative one — that would rival the inferno that burned Chicago to the friggin’ ground 150 years ago. Most of it confirmed my theory about the character of Cubs fans. Some of it, though, proves that every walk of life has some percentage of the genetically inferior.

And I’ll fully grant you that the little bit of gray matter I’ve got between my ears pales in comparison to some molecular biology, graduated-with-highest-honors Princeton grad. But I can tell you this, my friend … I’ve been rackin’ it day and night since Gammons’ wild and unsubstantiated speculation, yet I still can’t figure how some of the crap I’ve read can come from the mind of a Cubs fan.

For sure, the media is part of the problem. True to form, they jerked an offhand comment by a famous baseball writer right out of its context, and twisted it all up into a controversy pretzel. And probably on purpose. That’s today’s shit-stirring media for ya.

As for Gammons himself, he should know better. When a guy like him says, “I have people tell me that Bryce Harper really would prefer to play for the Cubs,” it means something. The rest of the sports press is gonna pick it up and run with the fucker. I swear, if Gammons farted, the sycophantic ($10 word bonus) press wouldn’t point fingers and curl their noses, they’d wanna talk about what it smelled like and compare it to other farts. To me, Gammons did the sports equivalent of a Trump tweet — said somethin’ outrageous and unsubstantiated — and now everybody has their jock straps in a wad.

It may very well be true that Harper would, to quote Gammons, “prefer to play for the Cubs.” Not a great insight, cuz who the hell wouldn’t? I’ll bet if you surveyed every active player, and they answered honestly, the vast majority would say the same thing. We’ve got Theo, we’ve got Jed, we’ve got Joe. We have Brizzo, Arietta, Zobrist and Baez. Contreras and Davis. Heyward and Russell. Lackey, Lester and Schwarbs. If you don’t wanna be a part of that, you probably don’t wanna have a naked pool party with the last 12 Playmates of the Month, either.

Still, sayin’ somethin’ like that nearly 2 years before your contract with the Nats runs out would be a classless thing to do. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not suggesting, intimating, hinting or otherwise insinuating that Harper did anything at all like that. Maybe he said nothin’. Maybe he said stuff to his friends in confidence. You gotta be able to do that without some sports hack floatin’ rumors on you. It also doesn’t matter one iota (How much is an “iota” anyway?) if I personally happen to think Harper is the kinda Milton Bradley douche burger that would crap on his own team. The bottom line is there’s no evidence that Harper said jack, and for Gammons to hang that out there over the plate like a waist-high Carlos Marmol meat ball, wasn’t journalism, it was sensationalism.

In the words of John McEnroe, “You can’t be SERIOUS!”

Gammons’ motivation aside, I’m positively dismayed at some of the reaction by Cubs fans to this story. The comments posted to this article, for example, include the following:

Everyone assumes the Cubs would want to keep Bryant around for a long time, because he’s a great player. But Bryant’s first year as a free agent will come at age 30. Harper’s first free agent year will come at age 26!!!! It makes loads of baseball sense to want to have Harper for ages 26-33 (or whatever) more than to want Bryant for ages 30-37.

Harper’s free agency is still two years away and there are so many teams and variables to think through so it’s still a long shot that the Cubs will sign Harper. But really, from a baseball perspective, it is a no-brainer to take Harper at age 26 and wish Bryant well at age 30.

To which I respond with one word: Loyalty. It’s somethin’ I hold in the highest regard. Like a pizza from Lou Minatti. Along with honesty and integrity, it’s part of what defines character — somthin’ in short supply these days. Loyalty is the defining characteristic of a true die-hard Cubs fan. (That and a well-endowed beer gut in a mustard-stained tee shirt.) How else can you explain the complete lack of logic that goes into unconditionally loving the perennial doormat (until 2015) of the National League? I get the “baseball perspective” the guy above refers to. I just think it’s the kinda perspective that’s warped by a lack of character.

Dumpin’ Bryant for Harper would satisfy his one-dimensional argument, but not take into account the pinheadedness of cuttin’ out the soul of our team in exchange for a questionable clubhouse force. Winnin’ with what we already got isn’t a bad or necessarily impossible thing. We already did it once. We don’t need the Harp to do it again, and we don’t need to say sayonara to KB at age 30. Should the Yanks have cast away Jeter, Posada or Rivera at 30? Only a moron would have made those moves.

Lemme put it to you this way: If you’re datin’ Samantha Hoopes, do you F that all up by also tryin’ to date Kate Upton at the same time, with the ultimate plan to cut the Hoopester? No, you do not. You see where Sammy can take you, which I’m pretty sure would be somewhere between nirvana and heaven.

Let me introduce you to Marsellus Wallace.

The Cubs have somethin’ special, my friends. If they didn’t, jaggoffs like Harper wouldn’t wanna come here. In a perfect Joe Schlombowski world — the baseball one, not the Swedish Bikini Team one — the Cubs would hoist two or three more trophies before this group starts to suffer from the aforementioned “baseball perspective.” I suppose that’s inevitable (like the air quality resulting from a sixer of Old Style and a couple of Chicago dogs). But why orchestrate it in exchange for Papalbon’s punching bag?

Unfortunately, not everyone agrees with that. Like this guy:

And I also think it’s foolish to assume that the Cubs can automatically re-sign Bryant. He may want a change of scenery. IMO, if you have a chance to sign Harper and let Bryant walk, you do it.

I’m sorry, but people who think this way should have their Wrigley privileges revoked. Additional sanctions involving boiling oil and fire ants are on my list, too, but run afoul of the Geneva Conventions. Besides, what’s more cruel and unusual than never again being able to set foot in the Friendly Confines? Maybe the Marsellus Wallace treatment, but that’s about it.

What guys like this don’t understand is that there happens to be a lot more to winning than gettin’ the most expensive (sometimes equals “best” often times doesn’t) player in the game to sign on the line which is dotted. It’s a crap strategy that usually guts a team financially, which totally undermines the friggin’ goal.

Two words: Barry Bonds.

On top of being a cheat, a liar and the Darth Vader of the Giants clubhouse, Bonds viewed himself as the epicenter of the baseball universe. Even more assholian, he expected his teammates to do the same. The bloated Bonds ego was matched by just two things, his paycheck and his body — the latter, the result of nothing that he ever admitted to, but that Helen friggin’ Keller coulda seen with her own two eyes. The Giants won exactly zero rings with Bonds, but about 5 minutes after they cut him loose and used his ransom for some good pitching … BOOYA! Three of ’em in 5 years. Pissed me off, I’ll tell ya, cuz I hate the friggin’ Giants.

You do see my point, right? And at least Gammons gave it a nod, himself, sayin’ that the cost associated with havin’ both Bryant and Harper on the same team would be prohibitive.

We don’t need a Harp to play “Go Cubs Go.”

I suppose there’s maybe a .000001% chance that the two yay-hoos I quoted up there were captured by the ISIS of baseball, St. Louis fans, made to kneel in Cardinal red jump suits and forced to say those things on video. I’d like to think that, cuz any Cubs fan freely willin’ to write off Bryant and bow to Harper represents a warped view of the Faithful — a radical Bryce Harper version that promises 72 season tickets for helpin’ to bring the Harp to Chi-town.

The Cubbies may not be havin’ the year they did last season … yet … but they are the defending World Series champs. They did that with Bryant. What has Washington done with Harper?

Joe

CUBS HONOR FOWLER IN DEFIANCE OF THE JOE SCHLOMBOWSKI SPECIAL THEORY OF RELATIVITY.

· 2017 Cubs, Joe Sez, News · , , , , ,

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When Dexter “Benedict Arnold” Fowler returned to Wrigley yesterday you’d have thought Halle Berry was walkin’ through the aisles naked handin’ out $100 bills. The place went full on Mt Vesuvius. It was almost as if he’d stepped onto the hallowed grounds of Wrigley Field and right then and there … on the spot … accessed the public address system to announce that he was activating some sorta double-secret Jared Kushner back-channel clause in his contract that returned him to the Cubs for the duration of the season.

Did he do that? No.

Still, the Cubs faithful made a spectacle outta Fowler’s return to Chicago — a guy who not only chose to leave a World Series Champion team, he defected to the baseball equivalent of ISIS. At least to the Cubs. If you’re a real Cubs fan — not the safe-spacing, snow flake, powder puff kind that marches to Katie Perry’s “just unite and love on each other” mantra — then you know that in spite of all the great crap Fowler did for us last year, he’s dead to us now. That’s why yesterday’s fan reaction boggles my Old Style altered mind.

When Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader, did you see the Rebel Alliance embracing him when he came back to deal with that whole Dantooine thing? No, you did not. But yesterday, when the Cubs presented Fowler with his World Series ring, they did everything but have the Blue Angels buzz the friggin’ stadium. I grant you, he earned it. But if the ring exchange had been planned by me, 1) it woulda only happened if Theo had put a gun to my head or threatened to make me eat ketchup on my Chicago dogs and 2) I woulda placed his Series bling in plain sight somewhere in Garfield Park and invited Fowler to a game of Finders Keepers.

And the fans? They were just as goo-goo-eyed. They delivered an ovation for the ring thing, and then another one when Fowler goes yard in the first off Lackey. SERIOUSLY?! You’re gonna cheer a guy hittin’ a home run against us? And of all people a St Louis Cardinal?! In-friggin’-credible. That’s like throwing a parade for Osama Bin Laden or inviting Kim Jong-un over for Sunday Night Baseball. You never ever ever never EVER cheer for a Cardinal. Ever.

Now I know trades go both ways, and when we raided the Cards lineup before last season, I was plenty happy about that. Still not gonna throw any parties for St Louis … but a thank you note? That might have been appropriate. I can’ t imagine any die-hard Cardinals fans were firing up a Cuban or turning cartwheels, though. And I don’t blame ’em. Hating your arch rival is like jock itch, moronic questions from the media, and $14 Budweiser — it’s part of sports. The size of the rivalry should dictate the amount of prescribed venom. It goes something like this:

H = rc²

That’s the Joe Schlombowski theory of relativity, where hate (H) equals the rival (r) times the speed of light (c) squared. And lemme tell you, pallie, when you multiply St Louis by the speed of light squared, you get a number that’s light years away from givin’ Dexter Fowler a friggin’ ovation.

This whole thing raises a number of questions: What kind of a Cubs fan would cheer for a Cardinals player? Should they be summarily ejected? Should fans be required to submit to random “fan testing?” Should that test be multiple choice, essay or both? Should failures be reported to the proper authorities? Who are the proper authorities? If there are proper authorities, doesn’t that imply that there are improper authorities? If John Mellencamp were to fight these particular authorities, would they still win? What happened to John Mellencamp? Why did he drop the “Cougar” from his name? Is a cougar the same thing as a MILF? What does “summarily” mean? I’m definitely going to lose some sleep over this.

Joe