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WHAT’S IN A NAME? MORE THAN YOU MIGHT THINK, PAL.

· 2016 Cubs, Joe Sez · , , , , , , , , ,

BALL-PLAYER-NAMES

“Guess there’s a little Slim Shady in all of us.” — Eminem

Okay, I’ll admit it, sports fans. Rap and hip-hop music sound about as good to me as a shattered glass enema. I graduated high school in 1978 and grew up with an eight-track in the Pinto that I stuffed with Bob Seger, Joe Walsh, and Ted Nugent’s Double Live Gonzo. Look, pal, I don’t know if the real Slim Shady ever stood up or not, but I can tell you this: havin’ a first name you hate so much that you gotta change it to Eminem is tragic. (And, oh, by the way, that whole melts-in-your-mouth-and-not-in-your-hands thing is a load of crap. Holding a handful of those babies for more than, like, two minutes at Wrigley in August will make you stickier than Bill Clinton at a White House intern orientation.)

Which brings me to the point of today’s lesson, Cubs lovers. Take a knee.

In addition to being hard rock axe men who paved the musical way in my hay day, Seger, Walsh and Nugent have something else in common: they all have real, honest, hard first names. Hey, if the name on my birth certificate was Marshall Mathers, I might have a sweet candy alias too. But it’s not. I’m Joe. Joe Schlombowski. And names — front or back — don’t get much harder than that, my friend.

See, you got hard names and you got soft names. Hard names are bestowed on the fortunate sons of men who ignored their wives’ pleas to taint their new bundle of joy with a sensitive ringtone. Hard names, like Bob and Joe and Ted, and like Alex and George and Dan and Mike and Hank, are coughed off the tongue, dripping with masculinity and other admirable character traits. Like John Cusack said in The Sure Thing, “Nick’s the kind of guy you can trust, the kind of guy you can drink a beer with, the kind of guy who doesn’t mind if you puke in his car.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself. Of course, John — uh, yeah, that’s a hard name — is a devoted Cubs fan who’s been known to lead the Wrigley Faithful in Take Me Out to the Ballgame.

Soft names, on the other mitt, reek of maternal coddling. Avery, Ashton, Todd, Caleb, Joshua — all of them conjure up the image of a friggin’ fat kid with a notoriously soft Justin Bieber haircut whose only playing Little League so his overbearing, Boeing Apache mother can bring him a lemon Gatorade and Fruit Snacks in the dugout every other inning. I mean, have you ever heard a coach yell, “Goddammit, get in front of the friggin’ ball, Jasper!” without makin’ Jasper cry? Of course, not! Coach has no time for a kid with a soft name; he wants a dirty, tobacco-chewin’, fist-fighting animal named Rusty who drinks from a muddy water hose only after the game’s over.

The Cubs have a roster chock full of hard first names. Anthony, Ben, John, Joe, Danny: hard, hard, hard, hard, hard. And Jake? Like a ten-peckered billy goat, pallie.

Still, there’s cause for concern.

Kris?

I’m sorry, was it Jesus Krist? Me thinks not. Stop making shit up! Spell it with a C-H as the good Lord intended, and you firm up immediately. Hell, you might hit a hundred homers!

Jonathan?

Please. Using your full first name when it’s got a perfectly good abbreviation is a play made by guys who work at Nordstrom’s makeup counter. You may have been Jonathan at home when you forgot to pick up your marbles, but on the field you’re John — JOHN! with a friggin’ H!

And Addison?

Uh, got a nickname, kid? Like Spike, maybe? Use it. And have your driver’s license reflect the change. By far the softest name on the club.

And then there’s … Theo.

Theo? You guessed it, pal. Softer than Elton John’s bed sheets. An eephus pitch with a little extra taken off. And so close, too, because “Ted” is an unquestionably hard name — one given to some real bad asses, like the aforementioned Motor City Madman, whose guitar is so loud he can knock the balls off a charging rhino at sixty paces (did I mention the Double Live Gonzo album?). Tragically, somebody — perhaps his mother or some spoiled Harvard frat buddy called Skip or Thad or Corbin — somebody thought “Ted” wasn’t cute enough. They got that right, sports fans. “Theo” reminds me of the cotton candy I see meltin’ in the cheap seats. Hey, don’t get me wrong. Your name could be Alice and if you got me to the World Series I’d take a bullet for you. So far, the calls Theo’s made have been remarkably strong and the Cubs have sat on top of the baseball world all season. But I’ll be honest with you, sports fans, I’m about as comfortable as Robin Ventura at a Ryan Family reunion.

Here’s why.

Early this season, the Cubs and the White Sox got out of the gates hot, and it looked like we were headed to the Windy City War this fall. But the Sox, slapdicks that they are, folded like a used condom and are now struggling to stay above .500. Meanwhile, the Cubs marched on to a 12 ½ game lead over the Cards by June 18. Since then, however, a few things have happened: First, we lost four in a row — twice — before losing five in a row. Uh, enough said. Second, Jake’s ERA in July was 5.55, which on paper means the Cubs need to score six runs to win when their best guy is on the bump. That’s askin’ a lot of any team hitting in the Majors today, even the 2016 Cubs. By the All-Star Break, we were still in first place, but the Rangers, Nationals, and — God, I hate saying this — the friggin’ Giants all had more wins than we did. Worst of all, we had won just twice in our last ten games, and the Cardinals were only seven games back. Now they’re just 6 ½ back — well within striking range — with 59 games left to play.

No habla espanol, but with a 104 MPH heater, I’m thinkin’ Aroldis Chapman has a hard first name. Provided Theo’s latest acquisition punches out more opposing hitters than he does the women in his life the Cubs should be headed to the playoffs, where having led bell-to-bell will mean zippo, my friend.

But I digress.

Mama’s, you don’t have to let your babies grow up to be cowboys. But if they do end up riding a ranked bull someday, they’ll have a better chance of hangin’ on for eight seconds if they can say their first name without makin’ themselves sound like, well, a Harvard frat boy.

Joe

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR.

· 2016 Cubs, Joe Sez · , , , ,

BASEBALL-WISHES

Hey there, turn signals, Joe Schlombowski here; a little bruised and banged up emotionally from yesterday’s opener with the Mets. I had been lookin’ forward to this series all season long, and not being able to just get to it and settle the score was makin’ be break out. It was like being a snarling rottweiller on a 5 foot leash with a juicy slab of porterhouse steak dangling 6 feet away. I fully expected Joe and the boys to rip them to shreds, and the way the game started, it was lookin’ pretty much like I was right. Bryant, once again, was channeling himself. (Normally I would say he was channeling Babe Ruth or Reggie Jackson, but I think Bryant bein’ Bryant is about as explosive as you can get right now. Oh … and for any of you San Francisco fans wonderin’ why I didn’t mention Barry Bonds? Bite me. He’s a cheat, everybody knows he’s a cheat, and on top of that he’s a jaggoff.) Anyway, Mr Bryant got us off to a really nice start, thank you very much.

So did Lackey. The guy was on cruise control until his arm started farting in the 5th. Weird. Happened in the 5th in his last outing, too. Still, I was a little surprised Joe yanked him when he did. Yeah, sure … Cespedes launched one of his pitches into a geosynchronous orbit around Neptune, but that was pretty much it. Me personally? I think Joe pulled out the hook a skosh too soon. It’s easy for me to say that, cuz … you know … that hindsight thing is in play. But holy monkey droppings, did all 4 wheels come off the wagon then, or what?!

Now if I was politically correct, I’d say Peralta was less than stellar. But I’m not. He sucked. He walks pinch-hitter Alejandro De Aza, then dishes an RBI single to Brandon Nimmo. If there’s one thing that drives me to drinkin’ — never mind … everything drives me to drinkin’. But I have a hard time with relief guys who come in and start walkin’ hitters. That’s the polar opposite of relief, my friend. I mean when pitchers are yanked it’s usually cuz they’re havin’ a hard time. Relievers are brought in to do what the guy before ’em couldn’t, not the same damn thing. That’s why it makes no sense to me to have guys in that roll that hold the friggin’ flood gates open with ball 4. Sure, everybody is gonna give up some hits, but any reliever that’s got an arm full of walks oughta be workin’ at 7-11, not pitchin’ for the Cubs.

So, the first two wheels are off, and up comes Neil Walker. He hits a bouncer to second. No prob, right? Right. Baez charges, and with his momentum carryin’ him toward third, he logically fires to Bryant to nab the guy at the corner. Woulda been perfect except his throw makes like a 747 and flies all the way to the fence. Two more runs to score. Two more wheels are layin’ by the side of the dugout, and basically the whole game is up on blocks.

Hey, mistakes happen. That’s baseball. But 1) Why the hell do they have to happen against the friggin’ Mets? And 2) When they DO happen, where the hell are the bats the Cubs were usin’ in April; the ones that woulda slapped a few more Cubs hits, along with some Mets’ egos for even thinkin’ they could beat us again? For a minute there in the 9th, it looked pretty good; two in scoring position with no outs. Nice. But then Jeurys Familia unloaded that 98 mph closer crap on us. Is that even legal? Isn’t there some sorta speed limit cut fastballs? Anyway, game over.

Tonight will be different. As a Cubs fan I gotta believe that. Of course if it isn’t … and let’s say (and this ain’t easy for me) that we lose every game to the Mets during the regular season. I’ll take that if it means we spank the crap outta whoever we play in the post season. And really … isn’t that what we’re all wishing for anyway?

Joe

WHO NEEDS TO FIND BOBBY FISCHER WHEN YOU’VE GOT JOE MADDON?

· 2016 Cubs, Joe Sez · , , , ,

JOE-MADDON-CHESS-MASTER

Boris Spasky? Garry Kasparov? Bobby Fischer? Pfft. You wanna talk about the grandest master of ’em all, you’ll be throwin’ the name Joe Maddon around, my friend. If you saw last night’s game, you know exactly what I’m talkin’ about. If I didn’t know better — but I do, cuz guys were wearin’ uniforms instead of suits, and the game was in Cincinnati not Reykjavik — I’d have sworn I was watchin’ a great chess match.

Maddon opened with the Zobrist Attack — nearly impossible to defend against — and then began to slowly and methodically dissect the Reds like the pawns they are. It was masterful; different than the night before, though, where he basically commanded the entire game with a single piece — a tactic known as the Bryant Challenge. But last night … last night’s middlegame was almost cruel. Maddon lulled the Reds into a sense of over-confidence by toyin’ with ’em. Even lettin’ them back in the game when he had a chance to close it out. This is known as the Rondon Gambit. There are similar Gambit moves — the Wood, the Grimm and the Stroup — that Maddon will attempt on occasion, but last night he went with Rondon.

You could see the Reds thinkin’ they had an opening, especially when they shut the door on the Cubs with their semi-brilliant (nothing the Reds do can technically be called “brilliant”) execution of the Votto Defense. But then Maddon started movin’ pieces around like a friggin’ tornado and exchanging ’em like teenage girls sharin’ a closet; Grimm for Rondon, Goghlan for Almora, Szczur from left to center, Edwards for Grimm, Montero to Edwards’s spot then Cahill for Edwards. This kinda chess-like mastery continued for the next 5 innings, with Maddon makin’ one of his most blinding moves — the Patton-Wood castling — in the 14th. Filthy. Really filthy.

It wasn’t until the 15th, though, that Big Joe pulled out the rarely-used Javier Baez Slam. An end game I don’t think anyone expected, least of all the Reds. That just friggin’ crushed whatever hope they’d been clinging to and 3 outs later … check-friggin-mate, my friend.

Tip of the Joe cap to you, Joe Maddon. That was 4 hours and 43 minutes of brilliance.

Joe

LOOK! UP IN THE SKY. AT THIRD BASE. IN RIGHT FIELD. OVER AT FIRST. IT’S SUPERMAN!

· 2016 Cubs, Joe Sez, News · , , , ,

KRIS-BRYANT-SUPERMAN

Unless you’re still weeping over the fact that Game of Thrones is done for the season, you know that Kris Bryant leapt a few tall buildings in a single bound last night on the way to becoming the first player in Chicago Cubs history to have 16 total bases in a single game. Those came at the expense of the Cincinnati Reds in the form of 3 yard shots and 2 doubles. In fact, no one in the 177 years we’ve been playin’ the sport of baseball has ever had that particular combination of five hits in a game. Not even once. Seems to me parents oughta be marchin’ their kids by a plaque somewhere that commemorates this feat of basballian heroism.

The last time I saw the kinda power Bryant put on display last night was when the Soviets paraded their military might through through the streets of Moscow. I’d suggest marching Bryant through the streets of whatever city we happen to be in, but he’s not that kinda guy. And that’s the part I like best about Kris. You won’t see him flippin’ his bat, or standin’ at home admiring one of his dingers, or showin’ up another team. He just goes about his business and lets the performance do the talkin’. Bryce Harper, put your comb down for a minute and pay attention.

What makes this even filthier than it already is, is the fact that he did it while playin’ 3 different positions. There are certainly exceptions, and the Cubs are filled with players who qualify, but most guys get all twisted when you move ’em around the diamond. It throws their games off. Bryant? He could care less. And why? My theory is that his game is a whole lot more about the team than it is about Kris Bryant. He doesn’t ever get sucked into a mind-funk if he’s goin’ through a rough patch, or he’s battin’ in a different spot in the order, or he’s playin’ right instead of 3rd. There’s no Hollywood in Bryant. Bryce Harper, I said put your comb down and pay attention.

Anyway, you can catch the details from Jesse Rogers or  David Schoenfield or ESPN or Jesse Rogers again, or maybe graffitied on a box car somewhere. It’s everywhere. I don’t even think Donald Trump can say something that would derail this story for a few days.

That was some game, Kris. Thanks for the memory.

Joe