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ENOUGH WITH THE SLOPE STYE, TRIPLE LUTZ HALF PIPES. IN CHI-TOWN, IT’S TIME FOR SOME FRIGGIN’ BASEBALL.

· 2018 Cubs, Joe Sez · , , , , , , , , , ,

Hey there, toe loops. Joe Schlombowski comin’ at ya from PyeongChang via my Barcalounger, where I ask you: Is curling a sport? I’m still wrestling with that one. Speaking of wrestling — which IS a sport — I would totally like to see Sumo Slope Style introduced at the Winter Olympics — two 400 lb Michelin Men slidin’ down opposing snow covered hills in their diapers, then catapulted off the jump towards each other at 30 miles an hour, where they’d meet in mid air. KER-SPLAT! Whoever lands on his feet with his diaper intact wins. Friggin’ awesome!

Except for that dream I had the other night where that human popsicle, Scarlett Johansson, was my partner in Pairs Luge (another Olympic sport I’d like to see) Sumo Slope Style would definitely be my favorite new Olympic sport.

Anyway, I don’t know if curling is a sport.

Is bowling a sport? Cheerleading? Competitive eating, pool, frisbee golf? Regular golf? If those are sports then I guess you’d have to say, yes, curling is a real sport. If, however, you think curling is more like darts — a game played in bars by guys built like me — then, no, it’s not a sport. Oh, and if I alienated any golfers, just remember this: If you’re wearin’ slacks when you do it, it ain’t a sport.

Neither is any activity that has “twizzles” as a mandatory element. Real sports don’t have them. Hockey? No twizzles. Basketball? Nope. Baseball? Give me a friggin’ break, pal. Baseball has the hit-and-run, the suicide squeeze and stealing. Ice dancing, on the other hand, has twizzles … and stuffed animals thrown on the ice at the end. Baseball has Jon Miller. Ice dancing has Johnny Weir. (The “d” was omitted for obvious reasons.) And don’t even get me started on the uniforms. I mean … I have no friggin’ idea what the hell those ice dancer guys are wearin’, except to say that I’m pretty sure RuPaul has somethin’ to do with it. Then again, I could say the same thing about the D-backs uni’s.

After 2 weeks, I’m sort of all Olympic’d out.

It’s friggin’ endless. Like a Nancy Pelosi speech on snow. Don’t get me wrong, my friend. I think anyone goin’ 90 miles an hour on solid ice, head-first with nothin’ but their wits deserves a medal just for tryin’ it. And it oughta be made of brass to match the balls it takes to do something that insane. But holy craptoids! Enough with the twizzles and back-side McTwisted Salchows already! According to my commemorative Ernie Banks watch, the clock is about to strike baseball season. And that’s another thing. Baseball has a season — 162 games. And then the playoffs are bolted on to the end of that. The Olympics? A sissy 18 days. Keeee-ryste … I’ve taken dumps that have lasted longer than that.

NBC: The broadcast equivalent of yellow snow.

I’ve spent so much time yellin’ at my flat screen the past couple of weeks, I’m startin’ to think I’ve been possessed by Sam Kinison. Why? Cuz NBC’s Olympics coverage is a lot less about servin’ up the Games than it is about a diabolical experiment to figure how many commercials per hour humans can watch before they friggin’ explode. I lost count, but I think it’s about 600. Yeah, I know that’s impossible. But then so are Tara Lipinski’s chances of ever gettin’ her forehead to move again. If there was a gold medal for Botox, she’d own it, my friend. On the plus side, when the commentator thing dries up, she’s got a big career as a mannequin.

I just thank the good Lord that MLB, TBS and FOX bring us Major League Baseball. Are we’re stuck with that halfpipe, Joe Buck, for the playoffs? Yeah. But in a side-by-side comparison with NBC’s booth jockeys, he’s friggin’ Harry Caray. Which bring me to my favorite event — baseball.

So we missed a few gates last year. BFD.

Things got pretty ugly in La La Land last year, and not just for that triple lutz, Harvey Weinstein. The Cubs were like a bobsled team without a sled; a Lindsey without the Vonn; a curler without any stones! Any, hoooooo-boy … did we ever play like we had no stones. The Cubs swung the bats like Stephen friggin’ Hawking. If you combined that with Lance Barksdale’s East German judge-like strike zone, the Cubs’ minor league bullpen and baseball’s rule 7.13, you’d have an Olympics level “What Sucks the Most?” contest that a $5,000 hooker wouldn’t even qualify for! I give the gold to the bullpen.

Still, we did make it to the playoffs. Given the way we booted the ball around the diamond, and watched it sail by for much of the season, the fact that the Cubs ended up in the National League Championship Series (presented by Camping World) ranks right up there with walkin’ on water … and maybe some of that crap I’ve seen David Blaine do. For that, I lift a frosty, Winter Olympics Old Style to the Cubbies.

And … lest we forget our pre-2016 motto … this is “next year.” Hope springs eternal. Especially when the spring in question is followed by “training.”

Are we gonna make it to the podium this year?

Until 2016, I couldn’t give a Chicago style crapolla about that. Trouble is … now I know what it feels like to walk around with a virtual gold medal around my neck. So, yeah … I wanna hear the Star Spangled banner played in honor of the Cubs again. Is it gonna happen this year? Ask your Magic 8 Ball, pallie. Based on my prediction last season, that’ll work just as well. Besides, predictions are about as reliable as a Rahm Emanuel handshake. Ask Mikaela Shiffrin.

Right now I’d be tickled Cubbie blue just to put the Olympic torch to NBC’s coverage of the Winter Games — where in Gitmo-like fashion, they’ve forced us to watch 5 minutes of commercials for every 14 seconds of action. Since I can’t do that, I’ll settle for today’s Cubs-Brewers Spring Training opener.

Let the games begin, my friend.

Joe

THE SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS REVEAL THEIR CONSOLATION WORLD SERIES TROPHY.

· News · , , ,

GIANTS-GOLDEN-URINAL

Refusing to be denied, I see where the Giants have come up with a trophy of their own as a substitute for the one the Cubs snatched outta their halloween-colored hands in the playoffs last year. It’s not somethin’ I’d wanna put in my trophy case … But who am I to judge?

There’s a major league amount of Freud in the form the trophy takes, though — a golden urinal. I mean, one of the biggest juicers of all time, Barry Bonds — former Giants outfielder and home run cheat — tested positive for 3 kinds of steroids … not to mention amphetamines, the Incredible Hulk and two rottweilers. That’s what I heard, anyway, and all of it was found in his urine.

By the way, how’d you like to have the job of playin’ Sherlock Holmes with people’s wiz? In fact, who does want that job? Maybe it’s some kinda fetish thing — like wearin’ women’s underwear. (Calm down, Cardinals fans. I know you get all steamy when someone mentions that.)

Anyway, havin’ a urinal as the Giants’ trophy is priceless. And as I’m sure every Dodgers fan that ever sucked in a lung full of that brown crap Los Angeles calls “air” would agree, it’s perfect for the Giants.

Joe

HOLY COW! FINALLY, JOYFULLY, THE CHICAGO CUBS ARE GOIN’ TO THE WORLD SERIES!

· 2016 Cubs, Joe Sez, The Playoffs · , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

CUBS-WIN-2016-NLCS

“This is it! This is it! It’s two, they’re gonna turn two! Eeeaaaaaahhhhhhh!” The moment the ball was hit to Russell, I jumped outta my chair, screamin’ like a banshee. I don’t really know what a banshee is, but it’s gotta be loud and somewhat unhinged. (That would make my sister in law a banshee.) I bear hugged the missus who was already workin’ on a full set of raccoon eyes. If I was a woman, or Johnny Depp, I woulda had ’em too, cuz I realized she wasn’t the only one cryin’. That’s what happened at the Schlombowski household Saturday night. And I’ll tell ya … except for the Swedish Bikini team servin’ me beers without their bikini’s, blubberin’ like a newborn was the last thing I expected to happen. I guess the Cubs going to the Series means more to me than I thought it did … And believe me, I thought it would mean one helluva lot.

More than anything else, I feel gratitude towards Mr Ricketts who, as the Cubs owner, sorta takes a back seat to Theo, Jed and Joe in terms of getting credit for puttin’ this club together. But if it weren’t for Mr Ricketts, none of those guys would be here and, in all likelihood, our season woulda been over by the mid-season classic, like usual. So … thank you, Mr Ricketts. On the 10 million to 1 chance that you’re readin’ this, I want you to know how grateful I am that you brought Major League Baseball to Wrigley Field. Yeah, there’s always been some sorta reasonable or unreasonable facsimile, but until you started signin’ the checks, it’s never been anything like this. Thank you for givin’ so much joy to so many people who have patiently waited for so very, very long. We do, however, need a sit down about concession prices, my friend.

Full disclosure: I was more than skeptical at times over the last 5 years. 55 seasons of nothin’ will do that to a Cubs fan. So for me, bringin’ in Theo wasn’t an instantaneous Kyle Schwarber moon shot. Not that I didn’t wet myself with excitement when Theo first signed. I mean he came with the Red Sox miracle on his resumé, which was huge. Still, it took a while before all the ingredients started to come together. That’s when the intoxicating aroma of Theo stew with Maddon sauce started wafting out over Wrigleyville, and I realized that Mr Ricketts was really baseball’s Charlie Trotter. So sue me if I’m a little slow on the uptake. Nobody except Javi Baez is perfect, pal.

“Try not to suck.” That was the mantra this year. A Joe Maddonism that’s Yogi-esque in its utter simplicity and purity. And the Cubs lived up to every bit of it. They did not and do not suck, my friend. The same can’t be said for the Dodgers. Sorry, it may be unsportsmanlike to kick your opponent when he’s down, but somethin’ has got to be said about what happened to the Dodgers and their messiah, Clayton Kershaw.

Personally, I wasn’t surprised in the least. Kershaw had squeaked by with a 1-0 victory in game 2, in spite of the fact that the Cubs couldn’t hit water if they fell out of a boat. Goin’ into Saturday night, though, with the Cubs’ bats turned up to the 50 megaton level the previous two games, it seemed obvious that Kershaw could be in trouble. Of course this was the last thing most people expected. Why? Cuz of the sycophantic baseball writers and broadcasters, who for a week had been pourin’ Kershaw syrup all over everything. Especially Joe Buck, whose lips have gotta be surgically attached to Kershaw’s buttox. I got sick and friggin’ tired of hearin’ about some new, lower delivery angle and how devastating it was gonna be on our guys. “When?” I ask. Best pitcher in baseball? Once, maybe. Unhittable? Like your mama. I’ll take Hendricks, Lester or Arrieta over fuzzy wuzzy any day of the week. And twice on elimination days. Between Kershaw and Hendricks, the latter was the superior pitcher this year, in every respect, most especially when it really mattered. So baseball press, can we please shut the hell up about Jesus Effing Kershaw, and how Dave Roberts is such a genius manager? It’s nauseating.

One last thing on this point: Hendricks pitched to the minimum number of batters. As did Chapman. Meaning game 6 was only the second time in playoff history — the other being Don Larsen’s 1956 World Series perfect game — that that’s been done. So, again … zip it on the Kershaw blather.

I know everybody is lookin’ forward to tomorrow night, but I think some of the fun and games from Saturday bear repeating here:

Toles hits the first pitch of the game into right for a single. The Dodgers were jumpin’ around in their dugout like a bunch of Girly Scouts who just got their first training bras. Two pitches later there were two outs and the bases were empty, and Javier Baez was tucking his cape in. LA took the field in the bottom of the 1st with a goose egg on the board.

In our half of the first, Fowler says hello to Kershaw with a ground rule double, and Bryant brings him in with a shot down the line. 1-zip, Cubs. In a Rorschach moment, the non-abbreviated version of F-U Dodgers blurted outta me. Don’t know what the psychology behind that is, but it felt like it needed to be said.

Somebody in the booth mentions that the Cubs are  47-13 when Fowler gets on to lead off a game. I’m guessin’ that Toles had his rabbit ears on when they said it, cuz instead of makin’ a routine catch, he channels Keith Moreland and drops Rizzo’s routine fly. We end up with guys on 2nd and 3rd. A sac fly by Zobrist scores another run. 2-nothin’, Cubs. Time for another Old Style. We leave Rizzo at third, but at this point in the game, with Hendricks on the mound and the Cubs bats in perfect working order, I’m startin’ to wonder how long it takes the club house crew to prep things for a champagne shower.

In the top of 2, Baez, Mr Steady, blows an easy one. Call me crazy, but I say he did it on purpose so Hendricks could pick Reddick off of first. Which is what he did.

Addi hits the 3rd double of the night and it’s only the 2nd inning. What a shame. Kershaw? More like Kershawshank, and definitely in need of redemption at this point. Instead, Fowler brings in Russell, and I have that same Roarschach moment.

The 3rd. Rizzo. Another double. Uh … that’s 4, so far, right Kershaw? I guess it’s hard to pitch when you’re walkin’ on water.

In the 4th, Joe Buck offers some of his unique wisdom by stating, “This place is crawling with blue.” No shit. It’s the Cubs and Dodgers. Blue is the color for both, you putz! Too bad all the rocket science and brain surgery positions were filled when Buck got outta school. The world missed out.

Contreras goes yard. Rizzo goes yard.

In the 8th, Toles appears to be checking his email on the field. Or maybe checking in for his flight back to LA. Seriously. If you recorded it, go back and look.

When Joe pulls Hendricks for Chapman in the 8th, again, I’m not so sure that’s a good idea. I mean given recent history with that move. But another double play later I understand the difference between the mind of a savvy baseball genius and one that’s under the influence of Old Style. Yes, I started early.

Which bring me back to where I started — a series-ending double play that’s sent the Cubs to the World Series for the first time in 71 years, and me to the bathroom for some tissues. Not to sound ungrateful or appear greedy, but 4 more wins would be nice.

Joe

THE DEAFENING SOUND OF A BUNT HAS AWAKENED THE SLEEPING GIANT.

· 2016 Cubs, Joe Sez, The Playoffs · , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

AWAKEN-SLEEPING-GIANT

The bunt. No one likes to bunt. Pitchers bunt, but that’s cuz they can’t hit. Except for Cubs pitchers — who CAN actually hit — which means they don’t like to bunt. There’s no majesty in a bunt. No glory. Not a single player has ever been signed to a multi-year, silly-money contract cuz he could lay down the perfect bunt. You won’t see the Bunt Derby substituted for the Home Run Derby at the All Star Break. Ever. They don’t hand out plaques at Cooperstown for tappin’ the ball down the line. And no fan will ever bid a hundred grand for a ball that went 37 feet. Most of the time, a bunt means you’re willing to give yourself up for the cause. It’s noble in that regard, but in the arsenal of offensive weapons, it’s the BB gun.

Yet, with all 10 mph of its minuscule exit velocity, last night’s bunt, by Ben Zobrist, was perhaps the most powerful blast of the night. Yeah, yeah … Rizzo and Russell went yard. But I say that four run 4th doesn’t even get started without Zobrist makin’ the bunt heard ’round the world. It was the catalyst for the entire 10 run barrage, and simultaneous collapse of the Dodgers’ ability to play defense. In fact, if you consider what happened from that point forward, it would be more accurate to call it a lionalyst or tigeralyst than a catalyst. Name it what you want, Ben’s willingness to get the ball rolling by … uh … getting the ball rolling was what it took to CPR the Cubs offense. In psychological terms, that bunt was a 500 foot moon shot over the center field bleachers.

After that, the genie was not only outta the bottle, he was grantin’ just about every single wish that could possibly come to the mind of a Cubs fan. At least the ones that can happen in front of 54,449 people, and that don’t involve Salma Hayek, Scarlett Johansson and a can of Reddi Whip. We’d gone 21 innings without so much as sneekin’ a peek at the plate, and had accumulated just 6 hits in 60 at bats in games 2 and 3. For a while there I was hopin’ we could pull Mario Mendoza outta retirement. Instead, Zobrist ignited the Cubs’ jets by doin’ somethin’ most clean-up hitters probably have written outta their contracts. What followed was epic.

Four runs in the 4th. Monkey? What monkey?

In the bottom of the 2nd, Adrian Gonzalez is called out in a close play at home, but on review it’s plainly obvious that he was safe. Still, the bozos in New York uphold the call. That was baffling. I mean what’s the point of havin’ reviews if the umps in New York are gonna leave their seein’ eye dogs at home?

A one-run 5th. After givin’ back a couple of runs in the bottom half of the 4th, Rizzo says, WTF, and takes one of ’em right back.

During this particular at bat, Rizzo starts headin’ to first on what he believes is ball four, only to be called back by the called strike of home plate umpire, Angel Hernandez. Then, in the words of Harry Caray, “ho-leeeee coooooowwwwwww!” Instead of standin’ on first with a walk, Rizzo deposits Pedro Baez’s pitch in the bleachers. Don’t know if he said anything to Hernandez when he crossed the plate, but I think a thank you would have been in order.

How ’bout five more runs in the 6th? Cubs world, Cubs world! Party time! Excellent!

Rizzo and Russell gather 3 hits each, and both had round-trippers. I don’t know how many times that’s happened, but I can’t imagine it’s been very often.

In a game where just about everything goes right for the Northsiders, Zobrist gets a second bunt single, of the swinging variety this time, makin’ it a multi-hit game. This one involved a close play at first, and Zobrist was originally called out. But the review went in favor of the Cubs, again, and the call was reversed. This time, New York got the call right.

Like Zobrist, Fowler, too, has a couple of hits, including a double.

Contreras unloads the Guns of Navarone on Justin Turner, pickin’ his bushy red ass off — not first, not third, but second. Awesome.

The Dodgers, who made just 80 errors over the course of the regular season, make four in this one game. So no matter how much Adrian Gonzalez whines about that call at home plate, or how much momentum he thinks was stolen from them as a result, the Dodgers dirtied their own diapers, defensively, last night. They LOST the game. AND they were beaten. And how did they handle it? Like you’d expect. They were moanin’ louder than the entire stable at the Moonlite Bunny Ranch.

Montgomery, in keeping with the hitting prowess of the rest of the staff this post season, bangs out a single.

Heyward, although 0-5 and pretty much as anemic at the plate as he’s been all year, has a couple of good at bats, one that ended up drivin’ in a run.

All in all, things were different last night, for both ball clubs. The Cubs finally started playin’ like the Cubs, and the Dodgers had their season-long luck run out, followed by a heapin’ helpin’ of sour grapes in the clubhouse afterwards. Given the trouncing we took in games 2 and 3, it would give me a world of satisfaction to tell LA to “go get your shine box” right now. But it ain’t over. It’s down to the best 2 outta 3. No room for mistakes.

Though never definitively proven, Isoroku Yamamoto, architect of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, was believed to have said afterwards, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” I think LA unleashed their Pearl Harbor in games 2 and 3, and now the sleeping giant is wide friggin’ awake.

Joe

THE LYNYRD SKYNYRD GAME 3 SUMMARY: “OOOH THAT SMELL. CAN’T YOU SMELL THAT SMELL?”

· 2016 Cubs, Joe Sez, The Playoffs · , , , , , , , , , ,

NLCS-GAME-3-CUBS-DODGERS

Was that the Chicago Cubs I saw in Dodger Stadium tonight, or a Sears tower-sized turd? I think the latter.

At first, when the whole pre-game thing filled the ball park with instant smog, just to remind everyone where the hell we were, I thought maybe that was makin’ our guy’s eyeballs water, which would explain why they were havin’ so much trouble seein’ the ball. But as the game wore on, it became apparent that what was really happening was the Cubs has succumbed to the whole “Hey, look, Larry King is sittin’ like … RIGHT THERE” thing. Whatever it was, stars or smog in the eyes, Chicago swung the bat tonight like Helen Keller. Blindfolded. I kept hopin’ LA would put a 10 year old girl in to pitch, cuz I know we couldn’t get a hit off a 12 year old one.

It pretty much went like that for most of the night. Then, in a move that makes about as much sense as Donald Trump, Maddon decides it’d be a good idea to pinch hit Heyward for Russell in the 7th. I grant you, right now Addi with a bat in his hand is about as dangerous as Mother Theresa. But I’m at a total loss to explain Heyward as the stick of the moment. You have Wilson Contreras on the bench, who can actually make contact with the friggin’ ball, by the way, but Joe goes with the most over-paid, underperforming player in Major League Baseball. You pull one no-hit bat (Russell) for another, and what happens? What the F do you think happens? He watches a strike 2 meatball go by that Louis Braille woulda tattooed, then wildly swings like a kid at a piñata party at a pitch that was in the next time zone. What’s the logic, Joe?

We can’t even get a friggin’ sacrifice when we need one. Of course if it were up to me, we’d tie Kershaw down on a makeshift altar, sprinkle him with a little Beverly Hills poodle blood or somethin’ and set his ass on fire. There’s your sacrifice, pallie. Maybe that would appease the baseball gods, which seem to be extraordinarily pissed off at the Cubs right now. Even if it didn’t, we’d have at least done something to help our chances against these Hollywood yayhoos.

Rizzo’s 9th inning stroke-of-luck, broken bat, squeeker of a hit was a symbol of what Chicago’s offense has been throughout the playoffs — a shattered remnant of it’s former self. That hit — and it was a helluva lot more like a 50 foot putt than a batted ball — brings Rizzo’s average up to a scorching .077. Watch out!

The Cubs have now gone 18 consecutive playoff innings without crossin’ the plate. Besides being a King Kong-sized, steaming pile of inept crap, that means our offense just broke their previous playoff record of 16 scoreless innings, set during the 1906 World Series … which we lost. I’m just sayin’. When your season is only 7 games long, maybe less, you can only go so far if you can’t hit the damn ball. There aren’t another 155 games to even out the slumps. If the Cubs wanna have a chance at puttin’ the curse to rest, it’s time they started swingin’ the bat like the Chicago friggin’ Cubs, not the Elmhurst Little League Cubs. No offense, Elmhurst.

Joe

Tonight’s fun facts: There are no fun facts tonight. There are facts, but none of ’em are fun. 1) The Cubs were 4 for 31 tonight. 2) We struck out 10 times. 3) We also left 11 guys on base. See what I mean? No fun.