THE OFFICIAL JOE SEZ BLOG-O-RAMA

WHERE CUBS FANS RULE, AND SOMETIMES DREAM ABOUT SLIPPING EXLAX INTO THE CARDINALS' GATORADE.

THE FULL JOE’S BLEACHERS WEBSITE: COMING SOON TO A DEVICE NEAR YOU.

· News ·

JOE SCHLOMBOWSKI AS TRUMP

Hey there, filibusters, Joe Schlombowski, here. In my best Donald Trump voice, I want to tell you that the new Joe’s Bleachers website is gonna be great. It’s gonna be fantastic. It’s gonna be really, really great. Believe me. No one will have a website like Joe’s Bleachers and everybody is going to love it. It’s gonna be one of a kind and totally unique. I mean it’s going to be amazing.

Only the blog is up and running now, but the rest of the site is under construction. I’ve hired the best digital people in America, the best money can buy, and believe me no one is even in their league, they’re so good. I’ll let you know when the site is ready, which will be very soon. As soon as we think it’s ready … ready for you and the rest of the American people. And especially Cubs fans, who are the BEST fans in baseball. In ANY sport, they’re the best. Nobody has better fans. And they deserve the best, which is why I’m having my people (who are also the best, by the way) build it for me. It’s going to be great. There won’t be anything like it in Chicago, or even in the world, believe me.

So take a knee, sports pundits, cuz the rest of the site will be ready in almost no time. And when it is — I think by the All Star break … my people are looking into it … but soon — you’re gonna love it. I love it, and believe me I know what I’m talking about.

Joe

THE TRUTH (OR NOT) ABOUT THE ’16 CUBS.

· 2016 Cubs, Joe Sez · ,

JOE-MADDON

Now that we’ve got that “Back to the Future II” prediction out of the way, here are a few truths (and not-so-truths), from the Sun-Times perspective, about the ’16 Cubs. I’d like to note that the Sun-Times likens Maddon’s “embracing the target” approach this season to George Custer embracing the target of the Sioux Nation in 1876. I’m canceling my subscription.

Joe

SLIDE RULES BELONG IN PHYSICS CLASSES, NOT AT SECOND BASE.

· Baseball Rules, Joe Sez · ,

SECOND-BASE-SLIDE-RULES

Okay, cotton balls, take a knee.

Is it just me, or has the tendon that connects Rob Manfred’s cranium to his sphincter suddenly grown long enough to wrap around his man grapes?

As if the bonehead 30-second clock wasn’t enough to boil the cholesterol in my blood, the Commish’s office just approved a slide rule at second base. A slide rule at second base? Are you dry humping me? I thought we already had two slide rules at second base: 1) you better slide on a double play, so the shortstop’s throw doesn’t knock your teeth out; and 2) unless you knock the shortstop on his ass trying to break up the double play, don’t bother coming back to the dugout — just leave five hundred big ones on the skipper’s desk and beg his forgiveness at the hotel bar. Maybe he’ll let you play again in … oh, I don’t know … A FRIGGIN’ MONTH!

What are we a bunch of milksop, namby-pamby, pantywaist powder puffs since Reuben Tejada made the mistake of turning his back on Chase Utley in the seventh inning of Game Two of last year’s NLDS? Utley plays hard — frankly, I wish he was Cub — and, yes, he turned Tejada into a rag doll and ended his season. But you know what else Utley did? He sparked a friggin’ four-run rally that lifted the Dodgers over the Mets in Game Two of last year’s NLDS. (God, I hate the Mets, but that’s another story.)

What in theee HELL has baseball become under the new Commish? Well, I’ll tell you, pal. We got the Buster Posey Rule at home; the Chase Utley Rule at second; and coaches reporting to spring training two weeks before pitchers and catchers so they can practice running sprints from the dugout to the mound without having a friggin’ coronary.

Hey, Robbie, you know who plays with a slide rule and a clock? College kids, that’s who. Hey, if I wanted to watch kids play I’d drive the Pinto up to Northwestern. No, thank you, Mr. Womanfred. I want to watch MEN play — hard-nosed, hairy-backed, tobacco-eatin’ men like Ty Cobb who’d wipe out a second basemen just for standing NEAR the bag. Slide rule? Please. What’s next Robbie, friggin’ Cross Out?

Joe

DID SOMEBODY CUT THE CHEESE, OR WAS THAT ROB MANFRED WITH HIS 30-SECOND CLOCK?

· Baseball Rules, Joe Sez · , , , ,

ROB-MANFREDs-30-SECOND-CLOCK-STINKS

Tighten up, melon balls.

I got a craw, and there’s something jammed in it pretty tight. Actually, really tight, you know? Like pickles. Sardines. Like a Krakus canned ham. Know what I’m sayin’?

It’s called the Commissioner’s Office and it’s got me feeling a little salty.

Far be it for yours truly to criticize the genius sitting in that particular ivory tower, but didn’t Bud Selig retire? I kinda hoped when he broke wind in his high-back leather chair for the last time he’d be taking his ham-fisted decisions with him. (Can anyone say inter-league play, and a 7-7 tie in the FRIGGIN’ ’02 ALL-STAR GAME?!)

No such luck, pallie. It seems while I was outside grabbing some air after Selig finished crop dusting the room, Rob Manfred stepped in to give us — after, like, nine hundred years of sports perfection — a clock on the field to limit, of all things, the time a coach takes to start and finish a mound visit. I’m sorry, cheese doodles, was that a problem? I got news for Robbie: the only thing wrong with the game is the amount time I spend waiting for the Old Style vendor to reload. Other than that, the game’s fine. Leave it alone.

Let me spell it out for you, sports fans: the commissioner is going to make the game better by speeding it up. And the way he’s going to do that is by starting a 30-second clock when the coach leaves the dugout on his way to the mound? Hey, I’m all for fast games — win or lose inside two-fifteen, I say. Nobody likes their infielders falling asleep, and since they stop pouring beer in the eighth … well, I start to get a little parched. Know what I’m sayin’? But is making a coach run to the mound and back really the answer? Hey, Robbie, you think for two seconds how much time it will take for the paramedics to resuscitate Chris Bosio when he collapses on the infield grass? Hell, Lou could light up a pitcher for thirty seconds before he crossed the foul line. Makes no sense to me.

Want to make the game faster, Robbie? Lose the DH in the sissy league, instant replay, and inter-league play. And for God’s sake stop letting TV dictate when the next pitch is thrown.

Joe

ROGER EBERT AND THE BAD NEWS CUBS.

· 2013 Cubs, Joe Sez, News ·

ROGER-EBERT-DIES

Roger Ebert, perhaps the best movie critic EVER, died today. A moment of silence, please.

Thanks.

I was thinking that there are some parallels between watching movies for a living (like Mr Ebert did) and being a die hard Cubs fan (like you and me). I mean when you’re being paid to critique movies, you pretty much gotta see the credits roll in every piece of crap Hollywood dishes. And I mean crap with a capital K, pal. How ’bout Hansel and Gretel, or Oz the Great and Powerful? And lemme tell ya, if anyone knew the difference between a good movie and a turd, it was Ebert. How he could sit through stuff like that, I’ll never know. And maybe he couldn’t. There’s a rumor going around that he died from complications resulting from watching A Good Day to Die Hard, perhaps the worst 97 minutes excreted by Hollywood in the last 10 years. And I’m a Bruce Willis fan, for Crissakes!

I’m just saying that having to watch movies all the time, when most of them suck, is a whole lot like watching Cubs baseball games, when most of THEM suck, too. I mean how different is it? You pay waaaaaaay too much to get in, you munch on stuff that’s not good for you (but is deeeeeelicious), and you already know how it’s gonna end within the first 20 minutes.

I figure Mr Ebert loved the movies more than just about anything. Ditto, me and the Cubs. That’s why, no matter how bad the performances are (yeah, Marmol, I’m talking about YOU!) I just can’t get up and leave before the last out.

Anyway, you know how Hollywood is always making movies about baseball? Well, I’m thinking the Cubs could learn something from that … maybe make a few baseball games like the movies:

1. The Surprise Ending: Imagine Marmol taking the mound in the 9th and actually closing the game out without sending us all home with mild coronaries. Shocker.

2. Best Actor: The Cubs portray a Major League baseball team, instead of that t-ball crap they’ve been serving up during the longest running losing streak in sports.

3. Special Effects: Epstein works some of that magic he used in Boston on the Cubs. Not sure what he’s waiting for, but now would be as good a time as any, Theo.

4. The Thriller: One in which we actually WIN.

It would be good to note here that, as far as genres go, we don’t need any more Comedy, Horror, Adventure, or Crime. Same goes for Drama (we had waaaaaaay too much of that when Zambrano was here) and Disaster (Milton Bradley ring a bell)?

What we could use would be a little more Action. Maybe some Fantasy. Ideally, a two-thumbs-up Epic that ends in the Cubs winning the Series. Preferably over the White Sox. In a sweep. With the smallest margin of victory somewhere in the teens.

Anyway, thank you Roger Ebert for showing us how to stick it out for The Bad News Cubs. Say “hello” to Harry.

Joe