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FERRIS BUELLER TURNS 30; OLDER THAN MOST OF THE CUBS.

· Joe Sez, News · , ,

FERRIS-BUELLER

Hey there, Milk Duds, Joe Schlombowski here to point out that Ferris Bueller, one of the greatest things to ever come outta Hollywood — other than that human ice cream cone, Scarlett Johansson — turned 30 Saturday. I bring this up for three reasons: 1) Ferris was a Cubs fan. That one fact, all by itself, shoulda spelled “Oscar” for John Hughes’s, my friend. 2) Take a look at Ben Stein. You take away his Gillette Foamy for a few weeks and you get Joe Maddon’s twin. “Rizzo? … Rizzo? … Rizzo?” 3) You know how every last little thing works out for Ferris, no matter what? That’s the 2016 Cubs, pal.

Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
— Ferris Bueller

Words to live by. Why? Cuz what you’ve been watchin’ on the green, green grass of Wrigley Field this year is somethin’ special. Somethin’ unusual. Somethin’ that comes along every 108 years. Maybe. So enjoy it. Watch it. Replay it. Breath it in like the perfume of the aforementioned Goddess of Sultry, Ms Johansson. Why? Cuz this is baseball, jujubees. The credits will be rolling on this summer’s feel-good movie before you know it … and unlike Hollywood, you can’t count on 3 or 4 or 8 sequels. Sure the hell is fun to think about, though.

So, I gotta “what if” for ya: What if the Cubbies are flashin’ some long awaited bling next season. One reason to think that there just might be a sequel or 2 is the fact that at 30, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is older than the majority of the roster. Yeah, I know … baseball teams are like musical chairs from season to season. Still, most of this particular team are likely to have lockers here for a while. So if we can keep the staff from gettin’ too greedy (and I think you know who I mean) champagne soaked locker rooms are somethin’ the Cubs may have to get used to.

The question isn’t “what are we going to do,” the question is “what aren’t we going to do?”
— Ferris Bueller

The Cubs are playin’ like Ferris this year; throwin’ caution to the wind; doing whatever they want; breakin’ the fourth wall. And like Ferris, they’re holdin’ the world in the palm of their hands … or the web of their mitts, in this case. So let’s raise a frosty Old Style to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off — one of the best movies ever shot in Chicago, and hope we’re doin’ the same thing in November for the World Series Champion Cubs.

Joe

You’re still here? It’s over. Go home. Go.
— Ferris Bueller

DRAUGHT TIME. YES, I SPELLED IT CORRECTLY.

· 2016 Cubs, Joe Sez · , , ,

2016-BASEBALL-DRAFT

Life is good, Cubcakes. I used to wake up, slide out of the fart sack and pray to the Polish gods that we might actually win a game. Now? Well, I can’t wait to jump out of … of … okay, it’s still a fart sack (hey, I drink Old Style and eat Red Hots from a Pez dispenser, what’d you expect?) then pay my respects to Joe-Joe Maddon, the Polish god IN OUR DUGOUT, and wonder not if were gonna win today, but by how much. Yep, life is good north of a .700 winning percentage.

But let’s put the present aside for sec, uhm-kay? With the 2016 MLB Amateur Draft starting today, June 9 is all about the future: the stars of tomorrow that will lead each club to the Promised Land.

Or so they hope.

It ain’t that easy, Moses. I mean, who in the wide, wide world of sports can forget Shawn Abner? Just about everyone, that’s who! Abner was the first pick in the ’84 draft, ahead of guys named Bell and McGwire and Mullholland and Charlton and Maddux and Glavine and Moyer. Hearda them? Save for his mother and a handful of pals he grew up playing Whiffle Ball with in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, Smokin’ Joe Schlombowski is one of the few people on the planet who remembers if Abner knew which end of the bat to hold. He did, but barely. Point is, first-round picks ain’t a sure thing.

Good thing, too, cuz thanks to John Lackey, we don’t get one.

That’s right, bat racks, the draft wheel will turn nearly three full times before the Cubbies make their first pick — the 104th overall. Hell, I could be dead by then. Like all sports drafts that matter, clubs pick in reverse order of their previous season’s finish, which is why the Phillies get first whack this year, and why Braves and Twins scouts, caffeine-high as they’ll need to be, are already hittin’ the road with an eye on the 2017 class. There will be no rest in the Big Peach or the North Star State for at least a year. Makes me feel all tingly inside.

Theoretically, the Phillies would get the first pick in all forty rounds. But then there’s this thing called “compensation picks” which turns the draft order into somethin’ that resembles the Christmas lights I unpack on Thanksgiving Day. This year, we gave up our first two picks to the Cards when Theo signed the Dental Giant and Jason Heyward. I get that. But someone’s gotta explain to me why MLB rewards teams by givin’ them preferred draft spots for not signing their top picks from last year’s draft. Makes zero sense to me, but then Carlos Marmol couldn’t close a a friggin’ umbrella either, and we paid him $9.8M in 2013. Idi-friggin-otic.

But I digress.

The point is, don’t put too much stock in this week’s draft, pallie. We’ve only got five first-rounders on our 25-man roster. And we sure as hell ain’t home grown (only four Cubs were drafted into the organization). Like it or not, it ain’t Ernie’s Cubs anymore. Free agency’s our thing. We’ve got money and we spend it like Jason Kidd at the Pink Monkey. Enough with the future; it’s draught time, as in icy cold Old Style. Now, where’d the missus hide the remote?

Joe

IS THE BULL PEN HALF FULL OR HALF EMPTY?

· 2016 Cubs, Joe Sez · , ,

CUBS-BULL-PEN-HALF-FULL

Well, cheese doodles, tonight was either a bona fide come-from-behind, never-say-die, skin-of-the-teeth victory, or a brutally honest look at our bull pen. Depends on how you wanna look at it, but since I have an almost mythical knack for finding the cloud wherever there’s a silver lining, I feel the need to point out the obvious flaw in what seems like a World Series team; our bull pen. Watchin’ them tonight was like eyeballin’ a petri dish coated with some disgusting stuff you can’t pronounce swarming around in random ways you can’t predict. And whatever that stuff is, you don’t want to touch it, and you sure as hell don’t want it wearin’ a Cubs uniform.

All I can say is thank you, God, for Joe Maddon. This was like some sort of baseball experiment tonight, where the Cubs were in a Phase II trial to figure just how comatose they could be and still win. Maddon, though, was the mad scientist, mixing things up in crazy ways, and putting parts where they don’t belong until he effectively willed a win out of what appeared to be a collection of inanimate objects. Seriously … how can the Cubs make like friggin’ Ironman for the first 5+ weeks of the season and then turn into Boy George against one of the worst teams in the league? Boggles the mind.

As good as we’ve been (and we’ve been damn good) and as masterful as Dr Maddon is (like a Casey Stengel version of Einstein … or vice versa) tonight’s showing against the Brewers illustrated with the clarity of a Miller High Life bottle that our bull pen is definitely the weak link in the Cubbies chain reaction. They walked 6 guys. SIX! I thought bull pen guys were supposed to throw strikes. That’s why they get brought in in the first place … cuz the previous guy couldn’t throw strikes. I mean if we wanted to keep walkin’ guys we’d just leave the first guy in, who was doin’ a fine job with that already, Right? Even Wood, who got the win by gettin’ out of a spectacular hole he dug for us, and gettin’ walked himself with the bags loaded, probably woulda had a different outcome if it hadn’t been for some of Maddon’s chess moves.

On the other hand, the Cubbies did come away with a win tonight, even if the bull pen was channeling Mitch Williams most of the time. Question is, what kinda pen do they wanna be? The kind that’s directly responsible for an increase in Chicagoland cardiac deaths, or the kind that inspires the sale of (name of Cubs reliever here) jerseys? We’re gonna find out. No question about that.

Joe

GAME 31; LIKE PASSING A KIDNEY STONE.

· 2016 Cubs, Joe Sez · , ,

KIDNEY-STONE-BULL-PEN

Tonight’s game against the Friars was like a trip down memory lane, only this lane was more like a dark alley smack dab in the middle of Fallujah. I don’t know why, but the bull pen decided it would be a hoot to reenact one of its performances from 2012. Now, I would try to do the duck thing and just let this roll off my back, but I’ve been a Cubs fan way too long for that. I remember trading Maddux, I remember Bartman pretending to play left field, I remember getting broomed in the first round of the playoffs after winning 97 in the regular season. So nothin’ is rolling off my weary, old, hairy back, my friend.

You have to take this stuff seriously. Especially if you’re Maddon. In fact, I’d like to see him channel a little Lee Elia … and like right friggin’ now. I mean, Joe had an awesome first season, right? Better than anyone, including management, expected. So I’m not sure he’s 100% dialed in on the historical voo doo that swirls around the club like the winds in Wrigley. If Joe doesn’t bring a little Old Testament, wrath-of-God kinda whoopass down on the bull pen for that performance tonight, and just laughs it off, that’ll just invite complacency. You get enough of that and pretty soon there’ll be no joy in Mudville, pal.

And I don’t think this is an alarmist position. Yeah, the Cubs are just the 4th team to win at least 25 of their first 31 games in the last 70 seasons. No question that’s awesome. And those other 3 teams … they all won the World Series. I’m sure Vegas likes those kinds of statistics. But Wrigley is not Vegas, bat racks, cuz as our bull pen proved tonight, what happens in Wrigley definitely does not stay in Wrigley. Warren served up a moon shot that NASA woulda been proud of. And, what made it worse was the colossal turd Grimm laid on the mound beforehand, makin’ the dinger all that much worse. That’s text book Chicago Cubs bull pen crap which, thankfully, we haven’t seen much of this season. I don’t think Maddon oughta allow a single moment of that go by without using all of the kings english, and at a pretty high decibel level. Don’t get me wrong … we’re damn good this year, and I think it’s gonna continue. My problem is that in spite of that — in spite of the amazing start and our carpet-bombing offense and our cannon-armed pitching staff — a measly 20% of the season is in the rear view mirror, pallie. A lot can happen on the road to the post season. Even during the post season. Hell, ask the 2004 Yankees.

Did we win tonight? Yeah. Was it fun to watch? Until the 8th when the pen decided to remind me what it’s like to pass a kidney stone. I’ve already done that twice. Enough already.

Joe

WHO ARE THESE GUYS, AND WHAT DID THEY DO WITH THE REAL CUBS?

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

MIRROR-MIRROR

There was this great episode of Star Trek called “Mirror, Mirror” where a transporter malfunction swaps Captain Kirk and his crew with their evil counterparts in a parallel universe. Except for the “evil” part, sometimes I wonder if there was some kinda ion storm thingy that threw baseball into a sorta upside-down world, parallel universe where Chicago’s Cubs — the used Charmin of the National League — are now the equivalent of the ’27 Yankees.

I guess that would make Maddon Captain Kirk. I don’t know who Arrieta is. Probably Spock, with that Vulcan nerve pinch of a fastball. Then you got Rizzo, Bryant, Ross, Fowler, Lackey, and so on, as Scotty, Bones, Chekov, Sulu and the rest of the crew of the Star Ship Wrigley … going where no Cubs have gone before. Fascinating.

In “Mirror, Mirror” the crew figured out that something was wrong, and so they spent the whole episode working on getting back to the way things were. Personally, I’m liking this time warp, black hole thing we’re in a helluva lot, and I hope the laws of physics and baseball remain decidedly out of balance until a star date several million light years into the future. I don’t want the old Cubs back. And if everyone thinks these Cubs we’ve got now are evil, or alien, or transported here from Omega IV, so friggin’ be it. Besides, no team in the history of sports is more evil than the Yankees, and I don’t see anyone whining about them. Maybe because they suck this year.

Anyway, with the exception of Lester, who could be an extraterrestrial if you judge him by what he wears off the field, I think these guys are just friggin’ good and that’s why they’re doing the photon torpedo thing to every team that ventures into Cubs orbit. And it wouldn’t break my heart if they could turn this into a 5 year mission, either.

Joe