Cubby-Blue

NEVER go to the Grocery 3 hours before the Superbowl

 Man, why me? 

There were a MILLION idiots at the Jewel buying chips and salsa and beer for the Superbowl, and they were all in line in front of me. Why?  Well apparently I was one of those idiots too.

I enjoy the diverse population around my hood. My neighbors are from all over the world and white collar and blue collar and politicians and cops and cleaning ladies and cab drivers and construction guys, among other things.

But one thing I HATE is when someone decides that the fastest way for them to get up to the cash register at the grocery store is to pretend they don't understand that there's a line a mile long behind me, the next guy in line. 

And so it was with this Old Hag who cut in front of me. 

I explained the fact that I'd been waiting for EVER to buy my chips and salsa and beer, but she just turned around like I said nothing.

Maybe she had a problem hearing or something - she was pretty old.

You know that area in front of the cash registers where usually the lines go back maybe a cart or two? And then there's a space between the end of the line and where the aisle starts - that space just big enough for someone with a cart to go by? Lets call that the Common Decency Area.

Well, the lines here were WAAY past that Common Decency Area - each line went halfway up each aisle. But out of Common Decency, you leave the Common Decency Area open for the person still shopping. It was about a 4 foot gap between me in the aisle and the person at the checkout (see schematic below).

In hindsight, given the extra grocery store pressure from the Bowl, I should have been an asshole and taken over the Common Decency Area. Because had I blocked that area off, maybe the Old Hag wouldn't have thought she could just cut in. 

But I didn't.

And when the Old Hag cut in front of me, I totally caved.

I stated my case to her and got no response. I looked for help from my spineless fellow line-waiters and got nothin'. They instead pretended it wasn't happening.

So I caved.

But in my head? Man did I ever give it to her.

Old hag.

And one thing for sure, I AM NEVER going to the grocery a couple hours before the Bowl.

Only an idiot would do that.

The Bowl, by the way, was pretty entertaining. 

New Orleans' head coach Sean Payton - he sure waited to get on that big stage before pulling out his bag of tricks. 

And my chips and salsa were delicious, by the way.

Ron Turner: Stanford's new Developer of Luck.

 

I found a little tiny article on Chicago Breaking Sports News that ended with this sentence: "At Stanford, Turner will be entrusted with the development of sophomore quarterback Andrew Luck, who last year became the first freshman starter at the school since Chad Hutchinson."

Aren't you supposed to have to be smart to get into Stanford?

I guess not.

Apparently if you're Ron Turner, all you really need is... Luck.

That would be Andrew Luck, but this luck thing gets confusing.

See, once in awhile luck really IS what happens when preparation meets opportunity since Stanford's talented offensive coordinator David Shaw is apparently gonna go be the head coach at USC, which in turn becomes a lucky break for Turner as Stanford head coach Jim Harbaugh just hired him to take Shaw's place.

How lucky is Ron?

Consider that in his college career he's responsible for for the 1997 and 2003 Fighting Illini teams which both won exactly zero Big Ten games. In fact they lost 11 games apiece - no other coach had pulled that feat off even once in Illinios' 100 plus year history and Ron did it twice. Then in 2005, after an Illinois career record of 35 wins and 57 losses (that's a .380 winning percentage), he got a call from Bears coach Dave Wannstedt to turn pro!

But I guess that's the luck of the draw, right?

In his two stints with the Bears ('93-'96, '05-'09) you can tally up all the QBs he was responsible for (their QB ratings) from the 93.5 of 1995's Eric Kramer to the 59.7 of 2005's Kyle Orton, and you get an average of 76.15. For perspective, some recent names in the 76 QB Rating Club would include Jay Cutler (26 Int in '09), Tyler Thigpen (2-14 with the '08 Chiefs) and Damon Huard (76.9 in '07, since released).

So unfortunately that means Luck's luck just ran out.

I mean... can you imagine being Luck?

And the guy "entrusted with the development" of Luck only has experience with luck because he's lucky to get a job. 

While as a Bears Fan I feel like a lucky dog since Turner is gone, all you can say to Andrew Luck is "good luck".

What else?

There's one last football game on today, then we can concentrate on the Hawks and - lucky us - get more serious about baseball. Gonna grill up some skirt steaks with Gary the Cop and watch.

I see there's an excess of starting pitching in Milwuakee with Randy Wolf, Dave Bush, Jeff Suppan, Manny Parra and Doug Davis. That may not bode well for the Cubs since the Brewer bats always do well unless you're unlucky enough to be Prince Fielder when Reed Johnson's in the outfield.

The Nats Strike! But probably not a lucky strike as they signed former (2003) Cub lefty Shawn Estes, who I thought retired years ago.

And lastly, lucky you can read about Rod Blagojevich and his love for the Cubs. Can that guy just shut up and go to prison already please?

I hope the Cubs didn't order the rueben.

 

It's amazing how sometimes I can look back at a specific moment and realize that I experienced a kind of planetary shift in my understanding the world.

Really quickly: in advertising, mostly you work in teams. You team up art directors and writers with the art guy responsible for what ideas looks like and the writer for the words and sound. It works loosely like that. Anyway, you work with lots of different people and if you're really lucky, you get a partner who's not only enormously talented, but someone you genuinely like as well.

For me, that would be David Oif.

We have a history that goes waaay back, and lots of that history kind of took place in a "Seinfeld" episode.

One time long ago - didn't really know each other that well, we were at an edit, and went across the way to grab lunch. It was one of those bigger diners that used to be downtown here - the kind with large older women waitresses with real uniforms and aprons with the name tag and everything. It was called the Carriage House on an East/West street between Michigan and the lake. I think it's a Friday's now. 

The menu had about a million things on it, and I'm just hungry. Not for anything in particular.

The waitress comes and Oif orders something and I order the reuben. 

The waitress walks away.

Oif looks at me, disgusted and bemused.

"You ordered the rueben." he says.

A statement.

I go, "Yeah?"

He goes, "You ordered the rueben?"

"What's wrong with a rueben?"

He said this next line like something smelled bad: "You don't order the rueben in a diner."

Then, he very patiently told me about the magical concept of the deli.

He's from here originally - just waaay more savvy about most things than me.

I grew up in the Air Force, then suddenly I was at college in Flagstaff Arizona. I thought "deli" was that counter in the grocery store with the guy in the white paper hat who sliced meat or gave you potato salad. I'd never actually been to a "deli" before in my life, or if I did I just thought it was a restaurant.

So after the Carriage House lunch, whenever somebody effed up, we would say they "ordered the rueben."

If you invested heavily in dot com companies, stepped in dog crap, or did something inappropriate at the Christmas party, you ordered the rueben.

Last year at this time we sort of knew it, but when Jim Hendry signed Milton Bradley he ordered the rueben.

As I look at everything that's happened this year - with the new ownership and how long that took and how long term contracts affect the team and pretty much everything, the one that stands out is letting Rich Harden go. He may have ordered the rueben there. I can understand not signing Reed, as much as I liked him. But the starting rotation, for so long a serious stronghold on Chicago's north side, it may be slipping this year. 

Your hope is that Randy Wells does at least 80% as well as last year. Dempster should be Dempster, but remember he's not that far removed from being the closer - his innings have mushroomed the last couple years. Big Z, well he's supposedly in great shape and wants to atone for last year. Terrible Ted will be Terrible Ted, only a little late. But Sean Marshall, Carlos Silva, Jeff Samardzija ... I don't know man. 

But since I know you're interested, I did graduate to the major leagues of deli's years ago on a shoot in New York when we went to Katz' Deli. You can go to the most expensive, hip or trendy restaurant in the city there and never have as good a meal. It's famous not just for the most amazing pastrami and corned beef, but it's also where they shot Meg Ryan's table "orgasm" scene for "When Harry Met Sally". I just played this You Tube movie and I'm sure that everyone down the hall thinks I was watching porn, so if you go to the link you might wanna turn it down.

A "Cubs offering Kevin Millar a contract?" semi-rant.

Ahhh, this illustration's too mean. Especially considering I don't really know Kevin Millar. 

He's...38 years old, bats righty, first baseman, last 3 seasons he's gone from .254 to .234 to .223, "similar batters" would include Jacque Jones. Somebody tell me an upside here. What kind of drawing am I supposed to do for this guy? Cub fans jumping up and down? Wooooo! Kevin Millar! 

Maybe they really are scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Or maybe I'm just in a bad mood since I've had some kinda bug for the last week and our pal Reed Johnson's gonna go be a Dodger...

It sounds like Kevin's buddies with Ryan Dempster so maybe he's a good clubhouse guy, right? 

Maybe a couple days ago Lou looked at his bench and thought..."Hoffpauir, Blanco, Fontenot, Colvin, Fuld... I NEED SOME OLD GUYS!"

In 2003 when Dusty got 36 year old Eric Karros I wasn't too excited. Then old Eric became a pretty important part of that team (I'd kill to see the video he shot of that season). Especially when young stud-at-the-time Hee-Seop Choi went down with the permanent headache after running into Kerry Wood... Which of course makes me think back to Most Consistent Cub of '09, Derrek Lee. Last season he had to take some almost-serious neck spasm time off for getting a love tap on his helmet from Angel Guzman (or was it just a rough slide into second?). That neck of his make you guys nervous? 

Maybe Lou's just remembering when Aramis went down last year and he had to say out loud in front of everybody, "HEY MILES! Yeah you, tiny insignificant man with the toothpick-bat. GO PLAY THIRD." Not that Micah Hoffpauir is in Aaron's league, but maybe Lou doesn't want to find out the hard way... what if Micah's not the player up here he was in Iowa? (You won't find that out til Hof starts for... awhile.)

Ah whatever. It's just Hot Stove time, you never really know anything and the guy hasn't even signed a minor league contract. 

I did have fun making the drawing, even if I couldn't figure out how to make it happen inside the barrel where we'd all expect to find somebody "scraping".

Anyway, I'm having a cold one right now, and here is my toast:

Here's to Reed Johnson. I hope Manny gets caught buying more woman-drugs to correct his man-parts and they take him out for a season so you get to start in Dodger Stadium and show 'em how to Play. The. Game.

Cubs "Pitchers and Catchers Report Day" Cards

    

Yeah these are pretty stupid, but the prospect of Cubs pitchers and catchers reporting in just 17 days has got me a little stupid with excitement.

You may recall last year I made up some Happy Pitchers and Catchers Day faux Valentine's Day cards, since that's when Cubs pitchers and catchers reported. And this year my feelings remain the same: that Happy Pitchers And Catchers Report Day is way more deserving of a card than Valentine's Day. So I made a couple more cards with the Spring Spirit for your Cub Buds, even if the Big Day isn't til February 17th.

They're here in the blog for you to print out, but my understanding last year was that they were A) late, B) a little untrustworthy with the print size and C) cumbersome with the cutting and folding and all that. So this year I also put them on Zazzle if you'd like to order them for real.

That's right, real cards on real card stock. So while the subject matter is more Cub-like, these cards are just like Hallmark cards - they even come with envelopes. So... should you feel the yearning to share your own enthusiasm for the upcoming PItchers And Catchers Report Holiday, it's early enough for you to actually sign them, put a stamp on them and mail them to your other favorite Cub Fans.

Plus, if I sell about 13 million of them, I can retire. So tell your friends.

Okay what else... Reed Johnson is now rumored to be maybe becoming a Dodger.  

Baseball regurgitates Jim Edmonds, Rich Hill

 There are only so many guys in the world with the talent to play in the Bigs. 

Otherwise every team would be filled with a bunch of new rookies each year, and there'd be alot more MLB retirees - players who were discarded because they were injured or old or named Aaron Miles.

Because of this general lack of talent in the world, baseball has developed a survival instinct where it tells itself it better regurgitate up some spent players or it won't be able to fill out all the teams. 

And it would die. 

I'm pretty sure there are mammals in the wild who toss their cookies and chow it right back down to survive - it's the same kind of thing.

Lerrrp...bwaaaaaarp...RALPH! - Hey look! Baseball just hurled up Jimmy Edmonds and Rich Hill!

Edmonds gets a minor league deal with the Brewers ($850,000 + incentives), Hill with the Cardinals ($575,000).

Edmonds lost his youth and wants to be the backup outfielder, Hill lost his control and had labrum surgery, and wants to be the 5th starter, but both these guys are relatively cheap and each have what gm's call an "upside". If they do well then great, and if not who cares?

Edmonds will be driven because he's 18 homers this side of 400.

Hill will be driven (he hopes) not crazy trying to get his giant hook over the plate.

And what it means in the Cubs Universe of course is that Edmonds will be in the lineup somewhere down the line and kill the Cubs in a game or two, and Rich Hill will find his marbles with Dave Duncan, the best pitching coach in baseball. He'll probably win 18 games this year.

Baseball also upchucked Xavier Nady (2 Tommy John surgeries) and Chad Tracy (knee surgery), and the Cubs are currently lapping them back up (well, the Nady deal won't be signed until he passes a physical).

Seriously, this is almost like watching a nature show.

Okay, and the Andre Dawson hat thing. Those guys in the HOF committee... over the years you just can't come to any conclusion other than they're a roomful of hateful boobs. I refuse to let them get me down with this minor detail. At least they got the right guy.

I think we have to say goodbye to Reed Johnson.

With the signing of Xavier Nady almost done, we probably have to face up to the fact that there won't mathematically be any room on the team for one of the most popular Chicago Cubs in recent memory, our Reed Johnson.

When I heard the Nady news, I sent out an email asking for insight on the guy, but Sutter sent one back saying simply, "Say goodbye to Reed." 

So that's the emotional news for the day.

The other news you just have to scratch your head about is Ben Sheets getting TEN MILLION dollars (plus performance bonuses) for one year of pitching for the A's based on an "impressive" workout he had with a number of teams watching. The last time I saw him he was pretty impressive too, then he went on the dl for 2 years. 

Anyway, here's a retrospective on Reed, and I hope he lands somewhere and kicks ass.

The catch that made him an instant favorite. 

The impossible beard.

Just another one of the things Reed had to overcome at Wrigley: seagulls.

Breaking his foot on a foul ball last year.

And finally, robbing Prince Fielder of a homer last year.

Cubs Downloadable Schedule - like a new bag of Oreos.

 You know, it hasn't been a particularly awful winter so far. We had the nice big snow, it was super cold for awhile. We just thawed and maybe that little circle will repeat itself a couple more times. 

But still, winter is generally sucky. The sky, it's the color of bad breath. And that... stuff that's next to the gutters and my garage that used to be snow but got mixed with ice melt and rotten leaves and little black bits of my tires - that stuff never ever ceases to depress me.

So yesterday I'm looking at Cubs.com, and there are some words there I hadn't seen before: "2010 Downloadable Schedule".

Probably it's been there for a month, but Praise Be To The Baseball Gods Above! I believe I'm smiling out loud for the first time in a month.

Surely you have a calendar program on your computer somewhere, right?

Do yourself a favor and get your schedule RIGHT NOW!

It's alot like seeing this new bag of Oreos, which my wife apparently hid in the bread drawer and Wyatt just found.

Yeah yeah the milk-dipping thing and all that, but seriously, opening your calendar and seeing all those games? They're all fresh and crisp and real and haven't been raided by anybody yet?

Makes me say, "Oh yeahhhh" in my deepest voice.

Of course, we've still got a ways to go til we can actually sample the product, but hell.

Baseball's comin', man!

Okay, what else? The Cubs are maybe after 37 year old middle reliever/not-so-good starter Chan Ho Park who looked good and bad for the Phils in the playoffs last year. And I would imagine that the Cubs seeming to drop out of the Ben Sheets competition would be due to you and me not being able to stomach watching a guy doing that towel drill for big dollars ever again.

Brett Favre's Last Stand?

 

Man, that game was ugly for about a hundred reasons.

But I couldn't not watch.

If Adrian Peterson hadn't fumbled and the Vikings had instead scored at the end of the first half, I figure it's a vastly different game - in retrospect that coulda been the play of the game. (I also think that instead of falling apart after that, Peterson held it together really well.)

Favre had the living crap beat out of him, and you and I both saw the lane to the first down at the end of half #2. He didn't have that far to run. An easy kick. Victory.

But the guy's easily a hundred in football years, he was obviously tired and had the gimpy leg, so whatever.

His next awful pass back across the middle that was intercepted... I don' t know. You guys think he comes back again next year?

It's gotta be like climbing the biggest mountain in the world, getting to the front door of the Super Bowl.

Myself, I think we might have seen his last pass.

Which would mean Favre's Last Stand pretty much happened On His Back.

Either Troy Aikman or Joe Buck awkwardly said after the interception something like, "Favre will be thinking about that pass... maybe... for the rest of... his life."

They didn't say "off season".

But then again, we all have thought Favre was done a bunch of times already.

Anyway, ought to be a good Bowl.

Why Mark McGwire is good for the Cubs.

 

You know, I'm all for helping a dude out, even if he's a deluded, selfish, thieving, lying turd.

But Tony LaRussa's compassionate hiring of Mark McGwire might be the greatest thing he's ever done. 

For the Cubs. 

Because Mark McGwire is at least a Milton Bradley-sized distraction for the Cards.

I spent about 15 minutes coming up with what fans might be yelling at the ballpark, and I'm NOWHERE NEAR as creative as some of the people I've heard there. 

After McGwire's just plain stupid performance in the Bob Costas interview, I don't see how he won't become the Conan O'Brien of the coaching world, and by that I don't mean funny. I mean he'll be looking for another job way sooner than he imagined.

In the meantime, I hope people keep piling on the current holder of Major League Baseball's most sacred record. 

In today's Chicago Tribune, Phil Rogers has some damning yet awesome quotes from some unexpected people: former Cardinal manager Whitey Herzog and some serious St. Louis royalty - Adolphus A. Busch IV. You can also read about it in the St. Louis Post Dispatch. 

I expect the McGuire-bashing, but Mr. Busch also takes a pretty good swipe at Bud Selig - "Mark McGwire chose to take performance-enhancing drugs 9 of his 18 years in professional baseball...He was paid millions while perpetrating a fraud. So how is it MLB Commissioner Bud Selig gives him a pass and welcomes McGwire back to the very game he betrayed?"

When this kind back-splash gets all over the Commish's shoes, one would imagine some kind of clean-up is in order. Maybe this is the thing that finally makes Bud find his spine and do something decisive about steroid guys. 

That said, I sure hope McGwire's still around on May 28th when the Cards come to town.

How awesome would it be to hear 39,000 fans yelling "McGwire McGwire pants on fire..."?