Cubby-Blue

Angry Birds come to town: Cardinals vs Cubs.

This year's schedule could have been so incredible...so meaningful.
There's a big St. Louis Cardinal series this weekend, and another the second to last series of the season at the end of September. 
Imagine if the Cubs were any good!
Instead, it's the 54-70 Chicago Cubs hosting a 66-58 Cardinal team that's 6.5 games behind the impressive (and probable NL Central champions) Milwuakee Brewers.
The St. Louis Post Dispatch has nothing about this upcoming Cubs series, instead focusing on the Crew.
And honestly, in the press and pretty much on the field, the Cubs/Cards series has become sort of a non-issue in St. Louis: they just expect to kick the Cubs bootay every time they see them.
Because the Cubs are terrible and have been since the Season of Wasted Milton.
Horrible. 
Over that time, the Cubs are 17-23 vs the Cards, and 2-7 this year.
But Milwaukee lost last night to the Dodgers, and if the Cardinals are gonna have any hope at all they just cannot lose here this weekend.
I think they're gonna be Angry Birds.
I would expect a full-on LaRussa Press, his antics probably making Mike Quade's head spin. 
Albert Pujols is 12 for 28 in the last week with 3 dingers.
Tomorrow it's 10-6 Jaime Garcia vs Randy Wells and his stupid nervous nellie first innings. 

On the other hand, Matt Holiday is sucking lately with just 4 hits in his last 23.

What does it all mean?
Well, the Cubs should get the snot beat out of them.
But the hell with that, right?
It's the Cubs.
It's the Cards.
And I would like a little joy since I can see the end of summer from here.
Lets play some ball!

Go Cubs.

(if this idea / illustration / cartoon of "Angry Birds" as the St. Louis Cardinals hasn't been done before well, I'd be surprised. But I couldn't think of anything cool to do for the Cubs so...there you go.)

Sometimes, the sports page can kick you right in the nads.

As you know, I'm in the death grip of a Cubs-induced  split personality right now: when the game is on I want the Cubs to win, when the game is off I think about the future and want to hurl.
Anyway, I turn on the game.
I watch the game.
The Cubs have this game in the bag.
I go to bed.
I wake up.
I make coffee.
I get the paper.
It kicks me in the nuts.

Carlos Marmol.
I keep cutting him slack because I've seen him, in person so I know it can't be a television conspiracy, I've seen him at his unhittable dominant scary best.
But it's not like you can ever go, "Awesome. MARMOL'S in. Game. Over."
Because it never is.
Every sports announcer other than Len and Bob (they probably have too) says in an amused sort of way, "He has no idea where the ball is gonna go."
I don't believe that - I think he has an idea, but that's about it.
And last night it was a bad idea.

A grand slam in the bottom of the 9th, and a 1-run victory for the Houston Astros.

Luckily, while losing this way to the Astros is revolting, it's also meaningless except maybe to Tyler Colvin, who homered.
Tyler's 8 for 39 in August.

He could use some kind of streak.

Turning off the power on Carlos Zambrano.

So, I figured something out.
I'm part of the problem with Carlos Zambrano.
Talking about him gives him power, so my personal challenge will be to stop it.
I'm sure we haven't seen the end of him, but I certainly don't need to put up all the Carlos illustrations I've done over the years right now.
Maybe that'll be fun some time in the future, but for now, I don't want to think about him being surprised at what happened, and I don't want to hear the word "apology" next to his name.

Still in jury duty. 
This is very interesting, being in court.
But it's kinda like watching a no-hitter in progress: no talking about it.
The judge warned us.
Probably I'm being followed.

The Cubs beat an Astro team last that only has about these two words I recognize: Carlos and Lee.
Didn't get to watch - the work I was supposed to have done yesterday didn't just go away cause I have jury duty.

Tell me what happened - I get to look here again sometime after 5.

Go Cubs.

 

Carlos Zambrano: a collection of illustrations. Part 1.

I've got jury duty tomorrow.
No phone, no computer, no work, bring a snack and a book, they say.
While it's exciting to see the Cubs win a couple, this season has completely infected me with a split personality: one day I'm SO HAPPY the Cubs won, the next day I'M CRAZY MAD that the Cubs aren't doing the right stuff to fix the team.
(Jim Hendry will be here again next year? Why did they leak that now? To crush any positive feelings of hope that I had?)

So in the spirit of my current double personality, I'm putting every Cubby Blue painting, drawing, illustration, gif, and cartoon I can find of fellow split personality guy Carlos Zambrano, who got put on something called the "disqualified list" as a result of running out on the team.
Last year, it was the "restricted list".
Before Carlos, I'd never heard of either of these "lists".

Anyway, here are some paintings...

This is my first Carlos illustration, a watercolor from 2003, and it's my favorite of him.

According to Baseball Almanac, this game took place on 8/22/03. 
Carlos went all 9 innings, got the win over Curt Schilling and the D-Backs 4-1. Carlos was 12-9 after this game. 

This game turned out to be from the weekend made famous by Buzz Bissinger and his "Three Nights In August" book (NY TIMES review here).
Carlos went 7 innings and gave up 2. Remlinger got the loss.
Remember how games used to matter back then?
You were proud of the team and the city?
God, it's all fallen SOOOOO far.

2004

This Cubs v Cardinals game was at Wrigley on July 19, 2004. Carlos Zambrano v Chris Carpenter. Z went 8.2 innings and gave up homers to Scott Rolen, Jimmy Edmonds, and Edgar Renteria. 
Pretty sure the reason I did this particular painting was because Carlos went ballistic on the mound. The box says he hit Edmonds twice. 

This is more Cub-like.
Besides Carlos and Michael Barrett making errors on the same play, Jose Vizcaino and Aramis Ramirez helped bring the total to 4 errors.
Baseball Almanac, August 28th, 2004.
Winning pitcher, btw, was Roger Clemens (14-4 at the time) over Z (12-8 at the time).

2005

This was Carlos' first opening day start.
6 years ago.
Here he went 4.2 innings, gave up 7 hits, 4 walks, and 3 runs.
Glendon Rusch got the win.

In Carlos' 6 opening day starts, he'd win once - vs Astros in '09. 

I think that at this time, I hadn't really noticed Carlos being "polite" like this and yelling into his glove.
I think he just used to yell at the air.
Still, the entertainment value Carlos brought to a game, come on - you couldn't beat this guy.

Carlos tossed out of a game against the Reds.

And then there were plays like this - where you'd go my GOD! Carlos Zambrano is just a super-athlete.

Ehh, I just put this one in because that's really my hair, really pulled out and taped in there.

Anyway, that's enough for part 1.
I think you can see that love was pretty much in the air for Carlos Zambrano from 2003-2005.
Exciting, unpredictable, overpowering - just somebody you loved to watch. 

 

 

 

 

 

Carlos Zambrano retired? Weird.

In 4.1 innings last night, Carlos Zambrano gave up 5 home runs, 8 earned runs, and maybe a career.
I SO wish I could have heard the conversation on the mound he had with Cubs pitching coach Mark Riggins just before he tried twice to hit Chipper Jones.
Because it made no sense to leave him in there.
He's serving up the giant meatballs, and they're going out of the park left and right, there's no real reason for Mike Quade to leave Z in there, right?
To save the bullpen for Saturday's game?
Why are things with Carlos always a look back at a trainwreck?
If Quade had any respect for the guy, he'd have pulled him out.
No matter what you think about him, Carlos Zambrano isn't Doug Davis.

But that didn't happen.
Carlos pulled himself out by throwing at Chipper.
Then I guess he packed up his locker and went on a road trip.

If he actually retired, and you can bet his agent is all about not letting that happen, but if he did retire, he gives the Cubs a giant pile of money and in fact may be the actual hero of 2011 in doing so.

I knew yesterday was gonna be weird.
First, I'm walking from the Jeff Park el station, and along comes my greatest fear on land, a bee.
But it's not, is it?
No, that is some kind of GIANT freaking wasp, and I'm not exaggerating when I say it was at least 2" long and a half inch wide.
I've seen tarantula hawks in Arizona that gave me less fear.
How I had the balls to shoot this photo is beyond me.

Was I insane?
I think it was looking for a place to dig a tunnel in the alley through the pavement.
If I find out a car went into a sink hole out there, I'll know what really happened and I'm selling the house.

Then, I'm firing up the grill listening to Pat Hughes saying how hot it was in Atlanta.
Suddenly in my pocket I hear the ESPN Score Center "ring tone" which usually comes on to tell me the final score of a game, or a rain delay or whatever.
Instead, it said this:

"Game delayed due to cold."
I actually tweeted this picture because I was so excited that ESPN was getting hacked or spammed or whatever.

And then the game came on...

And Carlos?
Seriously, even if you were Albert Einstein and you pulled this many anti-social antics in 7th grade science class, you'd still get booted.
So I'm thinking I probably saw the last Zambrano start at Wrigley. 

I took this shot after Carlos crossed home plate.
Look at Mike Quade.

Now, you can't really judge anything from this - maybe Quade never gets excited for someone's homer, or he's thinking ahead about something.
But it sure doesn't look like old Mike likes Z very much, does it?