I hate the Cardinals. All they do is bitch and moan about everything, all of them, they’re little bitches, all of ‘em. I really hate the Cardinals. Compared to the Cardinals, I love the Chicago Cubs. Let me make this clear – I hate the Cardinals.

Well he’s obviously my new favorite Cincinnati Red.  And he is right on target.  They are a bunch of whiny bitches and I’m glad someone is finally saying what we’ve all been thinking.  Unfortunately the Cubs are kind of bitches too, but that’s a conversation for another day.

Oh by the way, a bench-clearing brawl between the Reds and Cardinals erupted after Phillips and Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina started jawing in Tuesday night’s game.  Nice work Brandon.

Ok, so that might be in bad taste (I sincerely hope Silva the best, perhaps a trade to a contender), but the Cubs are once again tormenting us after a promising start to the second half. I at least thought this team would revel in the role of the spoiler, but after kicking pennant-race time off with a 6-3 start the team plummeted back down to Earth. They have gone 1-6 in the last seven games, including dropping a series against the Oswalt-less Houston Astros.

Monday also marked the day the Cubs traded Ted Lilly and Ryan Theriot to the Los Angeles Dodgers for infielder Blake DeWitt and pitchers Kyle Smit, and Brett Wallach. While, yes, I am glad to see the front office accepting the team’s fate and start unloading some salary for some prospects, I am not thrilled we made the trade with the Dodgers and that we apparently only got a future setup man in return.

In case you have forgotten, the Los Angeles Dodgers eliminated the Cubs in perhaps the most promising season the Cubs have had in the 21^st century. I, like every good Chicago Catholic, still have a little animosity directed toward the Dodgers. I hoped the Cubs front office would have the good sense to let those feelings linger too, especially given what we received in return.

Am I really supposed to be excited to have Chicago Cubs tickets to see any of these three players take the field? Blake DeWitt cannot run, field, or hit. Technically I do not know how he even registers as a baseball player. He is on the cusp of setting a career mark at the plate, but surpassing a .264 batting average is hardly worth bragging about. He is basically a 24-year-old prospect who never lived up to expectations. Some might say he is 24 and could still turn his career around, but he grew up in Florida, so he has had plenty of time to develop. Only players from cold weather states and Canada develop into anything after a disappointing into their mid-20s.

I call this the Canadian Effect. The theory contends that since these players had fewer seasonable months to play baseball, they both had fewer months to reach their potential and have a longer timeline with which to develop and they have had fewer reps to tear their tendons and wear down their joints. Playing in Florida as a kid, DeWitt has had plenty of time to hone his skills and slowly injure his body irreparably.

The other two prospects the Cubs acquired are Brett Wallach and Kyle Smit. Wallach has the baseball lineage (father Tim Wallach played 16 years of major league baseball at third base with five All Star seasons) but does not have the fastball to make it as a starter or even a reliever. Chances are, if Wallach ever sees time in the big leagues, he will post career pitching stats worse than his father’s, who threw two innings and escaped with a 4.50 ERA.

Smit is a player Keith Law believes could actually be a serviceable middle reliever. Apparently he throws strikes and has a good sinker and slider. I know this move is far more financially motivated than talent motivated, but it feels wrong to lose the team leader in ERA (among starters) and stolen bases to find a setup man for Carlos Marmol.

The Bulls added another strong, but small piece to their puzzle. Once again, it is not as glamorous as hosting the LeBron-Bosh-Rose combo 41 nights a season at the United Center, but it added a tough defender and good outside shooter to back up Derrick Rose.

The Bulls can hardly be deemed the favorites to win the Eastern Conference, but the pundits can give us a tiny victory and speculate a Central Division championship, and, thus, a guaranteed top four seed in the Eastern portion of the postseason.

Not to brag, but now we have our long, athletic two-guard to stop the opposition from simply catching the ball near the paint and shooting over us (I liked Captain Kirk, but that killed me). We have a backup point to come in and play enough defense to hold a lead or play really small ball and pop three pointers from the corner. We have a low post scorer to bully his way into the paint (at least until we play a team with the Lakers’ collective front court length). And we have a point guard already a master at penetration, learning to extend his jump shot to the three point line.

I am excited to see the Chicago Bulls play next season, especially with the NBA lockout looming the season after.

Meanwhile, the Chicago Cubs made it clear it is time to dismantle the team. When the manager throws in the towel, it is obvious the team is a lost cause. Most of the time, the front office will start to publicly debase the manager of an underperforming team, eventually leading to a firing, since it is cheaper to cut a manager than a multi-millionaire picking at daisies in the outfield (or being sent to anger management sessions).

Piniella was never lying when he had no answer for reporters searching for some deep, dark baseball secret to inexplicable losses. He honestly had no all-encompassing answer for the Cubs underwhelming performance in 2009 and so far through a little more than the first half of this 2010 season.

Piniella manned up and made it clear the Cubs front office needs to begin searching for a new manager who can get through to these players, all while keeping his job until the contract ends. His move was actually quite genius. Now the Cubs cannot fire him without massive fallout from the fans.

One would argue the team’s difficulty selling Cubs tickets is already a sign of revolt in a city and a part of the city so well noted for grinning and bearing it, selling out Wrigley Field, even when a less than acceptable team took the field every beautiful day game.

This is an undeniably flare fired above the sports media and even the most oblivious fans holding out for a sensational second half that the Chicago Cubs as we know them are coming to an end. This is, or at least should be, Starlin Castro and Tyler Colvin’s team.

This game, that walk, and the ensuing outfield assist in the ninth inning helped the National League end their 13 years of misery at the all star break. It also drew the notable attention of Joey Votto, who snubbed Byrd despite playing on the same side for once this season. Votto, the first place Cincinnati Reds first baseman, made his disdain for the Cubs and any Cubs player very public.

Now, thanks to a simple walk, the Cubs have a rallying call: Spoil the Reds season at all costs. I have now real acrimonious diatribe with which to condemn Votto. I remain upset I picked Ryan Zimmerman instead of Votto at this year’s keeper league draft. Votto explained that he plays for the Reds, who play in the NL Central along with the Cubs. The Cubs are competition and he feels no reason to wish goodwill to a team whose goal is to beat them and replace them in the standings.

I love that…I miss that…I wish baseball and every other professional sport were filled with Joey Vottos. Then, rivalries would define the sports spectrum instead of multi-year, multi-million dollar contracts, and LeBron would have come to Chicago and begun another dynasty instead of sneaking away to South Beach to play with his friends.

Now I am going to find Cubs tickets to the next meeting in August, no matter who many games below respectability the Cubs are, and hope the team can become an impasse for this Reds team. I do not even care that the Cardinals would be the benefactor, I find myself coveting a purpose as a baseball fan in the midst of these sweltering summer days.

So, thank Joey Votto, thank you for giving me a reason to remain an avid Cubs fan in a season marred by an impotent batting order wasting every quality start.

Paraguayan Lingerie model Larissa Riquelme vowed to run naked through the streets if her country won (they’ve already lost, but she said she would do it anyway) and, most recently, porn star Bobbi Eden tweeted she would provide oral pleasure to all her Twitter followers if her native country, the Netherlands, wins big on the international stage. Now, the pure logistics of giving a blowjob to, at last count, 23,000 followers dispersed throughout the world is pretty daunting, but I am sure the promise will be fulfilled, at the very least, for the entire roster of the Dutch national football team.

How is this Chicago news or related to Chicago sports in the least? Well, I am sure it would easy to convince a particularly devoted group of bleacher babes to make a similar promise. Really, with all the talent on this team, all they need is a little TLC to turn things around, right?

Now, the definition of prostitution is defined by Dictionary.com as “the act or practice of engaging in sexual intercourse for money.” Since there would be no money exchanged or any exchange of real definable commodity, I think this would work.

Just to be sure, all that has to be done is the mayor and city council approve a law permitting prostitution in a highly regulated environment, say the Chicago Cubs locker room at Wrigley Field. Now, while NOW or some organization claiming to champion family morality is busy challenging the law in the appeals court (where they will win), a group of bleacher babes is chosen by the fans and this group offers various sexual acts in exchange for a NL Central title.

The downfall here is that these might be the same girls who would willingly give it up without any promise of fielding an actual winning baseball team. So, instead somebody “donates” season Cubs bleachers tickets to this group of girls as incentive for them to keep their True Blue Virginity until the season is over.

Lilly is getting just 2.5 runs of support an appearance

My Sympathies Ted Lilly

Ted Lilly made SportsCenter Sunday as he and Gavin Floyd raced toward a mutual no-hitter. Ultimately they both fell short. Floyd surrendering a double, single, and run in the seventh inning. Lilly took his potential no-no two inning further, losing his bid in the ninth inning after a single by Juan Pierre.

I think the game proved an excellent allegory for his season so far. He has eight quality starts in 10 appearances and has a 2.90 ERA and absurd 1.00 WHIP, yet he has a meager 2-5 record. Similarly, he pitched wonderfully on Sunday, but fell just short of adding an accolade to his long career.

Two of those losses he deserves, just as he truly allowed that hit. But he should have far more wins and every Cub fans wanted to celebrate a no-hitter on the same day the Blackhawks brought the Stanley Cup to Wrigley Field (insert your joke about band wagon fans here). The Cubs have given him just 2.5 runs of support despite averaging 4.16 runs a game. Heck, call that an even four runs a game and give him that support and the Chicago is 7-3 when he starts instead of 4-6.

There is no telling what his record would be, but it would certainly by better than 2-5. Of course this is far less news to fans who have had Cubs tickets to any of his starts or been watching so far this season. The Cubs have looked quite bad so far this summer and players like Lilly have been the victims. Hopefully, this will all turn around soon.

I cannot help but believe Lilly’s flirting with a no-hitter gives this team hope, just as Marlon Byrd does along with rookie Tyler Colvin and imported-ace Carlos Silva.

Fear not Cubs faithful!  Even with the team underperforming, the leadership of Lou Piniella will help keep the clubhouse a positive place leading to a turnaround for our beloved Cubbies.  Just kidding, things are worse than ever in the clubhouse.  According to a source from Bleed Cubbie Blue, things are worse than ever:

I have a contact with access to the Cubs clubhouse. He said the clubhouse is a disaster right now (maybe this game will help). He said the latin players, led by Ramirez and Z, have completely walled themselves off from everyone else, to the point that they wouldn’t let them team haze Castro in the typical rookie fashion (carrying bags, etc). He said Ramirez has completely shut down, refuses to practice, and is barely willing to take the field for games. The team never turned on Soriano, despite all his struggles, because he worked his butt off, but the team is turning on Ramirez, because he doesn’t, and doesn’t see a problem with it.

I’m not sure how reliable this is, but it doesn’t surprise me and seems plausible. Ramirez has never seemed to really care all that much, sitting out games with extremely minor injuries and not running out pop-ups or groundballs.  As a numbers guy I always lean towards taking the player with the better stats than the “clubhouse guy”, but this situation has to be impacting the players on the field. 

Hey Lou, where you at?  Isn’t this whole thing supposed to be your department?  Lord knows you’re getting paid enough to at least try to fix it.

Carlos Silva’s perfect season

Don’t call it a come back, instead, call it a career year. Cubs fans can head to Wrigley Field for every Silva start to see how long this pleasant surprise (Seattle lost huge on this trade) can keep his improbable winning streak going. So far he has won 8 games in 11 starts with zero losses. Maybe he can keep it going until the All Star break.

Beating the Chicago White Sox

The summer of 2010 is hardly the summer of baseball in the Windy City. Both the Cubs and White Sox are stuck in third place with sub-.500 records and a perpetual bottom feeder is threatening to pass them in the standings (the Pittsburgh Pirates in the NL Central and Kansas City Royals in the AL Central). Luckily the cross town series is coming up for the first round of play this weekend at Wrigley and the final series in two weeks at the Cell. Hopefully, the series does not end in a 3-3 tie so we can deem one of these two baseball clubs the worst in the city.

Marlon Byrd’s batting title

The National League batting title race is not quite as compelling as the American League’s. The NL does not have four guys hitting over .350 and one hitting an incredible .370. No, the NL has a just three players hitting .320 or better, but one of them is the Cubs’ Marlon Byrd and I could not be happier. This may be the one accolade the Cubs are able to claim by the end of the season.

Derrek Lee’s second half turnaround

Derrek Lee is a notorious late season player, in fact I think the worse his first half the better his second half. To that end, I hope Lee manages to dip below the Mendoza Line so I can get Cubs tickets and see him tear it up with a .400 average and 20 plus homeruns the second half of the season.

Carlos Zambrano finds his form

Zambrano came into spring training in the best shape of his life and the result is his struggle to keep a spot in the starting rotation. I think he should return to the natural shape of Venezuelan pitchers in the MLB, round. Look at Silva, he is hardly a model of health and is having the best season of his career so far. Zambrano should eat his weight in hot dogs until he returns to a more rotund silhouette, then he should be striking 10 players a game with fastballs whizzing by batters as they are distracted by his jiggling beefy arms.

Where did Al Davis go? Might I suggest looking at the offices on Addison and Clark?

Yesterday, the Chicago Cubs selected Hayden Simpson of Southern Arkansas with the 16th pick in the first round of the 2010 MLB Draft. At a strapping 6′0″, 175 lbs, Simpson turned enough heads along the way to be ranked the 191st best pitcher in the Baseball America Preview.

I’ll repeat that. The Cubs spent the 16th pick to get the 191st pitcher. He must have run a wicked 40 yard dash, because everyone knows he only throws in the low 90’s and has no standout off-speed pitch. Reports are that other scouts had him pegged as a middle reliever.

Tim Wilken, the Cubs Scouting Director (and obviously an alias for Al Davis) had these glowing words about Simpson: “He’s very athletic and someone I thought could be a starter in the major leagues eventually.”

Well, for a guy whose size is compared to Tiny Tim Lincecum and Wee Roy Oswalt, he must be brimming with confidence and that attack dog mentality to compensate. Let’s hear what Simpson had to say: “It came as a complete shock. We were hearing second to fifth round.”

Best of luck with that Cubs fans.

Really, I get a little scared when the season has already boiled down to worshipping the fresh meat when the newly graduated college coeds have yet to show any skin in the bleachers. I would rather focus my attention on the likelihood the Cubs and the struggling cast will pull it together.

The first player coming to mind is Derrek Lee. He is having a dreadful season, hitting .210 with four homeruns and 27 strikeouts in 31 games. I took a look at his career stats and decided to play a little game of over-under with his worst full season on record, 1998.

Over/Under: Batting Average

Line: .233

Right now he is hitting .210, so he has 127 games to raise it 23 points. I have no doubt he will do at least that. Lee has not hit below .280 since 2004, his first season with the Cubs. I cannot see him repeating that feat anytime soon, he is simply too experienced of a hitter. I expect him to go on a tear over the next couple of months and end up with a solid average in the .280s.

Over/Under: OBP

Line: .318

Derrek Lee currently is posting a .331 OBP, so he is already getting on base at a greater rate than in 1998. This groundless speculation ties in with the batting average argument. Lee is simply too experienced of a hitter, but he is not so experienced he has severely limited reflexes. He will end up with an OBP around .360, similar to his 2008 season.

Over/Under: Homeruns

Line: 17

Four. Lee has four homeruns through one-fifth of the season. If you multiply four times five you get 20. Simple he squeaks by his career low.

Over/Under: Slugging Percentage

Line:.414

Lee is not hitting the gaps this season. He has just two doubles through 31 games. In fact, counting his homeruns, he has just six extra base hits in 31 games and 119 at bats. His slugging percentage is .328, but with a dramatic increase in batting average will come a dramatic increase in doubles and, perhaps, even a triple or two. This means he will once again go over the line set in 1998.

Over/Under: RBI

Line: 74

Derrek is on pace to finish with around 74 or 75 RBI. I can only imagine him picking up the pace as Ryan Theriot and Marlon Byrd continue to be the lone bright spots in the batting order. I could even reasonably expect Lee to eclipse 100 RBI with a good month or two.

Over/Under: Walks

Line: 47

Lee already has 21 walks and the season is only a fifth of the way over. There is no way he does not shatter the 1998 mark, barring injury. He is a more experienced hitter and simply knows the league’s pitchers better. If I had to bet my life on one single over-under, this would be it.

Over/Under:Strikeouts

Line:120

This is the one over-under I can see Lee “worsting.” He has 27 strikeouts so far this season and is on pace to surpass 120. I have to think at some point he begins to try and bolster his power numbers and keeps this strikeout rate pretty high. Basically, I expect a similar year to his 2002 season, minus the 19 stolen bases.

This season should not be Lee’s worst. He is only 34 and I find it hard to believe he will begin his career slide now. Similarly, I cannot believe the Cubs will continue to struggle so. They have to get it together for a decent month or two simply to justify my expenditure on Chicago Cubs tickets this spring and summer. Heck, Lou has to at least will the team passed the Pirates in the standings.

By Paul M. Banks Founder/President of The Sports Bank.net,

The year 2008 truly solidified my theory: to be a fan of either the Chicago Cubs and University of Illinois football means you know a lot about soul-crushing defeats. You know more than losing, you know exactly what it’s like to have any shred of hope or optimism crushed into grains of dust. You’ve had your hopes and dreams imploded so many times that you can’t even feel optimism anymore. You’ve routinely endured the type of losing that makes you wonder to yourself why you keep returning, but in ’08 took that disappointment spiked to cataclysmic proportions. The fallout from that devastation will likely linger for generations.

I’m lucky enough to be in only one (UI football) of these subsets. If I was in the intersection of both these groups (don’t you love using ven diagram lingo?) I’d probably take a bath with an electrical appliance. If you happen to be both a Cubs and Illini football fan, I’d suggest taking the laces out of your shoes and avoiding any and all tall buildings before reading on. I’d also suggest reading this only on a bright, sunny day.

In 2008, the Cubs had their best team since, well since any of us have been alive. Unless you’re a 115 years old. They cruised through the regular season, and had they not taken their foot off the gas pedal a bit in August-September (though it’s easy to understand why they did) the Cubs easily could have won 100-105 games.

Coming off a first round playoff sweep at the hands of the Arizona Diamondbacks the year before, this season was about October: plain and simple. Actually, it should always be about October, but these are the Cubs- so it’s quite common for even August and September to be meaningless. Still there was no way the Cubs could blow this thing, right? It was also the centennial anniversary of the last title. It was almost too perfect.

It was too perfect; for the L.A. Dodgers, as every Cubs infielder somehow found a way to make an error in the same inning of game 1. The ’08 sweep, combined with the ’07 sweep, and the five outs from a World Series collapse in ’03, makes me wonder if Cub fans have any reason to look forward to April each year. Regarding Cub die-hards, I wonder if they have any reason to live.

As bad as’08 was for those who live in Wrigleyville (and I mean “Wrigleyville” as the state of mind, not a physical location, kind of like “Margaritaville”), it was equally bad or worse in Champaign. Ron Zook, who is most famous for inspiring Southern fried yahoos to create a website encouraging his dismissal, was coming off a banner season. His best laid plans had finally worked as Illinois made their first Rose Bowl since 1983. The Illini got their second BCS bowl bid this decade, tying Iowa. I know, I know that sentence is utterly unbelievable, but trust me it’s true. However, just like in ’01 when the Ron Turner led Illini qualified for the Sugar Bowl, Illinois got EMBARASSED on New Year’s Day. It was another dark day.

And how did Illinois build off the momentum of a 9-4 campaign? By going 5-7 the following season. ‘08 was low-lighted by an embarrassing loss to Western Michigan before a crowd of like 6,000 people in Detroit. In an era where ABSOLUTELY EVERYBODY goes to a bowl game, Illinois hasn’t been to back-to-back bowl games since ‘91-’92.

How is that even remotely possible for a team that plays in a power conference?

The Zooker is back for another year even though he REALLY should have been canned after last year’s dismal 3-9 showing; a year in which numerous experts predicted Illinois to finish third or fourth in the Big Ten. I knew better, I picked them seventh, but that was STILL too optimistic.

How can you ever trust an optimistic pre-season forecast for an Illini football team ever again? The state doesn’t have enough money to buy Zook out of his contract, meaning our hope -what little of it that we have left- is years down the road.  Hopefully, his successor will do the right thing: schedule cupcakes, beat them down, and get the program’s confidence back up so they can actually squeak out a few 6+ win seasons in a row, and then we can stop referring to every good Illini campaign as “that fluke season a few years ago.”

Of course, I know that’s an extremely sunny forecast. Because I also thought Turner would use the boost of the ‘01 season, combined with the Chicago Bears playing in his home stadium during 2002, as the perfect springboard for the program recruiting onto itself. And everything would change for the better. But Turner recruited division III level talent on defense and everywhere on offense outside of the tailback position.

At least Cub fans have that whole solidarity, safety in numbers thing going for them. They have each other to lean on in during their hopeless existence from April-September.  You know who Cub fans are because they never stop telling you. They make stupid documentaries, write cheesy books, and record awful music that reminds you they’re Cub fans. Then they stumble around and puke on the sidewalks in your neighborhood. Seriously, Cub fans, shot the f— up! You’ve produced enough cultural crap already. Even your mother is sick of you talking about how much you love the Cubs.

As for Illini fans, I guess they have basketball season. And these days basketball season seems to start in October, or maybe even September.

But all is not lost, right? The Atlanta Braves won a World Series, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers won a game when it was below 42 degrees, and the Denver Broncos won a Super Bowl. The Illini won two national titles in the 1920s (I’m sure national championships were a totally different animal and had a completely different name back then) and the Cubs have a date that we’re all sick of hearing for the kajillionth time.

Well, maybe it really is hopeless for both of them. I’ll start believing after the Buffalo Bills win a Super Bowl.

Paul M. Banks is Founder/President of The Sports Bank.net, an Upper Midwest sports webzine. He’s also a member of the Football Writers Association of America, the United States Basketball Writers Association and a sports writer for the Washington Times.com Communities and Walter Football.com

Well, we should hold back on our condemnation of a team not even 30 games into the season. Our low point of the 2010 season (so far) came on Tuesday, April 20, after a 4-0 loss to the New York Mets. We were four games under (5-9) and Zambrano was destined for the bullpen

Since then we have gone 8-4, sweeping Milwaukee on the road and taken 3 of 4 from Arizona at home in the process. We have scored 12 more runs than our opponents overall and 27 more runs in this 8-4 stretch. Our starters have picked up 6 of the wins and the bullpen has been responsible for none of the losses. The four losses have been by a combined 14 runs, with one outlier, the 13-5 loss to the Diamondbacks on April 29, accounting for more than half of those runs.

What is the point of all these numbers? Things are looking up.

Yes, Soriano is susceptible to striking out and his defensive style is more suited for a DH, as Stormin’ Norman Disciple has affirmed, but he is hitting .325 with 6 homeruns. We are getting excellent early season production out of the back of our rotation (Gorzelanny and Silva) and Ted Lilly has been decent as he works himself into regular season shape. Certainly the production of Marlon Byrd, Ryan Theriot, and a suddenly power-hitting (well, for him) Kosuke Fukudome are all things to toast with Old Style.

At the very least we know are good for a decent team that can pull out a win while we lounge in the bleachers. Basically, at least the Cubs are not playing like the White Sox.

• He isn’t going to run.  Not anywhere.  Not on the bases, not in the field, and probably not in the offseason.
• He is a sub-par outfielder at best, and that hop isn’t going anywhere.
• He will swing at anything the pitchers throw.  If its too close to the plate and not a curveball, there’s a good chance he’ll hit it.  If its not, swing and a miss.

Those things just are what they are.  As Cubs fans, we are going to have to deal with it.  The one thing that seems to be lost in all this, however, is Soriano’s ability to take a ton of heat from the media and fans constantly.  He’s been booed by fans and ripped apart by the media on a daily basis.  There is no loyalty, even though the man was stellar in 07 and 08, had a bad 09, and is swinging a hot bat again early this season.  One bad year and this city turned on him.  Did he lash out like Milton Bradley? No.  Did he mope like Jacque Jones? Nope.  He has been a model of patience and understanding with a city full of fans that will have treated him like crap.

Should we love Fonzy for being patient with us, even as he is being impatient at the plate?  No.  But we can’t forget how hard it is to have a spotlight on you all the time, especially with a ton of mostly unwarranted negativity.  Soriano has comported himself very professionally and deserves some credit for it.

(Note: The irony of writing this piece about loving Soriano only when he is hitting well is not lost on me.)

The best part is how he asks the reporter “What kind of baseball do you play?” and then stares him down, waiting for an answer.  Not too many questions after that, huh?  No one wanted to be the reporter that got choked by Lou that day, and the look in his eyes definitely made that seem possible.