Maybe you haven’t heard or been paying attention, but apparently this professional baseball team has been playing games on the North Side of Chicago since April.  I haven’t heard much about it, but after doing some research, it appears these North Side “Cubs” have accumulated a 27-33 record and stand at 3rd place in a weak NL Central despite having one of the highest payrolls in baseball.  Reliable staples of the Cubs lineup like Derek Lee and Aramis Ramirez are hitting .234 and .168 respectively.  On top of that, Cubs “Ace” Carlos Zambrano has bounced from the rotation to the pen and back to the rotation without much success in either role. 

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.

Yesterday was opening day for baseball on both sides of town, and the results could not have been more different.  Sox fans will tell you that this is a sign of things to come, while Cubs fans will say that it was one game and we all just need to relax.  I don’t know the answers, but I do know that the contrast between Buerhle and Zambrano was on display.

Zambrano got lit up, giving up 8 runs on 6 hits and 2 walks in just 1.1 innings of work.  While it was nice to see new addition Marlon Byrd go yard, as well as Ramirez, Big Z was the biggest problem.  Even the bullpen had some good moments in the 16-5 loss, and 5 runs is normally considered enough to win.  The two lefties Marshall and Russell combined for 4.2 innings of 2-hit no-run ball.  But Z, oh big Z.  He has the most electric stuff, but where does his head go?  And you know he lacks the ability to recover from a bad inning or even a bad at-bat.  For all those that think this year will be any different for Z in terms of learning to control his emotions, you are sorely mistaken.

Mark Buerhle’ description is the exact opposite.  This year will be no different for him in that he is the ultimate gamer.  The lefty gets guys out, and he does it quickly.  It really feels like he’s playing catch out there.  As a Cubs fan, I hear my fellow Cubs fans disparaging him year after year, talking about how he’s getting older and he’s “crafty” and all that kind of nonsense.  They are wrong.  The guy comes to play every time he takes the mound.  I would rather have 1 Buerhle with his decent skill-set and winning mentality than a 1,000 Zambranos with million dollar stuff and a 10 cent head.  The Sox got some help from their bats as well in the 6-0 victory, with Konerko and Rios hitting dingers.

Not only is Buerhle more reliable, but the guy is just more fun.  Check out this crazy play he made during yesterday’s game:

Baseball!!!!

Hi, my name is Stormin Norman and I’m a Cubsaholic.  I have been sober for 9 days.  I know its not a long time, but every day I battle with my demons.  I feel an urge to turn on the Cubs game, just catch a quick inning or check the score maybe.  But then I remember all the pain it caused me.

You know, it was fun at first.  I just watched a game here and there, and I was always enjoying myself.  It was only April, there was no pressure, I just wanted to have a beer or two, enjoy the green grass and the beautiful sunset against the grandstand.  But then I became more and more obsessed.  All of a sudden I needed to watch every inning of every game.  Sometimes it wasn’t too bad, Marmol might pitch a good inning, or when Derrek Lee started to heat up in June.  Sometimes it was miserable, when the Cubs offense shorted out and Milton Bradley turned on himself, the team, and even the fans.

Then August rolled around.  It started off decently, with the Cubs winning 3 out of 4 and sitting only 2 games behind the Cardinals.  And then things went south.  Not to say they had been going great all season until that point, but there was still a lot of hope.  Things were very precarious, however, and one weak link could trip up the whole operation.

Meet Kevin Gregg and an extremely inconsistent bullpen.  Sure, Gregg and the bullpen aren’t necessarily responsible for the position the Cubs are now in (if you ask me its a combination of terrible hitting and terrible coaching), but Gregg’s meltdowns in the 9th inning turned the tide on this season.  All of a sudden I was screaming at my girlfriend for no good reason.  Some days I would just be in a bad mood all day and not even know why.  I had to kick the habit, it had become self-destructive.  I think I’m much happier this way.

Now it is August 26th, the Cubs are 9 games behind the Cardinals in the NL Central and 8.5 back in the Wild Card.  Also, according to a box score I noticed this morning (I swear I didn’t fall off the wagon and watch the game!), the Cubs lost 15-6 to the Nationals (arguably the worst team in baseball) last night.  I had clearly made the right decision.

So that is why I have decided to quit drinking Cubsahol.  Obviously I will be back on the sauce come Spring Training 2010 (or possibly even Cubs Convention), but for now I’m just trying to get my life back together.  Football season cannot come soon enough.