It’s January, it’s finally above zero around here and blogs around the world are coming up with lame gimmicks to get you to read them until spring training starts.

So why not have our own lame gimmick? Last summer, Major League Baseball and A&E (yes, Bill Curtis’ A&E) put out an eight disc set called “Chicago Cubs Legends Great Games Collector’s Edition.” Your first thought is what mine was. “How the hell do these losers fill eight DVD’s?

The answer? They don’t. They really stretched to fill the eight, but we’re going to give a few of them the ‘running diary’ treatment because honestly, how can you let a chance to feature great games like a Les Lancaster versus Tom Hume start or a Jon Koronka masterpiece pass without comment?

We start, not at the beginning of the set (it’s the Sandberg Game, so we’ll get to that later), but on August 1, 1987. It’s Andre Dawson’s MVP season and the Cubs stink on ice. As you see in the photo, instead of a gold trophy like they currently reward MVPs with, Andre was given a mostly healthy white child for his efforts. Nice.

Lineups:

Philadelphia Phillies 53-48

Juan Samuel, 2b
Milt Thompson, cf
Von Hayes, 1b
Mike Schmidt, 3b
Glenn Wilson, rf
Chris James, lf
Lance Parrish, c
Steve Jeltz, ss
Tom Hume, p

Chicago Cubs 52-50
Dave Martinez, cf
Ryne Sandberg, 2b
Leon Durham, 1b
Andre Dawson, rf
Jerry Mumphrey, lf
Keith Moreland, 3b
Jim Sundberg, c
Paul Noce, ss
Lester Lancaster, p

Wow, there are a couple of powerhouses. The game was broadcast on WGN with Harry Caray and Steve Stone.

Steve hasn’t given us any idea of the visibility at Wrigley, but he did point out that wind is blowing out to left at 15 miles per hour.

Samuel grounds out to Noce to start the game, and Harry has just announced that 300 Special Olympians are being honored at the game, and several of them will be pitching for the Cubs in the later innings. So, if they can get a lead, they can probably keep it.

The Phillies are wearing their powder blue uniforms, but they aren’t the zip up ones, those were the gayest ones ever.

Thompson reaches on an infield single to Moreland, whose throw to first was about four minutes late to get Thompson. Ahh, Keith Moreland at third…poetry in motion.

Milt calls timeout to tie his shoe and it takes him so long that Harry’s not sure if Milt knows how. He then steals second so easily that you’d have thought Jason Kendall was catching for the Cubs.

Schmidt is up, hitting .269 with 22 HR and 69 RBI, and Steve is pretty sure that Schmidt will hit one to Hammond.

Schmidt is no match for our man Lester Lancaster and he strikes out.

So this game was 21 years ago and if not for the cheesy WGN graphics you’d never know it. The Cubs are mediocre, the crowd is standing room only and Harry is lamenting that the Cardinals just broke a seven game losing streak.

Dave Martinez leads off the bottom of the first with a single. WGN just showed a graphic that he’s hitting .343 as a lead off hitter. Sandberg digs in, passive aggressively leers at Martinez and Sandberg walks as Martinez tries to steal second. Harry’s the only guy in the park who realizes that it’s ball four, so Ryne stands there confused and has to be told to go to first. It’s almost as if something is distracting him.

Lee Elia is managing the Phillies. Always good to have Lee back in his “playground for cocksuckers.”

Leon Durham is up and if he’s batting third…you are bad. Tom Hume’s glasses are so big that ants all around home plate are smoking.

Harry’s lamenting that the reason the Cubs are only three games over (don’t worry Harry, it’ll get a lot worse) is that they don’t cash in opportunities with runners on. Here they have first and second and nobody out…no, wait, make that bases loaded with nobody out, because Durham just walked.

Dawson is hitting .297 with 28 homers and 87 RBI. Harry warns the “youngsters on Waveland Avenue” that one is coming. The crowd is buzzing the way only Wrigley does, and so far every fan they’ve shown who is wearing shorts that their t-shirt tucked in and the shorts jacked up to their tits. Ahhh, the 80s!

Harry just read a get well wish message to a woman in the hospital on behalf of Sharon Panozzo. Just wait until the Indigo Girls release their first album, she’ll feel a lot better.

Dawson smokes one that’s headed to the left field corner to clear the bases, but Schmidt makes a great play, grabs it and doubles off Martinez at third. Cubs baserunning is tremendous.

Jerry Mumphrey was batting .320? THE Jerry Mumphrey? Oh, I’m sure this will end well.

Hume has nothing. So far he’s given up a single, walked two, been saved by a great defensive play…and Mumphrey just walked to reload the bases for Moreland.

Moreland came in hitting .259 with 18 homers and 60 RBI. And about 74 errors at third.  The threat dies with Keith.

Harry is at his best now, Miss America, Kellye Cash has come into the booth. She’s got laryngitis and Harry is offering to ‘coat her throat’ for her. They don’t make them like Harry anymore. Not even in his own goddamned gene pool.

Wilson flew to left but Harry didn’t notice or care because he was literally standing in the back of the booth with Miss America. Chris James is up and who the hell is Chris James? I don’t remember him. He’s got a pathetic mustache going and he can’t outrun the gun of the great Paul Noce for the second out.

Lance Parrish is catching, which means Darren Daulton has extra time to sit in the dugout and try to signal the mothership.

Harry just looked at Parrish’s numbers and said, “If any young player was playing as bad as Parrish he’d have lost his job a long time ago. He’s not hitting and they are stealing his pants off–the baserunners that is.” Parrish, of course, singles.

Harry then laughs because the next hitter is Jeltz who is hitting .190 and has six RBI. Steve Stone gives get well wishes t Bertha Howell, and somewhere Sharon Panozzo is writing down her contact info.

Jeltz grounds to Noce and it’s pretty obvious that the Phillies are picking on the wrong superstar. Hit ’em to Sandberg! You can’t get anything by Paul Noce.

Stone relates that the reason Sundberg is starting is because Jody Davis was late for batting practice. He leaves out the fact that Jody came rolling in with a hooker on each arm, not wearing pants and throwing up into a paper bag.

Sundberg flies to center as Harry makes a big deal out of the fact that during the last roadtrip the Cubs finally painted lines to divide the linescores on the centerfield scoreboard into thirds. He’s so happy, you’d think they just installed a Budweiser tap in the broadcast booth.

Of course, they did that in 1983.

Noce pops to Parrish behind home plate and Lancaster pops to Jeltz. After two, no score.

Hume grounds to Moreland and the crowd cheers wildly at Moreland’s first assist of the year. Hey, it’s only August!

Harry says “A lot of people think you don’t need to be good defensively at third and first base.” Uh, Harry…nobody thinks that. Except Gene Michael.

Lancaster strikes out Samuel who gets his bat caught in between gold chains number nine and 14 and falls down.

Thompson lines one off Lancaster’s thigh and it floats to short where…who else…Noce catches it for the out. Let’s hope Les isn’t hurt! Oh, wait, who cares?

Dave Martinez leads off the third and all the ladies swoon. I remember going to games that year and seeing a lot of hot women wearing a photo button with Dave’s picture on it. Little did I know that they weren’t buying them, but that Dave would hand them out after he banged them in the men’s room at Murphy’s.

Tom Hume is cleaning his glasses behind second base and he could use a full-size squeegee on those bad things. Harry is talking about Jim Frey’s barber and says, “He does a good job. He doesn’t look like he has a bowl.” Wait until he trades for Mitch Webster, Harry, then you’ll know Jim is smoking one.

Martinez walks. Yes, the Cubs have walked four times in two plus innings. And they have no runs. Now that’s the kind of tradition worth keeping.

Sandberg crushes one just foul to left, and the “Budweiser” house across Waveland isn’t painted with the logo yet, but they do have an enormous inflatable Budweiser beer can sitting on it. Classy.

Sandberg pops to Samuel who makes a great over the shoulder catch. Steve says, “He’s really improved defensively since Lee Elia has taken over the Phillies.” Don’t worry, Steve, it won’t last.

Leon Durham is ninth on the Cubs homer list with 125 homers. So wait a minute, Sammy hit enough homers in back-to-back seasons to get into the top ten in Cubs home runs even if he’d never hit one before or after? Yeah, those were Flinstone vitamins, weren’t they, Sammy?

Durham doubles into the right field corner, for some reason Martinez doesn’t score, so here’s Dawson with runners at second and third and one out.

Dawson looks bad a 1-0 curveball. He looks much less bad on the 1-1 pitch as he hammers it onto Waveland. A 40 year old man in a way too-tight t-shirt holds up the ball to the camera Harry says, “A kid across the street caught that one.” To Harry, 40 is a “kid.” True Value will donate $300 dollars for that home run. Cheap bastards.

Southwest Airlines has not been founded yet, so we have no idea How Far It Did Fly.

Steve calls it a “three run Hume run” and Harry tries to ignore it. Finally he says, “you mispronounced home.”

Mumphrey singles to left and I’m not sure about this, but I don’t think Tom Hume has much left, in this appearance…or this career.

Harry says that Gary Ward hit a game running homer for the Yankees ‘last night.’ Daryle’s dad. Yeah, this was a long time ago.

Sundberg hits into a double play to end the inning and DeWayne Staats is going to be along to take us through the middle three.

DeWayne and his perm are looking good, too. He and Steve talk about how Les will respond after being hit with that line drive in the third. Neither appear to care, however.

Stone points out that Les has a “flesh colored” bandage on his left wrist, so the ball must have hit his arm before it hit his leg. I would imagine that Andre Dawson and Shawon Dunston would argue that the bandage is not “flesh colored.”

Von Hayes loops one in front of Mumphrey who gets a bad jump on it and falls down and catches it. OK, it wasn’t a bad play at all. But Brian Dayett is wasting away on the bench while the horrendously old Mumphrey gets all his starts.

(Now is the time I don’t mention that Mumphrey is 34, but Dayett is 30 and that Mumphrey hit .333 with a .934 OPS for the ’87 Cubs. I won’t mention that.)

Steve and DeWayne are kicking around the merits of the huge San Francisco – Pissburgh trade of Don Robinson for Mackey Sasser trade. Schmidt grounds to Noce. Hey, stop hitting it to Noce!

DeWayne can’t figure out why the Pirates want Sasser when they’ve already got Mike Lavalliere. Wow. I’m glad nobody has recordings of me talking baseball in 1987 either.

Lancaster walks Wilson and Chris James homers off the Tru Link fence in left to cut the lead to 3-2.

Steve and DeWayne are now talking about how all year there’s been talk of a “lively ball” with homer numbers going up (just wait, guys) and pitchers getting hit by batted balls more than ever. DeWayne reminds us that the Cardinals just lost Danny Cox for the season with a broken leg on a liner back to the mound. Steve fights off the urge to talk about getting your Cox hit by a baseball.

Arne treats us to shots of hot women (for the ’80–you know with bad, permed hair and big, oversized t-shirts) and really bad hats. I’d almost forgotten the hat jokes.

Paul Noce superstar leads off the fourth. Noce, who would play 70 games for an injured Shawon Dunston pops out. Dunston had a lousy year in 1987, hitting .246 with a .267 on base average) but Noce was worse, with a .228 average and a .261 on base average. Woof.

Steve and DeWayne are talking about great it is to see Lee Elia get another chance to manage a team. I’m disappointed they don’t finish the conversation with ‘And you can kiss our asses downtown, and print it!’

With two out, Martinez walks again (no wonder they traded him.) Sandberg looks down at first, weeps slightly and he walks, too. That brings up Bull Durham with two on and two out. Leon has hit 17 homers and driven in 38 runs. Well…of course he has.

Wallace Ritchie is warming up in the Phillies bullpen. Who?

In the middle of the at bat, Lee Elia comes to the mound to talk to Hume. He says to him, “It’s a disheartening fucking situation that we are in now.” Whatever, it works. Hume flies to right. Looks like he didn’t do enough coke before the at bat.

Steve starts the fifth by reading the disclaimer. Remember when announcers had to do that? It only took like 30 years for somebody to figure out they could record it and just play it during the game instead. Brilliant.

Jeltz doubles to left, his only extra base hit in his big league career. Not really. He had 71 in his EIGHT year big league career.

Hume bunts, but Lester is all over it, and easily guns down Jeltz at third. Moreland nearly botches it by tagging Jeltz up around the crotch, but he’s still out.

Steve does one of those things that always amazed us. He says before a two strike pitch, “Samuel can’t hit anything that breaks away, especially if it’s on the outer part of the plate.” Lancaster strikes Samuel out and makes him look feeble swinging at the two strike curve over the outside corner. Milt Thompson grounds to Moreland to end the inning. Still 3-2 Cubs.

Some douche from a downstate radio station gets to be on TV because they just re-upped for three years on the Cubs network, and he keeps grabbing the microphone from DeWayne as he asks him questions. His fly also appears to be at half mast.

Dawson looks bat the 1-0 curveball (see a trend yet) and Hume (again) throws him a 1-1 fastball that ends up on Waveland. Pitchers are dumb, gang. No matter what decade.

The fans in the stands go wild with ecstacy and bring the Hawk out for a curtain call. Shawon Dunston salaams the camera in the dugout and gives Dawson a hug. That move means three more weeks on the DL for Shawon.

Wallace “Wally” Ritchie is a lefty and he’s in to face Mumphrey, Moreland and Sundberg. Nice managing, Lee.

Mumphrey flies to left on a ball that Dayett would have crushed out on the street for the first out. What a hack.

The two homers by Dawson are his third and fourth of the season against the Phillies. It’s game five. Giddy up.

DeWayne says that Wally Ritchie’s parents must have been big “Leave it to Beaver” and “Dick Van Dyke Show” fans because his names are those of the oldest sons on both shows. As if that’s not lame enough, Steve follows up with, “They should have named him Lionel.”

Moreland shrugs off the puns and doubles to left, and is nearly gunned at second by James, even though he was running hard the whole time. I nearly forgot how slow Keith was.

The Phillies are playing with fire. They walk Sundberg intentionally to tangle with the Noce!

Noce is out on a called third strike…and looked bad doing it. Yikes.

I don’t remember Glenn Wilson, but he was an All-Star for the Phillies in 1985 and finished 23rd in MVP voting. Oh…THAT Glenn Wilson. Lancaster hits it hard, but right at Chris James. After five, it’s 4-2 Cubs, all the runs have scored on Dawson homers.

DeWayne’s fired up about tomorrow’s game, featuring 15-4 Cubs righty Rick Sutcliffe and 13-5 Phillies righty Shane Rawley. I’m gonna guess that Sutcliffe will pitch his ass off, but leave trailing 2-1, only to have Manny Trillo tie the game in the ninth with a homer off Steve Bedrosian before Sandberg wins it in the tenth with an RBI single. But that’s just me.

Von Hayes leads off the sixth with a walk, and Schmidt follows with a single. Two on, nobody out.

Cubs pitching coach Herm Starette (yes, THE Herm Starette) comes out to counsel Les. I’m sure whatever he said was sage.

Steve says the two best managers in the big leagues are Whitey Herzog and Buck Rogers. Cubs’ manager Gene Michael now wants to be referred to only by his nickname “Stick” hoping it will give him more cache. Except for the fact it’s short for “Stick Up The Ass.” So, probably not.

Wilson flies to right and Hayes tags, but Dawson makes a good throw (of course) to hold Schmidt at first and keep the double play in line. No Cubs’ rightfielder since has ever done that.

DeWayne is spending way too much time talking about Chris James’ muscles and I just now figured out that Chris James is the brother of former SMU star and Super Bowl XX punching bag Craig James. Who knew?

Lancaster strikes out James on a nice fastball down and in. Old Les had a nice career for the Cubs, especially in 1989 and on this day he looked like the second coming of Dickie Noles.

Lance Parrish is up with runners on the corners and two outs, and he looks like the ‘detective’ in ever Cinemax soft core porn movie, ever. Steve thinks Lance is lifting too many weights. Just wait, Steve. Just wait.

On an 0-2 pitch, Les balks. His SIXTH of the season and TWENTY-SIXTH of the season for the Cubs. How is that possible? It’s 4-3 Cubs now.

Parrish flies to Mumphrey, so the balk leads to the only run. Nice job, Les.

Martinez pops one to the stands behind the third base dugout, notable only for the shot of third base umpire John McSherry that we see. He’s got to be 350 pounds. Nine years later he’d die on the field during a game.

Ritchie strikes out Martinez, and Sandberg hits one hard but right at Thompson in center for the second out.

Durham strikes out feebly to end the inning and Wally Ritchie just made both lefties he faced look sick.

Lancaster falls behind the great Steve Jeltz 3-0 and Harry scares us with word that Frank DiPino is warming up in the bullpen. Lancaster is so shaken by the news that he walks Jeltz on the next pitch. That’s it for Ritchie, as Ron Roenicke is going to hit for him. Steve points out that Roenicke is hitting .080 against righties and .360 against lefties, so thankfully that keeps DiPino in the bullpen.

We’re used to seeing great looking women at Cubs’ games, but WGN’s third base camera keeps picking up Martina Navratilova’s older, uglier sister wearing a tube top. It’s distracting. Maybe it’s Ivan Lendl in a wig?

Les goes to a full count on Roenicke and he’s got nothing left. He misses badly on ball four, and Herm Starette is literally running to the mound. Harry’s not happy that Lancaster’s not coming out. Steve says that the Cubs can’t go to DiPino yet because the great Rick Schu will hit for Milt Thompson. The day before, Schu lit up the Cubs with four RBI on two hits. Anyway, Samuel is the batter of immediate importance and Les gets ahead of him 0-2. Samuel hits a grounder to short and Noce got the lead runner at third. This one’s going on the Paul Noce highlight reel. What were the odds that Moreland would remember to cover third on that? Nice job, Keith.

With one out and two on, Thompson flies to Mumphrey, and Gene Michael won’t let Lester pitch to Von Hayes.

Les pitched his ass off, pitched into the seventh, took a liner off his arm and leg and Michael couldn’t be troubled to give him any acknowledgement or even a half-assed pat on the back when he took him out. No wonder the guys loved playing for him so much. Douchebag.

DiPino is in and you know what? He looks more than a little like our buddy at Ivy Chat, Chuck Gitles. Next year at the convention I’m gonna have Chuck signing Frank DiPino autographs for people. I’m sure they’ll be in high demand.

Chuck? Is that you?

Frank Gitles gets Hayes on a looper to…who else…Noce and the crowd goes nuts in anticipation of Harry singing the stretch.

Harry, for a guy who missed the early part of that season recovering from his stroke, looks and sounds great. The best part of this otherwise pedestrian game is a chance to hear Harry.

Dawson leads off the seventh to a standing ovation, the place is going nuts and Mike Jackson is in to pitch for the Phillies.

Andre misses the curve terribly and is behind 0-2 (you don’t think an inexplicable fastball is coming, do you?), and Jackson misses outside to make it 1-2. Jackson tries to get on in, doesn’t and Dawson hits one into what is now the family section in left field. Homers 29, 30 and 31 for Andre who has just passed Jack Clark for the RBI lead in the National League. Hey, this guy’s kind a good!

The fans won’t stop until his second curtain call of the day. Rafael Palmeiro pats Andre on the back, winks at Sandberg and strolls cockily away from the camera.

Dawson is the first Cub to have three homers in a game since Dave Kingman did it in 1979. They went eight years between three homer games? Yikes.

Harry’s now mocking the Dodgers for passing on a chance to sign both Tim Raines and Andre in the offseason, and Harry still can’t believe that the Cubs had to be convinced to sign Andre with the “blank contract” offer.

After the homer, the Cubs go down in order, and after seven it’s Andre Dawson 5, the Philadelphia Phillies 3.

WGN opens the eighth with a replay of Andre jogging to right where the bleacher fans are giving him the salaam treatment and Andre tipping his hat.

Lee Smith is in for the two inning save opportunity and Manny Trillo replaces Moreland at third. Gee, how did this team ever finish last?

Harry’s wondering what Andre’s day would have looked like without the diving play by Schmidt in the first. Well, it’d have probably looked like 4-4 with eight RBI. But 3-4 with two homers and five RBI aren’t too shabby. But Harry goes on to say that in the previous game, Chris James made a diving catch on a Dawson liner with two outs and the bases loaded. Andre would be looking at a two game stretch in which he would have had 11 RBI.

Schmidt grounds to Sandberg for the first out and Wilson strikes out looking for the second. Two outs? Time for Lee to get into trouble.

James singles on a 2-0 pitch. Parrish walks. Two on, two out and the handsome Greg Gross is up to pinch hit for Steve Jeltz. I really miss the days when every player had a pornstache and wore aviator sunglasses. That’s when men were men.

Harry is lamenting that the Cubs let Gross get away. Gross hit .322 for the Cubs in 1975 and in 1976 was traded to the Phillies with Manny Trillo and Dave Rader for Barry Foote, Ted Sizemore, Jerry Martin (Fork’s favorite player), Derek Botelho and Henry Mack. Yikes.

Smith walks Gross to load the bases and Darren Daulton has been beamed back down to earth to run for Parrish at second.

Jeff Stone is going to hit for Mike Jackson. Harry wonders if Lee Smith has ever been taken out during an inning. Sounds like Harry would like to see it happen for the first time.

Smith gets ahead of Stone 0-2. Just to clarify, even though he changed his name to Jeff Stone after he went to prison as part of the Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan thing, this is not Jeff Gillooly.

Predictably, Smith runs the count to 3-2. Everybody will be running on the pitch. Stone swings at ball four and the inning is over. To the bottom of the eighth, still 5-3 Dawsons.

In the bottom of the ninth the PA is playing “Hey, Hey, Holy Mackerel” and the fans are singing along. Nobody loves to sing corny team-centric songs than the Cubs’ fans.

Noce is retired on a nice play by new Phillies pitcher Jeff Calhoun. Here’s Trillo and he’s hitting .301 on the season. Seriously. He’s 100 years old.

Harry’s excited about the players wives’ game tomorrow. He said, “I can’t wait to see the wives in their uniforms.” I think Harry’s thinking lace bras and panties.

Harry, who said it was “standing room only” when the game started announces the attendance at 33,002. Oops. Well, maybe 5,000 of the seats were on fire?

Trillo strikes out, and the season attendance is shown with the average being 26,969 per home game. Or about 14 ,000 less than now. Harry’s interested because of the attendance clause in his contract. The no-shows are costing him money.

Martinez walks for the third time in the game, he’s been on four times. True to form, the decaying corpse of Bob Dernier will be in the lineup tomorrow.

Well hey, Rawley’s a lefty. Even if two of Martinez’s walks in this games were against lefties. Maybe if he’d played more he wouldn’t have had so much time to screw Cindy Sandberg?

Speaking of the Sandberg’s Ryne lines to Calhoun to end the inning. Lee’s back on the bump to try to finish off the Phils.

Arne puts up a graphic that says:

Top of the 9th Inning
Phillies 3
Dawson 5

I’m sure there are lots of fans sitting at home thinking, “Wow, I wish we had Calvin Schiraldi,” as they see Lee Smith try to loosen his back up. Wait, nope, just one, just Jim Frey.

Steve throws out this pun, and Harry ignores it. “Lee says his back is bothering him like it was a few years back.”

Samuel taps to Trillo at third for the first out.

Arne shows a hung over Jody Davis practically lying on the dugout bench. Good to see Jody’s stopped vomiting for the moment.

It can never be easy, even 21 years ago, and Thompson singles to increase the likelihood that Lee has to face Schmidt before the game is over.

Smith falls behind Hayes 3-0 with Schmidt on deck. Harry’s about ready to slide down the screen and attack Lee.

A borderline call goes Lee’s way and it’s 3-1 to Hayes.

Hayes chases a bad slider and it’s 3-2.

Hayes tops one over the bag that Noce and Sandberg don’t get near. That puts runners on first and third with one out and Cubs’ serial rapist and murderer Mike Schmidt at the plate. Steve optimistically reports that Schmidt has hit into 11 double plays.

Schmidt swings hard at a high fastball for strike one.

On the second pitch he smokes one to Sandberg’s right. Ryne makes a great play to get to the ball, stab it and feed a perfect throw to Noce who turned the double play. And…as Harry says, “Cubs win! Cubs win!”

I don’t know what it says about the Cubs as a franchise that this game is one of the greatest they’ve had (it wasn’t), but the game involved a Hall of Fame announcer, a Hall of Fame second baseman making a great play to end it, a future Hall of Famer hitting three homers and a Hall of Fame Phillie scaring the pants off the Cubs’ fans in the ninth. So not too shabby.

The happy totals.

The Cubs go to 53-50 on the season (they’ll finish 76-85 and in last) behind Les Lancaster at 3-1 and Lee Smith’s 26th save.

The Phillies fall to 53-49 (they’ll finish 80-82 and in fourth) and Tom Hume falls to 1-3 on the season.

Next up on Cubs Live? Let’s go back to June 23, 1984 for a Saturday afternoon at Wrigley with the first-place Cardinals in town to take on the surprisingly spunky Cubs.