I know the team you root for has a proud history. Something about Cal Ripken Jr., Earl Weaver, Eddie Murphy’s afro poofing out through the hole in his batting helmet, the Robinson twins–Brooks and Frank, Jim Palmer in his underwear, Steve Stone in his game day yarmulke, and I could go on.

So why do so many of you think that a mamby pamby, world class priss like Andy MacPhail knows what the hell he’s doing in ‘rebuilding’ your team?

I mean come on. The boy genius is 54 and hasn’t won a goddamned thing since 1991. That’s a few days ago.

But he won two World Series in Minnesota! Yeah, about that…

When you think of the two Twins’ World Series teams, who do you think of? Kirby Puckett, Kent Hrbek, Tom Brunansky, Frank Viola and Gary Gaetti?

How many of those guys did Andy bring in?

None.

OK, he deserves some credit. He did trade for Dan Gladden. The 1991 team had more of his dainty little fingerprints on it, he signed Jack Morris as a post-collusion free agent and he made a ballsy trade of Frank Viola (didn’t want to pay him) for Rick Aguilera, Kevin Tapani and David West, which turned out pretty great for the Twins.

His years in Chicago were anemic, at best. His teams managed winning records a whopping four times in 12 seasons. He managed to keep a manager through an 0-14 start in 1997. They made the playoffs twice. Once when they injected Sammy Sosa with enough horse steroids that he used to strap on a bag of oats after batting practice and then again when the rest of the NL Central took a crap all over the 2003 season and the Cubs still found a way to blow a 3-1 lead against a team that had been around for a whopping decade.

The thing you need to realize is why Andy kept his job. Because he was making money hand over fist. How was he doing it? By making lame excuses to the public about why a team in the third largest media market, with a full ballpark, a stake in both TV stations they air their games on and the flagship radio station, couldn’t pay more than $80 million on salaries. His bosses loved him. They didn’t care if the Cubs won, just keep those checks coming in Captain McSweatervest, and that’s just what he did.

Now he’s in Baltimore, and you dopes actually think he wants to run the show. You think he’s going to stand up to your owner, Peter Angelos and fight for what’s right when it comes to the payroll and the roster. Wow, you’re all morons.

Andy will do what he’s always done. What he did to Carl Pohlad in Minneapolis, what he did to a multitude of asscastles like Jim Dowdle with the Tribune. He’ll put on his kneepads.

He’s legendarily timid when it comes to player acquisitions. Never risk spending money on the most expensive free agents. During his tenure with the Cubs they watched a parade of stars walk by without doing as much as to sit down with them to talk about a contract. It has always taken him forever and a day to make a trade. He agonized over his one big success in Minnesota (the Viola deal) so long that the Mets called it off at one point. What was the biggest trade the Cubs made during the 12 years he was there?

What? Come on. You can think of one. Sammy Sosa for George Bell? (Oops, 1992 is not 1994–even in Baltimore.)  Without pharmaceuticals, nobody cares about that one. Brant Brown for Jon Lieber? Ooh! It’s probably Dontrelle Willis, Jose Cueto, Ryan Jorgensen and Julian Tavarez for Matt Clement and Antonio Alfonseca. Feel the excitement.

Don’t get me started on the month long hostage crisis for Fred McGriff. Fred didn’t want to leave his cushy losing situation in Tampa. But the Cubs could get him for cheap, so they didn’t give up. Instead of looking somewhere else for a guy who might actually want to be there, they just kept obsession over how little it would cost. It was true. It’s also how little it helped. That trade and surrounding ordeal sums up Andy the best. Sit on your ass, don’t do anything and hope something falls in your doily covered lap.

He’s already made two big trades with the Orioles. One of which looks like a flop already. He needed to dump Miguel Tejada on somebody and he found a sap in Ed Wade and the Houston Astros. But he got a lot of mediocrity like Luke Scott, Matt Albers, Dennis Sarfate and Mike Costanzo. The guy who was supposed to make the deal for the Orioles was 22-year old lefty pitcher Troy Patton. Troy has a torn labrum. Oops.

In his other trade he got five more players for Erik Bedard. He gave up one of the best young starters in baseball and got an outfield prospect and four pitchers. Might turn out. Shouldn’t have taken three full weeks to pull off.

Now he’s working on his masterpiece. He’s trying to trade Brian Roberts to his old team, the Cubs. But it’s taking forever. The first rumor of this trade came before Christmas. It’s still limping along.

What’s the holdup? Andy needs more time to evaluate the Cubs’ prospects. Remember, he used to run the organization. Until last year. His scouting director, John Stockstill was the scouting director for the Cubs FOR SEVEN YEARS, until last year. Holy crap. Make up your mind, Andy.

How long does it take for you to go down a list of Cubs’ prospects and realize that Sean Gallagher’s pretty good, Eric Patterson might not be a total closet case, Ronny Cedeno sucks, Matt Murton’s limited but has some value, Micah Hoffpauir’s a much cheaper lefty version of that jerkoff scab Kevin Millar that you already have, and on and on.

Why is it taking so long? Because Andy doesn’t like to make decisions. He’ll sit on this egg long after it’s hatched. It’s what he does.

He was always fond of saying, “Never sign a player until you have to.” It’s probably not a bad theory, but it just reeks of his timidness. How many Cubs’ players went to arbitration during his 12 years there? None. You know why? He wanted to avoid any conflict, he said making a case against your own players was too destructive.

That was another trait of every team Andy MacPhail was the president of. The players ran the team. In 2000, Don Baylor came to the Cubs ready to kick some ass and make Sammy Sosa follow team rules. Until Andy and his hand picked nitwit Ed Lynch told Don he couldn’t. So Sammy kept acting like an ass and Don wasn’t allowed to do anything about it. Don tried to get fired so hard in 2002 he probably was ready to start making pantless pitching changes.

But by all means keep putting your faith in this guy. He seems intelligent (probably is) thoughtful (most likely just afraid to make a decision) and articulate (he uses several multi-syllabic words often.) But all he’s ever really been interested in was keeping his millionaire bosses happy. Hey, it’s worked for him. He was born with a silver spoon up his ass and he’s upgraded it to gold at 1,000 an ounce. Not too shabby.

Just don’t expect to ever actually compete since your team didn’t come pre-stocked like his Twins did. The Cubs sure didn’t, and there wasn’t a whole lot of improvement during his reign of malaise.

Sucks to be you.

Love,

Andy