All through the first three games of the Cubs-Cardinals series down there in dogpatch this weekend, it rained. On Saturday night it rained so hard that some guy built a boat and tried to get two of every one of the earth’s animals to line up and board it. But enough about Jim Edmonds…
I’ve been to Busch Stadium. I’ve been there when it was dry and it’s a nice place, if you like $8 Busch Light and a park that smells like a subway urinal.
Can you imagine what it smelled like this weekend? All I could imagine was the smell of wet dog.
But again…enough about Jim Edmonds.
It’s been a frustrating series so far because the Cubs should have won all three games and could not have played worse in two of them. They’ve popped up bunts, blew hit and runs, fallen down in the mud at second base, thrown a rundown into the stands, thrown a pick off into Vince Coleman’s tarp, and walked NINE men in the final inning of each game. NINE! That has to be some kind of record.
Corey Patterson’s popping up the first pitch in every at bat. Derrek Lee is “pulling a Domingo” every time there’s a guy at first base. Todd Walker has forgotten what first base looks like. Sammy is so lost he ran to left field yesterday to start the game. Michael Barrett’s the only guy who is hitting and he’ll be taking today off so we can get our weekly Bako-fix. Sigh.
And yet, we’re not worried. Why should we be? The Cardinals can have their little fun here early in the season, because I have seen the future and it does not involve any team deluding themselves into thinking that Tony Womack and Ray Lankford can continue to hit at or around .300. The future does not involve Woody Williams throwing 47 miles an hour, Ray King and Steve Kline holding doughnut eating contests in the bullpen, or Reggie Sanders remaining disabled list free for more than three weeks at a time. The future sure as hell doesn’t have Cole Porter’s illegitimate son (Cole was gay, right?), Marlon “Flipper” Anderson, Cody Gifford McKay and So (Awful) Taguchi on its bench.
And the future sure as hell does not have a manager who wears sunglasses, during night games, in the dugout during a torrential rain storm. Maybe The Genius can get Walt Jocketty to trade for Brewers’ farmhand Corey Hart so the two of them can sing “Sunglasses at Night” on acoustic guitars before the opening of each game?
What the hell is with St. Louis trotting out that hellaciously bad kid’s chorus to sing the national anthem and lead the seventh inning stretch every night? The amazing thing about this chorus made up of six through nine year olds is that their seating section has more teeth than any other section at the stadium made up of Cardinals fans.
It’s time for today’s installment of the award winning…
First off, I forgot one from Saturday night, so let’s make up for it. Chip was talking about Bo Hart, the erstwhile Cardinals “prospect” who played second base in the absence of demon spawn Fernando Vina last year. Chip said, “Tony Womack is holding down second base while Bo Hart is at AAA getting some more seasoning. Hart had a huge second half for the Cardinals last year filling in for Vina.”
Chip, you ignorant slut. Here were Bo Hart’s pre- and post-All Star splits last year.
PRE
106 AB, .368 avg, .407 obp, .509 slg, six walks, 18 strikeouts
POST
190 AB, .226 avg, .267 obp, .332 slg, six walks, 46 strikeouts
What’s so huge about that, nitwit?
By the way, you have to check out what ESPN thinks Bo Hart’s real name is. Click here for his stats, and read what it says.
Bodhi J. Hart Hart?
Is that like Boutros Boutros Ghali?
Early on in yesterday’s game, the ambiguously gay connection between Steve and Chip reared its ugly head again. Steve said this…word for word… “I thought the ride you gave me yesterday was lovely — though a bit extensive.”
Yikes.
Chip said this, “Matt Morris is a great hitting pitcher. For the season he’s hitting .400 and it’s not a small sample, he’s 5 for 13.” Thirteen at bats is the freakin’ DEFINITION OF SMALL SAMPLE SIZE!
Chip referred to Scott Rolen and Reggie Sanders as “the Dual Rangers.” I have no idea.
I’m glad I won’t be able to see the TV coverage of today’s game because every time he promoted it yesterday he pronounced Cardinals’ starter Jason Marquis name as Mar-kees. Excuse me while I vomit on myself.
Chip said, “Albert Pujols is a batting champion, just one of the several who have worn the golden bat of the Cardinals.” I have no idea what that means or how you wear a bat.
Five phrases that Chip should be eletrocuted if he utters again, “two out magic”, “invisible ball”, “rocket shot” and “little ground ball.”
Little ground ball. Aieeeeeeee!!!!!
And finally (applause fills the Internet), “I don’t use the comparison of Fergie Jenkins and Bob Gibson lightly, those two hooked up a plenty.” A plenty? Is Chip Amish? Does he churn butter as a hobby? A plenty? Who talks like this?
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It was obvious to anyone with any observation skills at all yesterday that Carlos Zambrano (who did kill the Cardinals by the way…at least while he was in there) has a nickname stitched into the outside of his glove in red. The nickname? El Toro.
You may think that’s for “The Bull.” But it’s not. Carlos’ new nickname means…
The Lawnmower!
Now that’s an intimidating nickname. Just think how the Cubs missed out last week by not billing the matchup in Arizona as “The Big Unit against The Lawnmower!” Yeah…that’s realy something.
Dusty did a double switch yesterday with Ramon Martinez and The Farns, and thankfully, home plate umpire Angel Hernandez and his crew were made aware of it. In fact, here’s a picture of Angel reading his lineup card.
While the Cubs bullpen is being villified for its failings this weekend, look at the fun the Cardinals bullpen guys have been having…
As for the Farns and his excellent misadventure yesterday, I actually felt kind of sorry for him. If you’ve ever seen the movie Heat with Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro, you’ll remember the scene where Amy Brennaman is in DeNiro’s car and she thinks they’re off to New Zealand to live happily ever after, but he stops at an airport hotel to “take care of something” which is to go kill a guy. She sits in the car, waiting and as he comes out he sees her and smiles, and she smiles back. Only then he turns and sees Pacino running at him. He runs right past Amy, just leaving here standing there. The look on her face? It was the look that The Farns had yesterday.
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Anyway, we’ll have a Cubs Live! thread open before the noon start of today’s final game in this hellish four game series, so we can mock our way through another one.
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Once again, thanks for clicking on the Google ads…and keep it up.
Matt Morris is still a jackass, and what is up with his bouffant hairdo?
Phil Rogers thought yesterday’s game was great. He would.
Groucho on how great Fred Hoiberg and Trenton Hassell are. Whatever.
Mariotti puts down the doughnut for an anemic effort on the Cubs bullpen.
Derrek Lee wants to forget April. Yeah, whatever.
I’m not the only one who was pulling for Smarty Jones in the Derby on Saturday.
Mark DeRosa made four errors yesterday. Great?
Peter King’s Monday Morning Quarterback.
Baseball Primer has a new look, and it’s sleeker and a lot slower. So much for progress.
How could Jim Edmonds be in St. Louis and Great Britain at the same time? He’s amazing.
Roger Ebert liked Mean Girls.
Hey look, Lindsay Lohan is popping out everywhere!
America’s finest news source asks some men on the street what they think about national cyber security.
El Toro? Dammit, didn’t anybody tell Carlos I already gave him a nickname? It’s a great one: Ca-Zam (Kazam). There’s nothing I like better than giving players nicknames that nobody but me will use, like calling Aramis, "The Ram". I can’t believe that one never caught on.
"The Ram" huh….Sounds uinteresting. How exactly does that work?
Uh, I meant "interesting". Sticky fingers…Sorry.
Sure, Andy Pratt blows, but has anybody noticed how the "other" guy in the Juan Cruz trade has done?
By the way, on Baseball Tonight yesterday Rob Dibble and Harold Reynolds both said the Cubs are overworking their bullpen (huh?) and Harold said they have to wait until the "Cruz kid is ready." I have no idea.
Anyway, here’s the skinny on Richard Lewis at AA West Tenn.
.354, .646 slg, six doubles, four triples, three homers, 14 RBI, zero errors in 21 games.
Well, he’s no Andy Pratt…
Chip of course continues the Joe Borowski Misinformation campaign (which Stoney, Dave Otto and Gay Mariotti continued along with 5 million other people).
Here’s a fact–Borowski did NOT struggle Saturday. If you read the box score, sure, it looks like he did struggle, but he didn’t. He gave up a broken-bat bloop hit to Pujols, got absolutely raped on the 3-2 to Edmonds, which was right down the middle but the ump, whose cajones are evidently as invisible as Kyle Farnsworth’s in a close game, gave Edmonds the pass; Jobo then got Rolen to bounce into what could have been a game-ending DP, but for the fact that the ball was hit TOO SLOW, gave up a legit single to Renteria-which was the ONLY hard hit ball the entire inning–and then proceeded to make Reggie Sanders look like a fool. The inning LOOKED like he struggled but, like I said, the only hard hit was by Edgar. And yet, in spite of watching the game from 500 FEET AWAY, Chip starts the postagame by reminding us of "Joe Borowski’s struggles."
My ass. I suppose if he goes three up, three down on three bullet, line-drive outs that he’s excelling? You’d think that Chip–and everyone else–was watching the game on the Internet.
Mike, you’re right about Borowski. The thing I like about Joe is, everybody’s putting pressure on him regarding his lost velocity, his inability to locate early on, LaTroy Hawkins taking his job, etc., but what seems to be overlooked is, Joe has converted every save attempt. He did have a couple of bad outings in that blowout against the Pirates and one of the games against the Reds, but that’s bound to happen. Better he has the bad outings in blowouts than when saves are on the line. As for Farnsworth, the guy is pressing. He keeps trying to throw the ball through the backstop. The last few games he’s been jacking up the fastball to 99. However, he’s usually more effective when he throws 96-97 and can actually put the ball over the plate.
Honesty compels me to say that the above photo of Lindsay Lohan made my week, and it’s only Monday! She was great on SNL this past weekend (which is tough considering the crap that was surrounding her). One of the sketches involved someone mentioning how it’s only 60-some days till her 18th birthday, so I’ll stop drooling for now.
What is up with the goof at Busch Ditch who makes those corny (yet finely-painted) signs? If I go down there this season, I’m gonna make him cry.
Still too much sitting around and waiting for an 8-run inning. What the hell does Dusty and the rest of staff do during the game? Hell, I could sit there and be supportive and encouraging of the guys (well, everybody but The Farns). It’s time to re-think this line-up, drop Corey in the order and even sit his ass down now and then, and find a #2 hitter. They have to start paying a little more attention to in-game strategy.
The best sketch of the Lindsay Lohan SNL was Horatio Sanz as a drunken Billy Joel driving some girls around the Hamptons.
I had a hit on my site from someone searching in Yahoo for:
"chip caray and steve stone personal problems"
Hey Everyone,
The Rockies are going with a four man rotation!
Look out now!
What I would like to see, one time, is Jimmy Fallon and Horatio Sanz be in a skit together and not squirm and halfway laugh in the middle of it! How hard can it be to not laugh and ruin the skit?!?!?
Lindsay Lohan was, um, impressive on SNL.
BC, any skit that contains Horatio Sanz and Jimmy Fallon is, by definition, already ruined.
I read an quote from Lindsey about the fact that she doesn’t have a boyfriend because "…she likes 24-year-olds, and since she’s only 17, that makes it illegal."
Um, first of all, precious? It’s only illegal if you engage in sex.
Second of all, my little red-haired dumplin’? What do you think of 39 year olds? Especially those that live in rural parts of Illinois, aren’t fashion-model attractive but really has a kind heart?
Forget that, I turn 24 in two weeks.
Wanna see my futon?
She’s gone!
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What, I didn’t get the job? Don’t those dumbasses know that I’m "wild and unpredictable?"
I, and the other eight Cold Pizza viewers, can’t even remember Kit Hoover’s name or the dumbass redneck former Tiger who makes appearances on the show.
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