After today’s spring training opener against the A’s, Carlos Zambrano, Hank White, Michael Barrett and Derrek Lee are all departing for what could be as much as 18 days to join their national teams for the World Baseball Classic.

For Derrek Lee, I’m sure he’s looking forward to this. It’s a chance to represent your country, hang out with some other All-Stars, get away from Dusty’s nonsense and have some fun.

Dusty has other ideas, though.
Since the US team is training in Phoenix at what used to be Bank One Ballpark, Dusty is going to ask Team USA skipper Buck Martinez if Michael and Derrek can come play with the Cubs on off days.

Now for what possible purpose would you make your starting catcher and your play-everyday-even-to-his-detriment-at-times first baseman come back to play on off days?

The reason, one can logically suppose is that a) Dusty’s not comfortable going through those 18 days of camp with Geovany Soto and the legendary Jose Reyes as the Cubs two catchers, and b) that he feels bad asking Michael to come back and do extra work and not Derrek.

We all know that Michael can use all the work he can get. Even though he’s in this week’s Sports Illustrated showing off he he enjoys working out with big rubber bands. Huh? I have no idea.

I find it amusing that every team and every manager seems worried about having one of their best players hurt in the World Baseball Classic, but Dusty doesn’t seem to have any concern that Derrek or Michael might get hurt in a Cactus League game on a WBC off day, thereby screwing up Team USA’s roster.

Jock Jones has struggled in his career against lefthanded pitchers, and last year he bottomed out, hitting barely .200 against them. Yesterday, he lit up Cubs lefty Rich Hill with a homer in the intrasquad game and then in his next at bat he got another hit off a lefty with a single off Sean Marshall.

Both Hill and Marshall were given their unconditional release after the game.

OK, not really.

But seriously, it’s someting to consider. I mean, it’s Jock Jones. It may be early in the spring, but it’s never that early.

I like how the media is portraying the Bulls move to finally waive erstwhile power forward Tim Thomas as doing Thomas a favor. Thomas was sent him in November to collect his $14 million salary in lieu of him actually being on the team. Thomas is expected to sign with the Phoenix Suns today. Which means he’ll have to…you know…go back to work. Before he was getting paid to do nothing. So how is this a favor?
Wait, don’t the Suns train not to far from Cubs’ camp? Maybe Dusty will ask if Tim can come play in Cactus League games on off days?

Here’s an interesting thing about the current NFL labor mess. Nobody knows how far under the salary cap the Bears are. Yesterday, ESPN.com said the Bears were $7.8 million under. Today, the Tribune says they are $17 million under. Back from terrorizing Italians for two weeks, Mariotti puts down the doughnut to say this:

The Bears are reported to be anywhere between $8 million and $17 million under the cap, not as much as NFC North rivals Minnesota and Green Bay.

How can nobody know? I assume that Ted Phillips knows, right? Maybe the next time Vag McCaskey falls asleep at the dinner table, one of the grandkids can get a look at the ledger balance in her checkbook.

Regardless of whether the Bears are $8 or $17 million under, they’re under. Plus, there’s the real possibility of an uncapped season in 2007. Anybody under the cap can go goofy if this holds up.

Actually, even teams over the cap can go goofy. Both Washington and Dallas figure to be big losers if the collective bargaining agreement isn’t extended today, right?

Kind of. Sure, they’d both have to dump some expensive players they’d like to keep. But since Dan Snyder and Jerry Jones have no concerns about what things cost, they can recoup it in a hurry.

Say the Redskins wanted to sign Antwan Randle-El, Drew Brees and LeCharles Bentley, but only cut enough guys to get three million under the cap in 2006?

Since there would be no cap in 2007. Here’s what Snyder does. He signs them all to deals that pay them $1 million in 2006 and then guarantees them (there’s a scary word for the NFL) each $30 million paid out between 2007 and 2008. Snyder doesn’t care. He lights his cigars with $1000 bills and wipes his hiney with bearer bonds. Or so I’m told.

See, here’s the thing. The teams way under the cap like the Vikings and Packers (and maybe the Bears–who knows?) still have an edge in this offseason, and this is where it would end. They could give the big free agents more up front money, even if Snyder or Jones guarantees money on the back end. This might be the last offseason…ever…that teams have an edge on Jerry and Danny. They might want to not botch it.

In the same column, Mariotti sports a chubby for Brees. I’m all for bringing in a veteran quarterback, a proven guy who could either be good, not just competent, if when Rex Grossman gets hurt again. But Brees? A guy who just had his shoulder sewn back on? Is that where you want to spend your cash?

This is typical Mariotti, too. He says “the Bears need to do this” but if they actually did it and Brees had shoulder problems all year he’d rail against that move every day.

Can’t we convince him that the Winter Olympics are still going on? You know until, like February of 2010?

The Wizard of Roz is on his “hey the Cubs can contend because even though they’re barely better, Houston and St. Louis are going to be worse” kick, and he has a made up mathematical formula to back up the fact that St. Louis and Houston have more to lose in the WBC than the Cubs.

Huh? How about the fact that while St. Louis could lose Generalissimo Pujols (to injury or pneumonia–old people catch pneumonia all the time), the Cubs could lose their best player and their best starting pitcher.

By the way, Barry, if you want to come up with a mathematical formula, try applying it to Kaseberg’s column ending jokes. Today’s groaner about the Knicks scored a -1,237,145 on the funny meter.

Marty Burns is trying to explain why Bryan Colangelo leaving the Suns for the Raptors makes sense. Let me boil it down for you. Daddy no longer owns the Suns, the Raptors are paying him three million a year and Jalen Rose no longer plays for the Raptors.

Speaking of Jalen. Why not download his toolbar? It’s not like it has a virus attached that will make your computer lose and jack up 27 bad shots every night, or anything.

Jay Mohr was funny once, right? I seem to remember it. Now? No trace.

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And since somebody asked yesterday, and since you read all the way to the bottom of today’s Dose (good going!), there will be a GameCast of today’s Cubs-A’s spring training game, since Pat and Ron will be at the mic on good old 720.