Mike Kiley points out in today’s Sun-Times that the reason the 1999 Cubs sucked was because Ed Lynch lacked the balls, or the brains (actually, he lacked both) to considerably upgrade a fluke playoff contender. Not only were the 2003 Cubs no fluke, but Jim Hendry has taken the stance we all wanted him to take. As close as they were the 2003 Cubs weren’t good enough to get to the World Series.

So, piece by piece he’s trying to find five more outs.

Twelve months ago nobody would have thought that adding Derrek Lee, LaTroy Hawkins, Michael Barrett, Todd Hollandsworth and Kent Mercker would get it done.

Twelve months from now, we might not either. But you’ve got to like the effort, if nothing else.

Let’s look at is a positive. The additions of these five guys mean that these five guys won’t be pulling on Cubs stirrups in 2004:

Antonio Alfonseca
Mark Guthrie
Troy O’Leary
Damian Miller
Hee Seop Choi

OK, four out of five ain’t bad.

I thought yesterday that the signing of Hollandsworth meant the end of the Jeromy Burnitz saga for the Cubs and Hendry. Apparently, I was wrong. Because the Cubs carried two (and at some times three) first basemen on the roster last year, Hendry doesn’t necessarily see Hollandsworth as the “fourth” outfielder. He sees Todd as a guy who can play center and left and right and first base. Plus, he’s a lefty on a team full of righthanded hitters. Given that Paul Bako’s preferred batting side is non-essential (since he never actually hits the ball, anyway), the Cubs are still in dire need of a left handed bat on that bench. Expect Hendry to continue chasing after Burnitz with a contract and expect at some time next year to see Dusty pull this outfield out of his hat:
RF – Burnitz
CF – Goodwin
LF – Hollandsworth

I’m going to go weep for a moment.

As for Mercker, this is an excellent signing. A) He came cheap. B) After his brain exploded while he was pitching for Anaheim a few years back, Mercker’s return came via the bullpen and he’s been very good. He had a 6.17 ERA in Colorado in 2002, but it’s Colorado. And he posted a 1.95 ERA last year, splitting time between the Reds and Braves.

For his career, Mercker has allowed 19 homers to lefthanded hitters in 1168.2 innings pitched. That’s real good.

Mercker gets the Mark Guthrie role in the bullpen, and now that Dusty and Larry Rothschild have figured out that Mike Remlinger is better against right handed hitters than lefties, Mercker’s role becomes even more important.

Less intelligent Cubs discussion than the one we all engage in here (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) continues to hope that the Cubs will trade The Farns. Why? Who has a better bullpen in the NL than the group of Regular Joe, Remlinger, The Farns, LaTroy, Mercker and Todd Wellemeyer? Anyone? Anyone? I didn’t think so.

From one to 11, nobody in the league matches up with the Cubs on the hill.

Given a full season of Corey Patterson in center, E-Ramis Ramirez at third and a year in which Sammy Sosa keeps his toenails and the cork out of his bat and the offense should be considerably better.

Let the Astros pay big money to bring a lefthanded pitcher out of the best park for a lefty to pitch in (Yankee Stadium) to the worst park for one to pitch in (the ridiculous left field porch in Minute Maid Park), and let them drag a fat 40 year old red-assed Texan out of “retirement.” Let the Cardinals load up on Braves castoffs and the great Jeff Suppan.

Oh for chrissakes, this is going to be like taking candy from a baby.

Pardon me, I’ll be out planning the victory parade route.

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So is the stupid A-Rod-Manny-Magglio-Nomar trade off, or not? Larry Lucchino the fat, loud, often funny, VP of the Red Sox says the trade is dead. Peter Gammons pops up on ESPN every 17 minutes assuring us it will happen before the weekend is over.

You know what? I don’t care.

I don’t care about the Red Sox or the Rangers or the White Sox. The difference between having Manny and Nomar and having Magglio and A-Rod is tangible, but not by that much. As for the Sox, they’ll be worse off for this trade, so I like that. I just want it resolved one way or the other. I’m tired of it. Just go away.

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Sony has announced it has built a robot that can jog. Join me in asking, “What the f@#$ for?” What is the purpose of a jogging robot? Does the robot have high cholesterol? I think people who jog are morans, what does it make a machine that wants to jog, too?

Sony’s spending important research and development money on a dumbass jogging robot when it could be spending that money on things we could actually use. Like a robot who looks like this:

Or this:

If you ever wondered just how good the airbrush artists at Maxim were, I think the fact they made Michelle Branch look hot proves it. They’re the freaking Pixar of airbrush guys.

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The Bears are 6-8 and sending three players to the Pro Bowl. The Patriots and Eagles are a combined 25-5 and they’re sending four guys combined.

I for one, find nothing wrong with Brian Urlacher being voted to the Pro Bowl. I still think he’s the best middle linebacker in the NFC and I think the only people who think he’s had a bad season are those people dumb enough to listen to anything Mike North or Fred Huebner says out loud.

However, Desipio has learned that Paris Hilton had a lot to do with Urlacher’s huge fan voting component of his election to the Pro Bowl. Nearly half of the men who had sex with Paris this year say they voted once for Urlacher and those 8,000 votes were enough to easily secure him a spot on the team.

I’m told Olin Kreutz is a great center and I’ll take your word for it. As for Jerry Azumah, I still hope he’s exhibit A in the “Case against Dick Jauron’s job”. How a guy can be on your team for five years and five games before you line him up a kick returner is beyond me. Azumah’s only the best kick returner in the league, after all.

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Haray Caray’s restaurant paid $106,000 for the “Steve Bartman ball”. This pisses me off to no end. They claim they did it so that no “Marlins’ fan” could get their hands on it and mock Cubs fans with it. Sure. Whatever. There are like 185 Marlins’ fans in the world. This was about Harry Caray’s buying a publicity stunt. They plan on destroying the ball on February 26 and want people’s ideas as to how to do that. I’d like to see them destroy it by having Kerry Wood and Mark Prior taking turns hurling it at Chip Caray’s cranium. But I have a feeling they’ll just set it on fire, or pay Ronnie Woo Woo to eat it, or something.

Jose Valentin wants to know where he’ll be playing next year. Don’t worry Jose, it’ll be somewhere and you’ll be getting paid way too much to do it.

Simple-minded Phil Rogers says the deal is still alive. Phil ignores the fact that Kenny Williams wants to keep Nomar to spite Dan Evans. Williams hates Evans, and doesn’t want to help him save his job by landing Nomar. Why in the hell else would the White Sox even be in this stupid trade in the first place?

Seabiscuit’s original jockey, Paul Sullivan on the Cubs pick-ups of Mercker and Hollandsworth.

Scott Skiles would like to start winning a few games. Yeah, that’d be nice.

Groucho urinates all over LeBron.

Doug Padilla is a moran. He says that Kenny Williams knew along the trade would never work and that the White Sox still might sign Sidney Ponson. Doug is the guy, after all, who started the rumor that they signed him last week. Just in case, the Sox have kept Bart Colon’s fat pants on hand, just in case they do sign Ponson. They’ll fit him.

John Jackson says that Mike Patrick is why ESPN Sunday Night Football is such a big hit. If it’s such a hit, how come I watch football for six hours straight every Sunday, but only watch the ESPN game if the Bears are in it?

Mike Kiley on Hollandsworth, Mercker , Barrett and Jeromy.

Mariotti puts down the doughnut to bellow that the A-Rod deal not happening is bad for the fans. Oh, shut up. If you’re not a Yankee, Red Sox or Rangers fan, what the hell do you care where A-Rod’s going to get his $25 million to play next year? Just cram a pie in your face and go away.

I heard scuttlebutt from somebody close to ESPN that Mariotti insists on being on Around the Horn every day (while the other guests always rotate) because he’s afraid if he lets somebody else use his slot, he’ll never get it back. That’s also the reason why he insists on writing a column in the Sun Times SIX days a week. What a hack.

The Wizard of Roz on who stays, Angelo or Jauron?

Dick Vitale, long time college hoops coach ass kisser, says it’s terrible that St. John’s fired Mike Jarvis.

J-Lo tried to blow off Ben’s new movie premiere. I can’t blame her.

The Simple Life beat Diane Sawyer’s interview with Gee Dub on Tuesday night. This is surprising, why?

America’s finest news source on whether obese pets are held to “unrealistic body standards.”