There may be no more universally beloved Cub (at least at this address) than The Lawnmower, Carlos Zambrano and last night he made another case for what we can only assume is his impending world domination. Carlos shut down the Padres last night and did the offensive dirty work himself in a 5-1 win that has Wrigleyville breathing again.

Because no good Cubs fan can shake the fear of collapse there was an unnecessary urgency to win a game in early August to avoid falling into a (gasp!) tie atop the wild card standings. Carlos assured the Cubs of at least a couple more days of backdoor playoff supremacy.

(Please make your own Lassie Edmonds jokes about the last sentence.)

On a day in which former Cubs superstar Rey Ordonez became an American citizen, (seriously, I’m not making this up, Rey will be voting this November), the Cubs shook off two horrendous efforts to play like they’re supposed to. Doesn’t everybody feel a little better?

I know Rey does.


“I, state your name, pledge unity to the frat…”

The Lawnmower flirted with trouble in the second and third but struck his way out of both jams. He also had an RBI single and nearly added an infield hit. Carlos was working with two extra days of rest and Steve was worried he’d be “too strong” but Carlos did just fine, thank you.

Chip Caray was at full blovation moronicness last night, but we’ll get to him in a minute.

Corey Patterson had another good night with a homer, a single, a walk and a stolen base. I’m sure one of our Intrepid Readers was poking the Corey voodoo doll until Corey got thrown out trying to steal third last night.

Sammy ran his hit streak to two, Moises struck out for the 1245th time in his career on a check swing and E-ramis hit the ball hard three times with an 0-3 with an RBI to show for it.

Rick Sutcliffe was on hand to sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” and he was relatively sober this time, so he had that going for him.

OK, about Chip. The fun never stops with this guy, does it? He’s got a lot of problems, we know that. The fake wife and kids, the monobrow, the deejay voice, the Fred Rogers sense of humor, and we could go on. But when it comes to just broadcasting a game, Chip’s biggest problem is this.

He refuses to watch what happens first and then describe it. It’s why he’s wrong on more than half of the flyballs that are hit. A normal announcer would go through a process like this.

– Batter hits the ball.
– Announcer watches where ball is going, then begins to talk.
– Ball is caught, lands in play, lands foul, or lands in the stands for a home run.
– Announcer says what happens.

That’s pretty easy. It’s why if a monkey could talk, you could train a monkey to announce and he’d win an Emmy.

Here’s Chip’s “process.”

– Chip’s already talking.
– Batter hits the ball.
– Chip is still talking.
– While talking, Chip watches where the ball is going and has already gone through the complicated mental gymnastic process he uses to decide whether to call it a “little ground ball, a rocket shot” or to just blurt out “belted!”
– The ball does the opposite of what Chip said it was going to.
– Chip’s still talking.

Last night, the Cubs sealed the win with back-to-back sacrifice flies from E-ramis Ramirez and Derrek Lee. On Lee’s sac fly, Chip said, “here’s a flyball to shallow right field.” Brian Giles caught the ball about ten feet in front of the warning track and with his stumpy arm had no shot at throwing out Sosa at home. Shallow?

Chip ought to know shallow. He’s all about it.

I’m sure more than a few of you caught Chip’s gratuitous Craig Biggio reference in which he managed to work the word “hump” into the conversation. Slim Goodbody wasn’t as transparent as Chip is.

And what is with David Kaplan doing the FSN pre and post game stuff now? We traded in the unkempt beauty of Gail Fisher for this? Kaplan looks like a weasel with road rash. I don’t know what’s more unsettling the little tuft of hair he’s got on the upper right hand of his forehead or the creepy thin goatee he’s grown to try and draw your eye away from the fact that you could show a drive in movie on his forehead?

It’s also fun to watch him look directly at the on-set director to get his cue to talk. If somebody playing poker in Deadwood had eyes that shifted that much, they’d have a bullet in their head by the second hand.

Speaking of journalistic excellence, it’s time to go to Athens, for a plausibly live hook up with our own Karry Ling. Today, Karry has an interview with a US soccer superstar.

Karry: Hello again everybody, it’s your old pal Karry Ling here in Greece for the 2004 Summer Olympic Games! Even though the opening ceremonies aren’t until tomorrow night, the games have actually started. I was on hand yesterday as our women’s soccer team flexed their he-she power in a 3-0 win over the home team, Greece. I’m excited to say that I have with me one of the players, Abby Wambach.

Abby, welcome to Desipio.com, what did you think of your performance yesterday?

Abby:

Karry: Sorry, Andy, she’s a little shy.

Andy: Karry! That’s not Abby Wambach, that’s Pepe, the yak that you rented to get around Athens for the games.

Karry: I think you’re wrong, boss. Pepe doesn’t smell this bad.

—-

We’ll have more from Karry all through the Olympics. Hopefully, his coverage will improve. Don’t count on it.

Seabiscuit’s Jockey is hoping that Sammy has a problem with Dusty calling him “sensitive.” Just look at the last two words of this “article.” Somebody needs to drop a phone book on the jockey.

Now the Jockey is quoting an interview with The Franchise that he heard on the radio. He’s all about journalistic excellence today, isn’t he?

Today, Vince Coleman is going to teach Corey how to get tangled up in the infield tarp!

A Northwestern egghead discusses the “new” Wrigley Field. I’d like one with a toilet that flushes.

Excuse me while I digress for a moment. When I was a kid, I’d never seen anything like the big trough urinal at Wrigley. So I used it and went about my merry way. Later on that same summer the family went to Six Flags in St. Louis and I walked into the bathroom, sidled up to the trough and took a whiz. I got this dirty look from some put upon college kid who was spending his summer cleaning the crappers at Six Flags. As I zipped up, somebody yelled, “Hey kid, stop pissing in the sink!” Apparently it was a similarly designed hand washing fountain. Now I look back on it fondly and remember the time I helped contribute the distinctive smell of St. Louis.

David Huh on Tommie Harris.

Huh says Mark Colombo is close. To what? Working in the family’s yogurt shop?

Mayor Daley really hates the Cubs. So what?

The Andres Nocioni hostage crisis is over. Whoop de damn doo.

Mariotti puts down the doughnut to tell us he’ll be out of the country for 18 glorious days and nights.

Regular Joe is feeling groovy, and sweating like a champ.

The Padres admire The Franchise’s gumption. They also admired the line drives they were raking off of him.

It’s official, it’s time for the media to bombard us with crap where they pretend that we should be interested in women’s soccer, softball and other such nonsense.

Photographic proof that if you put the relatively attractive Jennie Finch with five of the ugliest softball players on the planet she becomes a supermodel by contrast.

Underwear supermodel Len Pasquarelli bemoans the training camp losses of some good players.

St. Louis is worried about losing Edgar Renteria to either Boston or the Cubs. Good thing they picked up Larry Walker. Maybe his limpy ass can play short?

MSNBC might not be around much longer. Ooh, what a loss that will be. What exactly is on it, anyway?

The world’s greatest newspapers claim some aliens say that Michael Jackson is their son. We know that’s false. No aliens would claim him.