Cubs Gournal #3

The baseball world reacted to the death of Josh Hancock in different ways. Some (the wine chugging hypocrite) threatened to swing their fungo bats at any reporter who dared to try and figure out what actually happened. Others (ESPN douchebags) tried to tell us that we had lost part of the fabric of baseball. Cardinals fans most likely honored him by guzzling a bucket of moonshine and getting a No. 32 tattoed on their chest. The sad part is, the Cards fan had the most reasonable reaction of the three.

The other big off the field news was that a Mets clubhouse errand boy may have been the biggest juice dealer in the league. Sooner or later a whole mess of players are going to be outed, and odds are that at least one of these guys will be a Cub. It got me thinking, who will it be? I think I can rule a few guys out:

- Scott Eyre, Daryle Ward. Moobs are one of the side effects of steroids, but these guys have only big chesticles because they're morbidly obese.

- Ronny Cedeno. He's skinny and bad.

- Dumpster. He's too busy polishing his act to become the Canadian Carrot Top.

- Hank White. Unless rubbing Brill cream in your mullet is a performance enhancer, I don't think so.

Mixed in with these big stories were some actual baseball games. Two weeks ago the Cubs were 3 games under .500 and 3 games out of first. Right now they're 2 games under .500 and 5 games out of first. Even though the standings haven't improved (the Brewers have to start sucking soon right?), there's a lot to like about the team right now.

Lou seems to have figured out that Theriot's on base skills and average defense are better than Cesar's bad hitting and awful defense. Soriano has been hitting well since moving back to left, and D Lee is on pace to hit about 700 doubles. The rotation looks good without raggedy-armed Wade Miller. The bullpen finally got a win, and the team finally won a couple close games (now they're a stellar 2-9 in one and two run matches). And Lou continues to entertain (from the Sun-Times):

Add this to the list of strange-but-true conversations on the pitcher's mound. When Piniella went out to talk to Lilly in the second inning Tuesday, Lilly spoke first. ''He said, 'Skip, your zipper's down,''' Piniella said. ''I said, 'Forget my zipper.' ... How he noticed that, I don't know.'' Said Lilly: ''I was just trying to help him out. Figured he might be on national television.''

Here's hoping the Cubs follow old Lou's lead and let it all hang out at Wrigley against the woeful Nats and Bucs.