Making the decisions of when to hit-and-run, when to pull a struggling pitcher, and how to construct a lineup aren’t easy, and those decisions are the ones for which MLB managers get paid the big bucks. The actual process of managing, though, isn’t hard. Put nine guys in a lineup in some kind of order. Try to have a pitcher in there somewhere. Make sure the guy who bats ninth in the lineup always bats right after the guy who hits eighth in the lineup, even if you’ve switched the guys around. Not hard at all, really.
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If you thought Daryle Ward’s big weekend was going to go unnoticed at Hire Jim Essian, well, you’re just not reading closely enough. In honor of the big lug’s single-handed dismantling of the “Best Team in Baseball,” today is officially Daryle Ward Day at HJE. Daryle has been putting together good at-bats all year, and this weekend it finally paid off. How about this line for the weekend?

2-2, 1 2B, 3 RBI.

Ward’s batting average went up 72 points over the weekend, and he’s hit safely in the last three games in which he’s appeared. His OBP is at .406, and his OPS is back up to a more Ward-like .823. Welcome back, Daryle. In honor of DWD, I’m eating a giant burrito for lunch.

Jim Hendry, you’ve done an awful lot of dumb things in your tenure as the Chicago Cubs’ general manager. You signed Neifi Perez a couple of times. You thought Shawn Estes belonged in a starting rotation. You traded Kyle Farnsworth right after a crap year instead of right after a good year. You ate that whole cheesecake that had been sitting out on the counter for a week, even though I told you that the top shouldn’t feel slimy. I’ve forgiven you for most of those things. But so help you God, if you sign Jim Edmonds, you are dead to me.
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Rick, Rick, Rick.

Look. I understand you’re supposed to write what your editor wants you to write. Actually, I don’t know that at all. I’ve never spent a day at a news desk. Shoot, I’ve never even taken a journalism class. I just know that the common defense for a columnist’s idiotic ham-handed pseudo-hype that passes for a column has always seemed to have been “he’s writing what his editor wants him to write” in which case you’re told to hype the shit out of some early-season series in May that coincidentally happens to be against Arizona. If so, then it sucks to be you.

But maybe that’s not true. Maybe you have complete freedom to write whatever you want to write, like the peanut-gallery douchebags like me do. If that is the case, then good god man. You’re a bigger hack than I feared. This steaming pile that you wrote last Friday, prior to a three-game series in early May? Simply hack-tastic.

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His legend lives on from St. Louis on down,
Though he liked to have sex with a collie.
The Padres had said, “His career isn’t dead,
“He can play center field, though it’s roomy.”
Before trades they could explore, he struck out twenty-four,
Times, and his power numbers were empty.
With his dog, he got nude, ‘cuz cats are such prudes,
Though he double-bagged it, he came early.

The Padres said, “Bye,” and Jim Edmonds, he cried.
It appeared his career was now over.
He frosted his tips and put clamps on his nips,
And he gave his poor dog a good greasing.
He called up his friend, Gerald Thompson again,
And they left to get loaded in Cleveland.
And later that night they played “Hide the Wang,”
Sometimes giving’s as good as receiving.

When breakfast time came the housekeeper showed up sayin’,
“What is going on with that collie?”
She closed tight the door, then passed out on the floor,
For the shock of the scene was too bawdy.
But the rumors spread wide; there was no place to hide,
It was up on YouTube by four thirty.
And still do they cry, “Gerald fits Edmonds tight,
“And that pervert Jim Edmonds fits Gerald!”

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My, oh, my. I thought you guys were upset about your team. After watching their team lose six games in a row, Brewers fans are jumping off the highest building in Milwaukee (eight stories). The lactose-intolerant among them are eating all of their requisite six meals a day at Culver’s. They’re hiding under the cushions of Prince Fielder’s couch. They’re going hunting without wearing those stupid orange jackets. And they’re writing off the season after 34 games. Awesome. Anyhow, here’s your Roundup.
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Nothing will be more therapeutic than destroying these two jagoffs. Get ‘em.
*Thanks to Thrillho for the picture.

Oh, hello. What’s that? You want me to back up my claim that tHom Brennaman and Chris Welch may or may not be child pornographers? Why should I? tHom and Chris weren’t forced to back up their completely ludicrous implication Monday night on a live baseball broadcast that Cub stud catcher Geovany Soto has used performance-enhancing drugs.
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There seem to be quite a few fans out there who relish the opportunity to write the season off after a particularly odious stretch of play by the Cubs. The once-great Desipio GameCasts have been dragged down in the most embarrassing manner by the petulant toy-throwing exhibited by fans who, in spite of the fact that they’ve presumably subjected themselves to several 162-game seasons, seem to live and die with every goddamn pitch.

I’m not saying I’m not annoyed by how the Cubs have been playing the last two weeks, but this is part of the ebb and flow nature of a baseball season that even good teams experience. Just as it would be unreasonable to expect the Cubs to go 17-10 every month, it’s equally unreasonable to conclude that a 4-9 stretch over the last two weeks most certainly spells doom.

Let’s bear in mind that even with this two-week stretch of truly bad baseball, that there are only seven teams in the big leagues that have a better record than the Cubs–and one of them will be due for a regression that will make the Cubs’ current stretch seem downright pleasant.

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Well, Carol Slezak, congratulations. You’re up in arms once again, bitching and moaning about the White Sox for putting inflatable sex dolls in their locker room. Let me repeat that, Carol. IN THEIR LOCKER ROOM. Far be it from me to defend the White Sox for anything, but Slezak has about as much right to complain about what the Sox do in their locker room as I do to complain about the lack of urinals in a lesbian bar. There’s no goddamn reason for either one of us to be there, anyhow, so both of us should just shut up.
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