Hire Jim Essian

If the Muskbox is a competition, someone has finally won it. The prize? Free dinner with Carrie! The losers all won free breakfast with Carrie. In all my years of fisking the Muskbox, I have finally arrived at not only the dumbest question ever asked, but also a response so silent regarding the stupidity, that it echoes throughout the ages. I hope you're seated for this week's Muskbox, because who the hell stands at a desk, anyhow? Dwight Schrute?

The worst part of the 2007 playoffs was not the Cubs getting meekly swept in three games by the Arizona Diamondbacks. It wasn't Carlos Marmol spitting the bit in the 7th inning of Game One. It wasn't Ted Lilly slamming his glove to the ground in frustration after serving up a go-ahead, three-run bomb to Chris Young in Game Two. It wasn't even Mark DeRosa grounding into a double play with a 3-1 count, two men on, and the Cubs trailing by two in the 5th inning. No, the most infuriating part of the 2007 playoffs was watching Jose Valverde dancing and preening off the mound at the end of Game One, Game Two, and Game Three. That is why Jose Valverde is the 9th-biggest Cub Killer of My Time.

The massive anti-SOPA/PIPA internet protest supported by such massive sites as Google, Wikipedia, and Reddit seems to have been pretty damn effective. If you've been on the internet this week, you already know why the proposed legislation is so dangerous. This dark corner of the internet violates SOPA on a regular basis. So does basically every other blog on the internet. But no worries! If there is a pro-PIPA vote next Tuesday, I'll just start printing out HJE content and mailing it out to you individually. That way, I only used a federal institution to disseminate copyrighted material, and there's NO WAY that can end badly!

After four years, six months, and 26 days, we have finally arrived at the top ten. This final stretch is going to be equal parts fun and nightmarish. And we start with Jon Miller's dream player: a Latino man who likes to have his name pronounce incorrectly. A man who has one of the shortest professional careers of any player on the T79. A man whose name I would suspect is more well-known by Cubs fans than by Mets fans, even though he played for the latter. A man whom I once drunkenly asked if he wanted a hot dog when he was playing right field on a cold May afternoon at Wrigley Field. Victor Diaz, the tenth-biggest Cub Killer of My Time.

In the offseason prior to the 2005 season, there were plenty of rumors floating around that the Cubs had an interest in signing switch-hitting, speedy center fielder Carlos Beltran. The rumors made sense. Not because the Cubs wanted to get Beltran off the roster of their NL Central foes, the Houston Astros. Not so Beltran would no longer be allowed to face Cub pitching. No, I suspect the Cubs just wanted to force Beltran to share a locker room with the pitchers upon whom he had inflicted so very much misery. To have to look into their eyes as the Cubs trudged toward a miserable fourth-place 2005 finish. To the dismay of Cubs fans, not only did Beltran pass on the Cubs' overtures, but he also stayed in the National League until the present day, giving him ample opportunity to hit his way up the ladder to #11 on the list of the Top 79 Cub Killers of My Time.

Thanks to all of you who came out to Shitty O'Kea's on Friday night. It was great catching up with those I hadn't seen since last year's outing and meeting some "newbies," as the internet fondly calls you. I didn't come quite as close to getting swung at by Gordon Wittenmyer, but Gordon Wittenmyer still owes me a beer. Kitty O'Shea's is still one of the absolute worst bars in Chicago. Next year, I'm going to suggest that we meet on the same night, but go to a bar that isn't absolutely terrible. Shitty's SPECIAL on Friday night was FIVE-DOLLAR BUD LIGHTS. What a dump.

My annual outing during which I emerge from the depth of my mom's basement into the icy Chicago winter is upon us. Tonight at 8:00 (or shortly thereafter), I and several HJE readers and friends will be at Kitty O'Shea's celebrating the close of another season of Cub baseball. Or the start of a new season of Cub ... Read More

The early-2000s Milwaukee Brewers teams were absolutely terrible. From 2000-2003, the Brewers went 265-383, with a 106-loss season thrown into the mix. That is an abysmal .409 winning percentage. If you're a Cubs fan, and that surprises you, it's because the Brewers managed to go 32-31 against the Chicago Cubs during that same time period. In fact, the only team against whom the Brewers performed better was the Cincinnati Reds, against whom they went 34-32. The Brewers dominated Wrigley Field, winning 18 of 33 games on the road. They were the team version of a Cub killer in the early 2000s. Much of that anomalous record against the Cubs could be attributed to one man. One enormous, spindly, hideous tree of a man. The 12th-biggest Cub Killer of My Time. Richie Sexson.

Dear Mr. Epstein and Mr. Hoyer, Congratulations to you both on the new positions in Chicago. As you may have already noticed, the city of Chicago is pretty goddamned happy that you're here. We've suffered under such an inept regime for such a long time, that we don't really know how to react to good news about the Cubs. I'm not going to apologize for the actions of psychopaths, but that's part of the reason people were creepily watching you drink coffee and walk around, Mr. Epstein. Um, and you, too, Mr. Hoyer. I suppose.

After a week of mediocrity in the Muskbox, the dummies are back out in full force. As I have long feared, Muskbox Nation still has no idea that Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer are trying to build a franchise capable of long-term, sustained success. The Muskboxers want to WIN NOW, and will accept nothing less than a first-place finish in the National League Central. Theo might want to avoid the Cub Convention this weekend entirely if he doesn't want to have to answer questions like, "HOW COME ANGEL GUZMAN ISN'T INVOLVED IN THE LONG-TERM PLANS?"