As you may already have read in this morning’s Daily Herald, Kosuke Fukudome was the “victim” of a “hilarious”, “practical”, “joke” yesterday, the perpetrator being none other than the prince of funny, the king of chortle, the sultan of fnarr fnarr – yes, the man whom Richard Pryor named as his biggest influence – the one, the only, Scott Eyre. And if that isn’t the longest ever debut sentence on HJE, I’ll eat my hat. Or an entire fistful of Scott’s drug stash – it’s up to you.

And the joke in question? Well, Scott left a McDonald’s cheeseburger in front of Fukky’s locker. I know, I know… it’s funny on about five different levels! Hoo boy! And guess what Kosuke did with the cheeseburger? Go on, guess… I’ll wait. Nope, that’s not it. No, that’s not it either. Okay, I’ll tell you… he ate the cheeseburger. Ate it! Just like that! Hey oh!

You can’t see me now, but trust me, tears are running down the insides of my legs. That crazy Cubs clubhouse, eh? It must be like being in the SNL dressing rooms.

But seriously, what the fuck? First there was Zambrano’s high-fucking-larious “prank” on day one, and his subsequent comments that “Dempster has something for [Fukudome]“, and now this? I’m half expecting to see the Cubs take the field against the Angels later today wearing Hachimaki and false teeth. Perhaps they’ll have “Ree” and “Lamilez” and “Sollyiano” on the back of their jerseys? God knows, I enjoy a hazing as much as the next Japanese bloke, but this is really the best the Cubs can manage? They could at least have told him that he’d been traded to Japan, fer Chrissakes…

For the record, Fukudome was reported as saying that he “enjoyed [Zambrano's] joke”, but my guess is that he’s employing Serge Gainsbourg’s translator, and what he actually said was “Fuck this noise, when’s the next flight back to Tokyo?” I just hope for his sake that he gets out before he becomes the first major leaguer to hit the DL with “split sides” as the cause.

Your 2008 Chicago Cubs, ladies and gentlemen. Yukking their way to the World Series.