Holy cow is this guy aimless, or what?

Just so I have it all straight, Aramis Ramirez trains roosters for cockfighting,

Yes, Greg. We remember. Who can forget how you made an ass out of yourself with your hysterical overreaction that screamed “cultural elitism”? But don’t back down now.

Felix Pie has a twisted testicle,

Hahahahahahaha. You said testicle. You so crazy, Greg! Seriously, though, other than the fact that simply hearing about this condition makes men double over, it is not the rarest thing to happen to someone.

the Cubs are promoting the arrival of Kosuke Fukudome with an ad picturing an offensive rising sun flag.

Oh yeah. The first big “E-7″ by the Cubs Marketing Department in the post-McDonough world. Who can forget that? Well, Greg Couch will make sure you don’t!

In case you haven’t guessed, Greg’s angling for a point here. A point that the Cubs are in disarray. Fine. But look at the examples he’s using. To quickly recap, there’s the Ramirez cockfighting in the Dominican Republic–which broke no laws and, depending on your perspective, is a way of life in the milieu in which Ramirez participated–Pie’s surgical procedure that, other than the fact that it’s near his private parts, involves a rather routine procedure to have it corrected, with the player only missing a week or so, and an advertising campaign generated by guys in the front office who, last we checked, don’t put on uniforms and play for the Cubs. But I just wanted to frame Greg’s three examples with the perspective it deserves. Greg, I’m suspecting at this point, has other ideas.

And here is a new serious issue for the Cubs:

Uh oh. What could it be now?

They have too many issues.

What issues? Ohhhh, right. Those three examples of non-baseball-related gaffes that apparently you’re not able to adequately deal with it, Greg?

Has anyone noticed that this Cubs season is already a circus?

So far, all I’ve noticed here is a hack writer desperate for a colorful story.

And we’re still two weeks from Opening Day.

Yep, Greg. And by all accounts, the Cubs are going to be ready for it. Soriano’s been getting over his dings, and will eventually gradually slide down into a more productive spot in the order. There have been no season-ending injuries, there has been strong competition for the 5th starter spot, the closer role may appear to be set now but, in any event, the bullpen looks to be as formidable as it’s been in memory. Oh, I suppose we may still get Brian Roberts. If not, then that means that the Cubs are simply a little bit less than a juggernaut but, all in all, most people with operable brains and enlivened senses will tell you that this team is looking pretty fluid. Greg Couch, apparently, is not among this crowd.

The team is trying to land a guy, Brian Roberts, who was busted for performance-enhancing drugs in the Mitchell Report.

Busted. Oh, SO BUSTED! BRob, get outta town, jack. You be goin’ up the river.

This isn’t good, and I’m not just talking about Roberts.

Brian Roberts juiced. He also spewed some lame, Clintonian, “I only did it one time” nonsense that made him look like a douche. But if you don’t want Roberts because of PED’s, then it better be because you feel he’s been on the juice up through last season and now his numbers will suffer. If it’s because of some moral outrage (which I’m pretty sure it is, Greg, as you hardly write about anything that doesn’t reek of your typical ham-handed faux sanctimony), then you need to, once and for all, get over yourself.

As everyone knows, this is the 100-year anniversary for the Cubs.

Wait, what? What is he talking about? 100 years?

They won in 1908, and now it’s 2008.

Oh, yeah. 100 years. Thanks.

And all this attention is coming.

No thanks to the likes yourself, Greg. People who thrive on ready-made paint-by-numbers sentiment because it keeps them from the responsibility of actually engaging the readers with some fresh insight and/or intelligent analysis.

Any time a top Japanese player comes to America, an amazing number of Japanese reporters start covering his every move. So the Cubs have added seats to cram into the tiny park, and the media are going to cram into the tiny press box, and there isn’t going to be any room to breathe.

Wow. Sounds serious. Go on.

Did you ever wonder exactly why the Cubs fell apart after the Bartman moment five years ago, when they were so close to getting to the World Series?

I always thought I knew, but go ahead.

One guy took the blame for everything, when he didn’t deserve it, but the team absolutely collapsed. Why?

Well, Greg, I remember watching the game. I remember yelling at that thoughtless idiot for thinking of anything other than the 23rd out of the most important game in 58 years. I also remember, while the place was restless, that Dusty Baker and Larry Rothschild sat on their hands rather than talk to a tiring Mark Prior. Prior did his job by getting the double-play grounder, only to see Alex F. Gonzalez bobble it. After future Cub Derek Lee tied the game, I remember Kyle Farnsworth coming in to issue an intentional walk (nice call, Dusty). I remember Jeff Conine putting the Phish up by hitting a SAC fly to the wall in right field and remember Sammy’s patented, “fuck-the-cutoff-man-I’m-gonna-gun-the-guy-out-at-home-with-a-380-foot-throw” balloon toss, which allowed the lumbering Mike Lowell to tag up from first base removing the force, forcing the Cubs to put the next hitter on the now-open first base, and then I remember how 3 foot, 6 inch Mike Mordecai slammed a Farnsworth pitch off the wall, scoring three more runs and effectively ending the game. Why, oh why do you feel a need to relive this, Greg?. Christ, you’re simply incapable of writing something that isn’t warmed-over, off-the-shelf drek, aren’t you? God damn you suck.

I believe it was the pressure of 100 years, built into the fans’ attitudes and reactions, into the media coverage, into the players and the manager. Even the way people treat the players away from the park — the person who cuts their hair, cab drivers, people they meet at clubs, it’s all built into the players’ daily lives. They might not even know it.

I believe that Greg Couch is the biggest asscastle to write about sports in this town, and that’s no easy feat.

But that’s why every … last … move becomes something to analyze.

Did you say analyze? Because when it comes to, you know, baseball I don’t believe much of any analysis is going on here.

In 2003, the reactions were all different from 100 years, and it wasn’t even 100 years yet.

I’m honestly being put to sleep now. So far, Mr. Irrelevance has spent his allotment of words in discussing past events like the Ramirez brouhaha, Pie’s surgery, the two-month old and quickly pulled Cubs ad by the marketing department showing the “Rising Sun”, the Mitchell Report and of course the ole’ reliable chestnut of “100 years” to argue that the Cubs are “one big circus.” What all of those events have to do with one another is the fact that none of them have anything to do with the 2008 Chicago Cubs baseball team.

A writer doing his job could point to Derrek Lee’s alarmingly low batting average in Spring Training, Fukudome’s slow start which could disappoint fans who hope to see Iricho and not Kaz Matsui, and the fact that the Cubs will have two rookies and Ryan Theriot in their lineup as an argument for the Cubs season being cause for concern. But that’s apparently too thoughful for Greg. Instead, his entire stance is predicated on the ancillary crap.

Now, it is.

Manager Lou Piniella asked if there is any such thing as a quiet spring for the Cubs. Hah! Certainly not this year.

Ha! Not as long as I, Greg Couch, can be found skipping around Hohokam Park, pen and paper in hand, hoping for an already-written article!

The Cubs are for sale. Wrigley Field’s name is for sale. The state might buy the park. The team might play at Sox park for a season.

Big deal. So the park’s for sale and southbound CTA riders will just have to travel 13 more El stops to go see the Cubs and suburban fans can actually park their cars in the goddamn parking lots. The point here is that Greg found another example of non-baseball related news to argue that the Cubs are f**ed.

It already has been adding up. But when you hear about Pie’s injury, you figure that some of this stuff is just a fluke, not really symbolic of anything.

Look, I’m sorry you’re so obsessed with Pie’s junk, Greg. Either get help with your obsession or just grow up. It’s weird, it’s painful-sounding, it sounds strange. But it happens. It’s not a fluke. A fluke would be you writing a coherent, insightful article. If you head down to Hohokam by week’s end you’ll be sure to see Pie shagging flies.

I mean, how do you prevent testicular torsion?

Why is greg Couch so concerned about ball-twist? Seriously. Does he not have good health insurance at the Sun-Times? Can he not get himself checked out if this is really a thinly-veiled cry for help?

I’ve looked it up in an online medical dictionary, by the way, gotten all the details about what they had to do to him to fix the problem. I can sum it up best this way:

Ouch.

Ouch is what my eyes scream when I subect them to Greg Couch’s writing.

Word of Pie’s condition goes back two weeks, when it was termed “twisted testicle”.

Last week Pie elected to have the surgery. He’s having a nice Spring, looks to have the inside track on the centerfield job, so figured he’d get this surgery out of the way. This is bordering on yesterday’s news and here Greg Couch is-late to the party as usual–telling us in your typically pedantic matter what Pie’s up to. Hey Greg–I hear Germany surrendered recently too.

But it became apparent that there is no end to this stuff when Piniella flip-flopped Ryan Theriot and Alfonso Soriano in the batting order and pushed Fukudome to fifth. Soriano, who is too selfish to hit leadoff, went from the No. 1 spot in the lineup to No. 2.

Wow. I’m just so glad that Greg’s actually talkin’ baseball here, I’ll just let him rip.

And while that was worthy of note, it instead became the sportstalk of the town for a few days, including Web polls.

Turn off your radio and shut down the intertubes. Sorry you had to be so overexposed to Soriano being dropped down. This, too, is pretty much no longer an issue anyway.

I mean, why? Will Soriano willingly give up his leadoff spot? Does this mean the Roberts trade, for a pure leadoff hitter, is going through?

It’s an awful lot of analysis and discussion for spring tinkering.

Funny to see the words “awful lot of analysis” in a Greg Couch article. So far, Greg’s done about anything possible to avoid any kind of analysis.

”I didn’t say it was permanent,” Piniella said. ”I want to look at it.”

In case anyone has forgotten, this is exactly what he did most of last year. The team was a bunch of odd parts not working well together, so Piniella tinkered. How many catchers did he burn through last year?

5. And the first four all sucked. And they still made the playoffs. What’s your point, dumbass?

You don’t have to have your seasonlong lineup set by Opening Day. So when Piniella fidgets a little in spring training, it really doesn’t need to be blown up so much.

Yeah. Let’s talk aboit failed marketing campaigns and groins!

Well, everything is going to be that way for the Cubs this year. It’s the anniversary, and even the Sox aren’t much of a diversion anymore,

What? What the hell do the Sox have to do with any thing? What the…?

a few years removed from their championship and without big expectations.

Again. How does this observation illuminate what is going on with the 2008 Cubs?

The circus has already started, and to the Cubs’ credit, they’ve taken it calmly so far.

And as you’ve taught us, Greg, what with all of these non-baseball-related things just choking the life of this team, that’s no easy task.

But these things will only build up in frequency and intensity as time goes.

I really don’t know what he means here.

Nothing goes unnoticed, unstudied.

Except by you, Greg. Wait–I’m sorry–scratch that. Greg seems to notice bad marketing efforts, legal cockfighting in the Carribean, balls, ballpark sales, the American League White Sox, Bartman, and maybe that Alfonso Soriano shouldn’t bat #1. Thanks for studying the hell out of those “aspects” of baseball. Can I have my $0.12 back please?

Not even a twisted testicle.

Oh there we go again. Look, I may use words like “douchebag” and “dumbass” and it may seem immature of me to just sit here and flick away your retardedness. I am of course, a moron. So it should be considered sad for me to have to tell you to “grow up”, Greg. You’re a grown man and you’ve spent a good chunk of this article giggling about men’s pee-pees. Are you aware of this?

Next up is the state’s offer to buy Wrigley, and then the Roberts trade. Oh, I almost forgot Mark DeRosa’s irregular heartbeat.

Ha. That’s clever.

Happy anniversary, Cubs.

Okay, Greg you can stop watching the clock. It’s 5. Your day–as empty and unulfilling as it may seem to the reader–is done. You can go home now and fill your head with that circus music that apparently motivates you to write.

Assclown.