Here? In Chicago? Why, I Didn’t Even Know They Still Had a Team!
LOU PINIELLA enters a room where a party is taking place. The party-goers look rich and snobby. Lou appears as though he has just been thrown out of a bar, which he has. Lou has crashed the party for one purpose and one purpose only. To win back the love of his life, who is currently engaged to TOM, the host of the party.
TOM: Excuse me, everybody, this is Lou Piniella.
Tom gestures around the room at the other party-goers.
TOM: Lou, Jay Mariotti, Jim Litke, Steve Rosenbloom, and Phil Rogers. Lou is a professional baseball manager.
JAY: What team do you manage, Jake?
LOU: The Cubs.
JIM: Here in Chicago? I didn’t know they still had a team.
LOU: Yeah, we have uniforms and everything. It’s really great.
And so explains the reason that anyone on earth, especially someone who has allegedly worked for The Naperville Sun, would write an article at this point in the season with the subheader, “Series in Milwaukee showing that Piniella’s club deserves consideration.”
Wait, seriously? It’s damn near August, and Jim Litke is just now realizing that the Cubs, who have been at or near the top of the National League in pretty much every offensive category this season, are deserving of THE GREAT JIM LITKE’S consideration? Did Jim just awaken from a coma, and was unaware that the Cubs have had the best record in the NL (and occasionally in all of baseball) for the majority of the season? Time to make fun of Jim Litke, I guess.
MILWAUKEE - The calendar said July. It felt like October. For once, the confusion was not just understandable, it was actually welcome.
TRANSLATION: I, the great and powerful Jim Litke, have been in a coma since October of 2007! I have awakened in July of 2008! Before I even showered, I was surprised to learn that the Red Sox won the World Series, and Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee! I’ve missed so very much!
If you’d told the people at the March 31 season opener in Chicago the starters from that game, Carlos Zambrano of the Cubs and Ben Sheets of the Brewers, would meet again on a Tuesday night in late summer with the National League Central up for grabs, you would have gotten some laughs. Especially from that half of the mostly blue-clad Miller Park crowd that spent the evening stuck to their seats.
TRANSLATION: NO ONE predicted that the Cubs and the Brewers, who finished only two games apart at the top of the NL Central last year, and who both improved during the offseason, would have been in contention in the division this year! At least no one who shares the same circle as I, the great Jim Litke! Did I tell you that I saw P. Diddy getting into a cab last night? At least, he looked like P. Diddy. Did YOU see P. Diddy getting into a cab last night? Probably not, because you’re too busy predicting that the Pirates and the Reds would finish first and second in the NL Central!
After winning a back-and-forth game the previous night, Zambrano and the Cubs played this one like the bullies they’ve become. Zambrano threw eight nearly flawless innings and struck out a season-high nine batters. Meanwhile, his lineup strung together seven straight hits and five runs in the top of the sixth inning to win going away 7-1.
TRANSLATION: I convinced Ed Hartig to write this paragraph for me. Now, prepare yourself for a bunch of nonsensical, statistics-free bullshit.
The only moment of frustration on the Cubs side this night came when Zambrano, a .350 hitter, popped out attempting a sacrifice bunt in the fifth. Even that, however, didn’t ruffle manager Lou Piniella.
“I just don’t want to see a nice big bone bruise on his thigh for no reason whatsoever,” Piniella said.
“I wish I was strong enough to do that when I played,” he added a moment later, almost wistful. “I had to use a water cooler.”
TRANSLATION: “Wistful.” Perfect! If I make my article sound enough like it’s a novella, no one will notice that it’s completely devoid of content and intelligent baseball thought!
After taking most of the last century off, the Cubs look like legitimate World Series contenders again. But Piniella pointed out that for all the hype surrounding the four-game set, it’s still July and he’s not worried about his ballplayers getting ahead of themselves. The last thing they need, apparently, is to be reminded of that.
TRANSLATION: My sources have informed me that the Cubs weren’t contenders in 1910, 1918, 1929, 1932, 1935, 1938, 1945, 1969, 1984, 1989, 2003, 2004, and 2007.
“That’s not even a consideration. I just let ‘em play,” Piniella said, “and I don’t believe in meetings.”
His Milwaukee counterpart, Ned Yost, was quicker to embrace the postseason atmosphere, maybe because the Brewers franchise has been waiting since 1982 to play a few games that matter.
TRANSLATION: …And, with a quivering lip, Ned whispered to the postseason atmosphere, “I’ve waited all my life for you. Take me.”
“You don’t have series like this in July,” he said. “Very few organizations, very few teams. The Yankees and the Red Sox maybe. This is not an every day occurrence.”
TRANSLATION: I watched fifteen minutes of Baseball Tonight before writing this column. They mentioned two teams, and your ‘Chicago National League Ballclub’ was not one of them. I have never heard of your ‘Midwestern-style baseball,’ nor your ‘farming communities.’ What is this ’suburb’ of which you speak? Is it some sort of drink served in a post New York dance club? If it’s not, then I am not interested. Good day!
The route the Cubs and Brewers took to arrive at this junction might look familiar to fans on the East Coast, but it’s relatively uncharted here in the Midwest. Both Chicago and Milwaukee made the kind of high-priced signings ahead of the trade deadline this year that fans are accustomed to a few hundred miles to the east; no sooner did CC Sabathia arrive from Cleveland on loan for a cool $5 million than the Cubs countered by bringing Rich Harden in from Oakland.
TRANSLATION: Isn’t it cute how teams other than the Red Sox and Yankees sometimes try to compete to win baseball matches? But, really, how dare those hard-working middle Americans take quality players away from teams that actually deserve them, like the Red Sox and the Yankees? Red Sox Red Sox Red Sox. Yankees Yankees Yankees.
Yankees.
A further reminder of the Cubs’ willingness to open their wallets and look far and wide for talent was apparent on the press-row table just before game time. Offseason import Kosuke Fukudome had his own page of stats and notes, published in Japanese, for the pack of reporters from back home tailing him from town to town.
TRANSLATION: I wasn’t even aware that they have baseball in Japan! Are we still at war with them?
Those stats have been slipping of late, but in the sixth Fukudome sliced one of Sheets’ offerings into left and outfielder Ryan Braun’s clumsy dive turned it into a triple that scored two runs and sent the Cubs on their merry way.
TRANSLATION: He’s been terrible for over a month, but I watched one at-bat the other night, and he’s BREAKING OUT OF IT! Sure, it was a pretty routine single that only the Brewers could have misplayed so badly, but I have declared that Fukudome is BACK!
“They outplayed us every facet of the game,” Sheets said, more than willing to share the blame, starting on the mound.
“It is July,” he added a moment later. “Nobody wins a Central pennant right now. We don’t want to give no more away, but there is still a lot of season left.”
He’s right, of course, and eight of those games remain against the Cubs, culminating with a season-ending, three-game series back at Miller Park two months from now.
TRANSLATION: He’s right! I looked up the length of this baseball season, and it doesn’t end until the end of September for most teams! Imagine that! And some teams need to play deep into October! Wild!
“We respect, obviously, the two guys that we beat,” Piniella said about the Brewers aces.
But that’s not the same thing as saying he didn’t expect to beat them. After all, the two pitchers he rolled out against them, Ted Lilly and Zambrano, “aren’t exactly chopped liver.” Ditto for the next two.
TRANSLATION: “Aces.” “Rolled out.” “Chopped liver.” Listen to me! I sound like a real base-ball man!
“We’ve got (Ryan) Dempster, we’ve got Harden, we’re throwing some darn good pitching out there ourselves. We’re pleased that we won the first two. Let’s not relax now.”
With that, Piniella reached across his desk in the visiting clubhouse and drained the rest of a can of light beer.
TRANSLATION: Light beer! Imagine that! I the post-game interview right after the game! That’s like when I finish a long day of work and head straight to happy hour for five cent chicken wings and half-price appletinis!
“Bet that tastes good tonight,” someone said.
Piniella pulled it back from his lips and smiled.
“Tastes good,” he said through a widening grin, “every night.”
TRANSLATION: Lou Piniella is apparently a psychotic murderer.
Thanks to JOn for giving me the link.
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Comments
a “I just don’t want to see a nice big bone bruise on his thigh for no reason whatsoever,” Piniella said.
“I wish I was strong enough to do that when I played,” he added a moment later, almost wistful. “I had to use a water cooler
He doesn’t even mention that Zambrano broke his bat over his knee after the bunt attempt….if you didn’t see the game, you wouldn’t know what this even means
Ron Santo Maybe if Litke would take his lips away from Gorman Thomas’s boner he would actually have something to write about!!
Jenny The last couple of lines in that article are creepy. Lou Piniella is apparently a psychotic murderer in a Lifetime movie.
James Litke Originally Posted By morpheusThis article made me ANGRY when I read it, an unusual emotion for me. Thanks for taking the time to demolish it.
DOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
BigFlax God, how ridiculous. Who would have imagined that last year’s top two teams in the division would still be there, especially since no one expected the Cardinals to be any good? Are we absolutely sure the intro to this article wasn’t originally written in 2007, when it might have made sense?
pat pieper You don’t often see articles this poorly researched and written in a third rate suburban rag. Or do you?
CT
bocaj
BigFlax
StPatrick
TDubbs
This article made me ANGRY when I read it, an unusual emotion for me. Thanks for taking the time to demolish it.