Michael Barrett–So Glad You’re Gone.

Ahhhhhh, Mikey. Meathead. Maroon. How your emotion-filled approach to baseball helped blunder this team through the maddening retardedness that was Cubs baseball from late 2004 until you were dealt last June. Seeing you on the opposite side of the field this week where even Ted Lilly was prepared to steal a base on you, reminds me that even in times when the Cubs lose, like they did last night, that things have been so much better since you’ve been gone.

Oh, it wasn’t always bad with you. We liked you at first. Of course, considering that you were replacing Damien Miller and the wet newspaper that he brought to home plate to hit with, it was hard not to like you when you arrived in 2004

In retrospect, we should have seen the signs. Your “aw shucks” earnestness was seen as pure and genuine when you first arrived; eventually we were able to see it for what it was–an indicator of how dangerously stupid you were. Of course I hadn’t caught on when you had that awesome game-winning hit against Oakland that year–still one of the best finishes to a game I’ve ever personally attended–but your idiot manchild act began rearing its head shortly after.

The first indicator, for me was this game against St. Louis. Your pitcher, Carlos Zambrano, kept losing his cool in a very charged game. Instead of calming him down, though, you joined in, jawing with Jim Edmonds and the rest of the Cardinals. Look, we all wanted a piece of that team. But your job, as the catcher, was to keep your pitcher cool, not exacerbate his emotions.

Later, when facing a near-dead Houston team, you picked the most inopportune time to start jawing with opposing starter Roy Oswalt. While I personally don’t subscribe to the notion that this somehow rejuvanated Houston, it was still totally ill-timed.

In fact, all of your outbursts seemed ill-timed. Look–there’s nothing wrong with bringing emotion to the game, but it was uncanny how counterintuitive your outbursts were. They never seemed to flow in the right direction. They were always awkward, weird and stupid. You were like the anti-AJ Pierzynski.

Speaking of AJ Eyechart, you basically clinched your reputation as a meathead when you clocked that chode in the face in 2006. Now far be it for me to protest when that ginormous douche Pierzynski–quite possibly the biggest asshole in baseball–gets punched in his stupid face. It’s a great day in America when that happens, but even then you came off looking like the tool–no easy feat when dealing with that prick. I mean, sure he ran you over. But you were standing in front of home plate without the damn baseball. AJ or no AJ, that hardly justifies the sucker punch you landed.

And that’s not even getting into the comedy of errors that you perpetuated within the game. How about that time in Cincinnati when, with the bases loaded, you helped turn a 5-2 double play (force out+tag out), looked up to see the runner that had been forced–Adam Dunn–jogging toward third, and spastically threw the ball into left field, trying to get Dunn out–again!?!?! Then there was that game later in the season in Philadelphia, when you had Jimmy Rollins dead to rights betwen third and home and, instead of chasing him a ways back to the bag, you instead let Rollins bait you into just idiotically throwing the ball, and he dashed home with game-ending run. Now, let it be said that everyone makes mistakes and the important thing is that we learn from them. Well, then, it’s just a damn shame that you apparently have three inches of steel encasing your skull, prohibiting you from learning from past experience, as you did the same thing two years later with Ramon Matinez, between second and third base, in the 11th inning of a game in Dodger Stadium.

Thankfully, that play in Dodger Stadium turned out to be one of the last stupid things you would do while wearing a Cubs uniform. The following Friday, you found yourself in a dugout altercation with Zambrano. While the dugout version of the altercation was caught on camera, your constantly walking into Zambrano’s fists a few minutes later wasn’t. By this point your manager, Lou Piniella–already known for not being terribly supportive of catchers who couldn’t play their position–had seen enough. Not even your guardian angel Jim Hendry, who brought you to town in the first place, could justify keeping you and your 47 IQ points on the roster any longer. We got barely more than a case of Rawlings for you, but just your absence seemed to result in this team turning things around–it was as if your stupidity was weighing the whole team down. Since getting rid of you last June 20th, the Cubs have gone 91-62.

Seeing you and your mouthbreathing, Lenny from “Of Mice and Men” demeanor this week made me appreciate how far we’ve come since getting rid of you. No more bizarre outbursts. No more throwing the ball into the outfield in an attempt to throw out imaginary baserunners. No more shockingly un-fundamental play. No more baserunners carouselling around the basepaths. Yes, Michael. Life is good around here.

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