Hire Jim Essian

If you are a Jim Hendry hire in the Chicago Cubs front office, you might want to start bringing a tote box to work. Just in case. The Theocracy fired six scouts this week. Hopefully, all of the ones who said Felix Pie was awesome.

Shark Week is probably as pointlessly over-hyped as zombies and Betty White, but Jaws absolutely isn't, and now you can own it on Blu-Ray. As for everything else, our good friend PAUL SULLIVAN asked on his Facebook page recently if anyone was still watching the Cubs. I actually am. Moreso than I have this late in the season since 2008. They're fun. They're likable now that Dempster is gone. There's an actual direction for the team. And Tony Campana doesn't play for them. What's not to like?

I love Kevin Goldstein. His Twitter feed is excellent, he's patient with both dumb fan questions and dumber talk show host questions. The man can talk intelligently about nearly any minor league player in baseball. But he was dead wrong last night on the Score when he said fans were stupid to be mad about SoriaNO exercising his 10-and-5 rights just as we were stupid to be mad about TrollDempster doing the same. Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. And not just for the reason that we can feel however the hell we damn well want to feel, because we're human beings with emotions. No, the TrollDempster situation and the SoriaNO situation couldn't be more different. Here's why.

At least that's how I pronounce it. Theo Epstein's Organizational Rehabilitation Project continued today with the firing of the Assistant to the Vice President of Player Personnel, Oneri Fleita. Whatever. Theo absolutely should be staffing the organization with his own guys, although he's going to run out of friends soon if he keeps making them work for the Cubs. What I found interesting this morning, though, was connected to the braying jackass that is Bobby Valentine. Brace yourself for this tidbit, because it came from Barry Rozner's useless gob.

Comic via xkcd, obviously.If Curiosity's landing on the moon wasn't enough to titillate your tits, certainly the return of pre-football season will electrify your nipples. I have but one piece of advice for this Friday: avoid all sports radio. I imagine the meatball threat level is bright red this morning. 'Cuz 'dey never shoulda let 'dat Caleb ... Read More

It's been a while since we've gone Muskbox-diving. Did you miss it? Did you? What if the Muskbox disappeared forever, and all of our memories of it slowly faded from our minds just like the fact that Matt Lawton was ever a Cub? What then? Would it ever have existed if no one remembered it? Well, yes. It would. I don't know why anyone would even ask such stupid questions, which is probably why I hated my mandatory freshman philosophy class. Also, because my T.A. looked like Fernando Vina.

Whaddya mean, there are no ads in the funny pages? ... Read More

In his Texas Ranger debut last night, Ryan Dempster got hilariously roughed up to the tune of eight runs in fewer than five innings. At least one American League scout thinks he sucks, saying, "To me, he's a fourth or fifth starter in the National League." That's awesome. Why still sour grapes, even after the Cubs traded Dempster? Because fuck him, that's why.

If you haven't heard yet, hip hip hooray! Ryan Dempster is taking his stand-up act, his divorce papers, his stupid glove flip, and, I suppose, his pitching to Texas. I couldn't stand Dempster when he was bad. I couldn't stand him when he got good. I couldn't stand him when he was bad again, and I couldn't stand him when he got good again.

I was all geared up for a fitting sendoff to one of the most annoying Cubs since Kevin Millar farted his way around Spring Training that one year. But then TrollDempster, whose last great prank occurred during the 2008 NLDS, appeared. Dempster apparently was awakened from a nap to the SHOCKING news that the Cubs were trying to trade him. How this is news to him is staggering. Anyhow, I was hoping to report good news today, but instead I just have the internet's 154th-newest meme: TrollDempster. Infinite hanks to Slak for this idea. Oh, and if you want to create your own TrollDempster, you can go here. Or tweet about him here.