Hire Jim Essian

The 2011 season ground to a merciful halt yesterday. In a beautiful display of symmetry, it ended much the same way it started, with Ryan Dempster walking everyone in the park, serving up a grand slam, and losing to a shitty team. In case you missed the past six months of baseball, the Cubs didn't make the playoffs ... Read More

The only reason to watch the Cubs for the remainder of the season is to watch Starlin Castro hopefully erase Juan Pierre from any bit of Cub trivia. Before the end of the season, when anyone asks you, "Hey, who was the last Cub to collect 200 hits in a season?" you will no longer have to answer, "Juan ... Read More

Before we dive knuckles-first into this week's Muskbox, it's my duty to point out that tickets to tonight's compelling Cubs-Reds matchup are currently selling for ONE DOLLAR AND FORTY-EIGHT CENTS on StubHub. (HT: Ned Ryerson) If you've been waiting to see Rodrigo Lopez pitch, NOW IS YOUR CHANCE. SIDE NOTE: Anyone need two tickets for tonight's game? Face ... Read More

Surely, you remember Preston Wilson. His hair was kinda- I don't know- brown. Well, not really brown. Oh, he's tall. Yeah. Kinda- kinda tall. Sorta tall. And he's always wearing- like- t-shirts. I mean, he's Preston. PRESTON. You know? Preston. Press-TONE! And he's the 29th biggest Cub ... Read More

Okay, this is weird even for a team as weird as the Cubs. From Fox Sports comes the story that, toward the end of Dusty Baker's tenure with the Cubs, someone with access to the Cub dugout was apparently taking shits in Dusty's "standin' spot, dude." The most likely explanation for this story is Dusty that is more full of ... Read More

Jim Hendry's plan to become the Tampa Bay Cubs has broken even this year. Gone are former Rays managers Lou Piniella and Larry Rothschild. Here are former Rays Carlos Pena and, now, Matt Garza. This has been a shockingly competent offseason for Jim Hendry. I was expecting absolutely nothing out of him, and he's gone one ... Read More

Another year of Muskboxing begins with a bang. Not a fun bang. More like a, "Seeing some dude bang your sister" bang. If the Muskbox were to resolve one thing this year, well, that would be one more thing that they resolved in all of the collective years prior to this year. And that would be ... Read More

Oh, baby. After the hiring of Mike Quade over Ryne Sandberg last week, I could not WAIT for this week's Muskbox. The first question does not disappoint. I haven't seen so much hand-wringing since Koyie Hill tried to grind his own coffee beans. If you're not as excited about Quade vs. Sandberg, how about a little ... Read More

If there's one sports radio refrain that annoys me, it's, "Tom Ricketts is being SO SMART AND CAREFUL about his evaluation of Jim Hendry." Bullshit. The Cubs are now halfway through their first season under Ricketts' ownership. They're 39-50, with the third-highest payroll in all of Major League Baseball. The only two more expensive teams are ... Read More

When I was growing up watching Cubs games with Harry Caray and Steve Stone in the booth, I'm ashamed to admit that I honestly thought Stone was a baseball genius. It blew my mind that Stone could prognosticate which pitch would be thrown in a certain situation or whether or not a batter would try to steal a base. ... Read More