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On Carl Everett's perfectly-flat planet, Kevin Mitchell is President of Earth, The New Girl is a great idea for a sitcom, and the Chicago Cubs are perennial World Series contenders. Oh, yeah, and dinosaurs didn't exist because God didn't mention them when he wrote the Bible. And God isn't a liar, idiot. Or should I say, "God isn't a liar, paleontologist?" Perhaps the reason Kenny Williams traded twenty-three players for Carl Everett is because Everett is #4 on the Top 79 Cub Killers of My Time.

When one thinks of the great families in baseball history, some names come to mind. The Alous. The Alomars. The Bondses. The Griffeys. The Ripkens. The...Cansecos? The Hairstons? But Cubs fans know that the greatest baseball family of all time is the Valentin family. The Valentin brothers, Jose and Javier, are the fifth-biggest Cub Killers of My Time.

In a sad week of news for former catchers named Gary, it's only appropriate that Waukegan native Gary Bennett make his presence felt on HJE. Bennett spent his entire thirteen-year career as a backup catcher. He never played 100 games in a single season, and he played in only 587 MLB games. But that was plenty for the Waukegan Kid (I just made that up!) to cement his legacy as the 6th-biggest Cub Killer of My Time.

After four years, six months, and 26 days, we have finally arrived at the top ten. This final stretch is going to be equal parts fun and nightmarish. And we start with Jon Miller's dream player: a Latino man who likes to have his name pronounce incorrectly. A man who has one of the shortest professional careers of any player on the T79. A man whose name I would suspect is more well-known by Cubs fans than by Mets fans, even though he played for the latter. A man whom I once drunkenly asked if he wanted a hot dog when he was playing right field on a cold May afternoon at Wrigley Field. Victor Diaz, the tenth-biggest Cub Killer of My Time.

In the offseason prior to the 2005 season, there were plenty of rumors floating around that the Cubs had an interest in signing switch-hitting, speedy center fielder Carlos Beltran. The rumors made sense. Not because the Cubs wanted to get Beltran off the roster of their NL Central foes, the Houston Astros. Not so Beltran would no longer be allowed to face Cub pitching. No, I suspect the Cubs just wanted to force Beltran to share a locker room with the pitchers upon whom he had inflicted so very much misery. To have to look into their eyes as the Cubs trudged toward a miserable fourth-place 2005 finish. To the dismay of Cubs fans, not only did Beltran pass on the Cubs' overtures, but he also stayed in the National League until the present day, giving him ample opportunity to hit his way up the ladder to #11 on the list of the Top 79 Cub Killers of My Time.

A funny thing happens when one includes active players on a list of Cub-killing baseball players that takes over four and a half years to complete. Statistics CHANGE. So, when I compiled the T79 and started it way back on- June 24, 2007? Holy shit. Anyhow, Xavier Nady was a reasonable choice back then. There were guys higher up on the T79 whose statistics changed, and whom I was able to swap in and out of the lineup. Ryan Theriot comes to mind. But now that I'm at the top 20, I think I have to grin, bear, and just go for it. On my sealed master list of T79ers, buried in a vault beneath the McDonald's parking lot across from Wrigley Field, I made myself just one note: "absurd OPS vs. Cubs." It's no longer absurd, but my sheer stubborn will causes Xavier Nady to stay at #14 on the list of the Top 79 Cub Killers of My Time.

Here's a not-at-all-funny story of my life that has absolutely no payoff. In 2001, I was a starry-eyed high school teacher with two hundred dollars in my savings account, and not a care in the world. Including the educational futures of CHILDREN. In the midst of finals week, my brother-in-law called me on my Motorola i90c cellular phone (with push-to-talk functionality!) and asked if I wanted to go to the Cubs-Cardinals game at Wrigley Field that night. "But, brother-in-law," I said. "Surely, all of the tickets for tonight's game are sold out!"

It's hard to imagine that Neifi Neftali Perez was a bigger liability to the Cubs when off their roster than when on it. When last we left Neifi over four years ago, he was being honored as the second-worst Cub of my time. Now here we sit, eagerly awaiting his official retirement from baseball so that his Hall of Fame eligibility clock can begin its insistent ticking. Surely, a man with a career .297 OBP will not get a call from the Hall of Fame. He would, however, if the BBWAA considered only Neifi's statistics against the Cubs. His career pursuit of those numbers caused Neifi to scrap his way all the way up to #18 of the Top 79 Cub Killers of My Time.

Was all of Dwight Gooden's 16-season MLB career reality, or was it just a figment of the imagination in the drug-addled mind of a user? No, it was reality. A reality that Cubs fans would just as soon forget. He grew up in a Tampa, Florida town, had a good-looking mama, and a papa who was around. ... Read More

There are three questions you have to ask yourself about Jeff D'Amico: Who the hell is Jeff D'Amico? Why are you making me think about Jeff D'Amico? How is Jeff D'Amico #22 on the Top 79 Cub Killers of My Time? The answers, my friend, like all good things, will come in time. Jeff D'Amico's Major League career was short-lived, a mere eight seasons, 131 ... Read More