Hire Jim Essian

The World Series is finally upon us. There are only 4-7 baseball games left in the 2011 season before you have to accept the reality that is the Chicago Bears. Tonight, Chris Carpenter will take the hill for the St. Louis Cardinals against C.J. Wilson. I'd like to take a moment to send my sincerest wishes for ... Read More

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

I offer you this submission. Never has there been a more hate-worthy Cub shortstop than Ryan Theriot. Not Jeff Blauser. Not Neifi Perez. Not Alex Gonzalez. Not Ronny Cedeno. All of those guys were terrible, but they either had some redeeming moments (Gonzalez), were hated solely because of misuse (Perez), were harmless simpletons (Cedeno), ... Read More

Travel back in time with me, if you will, to a time before the Cubs' "Cajun Connection" of former Louisiana State University players Ryan Theriot and Mike Fontenot. Years before that cute moniker was first used to describe the diminutive middle infielders, the Cubs had a GRITTY second baseman with beard stubble and a Tiger pedigree of his own. ... Read More

The Muskbox hasn't made an appearances since May 23. That's a long time for a lot of stupid questions to go unanswered. But this will be an interesting experiment. Will two months be enough time to fill a Muskbox with a handful of actual, good questions? Assuming the Muskbox receives only one query a day, at ... Read More

Ed. Note: As many of you are aware, since the departure of Lou Piniella, the Friday link dump has sought its own unique voice. Whether its content be true or not, this comment from Apex sparked in the dark corner of my brain the flicker of an idea. My freshman high school baseball coach was a weird ... Read More

Our good friend PAUL SULLIVAN wrote yesterday that Ted Lilly was "puzzled" as to why the Cubs didn't try to re-sign him during the offseason. Possibly because they were spending their hard-earned cash on Carlos Pena! Join the club, Ted. The Cubs went from a glut of (mostly-mediocre) pitching to a dearth of it. I know Lilly is ... Read More

EDITOR'S NOTE: In light of a new season starting today, in keeping with the theme of HJE, and because Uncle Mike is about as vanilla as Neapolitan ice cream without the chocolate and strawberry, we have a new Friday host! Be nice to him. He's old. Hello, Cubs fans. Popeye here. I guess I'm supposed to ... Read More

You're getting a late Fukudome because Rozner's steamer which I fisked below has enraged me. As you are aware, Kerry Wood turned down a two-year deal with the White Sox only to sign a dirt-cheap, one-year deal with the Cubs. Why? Because Kerry Wood is the man you would encourage your girlfriend to sleep with. Ryan Theriot, on ... Read More

If one day Barry Rozner came home to find a beautiful, naked, willing woman lying in his bed, he would yell at her for messing up the sheets. Leave it to Rozner to be the one person in Chicago to write something snarky about Kerry Wood's return. I understand Rozner doesn't write his own headlines, but you just ... Read More