Hire Jim Essian

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.

There was a time not so long ago when Adam Dunn was a legitimate threat to use a baseball bat to make contact with a baseball. A simpler time, when Dunn was a National League player forced to run around uncomfortably in the infield or outfield with a glove on his hand. A time when Dunn would positively VORP your face off, even as radio callers would complain about his copious strikeouts and "three possible outcomes" approach to hitting. It was in this far simpler time that the man who would become the 19th-biggest Cub Killer of My Time was born.

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

Way back in 2002, the Cincinnati Reds revealed a slugger who was supposed to be Sosa- McGwire- and Bonds-esque in his ability to hit home runs. Despite his inability to draw walks, catch and throw a baseball, or either spell or pronounce the name "Willy," Wily Mo Pena was going to team up with Austin Kearns and Adam Dunn ... Read More

Sometimes, the biggest Cub Killers of my time aren't all about the statistics. Sometimes, they're more about the timing of their hits than the number or distance of those hits. Sometimes, there was just an opponent that any rational Cubs fan did NOT want to see at the plate or on the mound in a crucial situation. ... Read More

Yo, Washington! I hear you need a new manager. (HT: Martin) So, your old one was such a dope that he got your team back to .500 baseball with a nice little run, then had no idea what to do with himself, panicked, and made the worst bluff in managerial history. Jim Riggleman is the guy ... Read More

The Cubs traded the pride of Triton College to the Washington Nationals in exchange for three prospects. God speed, Tom Gorzelanny. I always liked you a lot better than Carlos Silva. ... Read More

So, Mike Quade is off to a pretty good start as interim manager. He's won three games in a row and swept the mighty Nationals. Wow! I'm sooooooo impressed. What were the Nationals? 53-71 going into Monday night's game? And they had to face whom? Livan Hernandez? Hell, that guy was practically ... Read More

If there's one thing that's absolutely infuriating about the Cubs, it's their mystifying inability to hit left-handed pitching. No, scratch that. If there's one thing that's absolutely infuriating about the Cubs, it's their 102-year championship drought. Number two is the other thing with the left-handers. A couple of offseasons ago, when Jim Hendry decided to make ... Read More