Blog Archives

In yesterday’s episode I mentioned not being impressed by the latest Indiana Jones movie, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It was one of those rare films that is bad enough that I don’t want to dissuade anyone else from seeing it because of how satisfying it is to make fun of it. So by all means, go see it.

Before you do, though, take another look at the title of the film and decide how good you think it could be. Now take it down a couple notches and insert Ewoks and you’re getting warmer.

Anyway, I had the pleasure last night of being greeted by none other than Harrison Ford when I was searching for the start time for Friday’s game vs. the Rockies. That’s him, dressed as his most famous character, taking up more than half of the May 22nd box on the Cubs.com schedule for May.

It appears that every MLB club is in on the Indiana Jones calendar ad, an ad that is simply supposed to be a reminder that the movie was released at midnight on Thursday May 22nd. To those of us that braved those two hours of so-called filmmaking, though, the ad is more like a giant rubber snake that we irrationally fear.

Eat your heart out, George Lucas.

Sneetch, Sheps and myself want to wish everyone a happy and safe Memorial Day on Monday. We will return with a brand new episode on Tuesday morning, May 27th. Hopefully the Cubs will give us something to be happy about after the tough weekend in Pittsburgh. Go Cubs!

As mentioned in today’s 400th episode of Cubscast, we can’t thank our listeners enough for supporting the show, e-mailing in, and being awesome in general these last 3-plus years since Cubscast launched. I know it’s been said before, but when we started I’m not sure we ever imagined anyone more than our mothers and a few friends tuning in. That myth was busted the minute that Joe Mantegna responded to a letter we sent him in less than a day. And things continued to take off from there…

We got a very nice e-mail from Dan, a Cubscast listener, yesterday. Here’s an excerpt:

I did hear the call for favorite Cubscast memories, I think I would probably not be alone in recounting the first time I heard “G-E-O-V-A-N-Y” uttered by Sneetch.

But I would offer simply a comment: I recently shopped around for other casts related to the Cubs to see what else was out there, and I found the itunes store littered with casts that had come and gone, and in sampling them, it’s fairly easy to see why they did not stand the test of time. None of them offer what you guys do with amazing consistency; that is, all the news and updates I need to know about, a great combination of Cubs knowledge, worthwhile opinions, advice for Cubs fans, good nature, and humor. You’ve blended it all together so well and make it seem effortless, even though I’m sure the show is a lot of work. All I can say is thanks and keep up the great work and go Cubs!

- Dan

Thanks Dan…are you on the payroll? That email simultaneously astounds and encourages us. Thank you. If anyone else has a favorite Cubscast moment or some thoughts, please send those in to hosts@cubscast.com or you can call them in to our voicemail line at 312-239-0179. We’ll be compiling those and including many of them in a special bonus 400th episode celebration show that will feature more clips from the past as well as some never before heard outtakes.

new series of special episodes

The upcoming celebration episode will be the first in a series of bonus episodes that are available for purchase for 99 cents. It’s a great way to support Cubscast. A long time ago we made a promise to our listeners that Cubscast would always be free to download, and that isn’t about to change. Cubscast will remain free 3 times a week during the regular season. We’re just looking for a way to do a little something extra for listeners and also make a few bucks to cover our costs.

After this initial 400th celebration episode we plan to put out a new episode as part of this series periodically — probably every 2-3 weeks. Stay tuned for more information on this, and thanks again for helping make any and all of this possible.

Go Cubs!

Earlier today I was looking at the standings in major league baseball. There are some surprises so far this year, most notably the fact that favorites like the Yankees and Tigers aren’t playing well and teams from Florida are. Other surprises include the fact that the experts now say last year’s NL champs are dead, Baltimore is 4 games over .500, Seattle’s several games back of Texas, San Diego is the worst team in baseball, and oh yeah, there are only 4 teams in the AL West.

Ok, I know the AL West has only had 4 teams since ’94 and no one seems that broken up about it. But on the other hand, just what the ham sandwich is going on there? Of baseball’s six divisions, four of them have 5 teams, with the AL West only having 4 and the NL Central with 6. It would stand to reason that if you take one team out of the NL Central and send it to the AL West, you would have the type of uniformity that would make Mr. Monk happy. So this begs the question, who should go?

Obviously the team the furthest west is the Astros, so I say give them the boot. Or, put them in the NL West and then move a team with less history to the AL West, like the D-Backs or Colorado. Or if you’d prefer, put the Brewers back in the AL West, I think we all had about enough of them last season anyway. The point is, if you have 30 teams and 6 divisions, anyone who went to third grade can tell you the magic number is 5 per division. Or am I missing something?*

*I am, check out the comments. I am not smarter than a 3rd grader.

I’m sitting here waiting, like a lot of Cub fans, to see if the North Siders actually sign Jim Edmonds today and send Pie down to Iowa. Obviously there’s been a big backlash, on our show and many other places, but in some ways it’s like a fake backlash. You know what I mean? The kind of knee-jerk reaction that is involuntary when you see a dog going #2. Disgusting and always out of place, but then you stare at the dog’s owner until you’re satisfied that the owner is going to clean up the mess. And the owner does and life moves on.

We have to admit that Edmonds could help this team in a big way. If he flashes some glove and hits .270 or above, the move would be lauded as the deal that helped the Cubs reach the playoffs, or even the Series for the first time in bazillion years. It’s a shame that Felix Pie hasn’t had more of a chance to get right at the plate this season, but when a young player starts slow out of the gate it should be expected. What Pie doesn’t have is a working knowledge of the Cardinals organization.

That part of the deal is the most intriguing to me. The rumor is that Edmonds has an axe to grind against the team that is starting a former pitcher in his position. I don’t know if that holds water or not, it could be that Edmonds simply enjoys playing at Wrigley Field. His career numbers support that theory (18 HRs at the confines). Any advantage he can give us over the Cardinals, though, is at least as valuable as his pro-rated salary would be. So those are the plusses.

The only minus I can see is that if Edmonds doesn’t play well, his Cubs career shouldn’t linger. Put him back on waivers, bring Pie back into the fold after he does a Soto and figures out how to clobber major league pitching, and watch helplessly as Edmonds returns to the Cardinals and divulges all of our team secrets. It’ll be great. Back to you, metaphor…

In the end we all realize that it’s necessary and a good thing that the dog does its business, as long as the owner is hovering over the situation with plastic gloves and a scooper.

In the spirit of today’s Mail Sack episode, I have to admit that I was completely wrong when I said that Jerry Hairston Jr. and Scott Hairston weren’t related. That, as pointed out below, was untrue, they are brothers.

To: hosts@cubscast.com
From: Chris W.
Subject: Scott and Jerry Hairston

Scott and Jerry Hairston ARE brothers. Death to Jim Edmonds!

C-Dub

I have no idea why I thought they weren’t related, other than thinking that I’d heard that they weren’t years ago. However, now that the truth is known (to me), this doubles the number of authentic Hairstons in the majors, so today is a good day. Fans in the left field stands, beware.

After their awesome start to the season and record-setting April, the Cubs are now mired in an awkward slump. Awkward because the offense that is generating the most runs per game in the National League isn’t supposed to lose 8 out of 11 games. But we’ve found a way. But as inexplicable as the losses have been, the wins are just as difficult to account for. Ronny Cedeno taking walks? What kind of twilight zone episode is this?

Maybe we should just admit that this is the team we expected to see when the season started on March 31st: A team that loses too many close games and occasionally beats the heck out of the competition. That was the 2007 Cubs. Or more correctly that was the 2007 Central Division Champion Chicago Cubs. Our formula last season was to tread water until the pitching staffs for the rest of the division broke down, and then we rode the bouncing coattails of Alfonso Soriano in September. It worked then, and it will work again this year.

In a way it’s just sad that we’ve already seen what this 2008 Cubs team is capable of so early in the season. It makes seeing it every third or fourth game its own form of slow burning pain. But take solace, Cubs fans, because as much as the Cubs haven’t perfected their potion, neither have the White Sox. Their struggles are so bad that they put all their bats next to a bunch of blow-up dolls in the clubhouse as a joke. That just proves that nobody in this city has perfected anything except silliness, and we can expect plenty of that from both sides of town throughout the summer.

Considering the dolls and the Cubs tough losses at St. Louis and Cincinnati just goes to show that a fluke in baseball is still the norm. A broken-bat flare off of Ryan Dempster scored 2 runs on Monday night, the runs that ended up making the difference in the game. A few blown calls on sliding plays at home plate effected the outcomes both Sunday and Monday.

How should the Cubs answer? Two things: get out an airpump, and start Ronny Cedeno. You never know, it might work.