Chicago Cubs

The blame for Geovany Soto and his struggles this season have been either a sophomore slump or the World Baseball Classic. Now it appears that the latter is true.

On Thursday, a positive marijuana test result, that was taken during the WBC, was made public. Soto quickly made a statement (a la Micheal Phelps) saying "I am embarrassed by my inappropriate behavior."

He "assured the organization this was an isolated incident and a misstep in judgment that will not be repeated."

The Chicago Cubs lost Tuesday night to the Detroit Tigers 5-4 when Ryan Raburn hit a two run walk-off home run off closer Kevin Gregg.

If it seems like every Cubs' game is close, it's because they are. The Cubs are 34-33 and are only 3.5 games back in the NL Central division. Plus, this team are 21-13 at home, continuing the positive trend from last season of playing well at the Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field.

I don’t care how comfortable Alfonso Soriano is in the leadoff spot—he has to be moved.

Soriano is a very dangerous leadoff hitter, but only when he makes contact with the ball, which nowadays is not very often. The Cubs' leadoff hitter needs to have a batting average near .291, which is Soriano’s current on-base percentage.

The Cubs won four in a row! Now they're back to being the greatest team in the National League!

Oh wait, did I say that? The North Siders won four in a row against the less-talented White Sox and arguably the worst team in baseball, the Cleveland Indians.

Those wins were meaningless.

The Cubs then proceeded to play the Atlanta Braves, one of the worst offenses in all of baseball. Ryan Demspter went 6 2/3 innings, yielding two earned runs.

Cubs manager Lou Piniella may have forgotten the one universal rule that exists in professional sports. 

For a reminder of that one rule, let's ask our friend Herm Edwards his opinion of why professional sports are played. 

Edwards, the former Head Coach of the New York Jets, gained fame for his legendary comment during a post-game interview.

"You play to win the game."

Thanks for the obvious, Herm.

In part one; we took a look at Harden and Gregg, and the possibilities that face the Cubs. Now, as we take a look a bit farther down the road, the choices show themselves to be a bit more complicated.

Shortly after the Cubs have to deal with the future of Harden and Gregg, they will have to face what choices to make with Derrick Lee and Ted Lilly—like I said, a bit more complicated.

I asked my Mom what she thought about steroids in baseball, and she laughed. It sounded like a, "I don't really care" laugh, so I pressed her and she said that she thought it was bad.

She thought it wasn't good that some players had an unfair advantage.

It's refreshing to ask people who don't really care about baseball what they think about America's past-time. Mostly because they don't have a vested interest, it helps you to realize that some things in life are more important than asterisks in the record books.

Filed:June 21st, 2009

(Source: Cubbie Nation)

We’ve just finished the bad and it wasn’t pretty, but this is just downright ugly. Here is the final chapter in the trilogy I have written about Jim Hendry’s term as General Manager of the Chicago Cubs.

Reporters are still reeling from the chaos that ensued in the visiting manager's office at Wrigley Field Saturday.

Indians skipper Eric Wedge was attempting to field questions about Kerry Wood's second blown save in as many days against his former team when he was overwhelmed by the Guns N' Roses song "Welcome to the Jungle," also Wood's entrance music at Progressive Field.