I think I'm going to have a heart attack

[Phuck the Cubs]

Cubs reaping what they have thrown

 

Only the Cubs, the 98-years-and-counting Cubs, could inherit two precious baseball gifts and reduce them to broken-down, MRI-dizzy booby prizes. Has all hope turned to stone ... er, Stoney? If this outfit can bungle the dual blessings of Mark Prior and Kerry Wood, it's time to move on from a disturbingly irresponsible era -- is tragic too strong a word? -- and assume the 21st century in Cubdom is doomed to mirror the 20th.

 

Two prophetic conversations come to mind today. The first was with Jerry Prior, Mark's father, who worried aloud a few years ago that the Cubs might overuse his son during his career. The other was with Steve Stone, who pointedly stated before Game 3 of a brief 1998 postseason series that Wood shouldn't be starting on a damp, cold night on the North Side -- his first of many warnings about Kid Rx, his reckless mechanics and the team's misuse of him.

 

Was anyone listening? Not Dusty Baker, who wore down Prior and Wood with insane pitch counts during the second half of the heartbreak tease that was 2003. Not Ed Lynch and Jim Riggleman, who senselessly used Wood that night against Atlanta and began a health spiral plummeting toward an unhappy ending. True, some of Prior's injuries have been caused by freak episodes, such as the line drive that nailed his right elbow last May and his infield collision with Marcus Giles. But it doesn't speak well of the Cubs hierarchy, led throughout the Wood-Prior years by Teflon-protected president Andy MacPhail, that so many loud and credible warnings have been ignored by the powers-that-be at Tribune Co.'s baseball operation. Stone hasn't been wrong yet about Prior and Wood, stopping me on the street weeks ago to say Prior's pitching arm wasn't well and repeating his knowledge on Chicago radio recently. As for Will Carroll of Baseball Prospectus, who reported Prior was concealing an injury to his throwing shoulder and promptly was mocked by the pitcher, isn't he also looking brilliant as Prior awaits results of an MRI on his THROWING SHOULDER?

 

If supposed outsiders know more about Prior than MacPhail, general manager Jim Hendry and Baker, would someone please explain how these men still have their jobs? Shouldn't Stone and Carroll be running the ballclub? Seriously, Stone should be named GM right now, but he, of course, is considered persona non grata by the top brass and reserves his Cubs wisdom for sports-talk listeners. Hendry helped lead a movement to run the Evil Stoney from the TV booth in 2004, when Baker and a few players couldn't handle his tough but fair criticism. Turns out Stone is the one figure in the Prior-Wood drama who comes out smelling great.

 

Everyone else smells like, well, an old billy goat.

 

This round's on me, folks. Because Wrigley Field has assumed its old identity again, a place where people drink up, boogie down and hook up after a game that may or may not matter. Just as fans were resigning themselves to the end of Wood as we've known him -- he's throwing out of a chair these days? -- now they await dreaded confirmation that Prior's right rotator cuff will reduce 2006 to another 2005 and 2004 experience. I was asked on national TV Wednesday if Prior or Wood will start more games this season.

 

Steinbrenner right about WBC

 

I said Prior would start three times and Wood once. Then I volunteered for rotation duty. As for Derrek Lee, I'll try to be upbeat in thinking his sore shoulder --bruised when diving for a grounder for a shockingly inept U.S. team in the World Baseball Classic -- won't linger. But it happens to be the same shoulder that bothered him last year, reinforcing my argument (and George Steinbrenner's) that the WBC is ill-timed and potentially damaging to teams that invest too much money to lose superstars on America's watch. I'm thrilled Lee chose to sit out tonight's U.S. game before knowing if it would have elimination significance. The Cubs are more important than Team USA, at least what's left of the Cubs.

 

If a detached journalist is tired of the Long Toss Twins saga -- and the overly hopeful diagnoses from a team reluctant to tell the truth -- how does a fan feel after waiting generations for a World Series title? The White Sox won it all last autumn, the Red Sox the year before -- but the Cubs have to deal with the same sick prank. Sure, this organization is cursed. But if the best franchises manufacture their own good luck, the Cubs have contributed painfully to their own misfortune regarding Prior and Wood. There is too much circumstantial evidence that both have been victims of at least some in-house arm abuse. I've been reluctant to hang Baker and his bosses with that tag, needing to see repeated arm breakdowns.

 

I think I've seen plenty now. The chances of Wood dominating big-league hitters as a reliable, everyday starter are slim and none. And if Prior has exhibited he can return from disabled-list trips and have success, his next DL stop would be his sixth in five years. No wonder the Orioles wanted no part of him in a Miguel Tejada deal.

 

"Hopefully, it's just a little snag,'' Hendry said.

 

Sure, and Barry Bonds just swallowed a few aspirin. Posterior rotator-cuff irritation, as trainer Mark O'Neal terms Prior's injury, doesn't strike me as a hiccup. I speak for Cubdom in saying everyone is tired of these cute attempts by Hendry to soft-pedal injuries. Look, we're being polite when we refer to the Long Toss Twins as damaged goods. The phrase "simulated game'' has replaced Steve Bartman as gallows humor in Wrigleyville. At least Baker and O'Neal are trying to be a somewhat forthright.

 

"You could tell he was a little distraught,'' Baker said of Prior's pre-MRI mood. "He wants to pitch, and he wants to pitch with nothing wrong.''

 

"I don't want to speculate on anything. That's why we have him seering one of the best orthopedic [doctors] in the country,'' O'Neal said of Dr. Lewis Yocum, who has seen more of Prior and Wood's arms than their wives. "Let's see what he has.''

 

Pencil them in for fourth place

 

Let me guess what might happen. Yocum will discover no tear in the cuff, Prior will resume his special throwing program, and Hendry and Baker will wax hopeful than he can start sometime in mid-April. We all know better. Mid-April means a June return, until the next injury.

 

And if there happens to be a tear in the cuff? Old man Greg Maddux becomes your No. 2 starter, and the Cubs are looking at fourth place in the National League Central. More to the point, Wrigley becomes an irrelevant arm infirmary in the championship shadow of U.S. Cellular Field.

 

Expecting the worst, Cubdom awaits results of the latest MRI, which sounds eerily similar to MIA. Dreadful events have followed this team forever, but none as numbing and demoralizing as the demise of the next Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson.

 

Bad karma is only part of it. The Cubs, owned by a communication conglomerate, never grasped the definition of preservation. As the Evil Stoney grins in all his glory, three less-informed men have been exposed.

 

http://suntimes.com/output/mariotti/cst-spt-jay161.html

[PaleHose4Life35]

Who would ever think that Moronotti could write an article that is so correct.

[G&T]

Since there is nothing new presented in this article that hasn't been said a thousand times, I will give him no credit. I'm not saying that he's wrong, which he isn't, but I know that if the Cubs start winning a bunch of games (that would take a miracle) he will completely change his tune. Remember what he said about the Sox last season right around this time?

Edited March 18, 2006 by G&T

[Phuck the Cubs]

^ Yeah, that Reinsdorf should sell the team to someone who cares about winning. LMAO

[chisoxdavid]

Dont worry guys he will more than make up for this article later, when he bashes the Sox and praises the cubs

[SnB]

Will you please stop worrying about the cubs?

[Gregory Pratt]

I disagree with his b****ing about the WBC, and his insults of Maddux, but he's right on everything else.

[Phuck the Cubs]

Will you please stop worrying about the cubs?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I get Sun-Times news delievered to my inbox daily and this was one of them

[Baines3]

I'm not worrying about the Cubs is all they know is losing.

[JoeBatterz]

I keep saying that I do not mind Jay at all, even when he bashes the Sox on occassion. He is right on target sometimes, maybe, once in a while.

Of course, I do acknowledge as a disclaimer that his dislike of the Sox, Reinsdorf and Hawk is personal and that he changes his mind so much that of course he is going to be right on occassion.

However, he is like most fans in a way, we love our teams when they win and we bash them when the lose.

I shall now duck the numerous "Jay Sucks" thrown my way