Ordered my Tom Gorzelanny shirt. Ordering my Randy Wells jersey sometime this week. Merry Christmas to me :)

First I hear Rich Harden is interested in coming back, now I hear he isn’t cause he felt overused and suffered from the poor defense of Alfonso Soriano and Milton Bradley. Apparently the Mariners have taken an interest in him. I know I’m late on this, but idgas. I don’t know who the hell to believe. All I know is, Rich Harden, if you can, please come back.

Ordered my Cubs convention passes today. So excited.

I’ve been sitting on photoshop for 5 hours just editting baseball pictures, best 5 hours of my life.

School has to be the worst thing to make time go by until baseball. Maybe I need a huge hibernation until then, but I’d wake up for Christmas and the convention.

I think Randy makes a great Woody. But i’m not digging Samardzija as Buzz Lightyear.

So we’re supossed to be doing some Catcher in the Rye thing right now…yeah fuck dat.

TGIF. Yeah I never say that but I really mean it. Weekdays suck anyway. Unless there’s baseball….but we know that story. There’s hockey though! :) It’s probably the best replacement for baseball.

God the convention needs to get here soon though.

Cause I miss this guy

Thank whoever you want to for random days off of school! Columbus is one of my favorite historical dudes because of the day off he gives us. Can’t wait for the 5 day weekend in November :D

So Chris Chelios is supposed to sign with the Wolves….no thanks! He’s older than sin and he thinks he’s still got it in him? No way. He only skated in 28 games for the Wings last season and got no points with 18 penalty minutes. I honestly don’t want him here. Like don’t get me wrong, Chelios was good, but before I was born. He should coach, he’d be awesome at that, but he shouldn’t think he can skate alongside guys half his age. If he signs, a bunch of people will come to the games who don’t even like hockey to see him up close, bull shit. Then they’ll take up all the seats and bother the guys and ruin it for the regular fans, screw that. If the Wolves think this is a good signing, they’re crazy.

Speaking of signings, what’s up with the Manny Legace PTO signing?! We have 2 goalies who are perfectly capable of getting us wins: Drew Macintyre and Peter Mannino. So what if the team’s been struggling, there’s been 3 games!!!! Not time to panic yet, seriously people. I’m sick of people complaining about it, shut the fuck up! The boys will get into the grove and start winning, people have to paitent.

So other than that, nothing new has gone on, other than hockey season kicking off. The way it’s started, boy is it gonna be a swell year *note the sarcasm*

Catch ya later.

So regular season baseball ended…and the boredom sets in in 3…2…1.

Life without baseball is sorta like life without air or something along those lines. Sure there’s other games right now, but it’s really boring to watch a game where your favorite team isn’t playing. Are there any positives about this Chicago Cubs baseball season? The average fan would say no, but there really are, you just gotta look beyond the record.

-Randy David Wells

Man was this dude stellar! He didn’t even start the season in Chicago, a call up from Iowa in May and never went back. It all started when Zambrano decided to go one of his annual DL visits, then Randy to the rescue. He goes out and basically slaughters Milwaukee, 8 scoreless innings of work. Talk about a memorable debut. Of course the bullpen blew it, but hell Randy did awesome! Finished up his rookie year with a 12-10 record, 3.05 ERA, and 104 SO; (he could have had closer to 16 wins, but hey nothing we can do about it.)

-Iowa Call Ups

Although he totally deserves it, why just focus all of the attention on Wells? The other calls ups from Iowa deserve credit for their efforts. Jake Fox was just the man. Dude had 11 HR’s and 44 RBI’s in just 216 AB’s. That’s pretty darn good, well, better than Milton Bradley good, but if you’re a cubs fan, that’s not much. Still, go Jake!

Not too far behind was Micah Hoffpauir. He had himself 10 HR’s and 35 RBI’s in just 105 AB’s, pretty sweet if you ask me.

Now there’s gotta be some defense somewhere right? Well, meet Sam Fuld. He definitely was the guy you wanted in center field (or Reed Johnson) to make a big play. Google him, really. You’ll see some pretty big plays from a not so big guy.

-Starting Rotation

No matter how bad it seemed to be for the Cubs, the starting rotation was solid. It’s pretty obvious that without the rotation we had, the record would have been way worse. I’m gonna be bold and talk about each guy based on how well they performed, the first guy I talk about I like the most, the guy I talk about last I like the least. First off, Randy Wells, if you’ve gotten this far into the blog, you know my feelings on Randy Wells. Basically, he’s amazing, and he’s the best rookie I’ve seen from the Cubs since Kerry Wood.

Next is Rich Harden. Rich who??? You might know him, or you might not. Spent a few weeks on the DL this season and missed some starts towards the end of the season. Still, this guy is solid, and I’d want him in my starting rotation. The man’s known for strikeouts and on a good day, is basically unhittable give or take the 1 or 2 random bloopers out to midfield. He started the least amount of games (26) but still finished second on the team in strikeouts with 171 behind only Ryan Dempster who had 172. If the Cubs can afford it, it’d be in their best interest to have Harden back for the ‘10 season.

              

Now, who doesn’t love the southpaws? Ted Lilly is one of the best southpaws I’ve seen next to Sabathia and Lee. Lilly, along with Wells, had the most wins on the rotation with 12. Solid ERA at 3.10 and a nasty curveball. He’s another guy I’d like to have on the roster cause he rarely has a bad game and when he does, he’s not liable to give more than 2-3 runs.

                        

Ryan Dempster, love him or hate him, he’s the best closer turned starting pitcher I’ve seen. He accomplished his lone goal this season of pitching 200 innings by pitching exactly that, 200.0 innings. As stated before, led the team in strikeouts this season with 172 and is always guarenteed to give you a quality start, even had a complete game this season. Other than that small visit to the DL, Dempster was solid, glad to have him back next season.

                         

Finally, the “ace” of the Cubs (I disagree with that, although most cubs fans would disagree with me) Carlos Zambrano. He’s one of those guys who never seems to have an average games, it’s either good, or it’s bad. He finished up with 9 wins, not too bad, but not good either (only him and Harden had 9 wins and Rich didn’t even finish the season, sorta tells you something.) But he did have the complete game shutout which was pretty impressive, so basically, Carlos had a so-so season, but he would probably disagree.

                             

-Koyie Dolan Hill

Now someone’s gotta catch all those pitches right? Enter Koyie Hill. No not Geovany Soto, Koyie Dolan Hill. He had a most impressive first full season in the majors, and the cubs managed a 42-25 record when he started behind the plate. He was definitely a defensive minded catcher. His offensive stats aren’t the best but his 30.0% throw out rate is is the 3rd best in the majors. Oh I forgot to mention the stretch during the season where he started 26 games, yes 26 games, in a row while starting catcher Geovany Soto was out. No wonder they call him Ironman Hill.