Lefty You Say?

In response to a reporter's inquiry last night, Dusty Baker let it be known that the Cubs are in need of a lefty pitcher to throw batting practice. Apparently Dusty is trying to shift the focus of his team's lackluster play away from the mounting injuries to their best players and on to their southpaw problems in the pre-game. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what the problem is with the Cubs this year: they just don't have enough healthy talent. If you plug Prior and Wood into their normal slots in the rotation and Mr. Miyagi Derrick Lee's wrist so he can suit up daily at 1st base, you'd have a playoff caliber team. With the additions of Juan Pierre, Bob Howry, and Scott Eyre, along with the shockingly stellar play of Matt Murton, the Cubs would have been able to win almost as many games as the White Sox this year. But sadly, the horses that the Cubs rode in on all died on their way through the pass. Now they're forced to clear those rotting carcasses off the path with a host of rookie pitchers, and Neifi Perez.

Every year it's the same thing coming from Cubs fans: This is our year. Some years these obligatory statements hold more merit than others, and this year was one of those years. That was until spring training started, when Wood and Prior crumbled like animal crackers in the sweaty palm of hungry fat man. Then came another all too common Cubs fan mantra: Not again. These injuries were bad enough, stung like the wetted end of a snapping towel, but Derrick Lee going down...that was more like getting rocked in the groin by a size 12. He was carrying the team, bringing the Cubs to a more than respectable record, among the top teams in the division. And then came Los Angeles two weeks ago, and that ill-fated bunt by Rafael Furcal.

Isn't it ironic? Don't you think? Jim Hendry of the Cubs courted Furcal in the off season like a silver back monkey in the heart of the mating season. But Furcal relented, pushed away his suitor, and chose a much sunnier option on the west coast. As the speedy shortstop dropped his bunt down the first base line, as Eyre dove and flipped the ball a mile over Lee's head, as Lee stepped into Furcal's path causing a collision that left Lee sprawling in pain on the infield dirt, do you think Hendry heard the waning notes of a famous Alanis Morrisette song in the back of his balding dome? If not, I'm sure he felt a strong distate in his mouth and a sickening feeling in his stomach. Maybe it was Mick Jagger belting out an early 60's "It's All Over Now." Either way, the message was as clear to him as it was to all of Cubs nation watching: your season is over. Which leads to another perrenial phrase that I've heard floated from the lips of Cubs fans: Wait until next year.

But hey, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the Cubs do have a shot at winning it all this year and that their main problem, one whose reclamation will solve a lot of their on field problems, is that the team cannot find a lefty to throw batting practice. "It's hard to find someone who's off work," Dusty said, "If we played night games, maybe they could come over after work." Yet every day game ever played at Wrigley Field has been sold out. If the stadium holds 41,000 people and we say only half are men, and only 10% of those men are lefties, and maybe 1% of those lefties aren't drunk by the time they enter the stadium, that still leaves 20 available options to pitch batting practice every game. If just one of those men can get a ball over the plate, well then, problem solved. So for all of you southpaw Cubs fans, I beseech you to curb your raging alcoholism and get to the ball park. You never know, you just might be able to save this year's season.