Everyone can relax now

Hey relax everyone, we got Phil Nevin!

Vote Early and Often

Don't forget to stuff MLB's All Star ballot box. Cardinals fans are already ahead of the curve and erstwhile pissant David Eckstein is leading the NL SS voting as a result. Stop the insanity!

I've voted my 25 times (nothing says democracy like one man, twenty-five votes) and you, dear readers, need to as well. As a service to Thunder Matt's Saloon, and because of the fact I couldn't think of another 3rd outfielder to vote for, Matt Murton got my 25 votes. Also getting votes from me are ramoN, JD Drew, Jeff Kent, and Khalil Greene. Go ahead folks and join in the fun of making baseball's midsummer classic a complete and total sham!

This Just In...

I just got off the phone with the folks at the Elias Sports Bureau. They've assured me that no team has in fact won the World Series while having a Neifi Perez on it. On another note, Neifi has just secured a season ticket seat for his mother. She'll be accompanying Jacque Jones' mom to all home games. That'll learn those inconsiderate fans.

Bartender Banter: Quick notes from the Saloon

It was a relatively quiet weekend in the Saloon as most of us were out enjoying the holiday. Chaim's saturday post regarding Neifi pretty much summed up everyone's feelings and frustrations towards His Pudginess. Now we've got Tony Womack, so we can hope for someone to play 2B while Walker covers 1B, that perhaps can bat .240 as opposed to Neifi's .204.

Coming up this week...
I'm working on a longer piece that will be up later this week. And perhaps we'll get another edition of Realm of Red from Chaim or another glowing review of the Dodgers from our good friend the Governor. Also now that BrantBrown is finished up with classes for the summer, you can expect a bit more from him as well.

Mad Dog feels right at home
Greg Maddux went from April stud (5-0, 1.35 ERA) to May dud (0-4, 7.81 ERA), hitting rock bottom in South Florida when he did his best rendition of "The Untouchables" with a water cooler. Today, Greg closes the month out at home against Cincinnati. There's reason to be optimistic here. In 4 starts at Wrigley, he currently holds a 1.40 ERA and a 3-0 record. His only other home start in May so far resulted in a no-decision against the Padres, where he allowed only 4 hits and 1 run in 7.1 IP.

Thunder Matt on a tear
There hadn't been much to talk about related to Murton lately but over the last week, Thunder Matt's bat has been as red hot as that scraggly mop on his head. In the last 7 days, Murton has hit 8 for 16 with 2 home runs. Murton, like Maddux, seems to thrive at home. Currently he is batting .361 with an OPS of .918 at the Friendly Confines.

Getting linked up
About three weeks ago I registered the Saloon with Statcounter.com, that way I could see how many hits we were actually getting and where they were coming from. Less than a month in, I have to say there are a few things I've learned.

• 1) We have people not only reading our stuff, but they've actually come back on a separate occasion to read some more.
• 2) People do Google searches from some really weird shit.

Some of my favorite keyword searches done that people found us through include "hobo fights", "Kyle Farnsworth gay", "Tim McCarver worst announcer", "Pierzynski clubhouse cancer", and "cock tattoo". Some of them make sense, but who the hell is Googling "hobo fights" and "cock tattoo"? Actually I don't want to know. Some things are better left unanswered.

We actually got linked by someone else! While I've submitted the Saloon to be added to the Cubs Blog Army (which may or may not ever get done by the looks of it), someone has given us some props and added a link to our site. Thanks to Andy Bugay for the publicity. Andy currently sponsor's Thunder Matt Murton's Baseball Reference page. He also has a pretty funny piece about the "13 Worst Cubs Injuries" in the Dusty Era.

Impeach Neifi

Ok, I'll admit, my frustration has boiled over into pure, unadulterated anger. Nothing all year has riled me up like watching Neifi Perez (NEIFI PEREZ!), drop a simple cut off throw yesterday on a sacrifice fly allowing 2 runs, including the go-ahead one, to score.

2 runs on a sacrifice fly! He should immediately be kicked off the team, no quetions asked. Why was he even in there? Ryan Theriot, Tony Womack...anybody but Neifi? I dare anyone to provide me with any sort of baseball logic as to why he has a job.

I'm so over Neifi being cute and short and pudgy and funny. Nope. He's ugly, fat, pathetic and untalented. So it's resorted to name calling on my part. So be it. This guy should NOT have a job. He easily assumes the role of my most hated Cub of all time, making you pine for the days of Jose Hernandez striking out in every clutch situation.

In fact, Neifi empitomizes everything that is wrong with the Cubs this year. Sure they have other glaring deficiencies, but from now on when someone asks me, 'What's up with the Cubs this year?', I will pause, look to the ground, sigh, run a hand through my hair, bite my lower lip, tap my foot rapidly, pace around nervously for a few minutes, sweat profusely and then take said person's head in both hands, give them a piercing stare and say 'Neifi Perez.' Then as I walk away, shaking my head I will once again mutter 'Neifi Perez'.

Take it to the bank

I've sat down, crunched the numbers, looked at every possible angle and what not. I can tell you with a large amount of confidence, that there's no conceivable way the Cubs lose today. Maybe its just a hunch, but who knows?

Meanwhile in Heaven...

Let me first say I'm not posting this to pile on my suffering colleagues here at TMS, but the Dodgers are the hottest team in baseball right now. Frankly, I'm as surprised as anyone. They've won 15 of 18, including 7 straight, sweeping a homestand for the first time since 1994.

What's really odd is how they're winning. The Dodgers, a team which has never in its 100+ year history been known for its hitting, are hammering their opponents. Five of their regular starting eight are hitting over three hundred with Nomar leading the way at .375. JD Drew is hitting .294 so a good game or two and we could have six guys hitting .300 plus. Kent and Furcal are recovering fast from their horrendous start, closing in on the .260 mark after floundering around the Mendoza line for the first four or five weeks of the season. Also worth noting is the fact that you can count three rookies, Willy Aybar, Andre Eithier, and Russell Martin (pictured left) among the three hundred club.

Another shocker is Aaron Sele, who will be known as Cy Young Sele until further notice. He shut down the Rockies last night giving up only 3 hits and no runs in 7 innings. On the season, he is 3-0 in 4 starts with an ERA of 1.69 since telling the Dodgers to either call him up from AAA or trade him. Perennial basket case Odalis Perez, whose surprise trip to the Domincan Republic paved the way for Sele, will probably never get his job back. Sele isn't alone though, the Dodgers starters are all doing well (well, Seo isn't, but he's the #5 guy): Brad Penny (ERA 2.31), Derek Lowe (ERA 3.08), & Brett Tomko (ERA 3.21).

I know this hot streak won't last forever, but I'm also comforted that they are doing this well without Bill Mueller and Eric Gagne, both of whom will be back soon. Their return, particularly Gagne, can only help things. Aaron Sele and Brett Tomko (aka Bombko) may implode sooner or later, but I'm going to enjoy the ride while it lasts. For now, its Cy Young Sele, and the Dodger Blue Bash Brothers. God bless Grady Little.

Enjoying the view from hell

We're about 15 minutes away from game time, where the worst team in the NL could possibly sweep the Cubs. Sadly I may not be able to use the "worst team" title for opponents soon as the Cubs are only 4.5 games out from taking that title away from the Marlins. We can always hope the Pirates stay crummier than us I guess. When you get excited about Tony Womack possibly coming up from AAA Iowa, there's not much hope out there.

Hopefully Maddux can shut Florida down and we can get some hits, which shouldn't be a problem given that today's starter Brian Moehler has been giving up over 7 hits a game on average. Then again, the hits aren't the problem, its the runs. The Cubs are currently 29th in the league in runs, which may as well be last place since Kansas City doesn't really count as a viable MLB team. Hell, at least the Cubs spend money (albeit not wisely).

But lets stay positive here. That's Dusty's mantra. In an interview yesterday Dusty said, "This losing, I'm not used to this. It's getting to me. Yeah, there's an end in sight." You can definitely tell its getting to him. Check out this photo comparison.

When the Cubs are winning.

During their current losing skid.

Realm of Red: Redhead of the Week

Realm of Red was on hiatus last week while it went out drinking with Rick Sutcliffe. It will return later this week after the hangover subsides and Clooney solves that thing over in Africa.

Ri-COCK-ulous!

It was one of those 'Oh shit' moments that makes you set down your Old Style and pay attention, like a cheetah getting a whiff of a crippled elk. Sure to go down in Chicago sports lore, Michael Barrett threw the most shocking right cross since Buster Douglas hit Mike Tyson hard enough to make him think it was a good idea to get a face tattoo 10 years later. If only the rest of the Cubs could hit a baseball like Michael Barrett hits white trash in the face.

Now this moment has been disected again and again, replayed more times than the obligitory 'guy getting hit in the balls' shot on every episode of America's Funniest Videos.

So I won't speak at length, but I will say this. For one of the first times this year, I was fired up to be a Cubs fan. Was Barrett in the wrong? Probably. If the culprit had been anyone other than AJ 'I Still Own Half a Dozen WCW Shirts, Including 2 NWO Ones" Pierzynski, would Barrett have done his best Ron Artest imitation? Very doubtful. Bet your ass that wouldn't have happened if it was Paul Konkerko who had run him over. But AJ is a jackass and it was a long time coming. Now I'm not an advocate of violence, but in the case of AJ, surely it is not only justified, but mandatory. I only wish it could have ended with a Brutus the Barber Beefcake moment, with Barrett standing over AJ with a pair of hedgetrimmers and a maniacal look in his eye, ready to cut that mullet.

Well one would have hoped that incident lit a fire under the listless Cubs, and on Sunday, for a fleeting second, it looked like it may have. After narrowly escaping TOTAL embarassment by, it pains me to say this, a Sox team that is clearly in a different league right now (literally and figuratively), the Cubs get shellacked by the Marlins. That's right, the Marlins. Quick casual fan, name one Marlin other than that pitcher with the nice smile and high leg kick. Times up. We would have settled for 'the collection of nine guys that made the Cubs look like a Double A club', assuming the Marlins, as speculated, are Triple A.

Later in the week, I will look at who's to blame for the Cubs. That will be a really, really long post.

TMS' 10 Most Wanted List

In the 2nd in my ongoing series of "War Criminals in MLB", its time to profile the 10 worst announcers/commentators in the game today. Now, as a Dodger fan I have Vin Scully and the Cubs fans here had Harry Caray, but lets face it, most "voices of the game" are terrible. Some are worse than others of course, and these ten should be breaking rocks in a Siberian labor camp. Without further ado, the list:

10. Rick Monday (Los Angeles Dodgers) - The words coming out of Monday's mouth are English, and I speak English, but I rarely understand what the hell Monday is talking about. Read this quote closely and note it makes no sense: Ground ball to short. Furcal is up with it and throws it high to 1st, where it's dug out nicely by Loney. Monday is also the only good argument FOR an amendment banning flag burning. Thirty years ago or so, some hippies went onto the field at Dodger Stadium to burn a flag...Monday swooped in and saved it, making him an instant star. If only those hippies had thought twice, we might have been spared years of mindless rambling.

9. Pete Van Wieren, Don Sutton, & Skip Caray (Atlanta Braves) - Yeah, its three guys, so what. They're all interchangeable. Who needs Ambien when you have a Braves game. These guys make Ben Stein sound like a.......zzzzzZZZZZzzzzz....huh? what?.....zzzzzZZZZZzzzzz

8. Kevin Kennedy (Fox) - You won't find a more inane moron than Kennedy. He was recently saying a team that just won a game had an excellent chance to go on a winning streak. No shit? He also grooms himself like Tom Selleck circa 1982.

7. Tim McCarver (Fox) - Back before World War I broke out, Tim McCarver was just starting to go senile. He's been stammering like a Canadian with tourettes ever since. Age doesn't necesarily mean you need to send an announcer out to pasture, but when you sound like Grandpa Simpson in the booth, its probably time. Just an awful announcer.

6. Joe Morgan (ESPN) - If you're interested in how all current players are inferior to The Big Red Machine or a really odd way of pronouncing "slider", Morgan is for you. If thats not your cup of tea, Morgan is insufferable. Fortunately, ESPN's Sunday night game is usually crap so I don't have to listen to him.

5. Steve Physioc (California Angels of Los Angeles of Anaheim) - Physioc is the Angels play by play guy and he's bad, but what makes him one of the worst is his role as an enabler of #2 on our list, his partner in the booth and in life, Rex Hudler. Its often hard to figure out whether you're watching a baseball game or one of those Ambiguously Gay Duo cartoons on SNL.

4. Everyone on Baseball Tonight (ESPN) - A key clause of a commentator's contract to appear on this show is that you have to check your brain at the door. Also, if you aren't convinced Barry Bonds is the greatest athlete in human history and the sexiest man alive, you aren't welcome. As a Dodger fan it pains me to see one of my all time favorites Orel Hershiser playing Laurel to John Kruk's Hardy (thats for you old folks out there).

3. Ken "Hawk" Harrelson (Chicago White Sox) - "You can put it on the board...YES!" Here's hoping that board is part of a cross and you're putting Hawk Harrelson on it with nails. Most announcers at least TRY to feign objectivity. Harrelson gave that up years ago and became the most insufferable homer ever to grab a mic in an MLB booth. White Sox games are unwatchable as a result.

2. Rex Hudler aka "Wonderdog" aka "Beelzebub" (California Angels of Los Angeles of Anaheim) - For Rex Hudler, every player is a Hall of Famer, every play is great, and everyone in the world is holding hands and smelling flowers. A guy could be batting .200 and Hudler would say he's scrappy. In Hudler's world, Charles Manson was just a hard worker who wouldn't give up. Hudler may in fact be the devil himself as he even managed to survive a drug scandal while the SS...err, I mean Disney owned the Angels.

1. Joe Buck (Fox) aka Joe MotherBucker - Joe Buck is the Osama Bin Laden of our list. In fact, if you gave him a beard, a kalashnikov, and a dialysis machine, you probably couldn't tell the difference. Buck isn't the worst or the most irritating, but he is the only person on this list with global reach. Fox has him calling Saturday games, playoff games, the World Series, NFL football and Nascar. Don't be surprised if they have him moderating a presidential debate in 2008 or taking over as host of American Idol. You can't escape Buck. He knows where you live and will soon be stalking your family to do bland commentary on your daily life. Now that I think of it, since Buck is an incompetent boob who got his job because of his father's name, he might be the George W. Bush of the list. You decide that one...

Cubs win, Zambrano enthusiastically debuts fist-pump in '06

Granted its only one win, but I just feel like it may have sparked this team a bit. Leave it to the hapless Nationals to help us get of this funk. Chaz Zambrano pitched great last night, (Way to pitch 8 innings Z, and give the pen a rest) and watching the crowd all fired up in the late innings is a welcome sign. If they can pull out a sweep on Washington (or at least a 2-1, baby steps here, baby steps), maybe they'll have enough momentum heading into this weekend at The Cell to have a respectable showing.

A few quick notes....

• I know I'm spoiled as a Cubs fan when I can live almost 200 miles outside Chicago and still get almost every game televised on cable. Despite that, is there a more depressing feeling than sitting down for a 7:05 game, turning on Comcast Sports Net to see the White Sox playing, then quickly switching over to WGN to see them showing "Glengarry Glen Ross"? But hey, I have to say the Sportscenter highlights kicked ass this morning.
• How drunk do you have to be to decide, "Hey, you know what'd be cool? What if I chuck this baseball at Jacque Jones?" Seriously, heckling an opposing player, great, go for it. Heckling a player of the team your cheering for, I'm not a fan but there are plenty of jackasses that feel it must be a good morale boost to the player when you yell expletives at them. Throwing something at any player though, should be punishable by stoning. There's just no valid reason to ever do something like that. I think Jacque reserves the right to get all liquored up (on an off-day of course, I don't want Freddie Bynum starting because Jacque is inebriated), show up at her place of work, and wing a few balls past her melon.
• I'll be attending the game on Thursday. I'm looking forward to Wood pitching. I'll post something about the game and will hopefully have some pictures to share too.
• Just a quick note to our readers that number in the tens (and even that estimate might be liberal at this point), I've been adding more and more links to the sidebar. Be sure and check out some of the Cub Links as there are some great sites/blogs out there. The Cub Reporter, Bleed Cubbie Blue, and Goat Riders are a few that I have really enjoyed reading and try to check out on a regular basis.

That's all for now. I'll report back friday after Kerry Wood either A) pitches well, B) completely implodes, or C) has his arm detach from his body on a pitch to Jose Guillen who is hit in the face by the bloody appendage, thus enciting a bench-clearing brawl so huge it puts the Andre Dawson-Eric Show showdown to shame. We'll just bank on A.

McSweeney's Mention For One of Our Own?

Dateline Anaheim, CA. Drunk. Heckling. Could this be the Saloon's own Brant Brown? If not for the White Sox hat (more than likely a clever decoy), I would swear on the billygoat that this has all of Ted's hallmarks. A hilarious article about baseball heckling none-the-less. For the sake of a good story, we should pretend it was Ted anyway. When we tell the story we'll just change it to a Cubs hat.