Danny Doom’s Booze Cabinet

Longtime dedicated readers of this Booze Cabinet may have noticed the lack of coverage or excitement regarding the now-week-old baseball season, and in particular, our Chicago Cubs. Well, what can I say? It’s still hockey season over here. The playoffs are just about to start and although the Hawks missed the top spot by one point, they are still in good shape for a run at the Cup.

But really, the Cubs. Hope springs eternal, they say, but I’m not feeling it. Yes, Milton Bradley is gone and that’s all good, but I am in the Zambrano-is-a-nutjob camp, and a new haircut and weight loss is not going to change that. Plus, the bullpen appears to completely suck, just like last year. And Soriano is still out there in left field misjudging balls. Ugh.

Today is opening day at Wrigley and there are changes afoot, but I am keeping one eye shut right now. Yeah, I may turn it on and see what happens but it’s not the same for me, not now, not yet. Bring home the Cup!

What a sorry-ass year it was for baseball. This was the first time I can remember that I did not attend one game, and it wasn’t just because no one offered me free tickets. I gave up pretty early on the Cubs this season–they looked bad and it seemed obvious that they were inevitably headed for disaster, even when they somehow landed in first place for a day or so. But there was something else.

The Cubs had a team that was pretty hard to like, plain and simple. You could start and end it with Milton Bradley, but it actually was a lot more than just him. That outfield of Soriano, Fukudome and Bradley could not be less likable. Soriano strikes me as the kind of guy who really doesn’t give a shit, and although he was outshone by Bradley’s unlikability I think he comes close, especially when his numbers aren’t blasting through the roof and obscuring his personality. And the hot-dogging stuff is, to me, very un-Chicago-like, very un-Cub-like. It’s cheesy, take it somewhere else!

Fukudome seems like a nice enough guy, I guess, but we’ll never know. His inability to communicate leaves him at a disadvantage and so instead we only see the grimaces and scowls that he gives after another corkscrew strikeout. I don’t know that he’s ever shown much emotion one way or another, but unfortunately he has also not shown a whole lot of consistency either. He’s just alright, not great, and prone to long droughts. Should he even be the starter?

Bradley? That guy is just a dick, but we all knew that.

Which brings me to Zambrano. What’s wrong with this guy? So much talent and such a small mental capacity. I don’t know that his blow-ups and blow-outs are worth the instability anymore. He’s good, but he should be great, and not just when his temper is in check. If the guy can’t handle when a bad call is made or someone hits a homer off of him, then it’s no wonder the team cracks in the playoffs. Their ace is a wackjob.

The infield is a little better. Aramis Ramirez at third doesn’t deserve to be called out, he’s mostly a pretty good player who could be great if didn’t get injured so much. But he’s also not a shining personality. Not a dick, but not Mr. Cub either. I wouldn’t say it to his face though. I like Theriot and I hope he becomes a consistently good player, same with Fontenot, but neither of them were blowing the doors off this year. Fontenot had an especially down year.

Derrek Lee is the only guy on the team who is classy and likable and also a great player. They could trade anyone but this guy. I don’t want the team to be filled with nice guys who suck, but the only thing worse than the lovable losers tag we’ve endured for so many years is to be unlovable losers. Until they shake up this team, that’s what they are.

Not celebrating the Cubs so much as hoisting a beer to Cody’s, the fine establishment where we watched the Bears Debacle last week. Coincidentally, we also watched the Bears Superbowl Debacle there too a few years back. Oh well. Times are tough. The season of our discontent. We’re due for changes. I’m listening to the Lips new album “Embryonic” and it’s pretty damn cool. I don’t hear a single!

I’m trying to watch the first-place (?!?) Cubs finish this game that is now in the 12th inning and meanwhile Bill Kristol is leering at Jon Stewart and making me ill. Still, the Palin coverage makes it worth it, and now Colbert piles on. The clips I have seen of her speech today are downright surreal. A true wack-job for the ages, Sarah Palin. Here’s a helpful look back from Gawker (“Sarah Palin’s Gradual Descent Into Incoherency“). Best description ever:

It’s like Peggy Noonan, Jack London, and William Faulkner wandered into the woods with three buttons of peyote and one typewriter, and only this speech emerged.

The Cubs? In the 13th, still tied. Come on! Bases juiced, no outs, end it! Fonzie, gimme some redemption! Yeah! Grand slam! Whooo! Wow, that was awesome. Looks like they’ve done it again, they’ve sucked me back in. Damn!

I’ll admit it, I’m a little bummed at the news about Kerry Wood leaving the Cubs. I’m a traditionalist that way, in that I like it when players stay with the same team for a long time, if not their entire careers–which is pretty unusual these days. It’s different than when you pick up some guy like Nomar Garciapparra or Alfonso Soriano and they do well for a season and then they’re gone, or they get injured, or they just start sucking. Players like Wood have an arc; there’s history to it. He was a rookie sensation, became a solid starter, then the injuries, and then he came back as a closer. His career should have ended in Chicago with a World Series ring.

But it doesn’t happen that way. So it’s too bad, and I’m sure that he will get his ring like Mark Grace did, with another team, like all the ex-Cubs do. Probably with a team that’s been in the league for ten years and has no history at all whatsoever. So that bums me out, but I’ll be happy for him if he does.

“Last week, in the National League divisional playoffs, the Chicago Cubs faced the Los Angeles Dodgers. In Game 1, the Cubs lost 7-3. In Game 2, they lost 10-3 and in Game 3, 3-1. What, as president, would you do to guarantee that this never happens again? Senators, in your answers, please be specific.â€?

- Bill Murray, on last night’s SNL (TNL?)

Murray talked more about the Cubs later on Letterman, amongst other things. The great, always-hilarious, top five favorite person in the world, Bill Murray.

A review in the Tribune of the misery and the heartbreak. 1984 was my baptism, but I was still too young to know any better, or to realize that this was a continuing pattern. The 4-1 series loss to the Giants in 1989 is underrated for its misery index. After that, a decade of garbage and Sammy Sosa until the wild-card year of 1998, where expectations were low and ended quickly with a sweep in the playoffs.

The 2000′s, however, have just been painful. This year’s team was easily the best one of the bunch, and yet the results are the same. I can’t make any sense of it. I will stop trying now and pivot my low expectations to the Bears, who will not be in the Superbowl this (next) year, no matter how good they look beating up the (awful) Lions.

I needed to get a new toothbrush, now’s as good a time as any.

So, they hired a Greek Orthodox priest? The Cubs gave credence to the curse and voodoo bullshit? Look, in case you didn’t get it, the Cubs toothbrush, the lighter, the cats wearing helmets–it’s a mockery. Of course it doesn’t work. Just like praying. It. Doesn’t. Work! I listened to last night’s game on the radio, just like I did for so many games this year, when they won 97 and finished with the best record in the league. Depressing. A sham. A fraud. Beyond the help of any god or witch.

But they brought in a priest. What were the players thinking when they saw a fool in robes sprinkling water around the dugout? Who cares, they blew it for the second year in a row, for the hundredth year in a row, whatever. I looked back at last year’s Booze Cab and it’s like the same exact thing over again, Groundhog Day:

They don’t even look competitive, the big guys are choking and striking out and the pitching is awful. Who in their right mind ever gets a confident feeling from this team? What was I thinking?

It’s not gonna happen…couldn’t they have at least tried? That was sick, the way they managed to not be competitive at all for three games and went out with a whimper. Embarrassing.

Yep. What I said last year. May as well be every year. What a joke.

UPDATE:

One way to avoid this from happening again:

10. Bury the curse: The Cubs players spent much of the season downplaying talk of the alleged curse, only to have Cubs brass bring out a Greek priest to spread holy water in their dugout the day of the start of the playoffs. What kind of a show of faith in the high-priced team was that? Piniella and the players were blind-sided by the stunt.

I did not watch the debate, I was busy drowning in depression as the Cubs fell to the brink. Unbelievable. They hardly resemble the team that won all year, the team with the best record in the National League. The pitchers can’t pitch and the fielders can’t field and the hitters can’t hit. It’s just a flat-out bummer. There is no curse, there is only 100 years of expectations, and everyone cracks under it. They’ll never win it, will they?

If the expectations were high in Wrigley, they couldn’t be lower for Sarah! last night. That’s when the Republicans operate best, when people expect garbage. Hey, that wasn’t total shit! Alright! Go, Sarah!

I’ll take the Trib’s word for it when they say that “she did not provide more confidence that she would be ready to step into the most demanding job in the world at a moment’s notice.” That’s good enough for the Party of Low Expectations, I suspect, but not for the rest of us.

Photo taken in Fontana, WI.

Ugh. Last night sucked. Tonight brings the dilemma of the VP Debate v. Game 2, and I am going to choose Game 2 and tape the debate. And since the playoffs are all on TBS, which pisses me off, I’ll be out at a bar, trying to get through this. Mr. Zambrano, please put your hat on correctly tonight and keep all the steam inside of it. Thank you.

Time to prepare. First, brush. OK. Now, light up.

No, I don’t smoke, but something must be lit. Hell, let’s just get everything together and smoke and drink it up.

OK, that should do it for now.

On Friday I had only heard that Eddie Vedder song once on the radio, but now it’s everywhere and I can’t get it out of my head! It’s not a bad song, better than that cheeseball “Go, Cubs, Go!” song, but really, we’ve got to restrain ourselves a bit! I do thank those who sent it to me–before it exploded after the Cubs won on Saturday–but I think I’ll wait til they actually go all the way before I voluntarily play it.

Yes, they did it! It was a good celebration but a subdued one, the kind that says “alright, nice job, but we’ve only just begun.” I did not pour any beer on my head, I only drank it. Save the pouring on the head for pennants and World Series wins. It would be wrong to be wasteful at this point. Act like you’ve been there before–it’s expected! Alright team, that’s my pep talk for today.

While the Cubs make this a slow, painful drawn-out clinching party…wait, hold everything! I’m listening to this dreary game, 6-2 Brewers in the ninth and suddenly, a hit here, a run there, and then Geovany Soto just tied it up with a three-run dinger! We go into extras! Stop the presses, this one isn’t over yet!

I was barely paying attention, there were two outs in the bottom of the ninth when it all started, and now we’re in extras. Unbelievable. Come on, let’s get this thing down to two! Marmol and Wood have struck out five of the last six guys, now it’s time to end it. Here’s Lee to lead off the 11th. Strikeout. Ramirez. Come on! He draws a walk. Here comes Edmonds, who already cranked one out today. What? He’s been ejected! I don’t have TV on this one, only radio, so I don’t know what’s going on. Sounds like a real travesty! Santo insists it was outside, so I gotta go with him on that one. Ronny wouldn’t lie!

Felix “My” Pie takes over his at-bat and hits into a fielder’s choice. Man on first, two outs now, DeRosa up, singles and Pie goes to third, Soto up! Here. We. Go! Aaaaaah, out to deep right center and we go to 12 innings. Whew! Wood gets out of a jam! That was close! To the bottom of the 12th. There’s been a lot of sports on here lately, how ’bout a quick jab at John McCain, just for shits and giggles? I hear he’s had a bad week. Please. He had a couple of good weeks off the convention, mostly ‘cuz of that chick–whatshername? The rest has all been bad. And now it’s headed right back there, the way it should be. I’ll say it again: this shouldn’t be close.

Meanwhile we’ve got a man on in the 12th. Bunt, man to second. They walk Fonzie. Theriot up–that’s “The Riot” to you and me–and winning run at second. Fly out deep, two outs, men on second and third. It’s up to DLee. Cubs Win! Lee hits a single and knocks him home! Cubs Win! Magic number is down to two! Wow. That was unbelievable. Alright, that sets up a weekend party situation with the clincher hopefully coming on Saturday afternoon. Owoooooo!!