Mister Faded Glory | misterfadedglory.com

Oh, whatever. The Cubs might be enduring the worst umpiring crew in the majors; Monday night’s home plate umpire chastised Ryan Dempster after a cockeyed glance. Now today’s home plate umpire tries to be the show, freaking out as an animated Zambrano argued a call.

You say Carlos Zambrano needs to grow up? No chance. We need more of this – Crazy Z is the lifeblood that has powered our two-year machine. Michael Barrett knows.

No, it still doesn’t feel quite right. But it does feel better. And, just maybe, we’ve seen some life.

There’s no point in whining any further after a week in baseball that ranks among the most painful in memory.

There’s no point in whining any further about an offense that refuses to click, sluggers who refuse to slug, and hitters who have collectively decided to have the concurrent worst seasons of their careers. There’s no point.

There’s no point whining about the departure of one of the Cubs’ “glue guys,” Mark DeRosa. No, we didn’t care for his trade, but we totally endorsed the signing of Milton Bradley, assuming he was a gamer. We could understand the logic of elevating Fontenot, signing Bradley, and selling high on DeRosa. The result didn’t feel right, then, but by and large, we fans have been OK with Jim Hendry’s moves.

Now, however, hindsight is 20/20, and besides the injured Aramis Ramirez, the Cubs don’t miss any one player more than DeRosa.

There’s no point whining about any of this. It’s Memorial Day. By this time in any season, baseball fans know if their team is good. An upstart who kicks it into gear in late May is rare (The Cubs did this in 2007, we can’t possibly think history is on our side for twice in two years), and though hovering around .500 isn’t bad – well, it isn’t good.

Good teams don’t lose seven in a row. They just don’t. Good teams go 1-5; 2-7, 4-10, and suffer through painful stretches, sometimes staving off a sweep, sometimes muddling through a tough stretch. But they do not lose five, six, or seven games in a row. Good teams just don’t do it.

The Cubs aren’t good.

Enjoy your summer.

First, this is just stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. And you heard it here first – of course Zach Braff will return as the lead. Last I checked, no one is dying to make Garden State 2. This is going to be as pointless as After MASH and as braindead as Joey.

Second of all, Jesus Fucking Christ.

Finally, I detest harping about this; somewhat because I like Bill Simmons and decrying his columns is old hat for thousands of web geeks; but also because I sound like a nag. But, whatever:

Q: …Love Kobe as a player, but not as a person. Here is the difference between LeBron and Kobe. I loved how LeBron got his MVP trophy at his high school, and his whole team showed up. I mean Kobe has a news conference at the practice facility when he won it and only a handful of guys showed! . . . I could see Kobe giving each of his teammates an autographed Bryant No. 24 jersey, saying “Now you can say you played with Kobe Bryant when he was the MVP!”

–Brad D., Huntington Beach

SG: It’s a valid point. … Second, Kobe wasn’t any better or worse of a teammate than Jordan was for the first nine years of his career; read “The Jordan Rules” sometime. You could have written the same exact paragraph for MJ when he won the MVP in 1988 or 1991.

Me again. Bill should have stopped there, because this point is valid. Kobe and MJ are total pricks. Of course, his bulging, crying yearnings won’t allow him to leave Jordan undefended.

Of course, Jordan never pretended to be anything other than he was: a demanding teammate who cared about winning, and that’s it. Even during his last three Chicago seasons, he spent most of his free time playing cards in a hotel suite. His teammates were co-workers, he respected them, and that’s where it ended. Ever since the Gasol trade, Kobe has been trying to perpetuate the image that he’s a supportive teammate and one of the guys and all that crap, and there’s just too much information to the contrary. The one fascinating thing about “Kobe Doin’ Work” was Kobe’s contrived interactions with his teammates; it’s like he was taking us for fools. Watch this, I’m going to talk Italian to Sasha Vujacic. And what’s funny was that his teammates all had a “Wait a second, he never talks to me!” look on their face as soon as he walked away. It was a massive miscalculation of the average NBA fan’s IQ, and digging even further, a blown chance to show people that he’s a ruthless competitor who demands the best from everyone around him. Just like Jordan. . . .

This is so preposterous my blood boils just reading it. Honestly, can Bill dig any further to defend an idol he shouldn’t even have? Did he never see Jordan talk to Bill Wennington or Jud Buechler? Yeah, he totally respected those guys.

Honestly, Jordan is lauded for this competitive edge while Kobe is reviled. This either is evidence of how incessant our sports news cycle has become, or evidence of white fortysomething guys growing starry-eyed while envisioning Jordan’s “competitive edge,” overcompensating for their own lack of “killer instinct.”

Just stop, all of you. You want to argue Jordan is better than Kobe? Fine. I disagree, but that’s cool. You want to argue he’s a better person? Go find someone else.

You’re wondering how quickly I’m yanking out tufts of my hair – beyond annoyed at the excruciating behavior of the Cubs.

While in Dallas, I neglected to watch the Cubs, who apparently forgot how to hit immediately after Rich Harden’s weird Sunday meltdown against the Astros. Regardless, they’ve been absolutely owned by the Cardinals this season.

I still know not what to think about this team; it’s not as though they played awful against the Cardinals, the pitching has been great. The bats, however, are atrocious. I’m pretty sure the Cubs are now being played off the field by Keyboard Cat. (Thank you, Deadspin.)

In addition, it’s not as though Busch Stadium is the Cubs’ favorite place, nor as if the pitching match-ups were in our favor. Joel Pineiro already has dominated us effortlessly 2009, Cris Carpenter made a holier-than-thou return on Wednesday (Carpenter – neck and neck with Tedy Bruschi for biggest douche in sports history.), and Adam Wainwright toys with us each and every start. Hey, another CG! Fantastic..

However, without Aramis, enduring a Soriano cooldown, watching Derrek Lee age in dog years, seeing Fontenot exposed, Soto prove to be a mirage, and Milton Bradley’s struggles Boggling the mind – the season still doesn’t feel quite right, as we’ve said. As others have said. At any rate, I’m done bitching, I still think they’ll wind up atop this crappy division. If they don’t hit, they won’t win.

How’s that for a triumphant return? Rocket science, I know. But that’s what you get here, at our big-league Cubs blog (If you’re looking for detailed minor league Cubs analysis, however, check out TCR. Those guys can’t wait for 2013!).

We’re back from Dallas – totally underrated city, by the way. Why didn’t anyone tell me?

Had a fantastic time. In other news, I also returned home to find my new edition of Newsweek, replete with its ballyhooed redesign. I was ready to give it a chance – classier masthead, thicker paper, perhaps indicating the future of newsmagazines. But I can’t get past one major problem.

The font. Fucking Rockwell. Abysmal, just a totally ridiculous decision.

You know it. The overstated Burger King font. Gatorade’s subtle new branding campaign. (Replete with horrific H&J). AMC’s go-to screen explainer. A hit member of a class of slab-serifs, it could not be more over-the-top, beating you over the head with brutish inelegance. It makes me feel stupider just looking at it. I eschew Burger King because of this terrible font.

I say all this, and could live with Rockwell as Newsweek‘s decorative headline font – in fact, it is a close cousin of Newsweek‘s traditional mast.

But the mag’s decision to install it as certain elements of body copy couldn’t be uglier. The actual paragraph text is a bit of deviation – a marriage of slab-serif and serif, but still unrefined.

In addition, the New York Times and Fortune occasionally use a Rockwell cousin in heads. Worse yet – it’s simply a strain to read: large, ugly, unrefined and clumsy. The whole magazine now resembles a college student’s desperate attempt to beef up a term paper. Awful. Unreadable. Print, as we know it, may now be totally dead.

Nope, I’m not leading a sing-a-long.

I’ve got Texas on the mind, because tomorrow Mister Faded Glory makes his first-ever journey to the Lone Star State, a quick jaunt to Dallas for a conference-symposium-something-like-that. Can you believe I’ve never been to Texas? I spent all weekend shopping for the perfect ten-gallon hat.

Though I wish I was actually announcing a hilarious live blog detailing my misadventures with the Ewing Clan, I am not. Alas, I am simply announcing a short break. We’ll be back to familiar territory on Wednesday night.

Until then, during graduation season, do yourself a favor and click on Drew’s graduation speech over at Deadspin. I know I’ve linked to Drew before, but I’m incessantly envious of his unparalleled talent to spew venom and rage and not inflame his audience. If I unleashed that type of fury, I’d be pilloried. (By my seven readers.)

Enjoy your week. I’m off, humming the theme to Dallas. Actually, I’m pretty sure I’m humming L.A. Law, but I can’t separate the two. See you later.

Late in the day and I’m finally getting to Bill Simmons/Malcolm Gladwell’s ESPN.com “debate.” I am enjoying it, by the way.

*Note: According to ESPN.com, debate is now defined as lovefest between writers-cum-B-List celebrities.

Not sure how I feel about this. On one hand, Simmons and Gladwell are each unique and talented. On the other hand, each is so obviously in love with their own writing that their respective conclusions become impossible to stomach. Sometimes you want to hail them as genius, sometimes you want them beaten with a shovel. Which is fine. At least they try.

But as expected, Simmons’ incomparable Michael Jordan-worship spills out in his diatribes about success and eras. To wit:

If you’re riding the whole “never had a peer to challenge him” angle, then there’s a better example: Michael Jordan. He climbed the mountain in 1991, then Bird retired, Magic retired and the Bad Boy Pistons got old. The media force-fed him Clyde Drexler as a “rival;” he destroyed Drexler with such manic fury during the ’92 Finals and ’92 Dream Team practices that Clyde’s career went into a tailspin.

This is beyond ridiculous, it is patently untrue.

Read more

This morning, I had a perfect post in mind. I was all set to point to Joe Posnanski’s muted criticism of Selena Roberts’ cognitive dissonance in her tilted A-Rod biography. It was the perfect parallel, because after a Cubs win that felt, well, normal, beat reporters Paul Sullivan and Gordon Wittenmyer dusted off their hackneyed knee-jerk “Everyone boos Milton” cliches. Is this even true?

Anyway, I was all ready to point that out. Except, you know, see above. You’d think the failure to grasp the difference between cheers and jeers would end this overwrought storyline pretty quickly.

This was mistake was live at the Trib’s site until well after noon, incidentally.

And they say newspapers are dying!

For days I’ve been pondering my super unstoppable ultimate list of the very best episodes of Scrubs. The creme de la creme. The icing on the cake of my five favorite moments. (Yes, I considered Elliot’s top 20 rejoice, ‘So’s your face,’ knife-wrench, and JD’s riddle. In case you wondered.)

But I’m struggling. Sure, My Screw Up and My Overkill and My Karma and My Fallen Idol and Her Story are strong contenders for the list; but do I elevate these episodes just because of a few killer scenes? What else? And how prominently should Tara Reid fare?

I can’t really say that they’re all too good to merit singling out just five, or ten, or twelve. After all, I’m a Generation X/Y guy. I can fashion a top ten list out of anything.

Still, what Scrubs did better than any show of its kind – sitcom, drama, blatant rip-off, or otherwise – was select a perfectly appropriate song to coalesce with each mood, image, or poignant feeling. Rather than cherry-pick my favorite episodes, I give you My Scrubs All-Time Soundtrack, or iMix, I guess. Notes: I could have expanded this to 40, easily. And I didn’t include Laszlo Bane’s  Superman, the show’s theme. Guess I thought that would be implied. I also didn’t include Dreaming of You, by The Coral, which played while Elliot and J.D. hooked up in season two. Because I hate that fucking song. Still, enjoy.

Read more

I’m away from my Photoshop, and annoyed beyond belief anyway, so you’ll just have to picture your own Ghostbusters circle-slash around an Aaron Heilman jersey. Or wait, how about this:

The Mets’ Aaron Heilman finally shows up. Let me be the first to welcome him: THROW STRIKES.

Seriously, I don’t understand relievers. He has umpteen pitches to warm up. Then his mound warmups. Then, with a live batter, he promptly fires four straight balls to Corey Hart. Then another ball and a wild pitch to Ryan Braun, before serving up a meatball, just to finally throw a strike. Predictable go-ahead home run.

For all I care, he could have walked Braun. Two on and no out, and sure, we would finally clue in that Heilman sucks, but at least the Hammer of God would have come in. Why he wasn’t already on the mound for the eighth inning and the heart of the order, I don’t know. Why Ramirez is hurt again, I don’t know. Why Soto is now terrible, I also don’t know. And why Dave Bush now masters us effortlessly, I also don’t know.

Poor Randy Wells, making a solid debut, and Heilman blows it for him.  Disgusting. Get them tomorrow; they’ll be high on MGD and copious sausage after tonight’s celebration. Excuse me, (holds nose) seeel-uh-BRAAAAAAY-shun.

Update: Aramis Ramirez is out for about a month, probably. Maybe longer. (drums fingers.) (fidgets.)

Like I said, nothing feels right. Though I suppose it’s preferable to have everyone whole or not slumping at the end of the year, well, you know the rest. Difficult not to feel like it’s one step forward, two steps back for the 2009 Cubs – but on we go.