The CCO Wrigley Perspective

On the morning of August 6th, I woke up with the possibility that it might have been a bad dream. I could have easily had a nightmare that Soriano came up lame while heading to third on a Ryan Theriot single. Anything's possible right? I dream about weird things all the time, but to the Faithful dreaming about the Cubs might be a common occurrence. Unfortunately as I turned on the TV to get my morning dose of SportsCenter, my fears became a reality, it wasn't a bad dream at all, it really happened. We later found out Soriano has a one-centimeter tear in the belly of his quad muscle, more importantly a month without our $136 million dollar man. I immediately think the worst and have a hard time picturing the lineup without the Fonz. What will we do without his offense and his power at the top of the lineup? But as I am ready to call it quits, all of the columnists, local and national, feel that our deep bench and versatile ball club can live without Soriano for a month. Whew, what a relief, everything is going to be fine. Back to business chipping away at the Brewers and putting them in our rear view mirror. Makes sense right, Rosenthal, Buster and the almighty Mr. Gammons thinks we can get through this without too many hiccups. Oh man, they are all big fat liars.

For the first time in a long time, I found myself rooting for the St. Louis Cardinals this weekend. It is something I am not proud of, but I am sure the Faithful had the same feeling as well. I was looking for a split, and I figured that would be the best case scenario. Taking two from the Brewers is a tough task, especially since Ted Williams has thawed and comes to the park dressed like Ryan Braun. That kid is unreal. But the Cards did one better; literally, they took three out of four from the Brew Crew at Busch Stadium. The Cubs took care of business on Saturday after giving one away on Friday and the Cardinals sweep the Crew in a day/night double header. The Cubbies gain a game and a half in one day, what is it my birthday?

Sunday rolls around and the Big Z decided to throw one of his best outings of the year. If it wasn't for his brief memory lapse, where he decided to play hacky sack instead of baseball, I think Z would have talked Piniella into letting him finish out the afternoon. Regardless of the last pitcher on the mound when the afternoon is over, a "W" was achieved and another game was taken off the Brewers dwindling lead. The Cards won again, are they getting too close? Our Cubbies ended the road trip with a 4-2 record, the Brewers 2-6. Happy Monday, the Cubs are a half game back in the NL Central. The last time you could say that was April 12th, four and a half months ago. This is a look ahead at the remaining schedule of the top two teams in the NL Central. I thought about adding the Cards, but that was it, just a thought.

We were without baseball for the majority of the week, which was pretty painful to say the least. When the baseball season is over we at least have football to talk about, but this past week was pretty boring. Unless you find the homerun derby to be exciting, I personally am upset I will never get those three hours of my life back. But I will have to say I was pretty impressed with the All-Star game this year. Our two representatives did everything they could to bring home a "W" for the NL, but Tony LaRussa had other plans. He must have owed his good friend Jim Leyland a favor. That's the only explanation he could have for not pulling Aaron Rowand and giving the bat to the only Cardinal on the NL roster Albert Pujols. I mean c'mon, who do you want in that situation? Fly ball to center and there is a chance for a face changing moment, I will take Rowand. Bases juiced and the chance to win a game in the bottom of the ninth, I might take Pujols over anybody in the game. But hey what do I know. With that being said Friday could not get here any quicker, I was going through withdraw, I needed some Cubs Baseball. This is the weekend that was, Cubs vs. Astros....

What a weekend, what a series....for the Cubs that is. After losing two out of three to Sammy Sosa and the Texas Rangers, we desperately needed to take our next series. It didn't matter who would be our opponent, we needed to win. I think we all felt that way, we were slipping and we needed to make sure we put some wins together, and fast. Could a three game series with the White Sox at US Cellular Field, "The Cell", be just what the doctor ordered? Not usually, but this weekend had to be different and thankfully it was, this is the weekend that was....the Chicago Cubs vs. the Chicago White Sox.

There was a lot of emotion running through the stands at Wrigley on Saturday. Knowing that we always have issues with Chris Young, or known in the clubhouse as "C-Y". I guess if your last name is Young or starts with a Y automatically you have a nickname, Eric Young E-Y. I guess I wouldn't want be the next guy in the bigs named Kirk Young.... Sorry, I got off the subject a bit, back to Wrigley and the emotion. With Z on the mound, you know that you are going to get your moneys worth one way or another. With the "Bayou Boys" really making a name for themselves, I could finally feel the chemistry building on this ball club. But most importantly we were putting together a pretty good homestand. We won four of our last five and three in a row. Could we finally we gaining some ground on the tanking Brewers? Can we break free of the injury plagued Redbirds? We were finally putting together some consecutive wins, all of this without our top bat in the lineup. Things were looking good, the Bunsen burner was on full blast and we were heatin' up. Or so I thought....this is the week that was in the NL Central.

Ladies and Gentleman, Welcome to the Big Top....

Last time I checked I get a bill in the mail every year from the Chicago Cubs, not the Ringling Brothers Circus, in order to renew my season tickets. But what transpired over the weekend series was a far cry from a professional organization running a baseball team admired by millions. It was a circus act, with Not-So-Sweet Lou as the ringleader. It has been brewing for quite some time, but it all boiled over this weekend. Ladies and Gentleman, Children of all ages this is the weekend that was at Sheffield and Addison.... (Start the circus theme song)

It would have been nice, a three game sweep of the Chicago White Sox. Unfortunately it wasn't meant to be, but two out of three is not too bad. The Cubs showed a lot of fight this weekend, they never gave up, something that has been a problem for this team in the past. I was able to attend all three games this weekend, and Wrigley was rockin! Being able to battle back on Friday was nice, but Saturday was the game that shook 1060 West Addison....literally, I was a little scared. More on that later, let's take a look at the week that was in the National League Central.

As the season began there were many predictions about the NL Central. Many of the so- called experts gave the crown to the Cardinals, out of respect. Others said the Brewers would take home the hardware and a few said the Cubs and the Astros. But they would always preface such predictions with, "This division is wide open, many teams if not all will compete in the weak NL Central." We are now two weeks into May and this division is starting to take shape and there already appears to be a team to beat. A team that is reminding me a lot of the 2006 Detroit Tigers, great pitching, a ton of pop in their bat and most importantly a rock solid bullpen....but this bullpen can throw to first and third. The team to beat is the Milwaukee Brewers. And the same questions come up as they did with the Tigers, do they have the staying power? Do they have the talent and experience to take the six-month journey and win the NL Central crown? After getting beat two out of three at home against Pittsburgh and getting roughed up by the Phillies, I do not know if there is a team that can catch em', unfortunately, The week that was in the NL Central is going to focus on the team to beat in the NL Central, the Brew Crew, Cheese Heads, Homegrown Heroes, America's Team, Buds Bunch, and the team with a seven game lead over our beloved Cubbies.

What a difference a week makes. The Cubs had their best single week of the season and for the first time since 1937 they won their first 5 games to start the month of May. While Derrek Lee, Alfonso Soriano and Jacque Jones had huge offensive weeks, the pitching staff continued to perform well for Lou Piniella. The Cubs dug themselves out the early season hole this past week, now the trick is to continue to win games in bunches and put the horrible start to the season behind them.

The NL Central received good news on Sunday when the Yankees announced Roger Clemens will be pitching for them in the Bronx this summer....for a hefty sum of course. The team, other than the Cubs, making the most noise in the league continues to be the Milwaukee Brewers who are playing their best ball since moving to the National League in 1998. Here are the highlights from the past week around the central....

First and foremost, I think I speak for all of us at the CCO, our thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends of Josh Hancock and the entire Cardinals organization. For the second time in 5 years the Cardinals have lost a pitcher in a tragic fashion. I think Jim Edmonds put it best when he said there are times when we think we are invincible, but unfortunately it takes situations such as this to really put it all into perspective. You are in our prayers....

With one day to go the first month of the season is almost complete and I think we can all say this is not what we were expecting from our Cubbies. Getting out of the gate hot and letting the NL Central know there is a new team in town would have been a lot better, right? But 300 million later and we are still faced with the same old struggles. Whether it be the staff ace losing his mind in the 5th inning to blow a lead or the bullpen walking in the go ahead run. Every struggle makes us put our hands to our face and say, why, why can't it just be easy. Why can't our #1 off-season acquisition get off to a hot start, like he has done the last 10 years? Things aren't easy when you are a Cub fan or on the major league roster, that's just the way it is. And after the first month of the season I have learned to deal with it, and I hope you have all done the same. But let's not forget we are in the NL Central and there is hope. Ladies and gentleman we have a long road ahead of us, five months to be exact and this thing we call a division crown is far from settled. If we get hot, we will settle it real quickly, but if we stay luke warm I guarantee you I will be completely bald by the middle of September. Let's take a look back at the last month in the NL Central....