Chicago Hope

What a wild and wacky weekend at Wrigley. There was a fight, followed by a loud and powerful press conference. Then there was a close play at third, followed by the biggest tantrum at 1060 W. Addison since Moises Alou jumped in fury after the Bartman play. And then finally there was some offense, followed by even more offense. The Cubs and the Braves sure made a mess these past three days, but mostly it was the North-Siders doing the trashing of the 93 year old ballpark.

Yes, when we look back at the weekend of June 1 through 3, the words ‘crazy’, ‘outrageous’ and ‘hilarious’ may be involved in the description. But maybe ‘turning point’ will also be in there. Because even after the dugout/clubhouse fight on Friday between Michael Barrett and Carlos Zambrano, the silly argument Lou Piniella had with the third base umpire on Saturday that resulted in his first ejection of the season (and an indefinite suspension) and the ten run outburst, led by the Mark DeRosa grand slam, on Sunday, the Cubs are in fourth place in their division and only seven and a half games out of first place.

The 2007 NL Central is similar to the Atlantic Division in the NBA this season, the NFC West from last season and the ACC in the last college football season. Sure, the Raptors, Seahawks and Wake Forest were all nice teams, but they were not among the leagues elite. The Brewers are a good team, considering they have the top two home run hitters in the National League. But they are far from perfect. Milwaukee went 14-15 in May and their starting pitching has been pretty rough recently. The second place Cardinals are six games under .500 and, if the SI article on Tony LaRussa is correct, are not in the mental state to make a tough second half comeback. The Pirates are in third, but being the Pirates, they will go away soon. Houston is in fourth, and they are in a worse funk than the Cubs are, losing 15 of there last 19 games. And in dead last are the Reds, who don’t have the staff or the lineup to compete.

Now I’m not saying the Cubs are a going to win this division. In fact, I am pretty sure that they wont come close to doing say (see the title of my last post). I’m just saying that after this crazy weekend on the North Side of Chicago, and in this horrible division, anything is possible.



I’ll have my Spurs-Cavs preview up on Wednesday