Unlike Jason (the Gay Pride parade??  c'mon, man...it's hard enough to defend our good name to other teams' fans) I did manage to watch yesterday's clusterf**k, and while I was looking forward to recounting for all of you my big weekend of Cell attendance, eating goat at the Taste of Chicago, and most of all, the recapping of big Cub wins followed by Sux fan baiting...pretty much any and all goodwill that might have remained after two straight divisional titles has been pissed away after yesterday.

I did eat goat, and I did go to Saturday's game, which was in fact entertaining.  I could probably write a book about the psychology of the so-called White Sox "fan", with 40% of the pages outlining the portion of their fanbase that actually cares about THEIR team, and then the rest dedicated to them who hate the Cubs more than they like the Sox.  Good for those who show support of their team, and even good for the skeezes wearing "Future Mrs. Posednik" tanktops.  But there were more "Cubs Suck" shirts than "Go Sox".   But even them hyper-ethnic licksticks can't hold my attention anymore.  They get to crow, and they earned it.

Yesterday, your team quit on you.  Your pitcher quit on you, your catcher is too fat and slow to stand up to catch a pitchout, your left side of your defense is too crappy to complete the most basic of plays, your offense is a joke (most of Saturday's runs were unearned), and your manager, most of all, has thrown up his hands.  Your manager was thoroughly out-managed this weekend by the Scarface wanna-be, which is ironic when less than ten years ago, a superior Sox team was swept in a playoff series because they were outmanaged, by a guy named Lou Piniella. 

I have been wondering out loud the last month whether or not Sweet Lou is possibly suffering from a case of sudden onset dementia, possibly a set of mini-strokes that happens sometimes to overweight guys in their sixties, because of clogged arteries to the brain.  But, more likely, it isn't a matter of "can't" more than "won't", because the man has given up. 

However, while this is inexcusable, when you are earning over $4 million per year to manage the on-field product, he is only human, and if he is feeling like he is stuck in the middle of a hopeless situation, he cannot be blamed for feeling that way.  There is no way this man signed off on this roster.  For a man who has stressed "roster flexibility" his whole career, he is stuck with the most inflexible roster imaginable.  He has a bullpen of middling righties with only one lefty, who himself is best suited for long relief.  His starters, while usually decent, are inefficient and put too much strain on the crappy pen.  He has three first basemen, four (or five if you care to chuck Theriot in the mix) backup middle infielders, two catchers hitting below .230, and three corner outfielders who combined make more money than many teams, and combined cannot match the homer and RBI production of Brad Hawpe, not to mention Albert Pujols.

The Cubs are acting like a bunch of needy children.  When the worst of them act out, the rest of them gang up and tell on him, like a bunch of brats who want to see the worst brat get punished, because it lightens their OWN load.  Very few Cubs try to help the other ones, and the ones that DO try are rebuffed. 

A lot of that HAS to be the money.  "Hey, I'm a 8-figure guy.   I got here my own mutha-f***ing self, and I don't plan on changing my ways!"  So there does not seem to be any teamwork, any sacrifice, and any ownership of the problem.  Now, some of you are more than ready to retort "Wrong, Rob.  Winning breeds chemistry!"  Yeah, okay.  That just shows me how young you are, how little experience you have with life, and with working on teams.  Winning enhances chemistry, true enough.  It rolls downhill, building on itself, good chemistry does.  But so does bad chemistry.  Team Chemistry is like a plant - if you have a good seed, nutured by good nutrients, you get a good result.  A bad seed, poorly maintained, dies. 

And the Cubs are dying right now.

Oh, but we're only 3.5 games out of first!!  Yeah, and we're only 1.5 games out of last.  We have a better chance of achieving the latter, than the former, and you are just fooling YOURSELF if you think otherwise.  Oh, then you might point out, things aren't any worse than they were in 2007, when Zambrano raked Barrett's face over the doors in the locker room.  Well, they are, and there are three reasons why:

• the 2007 turn-around began in early June.  It is damn near July now.
• Lou Piniella cared then.  He could care less now.  His use of David Patton was his way of throwing up the white flag.
• Most of all, Jim Hendry has done two more years of damage to this roster.

Which brings us to the ultimate bad guy in our story.  Jim Hendry must take responsibility for this failure, and this is a failure, a total organizational fail.  He is responsible for paying top dollar to Soriano, Fukudome, Bradley, Ramirez, Zambrano, Lilly, Jason Marquis and Dempster.  Out of these, he earns an A for Lilly, an A- for Ramirez, a C for Soriano, an Incomplete for Dempster, and F's on the rest. 

He let DeRosa go, in favor of filling his role with Fontenot, Miles, and then Freel, Blanco, and Bobby friggin' Scales.  Considering DeRosa is now wearing the pajamas of the Satanic Fowl, Hendry gets an 'F' on this deal.

Finding Reed Johnson is a positive, but then you weigh this against the lack of development of Felix Pie, Rich Hill, Matt Murton and Eric Patterson.  We are left with "team leaders" Derrek Lee and Carlos Zambrano.  The Zamboni will never grow up - why should he, while the money is flowing in?  And Lee might be a great guy, and a nice little player. But do not ever, ever confuse Derrek Lee with Chase Utley, Albert Pujols, A.J. Eyechart.  Their 'leadership effectiveness' far outstrips his.  He'd be a nice second banana.  THIS is why I was so disappointed last November when it sounded like Aramis Ramirez was cooking up excuses for last year's playoff flop.  I was truly hoping that he would develop into that guy.  He has the ability, and more of the temperment, to be more of a hammer, whereas Lee is more of a nail. 

So if you're dining in the MLB Diner, and you order 2009 Cub, and the waitress brings you this sloppy plate of mismatched ingredients, who is to blame?  Who is responsible for matching the spoiled meat with the angry, overspiced sauce next to four small piles of bland, tastless beans?  Mostly, its the chef's fault, and Hendry, as the chef of this year's special, must take the responsilbility here.  If he wants to try to blame his ownership situation...well, buddy?  It's up to you to determine if you will have the flexibility to deal, and if you were told no in the first place, you should have the guts to resign.  And if you were told yes, and you were misled, then you should do the honorable thing, and resign.  This mess happened on your watch, and you are incapable of fixing it.  This is mostly Jim Hendry's fault.

Of course, the rest of the fault lies with US, for continuing to order Cubs when time and time again the dish disappoints.  If we didn't keep ordering it, the chef would be forced to change the menu.