Are the Cubs really Good?

To answer that titular question...I think they just might be and I'm not quite sure how to handle that.

On Sunday, the Cubs went down 5-0 to the Astros but came back to win thanks in large part to five scoreless innings from the bullpen. Monday, after a seven-inning pitcher's duel between Linscomb and Hill, Chicago got two 8th inning runs and a blistering performance out of, can't believe I'm typing this, Bob Howry to win their fourth straight.

They're doing things right right now. Lou Piniella managed the Cubs to their win against the Giants. Can't remember the last time that happened. Aramis Ramirez saved the game with a brilliant diving stop on Sunday and had the game-winning RBI on Monday. Over the last month and a half, the unthinkable has happened. The Cubs are clutch.

For most of this season, Chicago had the stats of a National League contender. Now they are one. Baseball Prospectus loves them. It's a great time to be on Chicago's Northside right now, which is nice because...

The Plains go dark starting Tuesday...when I will be making my first trip to Wrigley Field since 1999. Bonds will be there, so will Zito, but really we'll be heralding the debut of Jason Kendall in a Cubs uniform.

Probably won't be back here until the weekend which means we'll miss the unveiling of NCAA Football 08, but once I'm back and get a few games under my belt college football season can officially begin.

And finally...I'm not sure there will be a better movie this fall than the Coen brothers' "No Country for Old Men." Just watch the trailer:



Cormac McCarthy is probably the best American writer of the past half-century and while "No Country for Old Men" isn't his best book it is the most cinematic which should make for one hell of a film.

Mark my words, Javier Bardem in the role of Anton Chigurh could go down as one of the all time great movie villains.

"Ultimate badass?" Indeed.

Morning Walk-thru - Let Everyone Wear 42, that's a Tribute

Torii Hunter just wants to feel special...As you may have seen on PTI yesterday, Hunter is a bit disappointed by the number of people who'll be donning #42 in honor of Jackie Robinson on Sunday. Even though Torii told Michael Wilbon yesterday that he didn't say that players were wearing the number to "be cool", according to this article, he did:

This is supposed to be an honor, Hunter said, and just a handful of guys wearing the number. Now you've got entire teams doing it. I think we're killing the meaning.

It should be special wearing Jackie's number, not just because it looks cool.

Does Hunter have a point? Yes, and maybe there are some people who will wear #42 on Sunday and not have an appropriate amount of reverence, but the part that troubles me is the whole "just a handful of guys."

How should we determine who is included in this handful? Will there be a Jackie Robinson test? Only UCLA alumni? Point is, you can't limit it. In fact, the league probably should just put everyone in #42 this weekend.

That would be a true honor. Baseball's history is too long, and me too lazy, to actually look this up, but I doubt it's ever happened before, a day in baseball where everyone wore the same number.

You want to honor someone, make history. The photographs of the backs of the starting line-ups would be historic and all involved would have to at least pause for a second when they pulled their jersey on that day because everyone would be aware of the historic nature of it all.

As it is now, I feel bad for the poor bastards wearing their own number. Don't they care about Jackie Robinson?

Bud, let's make this happen and be done with this story so we can get to what's actually important.

Mas No Mas...I know I just linked here the other day, but No Mas has another brilliant feature running right now around the Tribeca/ESPN Sports Movie Festival.

The site will be providing coverage of the event, including reviews of little-known sports movies from a score of writers.

Should be a great event and some even better writing.

R.I.P. Kurt...A bit late on this but Kurt Vonnegut is dead. I'm not trying to be crass, I fancy Vonnegut quite a bit, but I just feel like dressing up that sentence with the phrase "passed on" or some such nonsense would only do the man a disservice. "He would've wanted it this way" and meeting the expectations of the dead is always easy and a goal of mine.

Anyway, in light of his death came a fascinating story from the Wade Blogs detailing Kurt's short stint at Sports Illustrated. They quote from a 1998 review of Michael MacCambridge's book, The Franchise: A History of Sports Illustrated Magazine:

Kurt Vonnegut worked briefly at SI until being told to write a story about a race horse that had jumped the rail and terrorized the infield at a local track. Vonnegut stared at his desk for what seemed like hours before finally departing the building without a word. Inside his deserted typewriter was this: ''The horse jumped over the fucking fence."

And that's why we should all go out and read some Vonnegut right now.

Morning Walk-thru - Jackie Robinson hated the Indians?

Again?...I really don't like to criticize specific sportswriters unless, of course, they're claiming that Kobe Bryant is better than MJ or they're writing the same "Boo! The Redskins, Indians and Braves are the very definition of evil" column I seem to read once a year.

This year, it's Keith Law of ESPN's Page 2 who is making the case. If that was it, I wouldn't even care. I'm so tired of this argument that I can't even argue with it anymore, but tying it to 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's MLB debut? That's wafer thin.

Here's an example:

You'll hear the arguments that these nicknames aren't actually mocking Native Americans but honoring them. This is obviously false; if using ethnic stereotypes and epithets were a way of honoring segments of our population, the NAACP would be campaigning for the Mets to change their name to the New York Negroes.

"Obviously false?" I'd say possibly false, but you'll have a hard time convincing me of the negative connotation of "the Braves." (Note: the root word of "Braves" is actually, brave.)

Every time this column comes out--yes, they're all the same--I have two thoughts: 1) the one group I rarely hear complaining about this is the actual group who is supposed to be offended. Somehow, I don't think the Sioux give a damn about what Jhonny Peralta wears on his head. And 2) why doesn't anyone ever mention Notre Dame?

You know what's offensive? "Nappy headed ho's", the most famous three words in quotation marks right now, and that's coming from one of the few guys under 30 who would admit to listening to Don Imus on occasion.

Papelbon's new best bud?...As reported on Deadspin, the Red Sox signed a new bullpen arm by the name of J.D. Durbin and, based on his Myspace page, which is entitled "Tits and Ass for Me" and features the pitcher standing between Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, I'm thinking this guy will have some fun in the pen with Loozeanna Pap, good ole boy that he is.

Also, I'm confident that Mr. Durbin will insist that the J.D. stands for Jack Daniels just to differentiate himself from J.D. Drew. Seems like something he'd be in to.

It's debatable whether or not Durbin will stick around very long, but I'm fully in favor of this move. Boston needs guys like this.

**UPDATE** Durbin has already been designated for assignment. Theo doesn't think Boston needs guys like that, I guess.

Double thanks...to Double Extra Point for the recent link and for pointing me towards the newest Nebraska corner of the Internet, HuskerGuy's blog.

Welcome, friend.

Cubs lose--again...It's way too early for this. My days are already defined by the Cubs day-by-day death march. Win and it's a good day, lose and it's a bad day. We all know how well that works out.

Grindhouse gets crushed...The Rodriguez-Tarantino double-feature opened at just under $12 million dollars and finished fourth at the box office in its first weekend. Should we be surprised? Probably not. It's a risky (i.e. long) format dedicated to a subgenre of movies that weren't very good in the first place.

But I still think it points to Ty Burr's assertion, which I mentioned on Monday, that true grindhouse films don't exist any more. In fact, the alternative side of Hollywood is increasingly easier to find making it more difficult to pinpoint. Independent films have their own channels now and the movies that would've been drive-in specials 30 years ago now top the box office for at least a week. (See: the crappy new breed of horror flicks.)

Or, maybe everything is just so awful now that films that purposely set out to be awful simply seem average relative to everything else.

Either way, one of the Weinstein's announced that Death Proof and Project Terror would be released separately on DVD, so if you want the full double-feature effect, get to the the theatre. Based on these numbers, it won't be happening again any time soon.

Morning Walk-thru - This Post is 100% Death Proof

Good or bad for golf?...Nobody at the Masters shot under par for the tournament and your winner is from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. In fact, that's what Zach Johnson had to say after outlasting the Tiger-style on Sunday, "I'm from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. That's it. I'm just a normal guy."

So the question is, is this good or bad for golf? Do people want to see Tiger win again, or will there be some some intrigue because the "least accomplished Masters champion since Larry Mize" took it home?

Or maybe the better question is, at least in my mind, who are these people who attend the Masters or golf tournaments in general? I know people who are passively interested in golf, but nobody who would want to go to a tournament, even the Masters. I'm fascinated, really.

Poor Aaron Cook...Everything was going great on Sunday for the young Rockies hurler. He'd out dueled Jake Peavey, shutting out the Padres for 7 2/3 innings. The Rockies were four outs away from starting the season 4-2 and then he gave up the weakest home run you'll see this season to Jose Cruz Jr.

Credit to Clint Hurdle for leaving Cook in there for the 9th, where he worked himself out of a first and third, one out jam, but too bad that LaTroy Hawkins couldn't hold it in the tenth.

A great weekend for media...Caught Grindhouse on Saturday and it was exactly what I had expected--for the first half.

Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror did a great job of playing up the schlock and titillating from beginning to end, but I was actually more excited for Tarantino's Death Proof and I was totally wrong in that expectation.

After nearly two hours (Terror plus fake trailers), Tarantino's dialogue heavy slasher-flick felt like The English Patient.

Sure the car scenes were great, but hearing two different girl quartets talk like sailors for an hour only felt like audience exploitation. Funny, 15 years ago that's what made Reservoir Dogs so great. Maybe none of it matters because, as Ty Burr pointed out in Friday's Boston Globe, the beauty of real exploitation films was that it presented the seedier side of Hollywood but that side might not exist when Saw III makes $80 million.

Luckily, The Sopranos met all expectations. In the Sunday New York Times there was a quote from Norman Mailer saying that The Sopranos was the closest thing we had in the modern era to the Great American Novel.

Couldn't agree more. Unfortunately, HBO is now following up all the drama and tension with Entourage which is the closest thing we have to chick-lit for guys.

The Morning Walk-thru - I expect you to stay

Throw 'em the dark one...So it turns out the gyroball is actually just a spiral. Despite all the talk about hips and shoulders and double-spin mechanincs, all you're really doing is throwing a baseball like you'd throw a football. Feels a little anti-climatic but it's good news for Red Sox fans. It means that, after all the hullabaloo, this might be a pitch you'll actually see this season:




Further proof that February must simply be survived...we're still a week away from Black Snake Moan. I'm pretty excited for this film. It's got the South, the Blues and the Samuel L. Jackson in a role that allows him to do Samuel L. Jackson things (scream and look crazy).

But don't take my word for it, check out the critical mass:

"...Pulp Fiction with a Southern accent and a heart of gold..." --Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com

"If blues is an exorcism (as Muddy Waters once said), Black Snake Moan is pretty much The Exorcist." --Kevin N. Laforest, Montreal Film Journal

So The Exorcist meets Pulp Fiction with a bunch of words like chicken-fried, Southern gothic, gravy and pulpy to flesh out the reviews? I'm in.

A final dish to DJ...RIP