Chicago Cubs Baseball

How does a baseball team with a $100 million payroll, a losing record in mid-June, which engages in clubhouse scuffles, player dissension, a manager suspension and two beanball wars within the same week attract so much attention?

Wait.

I think I just answered my own question.

For whatever reason, the 2007 Chicago Cubs are fast earning the reputation as the major league’s most dysfunctional family or baseball’s newest bad boys on the block. The jury may still be out on that one, but sometime in the past two weeks, the Cubs discovered the extreme make over.

Brotherly love has replaced the clubhouse rumble in the Cubs’ dugout. While on the field, facing off has supplanted backing down against the opposition.

Chicago baseball manager Lou Piniella promised he’d bring “swagger’ to the Cubs. They might not be there yet, but like any good Weeble, these Cubs wobble, but they don’t fall down - at least not intentionally.

Yesterday’s altercation between Chicago’s mild-mannered Derrek Lee and San Diego’s Chris Young was the latest indication that these Cubs are finding their fighting legs, if not the promised swagger. After taking a high and tight from Young, the two exchanged words, a couple of swings and mini-bedlam between the two teams ensued.

The fracas was lowlight enough for the two clubs to squeeze between San Francisco’s Barry Bonds and the New York mini-subway series on ESPN’s Baseball Tonight.

There are unfortunates attached to this new-found chutzpah.  Lee likely will be suspended at a time when the Cubs have yet to find consistency in their offense.  And as the season is fast-approaching the mid-season mark, the push to .500 baseball by the All-Star break is paramount.  Lee’s presence is undeniably necessary for that to happen.

Perhaps the most regrettable aspect of the plunking of Lee was its likely retribution for the sins of another. Just a day before, Alfonso Soriano celebrated his power shot home run  by back-peddling partway to first base.

Evidently, someone forgot to warn Soriano showboating’s a no-no.  While it was cute, the back-pedal has a ways to go before it takes its place along Sammy’s pop-and-hop or my personal favorite, Jeff Leonard’s “one-flap down.”

If nothing else, yesterday’s incident proves this year’s Cubs aren’t willing to go down without a fight - even if it means battling someone not wearing a Chicago uniform.