Chicago Cubs Baseball

Frankly, I don’t understand the hubbub over the Chicago Cubs “sudden” nosedive. Everyone remotely close to the organization, including manager Lou Piniella, acts surprised how Cubs baseball fortunes could turn from challenging for a division title to a team teetering on the brink.

Heck, if the Corked Bat could see it from a bird’s eye view, why couldn’t they?

Didn’t Piniella or general manager Jim Hendry grasp the fragility’s of the 2007 Cubs’ psyches? Didn’t Hendry read the package - the one that said in bold letters, “Handle with Care” - after he spent $325 million in the offseason?

From the start this has been an organization - and a team - that has been a more likely candidate for intervention than to lead a Dale Carniegie course on confidence.

This is a shaken, not stirred Cubs martini fans have been swallowing for the past two months. Evidently, it was the pre-shaken taste of Chicago that Lou liked as well.

“We’ve got good chemistry here and the kids are grinding and playing hard,” Piniella said on the trade deadline. “We’ve got some nice talent. It’s a nice combination of things. Jim’s not going to tinker just to tinker.”

That was July 31st and a good date to remember. Since that point, Chicago Cubs baseball has gone 2-5 and would be farther than one game out of first place if not for the equally faltering Milwaukee Brewers.

It also was the date that Hendry and the Tribune Company decided to do nothing to address any of the Cub inadequacies - whether it be adding reliable bullpen help or adding some punch at the plate.

Instead, the Cubs organization chose to fill their roster needs with rookies (Sean Gallagher, Eric Patterson, Felix Pie), recalls (Ronny Cedeno, MattMurton) and reclamation projects (Kerry Wood). So far the plan hasn’t worked out well.

Of course, no one could have expected, or imagined, Alfonso Soriano would go down with a strained quadriceps. And the injury news hasn’t gotten any better. Today Angel Pagan was placed on the disabled list with colitis and Aramis Ramirez was a late scratch with a bothersome wrist.

Maybe there was nothing on the table at the trade deadline for Hendry and the Cubs. But the front offices of contending teams Atlanta, New York and Philadelphia all managed to swing deals.

It would have been nice for the Cubs organization to show that they cared as much as well.