Chicago Cubs Baseball

Like any of the other 29 major league teams, Chicago Cubs baseball awaits the start of the new season with as many questions as it has answers.

Which probably isn’t the best place to be if you’re manager Lou Piniella and in the final year of a three-year contract.  And it’s certainly not the most comfortable situation if you happen to be a loyal member of Cubdom either.

But make no mistake.  When the Cub brain trust finally settles on its 25-man roster, the team that takes the field opening day will be Piniella’s team.

No stiffs, also-rans or butts.

Those type of players have long disappeared since Piniella began implementing his Master Plan two seasons ago.  From day one, Piniella, along with general manager Jim Hendry and his seemingly bottom-less checkbook, have been sculpting the Cubs to fit the image of a championship team.

No easy task for a franchise mired in its own futility and with an image problem to boot.  It’s hard, after all, to be taken seriously when a franchise is known throughout the sports world as baseball’s “lovable losers.”

While Piniella and the rest of the brass have made great strides in shedding some of the stigmas attached with the Cubs, in reality, the transformation still has a ways to go.  A long ways, in fact.

Discounting the two somewhat meaningless Central Division titles and accompanying playoff appearances, so far Piniella and his Master Plan is 0-2.  Sure, those division title flags look nice flying above Wrigley Field, but its small compensation for 101 years of waiting for a World Series championship.

And as any girlfriend or female spouse will tell you, zirconium looks nice, but it’s not the same as a real diamond.

So it is with Chicago Cubs baseball. On paper, this 2009 edition looks shiny and nice - a perfect cut to be perfectly honest.  But to the trained eye, is it really safe to say this year’s roster consists of 25-caret diamonds or is it a knock off of the real thing?

Which is exactly why the 2009 season is the most critical in Piniella’s reign.  And pivotal for the franchise itself.

Unlike so many groups before it, this 2009 club isn’t a haphazardly thrown together group pieced together with duct tape and some well-intentioned prayers.  The 2009 Chicago Cubs represent fully the brain trust’s Master Plan.

There’s no doubt that Piniella has his pieces in place. But we all know what our ol’ friend Bill Shakespeare said about the “best laid plans of mice and men….”