Last year, if you remember, it was Baltimore’s Brian Roberts that was dangled in front of Cubdom from December through March as the left-handed bat and lead-off hitter the team so desperately needs.  Instead the trade that never happened left the Cubs with perhaps baseball’s worst lead-off batter and one of the game’s premier post-season chokes in Alfonso Soriano.

Guess what?  Roberts is back and this time he has a rumor mate.

San Diego pitcher and 2007 Cy Young award winner Jake Peavy is the latest to join the on-again, off-again merry-go-round that has become a regular regimen of Cubs off-season trade rumors.  For now, according to reports, Peavy to the Cubs is on again.

And Roberts may be part of the deal.  According to a report from the Baltimore Sun, Roberts would be part of a deal that would send beleaguered Chicago outfielder Felix Pie to the Orioles for starting pitcher Garrett Olson, whom the Cubs would then trade to the Padres as part of a deal for Peavy.

Sound confusing? While it may be, it’s not nearly as baffling as to why Cubs gm Jim Hendry would be pursuing another starting pitcher.

Just two weeks ago, Chicago’s starting staff appeared to be solid - at least according to Cubs manager Lou Piniella.

”No. Starting we don’t need,” Piniella said. “We’re set. We’ve got six good starters [including Sean Marshall], and they’re all experienced. Getting Dempster back was the key. We’re in good shape with our starting pitching. Bullpen-wise, [we’re looking for] possibly one more experienced pitcher. We’ve got a lot of young kids out there.”

Piniella’s statement raises an even bigger question whether or not Peavy finds a home with the Cubs in 2009: What is it about the staff that Hendry doesn’t like or isn’t telling us?

Is it a question of the soundness of an arm or two - most notably Rich Harden or Carlos Zambrano?  Or is it a lack of trust in his middle relief that might require his starters to pitch more innings in 2009?  Or would Peavy be a piece in even a bigger deal?

Baseball’s winter meetings start on Monday and while they no longer seem to be the blockbuster event they had been, they’ve proven to be the place where the foundation for acquisitions are laid.  And the place where rumors either die a quick death or pick up speed.

For now it appears Peavy is part of Chicago Cubs baseball.  Whether he’s still there in a week or two is anyone’s guess.

The Holiday season has entered full swing and with it the hopes of a better world and a better tomorrow.  America (at least 52.6% of it) eagerly awaits the swearing in of our 44th president  and the belief that, indeed, “Yes we can.”

And for baseball fans everywhere, the 2008 Winter meetings are but a few days away.  It’s the time of year when the real deals are done, acquisitions are made and with them, the possibility that somewhere in the mix is a gift-wrapped world championship - the kind Chicago Cubs baseball hasn’t seen in a 100 years.

Despite the lack of post-season success, there’s still plenty of reasons to be thankful for Cubs baseball.   Political astuteness isn’t one of them, however. Oddly enough, as White Sox fan and President-elect Barack Obama prepares to name his cabinet, here’s five candidates from the Cubs I’m thankful he’s not considering for his “Team of Rivals.”

In the spirit of post-Thanksgiving and the Holiday season, I’m thankful the following will not be filling any cabinet posts:

1.  Cubs general manager Jim Hendry - Secretary of the Treasury.  After ballooning the payroll to $118 million in 2008, Chicago Cubs baseball finished no closer to a World Series title than they did a year before.  Hendry makes current Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson look frugal.  Unfortunately, with the same results.
2. Alfonso Soriano - Secretary of the Defense.  Not only is Soriano perhaps the streakiest hitter in baseball, he’s possibly the worst outfielder.   Thank goodness there’s Chris Duncan of St. Louis around - if nothing else, for comparison’s sake.
3. Kosuke Fukudome - Secretary of State.  As the Chicago Cubs first Japanese free agent, Fukudome also may end up being the team’s last.  By season’s end a cheap bottle of sake had more kick in it than Fukudome’s bat.  Nice guy, just no stick.
4. Carlos Zambrano - Secretary of Health and Human Services.  After being shut down twice during the 2008 regular season, Zambrano can no longer be considered just an excitable boy.  Despite what the Cubs brass might say, Zambrano’s physical health has to be under consideration as he enters the new season.  Oh yeah, and he’s still as emotional as ever.
5. Lou Piniella - Attorney General.  Lou knows baseball, and despite Ryan Dempster’s recent assessment of the team’s nosedive in the recent NLDS, Chicago Cubs baseball would not have reached its level of success without Piniella’s presence.  When it comes to on-field diplomacy, however, Piniella has been ejected 61 times in his managerial career, fourth among current active managers.

But when Chicago Cubs baseball begins the 2009 season and its 101st without a World Series crown, it will be without the lone remaining member of last century’s team.  On Thursday, the Cubs unofficially cut ties with a part of its past with the signing of former Florida Marlins closer Kevin Gregg.

And with it, mercifully closed a chapter on the Kerry Wood book.  For in reality, Wood’s career with the Chicago Cubs was a short story wrapped in a long period of time.

In his 10 seasons with the Cubs, Wood’s career could be capsulized as more promise than performance, more potential that possibility.  He was the Chicago Cubs consummate “comeback kid,” spending time on the disabled list 12 times in 10 years.

Blame it all on that fateful 20-strikeout game against Houston in 1998 and that National League Rookie of the Year award that followed.  For from that day and year forward that was where the bar’s height was set for Wood in the hearts and minds of the Cubs organization and its fans.

Thursday’s parting of ways with Wood leaves more of a taste of “sweet sorrow” than the bitter bite that ensued following last year’s release of another former Chicago Cub ace, Mark Prior.  It speaks more  of the differences of two men than the Cubs organization itself.

Prior packed his bags and headed home to San Diego, a soured prima donna who’s only resemblance to the city of Chicago was a hardened personality, equaled only its bitter winters.

Wood, meanwhile, was gracious in his exit, fully grasping the meaning of Chicago Cubs baseball as a former one-time member.  He was a warrior for the team when his body would permit and the face of Cubs’ hope when it didn’t.

“It’s bittersweet,” Wood said Friday.  “Obviously this is my first choice. I wanted to stay here and the best choice for me and my family. … But that’s part of baseball right now.”

And from this point forward Wood will be a part of Chicago Cub history.  Fondly.

There was only Chicago Cubs baseball and all of its mystifying, stupifying ways.  From general manager Jim Hendry to the last the guy on the bench, each played a role in this latest franchise fiasco.

In the three-game set, the Cubs committed nearly every baseball faux pas known to the game - base running, perhaps, the exclusion.  The Cubs offense generated base runners, but it was a case of where they landed is where they stayed.  For the series, Chicago hitters stranded 23 and were 5 for 28 with runners in scoring position.

“Let me tell you this: You can play postseason baseball for now to another hundred years, but if you score six runs in three games, it’s going to be another hundred years before we win,” manager Lou Piniella said. “We just didn’t hit. We had opportunities and you have to take advantage of them. ”

Piniella’s statement wasn’t as profound as much as it demonstrated how dismal his club performed.

How bad was it?  When Los Angeles scored two runs in the first off of Cub starter Rich Harden it was time to head to the exits, or in this case, find a competitive college football game to watch.   Even TBS announcers Dick Stockton, Ron Darling and Tony Gywnn sounded as if they were anywhere else but there.

Which is exactly how these 2008 Chicago Cubs played.

How fitting was it that Alfonso Soriano (1 for 14 for the series) ended the Cubs season by striking out on a checked swing at a shoe-top high fastball?  From his ridiculous hop-and-catch in the outfield to his mind-boggling spot at the top of the order, Soriano exemplifies what went wrong and is wrong with this year’s club.

What’s worst, is the Cubs are saddled with Soriano and his bloated contract to 2014.

Soriano isn’t the lone scapegoat.  Aramis Ramirez now has a collective .194 batting average in four post-season series.  Geovany Soto played like the rookie he is, while Derrek Lee’s lack of power continues to decline with each passing year.

Wait till next year?  Hope spring eternal for Chicago Cubs baseball?  It’s gonna happen.

Good luck in believing that horse hockey.   Piniella was right about one thing in his assessment: with this team it could be another 100 years before the Cubs win again.

No longer can the Chicago Cubs be called the loveable losers of baseball.  No, they have become the consummate chokes of the game.

With back-to-back Central Division titles and holders of the best regular-season record in the National League, the Cubs have shed their loser image.  In its place, they’ve made the circuitous journey from jokes to chokes.

And while the laugh might be on us, there’s nothing funny about it.

Chokes.  There is no other word for it.

Too harsh?  Not in the least.

This Chicago Cub baseball  team is the ultimate collection of not-ready-for-prime-time players perhaps ever assembled at a price tag of $118,000 million.  That’s the combined payroll for the 2008 Cubs.

Cubs general manager Jim Hendry’s grand plan was to design a team that could make it to the show.  In that he succeeded.   Where he failed - and miserably - is in assembling a team that would make it to the big stage, not knowing none of them can act.

The Chicago Cub offense is built on two of the game’s streakiest hitters - Alfonso Soriano and Aramis Ramirez.   In 43 post-season games, Soriano has slugged a whopping four home runs and has a dismal batting average of  .219.  Ramirez?  Even worse.

But these two are not the lone culprits.  From Hendry’s building of this team to Piniella’s managerial decisions to the players in the field - all share in the culpability of this crime against Cubdom and baseball.

All phases of the game has failed  has failed Cub fans, the City of Chicago - and most of all, themselves.

The Cubs were given an opportunity.  But when it came time to step up to the plate, they’ve chosen to bail.

Every last one of them.  They should all be ashamed.

Well, kind of. Sort of.  Maybe.

Less than one day after announcing what everyone in Cubdom assumed would be his playoff rotation , Cubs manager Lou Piniella pulled a flip flop that even would make John McCain smile. Which given McCain’s temperament in last night’s debate is quite an accomplishment.

Piniella’s Plan A came Friday when he set staff ace Ryan Dempster as the Game One starter, followed by the consistent Ted Lilly for Game Two.  Carlos Zambrano would get the the call in Game Three with Rich Harden set for Game Four, if necessary.

At face value it seemed like a reasonable approach.  Dempster has been by far the most consistent of the Cubs’ starters and has earned the spot as the staff ace.  Lilly, meanwhile, can be a bulldog on the mound, reminiscent of Greg Maddux, when he isn’t melting down like Game Two of last year’s NLDS.

Which brings us to today, and Lou’s Plan B. Dempster remains the starter for Game One, but from that point forward the similarities end - and quickly.  Lilly has been pushed back to the fourth slot, while Zambrano and Harden will take the ball in Games Two and Three, respectively.

Huh?

”I think before I announced anything, I said that I had confidence in all four of my starters,” Piniella said. ”All games are equally important. We chose to go this way.”

“This way” the placing of his two most unpredictable pitchers in the pivotal games of a short series.  No-hitter aside, Zambrano has been worth anything but his $15 million yearly salary this season.  Erratic, inconsistent and emotionally atom bomb at times, Zambrano has been the least consistent of the aforementioned.

Harden’s unpredictability rests solely on his health - and at times his control.  An ace in the hole? Definitely.   The Game Three starter?  Questionable.

I can think of two reasons for Piniella’s decisions.  And if Lou is right - as he has often been - it will be a masterful move for Chicago Cubs baseball.

First, I think Lou understands fully the precarious  edge to Zambrano’s emotional nature and equally abundant ego.  Moving Big Z up a game not only placates his enormous ego, but also gives the Cubs the best chance of getting Zambrano’s best.

Secondly, the way New York is continuing their meltdown, Piniella has to assume that Milwaukee will likely be the Cubs first-round opponent.  Neither Harden nor Zambrano will have pitched in this season-ending series, giving the Chicago Cubs the freshest arms and Milwaukee batters the longer looks between staffs.

But like any managerial move, it’s only brilliant if it works.  We’ve believed in Chicago Cubs baseball all season long.  Now it’s Cubdom’s turn to believe in Lou.

The situation was no truer than last week when Zambrano went from pitching the game of his major league career to his worst.  All within the span of five days.

This followed nearly a two-week layoff during which he received an anti-inflammatory.  And let’s not forget the 15-day stretch in June where Zambrano missed three starts with the same aching shoulder.

Even earlier in this 2008 Chicago Cubs baseball campaign, Zambrano swapped bananas for H2O after an erratic start.

With one regular season start and the playoffs a week away, one of the many questions facing the Cubs as they make a run towards the World Series is “how healthy is Carlos Zambrano?”

Granted last Friday’s surreal showing was shadowed by a death in the Zambrano family, but it’s hard to disregard the month’s prior showings.  Prior to the no-hitter, Zambrano recorded a 1-1 record in five starts with an 8.10 ERA.

Hardly the stuff of a staff ace.

Thankfully for the Cubs and Cubdom, Chicago manager Lou Piniella appears to be monitoring the situation - closely.   According to Piniella, the rotation for the upcoming playoffs is still up in the air.

”I’m not going to talk about Game 1 or anything until we see everybody pitch, and also until we find out who our opponent is,” said Piniella.

Translation: Zambrano unlikely will be the Game 1 starter or Game 2 for that matter.

If that’s indeed the case, the bigger question remains given Zambrano’s prideful nature is he capable of playing third fiddle in a 25-man band?

With Saturday’s 5-4 win over St. Louis, the Chicago Cubs clinched the Central Division crown for the second consecutive year, and more importantly, earned a spot in the upcoming National League playoffs.

And we all know what that means: a shot at the missing World Series crown.

Not that anyone even remotely aware of Chicago Cubs baseball needs that reminder.  After all, what respectable fan in Cubdom, or of baseball for that matter, isn’t aware of the world title drought.  It’s one of the great national disasters of sports or otherwise.

But as elusive as the last World Series title has been is as close as this 2008 version of the Chicago Cubs seems to be.  While many of the same faces from remain from last year’s infamous NLDS Meltdown, the most notable changes haven’t been in the form of personnel, but in personality.

Unlike 2007 when the Chicago Cubs seemed surprised at their success, this season’s club anticipated a return to the NLDS - even before the season started.  At least if you believe Cubs’ closer Kerry Wood.

”It’s nice to get in, but we expected to be in this spot,” Wood said, following the division-clinching win. ”We’re going to enjoy it tonight and a little bit into the morning, probably for a few of us. But we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

It’s good of Wood to recognize that.  And from the sound of the mostly subdued post-game celebration, the message wasn’t lost on many of his teammates.

This is not your same ol’ Chicago Cubs baseball team.  By design or whether it’s simply a matter of manager Lou Piniella’s two-year personality makeover plan coming to fruition these Cubs are on a mission.

In two weeks Cubdom and the entire baseball world will watch if this Chicago Cub team walks the walk or if all of this season was merely another field of dreams.

As Cub fans know, all bets are off on whatever happens after that.  Assuming of course, Chicago returns to the post season for the second consecutive year.

With a six-game lead over division rival Milwaukee and an eight-game advantage in the overall wild card standings, the Chicago Cubs look to be assured of at least an appearance in the NLDS.  Unless the Cubs, even with their storied history as baseball’s lovable losers, manage to surpass last year’s New York Mets in an unimaginable meltdown.

As improbable as it sounds, September has not been a good month for the Cubs.   With a 3-6 record and losers of seven of its last 10 games, Chicago’s vulnerabilities have been cast in full light:

• Health issues in the starting pitching staff
• An offense that is either hot or not
• Lapses of concentration in the field
• A bullpen that has suddenly lost its mojo and a closer who makes every save opportunity an adventure

These are the types of characteristics of a team supposedly heading into the post season.  Heck, these are the traits that have marked Chicago Cubs baseball for the better part of a century.

There couldn’t a worst time to develop bad habits as the major league baseball playoffs have proven over the past few years.  The team entering the post season the hottest makes it the furthest.

Both Colorado and the Cubs were perfect examples of that last season.  The Rockies turned red hot in September and carried that momentum all the way into the World Series before being swept by Boston.  The Cubs, on the other hand, didn’t exactly limp into the playoffs, but they didn’t exactly gallop either.

We all remember the result of that short-lived showing.

This year promises the same with the Los Angeles Dodgers playing as well as anyone.   And don’t look now, but Houston could be this year’s Rockies as they continue to close the gap on Milwaukee for the wild card.

These last 16 games are critical to the Cubs.  They can either tune up, tune in or give themselves and Cubdom another dose of last year - and just tune out.

In dropping the seventh of their last eight games, the Cubs managed to swap victory for defeat by allowing two walks and committing two errors in the pivotal ninth inning.  Sunday’s 4-3 loss to Cincinnati even managed to make Cubs manager Lou Piniella speechless.

For the first time this season, Piniella opted out of the usual post-game meeting with the media.  It may very well have been Piniella was online shopping for a GPS.

After the past 10 days it’s obvious Chicago Cubs baseball needs some directions out of this slump and back to its former self.

If you thought you knew this 2008 version of the Chicago Cubs - guess again.  In Sunday’s loss even the most ardent in Cubdom was enlightened to the ways of this club.

What we learned:

• The Cubs are as capable of losing ugly as they are of winning the same way.  In all honesty, not every one of Chicago’s 86 wins have been a thing of beauty.  When the Cubs are good, they are very good.  But even Cubs baseball falls every now and then to the whims of the Gods and odds.
• Ronny Cedeno giveth and he can taketh away.  Cedeno’s one-out single in the seventh put the Cubs ahead.  His error in the ninth allowed the Reds to tie it.  And just when I was forgetting about former Cub shortstop Alex Gonzalez.
• No lead is safe when it comes to a Cubs closer.  Whether Ryan Dempster last season or Kerry Wood this, every ninth inning is like opening Cracker Jacks - there’s bound to be a surprise in every box score.  Wood absorbed his fourth loss of the season and also was tagged with his sixth blown save.

There is a bright side to the Cubs recent slide.  It seems the Milwaukee Brewers don’t want the Central Division either.