4/02/2004 10:12:00 AM by Rob

so cool...

I turned 3 years old in the Summer of Love. Nevertheless, I am as firm a believer in karma as anyone else you will find. Do unto others. What comes around, goes around. Big wheel in the sky keeps on turnin', don't know where I'll be tomorrow. All that "higher power" shit. Yep, I'm a believer.

So it is that today, when probably every other Cub Blogger is vowing holy jihad for the head of Jack McDowell, for taking time between tokes to insinuate that Mark Prior is on the joo-ice, I want to write about the man who shares a number with Fergie Jenkins, and who is going to have to stand on the podium with him one day when they retire the number once and for all at Beautiful Wrigley Field.

When Greg Maddux retires, he doesn't want a big ceremony.

He doesn't want Rick Sutcliffe wheeling a Cubbie Blue Hummer through the red doors in right. He doesn't want Tiger Woods to present him with a Platinum card that allows him free and clear tee times on every golf course in America, Europe, and Asia, though he'd probably accept it with a quiet thankee anyway. He doesn't want balloons, fly-bys from the Blue Angels, Wayne Messmer singing heartfelt ballads about him. No giant diamond-encrusted iced-out "300" medallion presented by El Jefe himself, the Samala. He doesn't even want a post-game hummer from Cindy Sandberg.

All Greg wants to do, according to a Tribune story, is have the groundscrew wet down the big blue tarp, like a kid's Slip-n-Slide, and take one last bellyflop across the infield.

I did not realize that the four infamous "floppers" on the overwrought, rain-soaked night the lights came on in Wrigley included the Mad Dog. I always had Mike Harkey at the scene of the crime, and even though he was on the roster then, the floppers included Les Lancaster and Al Nipper (which I knew), a washed-up Jo-Dee! Davis (really?) and Maddux himself.

The four floppers were fined a grand collective total of $500, which probably didn't even pay for the beer at the post-season party.

Now, maybe this was April Fools bullschit. But, you know, the fact that he even had that thought illustrates something.

He knows it's a game.

Maddux has this reputation of being some sort of pitching guru. I think it's more of a Peter Sellers-as-the-gardener kind of thing. I think he's just really uncomplicated. It's a game primarily played by kids. To most major leaguers, the game has become much more...it's a business, a lifestyle, something that requires nutritional supplements, adjudication, incorporation, marketing, public relations.

In Baseball Prospectus, they quote Jaret Wright, poster child for uptight baseball-playing wasteoids, as saying that after spending part of a season with Maddux last year, he has to unlearn what he was told, because it was too confusing for him.

And you wonder why this beefsucker hasn't reached any of his potential. I'm sure all Greg was trying to get him to do is play Baseball, and forget about his stock portfolio, his shoe-n-glove deals, and his child abandonment litigation while he was between the chalk lines. I have the feeling that the vast majority of men wearing the uniform are as self-important and uptight as Wright is.

It is a grand and glorious thing to have Greg Maddux back with us. Like any baseball-crazy kid, he prepares because he cares. If ever anyone deserved to go out on top, in a blinding blaze of glory, it is he. And us. And, the Cubs. We don't have Prior for at least a month. They are being respectful and careful of Prior's health, in an well-intentioned attempt to have him in perfect condition for the post-season.

This may be the ultimate case of putting the cart before the horse, but WE'RE doing the presuming, for once! Will not the pure karma of having Greg Maddux back home carry us through this time?

Uh huh. It's hard for ME to believe, too.

NOTE: What kind of moron schedules his vacation during Opening Week? The Uncouth Sloth, that's who. I got confused. I knew the Cubs were starting out against Ken Griffey, Jr., and I know he lives in Orlando, and I know that he plays "close to home". So I am taking the kids on the Universal/SeaWorld/Wet-n-Wild tour, hoping to catch the Cubs and Junior in the process.

I've been told, though, that the games will be in Ohio. So I totally fucking blew that one. When I get back on the 12th, the Home opener, hopefully I can gloat, rather than bitch to you all.

I'm trying to convince Big Stupid Tommy to take time between filming Slim Jim commericals to put his $0.02 in while I am gone, so who knows? I didn't get this bright idea until 2:30 this afternoon. Nobody ever said I was smart.

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