10/27/2005 08:42:00 AM by Rob

First of all, of primary importance to me & Carlos Zambrano's Dad



GUESS which little redheaded jailbait queen stars on a weekly sitcom called "Still Standing" on Wednesdays, 8/7 Central on CBS?

It doesn't look to be all that funny, so catch her while you can, CZ's Dad...

UPDATE: Renee Olstead's television credits include the series "She Spies," "My Guide to Becoming a Rock Star," "Reunited," "Out There," "Providence" and, on CBS, "Touched by an Angel." She has also appeared in the mini-series "Larry McMurtry's Streets of Laredo," and in the television movies "Geppetto" and "Deadly Family Secrets."

As a singer, she has released a self-titled CD. Her live performances have included appearances with Billy Joel, Elton John and Celine Dion.

Her feature film credits include "13 Going on 30," "Space Cowboys," "End of Days" and "The Insider."

Olstead was born in Houston and lives in Los Angeles and Texas. Her birth date is June 18.




And then there was one...

Misery loves company. There was always strength in numbers. We weren't the only ones in the same boat. No matter how bad we had it, someone else had it worse. How many other cliches can you name that served the purpose of providing solace to a person or people who were in a bad situation by pointing out that other people were just as bad off, if not worse?

Just like a good investor spreads his or her wealth around in a diverse portfolio, so were good Cub fans able to spread out their misery of not having won anything. Hell yes, we were bad, but so were our brethren in futility, White Sox fans and Red Sox fans.

The similarities overlapped on levels on the surface, and far deeper.

Until the Sox built the Comiskey Ball Mall, aka The Cell, aka The Joan, they had the oldest park in captivity, followed by Fenway, followed by Wrigley.

The names seemed to morph like the faces in them bad nineties videos: Chicago Cubs --> Chicago White Sox --> Boston Red Sox.

They all had a 'B' Curse: Billy Goat --> Black Sox --> Babe Ruth.

Sure, the White Sox would traditionally try to build their team with speed in their big ballpark, while the other two would try to load up on sluggers to take advantage of their bandboxes. But there was never enough pitching. All three teams managed to qualify during the recent watered-down playoff format, but each team suffered from bad managing (2000 White Sox), horrific luck (1986 Red Sox) or both (2003 Cubs).

I had watched a lot of baseball during my first 40 years on this planet, and as I have become a firm believer in the power of management, leadership, and last but not least, karma, I fully believed I would go to my grave with these three ancient franchises forever linked in their legacy of failure.

But you know what has happened since last year. If there be such things as curses, the Red Sox lifted theirs last year, and the White Sox lifted theirs last night. In the business, they call this LIFO, since the Red Sox last won in 1918, and the White Sox in 1917. So...if I catch my guess correctly, and I haven't been out to any of the Blue Kool-Aid swilling, rosey outlook websites today, I predict that the theme might be "It's Our Turn Next Year".

And it just might be. Who would have thought that the Soxes would have won anything going into these years? I mean, the Red Sox play in the same division as the Steingrabbers, they gutted out their front office, installed a geek as their GM, and hired the UberGeek, Bill James, to advise him. The White Sox were picked to finish behind the Twins, as they had for the past few years, and they are run by the red-assed Kenny Williams, who has been known to display his managerial acumen by going down to the clubhouse after losses and calling his players "cunts". He went out and hired the UberRedAss, Ozzie Montana Guillen, then they traded away 70 homers and 200 RBIs in Carlos Lee and Magglio Ordonez, and to top that, Frank Thomas and his potential 40/100 sat on his fat ass pretty much the entire season, except for one three week spree where he hit like 12 homers.

In other words, is it a coincidence that these two organizations completely changed their direction, and then they won?

Finally getting to the notion of us, die-hard bitter Cub fans, what do we have at the present? Dusty Baker, who just like his two immediate predecessors, in his fourth year talking like somebody is stomping down HARD on his scrotal sack. Same as always, Cuddly Cubbies Derrek Lee, Aramis Ramirez, Mark Prior, Kerry Wood, The Corpse of Greg Maddux and Ryan Dempster. The psychotic Carlos Zambrano is here, too, thank God. Sluggers and righthanded fastball pitchers. Same as it ever was. (Slap to forehead) Same as it ever was. (Slap to forehead) Same as it ever was.....

If we're going to emulate the performance of the recent winners, which seems to be all the rage in sports these days, then we need to take a fuckin' firehose to the front office and the clubhouse, and go in an entirely new direction. Go get some cybergeeks. Even better...go sell the fuckin' team to someone with an Ego, somebody with some competitive experience, someone who values wins and losses over profits.

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