Congratulations, Chicago Cubs. Here's to 10,000 more.

Note to Lou, courtesy of XM Radio's "Baseball This AM": With Reed Johnson in the lineup, the Cubs are 11-2. Without Reed Johnson, the Cubs are 2-4. It's still early in the season, but the Cubs' new bald-headed, goateed centerfielder already looks like the leadoff hitter that Jim Hendry was looking for--and the Cubs didn't have to give up 4 pitchers to get him, either.

I never thought that I'd use the words "Ronny Cedeno" and "salamie" in the same sentence before, but I just did. Congratulations, Ronny! The Cubs, despite leaving 12 men on base over the course of today's game, are up 8-1 in the 9th inning after Cedeno's four-run home run.

I've settled into a schedule, updating my 1060 West Addison webcomic on Thursdays and Sundays. I've just posted a new strip tonight!

Is it weird that I watch the Cubs' upcoming opponents' games when I'm not watching the Cubs, just to "scout" the teams that the Cubs will be facing? Right now, I'm watching the New York Mets take on the Phillies, in preparation of the Mets' upcoming two-game series with the Cubs. (The Mets are down 5 to 4 in the 7th inning.)

There's a long-running tradition at Wrigley Field of tossing opponents' home run balls back onto the field. During Wednesday night's game against the Reds, Cubs fans threw 15 balls onto the outfield after Adam Dunn hit a homerun onto Sheffield. Rightfielder Kosokue Fukudome said, "I don't remember that many home runs being hit."

In a story by Cubs.com writer Carrie Muskrat, Aramis Ramirez is quoted as saying that, "[Dusty Baker] is a winner," because of the back-to-back winning seasons that the Cubs posted during Baker's first two years as manager. In the next breath, however, Ramirez said that Baker shouldn't be booed by fans because he doesn't "think that [the losing seasons in 2005 and 2006] were the manager's fault."

Even Piniella got in on the praise: "I don't see any reason why Dusty should be booed. He came in here and won a division. He got the team to one game from going to a World Series. The next year, they had a nice run, and then things went a little backwards. Is that the manager's fault? I don't think so."

So which is it? While a lot of players have expressed fond memories of Baker's four years on the North Side, I don't think you can cherry-pick what seasons best represent a manager influence. To say that Baker was responsible for the '03 and '04 winning seasons but not for the '05 and '06 seasons is faulty reasoning.

In a study by the Wall Street Journal, Baker ranked 11th out of 20 current MLB managers when using close games, wins above expectation, and player performance as measurements. (Lou Piniella ranked one spot lower.) It's interesting to note that such "winning" managers as Clint Hurdle, Jim Leyland, Eric Wedge, Joe Torre, and Terry Francona took the bottom five spots in the study.

If the statistical analysis proves anything, it's that managers' impacts upon their teams wins-and-loss records are greatly exaggerated. Or, as the top-ranked Ron Gardenhire said, "I don't know how you rate managers. They love you. They hate you. It just depends which inning.''

Soriano injured his right leg while making a routine catch in leftfield. The injury occurred in the first inning of Tuesday's game against the Cincinnati Reds. The Cubs are calling the injury, which happened when Soriano made his trademark "hop," a "right calf strain." It's a good thing that the Cubs held onto leftfielder Matt Murton in the offseason. Murton may not hop around after catches, but he's a durable replacement with a career .296 batting average--.15 points better than Soriano's, by the way.

Tonight's Cubs game marks the 20th full season of night baseball at Wrigley Field. The lights were installed in 1988, with the first official game occurring on August 9 vs. the New York Mets. According to the Medill News Services' Anthony Pura, 1989 marked the first full year with lights at Wrigley, when 17 games were played at night. "Currently, a city ordinance restricts the Cubs to playing only 30 night games per season at home.  Most teams in the National Baseball League have more than 50." While fans have warmed to the idea of night games at Wrigley, neighborhood residents haven't. "Residents in Wrigleyville and the surrounding area are concerned about the amount of traffic, noise and crowds of thousands that likely would disturb the neighborhood at late hours," according to Pura.

Dusty Baker rode into town,

As an annual MLB.TV subscriber, it came as a bit of a shock to see the MLB.TV player co-branded with Yahoo! Sports on Monday. While MLB.com will continue to handle MLB.TV sales and subscriptions, subscribers will be treated to a barrage of clickable video ads from Yahoo. On the positive side, premium placement of MLB.TV on the Yahoo portal should place baseball front-and-center for a lot of Internet users and only help to expand the popularity of the game.

Click here to view the latest comic.

All season long I'll be posting Cubs webcomics at www.1060westaddison.net. Check it out!

Rich Hill went up the hill,

with a broom to sweep the Pirates.

Rich lost command,

which Lou couldn't stand,

so into the game came Jon Lieber.

Originally posted by Green Fairy on her blog, Uptown Chicago History.

Original caption reads: "Wrigley Field in Chicago, Illinois, waiting to enter the ballpark for a 1929 World Series game between the National League's Chicago Cubs and the American League's Philadelphia Athletics. A crowd is surrounding the men, and a dog is standing in the foreground. Image of a group of men and a boy holding thermoses, sitting on crates outside Wrigley Field is located at 1060 West Addison Street and bounded by West Waveland Avenue, North Seminary Avenue, North Clark Street, and North Sheffield Avenue in the Lake View community area."

I've seen a few MLBloggers' posts regarding the Cubs' rightfielder censored by MLBlogs' automatic filter. Specifically, if you type "***-U-Do-Me" (a chant that the intelligent fans pronounce correctly at Wrigley), the first syllable will be censored. See how it's just three asterisks now? **** you, censorship software.

While the Cubs pulled it out in 15 innings, fans watching on Mediacom's channel 74 in eastern Iowa were cut off at 9:30pm CT--in the 12th inning. The channel switched to a live feed of ESPN News, causing thousands of Cubs fans to hit the radio. No luck there: Local station 800 AM, who usually play every Cubs game, were broadcasting an Iowa Hawks baseball game instead. Thank Zod for MLB.com's live audio!

"I'm beginning to feel how Jerry Lewis does during those telethons." - Pat Hughes in the bottom of the 15th inning in Wednesday's game against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

"I think we have a good defensive team," Derrek Lee said after Monday's ugly game. "We haven't played that way." It doesn't matter how good a team looks defensively on paper, though--the only thing that matters is how you play. And right now, the Cubs have the 4th-worst fielding percentage in the Major Leagues.

I wasn't watching the Pirates/Cubs game on TV, so I need to know: Did Steve Bartman distract Ronny Cedeno and cause that inning to spiral out of control? Lilly's wildness + Cubs' fielding errors = a 5-run 4th inning for Pittsburgh.

Cubs at .500:

High water mark of the year!

I'll drink to that.

Wrigley Field may soon be rennamed. Which corporate sponsor would you like to see?

- ExxonMobil Oil Field
- Ford Motor Coliseum
- Bank of America's Ballpark of America
- Home Depot Lumberyard
- Wal-Mart Super Stadium
- None of the above!!!

I've just started to post some baseball web comics over at www.1060westaddison.net. I'm still working on the posting format, though, so some of the text might not be legible depending upon your screen resolution (I'll get that corrected soon...). The subject matter will probably be a little more profane than my MLBlog posts, so be warned. ;)

cubs broadcast schedule 2008.csv

The Cubs will appear on WGN, Comcast, Comcast Plus, WCIU, ESPN, and TBS this year--it's enough to drive a Cubs fan crazy. I've created my own .csv file WITH the entire broadcast schedule. While Cubs.com offers the Cubs' schedule as a .csv file for importing into Microsoft Outlook and other calendar applications, their schedule does not include the television broadcast stations--that's why I created my own. Never miss a game!

Downloading the Cubs Broadcast Schedule 2008.csv file:

DO NOT simply click on the link. Right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac) on it and select "Save Target As...", "Save Link As...", or "Download link to disk" (depending on your browser).

Save the file to a location that you will remember.

After it has finished downloading, locate the file and follow your calendar program's instructions for importing events.

-[ Download the .CSV schedule ]-

Importing the 2008 Chicago Cubs schedule to your Outlook calendar
From the top toolbar, click File -> Import and Export

Select "Import from another program or file" and click Next

Select "Comma Separated Values (Windows)" and click Next

Click the Browse button and navigate to the saved schedule file, select "Do not import duplicate items" and click Next

From the "Select destination folder" pop-up, click on Calendar and click Next

In the next window, under the box labeled, "The following actions will be performed:", click the box next to the option labeled, "Import "Cubs Broadcast Schedule 2008.csv" into folder: Calendar."

In the Map Custom Fields pop-up window, click and drag the fields from the left window into the right window, as follows:

START_DATE to Start Date

START_TIME to Start Time
(Select START_TIME for Central Time, or START_TIME_ET for all ET)

SUBJECT to Subject

DESCRIPTION to Description

LOCATION to Location

END_DATE to End Date

END_TIME to End Time
(Select END_TIME for Central Time, or END_TIME_ET for all ET)

REMINDER_OFF to Reminder On/Off
Select REMINDER_OFF to not be reminded when a game is scheduled to begin or REMINDER_ON for a reminder

REMINDER_DATE to Reminder Date
Default date is the game date

REMINDER_TIME to Reminder Time
(Select REMINDER_TIME for Central Time, or REMINDER_TIME_ET for all ET)
Default time is one hour before start time

SHOWTIMEAS_FREE to Show Time As
Select SHOWTIMEAS_FREE to show the game time as free or SHOWTIMEAS_BUSY to mark that time as busy if you don't want your co-workers to schedule meetings during Cubs games (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!)

Click OK, then click Finish

A status window will appear that says, "Importing Appointments from "Cubs Broadcast Schedule 2008.csv" into Calendar"

Fukudome came from Japan

With his monster bat in hand.

Right out of the gate,

He went four-for-eight!

And won over the hearts of the fickel fans.

You didn't just do that:

Drop your bat while warming up?

You were kidding, right?