My Stand-Up Comedy MP3 available for download starting TODAY!

Our season’s in the dumps, our manager’s retired and left the game forever and we don’t have much to root for, for the remainder of 2010.  Let’s lighten things up around here Cubs fans!  Feel better about your day by downloading a copy of one of my recent live stand up performances!

The MP3 is called “One Track Mind” and is available for downloading today for only $1.99!  You can’t beat it.  Check out the track’s page here and download a copy today.  (I’m talking to you too Lou….you could use a laugh, no?)

Lee Accepts Trade to the Braves. Fans Try To Do the Same.

‘The D-Lee News’ is closing it’s doors forever.  

A favorite feature of Prose and Ivy since I launched the site in 2007, The D-Lee News segment in the side column (scroll down to get to it) will be retired after the 2010 baseball season.  Today it was announced that Derrek Lee has been traded to the Atlanta Braves for three young pitching prospects.  I thought Lee was going to end up being one of the toughest calls for Ricketts/Hendry to make this off-season.  Apparently, the decision was to let a class act go, but not for nothing.  Listed below is a review of his career up to this point, including a solid stint leading the Cubs to multiple division titles and landing himself one NL Batting title.  Right below the graphic summarizing his career is everything that’s been posted on my D-Lee News segment here on Prose and Ivy.  Again, the D-Lee News will not exist as a feature on Prose and Ivy following the end of the regular season.

As I said on my Twitter account today when the news was announced:

@proseandivy Goodbye Derrek Lee, you’ll be missed. Good guy, all class.  Feel free to win it this year because NEXT YEAR, is all our’s.

GM Hendry and Lee.

Every regular season we’ll be keeping tabs on one guy who MUST perform up to expectations for the Cubs to continue repeating in the Central Division and hopefully finally make a run through October!

Lee’s current 2010 stats: 16 HR, 56 RBI, .335 OBP, .416 SLG AND .251 AVG.

Lee’s 2009 stats: .309 AVG, .395 OBP, .585 SLG, 35 HR, 111 RBI, 1 Baby. First time since 2005 Lee puts up 30 or more HR’s in a season.

Lee was one of the biggest reasons the team had their best April in 2008, hit 10,000 wins all-time, had a 55-26 record at Wrigley, captured the NL Central Division crown for the second year in a row…and really the only reason we stayed in playoff contention as long as we did in 2009!!! Lee’s final stats for 2008 (for those that are interested): .291 AVG, .462 SLG%, .361 OBP, 20 HR, 90 RBI.

(Note: Here were my thoughts on Lee during Spring Training 2008…good thing his stats turned around when the games started to count: As of my post on 3/18 Lee is having a ROUGH Spring. 3-for-39 so far with about as many walks as strike outs, only four RBI’s and a BA of .154. Let’s hope he’s just warming up and once we get closer to our everyday lineup he gets comfortable with the guys around him and his stats improve drastically. Do your thing D-Lee…seriously, SOON, Opening Day will be here before you know it! (And so will the end of September, so be sure to continue to show up and deliver!)

Of course, 2008 didn’t turn out the way Lee or anyone else would’ve liked…nor did 2009 for that matter. Here’s to a horrible Spring once again in 2010, a great regular season and a postseason with a happy ending to report in the D-Lee News of October 2010!! For you stat guys/girls out there, his final 2009 Spring stats: 19-for-58, 5BB, 9SO, .369 OBP, .458 SLG, .322 AVG. Can’t wait for Spring to get here!!! Go Cubs Go!!! UPDATED: Lee’s horrendous 2010 Spring stats: 7-for-40; 3 HR; 9 RBI; 8 BB; 11 SO; .294 OBP; .450 SLG and a scary .175 AVG. 2010 should be great.

Go Cubs Go!

V-5 and the Illusive Cubs Championship

Year in and year out.  Next year.  Wait. Wait. Wait.  Wait until next year.  A century plus.  Cubs fans raising Cubs fans, who raise Cubs fans.  The never ending disappointing cycle of let down generation after let down generation.

Make a move.  Make a trade.  Buy your tickets.  Get a program.  Look at the roster.  Watch the scoreboard.  Follow the off-season.  Complain about non-moves.  Relish in the potential of team additions.  Listen to sports radio.  Blog about your favorite team.  Buy a jersey.  Wear the jersey.  Wear out the jersey.  Watch name on said jersey get traded.  Buy new jersey.  Repeat.

Watch games on television.  Join the new age of sports voyeurism and subscribe to an on-line service to watch your favorite team.  Hope for the best.  Expect the Worst.  Enjoy Spring training.  Analyze spring performances and talk about this being the year for a certain youngster.  Write up your preferred roster, line-ups and rotations for the regular season.  Disagree when the big club decides otherwise.

Give too much credence to an outstanding April. Dismiss a crap start to the season and believe May is when the bats will turn themselves around.  They always do, right?  Sit in the sun and bake in the dog days of Summer.  Stand for the anthems and stretches.  Applaud your favorite celebrity and guffaw over confusing cameo selections of has-beens, never was and never will be’s.

Wait for winter meetings.  Wait for trades to be announced.  Wait for pitchers and catchers to report.  Wait for the games to count.  Wait for the pitchers to settle in and the bats to wake up.  Wait for the all-star break’s say in where you stand.  Wait for clincher.  Wait for the playoffs.  Wait to not be swept.  Wait to make the playoffs.  Wait for a shot at a World Series.  Wait and wait and wait.

Root for the veterans and hope for the rookies.  Cheer on the new hope that a new manager brings and say goodbye to their expected or promised dream results left unfulfilled.  Give new ownership the benefit of the doubt.  Attend Conventions.  Speak your mind.  Wait in line to get your autographs.  Wait until the day you no longer have to wait.

Look up in August and see that you’re almost twenty games out.  Wait to play spoiler.  Wait for consecutive wins.  Wait for series wins.  Wait for tickets to go on sale.  Wait on the wait list.  Wait in traffic on the way to a game.  Wait in line at the concession stand.  Wait for the moron running on the field to get caught by security.  Wait for the pitcher with the unbelievably slow pace.  Wait for the other team to meet at the mound.  Wait for Lou to get to the mound.  Wait for the hop to go away.  Wait for the crazy to go away.  Wait for offense and the pitching to get on track at the same time.  Wait for the Cardinals to have a bad day.  Wait for the Reds to come back to Earth.  Wait and wait and wait.

Remember that year?  That was the year.  That was going to be the year.  How many people are even still here to remember the year.  Wait, what was the year?  Wow, all those years.  Will it be this year?  No, not this year.  How many more years?

And scene.

This posting will now be played out for you in youtube form.  Cubs fans will be played by Steve Martin.  A World Series championship will be played by the rental car assigned to V-5.  The baseball gods will be played by the lady at the counter.  New Cubs ownership will be played by John Candy.  Go Cubs Go!

Anyone Else Need a Refill?

Go Cubs Go!  (gulp, gulp, gulp)

We’re a Major League Baseball team.

Everybody: Hello. Do you know us?
[Everybody, except Zambrano, puts on their caps]
Everybody: We’re a Major League Baseball team.
Lou Piniella: But since we haven’t won a pennant in over 100 years, nobody recognizes us – not even in our own home town.
Ryan Dempster: That’s why we carry the American Express card.
Derrek Lee: No matter how far out of first we are, it’s cool. You know, it keeps us from getting shut out at our favorite hotels and restaurant-type places.
Aramis Ramirez [pointing to us] So if you’re looking for some Big-League clout, apply for that little green home-run hitter.
Tyler Colvin: Look what it’s done for US. People still DON’T recognize us but…
[Tyler snaps his fingers]
Carlos Zambrano: We’re contenders now.
[Also dressed in a tuxedo, Starlin slides into home plate and holds up a green credit card]
Starlin Castro: The American Express card: Don’t steal home without it.

17.5 games out of first in the NL Central.  Go Cubs Go!

Listen to my guest appearance on St. Louis Cardinals’ radio show, ‘i70 Baseball’ on blogtalkradio

Every now and then, I make an appearance on another blogger’s blog or radio show and sometimes, they aren’t Cubs fans.  Usually, if they don’t root for the Cubs, they are Cardinals fans (just the way it’s been working out).  These guys in particular are Bill Ivie (Cards) and Matt Kelsey (Royals) and they have a great show on blogtalkradio.com called i70 Baseball.  We had fun discussing the weekend series between the Cubs and Cardinals (what a fluke that series win for the Cubs was, huh?), Piniella’s announcement, the future of the Cubs come this off-season, whether the rivalry between the Cards and Cubs is the same that it used to be and why the Cubs and Cards annual series always seem to be tight even if one team is 1 game out of first and the other is 17 games back.

Have a listen and feel free to leave a comment in the comment section agreeing or disagreeing with anything I said!  Go Cubs Go!

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/btrplayer.swf

Listen to internet radio with i70baseball on Blog Talk Radio