My Unfavorite Cubs

Baseball season begins in less than 2 weeks and as I stated in a previous post, I am getting ready for another extremely disappointing season from my beloved Chicago Cubs. There have been many players I have enjoyed watching over the years and that list will come at some point. But for now, I would like to introduce you to several of the players that have contributed to the extreme crappiness that has been the Chicago Cubs over the last 30 years.

6. LaTroy Hawkins: In 2003, Hawkins was signed as a free agent from the Minnesota Twins to provide help in the Cubs bullpen. In the previous couple of seasons with the Twins he was an absolute monster providing relief in the 7th and 8th innings as a setup man for their closer. He was brought to the Cubs to perform the same duties and failed miserably. It's not completely his fault because the Cubs closer, Joe Borowski got hurt early in the season and Hawkins got thrust into a role that he was not suited for. Needless to say Hawkins failed for 2 seasons with the Cubs and in 2005 was finally relieved of his duties after a disastrous performance in Philly. The guy was a horrible failure and contributed to many losses.

5. Fred McGriff: The Crime Dog arrived to the Cubs via a trade at the deadline in 2001. He was to provide power for a team that desperately needed it and desperately needed a 1B since they had cut ties to Mark Grace the year before. The rest of the season he really didn't provide much help and the Cubs had a losing record with him on the team. The following season McGriff did moderately well but his presence and his quest for 500 HR's caused the Cubs to keep a young and promising Hee Seop Choi on the bench. Since the Cubs were terrible this year, it would have been a great time to see what Choi could do but instead McGriff's personal stats meant more and his needs came before the teams. Oh, and the bum didn't even get his 500th HR.

4. Kyle Farnsworth: If you were to simply look at this guy, you'd get scared. He stood about 6'6" and easily threw a 100 mph fastball. Unfortunately, that's all he could do. His off-speed stuff was junk but he was insistent on trying to prove that he had it. Then, when he would throw the heater, it had absolutely no movement on it and hitters timed it perfectly. Nolan Ryan and Rob Dibble both threw over 100 but they had a lot of movement on their balls which kept the hitters on their heels. Not Dr. Tightpants. Nope, all he did was throw a 100 mph fastball down the center of the plate and giving up numerous late inning home runs with it. It's sad that you are best known for pummeling Reds pitcher Paul Wilson. It was a great fight though.

3. Leon Durham: All in all, I love the Bull. But he made one MAJOR error during the playoffs in 1984 against the Padres that puts him on this list. I spoke about it before, but he was Bill Buckner before Bill Buckner was Bill Buckner. The Cubs were in control of a best of 5 series and Durham allowed a ball to roll between his legs allowing the Padres to score and win the game, and eventually the series. Ugh. Not much can be said about this other than this was my very first memory of the Cubs breaking my heart.

2. Mark Prior: Coming out of USC, Prior was an absolute stud. He almost completely bypassed the minor leagues altogether and joined the Cubs in the summer of 2002 and was amazing. He had great mechanics and his arsenal of pitches threw batters off guard all summer long. The following year, 2003, was a magical year for the Cubs but ended in great tragedy. I really believe this was Prior's undoing as a pitcher. He was 5 outs away from sending the Cubs to the World Series and then Bartman happened. This, along with a critical error by the SS Gonzalez, proved to be the last time Prior pitched well for the Cubs. The following year he was riddled with an achilles tendon injury and when he came back his mechanics had changed for the worse and simply was not that effective. In '05 he was injured again, but one actually wasn't his fault. He was hit in the elbow by a line drive traveling 117 mph. Every season after that he has had various arm problems that have led to him finally being let go in '08. An absolute ton of money was wasted on him and a lot of prospects were put on the back burner so he could have his spot on the rotation. He sucked and to this day still hasn't played an inning for his new team, the San Diego Padres.

1. Sammy Sosa: In 1998, Sosa provided a summer to remember with his effortless home runs and great batting average. Sure his arms ballooned up to small canons and he was no longer the base stealing threat he was known for in previous years. He continued to hit a ton of HR's in the next few years but just like an onion, there were many layers to his personality that slowly came out. In hindsight, it's extremely obvious he was on steroids so I won't even debate that. His me, me, me personality was shown more and more and it's been said that he is one of the reasons that Mark Grace left the team. It finally became obvious to everyone when on the last day of the season in 2004, he was benched by the manager. Instead of staying and watching the final game with his teammates, he chose to just leave the game because he wasn't involved. This wound up being his last game and was traded to the Orioles in the off season. Too many of his HR's were meaningless and none of them seemed to come at a time when the Cub's needed them. He was an extremely selfish player and to this day and I hope he never gets in the Hall of Fame because of his (alleged) steroid use.