By Marty Gangler

Ahhh. Isn’t it great to be back? And now nice to pick up close to where we left off!
And I was worried that The Cub Factor would be totally different this season. Nope.
Sure, it’s only been one series, but damn, I still have the Cubby taste in my mouth.
And sure, even though the Cubs blew a couple games already this season I will admit it does feel different. Unfortunately the outcomes have kinda been the same.
With all this being said, we here at The Cub Factor would like to kick off this season with a list of Cubs slogans for 2012:

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Posted on April 9, 2012

By Marty Gangler

Finally, that debacle is over.
We here at The Cub Factor are actually excited now that we can look ahead to next season. Will there be an Upton Brothers Report? A Disguise of the Week for new manager Bobby Valentine? The adventures of Chicago’s new great crime stopper, The Clevenger? Mount Listach? The possibilities are endless.

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Posted on September 28, 2011

By Marty Gangler

Was it me or did that four-game series with the Reds feel like it took a month? It didn’t even feel like that long of a week at the old day job.
Lost in those long four days, though, was a gem of a comment made by Bob Brenly. He said something to the fact that Joey Votto of the Reds has more walks than four Cubs starters combined. So I took a look and did some math.
Votto has 106 walks while Marlon Byrd (24), A-Ram (42), Darwin Barney (19), and Starlin Castro (33) have a combined 118. How pathetic.
With this in mind, we here at The Cub Factor thought it might be wise to make a list of a few things we would like General Manager X to do/be aware of as he comes in:

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Posted on September 19, 2011

By Marty Gangler

Okay, meaningless September baseball is something that Cubs fans are pretty used to. But extra inning meaningless September baseball is just the pits.
I mean, these guys have angered us all season, can’t they do us a solid and just end the game in the normal allotment of innings? Isn’t that fair?
Can’t we ask baseball to institute some sort of rule where teams flip a coin after nine innings when both teams are officially out of the pennant race? Would anyone not be a fan of this?
Or maybe just use computer simulations the rest of the way. This season needs to end so the Cubs can actually get someone in charge of the baseball operations. Like walking and chewing gum, this franchise can’t do both at the same time.

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Posted on September 12, 2011

By Marty Gangler

After attending the game at Wrigley on Saturday, I am more confused now about the state of the Cubs than I was last week, when I wrote about the difficult adjustment to no longer having Jim Hendry to blame..
This time, it’s Cub fans themselves who have me bewildered. And I’m a lifelong Cubs fan.
Who are these people, and what do they want now?

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Posted on September 6, 2011

By Marty Gangler

I haven’t often felt this way in the history of The Cub Factor but here goes: I can’t really complain that much about where things stand with this franchise.
Let me explain. Sometimes the Cubs have been good but hey, these are the Cubs and they are typically bad. The weird thing now is that these Cubs are bad and management finally actually agrees.
Sure, we could quibble about how they screwed up the firing of Jim Hendry – which they did. They should have done it earlier in the season – or maybe before this season started or even right when these Ricketts guys got the team. That’s when I would have done it.
But here we are anyway. Most Cubs fans received a wish come true a few weeks back. You could even say one of their wildest fantasies was finally fulfilled – at least one of theri fantasies that doesn’t involve a corn cob dress, that one bat girl or kicking the crap out of Bartman.

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Posted on August 29, 2011

By Steve Rhodes

Marty Gangler is on special assignment searching his soul for naming his new son after a White Sox pitcher. He will return next week.
As many have noted, with the recent unveiling of Ron Santo’s statue the Cubs don’t have a whole lot of alumni left worthy of such an honor. But seeing as how these are the Cubs, worthiness is in the eye of the beerholder. Quite naturally, then, we here at The Cub Factor have some ideas:
* An animatronic Shooter with his pendulum arm swinging back and forth – it could actually be a clock too.
* An animatronic Randall Simon whacking the Italian Sausage. He became a Cub after that, after all.
* A statue of Tom Ricketts leaning up against the Noodle like the dork that he is.

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Posted on August 22, 2011

By Marty Gangler

Carlos Zambrano just did what the rest of us wish we could: He ditched this team.
What Cub fan wouldn’t like to just clean out his locker and forget about it?
I sometimes wish I could. But we Cub fans are afflicted with the burden of growing up with this team; the games our dads took us to, the stories our aunts tell us about, the emotional investment of enduring season after pathetic season. It’s the backdrop of our existence. We can’t just walk away.
Zambrano could. And did.

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Posted on August 15, 2011

By Marty Gangler

I wrote last week that the Cubs were the worst team in baseball. And they out and proved it all over again.
Sure, they went 6-1 for the week but they didn’t get any better in the process. They actually got worse.
You may ask yourself, how is that possible? Well, it’s possible because when a team is completely out of it for the season they need to make changes that will get them better for next season.This means you shouldn’t play the guys that you know, you should play the guys that you don’t know. You should play the guys that will help you next season. Unfortunately no one has explained this to Cubs management.

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Posted on August 8, 2011

By Marty Gangler

The Cubs are the worst team in baseball.
Sure, the Orioles and Astros have fewer wins. They also have – or at least had right up to the trade deadline on Sunday – players that playoff teams coveted.
The Astros dealt Hunter Pence and Jason Bourne and the Orioles moved Koji Uehara and even ex-Cub Derrick Lee.
The Cubs gave away Kosuke Fukudome to the Indians to make room for Tyler Colvin and otherwise stood pat.
See what I mean?

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Posted on August 1, 2011