By Marty Gangler

So my son turned two this weekend and, as some of you reading this may know, around this time kids start to pick up on things. Okay, they pick up on things all the time – but they start to really vocalize things right around two.
Okay, I really don’t have anything to compare my little guy to because I’ve not been around a lot of 2-year-olds – but I’m guessing my kid is about average – so kids around this age really start to vocalize things.
And my little guy sees anything with red and blue and says “Cubbies.”
It’s ridiculously adorable.
I mean, like even a White Sox fan would kind of give the kid kind of a smirky smile if he saw him say “Cubbies.”
He pronounces it “cubeeez.”
So he gets the fact that the Cubbies are our team.
And as we sit down to watch games now I try to explain to him everything that is going on.
They say you are supposed to talk to your little guys just like they were a regular-sized people – at least I think that is what they say.
So as I sit down on the couch to watch the Cubbies with Mitchell (he has his little baseball and glove on – which is just such a great Dad moment), I start to explain to him what is going on with the Cubs.
But it’s hard to do because it gets complicated.
I have to tell him things like:

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Posted on April 19, 2010

By Marty Gangler

It feels like the 2009 season never ended.
The Cubs have picked up right where they left off.
Sure, there are some lousy new faces where the old lousy faces were before, but it sure feels like the same team.
It’s kind of like when you are a kid and you finish 4th grade for the summer and you feel glad that it’s over because well, fourth grade just sucked for you. And you tell yourself all summer that fifth grade is going to be different. In fifth grade I’m going to run faster than Bobby Sanders and Becky Richards is going to notice me and totally want to sit by me at lunch. But then you are three days into 5th grade and Bobby Sanders totally smoked you in gym class and Becky Richards shot you a “what the F are you doing” look when you just paused for a second near her table. And fifth grade is exactly like you remembered fourth grade being. So then you fake a stomachache, go to the school nurse’s office and talk to her about how you are feeling. She tells you that it’s only three days into the new year and things will get better – except you don’t believe her because she told you the same thing at the beginning of last year and you feel exactly the same way as you always felt.
So yeah, it’s technically been a week but it feels like forever.

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Posted on April 12, 2010

By Marty Gangler
Now that’s more like it. This is the kind of October I remember. Who really wants the hand-wringing and stress involved in a playoff series? I mean, c’mon, we’re in a recession people. Who can afford playoff tickets?
And what if the Cub actually got further than the first round, or dare I say the championship series, or even the big one? Think about how many more people would go absolutely broke mortgaging everything for a chance to see the Cubs in the World Series. It would be pretty bad for a lot of people – not to mention the disappointment if they inched closer to the ring and got knocked out. People these days have enough things to worry about, that would put them over the edge.
No, this is a good thing. This I can handle. I don’t need a wife at home who doesn’t want to watch a playoff game with me because I am “WAY to into it.” How many marriages could handle another post-season series loss? How many dogs will now be saved from being kicked?

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Posted on October 6, 2009

By Marty Gangler
This week good ol’ Uncle Lou was asked what he wanted for next season. He said a big RBI guy for the middle of the lineup. Seeing how Uncle Lou wanted the same thing last year and we got Milton Bradley, we here at The Cub Factor were thinking Lou should ask for something different this time around. Like:
* World peace.
* A new diet.
* True transparency in the Obama administration.
* A second baseman who can play 150 games without being exposed as a fraud.

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Posted on September 28, 2009

By Marty Gangler
As just about everything that could possibly be said has already been said about Milton Bradley and how he (almost) single-handedly cost the Cubs their season and maybe Jim Hendry his job, we here at The Cub Factor would like to talk about other things. Like what Milton is going to do while he’s suspended.
* Return himself to the jerk store.
* Hang out with Kanye West and discuss how “misunderstood” they are.
* Get the MLB package on cable and practice “out counting.”
* Take a job as a Chicago meter maid so he can relax in a less abusive environment.
* Cash in his frequent therapy points.

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Posted on September 22, 2009

By Marty Gangler
Let’s look ahead to this day next year.
A Sept. 14, 2010 preview:
Lou Piniella: Is still managing, but it’s a restaurant in Florida called Mount Lou’s. They have Falstaff on tap. He still isn’t sure who should work the first shift.
Mike Fontenot : The utility fry cook at Mount Lou’s.
Carlos Zambrano: Almost ready to return after breaking an ankle on So You Think You Can Dance.

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Posted on September 14, 2009

By Marty Gangler
Maybe the Cubs just took a cue from the weather this season. Yeah, it was the weather’s fault. Summer in Chicago wasn’t really summer this year – it was like summer pretended to be spring, and even sometimes fall. But summer just wasn’t summer. Just like the Cubs. They are really just a .500 team that was pretending to be the two-time defending Central Division champions. They did a pretty good job of pretending, though. They kept the charade up all the way until now. Now the mask is finally off for good and they can’t even try to pretend. With this in mind, we here at The Cub Factor would like to talk about a few individual players and who they pretended to be this season.
Alfonso Soriano: Pretended to be the franchise bat in a potent lineup but was actually vying for Comeback Player of the Year 2010.
Milton Bradley: Pretended to be the answer from the left side of the plate but was actually an escaped mental patient.
Geo Soto: Pretended to be the reigning NL Rookie of the Year but was actually Jeff Spiccoli with a lifetime supply of burgers from All-American burger.

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Posted on September 7, 2009

By Marty Gangler:
Another lost Cubs season, another poorly constructed team. What was Jim Hendry thinking? We here at The Cub Factor drove out to Hendry’s palatial estate to find out. Hendry wasn’t there, but the source of the problem became clear as we nosed around the grounds.
Hendry’s Home: Sources told The Cub Factor that for a long time the front door led right into the basement. Then that door was replaced with a bunch of other front doors but you really just need one, so it got kind of confusing. And while some doors led to an upstairs bedroom and others led to someone else’s house, they all eventually lead to fourth place.
Hendry’s Rowboat: We found it in the garage, up on blocks. The boat itself is made out of really expensive wood, but the paddles are missing the “paddle” part. So they are like just long sticks with holes in them, and when you row you don’t go anywhere. Plus, Hendry insisted they be left-handed, even though that doesn’t make them any better.

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Posted on August 31, 2009

By Marty Gangler
We here at The Cub Factor have found local scribes’suggestions for new Cubs owner Tom Ricketts to be just about as lame as the Cubs lineup. If you pay attention to any of these lists floating around, Tom, pay attention to ours.
1. Hire the best loophole-savvy contract lawyers you can find. Even better if they specialize in outfielders.
2. Bring back the Gatorade cooler but spike it with Prozac.
3. Send Carlos Zambrano, Milton Bradley and Alfonso Soriano on a three-hour tour of the South Pacific. We hear the accommodations on the S.S. Minnow are pretty good.

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Posted on August 24, 2009

By Marty Gangler
If you’ve been any kind of Cub fan for any kind of time period you know that there comes a point in almost every season where you “tune out.”
This occurs when you decide that the Cubs don’t really deserve as much time as you have allotted them.
Quite a bit of the time this happens around June.
Sometimes in September and even some years in April, but it happens quite a few more seasons than it doesn’t.
This “tuning out” typically goes down in three-inning increments. If you usually watch every inning of every game, you’ll start to watch six innings. If you watched around six innings, you will start to watch just three – be it the first three or the last three.

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Posted on August 17, 2009