By Marty Gangler

Seeing as how the Cubs only had three games this week due to the All-Star break, it’s kind of difficult to come up with a complete Cub Factor – there’s just not that much to factor this week – so I would like to submit to you good readers a Field Trip to Wrigley Field Report. I attended the July 13th game against the Houston Astros, and on the way into the park a guy behind me uttered these words to his buddies: “What you are about to witness, gentlemen, is baseball played the way God intended it to be played.”
This got me thinking. So if there really is a God – and, c’mon, everyone is still kind of guessing about that – He intended baseball to be played at Wrigley Field and in particular against the Houston Astros? I find that a little hard to believe, plus the God part is hard to believe in general but let’s just tackle one issue at a time here. If this is true, and let’s believe in God here for a few minutes just for fun, then I have a couple questions to ask about God. (And just for the sake of this exercise, we’ll say God is a “He.” Just for the sake of the exercise.)
1. God likes old, run-down baseball parks? Wouldn’t God like newer things? I mean, He’s seen it all and I would think that He would like invention and modern amenities.
2. Does God really like paying $5 for an Old Style? That’s not the kind of God I could worship any time soon.
3. God likes bumbling, losing baseball? Doesn’t God like to win?

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Posted on July 16, 2007

It is becoming clear to even the most pessimistic of Cub fans that this team is going to be in a dog fight with the Brewers for the rest of the season. Which also means that Cub fans may be in a dog fight with Brewer fans. With this in mind, The Cub Factor would like to help you out in the war against the Brew Crew’s crew and wake up the real rivalry! Who knows, maybe this will spark a new flurry of McDonald’s commercials that show Mark DeRosa lacing Prince Fielder’s strawberry shake with Ex-Lax. The only problem is, we are finding it hard to use typical fandom warfare because most of it just doesn’t work when it comes to our friends from Wisconsin. But let’s give it a shot.
Tell Brewer fans that:
* Their stadium sucks. Except Miller Park is named after beer and the place is really, really nice.
* They just come out to the game to get drunk and don’t really know baseball. Except their fans seem to know baseball and you can get drunk anywhere in Wisconsin, it’s highly encouraged up there, so this just doesn’t fit.
* Their mascot is a crazy homeless man. Except Wisconsin’s generous welfare system gives him a home and a slide.

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Posted on July 9, 2007

By Marty Gangler

Let’s get one thing straight right off the bat: The Cubs are on a roll. They are hot. They are on fire. They are on a roll that got hot and is now on fire. Sure, they are still 6 1/2 back of the (still in) first place Milwaukee Brewers, and they are only now a .500 team, but the Cub Chill Factor qualifies that as “hot” and “on fire.” It means they are “in it.”
So we here at The Cub Factor would like to help some of you out. While it’s well-known that the Cubs have quite a loyal following, it is also well-known that more than a few Cub fans don’t know a damn thing about the actual team, like, for example, the fact that Sammy Sosa no longer plays for it. So as the Cub bandwagon begins to gather momentum this season, here are some things you can say at the water cooler at work or at that 4th of July barbeque to prove you know what you are talking about and have been on board since day one of the season. Let’s call it the Cub Factor Bandwagon Starter Kit.
* You never liked Michael Barrett.
* You never liked Dusty Baker.
* Mike Fontenot and Ryan Theriot played together at LSU – and you’ve been following them ever since.

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Posted on July 2, 2007

By Marty Gangler

When it comes to Cub fans and the play of the Chicago Cubs, there is always a certain disconnect. We here at The Cub Factor would like to ask why. Haven’t we learned our lesson? Why can’t people take this team at face value? How many times has this team let us down? Yet we cling to the hope that they are always just one winning streak – or one more journeyman, whichever comes first – from turning this whole thing around. We like to call this the Cub Chill Factor. It’s the difference between the real temperature of this team and what it “feels like” to Cubs fans.
For example, when the Cubs go, say, .500 over a period of 10 games, it “feels like” they’ve won seven of 10. When the Cubs win one of six but a couple of losses are close, it “feels like” they’ve gone 3-3. When the Cubs win two in a row – or sweep the White Sox – it “feels like” they are a contender. And when the Cubs are closer to last place than first but are within a half-dozen games of .500, it “feels like” they are making a run for it.
The Cub Chill Factor kicks into effect in a variety of other situations, as well.

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Posted on June 25, 2007

By Marty Gangler

You would think Cubs players have it all, getting paid millions of dollars to work in the world’s best ballpark and live in one of the world’s best cities while drawing adoring fans despite years of losing in ways beyond description. So why are so many Cubs so angry?
It can’t just be the losing. After all, the Pirates, Devil Rays, and Nationals aren’t charging the mound every day.
Carlos Zambrano, sure. He’s nuts. Michael Barrett? Not the most solid bat in the rack. But when Derrek Lee loses it, you have to wonder: Why is this team angrier than Rosie O’Donnell at an Elizabeth Hasselback baby shower? What’s going on in that clubhouse?
We here at The Cub Factor blame the clubhouse boombox. Look at this playlist.

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Posted on June 18, 2007

By Marty Gangler

You would think that after close to 100 years of losing on the North Side, Cubs fans would have learned a few lessons by now. For example: Don’t get sucked in by a modest display of decent baseball apparently sparked by an event – such as a fight and an ejection – rather than actual solutions applied to the makeup of the team. Yes, the Cubs had a decent week. And yes, Milwaukee can’t beat a T-Ball team right now. So has this team really pulled it together? Did Uncle Lou the mad scientist finally find the secret formula for winning? And could that formula include a four-man platoon – a quadtoon, if you will – in right field? We here at The Cub Factor are going to say No. A glimmer of hope is just that – a glimmer. That means there’s still a whole lot of darkness. Don’t look at the light, people. It will hurt your eyes, damage your brain, and break your heart.

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Posted on June 11, 2007

By Marty Gangler

Wow. What an ugly week in Cubs history. The only thing that would have been better would have been for things to have gotten even uglier – we’d like to see Carlos Zambrano and Michael Barrett go at it again to determine who stays and who goes. And we think a few other fights within the Cubs family would be productive. Let’s take a look.

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Posted on June 4, 2007

By Marty Gangler

Lou Piniella has reached the stage of Ultimate Cubs Flummoxation in record time. It took Dusty Baker, for example, three years before he was really so beside himself that he started mumbling incoherently. Don Baylor before him got a couple years in before acquiring that thousand-yard Cubs stare. Jim Riggleman was the stalwart: He lasted five seasons and appeared to leave the job with his sanity intact.
Truth to tell, Uncle Lou came into the job already a little unbalanced. But he’s gone from angry to resigned in record speed, uttering the phrase last week “What’re you gunna do?” three times after yet another heartbreaking loss and getting a sympathy quote from Cliff Floyd, who assured reporters that Piniella “doesn’t want anyone to feel sorry for him.”
Jay Mariotti suggested one thing Piniella could do: “How about bailing while you still have your health and mind?”
The Cub Factor has some additional answers to Lou’s query.

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Posted on May 28, 2007

By Marty Gangler

The Crosstown Classic should be renamed The Six Regular Season Games Against Another Team Classic. Sure, that isn’t interesting or fun, but neither are the games. Okay, they are as interesting as any typical weekend series at Wrigley Field, or The Cell for that matter, but they certainly aren’t any fun. The Cubs-Sox rivalry stopped being fun a while ago; now it’s just annoying.

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Posted on May 21, 2007

By Marty Gangler

Remember when the Cubs were building a team around Corey Patterson, Bobby Hill, and Hee-Seop Choi? It wasn’t long ago that these were the saviors of the franchise. But when it comes to the Cubs, the word “prospect” has just as often meant “pipe dream.” Where have you gone, Brooks Kieschnick? A lonely Cubs Nation turns its eyes to you.
That’s what makes the budding stardom of Ryan Theriot so fascinating. He’s an un-hyped, un-heralded, un-hoped for, un-Cub described this week as “Almost Left For Dead.” He’s the best position player to come out of the Cubs organization in a long time. And yet, even after hitting .328 in 53 games last season, Cubs scouts didn’t believe. Now Lou Piniella has to move heaven, three outfielders, and two infielders to get Theriot into the lineup every day.
Leave it to the Cubs to screw up in reverse. If the Cubs farm system were really an actual functioning farm, they’d be milking chickens, looking for eggs from cows and, of course, beating dead horses.

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Posted on May 14, 2007