Fukudome: Not Just for April Anymore

What'cha gonna do, brother, when Fukudomania runs wild on you, brother? 

Kosuke Fukudome has a career OPS of 1.004 in the month of April. This excellent track record of starting the season on fire has earned him the nickname "April Kosuke." Unfortunately, that's not a compliment. While his April accomplishments are praiseworthy, the moniker is more of an ironic mockery of his alter ego: MayJuneJulyAugustOrSeptember Kosuke. Unlike Rex Grossman, whose Good-Rex/Bad-Rex routine was far more erratic, Kosuke has been fairly good at limiting the offensive explosions to April, hence the name. Or has he?

I've heard Kosuke called a bust, a platoon player at best, a disappointment, and just another of Jim Hendry's typical failed free agent signings. Kosuke praise has been sparse. I get the impression, and it's a pretty well informed one, that Cubs fans and baseball fans in general view Kosuke as a guy who just can't hit once the calendar turns to May. This year, according to what I hear, has been no exception.

One problem: that's a load of crap. Here are Fukudome's offensive splits by month in 2010 (obviously not including his three-hit, two-double performance to kick-off September):

Half Decent: Setting Expectations for the 2011 Cubs (pt. 1)

When I was in high school, one of the youth leaders at my church routinely discussed three topics more than any other: the unholy trilogy of sex, drugs, and rock & roll. It really didn't matter what biblical story or teaching we were covering, the focus was almost always redirected to the condemnation of one or more of those three vices.

I remember one lesson in particular in which we were told that physical attraction should be the least of our concerns when deciding who to date or court or arrange a marriage with. While anyone who has ever been in a relationship can attest that appearance isn't the most important attribute in a significant other, trying to tell a teenager to ignore it completely is like persuading a shark to eschew seafood.

After hearing variations on the diatribe for a few weeks, all the members of my youth group knew the answers we were supposed to be giving and that they directly conflicted with the protests of our hormones. So when our teacher asked us what qualities we would look for in a potential boyfriend or girlfriend, my fellow classmate Dwight Stowers attempted a compromise between the proffered high moral ground and his basic primal urges into a succinct summation of what he wanted in a woman:

"Half decent?"

As Cub fans, we find ourselves in a similar struggle between what we want and what the baseball gods are telling us we can have. While by no means immoral, it's looking pretty unrealistic that fans of baseball on Chicago's North Side will ever find ourselves in a long-term relationship with a 10—but is it too much to ask for a 6 or 7?

Cubs Facts that Don't Make Me Angry

On any given day, the Cubs have a really solid chance of winning, even if it's against the Pirates.

Pat Hughes is the best radio play-by-play man I've ever listened to on a daily basis.

Watching the Cubs lose in a hopeless summer is still better than the hopeful baseball-free winters.

There are an awful lot of Cubs fans that I like an awful lot.

Alfonso Soriano is no longer painful to watch.

The next heartbreaking playoff loss appears to be quite a ways off.

Ticket prices are going down like . . . well, like the Cubs.

Starlin Castro is still in the majors.

Tyler Colvin can hit.

The pitching has been pretty good this year, and I've always felt that bad pitching is much more frustrating to watch than bad offense.

Whether Tom Ricketts wants to run this team as a fan or as a businessman, he's going to have to put a better product on the field to be happy.

I really like the calzones at Wrigley.

However awful the walk-up music is, I haven't heard any Miley Cyrus or Justin Bieber yet.

Even if they did, a little "Party in the U.S.A." never hurt anybody.

Most people won't admit it, but Carlos Zambrano spoke for all of us.

I'm pretty sure I have a fear of success, and the Cubs have been very understanding in that regard.

The fire sale is inevitable. And who doesn't love a sale?

Nothing to See Here. So Let's Do the Wave!

On Saturday, the wave broke out at Wrigley Field. This punky, spray-tanned castoff from the set of Swingers (not Vince Vaughn) served as cheerleader  drum major  douchemaster  moron-in-chief, eliciting a chorus of boos from dozens of onlookers . . . and, you know, the wave from tens of thousands of witless drones.

It's bad enough this happened at Wrigley. Fans do a lot of unforgivable things in Wrigley. They throw peanuts at fans of opposing teams, even if it's the team opposing the Blackhawks later that weekend. They stand on the ramps leading to the upper deck and toss food and water down onto the fans below. They hurl racial epithets at their favorite players. I guess they project quite a few things into the air, but usually they have the good sense not to include a successive parade of their butt-scratching hands in the mix. But here's what made it worse:

All this went down with one out in the eighth inning of a tie ball game with the potential (and eventually the actual) game-tying run at second base. The wave is supposed to be the designated pastime of fans who have become bored with the actual national pastime. But to interrupt the most critical turning point in the game by conjuring the demonic ritual of wavus stupidus maximus takes some serious juevos (and just an extraordinary surplus of dumb). You're telling me there was nothing else to grab the attention of these buffoons?

Allow me to offer up a photodump of evidence to the contrary:

Vince Vaughn set the tone by aiming for the upper deck with his ceremonial first pitch.

Thank DeRosa for Small Sample Sizes

The truth hurts. So lie to me, Cubbies.

There's a reason baseball is so fun to watch. Well, there are 225,658 reasons baseball is so fun to watch, but one of my favorites is the way it can take so long for the true balance of talent to bear itself out. Albert Pujols is as good a hitter as you'll find, yet he makes outs in 53% of his plate appearances; despite that ridiculously good average, there were 15 games in 2009 in which he didn't reach base. Tim Lincecum yielded a .206 batting average to opposing hitters last year, but there were two games in which he gave up 10 hits.

The numbers of any one game or any handful of games is likely to tell you a big fat lie about how good any one player or team really is.

Some games are more accurate depictions of talent than others, but you don't really know which ones are telling you the truth until the season is over—and even then, most teams change composition over the course of the year, usually in an effort to get better, but often times due to injury, a player or team will get worse.

Statisticians can tell you the truth about any team, or at least a fair, objectively calculated, more-accurate-than-your-eyes judgment of a team's potential. But watching a game has a way of reinforcing your hopes or deepening your fears. The Cubs drop 3 of 4 to the Mets, they suck, and I knew it. The Cubs sweep the Brewers, and they are the offensive juggernaut to put an end to the juggernaut business. Their pitching is outstanding. Carlos Zambrano is in the bullpen because the Cubs have at least 8 Cy-Young-caliber pitchers.

I don't care about what's accurate. It's fun to watch the Cubs put a beating on the Brewers. It's a small sample size, but it's beautiful to behold. I might be furious, depressed, or elated when the sample reaches 162 games, but for this weekend I'm loving the lie.

He Was Safe

The first out of the 9th was in question. I have my answer.

Friday night ended in mild controversy, somewhat lost in all the attention given to things worth discussing like the developing pattern of bullpen incompetence. But I'm not one for discussing important things. I'd rather beat a moot point to death. Tyler Colvin was safe.

Unfortunately, the best shot of the close play at first in which Tyler Colvin was called out (after a pretty phenomenal barehanded flip from Brandon Phillips) isn't that great. Phillips' body partially obscures the image of Colvin's foot as he's reaching the base. But (as you can kind of see here) Colvin's foot does reach the base a fraction of a second before the ball arrives in Joey Votto's mitt.

Even more unfortunately, there's no replay in baseball on the bases. Even more unfortunatelier than that is the fact that even if they did have replay, there's a pretty good chance this play would be upheld. And to toy with the question of fortune even further, there's no way of knowing Derrek Lee still would have homered  on the next play as he did with the bases empty and one out. Maybe he would have hit into a double play had the situation been reversed. There's no way of knowing?

So why belabor the point? Because I'm a belaborer. Sue me.