A day after basically admitting that the Cubs aren’t going to retain Rich Harden, Lou Piniella also indicated – again without saying anything definitive – that Milton Bradley has played his last game for the North Siders.
“Our general manager Jim Hendry had to do a tough task of sending [Milton] home [on Sept. 20], and [...]

Manager banter is normally pretty innocuous, but on Sunday Lou Piniella actually spoke words that imparted useful information, though it was probably by accident.
“You look at our starting pitching here for next year,” Piniella said. “You’ve got (Carlos) Zambrano, you’ve got (Ryan) Dempster, you’ve got (Randy) Wells, you’ve got (Ted) Lilly, you’ve got (Tom) Gorzelanny, [...]

Congratulations to the St. Louis Cardinals,  your 2009 National League Central Division champions.
This has been a foregone conclusion for weeks – hell, months – but that doesn’t make it feel any better.
Here’s hoping the Red Birds make a quick exit.  And here’s hoping that next year the tables will be turned.

The Cardinals are in no particular hurry to clinch the NL Central.  Their magic number was 1 going into Friday night, but they lost to Colorado while the Cubs beat San Francisco, leaving the magic number right there.
If I didn’t know any better, I might think the Cardinals were just taunting their Chicago rivals.
But of [...]

The Cubs were supposed to be making a playoff push right about now, but you know what they say about the best laid plans.
That’s right:  they often get VD.  Which is why they should always use protection.
I use humor to distract myself from the disappointment of knowing that all this season’s hopes were futile, that [...]