Back to work!

Hey dudes! Long time no blog! I gotta tell you I've been busy. Spring training looks like it'd be a lot of fun. You know you fly down to Arizona. You get to enjoy some nice warm weather and you get to play baseball. But man, let me tell you, there is a lot of work to do.

My teams always play good defense and my teams always run the bases great. Last year, the Cubs didn't do either of those things very well. I guess that was Dick Pole's team. Couldn't have been mine. Mine don't do those things.

This year we've got a lot of questions to answer. Who's gonna play second base? Who's gonna play left field? Who's gonna drive the ambulance on days Kerry Wood pitches? Hah! Good one.

I'll give you some inside poop on the second base job. The guys in the mix are Todd Walker, Neifi and Jerry Harrison Jr.

See, now Todd's my offensive second baseman. He's got a good bat, bats lefty, knows the game. Neifi? He's my glove man. Real slick at second base. Like a ballerina. Only bigger and fatter and a dude. Hardison? I think he was on the team last year. I played his dad, Joey Sr. Good guy. I'm not so sure about his kid.

So the decision I have to make is do I want the best offensive player I can get there, or do I want to go with a glove man? Last year our defense was pretty bad. Couldn't have been my team. My teams don't play like that. But it was bad. I don't think we turned a double play for the last 140 games of the season.

But we didn't score many runs, either. So maybe I need some offense there? See the kind of stuff I have to decide! This stuff isn't nuclear physics. It's harder!

I would much rather have to do some nuclear physics in the dugout than figure out whether to play Todd or Neifi or the Harrelson kid.

As for left field? We've got Young Murton. Good kid. Hit the weights this winter, got bulked up. He kind of looks like Mark McGwire.

I mean McGwire now, you know after he got off the stuff and weighs like a buck 80.

But as much as I like Young Murton, I've got Marquis Grissom to think about. You can't just sit Marquis on the bench. He's a veteran, and a gamer and he's been through the wars, man. Here's a guy who played in Montreal and Milwaukee. You know how many World Series he's been in? You can't just replace that kind of experience. It's tough.

Well, it's almost time for me to pack up and head home. It's been a long day. After practice I thought the guys could use some more work. So I gave them a choice. They could run a mile, or they could take four laps around Scott Eyre.