Someone please find Jerry Angelo’s stupid pills and destroy them.

Yesterday the Bears gave up their 6th round pick to the Washington Redskins to get Adam Archuleta. Better than that clump of lint they got in return for Thomas Jones, but still a bad trade. Angelo is a moron for not realizing that Synder is a retard and throws big money at free agents like he did to Archuleta when he beat the Bears to him last year. Angelo should have used this lesson and given him Lance Briggs for the Redskins 1st round draft pick in 2007, the 6th selection. Synder will make Briggs happy, and he’ll do the Bears a favor too. This team is lacking a game-breaker WR. Ted Ginn Jr. is just that. Even his running mate at OSU, Anthony “White Lighting” Gonzalez is a gamebreaker. The Bears need to realize they should get an extra 1st round pick and let Briggs go. Paul Posluzny will be there at 31. He is a capable replacement.

1 year ago yesterday, March 20, the inaugural WBC ended with Japan defeating Cuba. This 3 week long tournement was a smashing success. Fans going nuts in the stands, politics, baseball, it had everything. The final game featured only 2 players in MLB, Ichiro Suzuki and Akinori Otsuka, both from Team Japan. Of course, the U.S. had to bring politics into this. They originally refused to allow Cuba to play, saying they’re going to make money off this, which is against the trade embargo, which is clearly a personal vendetta with Castro. Perhaps Castro was right, the U.S. was afraid to play Cuba. Cuba made it to the title game, Team America, with major leaguers littering the roster, failed to make it to the semi-finals. This first WBC was a major success, and future ones will only be better. Next one is in 2009. GO VENEZUELA!

Heading into April, Cubs manager Lou Piniella has to figure out how he is going to use his outfielders, his bench and who the fifth starter will be.

Following a winter where the Cubs spent nearly $300 million on free agents, they did not do enough to shape up the pitching, namely the rotation. With Bobby Howry, Scott Eyre, Ryan Dempster, Will Ohman and Michael Wuertz, and moving whoever loses the 5th starter derby to the pen, the pen is set.

After years of relying on Kerry Wood and Mark Prior to be healthy in the rotation, the Cubs finally decided not to wait for them anymore and planned as if they would be injured. They signed Ted Lilly and Jason Marquis in free agency to take their places. Good idea, bad execution. Of the second tier starters on the market, Lilly was a good signing.

Lilly has been a decent 3-4 starter his entire career. Marquis, on the other hand has been ineffective. He has pitched for two of the best coaches in the game, Leo Mazzone and Dave Duncan, and he couldn’t figure it out. His ERA was 6.02 last year and he was left off the Cardinals post-season roster, despite all the health issues with their pitching. While having him to eat innings is certainly an improvement over the makeshift staff the Cubs had last year, this is a case for concern. However, despite questions about Marquis, the biggest question mark right now for the Cubs pitching is Prior.

It seems as if Prior has been eliminated from the fifth starter derby. It’s turned into a race between Wood, Wade Miller, Angel Guzman and Neal Cotts. Regardless of who wins, the Cubs have of plenty of fallback options should someone get injured or falter.

At this point, Prior is the concern. He seems to be healthy, but now there are concerns over his control and effectiveness.

While the rotation question marks are more negative than positive, the questions on offense are problems the Cubs want to have.

They are dealing with a problem of too many players. The biggest concern, however, is whether or not shortstop Cesar Izturis will be effective at the plate. The Cubs say he’s here because of his defense, but apparently, they have not read “Moneyball,” by Michael Lewis. In case they don’t know, Sabermetrics have proven that defense is not as big a part of the game as people make it out to be. Izturis is a wild swinger with no power. His career on-base percentage is .295.

Overall, while this team has some concerns, this is a better team than last year. Signing Alfonso Soriano gives the Cubs a bona fide leadoff hitter not seen since Kenny Lofton. A healthy Derrek Lee along with resigning Aramis Ramirez gives the Cubs a 3-4 combo rivaling the Boston duo of David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez.

With the NL Central as weak as it is, the Cubs should be a contender, and have a good shot to win it, given all the problems the Cardinals have right now.

What was Jerry Angelo thinking, trading away the Bears’ best running back since Walter Payton, to move up 26 spots in the second round of the draft?

Last week, the Bears made a horrible deal and shipped off workhorse running back Thomas Jones and their second-round draft pick, the 63rd selection, for the Jets’ second-round, 37th selection. Chicago Sun-Times columnist Jay Mariotti called what the Bears got in return “a clump of lint.”

Here in the City of Weak Shoulders, where the backup quarterback is the most popular player on the team among the fans, Jones was the most dependable part of the offense. He put up back-to-back 1,200 yard seasons, something not accomplished since Payton.

Jones’ dominance extended through the 07′ playoffs, running for 301 yards in 3 games. They expect Cedric Benson to take over for Jones?

So far, Benson has shown he is not capable of being the leading rusher. He has admitted to losing focus during play. In a game vs. the Minnesota Vikings, after scoring a fourth-down touchdown, Benson said he didn’t realize it was fourth-down. Having your leading running back lose focus during the game is serious cause for concern.

In Jones’ 3 years in Chicago, he carried the ball 850 times for 3,493 yards. His ranks in league rushing from ‘04-’06 were 19, 9, and 11. Furthermore, Jones battled numerous injuries and was still able to play and perform at a high level. Jones was going to make $2.5 million with the Bears in 2007, a bargain relative to his performance and the current market in the NFL. Other elite backs in the league are making double or even triple what Jones was to make.

Why must the Bears’ front office short-change their players and coaches and not give them the dough they deserve? They have about $20 million to spend under the salary cap, yet they low-ball their players and refuse to discuss extensions.

They did this to Lovie Smith before agreeing with him on an extension, they did this to Jones and Lance Briggs in the 2006 off-season, and they’re at it again. Instead of focusing on winning the Super Bowl, the front-office is more concerned with maximizing their profit margins. As Mike Ditka once said, “[George Halas] throws nickels around like manhole covers.”

However, the worst part about this trade was not giving up Jones, but receiving nothing but a swap on second-round draft picks. The Bears could have gotten a first-round pick or some extra picks which they could package to move up high enough in the first-round to be able to select Ohio State Wide Receiver Ted Ginn Jr.

With the offense as bad as it has been, the Bears need all the help they can get, and drafting Ginn would be a major boast. Ginn was a game-breaker at Ohio State, and has blazing speed. He can also return kicks; having him and Devin Hester would give other teams nightmares. With Briggs, if the Bears can get a high first round pick, let him go. Paul Posluzny from Penn State is a mighty good replacement and most draft boards have him available at # 31.

If the Bears can replace Briggs and Jones with Ginn, Posluzny, and Ohio State Running Back Antonio Pittman, who should be available at 37, then the losses shouldn’t hurt much.

If not, what was an armed and dangerous team a month ago, will be a team fighting to make the playoffs in the Norris division of the Junior Varsity Conference known as the NFC.

Memo to ESPN: SHUT UP ABOUT DAVID ROBERT JOSEPH BECKHAM!! We don’t give a dam about him, okay. He’s not here to kick the rock in America. He’s here to generate a media buzz, with him and Posh Spice all over Hollywood. No one in this country gives a dam about soccer. I’m sick of turning on ESPN and seeing stories about him. I DON’T CARE OKAY!! Geez, listening to Cowlishaw talk about hockey, NASCAR and the BCS would be better than Beckham. ESPN knows nothing about soccer. They are morons. They should stick to what their name stands for, East coaSt PuNks. Their World Cup coverage was horrible. The only guy who seemed to know what he was talking about was an annoying British guy with a horrible accent. I only watched the World Cup when there was no SportsCenter or baseball. I would much rather watch SportsCenter or baseball than soccer. And when I would turn on my idiot box to the World Cup on ESPN, I would watch it in spanish. Their broadcasters don’t anger me, even though GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!! is the only world in their vocabulary. ESPN should just shut up. They know nothing about soccer.

Recently Ozzie Guillen went off on Brandon McCarthy. The Blizzard of Oz is at it again. His tirades are legendary, from calling Magglio Ordonez “another Venezuelan Motherf—er” to saying that Carlos Lee slid into 2nd base “as if his wife was turning a double play,” to calling Jay Mariotti a “f—ing fag”, Ozzie enjoys going at it with people. He recently went off on Brandon McCarthy, who the White Sox stupidly traded away right before Xmas.

McCarthy just makes a few comments about how he feels more in place in Texas than with the White Sox, and Ozzie feels the need to go off. Ozzie continues to act like an immature 10-year old. If I wanted to, I could write a whole book on his fueds and list of enemies. Is it going to take a serious injury to one of his players to shut him up? You want to know what I think of Ozzie Guillen: He is a Venezuelan Motherf—er, and he is a f—ing fag. Only a gay person would kiss his son on the lips, like Ozzie, or make a choke symbol to other teams or admit he has ordered his pitchers to hit other players.

Ozzie Guillen is not a succesful manager and will continue to show that 2005 was a fluke.