I've contemplated putting up a FanPost on this subject for quite awhile, and tonight, while watching and listening to the replays, ...

Each and every time that a Cubs pitcher has taken a no-hitter into the latter innings during my lifetime, I've thought about the near misses...the games in which a Cubs pitcher took a no-no into the 9th inning.

I can think of three...

Rainey

Moyer

and Guzman.

Are there any others?  I fooled around with baseball-reference's PI index but there is neither a "near no-hitter" tool nor is there a way to siphon results to find such a game.  My personal memory doesn't cover the entire 36-year gap between Zambrano and Pappas...did anyone else come close?

Did anybody other than Zambrano ever take one into the 8th?

…when you put a bad defender in left field.

…I was listening to the game today, on the radio, and I can only hope that driver in front me wasn’t too alarmed when I slammed my forehead against the steering wheel, sounding the horn…perhaps he wondered, “does that jackass think I should run a red light?”

Anyway, I was listened to the game and then 720's various post-game shows.  After forsaking all reason and going on a Mike-North-style rant, Jim Memolo tried to stem the tide of angry callers by remembering the various bad outfielders that the Cubs have employed.  Specifically, he kept bringing up Derrick May, of all people.

After the mention of bad defensive outfielders (Henry Rodriguez and George Bell were noted), I thought of one point and also have one question…

1.  Glenallen Hill was the worst defensive major leaguer that I have ever seen.  He was genuinely scared of the ball…and spiders…Soriano's defense is a wet dream compared to the nightmare that was Glenallen Hill...

2.  I then got to thinking about bad outfielders and how difficult it is to appraise an outfielder’s defensive skills from watching most of the games on TV.  For example, Moises Alou would make running catches which looked great through the narrow window of television.  But watching him from the stands, you’d notice that he reached the ball only by a tentative route, run in a series of right angles.  In other words, Alou always struck me as the best example of a player that looked good on TV but lousy from the stands.  So, my question is…how does having to watch most games on TV distort the fan’s perspective of a player’s defensive abilities?   Is that distortion greater for infielders or outfielders?  Is this why people think that a sure-handed but relatively immobile shortstop such as Jeter is actually a plus defender?

Well, that’s three questions…but I can’t helping ask one more…do Al or any other fans that sit in the bleachers regularly have any unique insights on outfield defense, as opposed to those of us that sit in the grandstand?

Smoking cigarettes after gaining admission to Wrigley Field is now strictly prohibited.

I've attended two games so far this season. On April 2nd,  the smoking ban was being liberally disregarded throughout the game, at least in the former "smoking section" on the upper deck patio...a security officer was sitting underneath a "no smoking" sign, having a smoke.  This past Thursday, the 17th, the patio was packed due to the April "wind tunnel" effect into the left-field upper deck but nobody was smoking.

When did the enforcement policy shift into gear?  Between the first homestand and the second?

Out of curiousity, has the policy been enforced differently during night games?

I'm a smoker...save your sermons.  I smoked at the second game of the year but I refrained last Thursday.  I have no problem holding off for a few hours but I'd like to know one way or another.

Last week, I was scanning through Cubs stats, looking at Geovany Soto’s career numbers.  I’d completely forgotten that he debuted in 2005, batting once that season.  So I brought up the gamelog and looked at the box score.  Looking over the Cubs lineup that day, it showed Jeromy Burnitz playing right field.  Those 2005 Cubs seem easy to forget, neither as bad as the horrid 2006 model nor as lamentable as the 2004 choke-job.  In a way, Burnitz epitomized that team because he was a brief rental that performed adequately.  He didn’t quite live up to expectations but he wasn’t an abject failure.  Moreover, while he had a long and memorable career, we don’t think of him as a Cub…rather, he’s a Brewer, or a Met, a rejuvenated Rockie, and finally a washed-up Pirate.  In other words, he was a forgettable Cub….

So I have three questions:

1. Who on the current team will we never think of as having been a Cub?

1. Which Cub team is forgettable, which one draws a blank in your mind?

1. What former Cubs players are the most forgettable?  In other words, who had a long or significant MLB career, played for the Cubs, but who we don’t think of as having been a Cub unless we wrack our brains?

My answers are:

1.  Don’t know.  Last year it was clearly Cliff Floyd, Mabry before him.  They were old players, nearly done, but is there a young guy that’ll be traded or dumped who’ll then last for years?  Sean Marshall?

2.  Maybe ’88, maybe ’92, maybe 2000, pick a mediocre year without a long losing streak to start the season.  I’ll take the 1996 team.

3.  Too many to choose from so I’ll start with ten…

1.  Burnitz, described above.

2.  Marvell Wynne.  Was he “significant”?  Maybe Junior’s soccer skills will give his dad a little latter-day recognition.

3.  Danny Jackson.

4.  Benito Santiago.   I compiled this list a few days ago and it morphed into a long rant on the strange trip that was Santiago’s career.  I’ve deleted that tirade, but still, somewhere along the line, Scarface got stuck at O’Hare, changing planes between Toronto and Cincinnati.

5.  Greg Hibbard.  Over the last 38 years, no Cub lefty has won more games in a season than Greg Freaking Hibbard.

6.  Johnny Callison.

7.  Dick Ruthven.  Here’s a great trivia question, “Who was the opening day starter for the ’84 Cubs?”  I actually have an old VHS tape that includes an interview of Jim Frey saying “Ruthven was our ace going into the season but he had bad luck and was always stacked up against their ace”.

8.  Babe Herman.

9.  Andre Thornton.  We loved Billy Bucks (and it isn’t conditional…Boston fans) but what if we’d kept that first Andre, who had a tendency to hit a homer once in a while?

10.  Tie goes to the bullpen, Dave Smith and Doug Jones.

Hi.  I've reading BCB for about two years but I never post.  When I selected my username, perhaps 12 to 18 months ago, I chose to reference to an obscure Cub from my own youth, a reliever named Laddie Renfroe.  I've also noticed that several other BCB users have chosen similar handles.  Specifically, I've seen Gary Varsho, Jerry Mumphrey, and Les Lancaster.  I have two questions, not just for those users but for the whole community:

1.    Which current Cubs could become similar fan favorites?

2.    For those of you that chose a more conventional handle, which player would you have chosen as a similarly beloved Cub from your childhood?  Rather, there's only one Ernie Banks (or Sandberg, or Sosa, etc.) but who was your favorite seemingly obscure player?

Here are my own answers...

First, which current Cub might serve as such a touchstone for today's kids?  Sam Fuld is my choice.  Hustlin' little guy, good glove, and he's both an econ major out of Stanford as well as a former STATS Inc. intern, making him probably the only big leaguer inclined to discuss VORP, WARP, and other all those other metrics that sound like made-up words from `The Princess Bride'.  I'm disappointed that he seems to be playing his way off the roster this spring.

Second, I chose Laddie Renfroe as my username because he was a gloriously ridiculous player, he made me laugh, and I distinctly recall being riveted to the TV set during his few appearances, rooting hard for him to succeed.  Listed at 5'11", 200 lbs, he was a short, fat, right-handed reliever who threw submarine style.  He had coke-bottle glasses and a mustache.  He looked like a fat hillbilly version of Dan Quisenberry.  Renfroe didn't fare very well with the Cubs, finishing his two-week, four-game career with a 13.50 ERA.  From the game logs, it appears that he was the emergency pitcher, the guy you put in when a) everyone else is tired, b) the game is out of hand and nobody needs work, or c) you're not quite ready to put in Doug Dascenzo.  He was already 29 years old by that point, and he'd been in the Cubs system for seven years.  It's worth noting that he did win 19 games in 1989, leading the minors, throwing 132 innings in 78 appearances for Charlotte, then the Cubs AA affiliate.  So he was durable and, at least that year, really lucky.  Unfortunately, I can't find a picture online, although I know that he had a baseball card the following year.

As a kid, I also had a special fondness for, in no particular order...

1.    Mumphrey.
2.    Jeff Pico, he of the debut shut-out.
3.    Hector Villaneuva, the BP home run king.
4.    Chico Walker, more so for his second go-round with the team.  That inside-the-park grand slam is a good memory.
5.    Steve Christmas, because it only takes one big hit to make an impression on a young fan.
6.    Porfirio Altimirano.  If I shut my eyes, I can hear Harry trying in vain to articulate his name.
7.    Lloyd McClendon.  For 1989 and, later, his literal base stealing.
8.    Mike Harkey.  Remember how good he looked late in '88?
9.    Noce.
10.    I could go on forever as it's too hard to choose just ten guys.  I just hope that somebody else brings up Steve Rain....or Cuno Barragan....or Rosey Brown...or Henry Cotto...or the jug-eared shortstop from the 1989 Charlotte Knights...