It's not unusual to find one dead baseball team in May.
After all, the Cleveland Indians have been playing all spring.
But it's a bit strange to find two dead teams in the same stadium after just six weeks of the season.
That's exactly what we saw last night at Busch Stadium in St. Louis.
It looked like a game between two teams that really didn't want to play.
Or, actually, couldn't play.
At least St. Louis had Joel Pineiro, who pitched a three-hitter.
The Cubs made him look like Cy Young.
Chicago had Ted Lilly, who gave up only four hits.
Trouble was, the Cubs could still be playing this morning and wouldn't have a run.
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The best thing about the game was that it lasted only 2 hours 5 minutes.
I think the Cubs might've had something else scheduled, and didn't want to be late.
That allowed me and other TV viewers to get over to the important stuff -- Shawn Johnson and What's-His-Name winning the dancing show.
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By the way, that could have been a 5-minute dancing show.
ABC bled that thing for 3 hours with old videotape.
That show went on for so long in this TV season that I think some of the dancers are already on Social Security.
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Dan Johnson must have been tied up with a big horseracing story at the paper.
That's no doubt why his bosses didn't assign him to drive to California to cover the dancing finals.
The paper handled the story the new [and less-expensive] way -- by having the Associated Press cover it.
The sports department, of course, is doing things a little differently with some big stories these days -- having a reporter watch the event on TV, then putting a byline on a story written in the office or at home
I'm wondering if that's how those guys will cover Iowa football in the fall.
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I'm sure this will be a much better Hawkeye basketball team when the boys get back from their trip to Italy and Greece. I'm not sure why I'm sure. I'm just sure.
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I talked briefly to Rev. Kendall Meyer of Mt. Olive Lutheran Church yesterday about the Cardinals.
He's been a Cardinals fan for a long time.
Well, that's all right. My brother was a Cardinals fan, too, and we got through it.
I was kidding Rev. Meyer about the St. Louis manager Tony LaRussa hurrying Chris Carpenter back into the rotation tonight even though it may be too early for him to be coming off the disabled list.
[Just to indicate that two men who like different baseball teams can laugh about it, check the photo at the left].
"I just think Tony wants to get three quick wins in this series," Rev. Meyer told me.
He's probably right.
Like I said, the Cubs look like a dead team.
And manager Lou Piniella doesn't exactly look alive whenever the TV cameras show him in the dugout.
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Typical of the Cubs' problems is Mike Fontenot, who is filling in [very poorly] for the injured Aramis Ramirez at third base.
Piniella has to use Fontenot there because he has no one else.
With a $140 million payroll, there's no one else who can play third.
Remember Mark DeRosa? The Cubs traded him to Cleveland in the off-season.
Dumb Cubs.
Anyway, Fontenot is hitting a robust .207 -- an awful average for a third baseman.
He went through periods when he was 0-for-18 and 1-for-29.
The only place Fontenot could suit up and legitimately be classified as an everyday player would be in a 9 p.m. slow-pitch softball league at Walker Johnston Park in Urbandale.
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Speaking of guys who ought to be in slow-pitch softball, I see relief pitcher Kerry Wood is still blowing saves.
The good thing is that it's now for Cleveland, not the Cubs.
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I'm really excited about Michael Vick getting out of prison.
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It took only 25 bullets to take down Adam Harvell.
That'll kill a guy every time.
I might've fired 25 myself.
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It was good to see a story in the paper on Sharm Scheuerman.
Too bad there wasn't a more up-to-date picture of Scheuerman than those taken a half-century ago.
Don't let editors of the paper fool you -- all of those three photos of Sharm on pages 1C and 3C are way, way out of date. Shame on the paper.
I mentioned the other day that Sharm -- a former Hawkeye basketball player and coach -- had been in town. He called to see if I wanted to have coffee, and we did at Village Inn in West Des Moines.
Sharm [shown the way he looks now in the photo I took at Village Inn] continues his battle against cancer, and I sure hope he wins it.
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Typical baseball mentality: Jake Fox leads all of professional baseball with a .431 batting average, and has 17 home runs and 50 runs-batted-in for No-Name Team in Des Moines.
Yet, the weak-hitting Chicago Cubs can't find a place for him.
I think they should make him a player-manager like Lou Boudreau was many years ago.
