Cubs Spring Training Stream of Conscious Part 1

I'm just going to go SOC on this one because I need to get some things off my chest about my favorite professional sports team.

• I have this growing sense of dread that my summer of sports viewing is going to be agonizing, and there's really nothing I can do about it except start really getting into the Chicago Fire. Less than a week into spring training Theodore Roosevelt Lily has somehow done something to himself that required getting an MRI on his knee, Soriano has announced that his knee still isn't 100%, the guy they traded for Milton Bradley looks like was plucked out of the nacho bar line at Golden Corral, and Ryan Theoriot and his 14 career HRs lost an arbitration case and is still making more money this year than I will in my lifetime.

Cubs new relief pitcher and buffet crasher, Carlos Silva.

• All of this really wouldn't be so bad if there were some kind of light at the end of the tunnel, but this year for the Cubs looks like it may be the worst type of professional sports season -- the "everybody on the team is old and bad, the only young guys we have aren't that good, and almost all of the contracts are untradeable so this thing can't even be blown up at the end of the season" season. I honestly can't think of anything worse than watching Soriano strike out four times and make two errors in left in the same game and knowing that there are still five more seasons of this.

• I'm still undecided on Tom Ricketts. I liked his comments in his first press conference about spending more resources on shoring up the farm system, and I'm hoping his unwillingness to spend money this off season is in the hopes that things will get ugly enough for him to fire Hendry so he can bring in somebody he can trust to spend his money.

• I'm also not excited about another year of Pinella falling asleep in the dugout and waiting two weeks too long to make obvious decisions (i.e. moving Soriano down in the batting order). He mailed it in after the second game of the Dodgers series in '08, and he's just cashing checks at this point. I mean, have you seen this guy's press conferences? In every one he looks like he either just woke up from a nap and doesn't know what's going on, or is really cranky and wants to take a nap.

More thoughts on this Cubs season to come in the coming weeks.