Carlos Zambrano is up to his usual antics, spreading hostile words like a plague across the hapless Chicago Cubs' clubhouse.
When you look up the term "clubhouse cancer" in the sports dictionary, Big Z's frowning face would be starring into your eyes, making you wonder if he was going to pop out of the page and kill you for even considering that he would ever throw a ball outside the strike zone. The man is infamous for his outbursts, his murdering of water coolers, his ejections, and the blame game he always loves to play with his teammates and the only franchise he's ever known.
Which brings us to the situation that arose on Sunday after the Cubs lost another heart breaker to the Cardinals in Pujols walk-off fashion. Carlos had this to say about a ninth inning pitch to Theriot and his team.
"The problem wasn't Pujols," Zambrano said Sunday. "The problem was [Theriot's] at-bat. We should have known better than this. We are playing like a Triple-A team. This is embarrassing. Embarrassing for the team and the owners. Embarrassing for the fans. Embarrassing, that's the word for this team.We should know that Ryan Theriot is not a good fastball hitter," Zambrano yelled after turning in the direction of Marmol's then-vacated locker. "We should know that as a team. We should play better here. We stink. That's all I've got to say."
Immediately following these quotes, the baseball world became divided. Some experts say he had a right to call out his teammates because of his veteran status in the clubhouse. Some writers say the Cubs would be better off with out him. This much is for sure. There is no way in the world that what Zambrano did after the game on Sunday was, in anyway, helpful for this franchise already in a precarious situation. With attendance falling at Wrigley and the team in the midst of a 7 game losing streak, bashing teammates for a mistake publicly isn't the way to get your team morale up heading into the dog days of summer. It just doesn't seem like the humane approach to the Cubs' current situation.
But, then again, Zambrano doesn't really remind me of anything human. In fact, Zambrano really bares a strong resemblance to the horde of cicadas currently wreaking havoc on the state of Missouri. He's annoying, noisy, and his eyes bulge when angry. He has been extremely useful in the past - a few very good statistical years and part of three playoff teams - but has proven to be more of a nuisance than anything. Similarly, cicadas do aerate the soil, but I doubt you knew that because you're probably too focused on the negatives. How many people remember that Zambrano has finished 5th in Cy Young Award voting three times? Outside of Cubbie Nation, very few. If angered, Zambrano will attack either with an all-out verbal assault or, if you happen to be a water cooler, a bat. If disturbed, cicadas will fly out you buzzing wildly.
After making such rash and cancerous comments on Sunday, Zambrano was quick to issue an apology. Likewise, the cicadas appear with a vengeance, but in the grand scheme of their 7 or 13 year cycles, are gone in a flash. But you always know they'll come back. Just like you always know, even after an issued apology, Zambrano will do something stupid again like get tossed, bad-mouth a teammate, or loss his cool at an inopportune time. It's his nature. Just like it's in a cicada's nature to be one of the more annoying members of the animal kingdom.
And so as the cicadas continue to make more noise than a Black Sabbath concert, and the trees of Missouri become more crowded than a Chinese labor factory, Carlos Zambrano continues his career of pretty good pitching combined with an impressive streak of self-indulgence in controversy and bad team karma. While I can't speak for Cubs' fans, if he were on my team, I'd want him out.
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