The MLB baseball preseason has barely started and the Chicago Cubs have already managed to become the laughing 
stock of the league yet again. Just when you think you’ve seen it all with the Cubs, the franchise comes out with this!
You are not looking at a photo-shopped image–what you see on the right is an actual billboard in Chicago featuring the fourth-runner-up for Rookie of the Year, Starlin Castro, and future Hall of Famer Derek Jeter.
On top of being one of the most mocked teams in sports history, the Cubs are now officially the dumbest. It’s not enough that they haven’t won a World Series in 102 years, but now they can’t even find two of their own players to put on a billboard and resort to using a New York Yankee to market the team.
How pathetic.
One would assume that after throwing away all of those players to acquire Matt Garza that they would want to show him off, but of course they didn’t do that. The only reason they could have had for putting Derek Jeter on the billboard, besides the fact that they’ve given up, is that they believe in jinxes.
I know it’s a long shot, but follow me on this one.
The Chicago Cubs have to believe in jinxes/curses. And if they don’t, then their fans certainly do. They’ll look for any reason to place blame on a losing season and a jinx/curse seems to be the most common.
The way I see it is that the organization wanted to put their rising star on the billboard, but feared that Castro had way too good of a season last year and would undoubtedly fall into a sophomore slump this season. With that in mind, they basically had two options for the billboard.
If they put him on the billboard with a fellow Cubs player, Castro’s crappiness would rub off on the other player, resulting in two bad players. However, if they put another team’s player on the billboard, perhaps someone better than Castro, then maybe, just maybe, that other player’s greatness would rub off on Castro. If not, then Castro’s crappiness would most definitely rub off on him.
When you look at it that way, the choice is obvious. No harm can come from putting Derek Jeter on the billboard with Starlin Castro. Except for everyone making fun of it, of course. But let’s forget about that. If Castro ends up not falling in the sophomore slump, then the anti-jinx worked. If Castro does fall into the slump, then it’s a good thing that he didn’t bring one of his teammates with him. And who better to use for this experiment than Yankee-great Derek Jeter? He’s the perfect candidate. He is a solid performer every season, so he’s basically like the control in this situation. It makes absolutely 100% sense!
The single flaw in this logic is that the Cubs only play the Yankees three times this season, so if they intended for Castro to jinx the other player, then they should have picked a guy from a team that they play more. Then again, we are talking about the Cubs here, so it’s not like they really think these things through.
I’m sure Harry Caray would be proud regardless.
Used with permission of the author.
Los Angeles Based Logan Rhoades is the Associate Editor of the website JocksBehindBars.com. With an extensive knowledge of ESPN topics and celebrity gossip, he is known for mixing sports and pop culture. Check out his “Skip to My Logan” blog and Follow him on Twitter @loganrhoades.
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