With both the Mets and the Yankees doing fairly well this season- in the case of the Mets, doing much better than expected even- the land of controversy seems to have moved to the Midwest.  Both the North and South-siders in Chicago are having an interesting summer.  Some of that is simply the play happening on the field and some of that comes directly from the front office.

Whether simply because the writers don’t want to focus on the front-office problems, or perhaps because baseball beat writers in Chicago just don’t feel its there place- or perhaps because until just recently the Cubs were owned by the Chicago Tribune- Chicago has never tried to stir up controversy just for controversy sake.

But that has changed a bit this summer.  And you know its bad when the owner of the team, Jerry Reinsdorf, has to talk to reporters to say the recent loud disagreement reported last week between White Sox General Manager Kenny Williams and Field Manager Ozzie Guillien was routine and nothing overly serious, according to this Joe Cowley piece.    Reinsdorf also says that though these two fight this way, they have done it for years- and the recent blow-up that was overheard last week was nothing new.  Still Reinsdorf recognizes that these things can’t be the focus of news reports.  It doesn’t help the team sell tickets.  It doesn’t help the team look like they are on the same page.  It doesn’t help the players work to win.  It simply uses up newsprint and time as other have to combat the rumors that accompany the fights.

Then, on the North-side, you have less off the field stuff, but a team that was supposed to compete is playing terribly, so terribly in fact that the manager has said he is out of ideas.    Piniella sounds beaten in this Tony Ginnetti piece. And how can a team ever did out of a hole if the manager sounds beaten?  While I normally think Piniella is one of the best managers currently in the game- he did bring a World Series to the Reds in 1990- I think you can’t have your manager saying he doesn’t know what else to do.

Clearly, the Cubs, no matter how good all the pieces are, just don’t form a strong TEAM.  Perhaps they will be one of those stories we here about each post season, where the team sat down in a meeting a decided they were going to pull each other up- and suddenly they go on a tear, but I honestly doubt it.  While they look very good on paper, they clearly need more than shipping off Milton Bradley (or any one player) to cure what ails them.  Its going to be a few more years before the Cubs break the drought.