Poor Jim Hendry. It’s not enough that he has to dip into his mea culpa bag every time someone brings up the name of Milton Bradley; he also has to answer questions about our state’s creepy former governor.

(Top) I saw this poster last week in the window of a downtown Chicago bar and figured it was part of a new ad campaign for Old Style. At first, it seemed like a smart way to frame the Cubs’ most recent miserable season and to galvanize Cubdom’s real diehards for the season ahead. Then I noticed the copyright date.

Yeah, the names change every year but the story is always the same. I guess after all these years, we don’t need any more galvanizing. Just a team that doesn’t make us want to throw up.

Burning Cub question of the day:

What’s the proper pronunciation of the first name of new Cub outfielder Xavier Nady?

Ben Shpigel of the New York Times had the answer four years ago, when Nady, a sixth-generation Xavier, was newly a Met:

The continual line of Xavier Nadys…stretches back more than 150 years, to when Nady’s great-great-great-grandfather, the man they call X the First, moved his family from eastern France to raise horses on a 660-acre patch of farmland in southeastern Iowa.

Xavier Clifford Nady, or Xavier VI, said he did not know much about his early ancestry, other than he pronounces his first name differently, putting a modern-day signature on a 16th-century name. Nady’s father pronounces it ZAY-vee-yer — “That’s the correct way,” Nady said. But Nady, whose Mets teammates call him X or X-Man, prefers EX-ay-vee-yer to, ahem, exaggerate the X.

“Why not, right?” Nady said. “It’s pretty cool.”

Like Nady’s Met teammates four years ago, Cubs GM Jim Hendry repeatedly referred to Nady as “X” when announcing the signing.

If the nickname was ever really cool, that surely killed it.

6 Number of runs Cubs scored

37% Percentage of games this season (23 of 62) in which the Cubs have scored 6 or more runs

45% Percentage of games last season (73 of 161) in which the Cubs scored 6 or more runs

4 Number of runs Cubs scored in Thursday’s 8th inning

1 Number of other times this season the Cubs have scored that many runs in an 8th inning

3 Number of games in which the Cubs have trailed entering the 8th inning but gone on to win. (Team’s record in those games is 3-25, .107)

8 Number of games last year in which the Cubs trailed going into the 8th but still won. (Cubs’ record in those games last year was 8-49, .140)

.250 Cubs’ batting average (2-for-8) with runners in scoring position yesterday.

.227 Cubs’ batting average with RISP so far in 2009; ranks last in NL.

.278 Cubs’ batting average with RISP in 2008; ranked first in NL.

2 Number of hits Alfonso Soriano had in yesterday’s victory, including the game-winning hit in the last of the 9th.

35 Number of games last season (out of 109 played) in which Soriano had 2 or more hits in 2008.

14 Number of games this season (out of 60 played) in which Alfonso Soriano has collected 2 or more hits.

25 Number of games Alfonso Soriano went in between 2-hit performances—last one was on May 17th v. the Astros—but maybe yesterday was a start.

Shannon Shark of The Mets Police attended today’s Cubs/Sox game. It was Shannon’s first-ever visit to The Friendly Confines, and the impression left was overwhelmingly positive:

I’m having a blast. Wrigley is 10,000 times better than Citi (or Yankee). Amazing that a 95 year old park can be so much better than one that is three months old…

…No bombardment of audio nor advertising. Organ music…

Interesting that the stores sell tons of variant merch, but almost all just blue and red. Funny how teams can survive without black jerseys and a sponsored noisefest between every inning…

To the NY Yankees: you guys are on crack giving up what you had. If they can make this place work you could’ve made Yankee Stadium work without a Hard Rock Café.

Reading this late today made me feel good about the Cubs and Wrigley. Then I started looking back over today’s game stories.

The good feeling passed.

Writing at FirstInning.com, Matt Swain reports on lefthanded-hitting outfielder Kyler Burke, acquired back in ‘07 by the Cubs from San Diego in exchange for Carlos Zambrano punching bag, Michael Barrett.

Of the 6-3, 205-pound Burke, currently boasting an 857 OPS for Class-A Peoria, Swain says:

…this breakout has been a long time coming, as Burke hasn’t enjoyed this kind of sustained success since high school. The puzzling part is trying to figure out what has changed. The ’06 supplemental first rounder hasn’t improved his plate discipline, line drive rates, or anything really. But his 27 doubles easily lead the league and make it hard for me to believe he’s just been lucky. One possibility is that hitting in front of Josh Vitters is affording him more fastballs to hit, and he is taking advantage. Burke has a sweet swing from the left side of the plate and a body that was made to play baseball. Right now he lives in the outfield gaps, and probably needs to alter his swing a bit to project for more power, but he has the bat speed to be a home run threat down the road.