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As the holidays draw near it's time to start making lists. Even in the wake of seasons as lackluster as 2010 there are things to be grateful for. Take, for instance, the following:

1. The Cubs still don't have a mascot.

2. Most of the seats at Wrigley Field are still unobstructed.

3. Most of the events staged there are still baseball games.

4. Ron Santo still works there.

5. The scoreboard is still [literally] alive.

6. The Triple A team still plays where I live.

7. We're out from under Rothschild's contract & burdensome last name.

8. All of the other contracts are a year older.

9. Cubs are undefeated & unbeatable for another four-plus months.

10. Sunshine is a known cure for Ricketts.

Enough with Thanksgiving. What about a Christmas list?

1. A .648 winning % [aka, 24 -13].

2. A bullpen made up of one year contracts.

3. An honest year's work out of Zambrano.

4. A decent year's work out of Soriano.

5. Above average grades for the sophomore C's.

6. Another home[y] for Fukodome?

7. Hi-ho Silva! Away?

8. A pulse for Len; a muzzle for Bob.

9. A new sweater for Pat; a clue for Ron.

10. A once-in-a-lifetime season for all of us!

Maples are my favorite kind of tree. They are at their best this time of the year. I grew up in the shade of a huge one and one of our two pooches is even named Maple. But someday a maple baseball bat is going to be the cause of death. What a way to go.

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that one of the games in the season-ending series between Iowa and Memphis included five shattered bats. I don’t know how many of those were maple, but there is a growing body of evidence that maple bats crack differently than ones made of ash. A game which has always featured balls as hard as stones being hurled around at high speeds and being swatted with wooden clubs is becoming even more dangerous with metallic mallets at amateur levels and maple ones in the major leagues...

What’s to be made of Mike Quade’s 17-7 record as the Cubs’ skipper? What a shame that the best series the team’s had in St. Louis in over 20 years and the best road trip it’s ever enjoyed benefit no one in the Cub legions with the possible exception of Mr. Clean. Will Jim Hendry attach any significance to this run? The games are barely facsimiles of meaningful ones when pennants and playoff berths are still at stake. Here’s a thought: maybe hiring Quade would so underwhelm the masses that attendance would stay down next year and keep the pressure relatively low on the youngsters. They’ve been thriving under more or less those conditions this month.

Phil Rogers mentioned Seattle as perhaps another logical spot for Ryne Sandberg in yesterday’s Tribune. It makes some sense. Sandberg hails from Washington. There are going to be a lot of jobs open this winter and Sandberg will get one of them, I’m betting. I hope it’s the one he’s best-suited for in the organization he’s most familiar with in all ways, especially organizational history and personnel.

Recent remarks by Mr. Ricketts can easily be interpreted as Sandberg stage-setters. The best combination of the new ownership’s business instincts and fondness for the Cubs would seem to be #23. The combination of a philosophical downshift to homegrown young talent and a no-name manager will cost the royal family a lot of money in the short-term. More, I hope they decide, than they can afford.

Pay no attention to the man behind the meaningless lineup cards!

Long story short, Mark Hamilton's solo homer with two out in the top of the 9th gave Memphis a see-saw 7-6 win over Iowa today that also advanced the Redbirds to the PCL playoffs and ended the Cubs' season. The teams deadlocked for their divisional crown with records of 82-62 and split their season series 8-8 but the playoff berth goes to the visitors on the basis of their superior intra-divsional record.

It was another pulsating game in a pulsating series. I would say that the umpiring left a little to be desired, not necessarily in terms of the accuracy of calls, but in the length of fuses. After all, these were two teams in a dead heat with 140 games down and four to go. Thicken the skins and stop tossing people in the early innings. More on that later.

Thanks to a 33 year-old journeyman who's probably had all he's likely to get of the big leagues, what remains of the Iowa Cubs took another big step toward a division pennant and the PCL playoffs with an 8-5 win over the Memphis Redbirds last night in Des Moines. Jeff Samardzija will take the mound this afternoon and try to toss the clincher.