The Chicago Cubs and MLB suffered a major blow with the injury to Corey Patterson. Patterson tore up his ACL in his knee on a close play at first base yesterday. His injury will end his season.

Patterson blossomed into one of the brightest young stars in the league under Dusty Baker (who we'll discuss a bit later). Such blossomings are what makes baseball such a fun game to follow. Patterson was batting .298 at the time with 13 homer, 55 RBI with 16 stolen bases and was playing great defense. The Fan wishes the best for Corey and hopes that the injury can be overcome with hard work.

It's hard not to think of Jermaine Dye at a time like this. Dye just came into his own when he was traded to Oakland during the race a few years back. Dye helped the A's get to the playoffs and then in those playoffs horribly broke his leg. Dye has never been the same player since and now has a severely separated shoulder after a collision at the plate. Sad.

This has been a year marred by injuries to exciting players. Ken Griffey was poised after years of injuries to have a big year. He hit ten homers during Spring Training. A few games into the season and he separates his shoulder. He has struggled since and is currently batting .238. Sad.

Speaking of sad and the Cubs, it hasn't been a good month for the club with the Patterson injury topping the list. First you have Sammy Sosa's unfortunate problem with his bat. Next, you have all those blown saves with terrible relief pitching. Then you have Dusty Baker opening his mouth and inserting his foot. Basically, what Dusty said was that latino and black players are better suited to hot summer baseball than their white counterparts.

I remember that it wasn't too long ago that Al Campanis lost his baseball executive job after a wonderful career because he stated that blacks run better and are stronger than whites. While I'm not a fan of the politically correct, Baker's statements will result in a slap on the wrist because Dusty is African-American while Campanis was white. There is something wrong with that.

I don't have a problem with Baker having that opinion but in his position, he should have kept that opinion to himself. His statements are embarrassing to baseball in a time when baseball is in a position to aid in the end to blind and ignorant racism in America.

And one more Cubs sad comment before we call it a night (and I like the Cubs and want them to win). They have stated their disappointment in not being able to trade for Mike Lowell because they need a bat at third base. It seems to me that they had one Bill Mueller and let him go. He's only hitting .330 for the Red Sox this season.