According to a grown man named Buster, the much beloved Hank White era in Chicago is over.  Hank, shunned by the suddenly lefty-obsessed Jim Hendry has signed with the San Diego Padres for $750,000 for one year.  What, he couldn’t find a Major League team to sign with?

The Cubs are likely to sign the highly inferior Gabor Bako for $500,000 for a year.  Either that or they’ll just use Koyie Dolan Hill as the backup to Rookie of the Year Geovany Soto.  Neither of these seem like good ideas.

Sure, Koyie has a kickass middle name, but the guy cut his fucking fingers off last offseason.  His fingers!  He cut them right off and put them in a little plastic bag, took them to the hospital and had them sewn back on.  I mean, come on, that’s awesome in a manly way, but, oh, I don’t know, how about finding a catcher who’s never cut his fingers off?

As for Bako, the guy sucks ass.  He’s terrible, and frankly we hated him the first time around.  How much did we hate him?

Do you remember this?

I mean why?  Why?

Sure, most of the time your backup catcher isn’t a big deal.  Especially when your starter is as good as Soto is.  BUT…Soto’s got a bad left hand, and he’s fat, and catcher’s get hurt.  What happens if Soto falls face first into a tub of popcorn in April and misses a few months.  We’re going to have to put up with Bako?  Fuck that.

I’ll tell you what’s going to happen.  Jimbo’s going to get on the phone and call Kevin Towers and beg him to trade him Hank.  And by that time, equal value for Hank is going to be Carlos Zambrano, E-ramis and $40 million in cash.  (OK, maybe not the full $40 million.)

A Cubs writer wrote me this about Hank’s departure.

To me, they’re left-handed enough, and if it’s the backup catcher, what the fuck difference does it make anyway? I’ll miss Hank. A great guy.

Fuckin’ A.

Hank, we’ll miss you.  We hope you have fung in AA or whatever league the Padres have been relegated to.  You deserved better.

Taste the happy, Alfonso. Taste the happy!

They call Tony LaRussa the genius and we all scoff, and today we were reminded why. After E-ramis singled to send the winning run, Derrek Lee, to third base with nobody out in the bottom of the 11th in a 2-2 game, LaRussa walked Kosuke Fukudome to get to…

…Hank?

You don’t tug on Superman’s cape.

You don’t spit into the wind.

You don’t pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger.

And you don’t mess around with Hank!

Predictably, Hank singled to left, kindly moving his liner over a couple of feet so it wouldn’t brain Cesar Izturis as it sailed into the outfield. Lee scored, the Cubs won, Wrigley Field was the host of complete pandalerium. We could have been killed. Or worse.

The Cubs are now 24 games over .500 on the season, and the Cardinals are now seven games behind.

These Cubs do not tolerate being trifled with, and nobody hates trifles more than Hank.

With that game winner, for which he received some primo camera time on Comcast with Len Kasper and a fill-in Dan Plesac, Hank is now back up over .300 for the season, and that single increased his HWEqBA by an incredible 1.000 points, up to 1.570, the highest it’s been since the Genius walked him in St. Louis in 2005 before Neifi’s game winning grand slam.

When will you learn, Genius?

When will you learn?

While the Chicago Tribune is sure that our man Hank would make a great manager some day Hank’s not sure he wants to get into management.

“In the minors I worked at a Burger King for a few years.  You know, making some extra money when we weren’t on road trips.  It was kind of a fun job.  But we all thought our manager was a dick.  I remember one day during breakfast rush, he left his visor by the hash browns in the freezer, and we “accidentally” took it and threw it into the fryer.  Man, was he pissed.

“I guess I just never saw myself as a ‘suit.’”

Blanco has played under some of the best baseball managers in recent history.  Bobby Cox, Ron Gardenhire, Dusty Baker and now Lou Piniella.

“And Jerry Royster.  Don’t forget Jerry.”

How could we.

Hank says he’s learned something from all of them.

Cox: “Bobby’s a great guy.  He seems grumpier than he really is.  What I learned from him is that whenever you think the camera is on you in the dugout, and you don’t want it on you because the other team might use it to steal your signs…you start picking your nose.  Really dig in there.  They’ll stop showing you.  Or maybe that was one of the signs?”

Gardenhire: “Young players respond to ‘Gardy’ because he’s always got juice boxes in his office fridge.”

Baker: “Guys liked playing for Dusty because nothing was ever your fault.  Who doesn’t like that?”

Piniella: “Lou’s a lot like Bobby.  Only he doesn’t pick his nose as much.  He usually starts swearing when he thinks the camera is on him.  Good ones, too.  I’ve been around and Lou knows some good one.  I had no idea what a rim job was until I heard Lou yelling about one at a Fox camera guy.”

Will Hank rethink his managerial options when his career is over?

“Probably.  As long as I don’t have to wear wristbands and a chomp on a toothpick all game.  I mean, really, who’s gonna buy that act?”

Spring training is only a couple of weeks old, and already, Cubs legend Henry Blanco is taking to his role as mentor for young catcher Geovany Soto.  The two are inseparable, and Hank appreciates Soto’s efforts to be a sponge.

Geo’s a nice kid.  He works hard.  He wants to learn.  So far I’ve impressed upon him the importance of hard work.  I’ve got him washing my car (a 1993 Honda Civic), doing my laundry (lots of Los Lonely Boys t-shirts) and actually, he’s learning to make a mean Cuban sandwich.

Hank’s car:

Blanco says that of all the young catcher’s he’s worked with (including Javy Lopez and Joe Mauer), Geovany’s a quick study.  Unlike the last guy Hank tried to take under his wing.

I don’t even want to talk about what happened a couple of years ago when I let Michael Barrett wash my old car (a 1984 Toyota Tercel hatchback.)  It’s too tough to relive that.

Yikes.

Nobody does veteran leadership like our Hank, shown here trying to drown weasely Tribune CEO Dennis FitzSimons.

Hank made a rare appearance late in yesterday’s game in Florida and though the Cubs lost that one, just having the great one in his gear spurred them on to a division winning effort in Cincinnati.

Hank’s not sure if he’s going to make the postseason roster, but he is sure that he’s going to take a butter knife to Geovany Soto’s Achilles tendons tonight when the rookie passes out in the clubhouse.

In his first action since his triumphant return from the 60-day disabled list, Hank found himself in a big spot.  The Cubs had just scored a run in the 10th to take a 3-2 lead on the Giants and the Cubs had runners on first and third with only one out.

Pitcher Rusty Lisch (or whatever his name was) pitched carefully to the Hankster, falling behind 3-1.  On the 3-1 pitch, the runner at third Mike Fontenot broke for home as Jock Jones skipped down towards second.  Hank pulled off a perfect suicide squeeze giving the Cubs their fourth and final run of the night.

The Cubs celebrated by banging Hank on the head (not a good thing for a guy who spent three months on the DL with a bad neck) and shirtless hugs for everybody!

Today, the Cubs look down at the rest of the Central Division and laugh.  With Hank back in action, this pennant race is over.

Viva Hank!

Hank is excited about the chance to get back in the lineup, and even more excited about his first trip to rehab.

“My agent is trying to set it up so that I can room with Lindsay Lohan.  I like all of her movies.  Mean Girls was awesome, Freaky Friday is a favorite and the one where she gets high, and drunk and crashes her car into a stop sign was really good.  Actually I never saw that movie, just the footage from it that they showed on ‘Inside Edition.’”

Hank has been out since May with a bulging cervical disk, an injury that initially confused Hank and his wife.

“Any time you hurt your cervix you go to the OB/GYN, we know that.  They refused to even see me, which I was upset about.  But I went to a regular doctor and he said I needed to do some sit-ups, some plyometrics and eat lots of ice cream.  Sure enough, now I’m better.”

“They said I have a herniated cervical disk,” Hank said while enjoying a couple of Big Fat Tacos from Del Taco.  “But that can’t be right.  My back hurts.  There’s nothing wrong with my cervix.  I’m not even sure I have one.”

The Cubs recalled catcher Koyie Hill from their AAA team in Iowa.

Hank has some advice for Koyie.  “I like to help the rookies out as much as I can.  So I’ll just tell him this.  If I send him to Del Taco like I did Marmol today, he should not just assume that they put sauce in the bag.  You have to ask for it.

Kids these days.”

Currently, the only statue outside of Wrigley Field is that of drunken, but beloved announcer Harry Caray.  Now, the franchise has plans to give Harry some company.

Fans coming to Wrigley Field to enjoy some sun, some beer and the thrill of the chase of fourth place long into the summer will have yet another worthy diversion before they even get through the turnstile.

President John McDonough (of the Cubs, not the United States) announced in a statement Tuesday that the Cubs will erect a statue of their greatest player in team history.

“This is richly deserved for Ernie Banks Henry Blanco and it’s a great way to honor ‘Mr. Cub,’” Cubs team president John McDonough said in a statement. “The statue will help immortalize someone who continues to have a tremendous impact on the Cubs and its fans, just as he did while he was does on the playing field.”

The Fan Club knows that we played an important role in getting this much anticipated project off the ground.  Over the past two and a half years, we have collected nearly tens of dollars from people hoping that some day they could see their hero, Hank White immortalized in bronze.

Well, except for the one guy who wanted him frozen in carbonite.  But that guy rarely leaves his basement anymore.

Yes, it’s Ed Hartig.

Congratulations, Hank!  Can’t wait to see your big erection!  Of the statue. 

2K Sports’ spokesman Frank Kush said that getting Henry Blanco’s endorsement means millions for the company.  “Most hard core gamers identify quite a bit with Hank White.  They’re sedentary, somewhat overweight, need a haircut and when they fall asleep on a chair in the clubhouse [clubhouse meaning--their parents' basement] their fly is likely down, too.  [Probably because they've been jacking it to Battlestar Gallactica.]  Hank is one of the most popular athletes for hardcore gamers.  He’s on that list of the best of the best along with Keith Traylor, Robert Traylor and, of course, Jimmy Anderson.”

Blanco was unaware his photo was on the MLB 2K7 cover and said that he would probably place a phone call to his attorney to see what the deal was.  But first he had to catch the Cubs-Brewers game on Tuesday and then take several naps.