Odd, isn't it, how Big Z's a perfect fit?

Like it or not, Carlos Zambrano fits right into Cubs tradition.

This current club is dysfunctional, but "dysfunctional Cubs" is sort of redundant.

Better to just say that they're still the Cubs, a franchise of oddballs, odd fits or both.

That's only one of myriad reasons a baseball team can go a century without winning a World Series.

Remember, the man still called Mr. Cub wanted to play two every day even though during his best years they were lucky to win one.

Ernie Banks did earn consecutive Most Valuable Player awards on teams that finished in fifth place, didn't he?

Then in 1969 the Cubs couldn't win the pennant with three Hall of Famers, perhaps because fabled manager Leo Durocher wasn't fired for leaving in the middle of a July game to attend parents' day at Camp Ojibwa in Wisconsin.

Then there was Sammy Sosa, who was allowed to do what he wanted because he provided the Cubs with the longball that fans dig.

So when manager Don Baylor wanted to reverse Sosa's negative clubhouse influence, forces forced him to back off.

Years later a player - the most prominent suspect being Kerry Wood - became a folk hero by smashing Sosa's boombox when he wasn't looking.

A good question might be why the player or group of players didn't confront Sosa about the noise and if he didn't mute it simply beat the bleep out of him?

Anyway, to revive a restaurant analogy, Cubs management has tended to prefer circuses to food.

Too often the Cubs protected popular players for the wrong reasons instead of exploiting their full potential to win a championship.

Seriously, that is how a franchise avoids even being in a World Series for 63 seasons.

Now the Cubs have Zambrano, who has a $91.5 million contract but would be broke if he balanced his checkbook like he does his emotions.

Baseball people love passionate players because so many major-leaguers prefer being as cool as the cold cash they're being paid.

"He loves to compete," White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen says of Zambrano, a fellow Venezuelan. "He just wants to compete, just wants to win."

So you have to think the Sox would take Zambrano if he were available. So would countless other teams.

However, Zambrano belongs to the Cubs and they're, well, you could say they're stuck with him and his antics and his temper and his unpredictability and his no-trade contract.

What the Cubs have to be asking themselves is how it came to this, considering they have had Zambrano in their organization since 1997.

Didn't anybody in the minor leagues impress upon him that his outbursts were unacceptable? Couldn't anybody discipline him once he arrived in the major leagues as a 20-year-old?

The answer to both questions apparently is no.

Similar to cable-TV's USA Network, the people in charge of the Cubs always have had a "characters welcome" policy because the average fan is drawn to them.

Heck, I like characters, and that includes Zambrano.

Guys like that bring attention to a team and away from the fact it hasn't won a World Series since 1908.

mimrem@dailyherald.com