It's Official: Jaramillo to the Cubs

Rudy Jaramillo, one of the top hitting coaches in baseball, has officially signed with the Cubs. Jaramillo will join Lou Piniella's staff in 2009. Rudy will be the first new Cubs coach (besides interim Von Joshua) since Piniella & Company in 2007. "Rudy Jaramillo is widely regarded as the premiere hitting instructor in the game," Cubs general manager Jim Hendry said in a statement. "The addition of Rudy to our franchise is a strong statement from our new owners, the Ricketts family, and we thank them for allowing us to move quickly to fill this important role with the best in the business."

The deal is for 3 years $2.42 million. Will Rudy get Alfonso Soriano back to crushing the ball? Will Milton Bradley remain a Cub to reunite with his old hitting coach in Jaramillo?

The move is a good one for the Cubs, but the players must get the job done. It is going to take more then a hitting coach to turn that offense around, we need production!

I'll keep you posted on this story if any news breaks, and I will have radio recaps added to this post or in a new post later so stay tuned!

Updated with Radio Recaps

A few unrelated radio recaps! Alex Gibney was on Sports Central with David Kaplan to talk about his upcoming documentary on Steve Bartmen:

• Alex is part of an ESPN project. He has been assigned the cover the Steve Bartmen incident.
• Alex actually grew up in Boston, where they have felt the same pain that Cubs fans feel before their World Series win in '04.
• Gibney says, "It's always more than one thing." However, when Alou didn't catch the ball on that night, it was the turning point in the game according to many Cubs fans.
• There were a lot of fans who went for the ball, but Steve was the one who became the scapegoat because he touched it.
• Slowly but surely people start pointing at Steve, and things went crazy.
• Alex says that Bartman unnerved everyone, and then the team fell apart. But was Steve the turning of the screw?
• It's been 6 years since the Steve Bartman incident! October 14 marked the anniversary.
• Gibney, as a Red Sox fan, compared the Bartman situation to the Bill Buckner situation.
• The expectation for the Cubs is that they are going to win.
• The first caller that Kap took added that he now feels bad for the guy.
• Tom, the second caller, was impressed with the way Dusty Baker handled the thing. Dusty didn't blame Bartmen.
• Gibney doesn't think the player blamed Steve at all.
• The 3rd caller, Betsy, pointed out the Alou's reaction that focused the stadium at Bartmen.
• Kap and Steve wonder what Steve was listening to when he was escorted out with the headphones still on.
• Many callers feels sorry for Steve.
• Kap is surprised that this is still a hot topic 6 years later.
• If the Cubs win the World Series, this will disappear.

Much more tomorrow!