Saturday the Chicago Cubs had a minor controversy that to my knowledge escaped all national media attention. Jason Marquis is in a four-way battle with Jon Lieber, Sean Marshall and former starter-turned-closer-returned-starter Ryan Dempster, for the final two spots in the Cubbies’ starting rotation. On Saturday afternoon when asked about the prospects on not being one of those two starters, Marquis said he could, "take my services elsewhere if that's the case, and I could help another team in that capacity as a starter."

Making matters worse and boiling my blood in the process, he played the Latrell Card saying, “As much as I want to be here in Chicago, and I love it, I love the fans and the stadium, I also have a family to worry about, too.”

To which Cubs Manager, “Sweet” Lou Piniella replied, "We've got seven guys here competing for a spot in the rotation, and everyone is going to get an equal chance. After the first start of Spring Training, saying if I'm not going to make the rotation, I'd like to go somewhere else, well, he can go somewhere else right now if he wants. How's that?"

Excellent.

Mr. Marquis is the epitome of average. He’s 68-61 with a 4.56 ERA and 1.5 strikeouts for every walk. He’s made a smidge under $13 million the last three seasons in St. Louis and Chicago while compiling a 39-39 record with a 4.90 ERA. Per his three-year pact with the Cubs, he’s due another $16 million-plus this year and next. In nine Major League seasons, he will have earned more than $30 million. To date, the pitching awards he has won or statistical categories he has lead were all in 2006. They were: most HR allowed in the NL, most earned runs allowed in the NL and most losses in the NL.

To my chagrin, Piniella later apologized for his comments.

In my opinion, Marquis is just on this side of being an absolute bum. He wasn’t dependable enough to throw a pitch in the 2007 postseason for the Cubs, a year removed from being left off the roster in the playoffs as the Cardinals won the World Series. So who he is going to “help” in a starting capacity I do not know. It certainly hasn’t been any of the three teams he has played for.

While I’m not a fan of his, this isn’t an indictment solely on him. It’s a beef with athletes in general, he’s merely the most recent story of selfishness I have heard. However, if I was so bad at my job that my boss told me to sit to the side and watch my co-workers during the most important whatever-it-is of the year and then another company in desperate need for a guy of my craft paid me $21 million to do it for three years, you want to now what I’d do? Shut the Hell up and laugh every time I cashed a paycheck and set myself, my kids and their kids up for life.

Nothing is worse than playing that family card. There actually are families in society that aren’t making it, Jason. My guess is that most of them aren’t on the way to crossing the $30 million “earned” mark anytime soon. Athletes take note: you’ve been given a great gift as a means to make a highly inflated living, please don’t offend the sensibilities of everyone who fills a seat to pay your salary or the reporters who cover what you do with any claims that your family may be struggling.

I understand the competitor in any athlete wants to do whatever it is he or she sets out to do. If that’s to be a starting pitcher instead of a reliever, so be it. As a GM or coach of any sort you constantly take stock of your players. When one of them cannot stand the in-house heat to win a job over two of three guys that aren’t exactly Johan Santana and starts talking about being moved to a place where he could be given a job rather than earn it, how comfortable can you be in ever allowing him to pitch for you? You think that’s why he hasn’t thrown one ball in the past two post seasons- when everything is magnified and matters most? Marquis showed his true colors here and why he cannot be counted on to win anything.

Another winner in the city of Chicago is newly acquired shooting guard, Larry Hughes. Known as a selfish player who likes to take a bunch of shots who didn’t like playing with LeBron James because he had fewer opportunities to do so, Hughes had this nugget to say upon his return to Cleveland for Sunday’s game: "We had 50-plus wins, made the Finals and I learned from it. I was unhappy, though, and wasn't myself. I'd rather enjoy the game than all that."

What? Are you serious?

Instead of being a valuable role player on a team that’s headed by one of our generation’s great players and going to championships, you would rather score 20 points a night on a Bulls team that’s a baker’s dozen under par?

I, and I imagine most men reading this, would give my left you-name-it to have had a professional sports career in which I made millions of dollars. When I do anything, much less play sports, I do it to win. I would be absolutely beside myself if my team wasn’t winning and athlete’s today prefer playing for a loser because it makes them look better. For shame. Two guys in my town that I wasn’t a fan of and now never will be. But you know what? I’ll be to the mountaintop in their respective sports as many times as they will and for that I hope they’re proud.