It's been a tough spring to write about the Cubs. Very little of interest has happened at Ho Ho Kam. Sure, the Sterling Castro watch was fun for a while, but there was no way he was going to break camp with the big club when sending him to Iowa for a few weeks can defer the club spending a few million bucks. Yes, keeping an eye open for Ted Lilly has its merits. But having done this five years ago with Mark Prior, doing so is just too tiring.

There was some mild interest in what the batting order would be. Will Ryan Theriot lead off or will Kosuke Fukudome? In reality, if that's your best two options for leadoff, you probably don’t have a real option at all.

All the starting position players were pretty much set as soon as Marlon Byrd was signed to play center field. No battles here.

On the management front, Lou Piniella has done solid work in his time here and seems to be jockeying for a contract extension. But, like Castro at short, there’s no real reason to make a decision on Lou right now. The people who will decide if Lou stays weren't here when Lou was hired. The Ricketts will make their decision based on 2010, not 2007 through 2009.

What this team can do will be shown on the field from April through July, not in Arizona. Once those four months are in the books, we’ll know that the Cubs are either contenders, or if the Ricketts have the courage and the smarts to start dismantling the core of an aging ballclub while there is still value for some of the parts.

Spring training can't end soon enough as it hasn’t told us a thing about this club.