This photo was chosen from among four selections I sent to sparkles721, BCB's #1 Z fan. I felt she should be the one to choose his best pose to use as part of this profile -- and this captures him perfectly, I think.

Well he went down to dinner in his Sunday best
Excitable boy, they all said
And he rubbed the pot roast all over his chest
Excitable boy, they all said
Well he's just an excitable boy...
-- Warren Zevon, "Excitable Boy"

Rubbing pot roast on his chest is about the only thing the very, very excitable Carlos Zambrano hasn't done on the pitcher's mound.

I'm exaggerating here, of course. Z's excitable nature, his histrionics on the mound, his clear passion for playing baseball, are all things that make him the exciting player to watch, the guy we all love, the pitcher who's already, at age 25, a dominant force in the major leagues.

Carlos was born June 1, 1981 in Puerto Cabello, Venezuela. Look at that birth date and realize that there are players born on or around that time who are still toiling away in the minor leagues, having not made any impact in major league baseball, or perhaps not even having played a single game in the majors. For an excellent example of this, you need go no further than the Cubs' own 40-man roster, where you will find the name of Clay Rapada, recently added; many people, including many of you, think Rapada has talent (and I'd agree), and might someday become a good major league reliever.

Rapada was born March 9, 1981 -- he is three months older than Z, and has never thrown a major league pitch.

In fact, when Z made his major league debut, starting the second game of a doubleheader against the Brewers on August 20, 2001, he was the first player in the major leagues to have been born in the 1980's; he was only a couple of months past his 20th birthday. That debut was, as was Kerry Wood's, less than auspicious; he gave up four hits and four walks in four innings, including a three-run homer to Kevin Brown (this Kevin Brown, not the pitcher), and Don Baylor mercifully pulled him after he allowed a single, walk, stolen base and wild pitch to start the fifth inning.

I had seen Z throw in spring training that year and had some spirited debates on the old Cubs Usenet newsgroup (which some of you might remember) about whether Z might be better suited to relief pitching. In fact, had he taken that track, he might well have become an elite closer. He certainly has the stuff and the mound presence and the right approach to be one.

But I think we're all glad that he didn't, and that he was quickly able to harness his considerable talent as a starting pitcher. By the middle of the 2002 season, a lost year for the Cubs, Z was in the starting rotation to stay, and gained confidence as the season went on, finishing with only a 4-8 record, but a respectable 3.66 ERA.

Z, along with the rest of the Cubs, burst onto the national scene in 2003; at age 22 he went 13-11 for the Central Division champions, with 168 strikeouts and a 3.11 ERA. His hitting prowess began to get noticed as well; on July 25, his two-run homer in Houston off his future teammate Wade Miller tied up a game that the Cubs eventually won 5-3. During the postseason, we began to see some of the emotions that Z has become noted for; in game five of the NLCS, the Cubs' first shot at winning that series, Z seemed overwrought and had to be yanked after struggling through five innings, though it's doubtful anyone could have matched Josh Beckett's two-hitter that day.

In the last three seasons Z has established himself as one of the top starting pitchers in the major leagues, winning sixteen, fourteen and sixteen games, and being durable as well (throwing 209, 223 and 214 innings), although he has chronic back problems that require careful monitoring, and during the 2005 season he briefly had a minor elbow problem supposedly caused by too much time spent on the computer emailing his brother in Venezuela. We can laugh at this now because it turned out to be nothing serious.

Z has continued contributing with his bat, too; his six home runs in 2006 tied the club record for home runs by a pitcher (Ferguson Jenkins, 1971), and is the second-most hit by any pitcher in a season since 1955 (Earl Wilson, Mike Hampton and Don Drysdale all hit seven in a season).

I think all of us love the passion Z brings to the mound every start, not to mention his considerable talent. If he can channel that emotion into his pitching and not let it get the best of him, there's no telling the greatness to which he can ascend. The Cubs are likely to try to sign him to a long-term contract extension before the 2007 season begins, and I'm all for that. If he matches his 2006 strikeout total of 210 in 2007, he'll move up to tenth on the all-time Cub list, one behind Bob Rush. He could, if he stays with the Cubs and continues to put up the sort of numbers he already has over several more seasons, wind up as the greatest pitcher in club history. Now that would be worth showing some emotion about!

Carlos Zambrano's career stats at baseball-reference.com