Reminds me of the old Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In running joke (yes, I’m showing my age- shut up).

The Farkles – A large suburban family whose kids ALL looked NOTHING like the dad but rather EXACTLY like the red headed, horn rim glasses wearing and freckled next door neighbor Ferd Berfel (think of a grown up Howdy Doody- and if you don’t know Rowan & Martin, well, Howdy Doody doesn’t stand a chance). It’s a visual joke.

Most of the sketch involved pipe smoking “Dad” Farkle (Dan Rowan) introducing his wife Jo Ann Farkle (Jo Ann Whorley) and his family and next door neighbor to someone. The kids names all rhymed with Farkle or were a play on words for “Farkle”.

Example: “Hi Bob. This is my wife Jo Ann Farkle and my next door neighbor Ferd Berfel. These are my kids: daughters Flicker Farkle, Sparkle Farkle and the twins Simon and Gar Farkel…etc., and after a dozen or so names eventually ending on the payoff of : … and HER!” (where yet another unnamed kid sitting cross-legged on the floor – usually Judy Carne – would look up at the visitor, pull their feet up and over their head while rolling around on the floor and shriek “HI”!)

It was all very nudge-nudge, wink-wink, pre-Deliverance kind of “hillbilly humor”…

Sorry Al, I’m not shaving my head. It’s falling our well enough on it’s own thanks.

when they all added Arquette to their names in the credits

There is a reason. You’ll all find out soon.

31 games in AA, on top of what bdlugz said.

Triple A has become a kind of taxi squad of guys who are good enough to play in the majors but not good enough to take someone’s job away from them. That leaves them kind of bitter sometimes and you don’t want your top prospects hanging around that. (To be fair, though, I don’t know specifically of any I-Cubs like that, and there’s Bobby Scales who’s always a positive role model.)

Castro coulld play in AAA and I don’t think it would hurt him. But unless he just massacres the Southern League (and he didn’t last year, he just held his own), I think AA competition would be good enough and there would be less pressure on him.

if he doesnt open with us (75%) he will go to AAA to work with Sandberg…

Some of the reason the Cubs were unable to develop position players was because of Andy MacPhail, who had a philosophy of concentrating on pitching in the minors and then trading the excess, because he figured that’s what the Atlanta Braves were doing in the 1990s. So some of that is because we just weren’t trying very hard.

That’s not to say that we haven’t had our share of busts in the minors. In fact, we might have had a few more than normal. But when you don’t sign a lot of good position player prospects, then if some of them don’t pan out, the cupboard is really bare.

There is zero need to rush him.