Starting off the last serious part of our All-Decade Project it's time to review each of the 10 seasons of Cubs baseball we all just suffered through. First we have the 2000 season.

The Cubs were coming off a horribly disappointing 1999 season and were ready to start the new decade off with a winning season. New manager Don Baylor was starting his new job and already had some solid players in place. Right fielder Sammy Sosa was the premier player in all of baseball coming off two straight seasons of 60+ homers. 1998 Rookie of the Year Kerry Wood was making his return from Tommy John surgery, and first baseman Mark Grace continued to be a stable force at first base.

The season started in Tokyo, Japan of all places with the Cubs splitting two games against the Mets. Unfortunately that would be the best part of the Cubs season in 2000. A 9-16 April record put the Cubs out of contention quickly and had most fans thinking wait till next year already. May was a brutal month overall with the Cubs going 10-16, but did provide one highlight when Kerry Wood returned from Tommy John surgery on May 2nd. Kerry went six innings giving up three hits and one earned run.

That would just be a tease though as even Kerry couldn't save the Cubs from being bad. As Sosa cranked homer after homer the Cubs lost more and more games. The June Swoon was actually a good month for the Cubs because they finished 12-13 setting up a big month of July. The Cubs went 17-9 in July good enough to perhaps tease some fans into thinking good things might happen down the stretch.

Naturally the 9-20 August effort put any hope to rest quickly, and a 6-22 September just completed the misery. Overall this was one of the worst Cubs teams of the decade, finishing with a 65-97 record good enough for last place in the Central.

The fatal flaw of the 2000 team wasn't necessarily the pathetic offense that had only three players (Sosa, Grace, and Hendry Rodriguez) OPS+ over 100 but rather a brutal pitching staff which allowed 904 over the course of the season. Jon Lieber and Kevin Tapani "anchored" the staff, though their respective ERA's of 4.41 and 5.01 really inspired the rest of the team. Wood finished with a 4.80 ERA and 23 starts. Just brutal.

It is important to point out Sammy Sosa's season, he played in 156 games, hit 50 homers with a 1.041 OPS. He was able to distract many Cubs fans from a pathetic product around him, and did so despite dealign with more than his share of trade rumors. This time period was truly Sammy Sosa's, and he put on quite the show.

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