March 31, 2011 Cubs.com Quade still undecided about second base By: Carrie Muskat MESA, Ariz. -- Cubs manager Mike Quade had plenty of reading material for the flight from Phoenix to Chicago on Wednesday. He's perusing two large red-covered notebooks loaded with statistics as he finalizes the Opening Day lineup. Three spots are set -- Starlin Castro at No. 2, followed by Marlon Byrd and Aramis Ramirez. Still to be determined is who starts at second base. Rookie Darwin Barney has impressed the team with his defense and could get the nod, Quade said. Blake DeWitt started at third base on Wednesday in an intrasquad game. "We need to get him swinging the bat," Quade said of DeWitt, who was 11-for-59 this spring. Expect Kosuke Fukudome to be leading off against most right-handers this year. Quade wasn't fretting over the outfielder's .173 average this spring. "He's somebody I don't worry about," Quade said. "I love his at-bats. I love that he sees a lot of pitches. He'll hit better than he did down here. He's always had a pretty good on-base percentage and that's what you're looking for in the top spot." The Cubs also are counting on Fukudome to have another strong April. He has a career .326 average in the first month. How will Quade handle having four outfielders for three spots? He'll figure out a way to get Fukudome, Tyler Colvin, Marlon Byrd and Alfonso Soriano enough at-bats. "Sometimes that works itself out," he said. "If it's a headache for me all year, that means it's a good headache." There is no Lenny Harris or Dave Hansen or Daryl Ward on the Cubs bench this year. They don't have a prototypical pinch-hitter. "You hope that whoever has that off day, be it Colvin, be it [Fukudome], be it [Soriano], be it [Blake] DeWitt, be it [Jeff] Baker or Barney, those guys can all contribute swinging the bat," Quade said. "There can be an art to pinch-hitting. Those guys are versatile as heck, all capable of starting and contributing, so why wouldn't they be able to handle those pinch-hit roles?" Extra bases Andrew Cashner will not accompany the team to Chicago on Wednesday, but instead stay back in Arizona to throw in the Cubs Minor League camp. Cashner wasn't too happy about that. "He was like, mad," Quade said. "He didn't want to stay back. He wants to go with the club." Cashner, scheduled to start April 5 against the D-Backs, will fly to Chicago on Thursday so he can be at Wrigley Field in time for the Opening Day festivities ... Catcher Max Ramirez cleared waivers and was outrighted to Triple-A Iowa. He hit .294 this spring but was slowed by a sore left wrist ... Quade's parents and brother will be in the crowd at Wrigley Field for Opening Day. He has a lot of friends who want to be there as well. "It's going to be a great day for me and I'm glad they're there, but I'm not asking everybody to drop everything and come to the ballpark," he said. "I hope to be here for a little while so there are other days people can come. It'll be a nice day for me and nice day for them." ... The Cubs will work out at Wrigley Field on Thursday in preparation of the season opener ... The Cubs wrapped up their preseason schedule on Wednesday with an intrasquad game at HoHoKam Park. The Minor Leaguers beat the Major League squad, 8-6, in front of 3,993 fans. The game gave Randy Wells one more tuneup before the regular season starts. The right-hander, who will be No. 4 in the rotation, gave up one run on two hits and one walk over three innings. Jeff Baker and Blake DeWitt were both 2-for-2 and Darwin Barney hit a two-run home run. Josh Vitters hit an RBI triple for the Minor League team. The Cubs' Minor Leaguers actually played most of the game. The Major Leaguers had two at-bats and then were lifted. -- Cubs.com Umpire Bellino makes first Opening Day 'roster' After quick rise through Minors, he's a full-time crew member in '11 By: Carrie Muskat MESA, Ariz. -- On Opening Day, thousands of kids will watch a Major League Baseball game and dream of becoming the next Roy Halladay or the next Derek Jeter. Dan Bellino wants to be the next Jerry Crawford. Or Randy Marsh. Or Joe West. Or Larry Young. On Thursday, Bellino will take a huge step in fulfilling his dream when he begins his first season as a full-time member on an MLB umpire crew, starting at Great American Ball Park, when the Reds play host to the Brewers. Bellino, 32, got to the big leagues quicker than most. He graduated from law school in the winter of 2002. Usually it takes three years to complete that curriculum, but he finished in 2 1/2 years because he wanted to attend umpire school in January 2003. A catcher on his Loyola Academy (Wilmette, Ill.) high school team, Bellino gravitated toward the arbitrator side of sports. It started when he was a referee at high school and college basketball games. One of his law school professors suggested he consider umpiring and arranged a lunch with Young, then a crew chief. "He was my introduction to baseball," Bellino said of Young, now an umpire supervisor. Bellino was so successful in umpire school, he was asked to be an instructor. His first year in the Minors was 2003, so this will be his ninth year in professional baseball. That may seem like a long time to reach the majors, but normally umpires spend 10 to 12 years prepping in the Minors before they get called up. The odds of making it are about the same as a Minor League player. Young said 300 people attend umpire school each year and only 20 may get a job. MLB added two other full-time umpires this year -- Scott Barry and Brian Knight. Barry has umpired professionally since 2000; Knight since 1995. "We climb the ranks just like the players do," said Bellino, who worked more than 1,000 games in the New York-Penn League, the Midwest League, the Florida State League, the Eastern League, the Pacific Coast League, and, along the way, the Puerto Rican Winter League, the Hawaiian Winter League and instructional league. "It's been a really fun eight years," he said. "The most difficult part, by far, is the travel and being away from my family. To be completely honest, I don't think they pay umpires to umpire. They pay us to be away from our family. The actual umpiring is the part of the job we all love." There were days when Bellino wondered if this was the right career path. After all, he does have a degree in real estate law. "I remember being in cities in New York -- Oneonta, N.Y., in particular -- where you do question, 'Is this something I should be doing?'" he said. "The more success you have and the higher levels you get, the more it makes sense. "Receiving the phone call and being told you're the permanent member of a staff, there's no better call to receive," he said. "It vindicated me from any of my skeptics who said, 'You're crazy,' and a lot of people questioned my motives. This is what I love, it's what I want to do." He got that call on March 9 this year. Bellino actually made his Major League debut June 25, 2008, when the Orioles played the Cubs at Wrigley Field in an Interleague game. It was an emergency situation -- he was home on an off-day and worked the game. The next year, he worked 30 big league games as a fill- in. Last year, he spent most of the season with West's crew because of an injury. And this year, he'll join Brian Gorman's crew, along with Larry Vanover and Tony Randazzo. Here's a bit of trivia: Do you know which umpire was behind the plate the last two years for the Cubs' final home game at Wrigley Field? It was Bellino. "It was very convenient -- I just went home after the game," he said. Bellino has no problem making decisions on the field. At home in Crystal Lake, Ill., he leaves all matters to his wife, Katie, who keeps their three sons -- 4-year-old Anthony, 2-year-old Grant and 4-month old Andrew -- in line. "At least on the field, there are regulations in place," he said. "At home, I definitely don't win any arguments. "Coming home after being away for awhile, it's almost like a re-entering of the atmosphere," Bellino said. "She's got the kids in a system, and I come home and throw everything off. ... I could never do this job without her. I would never want to do this job without her." It's also tricky dealing with managers when they don't see a play the same way Bellino does. Ejections are a last resort. "Our job is to control the situation and not make the situation worse," he said. "That's something in our mind every time a manager is jogging out to us to get an explanation or to argue a call.