Three years from now, most everyone will have forgotten that Rob Bowen once played for the Chicago Cubs. Like Jody Gerut. The Cubs traded Bowen and 6'6" lefthanded minor league reliever Jerry Blevins to the Oakland A's today for catcher Jason Kendall.

So much for the Geovany Soto experiment, as Kendall will become the everyday catcher, with Koyie Hill likely having the inside track to remain the backup. With Billy Petrick back, giving the Cubs 12 pitchers again, one of Hill or Soto is going back to Iowa.

Kendall is hitting .226/.261/.281 for the A's this year, "good" for an adjusted OPS+ of 46. In 2006, he had an 89 OPS+ and in 2005 he had a 77 OPS+.

Apparently, somene in the Cubs' organization has a long memory, recalling that Kendall has hit .302/.392/.425 in his career against the Cubs, mostly from his time with the Pirates from 1996-2004.

The Cubs used to have two big hitting first basemen in the minor leagues. One of them -- Brandon Sing -- is no longer in the system and has a 494 OPS for the Orioles' AA team this season. The other, Brian Dopirak, is still in the system, but he's no longer big hitting and has just been demoted from AA to high-A Daytona.

Dopirak was hitting just .218/.247/.269 for Tennessee this season. He went 0-4 with 2 K's in his first game for Daytona.

It certainly was not supposed to be this difficult for Dopirak. He was the Cubs' 2004 minor league player of the year when he hit .307/.363/.593 for low-A Lansing. He was also named by John Sickels as the Cubs' top prospect. Despite posting just a 670 OPS the next season for high-A Daytona, the Cubs added him to the 40 man roster after the year and promoted him to AA for 2006.