And the winner shall be...

I've been to Boston.  I've been to Denver.

I've been to Fenway Park.  I've been to Coors Field.

So far, it's a draw.

For the Colorado Rockies: how can you not get completely behind a team that has gone 21-1 since mid-September?  In the first fifteen games of the streak, they went 14-1.  If they had gone 13-2 they wouldn't have even made the playoffs.  We'd be getting ready for a Boston-San Diego World Series, and given the current conditions in Southern California, there could have been the first-ever neutral site game in a WS.  How can you not root for a guy like Todd Helton?  The guy went three-for-four and the day he was born.  He's been a Rockie his entire career, mostly filled with losses, and he could have demanded a trade to a contender anytime since 2000.  Instead, he stuck around and never complained.

Against the Rockies: they been in existence only since 1993.  Give me an 'effin break.  One hundred divided by fifteen is almost seven.  Jealousy is so unbecoming, so I'll just call it envy.

For Boston: It's Boston.  Love the city, love the ballpark.  Plus the Red Sox play the game right.  They are the anti-Yankees.  Sure, they won in 2004, after not winning since 1918, but they've suffered enough to get it twice in four years.

Against Boston: They won in 2004.  For a franchise that suffered as much as the Red Sox did, they ought to not get greedy; let everyone share the wealth.  You wait 86 years and then get two in four?  I don't think so.  Plus, Boston sports fans are on the verge of being absolutely insufferable right now: the Red Sox in the Series; the Patriots are 7-0, beating teams with one hand tied behind their back, and look like they might be the best team ever in NFL history; and the Celtics went out and grabbed Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen and are one of the favorites to win the NBA title.  No town deserves such a run.

God, sometimes I absolutely hate being a Chicago sports fan.

I'm calling it: Colorado in four; they complete the greatest run in history, waking up in mid-September as an also-ran, then going 25-1 on their way to a championship.  If that indeed does happen, we will never see the likes of that again.

(Sound of me ripping my heart out and eating it for the eightieth time since the Cubs were swept by Arizona)

Haven't done a Random 11 for a while:

1. "The World Spins"-Julee Cruise.  This album ("Floating Into the Night") was the de facto soundtrack to "Twin Peaks."  In hindsight, the music was better than the show.  It's lasted longer, anyway.

2. "Fade Into You"-Mazzy Star.  A one-hit wonder from '95 or so.  This song reminds me of a huge apartment that I used to live in above an educational store in Oak Park.  I could look out the thee front windows at so much going on, all hours of the day.  Oak Park is a completely under rated suburb.

3. "Rain in the Summertime"-The Alarm.  This song brings out a pet peeve of mine-singers that ruin a good musical intro by making some odd noises.  I love The Cranberries but Deloros O'Riordan wrote the book on this.  See also "Elevation" by U2 and "Born of Frustration" by James.  Go yodel in the Alps, boys.

4. "Fire Woman"-The Cult.  OK, if there's no one around, I usually dance around the house to this song.  I wish we had a balcony.

5. "Raspberry Beret"-Warren Zevon.  Yes, Warren Zevon.  His version is much better than anything Prince could do.  Who would you rather have sing "I think I, I think I love her!"?

6. "Caring is Creepy"-The Shins.  I wonder if Zack Braff gets any of the firstborn from the folks in this group (this is the song that plays when he rides the cycle with the sidecar in Garden State)?

7. "Trip Through Your Wires"-U2.  It's been a while since I sat in the dark and listened to The Joshua Tree from beginning to end.  Did it quite a bit in college.  I had a rough first year.  SNIFF

8. "What's the Frequency Kenneth?"-REM.  A good example of a song that I did not like for a while after it came out, and then one time I listened to it and really dug it.  Not too long after that I saw Dan Rather sing it at a soundcheck at MSG.  If you don't know why that's hysterical, I can't help you.

9. "Warakurna"-Midnight Oil.  I've found this band to be incredibly divisive; people either really like them (like me, obviously, since it's on the 'pod) or really, really, really hate them (Hello, Shecky.  Haven't heard from you since the demise of the Cubs.  Hope you didn't do something stupid).  Still have to get to Australia.

10. "Sweetwater, Texas"-Fastball.  A rare accomplishment-a ballad that a band seems to insist including on a rockin' CD that is actually good.  Not long ago I was driving in downtown Springfield when I heard this song, and now when I hear it I think of Abe Lincoln.

11. "Wild Honey"-U2.  Another song I wasn't nuts about when it first came out.  Now, I need to find a place that has it on Karaoke.  And a decent singing partner.

 

    

Might be time to relocate...

Seems like there is a lot going on in the world today:

1. Raging fires in Malibu
2. Dick Cheney seems to be ready to take out Iran all by himself
3. Louisiana just elected the first Indian-American governor in the US

and in Chicago: for what seems like the 3212th time this year, a school aged child has been killed by gunfire while walking down the street.

So as I turned on the news at 10 tonight, which one of these stories do you think was the lead story?

How about none?

Bears 19, Eagles 16.  Gotta have priorities.

It's not gonna happen

If I may quote Robert Frost: 

This is the way the season ends; not with a bang, but a whimper.

I've been through too much to ever say that I'm embarrassed to be a Cubs fan, and I'm not about to say it now.  Well, that was quick.  Wednesday night, 9 PM, I was giddy with excitement.  Seventy-two hours or so later, it's gone.

The Diamondbacks didn't just sweep the Cubs, they obliterated them.  I think if the teams played twenty more times, Arizona would win 'em all.  So it's kind of hard to feel that bad about a team that got dominated.  I've felt this type of feeling before.

(See: Atlanta Braves, NLDS 1998)

The only thing I struggle with is the decision that Lou Piniella made in Game 1.  His stud starting pitcher was cruising, dominating the Arizona hitters.  Unfortunately the Cubs weren't doing much on offense, and the game was tied 1-1.  Piniella pulled Carlos Zambrano before the 7th inning, and the D'Backs scored two runs right away, winning that game 3-1, and essentially ending the series, since the Cubs never recovered.  After the game Piniella said that he pulled Z because he was bringing him back for Sunday's Game 4 on short rest.

Tomorrow is Sunday.  There's no Game four.  How's that decision going for you Lou?

Of course, there is no guarantee that if Zambrano had remained in the game that the result would have been any different.  We'll never know.

Forgive me if I am repeating myself, but I never expected this, not in 2007.  This year was all about getting rid of the stench of the Dusty Baker years.  The Cubs over-achieved this year.  I am not making excuses.  They rolled over and died in the playoffs.  Faced with the chance to do something that it seems half of the world is waiting for, they collectively wet themselves.  Ugh.

I anticipate next year already.  Perhaps the world is supposed to wait for the Cubs to end their long championship drought so that my to-be born son is around to see it.

(Of course, should the Cubs win it next year, he won't remember it, much like anyone born in December of 1907 doesn't remember the last time the Cubs won the World Series)

I have discovered something about the Cubs in the playoffs: as soon as they lose consecutive games, they are toast.  They've made the playoffs five times in my life now, and every single time, as soon as hey have lost two games in a row, they go on to lose the series:

1984: Up 2-0 against San Diego, lost the next three to lose the series 3-2

1989: Lost first game in Chicago to San Francisco, won the next, then lost three in  row in SF, losing the series 4-1

1998: Swept 3-0 by Atlanta in first round

2003: Beat Atlanta 3-2 in the first round (won, lost, won, lost, won); then lost first game of NLCS to Florida, won the next three to go up 3-1 and need just one more win in three possible games to go to the World Series, but lost the next three, and the series 4-3 to the Marlins.

2007: Swept 3-0 by Arizona in the first round.

That's unbelievable.  Every time the Cubs have made the playoffs in my life, they managed to get knocked out by losing three in a row. 

(I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit)

That's life.  I'll be back next year.  In the meantime, I am pulling for a Cleveland-Colorado World Series.

Hey look! October baseball

I am trying not to get too excited.  I've been this way before.  1984.  1989.  1998.  2003.  All ended badly.  Gut-wrenchingly badly.

Geez, for as long as I have been following this team you'd think they would have made the playoffs more than five times.  I've invested a lot of my time in this team.  I'm due.  But see, I'm not going to get sucked into this.

The Cubs are in the playoffs, and I'm thrilled, because they don't belong.  If they were in any of the other five divisions, they would have been an also-ran.  They have the blessing this season of being in the worst division in the game, by far.

This is a team that lost 96 games last year.  They won 85 (and lost 77) this year.  A Nineteen game improvement in a single season is a fairly dubious accomplishment-no one else accomplished that this year.  The Cub also finished first in their division one year after finishing last.

Zip-a-dee Do-dah.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy as hell.  There's nothing like playoff baseball when the Cubs are involved.  It's like a solar eclipse-better to see it now because you don't really know when it will happen again.  Perhaps that's a little dramatic.

For me, this season was all about scrubbing away the residue from the Dusty Baker years.  Last year was the worst year ever for being a Cubs fan because they had a manager that didn't give a damn.  He knew he was going to get paid, and he let his team lay down and die after one of their best players suffered a long-term injury in May.  They should have fired him in June and started the rebuilding process then, but for whatever reason, they waited.  And I hated every second of it.

Putting this in a Mr. Retail perspective, there were plenty of stores that I was transferred into that were dumps, where people just didn't care and the prior managers were either lousy, lazy or both.  On that first day, I'd get the urge to just walk out, because I knew it was going to take a lot of unpleasant work to get things into shape.  I hated that feeling, but I always stuckit out, and eventually things turned out all right.  Sometimes it took more than six months, but it was always worth it.

I expected the 2007 Cubs to be around a .500 team, finish ten games or so out of the lead, and get my hopes peaked for 2008.  I would have been happy with that.  I was happy just seeing someone else besides Baker in that dugout.

The trap is this: no matter what happens in the playoffs, this Cubs team is one that should be built to last.  There are no major free agents to worry about losing, no old, broken down players on their last legs, no albatrosses of any kind.  They should win consistently for the next few season at least.

And I'm going to get sucked in, of course, because I always do.  I'd hate to ever not feel the anticipation that I always feel towards the end of March, when baseball season is starting up again.

There is this moment that comes along every season, the moment where I realize that again, the Cubs are not going to win the World Series, and that I have to wait at least another year to see if it will happen, and that I might die an old man having never seen the Cubs win it all, etc. etc. etc.

Last year that moment came in May.  The earlier it comes makes it worse.  Last year I had to resign myself that it would be a minimum of seventeen months to see if they could do it.  On average, I'd say that feeling comes every year just before July 4th.

Obviously, I haven't had it yet this year.  The clock just went past midnight.  It's October 1st, and I still think that the Cubs have a chance to win the World Series THIS SEASON.

The games start Wednesday in Arizona, against a team that has only been around for ten years and has already won a World Series.  If they get past them either the Phillies, Padres or Rockies await.  The Mets?  The were eliminated today, in a meltdown greater than the Cubs meltdown of 1969.  Serves 'em right.

If the boys make it to the World Series they'd face either Boston, Cleveland, the Yankees or the Angels--all teams that posted much better records this season.  I'll worry about that if they get this far.

It's impossible to convey what all this means to me.  If you're not the type to follow sports I probably sound insane, but the Cubs are as much a part of my life as my family.  They are the only thing that have been around as much.

I close my eyes and I can imagine bringing home my newborn son in a Cubs championship sleeper in December.

A Thousand Napkins a Day Keeps the Brewers Away

I went to the Cubs-Reds game Monday night, tickets I got after the Sunday night game between the Cubs and Cardinals were rained out in August.  Meaningful baseball in September-not something I am particularly used to around here.  It was probably my last trip to Wrigley Field this season.  If it was, I picked a great game to end with.

The Reds are the last team I want to see playing the Cubs towards the conclusion of the pennant race, because they seem to play well come September.  They killed the Cubs Wild Card hopes in 2004, and almost knocked them out in 1998 as well.  Monday was the start of six games in two weeks between the Reds and the Cubs, and going into Monday, the Cubs held a one game lead over the Milwaukee Brewers.

Milwaukee, playing in Houston, were crushing the Astros early and by the second inning we knew that to stay in first, the Cubs would have to win.

We were sitting in the upper deck boxes, all the way down the right field line, fourth row.  There was a strong wind, blowing from the south/southeast; the breeze blew in from right beside us, through the opening between the bleachers and the right field line.  Every once in a while we'd see a load of smoke from the bbq's on the Sheffield rooftops wander into the park.

The crowd around us was pretty rowdy and by the third inning, when the Reds scored the first run of the game, the guys in front of us were looking for ways to turn the tide.  I'm not sure how it came about, but one of them decided that if he could drop a napkin off the upper deck and get it to blow onto the field, it would be a good omen.  He crouched down at the rail and dropped a napkin.  We watched it float down and up, being carried by the breeze, before it made it over the red brick wall and ended up a few feet in fair territory in right field, just as the Reds were making the last out of the third.

In the bottom of the third, the Cubs scored three runs to take the lead.  After the end of that inning, a security guard walked out onto the field and picked the napkin up.  The Reds re-took the lead.  More napkins were dropped, but none made it onto the field.

With the score 6-4 Reds in the bottom of the eighth, I left to go to the bathroom, and on my way out of the men's room, I noticed a hot dog stand off to the side of the pedestrian ramp, closed for the night, a dispenser of napkins visible in the corner.  I grabbed as many as I could and shoved them in my pocket.  And then I really got busy.

I walked over to the concession area underneath the press box, but all the napkin dispensers were empty.  I headed down to the patio that looks west with a lot of individual vending stands and found the same-no napkins.  Finally, I managed to spot two that still had napkins, all the way over to the right, where the park overlooks the players' parking lot.  I took as many as I could fit into my pockets.

When I got back to my seat, everyone roared as I took hundreds of napkins out and gave them to the designated dropper.  By this time it was the top of the ninth, Cubs still trailing by two.  He held all the napkins in his hands in front of me and said "Pick a napkin, any napkin."  I chose one from the middle of the pack.  He had all of us rub it, and then he dropped it over the side.  We watched as it fell, and about ten feet before it would have landed in the stands it turned up, caught by a breeze, and danced for about thirty seconds, before it slipped over the wall and landed in right field, about ten feet from the corner and only a foot or so in front of the warning track.

The Reds made the final out of the ninth at about the same time.  The bottom of the ninth went like this: Theriot leads off with a walk; Lee singles him to second; Ramirez hits a gapper to right-center that Reds center fielder Nick Hopper just missed making a great diving catch on (would have been a double play at least-earlier he had gone into the vines to take a hit away from Ramirez, going in so hard he left an impression of himself on the vines), the ball going to the wall and tying the game-he ended up with a triple; after an intentional walk to Ward, the Reds brought in Hopper from center to be a fifth infielder, but it didn't matter, DeRosa singled and the game was over.  Cubs win 7-6, and stay in first place for at least one more day.

We hung around for a few minutes and celebrated before all of us in 438 went our separate ways.  Just before we started down the ramp to leave the upper deck, I turned back.  The napkin was still on the field.

Fear the magic that is the napkin.  Do not taunt the napkin.

How to be a nuisance

Walk in the middle of the street.  Talk to the actors while sitting in a crowded movie theater.  Smoke 'em if you got 'em.  Spit in a drinking fountain.  Sing along with your i-pod on the train.  Say "it is what it is." Answer your  cell phone in the library.   Tell a friend you'll give them a ride to the airport and forget to show up.  Leave the copy machine out of paper.  Sit on someone's eyeglasses.  Say "baby needs a new pair of shoes" at a craps table.  Yell "bingo" when you get blackjack.  Eat the last Twinkie and leave the box in the cabinet.  Root for the Cardinals.  Poke holes in bicycle tires.  Tell your nephews that there is no Santa Claus.  Wear baseball caps sideways.  Answer "What?" to every question asked you.  Swipe your neighbor's Sunday paper.  Talk about your bowels. Turn the bass way up.  Yodel.  Don't replace your divots.  Drink milk from the carton.  Buy the wrong flavor ice cream.  Pick your toenails.  Be that person in the group that never makes a decision.  Write in library books.   Leave your clothes in the washing machine.  Belch in church.  Take pennies out of fountains.  Burn the toast.  Hide the remote.  Carve obscenities into pumpkins.  Don't squeeze the toothpaste from the bottom.  Never use turn signals.  Be late for everything.  Lick envelopes right after finishing an Oreo.  Cite Oprah.  Scoff at the idea of global warming.  Sell products door-to-door.  Forget to pay the electric bill.  Talk down to waiters.   Call yourself a rebel.  Ask people how much they weigh.  Don't use coasters.  Interrupt.  Sneeze on the neck of the person in front of you.  Throw snowballs at moving cars.  Leave the windows open when it rains.  Vote Republican.

Holy Toledo

In honor of our friends' new son, who I shall refer to as "Klinger," I present a random eleven:

1. "Follow Your Bliss"-The B-52s.  Sage advice, even for those less than two days old.  Unfortunately the Weather Channel used this for background music for its local updates one summer when I was in Iowa and I can't help but see radar images of huge thunderstorms whenever I hear it.

2. "Departure"-REM.  Certainly it would be better if this song were called "arrival" (which is what it's about, so go figure), but you'll be departing a hospital for home soon, so there you go.

3. "Bargain"-The Who.  It wouldn't be a shame if this were the first song you ever heard (though I'm guessing in reality it's going to be something by The Replacements, ZZ Top or Elvis-TCBY).  And as Mr. Townsend says: "In life, one and one don't make two.  One and one make one."

4. "Wake Up and Smell the Coffee"-The Cranberries.  Well, almost.  For the next few years I'm sure your folks will wake up and smell something...

5. "So Alive"-Love and Rockets.  I am not altering the playlist, I swear.  This is random.  Besides, whenever I hear this song I think about dropping someone on their face the night before they had a job interview.

6. "More Than This"-Roxy Music.  Hmm, if this is taken as a question then you've got a good fifteen years or so before this makes any sense.  I don't have"Teen Angst" by Cracker on my 'pod, but if I did, it would make a heck of a segue.  Go for a Bryan Ferry hairstyle someday.  The ladies love it.

7. "Out of My Head"-Fastball.  Forget the title and let's focus on the group name here.  You're destined to be encaptivated by a certain baseball team (though not for a second do I believe it will be forced upon you) and take it from me, go for it.  Don't pay attention to anything anyone says about it.  Deep, deep down, they are all just jealous.  Follow your destiny.  Just look for the ivy.

8. "Inside Out"-Phil Collins.  Hmm, I'm thinking of an event that occurred at a house on Hale a long time ago that could fit in here, but we'll just move past that.  As it turns out, I don't have a song in my collection called "Don't Be So Tight."  I certainly wish that I did.

9. "Arc of a Diver"-Steve Winwood.  He seems to come up in every one of these.  I am patiently listening to the lyrics trying to find something that fits here, but so far no good.

10. "When You Dream"-The Barenaked Ladies.  I've got 560 songs on my 'pod, and this is the one that fits best, since it's a song about a guy watching his newborn son sleep.  A little less than a 2% chance that it would come up.  This might bold well for future trips to Vegas.  I'm just saying.  Plus you've already won the Parent Lottery.

11. "Into the Mystic"-Van Morrison.  And we end perfectly.  I couldn't come up with a better list for when my own son comes along in December.  Maybe we'll call him "Hawkeye."