"People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do, I stare out the window and wait for spring." - Rogers Hornsby

:: Saturday, April 26, 2003 ::

It's A Lot Of Fun, But...

... it's not baseball.

That's how I've always felt about Coors Field, especially in the early years when the Rockies were winning (under Don Baylor, no less), and their fans acted like they invented the game. Well, maybe they did -- but the game's not baseball. Where else could a seven-run lead in the ninth inning feel like it's in danger?

It did last night in the Cubs' weird 11-7 win over the Rockies.

Mark Prior sure had fun; in his second start ever in Denver he threw seven good innings, hit a home run and drove in four runs, raising the question among some, should he bat higher than ninth? I say no, but the club might consider using him in certain pinch-hitting situations. Why not have another right-handed bat on the bench?

I did nod off on the couch for a while watching this game, not because it was boring, just because even after a day off, I'm still kind of tired after a long week of getting up early.

The funniest thing in this game was in the seventh inning, when the umpires lost track of the count and had to have a short meeting before granting Alex Gonzalez a walk for which he had qualified.

:: posted by Al at 9:22 AM [+] ::
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Baseball As America

Friday's my day off; spring break is over; the Cubs are out of town; and the sun was out on what was supposed to be a rainy day.

So, I figured this would be a good day to take in the highly-touted "Baseball As America" exhibit at the Field Museum.

There's been some talk around that people should boycott this exhibition because of the comments of HoF President and Censor Dale Petroskey regarding the cancellation of the "Bull Durham" event. But frankly, what is being shown at the Field Museum has nothing to do with that; it's part of the history of the sport we love, and the history of our country too, and I had no intention of giving in to the politicizing of the Hall of Fame, as Petroskey did.

Folks, you have got to see this exhibition if you live in Chicago, or are planning to be in Chicago anytime before July 20, when it closes. This is several hundred pieces of baseball history which are being exhibited in a way that relates them to American history, in a very interesting and lively way -- many of them set up topically, as in celebrating black baseball, or baseball broadcasting, or marketing. There's far too much stuff here for me to even attempt to tell you what you'll see, though you'll certainly recognize a lot of it -- including a new piece of history, the bat that Sammy Sosa used to hit his 500th HR just three weeks ago. There's plenty more Chicago baseball history there, as well as history that is related to things that have happened in American history, such as the shameful way black ballplayers were treated for much of history.

I could go on and on, but you get the point. You've simply got to see the exhibit to really appreciate it. For anyone who loves baseball or the USA, it's an absolute must.

Oh, there was one small factual error made: next to a photo of Mark McGwire hitting a home run with flashbulbs popping in the background, the caption read: "Flashbulbs pop as Mark McGwire hit his record 70th HR in 1998". Sorry, but McGwire's 70th was hit during a day game, so there wouldn't have been any flashbulbs. Most probably, the photo was taken when he hit the record-breaking 62nd, which was hit at night.

:: posted by Al at 4:55 PM [+] ::
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Larry Tate, uh, Tariq Aziz, Captured By US

Saddam Hussein's Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz was captured today by US forces.



As you can see, Aziz is a dead ringer for Larry Tate on the old "Bewitched" TV series. No word yet on whether Samantha can blink and get him out of this fix. Catch the next episode!

:: posted by Al at 4:56 PM [+] ::
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It's All Brian's Fault

See, normally I get to the park when the gates open so I can get my usual bleacher bench. Or, on days when I have to work, like today, Jeff comes and saves the bench. Well, Jeff wasn't available -- he had to work, so when I found out Brian was going to have the day off and could get there early, I asked him to save the seats.

Well, Brian usually gets stuck in traffic or something, and it was "or something" today; he was 20 minutes late, so we wound up sitting across the aisle, so I blame that for the Cubs' listless 2-1 loss to the Padres, an even worse loss than yesterday's, since it's the first series loss at home, and to a pretty sad-sack team.

The pitching is just fine -- Matt Clement had one bad inning, struck out six in seven innings of work -- but the offense was futile today. For some reason Dusty Baker thinks that Tom Goodwin, a one-tool player (speed), is a leadoff man. And he'll probably still think that, since Goodwin had two hits and scored the only run today.

Eric Karros had two hits, but when it counted, in the ninth, he swung at the first pitch from someone he's never faced before -- Jaret Wright -- and grounded out. What are these guys thinking?

Anyway, maybe a trip to Denver, where the Cubs and especially Sammy Sosa have always hit well, is the cure for this.

Oh, and Brian ran off and sat in the group section and never came back after the first inning!

Sight seen today: the "NITE GAME" indications on the scoreboard were set VERTICALLY instead of DIAGONALLY across the linescores of tonight's games. I have never seen it that way before.

:: posted by Al at 4:54 PM [+] ::
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Blue Skies, Sunshine...

... Kerry Wood struck out eleven and gave up only two runs and five hits...

So what could be wrong? Well, the Cub offense couldn't solve Adam Eaton today. He struck out twelve and gave up no runs, and the Cubs got shut out by the Padres 2-0, losing by shutout for the first time this year.

I really don't have a lot more to say about this game; sometimes you just get beat. So I'll tell you about the spirited discussion my friend Dave and I had about Sammy Sosa and his value to the team not only as a player but as a showman. We agreed that he's probably the number one draw as a visiting player among today's active players. But Dave thinks Sosa will eventually want to take his show to New York. I disagree -- I think Sosa has the national stage here in Chicago, what with WGN cable, and the adulation he gets here might be subdued in New York, where there are a lot of other stars waiting to steal the spotlight; plus there's the Yankee team (we both assume it'd be the Yankees, not the hated Mets, that he'd want to play for).

In any case, we also both agreed that if the Cubs continue to contend, and Sosa doesn't exercise the out clause that he has in his deal, it'd be well worth the Cubs' while to sign him to a career-ending extension of his deal sometime later this season, to put an end to all the talk. He's that much worth it to the Cub franchise -- if the Cubs do wind up drawing 3 million this year (and after another mirage of a 35,000 crowd today, they are on their way to do so), I'd guess that perhaps as many as 1 million of those admissions are due to Sammy Sosa. At an average ticket price of $24, that'd make his $18 million contract a relative bargain.

Sights seen today: A sign reading "Stop Hitting Sammy". Clever if handwritten, but this group had gone to a professional sign printing company and had it printed, probably this morning. Industrious, if kind of wasteful.

We noticed in the last homestand that some of the juniper bushes in the CF hitters' background appeared to be dead or dying; they were turning an ugly shade of brown.

So what did the Cubs do? Well, they painted them an ugly shade of green. If they weren't dead before, they sure are now.

:: posted by Al at 7:23 PM [+] ::
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Wiki!

I had this morning's blog entry all ready to go, and had clicked "post and publish", and then my Internet connection crapped out, and the whole post vanished, so this one's written over from scratch. From now on I copy it to the clipboard before I post!

Yes, there really is a major league player named Wiki, and no, he's not a Hawaiian dance, or a raft crossing the Atlantic, but the starting catcher for the Padres, and it's short for the even more preposterous name of Wiklenman. Gonzalez is his last name, and the name's about the only memorable thing about him.

SD was the worst team I saw in the Cactus League, and they kept up that fine tradition last night as the Cubs beat them easily 7-2. Winning teams do what the Cubs did last night. Brian Lawrence, supposedly the Padres' best pitcher, hit three batters in an inning (only the 19th time that's been done in history) and Damian Miller cleared the bases with a triple (his first in five years -- cosmic things are happening...). The record book says Joe Girardi tripled last year, but I'll be darned if I can remember that, and I'm sure it didn't have the impact that last night's triple did. The Cubs had only four hits, but the triple and Corey Patterson's exclamation-point HR that put the game away were two of them. Again... this is the kind of thing that winning teams do. It's early, but a tone has definitely been set.

There is an outside chance -- if there are no rainouts and the Cubs contend all year -- that they could draw 3 million. It would take an average of just over 37,000, and with the unusually large weekday afternoon announced crowds, it's possible.

Last night my friend Sue, who's battling breast cancer, came and joined us. If you didn't know, you'd never guess, because she approaches it knowing she's going to beat it, and is never anything less than her enthusiastic self. I have great admiration for her, and I know she's going to make it past this tough disease.

Which, of course, reminds me that this weekend, I'll be doing the final clean-out of my sister's apartment. It's kind of weird thinking that a life, no matter how lived or how long, eventually winds up that way -- simply a few things and memories.

:: posted by Al at 9:07 AM [+] ::
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So Where The Heck Is He?

Yeah, I know, you really haven't been wondering where I've been since early yesterday. With a Cubs off day, I took a break after the movie review, and today, I've been traveling, returning home. Upon which I learned:

Six AM is really early to be at an airport. Although, the security lines are short, and once you land at O'Hare at noon, there's no ground traffic.

I get home to find that one of my sister's bank accounts that I thought I had closed a month ago was still open, thus leaving Bank One the opportunity to charge $18 for "insufficient balance". Sheesh! I went and explained the situation and of course, they waived the charge and finally closed the account. But, I shouldn't even have to waste my time doing that!

Tonight's Cub game report will be posted here tomorrow morning.

And so it goes.

:: posted by Al at 3:32 PM [+] ::
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Movie Review: "Laurel Canyon"

This movie is only in limited release, so it may not have made it to where you are yet. Still, it's worth seeing as a kind of both homage and cautionary tale about the excesses of the hedonistic Southern California '70s lifestyle, which is still being lived by Jane (Frances McDormand, who's always terrific), a 50ish record producer who's trying to get a new band's record finished, even while having an affair with the lead singer, who's about half her age, and about the same age as her son Sam (Christian Bale), who's gone off to Harvard Medical School, met Alex (Kate Beckinsale), and is beginning his residency in psychiatry in Southern California, which is why he's forced into a new relationship with his mother, since the two of them (it's not made clear at the beginning, but Sam and Kate aren't married, just living together) need a place to live and Jane has a big house.

Got all that? OK, Sam goes off to begin his residency and meets another doctor, the impossibly attractive Natascha McElhone (doing a really bad Israeli accent) -- I mean, when have you ever seen a physician that gorgeous -- and they begin to flirt around the edges of an affair, all while Alex, who's supposed to be working on her dissertation, is being sucked into the music-biz lifestyle of the band, who, of course, sit around drinking, smoking dope, and having casual sex.

The movie can't really decide what it's going to be about -- whether it's celebrating this lifestyle or showing how easily two people who have spent their lives trying to get away from it can get sucked into it. There's one scene that would have been a perfect ending, and then the film goes on to what feels like an epilogue of sorts, and descends right back into the hedonism it appears to decry. Maybe that's the message too.

It's good, but not great. Maybe wait for a rental.

AYRating: ** 1/2

:: posted by Al at 9:59 AM [+] ::
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Dee-Fense!

Seriously, on tomorrow's off day the Cubs ought to work on their defense. The Pirates scored five runs in the second inning (only two unearned, though there should have been another error that was uncharged) en route to an easy 8-2 win over the Cubs today.

This has been the one big thing wrong with this Cub team so far, that they haven't played sound fundamentally in the field. Shawn Estes also got himself into trouble with walks today. The bullpen did throw five innings, allowing only one run. And luckily, the scare that we all got when Sammy Sosa was hit in the head is probably going to be meaningless in the long run; he was back in the clubhouse after the game, showing no ill effects. I've never seen a helmet shatter like that before, though.

Hey, five wins in a row is pretty good -- the Cubs won another series, and come home 12-7, to face a San Diego team that was just about the worst team I saw in Arizona during spring training. Get past that series with a win, and they'll be pretty well set for the upcoming road trip to Denver to face a rejuvenated Rockies team, and then the hottest team in baseball, the Giants.

:: posted by Al at 6:10 PM [+] ::
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Squaw Peak

That's the name of a mountain not far from downtown Phoenix, Arizona.

In another fit of political correctness, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano rammed through a name change for this mountain to Piestewa Peak, honoring the Native American US soldier, an Arizona native, who was killed in combat in Iraq.

While there is nothing wrong with honoring Lori Piestewa, this name change was rammed through so quickly, bowing to those who find the word "squaw" offensive in some way. Frankly, if those who spent so much time and effort to erase words like this, offensive as they may be, would spend their time and effort actually trying to improve the lot in life of those who are oppressed in this way, not only would their people be better off, but we'd be spared the spectacle of politically correct name changes like this.

It's a mountain. This name change was done so quickly that the ramifications for other places in the Phoenix area named for it -- an expressway, a park, and dozens of businesses -- were not considered. And, the federal Board of Geographic Names has a five-year waiting period for such changes, and so maps won't reflect this for that amount of time, leaving confusion. It's also recommended that name changes of this sort should in general have a five-year waiting period.

Finally, the man who named Squaw Peak apparently had nothing but admiration for Native Americans. I'm so tired of seeing this amount of time given over to something that, in the grand scheme of things, shouldn't be that important.

:: posted by Al at 10:37 AM [+] ::
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Cosmic Things Are Happening

This is a phrase my buddy Mike likes to use in seasons when the Cubs start... well, playing like the season might actually mean something.

Last night's amazing 6-1, 10-inning win over the Pirates was more proof that this could be a special season.

The Cubs gave the Pirates a gift run in the 9th, tying the game, when Hee Seop Choi couldn't handle a foul popup off the bat of Jason Kendall, who wound up singling and scoing. Past Cub teams would have folded and lost the game, but they came back and not only won, but scored five runs off Mike Williams, one of the best closers in the game.

Good teams do this sort of thing; it's been shown over and over again.

The twelve wins the club now has is only four short of the team record for April, set in (dare I say it?) 1969. There are nine games left this month.

:: posted by Al at 10:06 AM [+] ::
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Movie Review: "Anger Management"

For a while, you're thinking that everyone in this movie is totally insane, except for Adam Sandler, who plays an executive assistant who, through a bizarre series of coincidences, winds up in anger management therapy with Dr. Buddy Rydell, played manicly by Jack Nicholson, whose hair has never been wilder. This is Sandler's second "mainstream" role, after "Punch-Drunk Love", which I didn't really like, and this role definitely shows Sandler's maturing as an actor, and his range is definitely widening.

Totally insane, incidentally, was the woman taking tickets -- the first person who has ever prevented us from bringing "outside food" into a movie theater. OK, I know you're not supposed to, but who doesn't? What was even weirder was that she followed us out the door to make sure we were putting it in the car.

Maybe that was just supposed to get us ready for this movie, which features cameos from a number of well-known New Yorkers, including Rudy Giuliani, Derek Jeter and Roger Clemens. Everyone seems nuts, from Sandler's boss, to a courtroom judge and lawyers, to his friends. There's some crude sexual humor which at first is subtly funny, but after a while gets sophomoric and juvenile.

It definitely seems like all it's set up for is cheap laughs, of which I admit there are plenty, until the ending does neatly sum up everything. Marisa Tomei is sweet and cute as Sandler's girlfriend, and Heather Graham plays an uncredited small role as "Kendra", a girl who, among other things, wears an, uh, interesting Boston Red Sox uniform. Nope, I'm not telling you what it is. Go see the movie, and you'll also see an almost unrecognizable Woody Harrelson in a role -- well, you have to see this to believe it.

It's not the world's greatest film, but it's worth seeing if for nothing else, the sight of Nicholson and Sandler singing a duet of "I'm So Pretty" from "West Side Story".

AYRating: ** 1/2

:: posted by Al at 12:30 AM [+] ::
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