"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, May 31, 2003 ::

Tradition

HAMILTON, NY -- Out there right now are terrorist organizations that want to destroy our way of life. Not for any particular purpose, just because they hate us.

That's a hard thing to fight, and though we are trying to destroy these organizations, and I agree with that, one of the best ways to fight this kind of attitude is by doing exactly what we did at the Colgate reunion last night. Each Friday night of Reunion Weekend, all the alumni and their families have a torchlight parade down one of Colgate's famous hills (the one we used to call Cardiac Hill as students here). It's a very moving ceremony, and especially all the kids, including mine, were mesmerized. I kept thinking, this tradition is over 100 years old. And with each torch that was then thrown on the bonfire, we keep traditions going, we keep our society going, we keep ourselves going, and continue in strength. This is what we need to fight terrorism -- not just armies and the CIA, but our own selves, here at home, doing simple things like this, that provide continuity.

Today, in the central New York rain, all the classes paraded down Broad St. in this small town (OK, it was a small parade, and maybe would have been larger if it hadn't been raining -- incidentally, the umbrella I had to buy was broken on first opening; the store was nice enough to exchange it right away), and then an all-class lunch, in the basketball court, underneath the banner retiring the number of Adonal Foyle, who starred here in the mid-1990s and is now playing for the Golden State Warriors.

There'll be a class banquet tonight and then home to Wrigley Field tomorrow afternoon. I haven't said much about yesterday's one-sided 9-1 loss to the Astros, because I didn't learn about it till this morning's paper, and frankly, there isn't much to say. In half an hour or so, I'll go watch a bit of today's game, then off to the banquet. Will write about today's game, and tomorrow's, sometime late tomorrow afternoon.

:: posted by Al at 2:35 PM [+] ::
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Liat Gendelman

You know, this kid and her lawyer have some gall.

Luckily, there's a federal court judge in Chicago who can see through the BS of Dolores Ayala, the lawyer representing Liat, and actually scolded her during a hearing yesterday.

Turns out now that there's some new information that shows that some of the students themselves, as well as the two moms charged already, somehow managed to get the beer that was in evidence on the videotapes of the Glenbrook North hazing that's gotten worldwide play in the last month.

What's going on here? Is everyone dropping the ball? And yes, I can say that I did not drink myself as a teenager till I was legal -- though the legal age in Illinois for beer & wine drinking when I was that age, was 19. But I did wait till then. Yes, I know that for most purposes teenagers are legal "adults" at 18, can sign contracts, get married, go to war, etc. but can't drink. Maybe that's something that could be changed; though I wouldn't agree with it, that's something on which reasonable people could disagree.

Until then, teenagers ought to learn what's right and what's wrong. What Liat Gendelman has learned is that since she had a better lawyer than some of the other kids involved, she doesn't have to abide by one part of the deal that most of them did -- which is that she still owns the right to sell her story.

If someone's dumb enough to buy it from her.

:: posted by Al at 2:29 PM [+] ::
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Reunion!

HAMILTON, NY -- I'm writing this from a computer lab at Colgate -- and a nice one, one that surely wasn't here when I was in school here, nor was it here when I was here for my 20th reunion five years ago. Sheesh, they even have cable TV in the dorm lounges here!

It was nice to see some of my classmates who I ran into already at the burgers & dogs lunch they had; there seem to be a lot of people arriving later today. Other than bringing the campus into the 21st Century with computers and cable TV, really, nothing has changed here in Hamilton, New York, the small town of about 3000 permanent residents where Colgate is located. They have opened a really nice bookstore downtown, which has general-interest books, computers for sale, a cafe, as well as the usual college bookstore type of stuff, where we dropped $100 on sweatshirts and t-shirts.

They've got a special program here for the kids, so that's where they are this afternoon, and tonight there's a barbecue and then the traditional torchlight parade that they have every reunion year -- those of you who know me well, know I'm a sucker for tradition-laden stuff like that. That's one of the best things about this school, and one reason I really enjoy coming back here for reunions.

More tomorrow, plus hopefully a report on this afternoon's Cub game, which is beginning right now. I won't see any of the game today, but tomorrow's game is on WGN, so if there's a break in activities in the late afternoon, I hope to take in an hour or so of the game.

:: posted by Al at 2:23 PM [+] ::
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Road Trip(s)!

No, the Cubs aren't going on the road again -- that last trip was the longest since 1983, incidentally.

I am going on the road; first, to my 25th anniversary college reunion. There. You can figure out how old I am now by doing some simple math.

As a result, I won't be at the Friday and Saturday games at Wrigley Field, but will return for the Astros/Cubs game on Sunday. If I can find a TV with cable, I'll try to sneak a peek at Saturday's game for a while, and also maybe post a note or two about the reunion.

Coming up next month, I'll be road-tripping with the Cubs, as I'm taking the entire family to the Baltimore and Toronto stops on the mid-June Cubs road trip. I've seen both of those parks before, but seeing the Cubs there will be cool, and it'll be fun to report from the road. We'll also be doing the Washington, DC tourist stuff on that trip, so you'll forgive me if this blog begins to read like a travelogue for a while.

One of my old college buds (OK, he's a Mets fan, but he has to be forgiven since he grew up on Long Island) will be at the reunion, and as he now lives in Virginia, he's driving over to Baltimore to meet us for one of the games at Camden Yards, and he'll also be at Wrigley Field in July (to "root against the Braves", as he puts it).

:: posted by Al at 9:17 AM [+] ::
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Just In The Nick Of Time

Not only did Joe Borowski finish off today's efficient and tightly played 5-4 win over the Pirates, for his tenth save of the season, but literally within five minutes of the game's end, while I was still on my drive home, the skies opened up and a heavy thunderstorm started pouring rain on us. This is being written a little more than an hour after game's end and it's still raining and looks like it will for a few hours yet.

Mark Prior pitched the way a stopper (in the old sense of the word -- a pitcher who stops losing streaks) should throw, making only a couple of mistakes, and if anyone faster than Troy O'Leary had been playing right field, the two runs in the second would have been prevented -- O'Leary couldn't catch up to a popup that landed just fair, and then he let it get by him for a double. Frankly, Sammy Sosa can't return a moment too soon. I'd love to see O'Leary succeed, but honestly, he's showing us the reasons that the Expos released him at the end of last year.

The Cubs had only five hits; luckily two of them were homers with runners on base, and the Cubs, in fact, had only one other baserunner all day -- something you won't see every day, either: a four-pitch walk to Mark Grudzielanek in the eighth inning.

Once again, Tom Goodwin and his .170 average clogged up the leadoff spot, going 0-for-4. After Dusty's fishing buddy advised him to lead off Mark Bellhorn, I think he did that exactly twice.

After we had ten of us out there last night, Jeff & I were the only ones holding down the fort today. A nice young couple from Iowa with a toddler and a baby sat with us. The toddler, amazingly enough, slept on the bleacher bench for about half the game, even when someone accidentally tripped over him.

Addendum to last night: the Cubs give out free Dunkin Donuts coffee coupons when they score in the 4th inning, which they did last night. Carole likes collecting these. Apparently Ernie found about 30 of them sitting on one of the newspaper boxes outside the bleachers after the game. Caffeine fix for the rest of the summer!

:: posted by Al at 5:01 PM [+] ::
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I'm Not Complaining, But...

This morning, Sarah Wood, wife of Cubs pitcher Kerry, was on our ABC-7 morning show promoting a BBQ they are having at Murphy's Bleachers before today's game to benefit Cubs Care.

She cooked up a few burgers & hot dogs, which is what they'll be serving.

Usually, people who come in and do a food cooking demonstration bring food for the crew, or at least leave the stuff they cook.

This group left... buns.

About twelve packages of buns.

Well, I can't eat much bread anyway. And I wasn't hungry. And I'm not complaining... but really.

:: posted by Al at 10:48 AM [+] ::
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It's A Good Luck Day!

I called the guy who left me the message telling me I had won All-Star tickets to make arrangements to get them, and to find out where the seats were.

Hey, the All-Star Game's great no matter what, but I wanted to not be in the back of the upper deck, where you might as well be watching on the moon.

After a few minutes of patiently checking the available seats, he found me four (partially obstructed) seats in the lower deck, in the outfield, section 164. Those are great, actually, especially for Home Run Derby day on Monday.

And he said they were the last four seats in the lower deck.

I gotta run out and buy some lottery tickets today!

:: posted by Al at 9:56 AM [+] ::
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Al-Master

This is what a lot of my bleacher friends call me (i.e. the human Ticketmaster), since whenever someone needs a ticket, I seem to be able to find one for them.

Last night was a little different, as I found myself with a whole bunch of extra tickets for the Tampa Bay series next week. Hey, I thought -- first week of June, night games, who wouldn't want to go?

Apparently, a lot of people. But before the game even started, I had sold five of them. Incidentally, I still have three more for the night game next Wednesday, in case anyone's interested! (Ex-Cub Jeremi Gonzalez will most likely be the Devil Rays starter that night.)

And, last night I had yet another good bit of news about tickets, as one of the 100 postcards I had sent in (I enlisted friends and family all over the country to help me in this cause) to the All-Star ticket lottery was chosen, so I won four strips of tickets to the various All-Star events, including the home run derby, which is often more interesting and fun than the game (it sure was last year, for example). This will be my sixth All-Star game (1975, 1983, 1984, 1990 and 1991 the others -- the best of them being the '75 game in Milwaukee, in which Cub Bill Madlock shared MVP honors)

Carole & Ernie showed up late, and blamed the Clark St. bus. It was Ernie's first game in the bleachers this year; so we figured it must have been his fault for the second ugly loss in a row, a 9-4 stinker to the Pirates. There's something wrong with Matt Clement -- there has to be, all his pitches are getting hit hard, and those that aren't, aren't finding the strike zone. The Pirates scored early and often, and Jeff and I both called Corey Patterson's meaningless 8th inning home run. And further, my son's "Pirates" park district league team beat the "Cubs" park district league team. Hmmm. I've got to get him on an American League team next season!

The Wrigley Field running squirrel made its first appearance since October 7, 2001, a day in which it relentlessly harassed Gary Matthews, Jr. That got the loudest crowd reaction of the night. (Yeah, I know, it's almost certainly not the same squirrel.)

And Sue came out to the park for the first time in a month, said she's done with chemo and feels great. What a great positive attitude she has. And, she's going to use the fact that her hair fell out to her advantage -- she says she's going to an office costume contest as Dr. Evil, so she's sure to win. I told her she has to bring photos!

Mark Prior will try to stanch the bleeding this afternoon, weather permitting.

:: posted by Al at 7:47 AM [+] ::
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Beating An Almost-Dead Horse

OK, so maybe we should all stop talking about the Glenbrook North hazing incident.

But not until at least some of these kids have gotten it into their heads that they did something wrong.

This morning, Liat Gendelman, one of the expelled seniors, appeared on our ABC-7 morning show, along with her mom, and of course, their lawyer. She's one of the three who is taking the school board to federal court.

You know, this kid doesn't get it. Her demeanor on the air redefined the word "sullen", and though the mother claims she told the girl that getting involved in this was "stupid", she did it anyway.

I think the school board was trying to send a message here; perhaps they did it in a draconian fashion, but (and here I go sounding like an old curmudgeon again), it does seem that kids today really don't have a clue as to how grow up and act in a civilized society. Maybe it's the "Jackass" generation. The girl said that "this has been done for 20 years", as if that excuses assault.

Grow up, kids. We've got enough problems to fight our way through.

:: posted by Al at 12:48 PM [+] ::
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Roger Clemens Update

Clemens struck out nine today to raise his career total to 3985. Unless he strikes out 15 Tigers on Sunday (something which is altogether possible!) he'll almost certainly get his 4000th career strikeout at Wrigley Field on June 7.

Most likely victim: Corey Patterson.

:: posted by Al at 5:53 PM [+] ::
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Score THIS!

Today, I decided to bring my son Mark to his first game of the season, and he's been wanting to learn how to keep score.

He sure got his fill in an ugly, ugly, UGLY eighth inning for the Pirates, in which they scored nine runs on six hits and a bunch of walks and some other stuff -- I kind of didn't even want to watch -- and the Pirates beat the Cubs easily 10-0. But he managed to keep up with all the scoring, and all the lineup changes, and that's pretty darn good for a second-grader, I'd say.

Kerry Wood matched Josh Fogg almost pitch for pitch for the first seven innings; he got himself into trouble with walks and wild pitched in the only run up to that point. It didn't seem like he had thrown 109 pitches, and that combined with the line drive that he caught on the fly probably made Dusty want to take him out. I thought he should have started the 8th, and the bullpen had its first real catastrophic failure of the season. Not one of Phil Norton, Juan Cruz or Antonio Alfonseca could throw strikes, and once they did, the Pirates decided to play dink-ball, dunking a couple hits just over the infield. Todd Wellemeyer, who is proving he belongs in the big leagues, mopped up with three straight strikeouts.

Fogg, on the other hand, was straight off the DL today and hadn't won since the third day of the season. But the Cubs seem to bring out the best in situations like that, somehow.

It's almost unfair to say that the Cubs didn't generate any offense today, though they didn't, because the Pirates didn't either until they were given all the gifts in the 8th. But eventually Dusty has to realize that he cannot continue to clog up the top of the order with Tom Goodwin. Game winning HR and good game yesterday notwithstanding, he simply cannot play as a regular player.

Luckily, this game only counts as one loss, and with the Cardinals and Astros beating up on each other this week, the lead should hold into the weekend when Houston comes to town.

It was good to see Mike, Jeff, Howard, Jon, Phil (who was making trades within three minutes of sitting down) and Dave, whose Rockford Riverhawks will have their own Opening Day on Wednesday -- go see them! -- and it was amazing how much baseball we all had to catch up on. Two weeks away from the Yard is too much! By the end of the day I was just about ready to take back all the good stuff I wrote about this team yesterday. But one day is just that -- one day. It's one of the best things about baseball. You can make up for it the next day.

As big a series as the upcoming Yankee series already is for the Cubs (hype or no, it's two contending teams playing in June), the tension for the Saturday, June 7 tentative Wood-Clemens matchup got a little tighter today as Clemens failed to get his 300th win in New York against the Red Sox. He'll have one more start next week before the Yankees come to town. It sure would be something to see a pitcher of his magnitude going for such a milestone at Wrigley Field.

:: posted by Al at 5:01 PM [+] ::
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State Of The Cubs

It's still a few days till the one-third mark of the season, but the end of this long road trip and beginning of a long homestand (12 games) seems to be a good time to take stock of what we've seen so far.

Dusty Baker has, almost singlehandedly, changed the attitude and demeanor of this team from 2002. Yes, the deadwood and poor players from last year are gone, replaced by guys who just seem to want to work hard, but part of that has to be attributed to the players, and part of it to Dusty. It's so clear how the Giants won so many games all the years he was there, even with teams that weren't -- on paper -- as talented as some of their division rivals.

For the first time I can remember -- and maybe ever -- the Cubs have five starting pitchers who can all at least hold their own against the rest of the league. Even Shawn Estes, who has had some miserable starts, is beginning to throw consistently well. And between Wood, Prior and even Zambrano, the Cubs have starters who can dominate the rest of the league. The bullpen, apart from a lapse or three which any bullpen can go through, has been consistently excellent. Do not understate the presence of Mike Remlinger, who has been on many championship teams and knows how to win.

I also can't say enough about how the team has stepped up and won in the absence of its best player, Sammy Sosa, who it now seems might be back as soon as tomorrow. They're 9-5 without him, and that's credit to every single player on the team, all of whom have stepped up at different times to contribute, even Tom Goodwin, who I still think is useless to the team as another LH hitting outfielder, who won one game with a home run.

Any winning team can be likeable; but this team seems particularly so, because they do seem like a team, rather than 25 individual guys just out for themselves. Again, that goes back to Dusty Baker's leadership; he seems to have them focused on the goal, which is making the postseason. It's really way too early to think about that (remember Kansas City and their hot start? Where are they now?) -- but a solid base has been laid, and frankly, I have yet to see a team the Cubs have played that is clearly better than they are, with the possible exception of the Cardinals. Even Houston, who appeared at season's beginning to be better, has shown its considerable weaknesses this weekend.

They proved just about everything I've written about today in their seemingly easy 7-3 win over the Astros. The best thing was that they spotted Houston an early run, with Zambrano looking shaky, then came right back and got contributions from just about everyone in scoring virtually at will. Even the (relatively) useless Tom Goodwin got a hit, a walk(!) and scored two runs.


I was also pleased today to learn that the Illinois legislature has banned sales of ephedra, the supplement that killed Orioles pitcher Steve Bechler during spring training, and has also been responsible for the deaths of a couple of Illinois high school athletes in the last couple years.

It'll be great to get back to the bleachers tomorrow, especially considering how awful the weather was the last time I was there! I can't remember the last time I had a two-week hiatus from the Yard during the baseball season. Right now it's off to take the kids to dinner.

:: posted by Al at 4:07 PM [+] ::
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