"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, September 13, 2003 ::

Stupid Cardinals Lose

Now I know why I really hate the Cardinals. They never win when you actually want them to win.

Houston beat St. Louis 2-0 tonight, keeping the Cubs one game back. With the Marlins beating the Braves again, the Cubs stayed four games back of the wild-card leader.

Keep hope alive.

:: posted by Al at 8:30 PM [+] ::
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Nothing's Ever Easy, Part Deux

Here's how you can tell that playoff time is coming.

No, really.

There's an empty lot I drive by every dayon my way to the game, located at the corner of Racine and Roscoe, which is used as a parking lot for Cubs games by whoever owns it (and whoever owns it is putting it up for auction next month, which means that by next season, there will be expensive condos there).

All season it's been $20 to park there. Today it was $30. In 1998, for the tiebreaker and playoff games that we played at home, people were asking up to $80 for parking near the ballpark, and getting it. I'd expect it to cross the $100 barrier if we get in this year.

What is it about the Reds, who have guys even the Reds fans standing behind us had never heard of, that makes Cub pitchers suddenly give up rope after rope? Juan Cruz struggled through a 99-pitch five-plus inning appearance, and he hit better than he pitched (a triple in the gap where he was absolutely flying around the bases).

But Cub hitters put on their hitting shoes also, and Eric Karros had his biggest day since hitting the game-winner against the Yankees back in June, and the Cubs came from behind yet again, beating the Reds 9-6, with Antonio Alfonseca actually throwing well today, and getting his second win in as many days. At this moment, the Astros lead the Cardinals, but it's only 1-0 in the fourth, and if St. Louis can come back and win, the Cubs will be tied for first.

With his 28th save, Joe Borowski is now tied for sixth in the league (with Braden Looper). Ahead of him are Gagne, Smoltz, Wagner, Worrell and Biddle (who has lost the closer job for the Expos). That's a terrific season. Sure, he's had his blown saves, but every closer does. I admire his personality and perseverance in staying with a baseball career that appeared to have ended a few years ago in the Mexican League; the only reason he signed with the Cubs is that a scout for the club was down there looking at someone else and Joe pitched lights-out.

Other than that, the game was pretty somnolent; it didn't rain, fortunately, but the sky was kind of that early-fall slate-gray, even though the sun came out for an hour or so, the pace of the game (it wound up lasting 3:11) was putting us to sleep. We looked over into the next section and saw Cheryl wearing a funny-nose-glasses with "Go Cubs" written on the nose. And in the ninth inning, a man who was an absolute dead ringer for Dusty Baker appeared, standing behind us. If that's not a sign of good things to come, I don't know what is.

[rant]

Wrigley Field bleacher policy says that smokers must stay along the back fence; this is still kind of close, but at least they are separated from those of us in the back row by eight feet or so.

Today a guy decided he was going to stand right behind me and blow smoke in my face, despite me asking him nicely twice to please go back to the fence. I had to go get security to ask him, and that began a torrent of obscenities from the guy.

Really -- how hard is this? Most ballclubs have banned smoking entirely except for designated areas; I think the Cubs are doing smokers a big favor by letting them smoke that close to the seats. Anyway, the guy left almost right after he finished his smoke, which only goes to show that so many of these people aren't even watching the game, so why would it be a big deal to restrict smoking to the ramps?

[end rant]

In a public service to any of you who want to try it, click here for a direct link to the Cubs' Division Series ticket sale page; tickets for the first two possible postseason games go on sale at 8 am Central time tomorrow. There are approximately 7,500 seats for each of the two games and they'll probably go in about half an hour. As a season ticket holder I have mine already (paid for last week), so good luck to any of you who want to give this a shot tomorrow morning.

:: posted by Al at 7:36 PM [+] ::
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Correction Section

Yesterday, I wrote that we were all discussing the situation during the rain delay and I had told everyone that the score would have reverted to the last completed inning and the Cubs would have won if the game had been called at that point.

Wrong, as it turns out; that rule was changed several years ago. MLB rule 4.12 (5) states, as part of describing conditions under which games are to be suspended:

"Weather, if the game is called while an inning is in progress and before it is completed, and one of the following situations prevails: (i) The visiting team has scored one or more runs to tie the score, and the home team has not scored. (ii) The visiting team has scored one or more runs to take the lead, and the home team has not tied the score or retaken the lead."

Part (ii) above is what applied in yesterday's game at the time the rain hit.

Hey, the Cubs won anyway, so it's just an interesting point. Thanks to Brian Tomala who e-mailed me about this.

:: posted by Al at 9:36 AM [+] ::
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Puerto Rico Photos

Me, inside Hiram Bithorn Stadium:



Me, outside Hiram Bithorn Stadium:



Sammy Sosa bats in the first inning on Thursday:



Mark Prior pitches in the first inning on Thursday:

:: posted by Al at 8:41 PM [+] ::
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Nothing's Ever Easy

Before I report on today's game, let me say that I spent five days on a tropical island and didn't see it rain as hard as it did during the seventh inning of today's exciting 7-6 Cubs win over Chattanooga, er, the Reds at Wrigley Field.

With my flight from San Juan scheduled to arrive at 2:05 (the flight was fine except when the flight attendant spilled Diet Pepsi on me. It wasn't so bad, and I didn't think till later that if I'd had made a bigger deal out of it, I might have gotten a voucher for future travel. Oh well.), I figured it wouldn't take all that long to get to the ballpark. Took the usual while to get the plane to the gate after it touched down 10 minutes early. OK, why bother landing early if you're just going to have to sit on the ground? Then there was a long line for cabs, I didn't get into the cab until about 2:20. Traffic on the Kennedy was... well, OK for a while, then stopped, I did finally manage to get the taxi driver to take my route to the ballpark, and it took several requests to get him to put the game on the radio (I don't think he spoke English very well).

So when I walked in, Jeff, Howard, Brian, Dave, Jon and Phil all looked at their watches and tried to figure out who won the pool -- on when I would arrive. I think it was 3:01 or something like that. Anyway, it was the bottom of the third, and things were looking great. Went around saying my "Buenos tardes, mes amigos!" to everyone.

And then Kerry Wood, who threw 113 pitches in a busy six innings, left the game, and the bullpen decided to implode once again. It's kind of interesting to watch, actually: how are they going to do it this time? Wednesday in San Juan, it was walks; the entire staff forgot how to throw strikes. Today, it was Mark Guthrie getting lit up for three straight hits (I think they were, anyway; by then I was sitting under my El Yunque poncho, the only raingear I had with me today), and then Antonio Alfonseca, unfortunately back from his suspension, gave up two more and a walk, and after the Reds' five-run inning, that rain came.

Folks, it was a long day and a long plane ride and it was pouring, so I decided to leave, having seen five innings. Jeff left too. Howard, Jon and I explained to Brian and Phil that had the game been called at that point, the Cubs would have won it, because if a visiting team takes a lead in an inning which is interrupted by rain, the home team must be given the chance to catch up, otherwise the score reverts to the last completed inning. The poncho did pretty well, but the scorecard got somewhat wet today. I'll wear those water stains as a badge of honor, considering what came next -- an inspired two-out, nobody-on rally, with a walk and three straight hits, none of which went very far past the infield, including the game-winner by Tom Goodwin.

I'm beginning to believe in the magic dust and spells that Dusty Baker got from his pals in New Orleans. Apparently he forgot to bring it to San Juan, or maybe it doesn't work in Spanish or something.

But something magical happened at Wrigley Field today. Sure, the Reds aren't much of a team (there are only seven players left from their opening-day roster), and the Cubs ought to sweep this series. I could feel it all the way from home.

It does go against my grain, but Go Cardinals, at least for tonight. Hope is alive, though wet tonight.

:: posted by Al at 7:42 PM [+] ::
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First, The Good News

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- The tour of the Bacardi rum plant is interesting and fun, and yes, they do give you free samples (that's plural, two samples) before you take a tram and see a bit of the history of how rum is made in Puerto Rico (Bacardi actually started in Cuba, but fortuitously built a plant here in 1958, just before the Castro revolution in Cuba), and there's a nice gift shop where you can buy Bacardi products ar much lower prices than anywhere in the USA, and in addition they sell a "Reserva Especial" which is aged 12 years and not sold anywhere outside of Puerto Rico. That's the one I got -- I mean, why not bring back something special?

Oh, and there's still more good news! The Cardinals and Astros both lost today!

That's about all the good news, though, as the Cubs also lost 3-2 to the Expos (sorry -- I'm using the in-room TV Internet and you can only bring up one browser window at a time, so doing links is virtually impossible).

So, we stand as we did yesterday -- one game behind, now with 16 left. It is emphatically not too late, especially since we now have zero games left against anyone with a winning record, and the Cardinals play the Astros at home this weekend. It rubs against my grain to root for St. Louis, but since they are 2.5 behind, it'd be perfect for them to win 2 of 3.

We decided to upgrade our seats today, and that was a good choice not only for the better view (I have some nice pics I will post when I get back to Chicago), but also because it put us under the overhang of the roof during the 50-minute pregame rain delay. If they had started before it started raining, they would have played through it -- it never really rained very hard, though we never saw any sun either after about noon. Good thing, too, as they had measured the temperature on the artificial turf at 167 degrees. Something I hadn't noticed the previous two days is that they had misters over the dugouts, I suppose to try to cool them off, though why you'd try to cool someone off in the tropics by adding moisture to the air, I have no idea. I've seen these in the desert before, at Phoenix Muni in particular, but never figured they'd use it in the tropics.

The ground crew wasn't that great either; they had to fight with the tarp which nearly blew away a couple times, and the game finally started at 2:25 after the 3 anthems and a moment of silence for the victims of 9/11. Odd to be on this island on this day, thinking about where I was 2 years ago when it happened (at work, watching in horror and shock with everyone else).

The rest of the stadium is much the same as the bleachers; a few additional fried food items and a bit more of a selection of souvenirs, otherwise typical cinderblock 60's architecture. The crowd was very pro-Cubs; people told us that the Cubs had the most fans come here of any of the 7 teams that played the Expos. A lot of it is pro-Sammy Sosa; we sat in front of two men from the Dominican Republic who had a huge "SAMMY" sign. But they are also Cubs fans.

Mark Prior just didn't have it today; he struggled through 5.2 innings, and nearly hit a home run which Endy Chavez turned into a great leaping catch at the wall. After that the offense shut down, so much so that my entire contingent -- Ron, Karen, Trish, Erika and Chris -- decided to head back to the hotel, as they were bored and tired, or so they said.

They missed the huge rally in the 9th, which might have turned out differently if Alex Gonzalez' ball had gone a foot higher; it'd have been a two-run single instead of a double play. But we cannot lament what has gone by.

After the game I hung out at the Plaza las Americas, a huge mall across the street from the stadium; just like any USA mall as far as I could tell, with stores like Gap, Old Navy and Borders. Tried to take the bus back, but it never came, so I flagged down a taxi in the middle of the street (say, that's just what you do here!!) and the taxi driver turned out to be a big baseball fan, loves the Cubs, thought my scorecard was cool, and was impressed that I was going to be at Wrigley Field tomorrow afternoon.

Where indeed I shall be, after a great visit to this "Isla del Encanto", as the license-plate slogan here says (I've been on a quest to find at least one outside-of-PR plate; I did see an Ohio plate on a truck on Monday when we were coming back from El Yunque, but no one else saw it, so they say it doesn't count). Had a wonderful time, despite the two losses, the visit to Hiram Bithorn Stadium was great fun, and my advice to Bud Selig is -- move the team here. One of the reasons they didn't draw that well, in my opinion, is that even though the Expos are a pretty good team, they don't belong to the people here. It'd be way different if they did. There's still a chance they'll play here again in 2004, and I say -- go for it!

Keep hope alive, and see you all back on the mainland tomorrow1

:: posted by Al at 6:38 PM [+] ::
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Well, That Sucked

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- I can't be any more blunt than this.

If the Cubs miss the playoffs by one game, it'll be because for the second day in a row, Moises Alou lost a fly ball in the lights at Hiram Bithorn Stadium. Frankly, the lights here are substandard, but it hasn't affected anyone except Alou, and he lost Jose Macias' popup which would have ended the 8th inning with the Cubs leading 4-3, two runs scored, and then Kyle Farnsworth imploded, giving up three more hits and the Cubs lost a really ugly game to the Expos 8-4, falling a game out of first place since the Astros beat the Brewers 3-1.

Mark Prior will try to right the ship tomorrow afternoon. I think it's really fortunate that the final game here is a day game, since that way Alou won't lose any more balls in the lights.

It was the fifth sellout crowd at Hiram Bithorn Stadium this year, 18,002, and it was in a festive mood. After a day of just lazing around by the pool (it was really hot today, so I actually dipped my feet into the Atlantic Ocean, just to say that I did it), we left again fairly early for the game so as to avoid a traffic jam -- that didn't work, and then the taxi driver misunderstood where to drop us off, and tried to drop us at the mall across the street; we finally got the message across that we wanted to go to the "Estadio", so he pulled over to the side, we walked across the street, sold our extra ticket and went in.

At first we sat in right field, wanting to try that out, but you couldn't see the scoreboard at all from there (and frankly, the scoreboard and PA announcing leave a lot to be desired -- there are no out of town scores at all, and they don't announce the lineups ahead of time, and there are no programs with rosters, so it's kind of like trying to score a spring training game, only without a roster list), and so it was back to LF where we sat last night. We did score a couple of nice box seats for tomorrow's game, and since I did want to see the rest of the park, I'll report from "the other side" tomorrow.

Once again, the largely male crowd was enjoying the sight of a hardly-dressed teenage girl vendor (this time it was popcorn instead of pizza), and several lively 40-something men decided to start the wave. We were trying to concentrate on the game, since Matt Clement was attempting to throw the world's worst no-hitter, and when the entire pitching staff forgot how to throw strikes in the sixth, Clement wound up with the weird pitching line of 5 innings, no hits, five walks and three earned runs.

We also got some nice free beach towels for signing up for credit cards (of course, not giving real names or addresses; c'mon, this is the game everyone plays for this free stuff), and they handed out free battery-operated portable fans (with free batteries, believe it or not), as well as more ThunderStix.

Folks, I'm pretty depressed after tonight's loss, so I'll say goodnight now, and hope for better times tomorrow. Sure, it's only one game, but with only 17 to go, every game is big.

Oh, and of course, today the Cubs announced that tickets for possible Division Series games at Wrigley Field will go on sale this Sunday. Bad karma, I think.

Keep hope alive, and go Brewers.

:: posted by Al at 10:25 PM [+] ::
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Nineteen

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- That's the Cubs' magic number after what seemed like a magical 4-3 win over the Expos here in Puerto Rico last night.

Most of you probably saw the game, so there's not too much more to tell there -- other than that I thought Carlos Zambrano threw great, the bullpen did its job (despite yet another scare from Joe Borowski in the 9th, giving up a pinch-homer to Jose Macias), and Sammy Sosa survived yet another round of being hit in the helmet. At first from our vantage point in the LF bleachers (more on that coming up) it looked like he got hit in the wrist (since he put his arm up to protect himself) and I had fears of a broken hand. Nevertheless, he was fine, and the Cubs, despite leaving ten men on base, had good long-sequence offense, with only one extra-base hit, and it was enough to maintain a share of first place with the Astros, who also won. This is the high-water mark of the year, ten games over at 77-67, and the longest winning streak at six.

Now it's easy to tell why players from the islands have so much trouble sometimes playing in cities like Chicago early in the season. You know it intellectually just looking at the temperature difference. But it's always warm and humid here, and you can see how easy it is to get loose, and if you're not used to that -- well, I can only imagine what someone who's never experienced a temperature below 70 degrees finds himself playing in 32-degree weather.

Can't imagine how hot it is going to be on the artificial-turf field during tomorrow's day game.

Hiram Bithorn Stadium is a relic of the '60s. It has a "folded" roof that's reminiscent of the pavilion roof at Dodger Stadium, which is of similar vintage. I can't tell you too much about the main seating area, since as we found out when we got there, just like home, there's a separate entrance for the bleachers, which were added temporarily only for this series. And they are "temporary" -- just sitting there, grass and a drainage ditch below, which I learned about first hand when I accidentally pulled my hotel room card key out of my pocket along with some money, and it dropped below, and I had to go underneath to find it. The bleachers don't have many amenties either -- a few small souvenir and food stands, and porta-potties. Food and drink selection was very basic -- pizza, hot dogs, beer and pina coladas. I ordered one, thinking I'd experience the local drink, only to find out later that you had to ask for rum to be put in it, so I wound up having fruit juice. I did have a real one later on when we went out after the game.

Though the seats were OK, we all want to check out the rest of the park, so today, we'll try to trade seats up -- even though they announced today is a sellout, I'm sure we won't have any trouble.

The crowd was lively and into the game, made louder by that most American of inventions -- the dreaded ThunderStix. Unlike most USA baseball crowds, this seemed overwhelmingly male. Though it was clearly a pro-Expos crowd, there were many Cub fans, not only those of us who made the trip over, but many of the locals, who were rooting for the Cubs, not just Sammy, though there were plenty there rooting big-time for Sammy; you could tell by the way the place emptied out after his last at-bat in the top of the ninth.

Ran into my colleague Jim Rose from ABC-7 early in the game; apparently they shot some video of me and put it on the air, though I have no way of knowing that for sure. A few of us were also put on camera outside the park before the game and wound up both in the game opening and WGN's news.

Silly sight seen: a few hundred locals chanting during the game something that sounded like "Hee Seop". Knew it couldn't be that, so we asked someone sitting behind us what it was. Turns out they were chanting "Pizza! Pizza!" Why? Because they thought the girl selling it was a hottie.

Finally, getting to the park itself was an adventure since the taxi driver ran into a huge traffic jam on the exit we were supposed to take (found out later there was an accident), so she had to drive about four or five exits ("Salida" in Spanish) down, and go through rush-hour traffic on local streets to get there. Advice: if you ever come to San Juan, enjoy -- but don't try to drive yourself!

:: posted by Al at 9:44 AM [+] ::
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El Morro and Old San Juan

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Today was tourism day, before the game; I'm leaving just after I finish this post.

After a tough morning of sitting by the pool reading the paper (yeah, I know, tough life), we took a taxi into Old San Juan (and more about Taxi Follies later). The taxi driver dropped us at El Morro, which is the ruins of an old Spanish fortress, the oldest such fortress in the Americas. It's located at the northwestern tip of the city of Old San Juan (the old walled city, and you can still see much of the old city wall throughout). It's amazing to think of how many times, by how many countries, this fort was besieged over the centuries. From British to French to Dutch to, finally, the U.S. Army in 1898, during the Spanish-American War, which led to the ceding of Puerto Rico itself to the U.S. Today, the views of the city and ocean are spectacular, and you can only imagine the 18th-Century soldiers lugging up 200-pound cannonballs, up a ramp which must have been 200 feet high.

We also learned that when this island was first "discovered" by Columbus, the island was named "San Juan" and the city "Puerto Rico", but over the centuries, the meanings changed to what they are today.

After that we walked into the Old City to find a place for lunch. The streets are narrow and quaint and the architecture and colors are really nice, tropical, with pastels everywhere. The stores are a mix of interesting art stores, to the usual tacky T-shirt shops, and also several of the big USA chains, Burger King, McDonald's, Pizza Hut.

Finally, we found a place called Maria's Bar, which looked like a hole in the wall, but the food (which was, oddly enough, Mexican) was pretty decent, and only on leaving did we see all the autographed photos of famous people who had been there, ranging from Ted Kennedy to Leslie Nielsen to Antonio Banderas. Cool place!

In the old city we also saw ruins of the old city wall, and a park absolutely filled wall-to-wall with pigeons.

OK, now the taxi follies. At first we couldn't find a taxi, so we figured (from the map) that it wouldn't be such a long walk back... we kept looking for a taxi, but never found one that didn't already have passengers, so we wound up walking back the entire way to the hotel, which turned out to be nearly two miles, a 50-minute walk. Well, I did need the exercise.

Now it's off to Estadio Hiram Bithorn, the home of the Expos for the 22 games they're playing here. Oddly enough, Bithorn, who is legendary here in Puerto Rico for being the first native Puertorriqueno to play in the majors, played most of his career with the Cubs, having his best year in 1943 when he went 18-12 with a 2.60 ERA.

We stand tied with Houston with 20 games remaining for each. Hope is nervous, but excited tonight.

:: posted by Al at 4:06 PM [+] ::
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El Yunque

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Before I write about this, let me tell you that about the last thing I like doing is being in the outdoors when it's pouring rain.

But I did want to see El Yunque, the only tropical rainforest in the US national park system, so I went with Ron and Karen (who love the outdoors, hiking, etc) and Trish and Chris, who are also here from the bleachers, and we drove the 35 or so miles to El Yunque.

When they say it's a rainforest, well, yes, it rains a lot. We could see the storm clouds gathering as we were driving, and that's what it started to do shortly before we got there, and it did rain off and on as we were driving up to the start of a trail. You could see wild pink, white, purple and red impatiens growing on the side of the road -- these, of course, are common houseflowers in the USA, but they grow everywhere in the rainforest, as well as hundreds of other types of palms, ferns, and other vegetation.

Timing is everything. We did buy ponchos at one of the gift shops, but the rain let up just as we walked onto the hiking path. We hiked for about an hour, past a couple of really spectacular waterfalls, and finally found a ledge near the waterfall where we brought out the sandwiches we had packed and had lunch. The sun came out just long enough for that, and on the hike back, it started raining again. But with the rainforest canopy of trees, much of the rain never reached ground level. We heard the "co-qui" cry of the tree frogs that live in this rainforest, the call that gives them their name. Never did see any wildlife up close, though there were warning signs that we should avoid any mongoose (which populate this park) that appear rabid. The rangers told us that a healthy mongoose will run from humans, but a rabid one will run up and bite. Fortunately, we didn't have to decide which was which, because we didn't see any in the park.

I'm still not much for the outdoors -- really, give me a nice hotel room with cable or satellite TV on vacation -- but frankly, this is a don't-miss sight, and something you all should do if you ever have the chance to come to Puerto Rico.

To give you an idea of how guidebooks sometimes lead you astray -- we stopped on the way back in a town called Luquillo, which bills itself as the "St. Tropez of Puerto Rico" with "the most beautiful beach in Puerto Rico". Boy, was this a letdown. It is a nice beach on a lagoon, with nice views, but it's behind a pretty shabby looking strip of food stands, with trash strewn about and a few straggly palm trees. Plus, it started raining again, so we came back to San Juan. It was then that we finally saw a mongoose; luckily we were safe in the car by then, as it rummaged through the garbage.

Now, for something completely different -- tonight, the Astros play the Brewers in Milwaukee, with Roy Oswalt, just off the DL, starting for Houston. If the Brewers want to really help the Cubs out, as they did this past weekend, they'll win. If so, the Cubs will be one game up going into their series here tomorrow, and as of this date, the Cubs play no teams with a winning record the rest of the season, as the Expos fell to the .500 mark yesterday with their loss to the Marlins.

:: posted by Al at 4:14 PM [+] ::
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The Leaving Is The Hardest Part

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- The stupidest thing about the flight today to San Juan was that after being all the way out on the runway, fifth in line for takeoff, the pilot announced that we had to go back to the gate because "we left about 20 bags behind."

That done, we arrived in Puerto Rico about half an hour late, and (SHHH! Don't tell the airlines!) before we even got to the gate I had to turn on my web cellphone to find out if the Cubs had won (they were leading 3-0 when the flight took off).

Sure enough, they had completed their 9-2 win over the Brewers, sweeping the series and winning all seven games in Milwaukee this year, but the webphone had the Houston/San Diego game in the 9th, with the Padres leading 7-1, and it wouldn't update!

Finally, the Padres completed the 7-1 win over the Astros, putting the Cubs in first place by half a game with 20 games remaining, which is (for the moment) also the magic number. There's a day off for the ballclub here in Puerto Rico tomorrow, while the Astros take on the Brewers in Milwaukee, and we hope that the Brew Crew suddenly remembers what it's like to be the hottest team in baseball, which is what they were before the Cubs cooled them off. Meanwhile, the Cubs have won five in a row, equalling their longest winning streak of the year, and at 76-67 they are nine over .500, also equalling the high-water mark of the season. With Carlos Zambrano scheduled to throw tomorrow here in San Juan, I have high hopes that the streak can be continued.

I went out for a walk briefly after checking in, and discovered what life in the tropics is like. It literally poured... for about two minutes, then stopped, then did it again about 20 minutes later. Interesting living. Other than that, so far it seems pretty much like any other large American city, only everything's in Spanish.

Tomorrow five of us are taking a trip to El Yunque, the only rainforest on US soil. P.S. Thanks to Chris for letting me borrow her laptop to make this post!

Three weeks to go. Hope is nervous, but happy tonight.

:: posted by Al at 10:13 PM [+] ::
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Adios!

I'm off to Puerto Rico this afternoon, so won't see any of today's game, just find out the result when I arrive there this evening.

Will post on today's results later, and report on the Puerto Rico trip as the week goes on.

One update to yesterday's note on my son Mark's game: usually it's pretty quiet around Sosa Field, where the game was played, but yesterday there was yet another in the city's series of "neighborhood festivals" in the parking lot there -- read this as "let's sell some beer to people on the street". This was the lamest festival I have ever seen -- there were two really awful bands playing, with a crowd of maybe 20 watching each, and among the stands of people selling things was one with someone selling ripoff versions of name-brand sunglasses. Hello? Isn't this what you bust people for selling on the street, Mayor Richie?

Geez.

:: posted by Al at 10:19 AM [+] ::
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