"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, October 04, 2003 ::

If It's Good Enough For Sandy Koufax, It's Good Enough For Me

Almost exactly thirty-eight years ago to the day, October 6, 1965 was to be the first game of the World Series between the Minnesota Twins and Los Angeles Dodgers.

And Dodger ace Sandy Koufax, perhaps the best-known Jewish athlete of his generation, was supposed to start.

But October 6 was also Yom Kippur, and though Koufax was not a very observant Jew, he felt it important as a representative of the Jewish people in the world of sports, a world in which Jews are a tiny minority, to set an example, so he went to services at a small suburban synagogue in Minneapolis.

And so, tomorrow, I too, though I am not a very observant Jew, will spend the Kol Nidre (that's the Yom Kippur evening service), perhaps the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, at services. Howard and Jon will join me, and only after that, will we see the end of tomorrow's decisive game five in the Division Series.

Oh, here's the kicker to the Koufax story. The Dodgers' other ace pitcher, Don Drysdale, who had won twenty-three games in the regular season, was tabbed to start the game that Koufax was missing.

In the third inning, the Twins blasted him for six runs, and losing 7-1, Dodger manager Walter Alston came to the mound to take Drysdale out.

"Hey, Skip,” Drysdale told Alston. “Bet you wish I was Jewish today, too.”

That World Series went seven games, and it was Sandy Koufax, throwing his second shutout of the series, who won the 1965 World Championship for the Dodgers.

May Koufax' example, both in baseball and the one I am following tomorrow, rub off on the Cubs and Kerry Wood, tomorrow night in Atlanta, scheduled for 6:30 CT, the very same time as the service is scheduled.

Today's agonizingly slow, three-hour, forty-minute, funeral-dirge of a game, a 6-4 loss to the Braves in game four of the Division Series, tying the series at two, didn't have to end that way.

On so many occasions today, Cub pitchers were within one pitch of getting out of an inning, and then disaster hit, and twice in the form of Chipper Jones two-run homers (By the way, did you know that Chipper's real name is Larry Wayne Jones? And that he positively hates being called that? So if you are going to tomorrow's game in Atlanta, make sure you yell "Laaaaaaaarrrrrrrry" at him real loud!), and that was it, for the most part.

Jones did become only the second player to homer from both sides of the plate in a postseason game (Bernie Williams for the Yankees in 1995 was the first).

Sure, I'm compressing this game which was played on an absolutely gorgeous fall afternoon -- even the sunset seemed to be a portent of good things to come in the Cub ninth inning, and even though John Smoltz was throwing 96 MPH on the Cubs' new speed-pitch meter (and I think that might be a mile or two slow), the Cubs seemed to be able to hit him almost at will. Even Sammy Sosa's last-out flyball to the warning track, was hit to the deepest part of the park.

Really, the bullpen didn't do a bad job, considering that the only poor performance was turned in by Mark Guthrie, who had to come into the game at the last minute due to Kyle Farnsworth slipping as he fielded Robert Fick's bunt (and threw him out anyway). It wasn't a bad move, either -- normally Jones has much more power from the left side (25 HR in 434 at-bats hitting lefty, only 2 HR in 121 at-bats hitting righty during the regular season, and that's pretty much his career pattern), but Guthrie got a fastball up on a 3-2 pitch, and even when it was hit, it didn't look as if it were going out, not right away, anyway.

We tried all the superstitions. Same spigot at the 7-11 for my Super Big Gulp (and trust me, those are NOT good ideas on cold days; you just have to keep running to the bathroom); same sweatshirt, cap and T-shirt as yesterday (yes, I changed underwear); Holly (who wasn't even supposed to be there, getting a ticket at the last minute from her friend Linda, who was very sick today) came by and said hello, which has been good luck every day since September 1; Trish passed out toothpicks again (and man, do those taste awful after nine long innings), and many people were seen in the bleachers wearing fake Matt Clement chin hair. By the time we got inside, everyone was all out of the chin whiskers, which would have looked stupid over my goatee anyway. I even saw a guy outside the park before we got in who had a full beard except for right on his chin -- kind of the anti-Clement look.

Plus, we have now determined exactly who Clement looks like. It's not Abe Lincoln.

It's either Fred Ziffel from the TV show "Green Acres" or, perhaps Maynard G. Krebs, as played by Bob Denver in "Dobie Gillis". Either way, it's a bizarre look, combined with the high socks that Clement always wears.

So of the stat that I quoted earlier today:

"...of the 30 pitchers who have started postseason games since 1999 on three days' rest, only four have won (4-16, 6.39 ERA)."

... well, caps off to Russ Ortiz, who became the fifth out of 31 such pitchers to win. He threw much better than he did on Tuesday, though I also think Cub hitters were a bit overanxious, and I'd rather have had just about anyone but Doug Glanville up to hit for Paul Bako when Ortiz was finally lifted for Ray King, and Glanville predictably hit into a DP, though the right side of the infield was wide open for a drag bunt. Let us hope that's Glanville's last at-bat in a Cub uniform.

I do not think Mike Hampton, who also qualifies under the three-days-rest scenario, will be as lucky, or as good, as Ortiz, and Kerry Wood, pitching on normal rest, has been almost as hot as Mark Prior. Though there may not be as many Cub fans in Atlanta tomorrow as there were last week, I'd still expect a fairly large contingent, and you can be sure they'll be vocal and loud, and if the Cubs can pounce on Hampton early in the game, that'll take the Braves portion of the crowd right out of the game. That's kind of what the Atlanta early rallies did to us today, plus the somnolent pace of the game; today's crowd somehow didn't seem as up as last night's, until the ninth-inning rally.

Mayor Daley was supposed to be at today's game. He was also at Wednesday's game in Atlanta, another loss. I have often written about the mayor here, and as you may know, I'm not that fond of him. But this has nothing to do with that -- my request here for him to stay away from the rest of the playoffs has to do strictly with the fact that he's an unabashed White Sox fan.

Mr. Mayor -- we know you love the city and want the best for it. To help us out, please watch the rest of the playoffs on TV. Thank you.

Mike said to me before the game, "I'm sick of drama, I want a blowout." Well, he almost got one, but for the wrong team. Just before the ninth, he said, "I've changed my mind, I'll take drama!" And, he nearly got it.

As for me, I'll take as many dramatic wins as it takes. My heart is strong. I can take it. We can all take it.

Carole & Ernie, who sat in the terrace last Saturday for the clincher, were down the LF line today. We figured that was safe, but with the loss, Ernie now has to be re-banned for the rest of the playoffs. Sorry, my friend. Take one for the team.

So will I, tomorrow. Magic is still in the air. Hope lives. Go Cubs. Let's win it.

:: posted by Al at 8:59 PM [+] ::
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Stat Of The Day

Russ Ortiz starts for the Braves today on three days' rest.

From Jayson Stark's column today on ESPN.com:

"...of the 30 pitchers who have started postseason games since 1999 on three days' rest, only four have won (4-16, 6.39 ERA)."

Let's hope today makes that record 4-17.

:: posted by Al at 11:06 AM [+] ::
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Three Things I Did Not Know Last Night

* Dozens of people were sold counterfeit bleacher tickets on the street for last night's game (marked "General Admission" -- ALL postseason tickets are reserved seats).

* I live less than two miles from Wrigley Field. It did not rain at my house.

* Remember the touching posting from "Fred" from the Cubs newsgroup that I posted here a couple days ago, about his mother and family and how much the Cubs meant to them? (It's listed below under "Thought For This Afternoon -- I keep a week's worth of postings here, and after a week you can click on the "archive" link at the left.)

I offered to give him attribution if he e-mailed me.

Well, he did, and he doesn't want attribution, but I'm going to give it to him anyway, and you'll know why when I tell you that...

Fred is my cousin. He had e-mailed me after the division clincher to let me know he'd been reading here for quite a while, and that he and his wife were going to Atlanta.

So the post was about my own family; Fred's mom is also my cousin, who I remember knowing many years ago when I was a kid and they still lived in Chicago.

Fred was right. Magic is in the air. Let's win it today.

:: posted by Al at 8:38 AM [+] ::
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The Changing Of The Guard

Today, we all saw baseball past become baseball future.

In an absolute masterpiece of postseason pitching, twenty-three-year-old Mark Prior served notice that he, not thirty-seven-year-old Greg Maddux, is going to be the force in baseball for the next decade or so, just as Maddux dominated the last decade.

The Cubs beat the Braves 3-1 tonight, taking a 2 games to 1 lead in their National League Division Series behind perhaps the loudest crowd I have ever been part of at Wrigley Field.

Unlike the regular season, MLB mandates that all seats for the postseason are reserved; the ticket office collected seat locations for many of us who are season-ticket holders in the bleachers, and so we were all in our regular seats. At the gate, at first, security was going to let us in first, then said no, so we all got in line with everyone else. It didn't matter, really, since the seats were reserved, which probably explains why there were only about 50 people in line when the gates opened at 5:05.

While the pregame mood was festive, it still didn't feel like a playoff game until Paul Friedman on the PA started to announce the lineups, and the teams lined up on the foul lines. It's too bad, because I love that kind of stuff, but you could hear Friedman hurry through the Cub starting lineup, kind of ruining the effect, but he was doing it because of the bizarre little rainstorm that blew through for about twenty minutes just before game time, after it appeared on the Weather Channel radar that all the rain had cleared the area by about 4 pm!

Nothing's ever easy, right? Maybe this is a sign that we have to suffer a bit more before we reach the Promised Land. Everyone says we could reach a Biblical-style apocalypse if the Cubs ever do make it to the World Series, so maybe this rainstorm was just a sample.

Anyway, the game was delayed about thirty minutes, and after the rain stopped I tried to get to the men's room. Bad idea, as the aisles were so clogged with people, many of whom had probably never been in the bleachers before, so I gave up. With the way tickets are distributed and sold for the postseason, it really is likely that there are a lot of newbies in the bleachers; the crowd seemed older and better behaved than most, and that was refreshing.

Trish and Cheryl came over from right field and passed out Dusty Baker-style toothpicks to all of us, which we kept in our mouths for the entire game. They promised to bring more tomorrow.

The attempt by nearly everyone in the ballpark to imitate the Atlanta "chop" was hilarious -- what it reminded me of most was back in August when we were all swatting at the gnats!

And one discordant note -- in the fifth inning when we were all up cheering for a third strike, someone standing behind us smoking thought he'd come over and tell us that we were blocking his view. Well, he chose to stand back there! There were very few people standing with all the seats assigned, of course, which only possibly proves that they do in fact way oversell the bleachers during the regular season, something they can't do with all seats assigned. They had painted seat numbers on the benches before the last homestand of the regular season, but waited until this week to renumber the sides of each bench with the row number. And then they did it with -- magic marker. Nothing but the best for us!

When the game started, something was wrong with the ball and strike indicators on the main scoreboard, so they put the count up on the message board until they got it fixed. Then the side scoreboard on the LF upper deck started to malfunction (almost like a Frankenstein creation, flashing like it was saying "It's alive! It's alive!"). We blamed all of this on Jeff's light-up cap, because there probably isn't enough power in the Wrigleyville area to power all of those things at the same time and keep the lights on too. Maybe tomorrow it'll be OK during a day game.

The Cubs played a nearly flawless game, apart even from Prior's spectacular pitching performance. We must thank the Pirates yet again, because our three acquisitions -- Lofton, Simon and Ramirez -- combined for five of the eight hits and all of the RBI. I know that Eric Karros has hit Russ Ortiz well over his career, and that's why he started game one, but I'd have Randall Simon in the lineup again tomorrow. Just a hunch.

Greg Maddux was good, but his time has passed, and the Cubs did exactly what you have to do to beat him -- score off him in the first inning, and that also ensured that you'd see the dark underbelly of the Atlanta bullpen, which allowed an important insurance run to score in the eighth. With the rain, the air was very heavy -- we knew no one would hit a ball out of the ballpark unless they crushed it, and no one did. The Braves played sloppy defense, making four errors, but none of them figured in the scoring, and Prior managed to pitch himself out of every single jam, mostly created by a bit of wildness, particularly in the first inning when he walked two, then again in the sixth when he hit Gary Sheffield, and finally in the ninth when he wild-pitched on strike three to Javy Lopez. We knew when Larry Rothschild came out that Prior was going to stay in, even though Joe Borowski was ready, and even though Prior wound up throwing 133 pitches, it was the right choice.

Now the bullpen is totally rested, having had two days off, so the club is well set up to have Remlinger and Farnsworth as the first two guys in if Matt Clement gets in trouble, but I think Clement's ready to have the second "game of his life" on consecutive Saturdays. The sun's supposed to be out tomorrow, with lighter winds and decent temperatures in the upper 50's (in fact, tonight, despite a 54-degree gametime temperature, was never uncomfortable; the wind died down quite a bit after the rain), a perfect scenario for yet another clincher.

A little history lesson: the Cubs have played fourteen postseason series in their history. In only seven of them, including now this one, have they won even as many as two games, and this is the first time since 1984 that they've won two games in one postseason series. This one feels different. It feels right. It feels ready to be closed out tomorrow.

Hope sings, hope soars, and hope to celebrate tomorrow afternoon.

:: posted by Al at 11:20 PM [+] ::
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Movie Review: "Lost In Translation"

In an effort to distract myself from totally obsessing till tomorrow's game, we went to take in a movie this afternoon.

The choices were this one or "Matchstick Men", and while I still do want to see that one, I basically picked this one because it looked like a bit of light entertainment, and besides, it stars Bill Murray, who is one of the celebrity world's biggest Cub fans (I still remember the day in 1987 when Bill was one of the guest announcers when Harry Caray had his stroke, and after most of the game went by, somehow the WGN producers got Murray's mother in the booth, and Steve Stone asked her, "Mrs. Murray, was Bill raised by wolves?").

Instead of a manic comedy, I got a thoughtful film about the human condition and how people can find hope and solace and love in each other, especially when they least expect it.

Murray plays "Bob Harris", a poor-man's version of himself, a middle-aged American actor whose better days are 20 years behind him, traveling to Japan because Suntory (and boy, do they get great product placement) has offered him $2 million to do commercials for them. He's married, but his wife never appears -- we only hear her voice, nagging him on the phone about his kids and a home renovation project. Yes, my wife got a number of elbows on her arm during all of this.

In the same hotel, Scarlett Johansson is staying, the wife of an American photogapher who claims to love her but is always running off to do another job, or to hang out with a ditzy LA-based blonde singer/actress who can't sing or act. Johansson spends most of the early parts of the film hanging out in her room in her underwear; I'd blame this on the prurience of the director, except the director is a woman, Sonia Coppola, Francis' daughter, who also directed the unusual film "The Virgin Suicides". This one is her first major commercial release, and it's a great success.

Murray and Johansson, who are supposed to be fiftyish and twenty-fiveish in the film, have an even greater age difference in life (Murray is 53, Johansson only 18 - her first major film role was as the daughter in "The Horse Whisperer"), yet they pull off this unlikely love story, which has no nudity (except for a weird scene in a strip club) and no sex, not even implied, between them. Yet they have an unmistakeable bond throughout, two lonely people who find each other, find common ground not only to have fun but to share some of their innermost thoughts. A single touch by Murray says more than an hour's worth of words could.

Are they in love? Maybe. But it really doesn't matter -- they need, they want, and they share, and at the end of the film... well, I won't ruin it, but it does redeem itself after a couple of discordant moments. The only criticism I'd have is that at times, it moves very slowly; Murray plays Harris with an absolute deadpan look. It's hard to tell what kind of actor "Bob Harris" even is, and maybe it doesn't matter. Johansson's character has great depth, so much so you find yourself wondering why she married the goofy photographer in the first place.

Having been to Tokyo three years ago I can tell you that the film's depiction of life for expatriate Americans there is quite accurate; they not only get the sights but the feelings right, and it brought back many happy memories for me.

And if nothing else, go see this film to see a karaoke scene in which Johansson is a dead ringer for Debbie Harry of Blondie, complete with pink wig, and Murray sings Elvis Costello's "What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love & Understanding". Hilarious.

AYRating: ***

:: posted by Al at 8:19 PM [+] ::
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Thought For This Afternoon

Not all of you have Usenet access and read the Cubs newsgroup. (If you don't even know what Usenet is, never mind.)

Anyway, I thought I'd share this post that I found there today, posted by someone who identified himself only as "Fred":

I grew up in Chicago in the 50's-60's, and have been away for 30 years. A lifelong diehard, we return to Wrigley yearly. We went to the Ted for Game 1. The number of our fans there was unprecedented and unrivaled.

I rarely post here, and appreciate many of you here.

My mom died the day of the last Cubs game of 2002, almost to the hour that a year later they won this past Tuesday. It was the Cubbies that kept her going, and gave her solace. Since then, her soulmate of 57 years (dad) is understandably lost. The only thing that keeps him looking forward are the Cubbies. They've been more than a ballteam to us. They are, and will always be, a significant fabric of our family. They've kept us from falling apart, and drew us closer, especially now.

Mom's smiling down right now. She "told" me to tell everyone in the NG something we already know; There's magic in the air right now. Eat it up. Go Cubs.

You know we all feel this way. You bet, Fred. Go Cubs.

:: posted by Al at 1:38 PM [+] ::
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Well, I Was Close

It's official -- the Cubs/Braves game on Saturday will be at 3 pm CT, on Fox.

Complete Saturday schedule, times CT: (if you click on the link above, times will be listed in Eastern time)

NY Yankees at Minnesota 12:00 PM ESPN
San Francisco at Florida 12:00 PM ESPN2
Atlanta at Chicago Cubs 3:00 PM FOX
Oakland at Boston 6:30 PM ESPN2

Amazing -- that puts the Yankees in the least desirable timeslot, 1 pm Eastern time. Guess they really must want to punish George.

:: posted by Al at 10:42 AM [+] ::
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Deja Vu

Oddly, after last night's frustrating 5-3 loss to the Braves in game two of the Division Series, the Cubs find themselves in almost precisely the same position they were six days ago:

* having played poorly and lost in a game Carlos Zambrano pitched on the road;

* coming home for two games in which Mark Prior and Matt Clement will throw;

* and to a forecast of rain here in Chicago this Friday.

It's not exactly the same, of course; there's no scoreboard-watching involved since the Cubs do control their destiny; win these two games and move on to the National League Championship Series. And, there won't be any chance of a doubleheader; that's simply not done in the playoffs, and you know they will play Friday unless there is an absolute monsoon.

Speaking of the scoreboard, I drove by the ballpark yesterday and the ground crew had already set up the board for Friday, putting blank panels on all the games except the bottom two lines in each league, which show the division series matchups. On Friday, of course, the only other game to be played that day, Giants/Marlins at Florida at 3:05 CT, will almost certainly be over by the time the Cubs and Braves take the field at 7:05. Though we now know that all four series will be going on Saturday, no game times have yet been announced for any of the four games. I will stand by the information I got earlier in the week; that the Cubs and Braves will play Saturday at 3:05. More on this a bit later. The Braves have not yet announced who will face Matt Clement in game four; Shane Reynolds, their normal #4 starter, didn't make the roster for this series and their other starter from the regular season, Horacio Ramirez, was warming up in the bullpen last night. I'd still figure on it probably being Ramirez, unless the Cubs win game 3 and the Braves, with their backs to the wall, go back to Russ Ortiz in game 4.

I didn't think Zambrano pitched that poorly, but all the hits he gave up (eleven through 5.2 innings, all singles -- the Braves didn't have a single extra-base hit until Mark DeRosa's game-winning double in the eighth) eventually did him in. The bullpen didn't do a bad job either, even Dave Veres, who struggled through a 33-pitch eighth inning, and even he had DeRosa with a 1-2 count and one pitch away from getting out of it. How many times have we all seen "one pitch away" in a postseason game? I don't disagree with Dusty staying with Veres, or intentionally walking Rafael Furcal to get to DeRosa -- the strategy was sound, the execution was not.

It wouldn't have gotten that far if the Cubs, who had Mike Hampton on the ropes in the first inning, had taken further advantage; Sammy Sosa's two-run double missed being a three-run homer by about six inches, and poor baserunning might have run them out of even more scoring, as was the fact that Hampton finally figured out how to throw strikes and had several Cubs, including Eric Karros (who looked awful last night) swinging at pitches way out of the strike zone.

Even then, after the game was tied by pinch-runner Doug Glanville scoring on Tom Goodwin's sacrifice fly, Randall Simon inexplicably took off for second and was thrown out easily. This one, I charge to Dusty Baker, for not putting Tony Womack on the playoff roster; he could have pinch-run in that situation or pinch-hit to lead off the ninth instead of Troy O'Leary, who's been poor off the bench almost all season. You might ask -- who would have played first base in that situation? Probably Ramon Martinez, with Womack moving into the game at short.

I tried all the game one superstitions: put my division champions cap on (I bought it on Tuesday, the day they won game one, so that was OK), watched the game on three different TV's, in the same order as game one, but nothing worked. The attire for the game on Friday will have to be chosen carefully, but I am leaning toward my Mark Prior jersey (of course, that'll have to be in addition to a couple of other shirts and a coat, since the temperature is likely to be in the 40's).

Come on, admit it: you didn't in your wildest dreams think that the Cubs would actually sweep two games in Atlanta, though I have to thank the literally tens of thousands of Cub fans who were able to do what I couldn't, and go to the games, saving Atlanta from two more embarrassing postseason non-sellouts; the game two attendance of 52,743 is an all-time postseason record for Atlanta.

And yet, once you win the first game on the road, you always want to take advantage and win game two, which would set you up for winning either one of two games at home. Having said that, the Cubs did accomplish what any team without the home-field advantage wants to do: go on the road and at least split the first two games.

Some informed speculation on starting times for Saturday: all four series will be played in the Eastern or Central time zones. On Sunday, the Marlins and Giants will have the day off for travel, so on Sunday, there could be three possible games: a game 5 in the Cubs/Braves series and game 4 in the Yankees/Red Sox.

TV networks like having deciding games in prime time; that would lead to a Cubs/Braves night game on Sunday, and so times for Sunday games won't be decided till after the Saturday results, which means the Cub game must be as early as possible.

But the TV networks also like the following: the appeal of the Cubs/Braves, and the appeal of the Yankees in prime time (I also heard that the reason the Yankees were forced to play a day game for their game 1, was partly retribution against George Steinbrenner for vocally complaining when a Yankee game time in Baltimore was switched to day from night to try to avoid Hurricane Isabel). It's doubtful that they would make the Cubs and Braves play Saturday night, possibly ending very late, then have to fly to Atlanta. They also don't need to worry about travel in the Boston/Oakland series till after Sunday, and also, late-afternoon shadows at Fenway could be troublesome, so I see both of those games being scheduled for 1 pm ET.

Remember, you heard it here first:

Saturday schedule prediction:
Noon CT, Giants/Marlins
Noon CT, A's/Red Sox
3 pm CT, Braves/Cubs
6:30 pm CT, Yankees/Twins

Sunday schedule prediction:
Noon CT, A's/Red Sox
3 pm CT, Yankees/Twins (which moves to evening if Cubs win series 2-1 on Saturday)
6:30 pm CT, Cubs/Braves

Now it's a best-of-three series, and I like the Cubs' chances with Prior, Clement and Wood going in that order. Wrigley Field will be rocking as never before. Keep hope alive.

:: posted by Al at 4:18 AM [+] ::
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Afternoon Notes...

One hundred years ago today, Boston and Pittsburgh played game one of the World Series, the first one as we now know it; there were "World Series" in the 1880's and 1890's, but the modern WS dates from 1903.

Boston (then known as the Pilgrims or Americans) won the series, then best-of-nine, five games to three, and won five more in the next fifteen years.

And none since.

The Cubs need win only six of their next eleven games to make it back to the Promised Land.

And, I got a call from Rick Reilly of Sports Illustrated over the weekend, and Al the Media Whore is quoted in Reilly's column in the current issue, out today. If you are a subscriber to SI, you can click on that link; otherwise you'll just have to go out and buy the magazine.

The best is yet to come.

:: posted by Al at 2:03 PM [+] ::
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One

Kerry Wood, suddenly, has become the pitcher we saw back on May 6, 1998, when he tied the ML record for strikeouts in his fifth major league start.

One elbow operation and five years later, he's stepped into the role of dominating staff ace, and the Cubs beat the Braves 4-2 and took a 1-0 lead in the Division Series, stealing the homefield advantage and playing the way they've played all year on the road. With the best road record in the NL other than the Braves' (and only two games behind Atlanta in that category), the Cubs, as you no doubt heard incessantly last night, not only won their first postseason road game since game 3 of the 1945 World Series, they won their first postseason game of any kind since game 2 of the 1989 NL Championship Series, where they had a six-run first inning and their worst-hitting pitcher, Mike Bielecki, had a two-run single.

I had heard from Dan Lichtenstein in the Cubs newsgroup that his plane to Atlanta was filled with Cubs fans, so much so that United had to switch aircraft from an Airbus to a 757, and people at the airline told him that every flight yesterday was just like that; but I didn't really believe it till I saw the literally thousands of Cub fans that helped the Braves sell out a first-round game for the first time in several years. And they were loud -- I can't ever remember any postseason game in which the visitors had so many visible fans. It will be the same tonight, no doubt.

At first -- this seemed like so many frustrating losses, with the Cubs leaving runners on in the first, and the bases loaded in the fourth, and then when they loaded the bases again in the sixth, I thought, "Here we go again."

But by then I had switched TV watching positions (Superstition Of The Day!) -- I had gone from family room to basement and by the sixth I was watching in the bedroom, when Paul Bako's groundout (and I think he got jobbed by Cub-hater Bruce Froemming on the previous pitch, which looked like ball four) scored the tying run, and then Wood, who is a very good hitter, missed hitting a three-run homer by about fifteen feet, doubling in two runs, then scoring on Kenny Lofton's single.

And the bullpen did their jobs, though with some scary moments from Kyle Farnsworth and Joe Borowski. But we are used to that kind of stuff, and getting over any first-game jitters for those two was so important. Now they know they can step it up in a game like that, and on the road, too. I could do without the Farnsworth histrionics on the mound, though.

I was also dismayed to hear the voices of former Cub radio announcer Thom Brennaman and former Sox Steve Lyons on the telecast. Apparently Fox doesn't think this game is important enough to schedule their lead broadcast team of Joe Buck and Tim McCarver. Brennaman makes every call seem like it's the biggest event in the history of baseball, and his sense of that history goes back maybe 20 years, and Lyons is a master of the obvious. Fox could have done better. For Chicago-area viewers, then, I would suggest the mute button and WGN radio; Ron Santo's health made it impossible for him to travel, so Steve Stone joins Pat Hughes for the radio call of games 1 and 2.

Second superstition of the day: Mike, who does audio for us in the morning at ABC-7, had told me last week that the Cubs lost the only game he watched in its entirety, the loss to the Reds which had us all so depressed. Last night, he told me, he had to go out when they were losing, and by the time he got back home they had had the four-run rally. So he is now banned from watching the rest of the series.

At the tent sale over the weekend, I tried to buy a Cub jacket for my son Mark. They didn't have his size so I figured, why not buy the next largest size? So I did, and well, it came down to his knees. But he'll grow into it, right?

Guess who it fits perfectly? My wife Alison put it on and loves it!

So, she can wear it until he grows into it.

Wish I could have been in Atlanta last night. Don't want to get overconfident, but I'm hoping to be at the next series.

If you want to try your luck, click here for a link to the sale of NLCS tickets at Wrigley Field. By the time most of you read this, the games will probably be sold out, as the sale begins at 8 am Central time, and though there are four games on sale rather than the two Division Series games that were sold a couple of weeks ago, I'd bet they'll still sell out within an hour at most. Good luck!

Tonight, and fortunately an hour earlier than last night (playoff games really are longer than regular season games, and one of the reasons is the glut of commercials they squeeze into the longer-than-regular-season breaks; at least once they missed the first pitch coming back), Carlos Zambrano faces Mike Hampton. As I mentioned the other day, the Cubs can beat Hampton if they will do what they did last night with Russ Ortiz -- wait him out. The six walks Ortiz issued are really what did him in, and Hampton will do the same thing if the Cubs will be patient. Zambrano is capable of throwing the same type of game that Wood did, IF he will harness his energy toward focusing on the game, which he hasn't done his last couple of starts.

Hope floats. No, that's the title of a mediocre Sandra Bullock movie.

Hope soars.

:: posted by Al at 3:56 AM [+] ::
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In The Middle Of Everything...

... we are beginning a kitchen remodeling project this week.

Yeah, I know, that's exceptionally poor timing. But I didn't pick the timing.

So I wait tomorrow for people to come and start knocking down walls.

Say, maybe that's a good omen. The Cubs have 95 years of walls to knock down. Let it begin tonight. Hope lives!

:: posted by Al at 3:07 PM [+] ::
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2003 Season, One Day After

Now that we really have had time to exhale, here are a few of my very brief thoughts on the series that begins tomorrow night; I'm almost hesitant to say too much, because:

1) I'm nervous

2) I'm nervous

3) How much can you say, really? The principals are so well known, and you can get too bogged down in analysis, like Chris DeLuca did in yesterday's Sun-Times, and get stuff wrong, like who has the better starting pitching.

So that's where I'm starting. Yes, the Braves won 13 games more than the Cubs did this year. That's because they far-and-away led the league in runs scored, scoring 907 runs to the Cubs' 725. But they also allowed more runs than the Cubs' staff, 740 to 683; the Cubs finished third in the NL in fewest runs allowed, and of course obliterated the team strikeout record, finishing with 1396.

In a short series, good pitching can and usually does stop good hitting. This is not your father's (or even your older brother's) Braves team; for 12 years they've lived and died on great starting pitching. But Russ Ortiz won 21 games primarily because of the Braves' offense; he issued 102 walks and had a 3.81 ERA, not bad but higher than any of the Cubs' top three starters. Mike Hampton has had a nice comeback year after his nightmarish two years in Denver, but the Cubs have beaten him before (I remember that 9-walk game they had off of him in Tokyo in 2000!), and did score five runs off him earlier this year in a game the Braves won.

So that leaves Prior vs. Maddux, and Wrigley Field ought to be rocking for that on Friday night. Maddux isn't what he used to be either, though he did beat the Cubs twice this year, and got his ERA under 4.00 with his final start of the season yesterday.

The bottom line is: if Wood, Zambrano and Prior stay within themselves, throw the games they are capable of throwing, and the offense -- particularly Sammy Sosa who is showing signs of getting hot just at the right time -- can get to Atlanta's bullpen, the Cubs will be celebrating their first postseason series win since 1908.

No predictions. I am too nervous.

On to other topics today, since we have time: my picks for the major postseason awards, with a few brief comments.

NL MVP: Barry Bonds. His numbers were down a bit, but he still is a dominant player at 39; he hit a tremendous number of dramatic game-winning HR's and other hits; and his team rocketed into the playoffs, which for me is the difference and why I wouldn't pick Albert Pujols. In a year when the Cardinals were only a little over .500, I would only pick someone like him if he won the Triple Crown.

AL MVP: Now, this is an interesting choice, since there wasn't really anyone from a playoff team who had a dominant season. Jason Giambi had good production, but he hit .250.

Everyone is touting A-Rod, but he actually had the worst of the three seasons he's spent in a Rangers uniform.

No, my choice is Carlos Delgado, who led the league in RBI and finished his season with a flourish, a grand slam in his final at-bat of the year. Toronto players don't sometimes get the credit they deserve because of where they play. But I'd watch out for the Blue Jays next year.

NL Cy Young: Mark Prior. Nuff said.

AL Cy Young: Roy Halladay, despite the protestations of White Sox fans. Halladay was more consistent and won more games.

NL Rookie of the Year: The sexy choice, of course, is Dontrelle Willis, and he did lead rookie pitchers in wins. Then there's Brandon Webb of the Diamondbacks, who pretty much singlehandedly kept Arizona in contention while Johnson and Schilling were out. But he too faltered, and finished 10-9.

No, my pick is Scott Podsednik of Milwaukee, who was outright released by Seattle after a couple of undistinguished cups of coffee (though his ML debut was a bases-loaded triple). He scored 100 runs for a mediocre offense, hit .314 and stole 43 bases, besides being an excellent defensive CF. He's not young -- he's 27 -- but he clearly was the rookie who had the most impact on his team. Without him in the leadoff spot, Milwaukee surely would have lost well over 100 games again.

AL Rookie of the Year: Again, the sexy media pick is Hideki Matsui, and he'll probably win. Sure, he drove in 100 runs, but almost anyone falling out of bed could do that on that team. Another unheralded pick would be Royals SS Angel Berroa, who hit .287, scored 92 runs and hit 17 HR for a playoff contender. He did make 24 errors.

But my pick is going to be a personal one, a guy who many of you probably have never heard of. Cleveland's Jody Gerut is from the Chicago area and is a personal friend of Brian, Dave and Kevin, and he hit .279 with 22 HR and 75 RBI, even though he was a) playing for a terrible team, and b) wasn't even in the majors for the first month.

AL Manager of the Year: Tony Pena. Nuff said.

NL Manager of the Year: There are actually three possible choices here -- Jack McKeon, who took a club that was going to be tanking the season in May at 16-22, led them to a 75-49 record and the playoffs; Felipe Alou, who took a league champion that changed half its starting lineup and its manager and led them to a better record; and Dusty Baker.

OK, my vote goes to Baker -- for what he did for the franchise not only in baseball-playing terms, but in the way he changed the entire focus and attitude. Many men have tried this and failed. Dusty did it in one season.

Honorable mention also to Frank Robinson, who took the poor-stepchild Expos and kept them in contention till the season's last three weeks.

That's a nice way to take a break from all the pressure of the last few weeks, and to reflect on the season that was, and the new season that begins tomorrow.

Finally, "I Have Been Told By Reliable Sources"... that Saturday's "if necessary" game four, will be played at 3:05 central time.

:: posted by Al at 2:12 PM [+] ::
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Celebrate!

The line of the day went to Holly, who came over from RCF to tell us:

"Just like every year, the last game of the season doesn't mean anything!"

And for once, that didn't lead us to sadness, or looking around the ballpark thinking we wouldn't see the ivy-covered walls till April (when they're not ivy-covered, anyway), because we'll be back in only five days. What a pleasure to say to everyone as we were leaving: "See you Friday!"

The game, a sloppily played 3-2 loss to the Pirates, is hardly worth mentioning, because only four regulars or semi-regulars (Gonzalez, Lofton, Grudzielanek and Karros) started, and none of them played more than a token appearance, though both Gonzalez (with his 20th) and Karros homered. Dusty emptied both the bench and the bullpen, and rested virtually everyone else (we wondered whether Sammy was even at the ballpark today -- it would have almost been worth it for the people who won't be at the playoffs, to see him pinch-hit once). The bad news is that Antonio Alfonseca threw a poor inning again, and he will be on the playoff roster (unless he pitched himself off it today), and it's time to suck it up and remember where he's going -- he does have World Series experience, with the 1997 Marlins. In fact, of the likely postseason roster, nine have World Series experience (Alfonseca, Alou, Guthrie, Remlinger, Miller, Martinez, Womack, Goodwin and Lofton), and seven more have postseason experience (Estes, Wood, O'Leary, Sosa, Bako, Veres, and Karros). Once again, there may be a madness to Dusty's method, but you can easily see how any manager would want people who have been there before.

The Ron Santo number retirement ceremony was wonderful, except when Ron got into his golf cart to take a tour of the field; they went on the warning track, which meant that we couldn't see him from our perch in the last row. The most amazing thing perhaps was the fact that on a cloudy, chilly day, the sun came out just as Ron was about to begin his speech. During the ceremony someone (I think it was Sue) threw me one of the blue "SANTO 10" T-shirts that were on sale outside the park. It's a nice souvenir of a special day. Thanks, my friend.

Cosmic things are happening.

Our group set an all-time record today, with 30 in attendance, shattering the old record of 19, set in August last year on "Hooky Day"... and it was a festive crowd; I broke my low-carb diet big-time, having three chocolate chip cookies, one (small) brownie and two "Rally Mint Milanos", brought by Howard, which unfortunately did not do the trick and rally the sub-Cubs to victory. Hey, it was a special occasion, right? I can break the low-carb thing for this. I hope I get to break it again several more times in the next four weeks.

In fact, it was a good thing that Mike, Howard and I were all scoring together on the top row, because none of us was really paying that close attention to the game... I wound up finishing up the newspaper, Howard was both paying attention to his wife Marilyn who was in the second row from the top today, and Mike missed a few things because it started raining lightly in the seventh inning. Carole gave up scoring entirely, and wound up flitting among everyone in the six rows, and Jeff had Krista keep score today. Between the three of us, we managed to get the entire game scored.

So I finish the regular season with 92 games and a 49-43 record; 77 of them were home games (42-35) and 15 on the road, another new personal record (7-8 total record), and the team finishes 88-74 for the second time in three years. Two years ago that record finished five games behind the co-winners, Houston and St. Louis; this year it's good enough for a one-game margin, since the Astros beat the Brewers this afternoon 8-5. That means every single game, every single victory wound up being meaningful, each day from the 15-2 win in New York on Opening Day, to the clincher yesterday, because the final winning margin is exactly one game.

Before the game a TV crew that appeared to be from MLB was running around the outfield doing some sort of commercial spot (or so it seemed) with Chicago native, actor Jim Belushi. It was early after the gates opened and they were yelling up for some of us to come down and wave at them or something, and no one wanted to do it because we were all saving seats! Belushi wound up singing the seventh-inning stretch along with the entire Wrigley Field ground crew, who I know to be some of the hardest-working people in baseball, who never get enough credit for the great way they keep the field in shape.

The Cubs missed the 3 million mark by 37,370, which is about 2,000 less than the Friday sellout crowd would have been; final attendance was 2,962,630 for 80 dates, which breaks the city attendance record set by the 1991 White Sox when they drew 2,934,154 in the first year of the new Comiskey Park. That's an average of 37,033 per date, or about 95% of the listed capacity of Wrigley Field. Only the Red Sox, who are a bit over 100%, since they oversell Fenway, and the Giants, draw a larger percentage of capacity than do the Cubs. At an approximate average price of $25 per ticket, that's a gross ticket revenue of approximately $74 million (of which 10% goes to the city of Chicago as amusement tax); but this amount doesn't include the Cubs' share of concessions and radio and TV revenue.

I'll bet ticket prices go up next season anyway.

For now, that's the only mention of "next year" that I'll permit myself or any of my friends. Right now, NEXT YEAR IS NOW and it begins Tuesday night in Atlanta. The drawing power of the Cubs has even convinced the Fox-TV people to bump the Yankees from their prime-time TV spot on Tuesday -- the Yankees-Twins series is relegated to ESPN at 1 pm Eastern time.

Tomorrow, I'll post some thoughts on the season, on the upcoming playoff series, and my picks for postseason awards.

Until then, enjoy and celebrate. We have all earned it.

The best is yet to come.

:: posted by Al at 6:35 PM [+] ::
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We Are The Champions

A journey began more than six months ago in the warmth of an Arizona spring.

And Dusty Baker said, "Why not us?"

And through the coldest April I can remember; through more rain than I ever want to see again (I think I'm still drying out the shoes I wore during the Arizona series in August, where there were more rain delays than game playing time); through road trips as short as the South Side of Chicago and as far away as a gorgeous tropical island, the first part of the journey in this most improbable of seasons ended yesterday in spectacular fashion.

The Cubs swept a doubleheader from the Pirates, 4-2 and -7-2, only their fourth sweep in their last fifty-two doubleheaders, and with the Brewers' 5-2 win over Houston, the Cubs clinched the NL Central title, the first championship clinched at Wrigley Field since the 1938 National League pennant (yes, I know the 1998 wild card was clinched at home, but that's not technically a "championship").

Of the baseball there's not much to tell you that you probably don't already know; the crowd was late-arriving, partly due to traffic and partly due to the fact that many people had probably planned for the original 3:05 start and simply could not get there on time. At first-game time of 12:25 (re-arranged hastily for Fox-TV to broadcast the game locally), the park was probably half full, but even that crowd, enjoying the fast-departing sunshine, was into every pitch.

The first game was somnolent until the Cub offense broke through in the fourth, and suddenly the club began to look like other Cub championship teams, the ballclubs that you knew would win even if they spotted the other guys a run or two early. Mark Prior was sharp, though he had another 130+ pitch outing and so it's good that he'll have six days off till his next start on Friday in game 3 of the Division Series against the Braves.

Dozens of us were either listening to radios (the Brewers' flagship WTMJ is easily listenable in Chicago) or dialing up our web cellphones to keep up on the Astros' game and when the 3-run sixth-inning rally was posted on the scoreboard, even the players stopped at the ovation to look, and a couple of the scoreboard operators leaned out of empty spaces to applaud.

So in a way, Friday's rainout turned out exactly right baseball-wise; with the Houston loss on Friday everyone on the club knew what could happen on Saturday, and after the first-game win, the park was full (and despite the lowering clouds and temperatures, no one left the ballpark, quite the opposite from most doubleheaders) for a raucous game two.

Sammy Sosa began the fun with a home run that flew over the juniper bushes and landed among people waiting for beer at the concession stand; his fortieth home run gave him his eighth 40-homer season; if he plays today (not guaranteed by any means) and hits one more homer this year, that will give him exactly 470 HR in the last ten seasons, an average of 47 a year for a full decade, which is remarkable.

Then the club decided to put the game away early, with a five-run second-inning rally; Matt Clement, who has thrown very well this month despite some physical ills, threw a terrific seven-plus innings and left to a huge ovation, and then we all began counting outs, till our magic moment arrived just after 6:15 CT; with Sosa, Lofton and Alou doing their now-traditional jump-and-high-five right in front of us; hugs for everyone (yes, this is the time when men hug men, even total strangers), and a few tears falling; so much of our hearts and souls and emotions go into our love for the Cubs, and some of that gets squeezed out in liquid form at moments like this. We know this doesn't happen very often. We savor and remember where we were, when it was, how we felt, and always will. The crowd was celebratory rather than rowdy; no one rushed the field and very little trash was thrown; the only down moment was created by a very drunk guy a few rows in front of us who was pushing through everyone in about the seventh inning; he didn't get to see all of this because security removed him, and finally with enough shouting, we were able to get the other drunks in front of us to sit down and actually watch the last couple of innings, to savor the moment, to enjoy the fruits of this six-month quest.

We didn't have a large contingent in our group today, just me, Jeff, Dave, Howard, Mike and Phil, since some of our group couldn't get bleacher tickets, including Carole & Ernie (yes, Ernie, who was banned earlier this year because the club lost every game he attended, is reinstated after the sweep yesterday), who wound up in the grandstand. I tried to call them a couple of times, but apparently the volume of cellphone calls at the ballpark was so great that it prevented us from even getting a signal for a while.

How important was yesterday? Jeff had a ticket to see Bruce Springsteen at Miller Park, but blew it off to stay for the clincher. I had actually offered him tickets to the show here in Chicago last month, but he turned them down, telling me he was going to the Milwaukee show.

Don't feel too bad for him; he's already seen Springsteen 27 times, by his count.

I feel somewhat bad for any of you who had tickets for Friday's game and who couldn't go yesterday because of the rainout; it's unfortunate, but obviously the Cubs have no control over the weather, and both logistically and baseball-wise, it wouldn't have been smart to play a split-doubleheader yesterday.

I think you'll take the end result, won't you?

Anyway, all our friends will be in the bleachers today with us; Jeff has told me that just about everyone who has ever sat with us may be there today, a total of as many as 30 people, on what's going to be a celebratory day of fun. A better script couldn't have been written, really; today will be like an exhibition game (Sergio Mitre will start, probably along with several other non-regulars), and Ron Santo, whose number is being retired today and who bleeds Cubbie blue as much as any of us in the seats, will have a day of celebration and joy. As many of you know, I don't care much for Santo as a broadcaster; but his love for the game and the Cubs is unparalleled, and from everyone I know who's ever met him, he's supposed to be just a prince of a human being, and for that, I'm just thrilled that this can be his day, especially with all the health problems he's had over the last few years, which he has always met uncomplainingly.

Back to yesterday -- as the game was ending a giant street party was forming on Waveland and Sheffield, and it wasn't rowdy, just people having a good time; I wound up high-fiving total strangers yet again on my way back to the car.

The people at the Lakeview Baseball Club building on Sheffield, who have signs on their building reading "Eamus Catuli" (roughly, "Let's Go Cubs" in Latin), and "AC145895" ("Anno Cub", and the number of years since a division title, pennant and World Championship, respectively), immediately after the game was won, took down the "14" and replaced it with "0". Cheryl took photos of this and if I can get a copy, I'll post it here.

As this was going on, the Cubs came back on the field for their "victory lap"; the first to reach the bleachers, grinning and jumping and waving, was Randall Simon, but the one I'll remember most was Eric Karros, still clutching tightly the ball he grabbed for the last out of the double play that ended game two. Karros may not even be here next year, but the contributions he's made are considerable, and the home run he hit to beat the Yankees on June 7 will permanently etch him in Cub lore. A few minutes after the club made the circuit, Sammy Sosa came back and sprayed the first few rows with champagne; I think all the ballclub knows how much we wanted to share in this celebration, from Sosa who's been at the heights and the depths (even now, it feels even better knowing that we come from a 97-loss season only a year ago); to Mark Prior, who we hope will be at the center of many seasons like this one; to Kenny Lofton, whose grandmother used to watch the games with him when he came home from school in East Chicago, Indiana, to...

Dusty Baker.

Who believed when we were skeptical.

Who motivated every single man in his clubhouse.

Who made bizarre in-game decisions and somehow had them work anyway.

Who manages a team of men, nearly every one of whom would run through a wall for him.

Thank you, Dusty, for bringing us to this point and giving us so many memorable moments, in your first year in something so new to you; and for beginning to understand us as we begin to understand you.

This is step one. My friends, as wonderful as today feels, we have been here before. The journey is not yet over; it's only begun the most exciting part. For a quick thought about the upcoming series against the Braves (and I'll post more thoughts on the series on Monday) -- this Cub team is a far better team than the overmatched 1998 squad that got swept out of the first round, and the Braves are a very different team than they were then too, relying more on offense this year than their former strength, pitching.

With the clincher yesterday, the pitching rotation works out nearly perfectly for the Division Series; Wood, Zambrano, Prior, Clement in that order, all of them getting an extra day or two of rest, and Wood available for a possible game five on his normal four days of rest.

I've traveled a lot this season but at this point in the year, I don't have the travel days to go to Atlanta, so I'll be watching on TV with everyone else, till I go to game three on Friday night at Wrigley Field.

We hoped, sometimes beyond hope. And yesterday, so many of our hopes and dreams came true.

Keep hope alive. There are still eleven more games to be won, beginning Tuesday.

:: posted by Al at 4:21 AM [+] ::
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