"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, March 06, 2004 ::

It's Weird

I know many of you probably subscribe to MLB audio, and this year you have to buy the entire season in order to get the spring training games "free" (unlike last year when they used the exhibition season as an enticement to buy).

So, I have not heard hide nor hair of the last two games, since I have WGN radio here and all the games on cable TV in Chicago.

Maybe that's why the Cubs have been winning. Today, another nicely-pitched 5-3 win over the Giants, this time finally in the sunshine in front of a sellout crowd at Ho Ho Kam Park. The Cubs expect to set another attendance record this spring, and several other games are already sellouts.

Juan Cruz threw two shutout innings, as a starter, though his role on the 2004 Cubs, presuming he makes the team, would be in the bullpen. Cruz had a terrific off-season in winter ball, and I saw him throw lights-out in Arizona last March also. Perhaps if he can have a defined role this year, unlike last year when he'd go many days without pitching, would help him.

The box score provided with the link above shows the Giants offense with only two runs and the Cubs with only four, so perhaps you'd like this box score instead, which has the proper score. The only Cub pitcher who threw poorly today was Mike Wuertz, and he's going to be at Iowa, if he's even still in the organization after spring training.

A lot of the offensive regulars (Sosa, Alou, Lee, Barrett) got the day off today, leaving it to Todd Hollandsworth (double, RBI), Alex Gonzalez (2 RBI), and Tom Goodwin (triple, RBI) to do the damage off one of the Giants' better young pitchers, Jerome Williams.

Yes, I know you can get the same information out of the box score. But know that I'm sitting here chomping at the bit to get out to the ballpark in only two weeks. Tomorrow's game is on WGN radio, so I should have at least a more complete, if not more interesting report.

Last spring training, this worked pretty well too, as the Cubs had a much better record in games I did not see or hear, at least until I got there.

Finally, today I ordered tickets for the Cubs/Diamondbacks exhibition game at the BOB on April 3. I accidentally ordered four tickets too many. If anyone reading this blog would like those tickets, please contact me.

:: posted by Al at 7:57 PM [+] ::
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Credit Where Credit Is Due

A couple of weeks ago, I had posted here that I was having some trouble with the formatting of this blog, after I added the "This Is True" daily humorous news story, which you can now find at the bottom of this column.

I got an e-mail from a dedicated Cubs fan in the UK, Stuart Teadley, who is also a web designer (and whose observations on the Cubs I posted here last Wednesday).

With a tremendous amount of patience and good humor he was able to help me redesign the blog template so that the left sidebar is now back to the proportion that it was earlier, about 1/3 of the total screen space, and the posts on the right are now about 2/3 of the total space. This should now look good at either 800x600, or 1024x768, and if you're looking at this at 1152x864 or 1280x1024, good luck because you're probably squinting!

Anyway, I offered to plug Stuart's website here, and he told me that most of you probably wouldn't be much interested in it, but I figure I'll give it a plug anyway, because I do know there are other people reading this blog in the UK, and besides, just mentioning UK Net Weddings will probably get him some hits via search engine.

Thanks again, Stuart, much appreciated, and go Cubs! Just to keep this post Cub-related, the Cubs are leading the Giants 5-2 in the 7th at this writing. More on today's game later.

:: posted by Al at 3:53 PM [+] ::
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Movie Review: "21 Grams"
(and Cub game report)

Imagine, if you will, getting to the ballpark in time for a 1:20 start and finding that the game was in the sixth inning and the score was 11-10.

You'd wonder what had happened to make it that interesting and exciting.

Then the inning would end, and after the inning break it was the bottom of the second. And then the top of the eighth. And then finally it would be the first inning, then the ninth, but it wouldn't end before it was the fifth again and...

That's pretty much what "21 Grams" was. I've seen movies told in flashback before, but this one jumps all over the place. It's an interesting gimmick for a while, but then the gimmick becomes the story and that's too bad, because this is an interesting story, and one that might have been even better if it had been told in straight narrative form.

It's directed by Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu, and this is his first major US released film, with a terrific cast including Oscar-nominated Naomi Watts, Sean Penn and Benicio del Toro.

I can tell you some of the plot without revealing too much. Watts is an upper-middle-class housewife with a drug problem, which she's getting treatment for, and she has a husband who adores her and two cute-as-a-button daughters.

Del Toro is an ex-con who has discovered Jesus as his salvation for his crimes, and he is also trying to dry out, and he's in and out of prison in the film (and that's part of the problem with jumping back and forth so much -- you can't figure out why he's in prison for what until very late), and he also has two kids, who he rules with an iron fist.

Penn is waiting for a heart transplant. Or not. And has a wife whose sole motivation in the film is to have his child, whether he wants her to or not.

I won't describe the incident which brings these three people together and makes sense of this film, only tell you that you'll go at least 45 minutes into the film saying "HUH?" until it finally makes some sense. In some ways this does help you focus on the story, and IF González Iñárritu had stopped the flashbacks right there, it might have been a terrific way of telling the story. As it was, the gimmick overwhelmed the story and kind of ruined the film for me.

It was shot in a very cold, cinema-verite style which I liked -- washed-out colors and stark landscapes, shot mainly in and around Albuquerque (misspelled as "Alburquerque" in the credits, though that is the correct spelling of the original Spanish city after which the New Mexico city is named), which doesn't often get many feature films, and the contrasts between the way the three principal characters live is, I think, one of the main points of the film.

Anyway, I went to this in part because today's game wasn't on TV or radio, and the Cubs' 4-1 win over the Giants was as orderly as this film was disorderly.

All the runs scored in the second inning, the big blow being a two-run triple by Michael Barrett. It appears that Dusty's not letting his starters go more than two innings in their first outings, and Kerry Wood, though he got the win, did walk three. There's plenty of time for him to settle down. He also had his bat warmed up and had an RBI single.

Tomorrow's game, the third of four consecutive games against the Giants (after which the Cubs do not play them again during the exhibition season), won't be on the radio either, so I'll follow it on the web with the rest of you. Sunday's game is on WGN radio, and the next TV game is next Saturday's.

AYRating (for "21 Grams): ***

:: posted by Al at 7:36 PM [+] ::
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An Inauspicious Beginning

While I was watching today's rather ugly 9-3 loss to the Giants on ESPN, the little temperature gauge I have here in the house registered 42 degrees.

It was 48 in Mesa today. The TV announcers kept remarking on all the people huddled up in blankets, saying it wasn't that cold, but there must have been heaters in the TV booth. It was that cold. I've been in the Phoenix area when it's rainy and cold like that in March, and ... it's COLD when that happens!

They shouldn't have bothered playing -- the announced attendance was 10,000, though it looked like less than half that in the stands, and playing on a wet field risked injury. The wet field was the reason for a couple of the Giants runs, at least, when Todd Walker didn't bother really diving for a popup. And why would you, to risk injury on the first day? Running hard on a wet field is what hurt Antonio Alfonseca last year in spring training. OK, bad example, but you get what I mean.

LaTroy Hawkins and Jimmy Anderson threw well today. Anderson, I suppose, has an outside shot at making the bullpen if Mike Remlinger truly is not ready. The offense was pathetic today -- Corey Patterson's home run was really it until the 9th, when the scrubs scored two runs off someone who won't make the Giants' roster.

ESPN had its troubles today -- at least on my cable system, they lost their feed for a while in the 8th inning. And worst of all, the idiot human air raid siren decided to ensconce himself behind home plate, standing up and hollering "Swing!" loud enough to be heard on mike. Why the Cubs, and/or the Ho Ho Kams, put up with this is absolutely beyond me.

The weather is supposed to improve to the point where it'll be in the 80s this weekend. Let's hope the baseball does too.

:: posted by Al at 7:02 PM [+] ::
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Tomorrow!

At long last -- after another cold winter, so many seemingly terrific moves made, and anticipation of redemption, the 2004 Cubs take the field against the Giants (ESPN, 1 pm CT -- yes, that's right, 1 pm, as they are doing an unusual noon MST start in Arizona) tomorrow.

The results of spring training games are meaningless, as they are not played or managed like regular season games. The Cubs have had some of their best regular seasons (1984 and 1989 in particular) when they had horrid springs.

But it will be nice to see the boys in pinstripes playing baseball once again. Matt Clement starts tomorrow vs. Kirk Rueter, and as you know if you've been reading here for a year, the Cubs seem to do better when I do not listen to the game on the radio, so I'll try to avoid that tomorrow.

Some thoughts I received today from reader Stuart Teadley from the UK:

I know we have the pitching lineup from heaven, that we have 1st, second and third bases well covered (no pun intended), that we pose a bigger offensive threat and a better pitching threat than last year, when we won the division...but ....I'll still be watching through the gaps in my fingers until about July - or in my case listening with my fingers half way out of my ear. I think we may regret giving up Lofton because there will be times when we struggle and when the long ball or 97mph fastball won't get us out of it - and that's when you need a hustler who gets on base when it matters.. anyway time will tell..

Indeed it will, Stuart. Let's play ball.

:: posted by Al at 7:30 PM [+] ::
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It's Official

Within the last 30 minutes, the final available 2004 bleacher tickets (for the game on September 29) were sold.

So, in a little over 96 hours, every bleacher ticket for the entire season was sold. There are approximately 20 games remaining with tickets outside the bleachers.

The Cubs sold over 730,000 tickets over the weekend, and there are approximately 400,000 left for the rest of the year (registration required for this article).

Cubs ticket manager Frank Maloney calls this "mind-boggling", and he's right.

:: posted by Al at 9:53 AM [+] ::
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I'm Kind Of Dumb This Way

But then, I know you're most likely a Cub fan too if you're reading this, so you'll understand why I took a few minutes to collate the list of Cub spring training uniform numbers into numerical order.

Here are the 2004 Cubs, as of today, that you'll see in spring training games starting this Thursday:

 1 - Jose Macias
 2 - Gene Clines (coach)
 3 - Wendell Kim (coach)
 5 - Michael Barrett
 6 - Ramon Martinez
 7 - Todd Walker
 8 - Alex Gonzalez
 9 - Paul Bako
11 - Mark Grudzielanek
12 - Dusty Baker (manager)
15 - Sonny Jackson (coach)
16 - Aramis Ramirez 
18 - Moises Alou
20 - Corey Patterson
21 - Sammy Sosa
22 - Mark Prior
23 - Ryne Sandberg (instructor)
24 - Tom Goodwin
25 - Derrek Lee
26 - Billy Williams (instructor)
27 - David Kelton
28 - Todd Hollandsworth
30 - Matt Clement
31 - Greg Maddux
32 - LaTroy Hawkins
33 - Ryan Dempster
34 - Kerry Wood
35 - Bill Selby (non-roster)
36 - Gary Matthews
37 - Mike Remlinger
38 - Carlos Zambrano
40 - Todd Wellemeyer
41 - Larry Rothschild (coach)
43 - Jamey Wright (non-roster)
44 - Kyle Farnsworth
45 - Trenidad Hubbard
46 - Dick Pole (coach)
47 - Gary Glover
48 - Joe Borowski
49 - Jimmy Anderson (non-roster)
50 - Kent Mercker
51 - Juan Cruz
52 - Sergio Mitre
53 - Francis Beltran
54 - Reynel Pinto
55 - Jason Dubois
56 - Felix Martinez (non-roster)
58 - Fernando Lunar (non-roster)
59 - Juan Lopez (coach)
60 - Carlos Vasquez
62 - Felix Sanchez
63 - Jon Leicester
64 - Calvin Murray (non-roster)
65 - Nic Jackson
66 - Bryan Corey (non-roster)
67 - Angel Guzman
68 - Ronny Cedeno
70 - Mike Wuertz (non-roster)
71 - Scott McClain (non-roster)
72 - Juan Pena (non-roster)
73 - Lester Strode (instructor)
75 - Pat Listach (instructor)
77 - Dave Bialas (instructor)
78 - Vince Coleman (instructor)
81 - Mike Quade (AAA manager)
82 - Rick Kranitz (AAA pitching coach)
83 - Jeff Huson (roving instructor)
84 - Bobby Dickerson (AA manager)
85 - Alan Dunn (AA pitching coach)
86 - Scott Servais (roving instructor)
87 - Dave Keller (roving instructor)
88 - Casey Kopitzke (non-roster)
89 - Scott Chiasson (non-roster)
90 - Bob Didier (scout)
91 - Grady Little (scout)

:: posted by Al at 5:55 PM [+] ::
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