"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 20, 2004 ::

Five Months And Five Days Later...

PHOENIX, Arizona -- The last time I was at a baseball game where the Cubs were playing, the result meant a lot more than today, and it was a lot unhappier than today too, game 7 of the 2003 NLCS at Wrigley Field. We don't have to recap that, and I have been to one game since then, a game in the Arizona Fall League last October, so this is the first time since Oct. 15, 2003, that I have seen the Cubs in action.

Today, with the squad split for the final time this spring, I chose the game at Maryvale (a western part of the city of Phoenix) against the Brewers, for a couple of reasons. One, I really like the ballpark, which was built in 1998, and second, I figured it would be easier to get a good seat, thinking this would be the "B" squad.

Right on the first call -- I had a seat ten rows behind the third-base on-deck circle, wrong, and fortuitously so on the second, as it was the "A" team, featuring Corey Patterson, Sammy Sosa, Alex Gonzalez and Kerry Wood, who destroyed the Brewers 10-0 in front of 7,639, not a sellout but about double what the Brewers normally draw, a crowd that had to be 2/3 Cub fans, on a 94-degree day.

It didn't start well for me, having to sit through a humongous traffic jam on Indian School Road, the main road leading to Maryvale, and after about 20 minutes sitting through this I learned it was construction, and what can you do? On the way back I took I-17 and I-10, which although it's about 5 miles out of the way, got me back in 40 minutes instead of the hour it took to get out there. Didn't help that I went out there at noon on a Saturday, when everyone's out running errands.

Anyway.

Wood has been quoted as saying he needs the whole spring to get ready, but you wouldn't know it today. He breezed through the Brewer lineup for six shutout innings, allowing only three hits and striking out five,the first Cub starter to throw six innings this year, plus he hit a sweet-looking line drive homer. Sammy Sosa also homered, a moon shot over the hitter's background in CF. I thought Corey Patterson, who doubled twice and made a couple of nice running catches in the field, looks 100% back from last year's horrifying injury. This is exceptionally good news.

Seriously, the Brewers, if it's possible, are even worse than last year. Of course, Richie Sexson, the one true bopper in the lineup, is gone, traded away for several Diamondbacks, all of whom -- Junior Spivey, Craig Counsell and Lyle Overbay -- were in the starting lineup today.

Overbay is wearing Sexson's #11. Why would you put that kind of pressure on yourself?

Most of the starters played six innings, then got pulled for a bunch of people who won't see Wrigley Field for years, if ever, but I did get to see Luis Montanez play a couple innings at 2B (inconclusive) and Felix Pie get an at-bat (grounded out). Felix Martinez, the ex-Royal trying to hang on, booted a ball while trying to make a flashy double play, but still got a slow Wes Helms at first.

Gary Glover, the ex-White Sox trying to make the bullpen, made a good case for himself by throwing two good innings, striking out the side in the 8th, though it should be said that striking out Chad Moeller, Jeff Liefer and Jon Nunnally isn't exactly doing it to major league hitters.

The Maryvale game was also a better choice than the ugly 9-8 loss to the A's at Phoenix Muni in front of 8,393.

Matt Clement looked pretty bad and so did Jimmy Anderson, who is in competition with Glover for that bullpen slot. Anderson gave up homers to Bobby Crosby and former Cub Eric Karros. Scott McClain, who is 31 years old and as I have written, will probably be the starting 1B at Iowa, homered again, his fourth of the spring. It's doubtful this performance will carry over into the season, but at least there's going to be someone in Triple-A who could come up in case of injury and play 1B, and McClain also plays a bit of 3B.

Final note from Maryvale: a couple of drunk girls with really large artificial breasts were sitting in the first row behind the dugout and spent most of the game making sure that all the players noticed, and getting autographs. Later I saw them in the parking lot with two guys who appeared to be their boyfriends, but who knows. Maybe they picked them up on the spot.

:: posted by Al at 6:07 PM [+] ::
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A Day Without Baseball

SCOTTSDALE, Arizona -- I decided not to go to Tucson today to see the Cubs play the White Sox for the last time this spring; it's two hours each way and since it's 4:00 or so when the game ends, you hit rush hour traffic in the Phoenix area coming back and that kills the whole day and I've got the next two weeks filled with games and as it turns out, I didn't miss much, as the Cubs lost to the Sox 9-3, although Sergio Mitre solidified a possible claim on a bullpen slot by throwing four shutout innings. This was in front of 11,624, the largest crowd of the spring season for the Sox.

It was the rest of the staff who stunk today, including a concerning four-hit, three-run bombing of LaTroy Hawkins in the 8th, and by then most of the Sox regulars had gotten the day off. Jamey Wright probably wrote his ticket back to Iowa with a three-run pasting, including Juan Uribe's third homer of the spring.

Most of the Cub regulars spent the day back here in the Phoenix area; only Derrek Lee, Michael Barrett and Moises Alou made the trip. Aramis Ramirez apparently has a minor injury that kept him from playing today, but he ought to be back tomorrow -- the Cubs have a split-squad day, both on the road, against the A's in Phoenix and the Brewers at Maryvale (which is in the city of Phoenix), and where I'll be tomorrow afternoon.

So instead of baseball today, it was a bit of poolside, a bit of hanging out at the mall (yeah, I know, how exciting, but I did need some new shorts), and then over to the Phoenix Mountain preserve where I did a bit of hiking around Squaw Peak.

Yes, I know (and I wrote about it here a year ago) that it's officially been renamed after Lori Piestewa, a native American and resident of the Phoenix area who was killed in the war in Iraq. With no disrespect meant to Ms. Piestewa, I think politically correct renaming of well-known landmarks is self-defeating. Surely, some other honor to her could have been made.

What's saddest is that on the maps on the trail, the name "Squaw Peak" has been clumsily covered over with paper, and not replaced with Ms. Piestewa's name. So if you are not totally sure where you are going, the map now is no help.

Finally, some more thoughts on something we've been talking about here this week, the ridiculous HR 3920 Judicial Activism bill in the House, which even this conservative online forum I found thinks is a stupid idea.

My dad e-mailed me again with the following, mostly in response to this article on slate.com:

The author is exactly right. Once you have a written Constitution there has to be a way to make sure that the legislative branch (or the executive branch) doesn't violate the Constitution. It was John Marshall's genius to set this up in Marbury v. Madison -- especially in view of the Founding Fathers' correct establishment of the idea of checks and balances.

Contrast this with the British system -- where Parliament is supreme. There's no written constitution, and what the British "constitution" is is a rather vague combination of centuries of common law, tradition and something which is rather unique to Britain -- the idea that certain things are just not done. It's interesting that Blair is now trying (so far unsuccessfully) to push the idea of a written constitution. He is also trying to abolish the almost thousand-year-old position of the Lord Chancellor, who appoints the judges -- a system which produces judges who are in general infinitely superior to our largely elected state judges.

The Lewis idea is just not going to get anywhere. Compare, for example, FDR's attempt to pack the Supreme Court in the 30's.

The fact that the Supreme Court has made some major mistakes (the Dred Scott decision in the 1850's, and the separate but equal school decision in Plessy v. Ferguson in ca. 1896) does not furnish any support for the idiots who want to leave fundamental decisions to the zanies (and worse) in Congress. Eventually gross errors of that kind are corrected -- by the SC itself.

:: posted by Al at 6:02 PM [+] ::
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Postcard From Arizona

SCOTTSDALE, Arizona -- This'll just be a short post, as I just got here to the 92-degree sunshine (Yay!), and on the final approach to Phoenix airport, we flew directly over Ho Ho Kam Park, right about 2:35 pm, so it was probably in about the fifth inning of today's 12-7 Cub win over the Angels, the first time the Cubs have played the Halos this spring, with their vaunted new lineup featuring Vladimir Guerrero, and vaunted new pitching staff including Bartolo Colon and Kelvim Escobar, the latter of whom was so impressive today that he gave up first-inning homers to Corey Patterson and Derrek Lee en route to a four-run first. Alex Gonzalez also homered today, his first of the spring.

The link above also makes a few notes about Mark Prior's side throwing session today, which went well, and says he'll throw again Saturday. While it's good to be cautious about Prior, he may be that one-in-a-generation guy who doesn't need six weeks of spring training to get ready. Kerry Wood claims that he does, and as long as you as an individual know what you need, that's all that counts, as long as you're not hiding an injury, and I believe Prior will tell the truth about how he feels.

Kent Mercker made his first appearance of the spring today, throwing a 1-2-3 sixth, and Carlos Zambrano threw his fourth consecutive good outing, allowing four hits and touched only for a two-run homer.

You know, coming to spring training used to be really "Old West" -- you'd go to these sleepy little old wooden parks and pay $3 and sit anywhere you wanted because hardly anyone was there.

Today, I got stuck in an LA-style traffic jam coming from the airport, and that was at 3:30 in the afternoon.

Progress, I suppose.

If you are still interested in the discussion I started here a couple days ago about the "Judicial Activism" bill currently before the House of Representatives, click here for a good article on slate.com which has excellent links to other opinions on this issue.

I'm probably not going to Tucson tomorrow -- it really does kill the entire day driving back and forth, so my first ballgame report will be from the split-squad game against the Brewers at Maryvale on Saturday.

:: posted by Al at 6:38 PM [+] ::
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You Expected Perfection?

Hey, Greg Maddux will be 38 years old next month.

As such, he's going to get pounded around from time to time and best that it happened today, during spring training, when it doesn't count, a 6-1 loss to the Rangers at the lovely new complex at Surprise.

Actually, you can blame this one partly on Michael Barrett. The Rangers ran like crazy on him, stealing four bases, though Maddux took part of the blame for that, and that led to the three-run rally in the third that pretty much put the game away.

The Cubs couldn't do anything with the Rangers' pitching, and oddly, it was another lefty who's given the Cubs fits over the years with the Mets and Brewers, Glendon Rusch, who shut them down for four innings. The club managed only six hits, with two from Aramis Ramirez and two from Todd Hollandsworth.

After Maddux was pulled, the rest of the staff, which included one guy who'll make the team (Joe Borowski) and two who won't (Mike Wuertz and Bryan Corey), shut down the Rangers for the rest of the day.

I got another e-mail from a reader, Mike Carpenter, on the issue of HR 3920, the "activist judicial bill", and I share it with you because I share Mike's views:

I'm an avid reader of your Cub blog, and am currently a law student at the University of Iowa. I would bet Mark Prior's arm that a unanimous Supreme Court would strike down HR 3920 as unconstitutional. Congress has virtually unlimited power to define the SC's appellate jurisdiction. However, HR 3920 does not concern the SC's appellate jurisdiction; it concerns the Court's judgments on the constitutionality of Acts of Congress. The current Court has repeatedly struck down specific attempts by Congress to reverse Court holdings finding Congressional Acts unconstitutional. See City of Boerne v. Flores. They will certainly not stand for this illegitimate attempt of Congress to grant itself the power denied by Marbury v. Madison.

Also, I think you are right about "judicial activism". "Activism" is really about how faithful a judge is to precedent. There are many very liberal judges who, due to their respect for precedent, cannot be described as "activist". There are also many "activist" conservative judges, who ignorethe law when it would frustrate their political agenda. Activism cuts both ways.

Indeed it does, and I think this bet of Mark Prior's arm is a no-brainer.

Let's just hope Mark's leg is OK!

I will be in Arizona tomorrow, though too late to attend the game at Mesa.

:: posted by Al at 7:27 PM [+] ::
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Okay, ONE Baseball Item For Tuesday

According to this article in today's Arizona Republic, the Cubs are on pace to set a Cactus League record for attendance this spring, possibly drawing as many as 186,000.

That would break not only the Arizona record of 171,651 set by the 1999 Cubs, but it would be a record for any team in spring training -- the overall record is currently held by the 1996 Yankees, with 173,482.

And, the article also says that the entire Cactus League may set a record with 1.2 million total attendance, which would shatter the 2002 record of 1.1 million.

:: posted by Al at 7:59 PM [+] ::
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My Dad Weighs In

After reading Mike's summary of the bad possibilities regarding HR 3920, the Congressional Accountability for Judicial Activism Act of 2004, my dad sent me this e-mail, which I agree with and share with you:

Mike's summary of this constitutional situation is very accurate. I think it's important not to mess around with the SC's appellate jurisdiction (which is basically discretionary with the Court). Whatever one thinks of the make-up of the Court at any given time, it's better to have a body to ride herd on basic Consitutional issues than to let Congress (or the Executive) do things that violate our historic rights of one kind or another. Don't forget that Miranda warnings, the various separation of church and state rulings, and Brown v. Board of Education -- among other things -- came from the SC, not the myriad baboons in Congress.

Won't you all be glad when we can get back to baseball?

:: posted by Al at 7:21 PM [+] ::
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It's Primary Election Day

The Cubs have the day off, and apart from this good report on Mark Prior's bullpen session today, a 25-30 pitch session with no problems, good news indeed, there's nothing Cub-wise to discuss till tomorrow.

So, as many of you know, I'm interested in politics, so today's entry is about the primary election here, which since the presidential candidates are pretty well set (I voted for Dean anyway, just because I do believe in what he stands for), is in Illinois focused on the race for Sen. Peter Fitzgerald's seat. Fitzgerald is a one-term Republican who chose not to run for re-election, and though I disagree with many of his positions, at least he has some positions, and doesn't govern by focus group, like so many officeholders today. One good thing that Fitzgerald did was to install the non-related Patrick Fitzgerald as US Attorney for Northern Illinois, and P. Fitzgerald is busy trying to clean up the local corruption (good luck!), starting with the indictment of former Gov. George Ryan.

Anyway, there are no fewer than 15 candidates -- seven Democrats and eight Republicans -- running for the two party nominations. It appears that Jack Ryan is going to win the Republican nomination -- he's a wealthy businessman who quit to become a teacher, and was married to Jeri Ryan, an actress formerly on "Star Trek: Voyager" and now on the Fox series "Boston Public".

And that divorce became a campaign issue, as did the contentious divorce of Democrat Blair Hull, who has spent $25 million of his own money on this primary.

I have to say, the personal lives of these people are none of our business. 50% of married people in this country are divorced. Does that disqualify them from holding public office? Of course not. Does it mean we have to have prurient interest in all the details? Of course not? Was this a distraction from dealing with the real issues? Yes, it was.

So I was going to vote for Hull, almost as a protest against that.

Then I walked to the polling place and saw signs for Dan Hynes, the Machine candidate, all over the place. And what I thought was -- god, what an awful thing if Hynes, who is 35 (and looks 50 -- are those graying temples fake? They sure look it) and with little experience in public life, and what he has he owes to his father, former Cook County Assessor Tom Hynes -- what if Hynes gets nominated? Ryan will blow him away, and I want this seat back in Democratic hands.

So I voted for Barack Obama, a well-regarded state senator who has a very good chance of crossing over and appealing to many groups in this state and whose positions are fairly close to Hull's, and who I think probably has the best chance of beating Jack Ryan in November.

This has been a brutally ugly primary campaign and I hope the general election is "nicer". With the primary 8 months before the November election, these nominees will fade from our consciousness for about six months.

The reason I want to make sure that the Democrats retake at least one house of Congress this year is this ugly piece of proposed legislation, the "Congressional Accountability for Judicial Activism Act of 2004".

This bill if passed and signed, would allow 2/3 of Congress to reverse Supreme Court decisions. Of course, this is a right-wing attempt to reverse what they consider to be "judicial activism".

My opinion is, it's only activism if you disagree with the court's decisions. If they're agreeing with you, then I'm sure they're doing fine!

I ran this one by Mike, who knows a lot about this sort of thing, and this was what he wrote me back (hope you don't mind a bit of a civics lesson here!):

This is, on the face of it, the old right-wing canard that decisions they don't agree with are "judicial activism", and those they agree with are not. This is also not the first time someone has tried this, even recently. Sen. Helms, in his day, talked up a law that would forbid the SC from engaging in judicial review. I don't remember if anything was ever actually introduced.

Judicial review is not in the Constitution. It is a claimed power of the SC, which validity is sustained by precedent and respect for precedent. It was not claimed until 1803, and not claimed again until 1857. Part of its authority comes from the fact that it is claimed relatively seldom. The original case was brought by a Federalist, James Marbury, named a justice of the peace by Adams in one of his famous "midnight appointments" in 1801. Madison, the new Sec of State, refused him the commission, and he appealed directly to the SC, as under a provision of the original Judiciary Act of 1789, he could do. Marshall threw this out, saying that the provision ran counter to the Constitution's stated limits to the Court's powers of original jurisdiction. A technicality indeed. Marshall, himself a Federalist, was ruling against another Federalist; but it had far more valuable uses as a legal and political counterweight to an opposition party that would monopolize American politics until Jackson's time.

It's a bit of cheek, as the Court alone has this power, and it's entirely self-granted. As it has turned out, the rule of law is in far more danger from the executive power refusing to enforce the Court's rulings, or enforcing them selectively; than in any "activism" the Court displays in its decisions. This review has always been vulnerable, because there are ways to destroy it, or cripple it severely.

So to Art III, Sect 2. After describing the cases in which the SC has original jurisdiction, there follows: "In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both in Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make." In other words, you bet your sweet ass they can.

In nearly 220 years, no one has dared; but as you like to say, we live in a very different and very vicious age.

I guess that wasn't so bad. I'd have wasted this time getting to bed at a decent hour. Also, it gives me one more reason to get up early tomorrow and vote. It is all the heck we got.

Sorry for all that. Tuck the kids in with extra care, it's not always; in fact, it's not usually, the foreigners you need to worry about.

What Mike is referring to as "a decent hour" is 1 am today, which is when he wrote that. He's right about voting, too. They're expecting about 1/3 of eligible voters to the polls in Illinois today. That's appallingly low.

Wherever you live, get out and vote. It is indeed all we have.

:: posted by Al at 4:21 PM [+] ::
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You Can Read This Anywhere, But...

I'm glad you've come here.

Soon, you'll get first-hand reports from spring training here.

But for now, I'm stuck reading the game stories and box scores and notes on the Internet and in the papers with the rest of you, as there's a forecast of snow in Chicago tonight, while it's supposed to get into the 90's in the Phoenix area this weekend (Yay!).

Anyway, today was a good day in Mesa, in front of an extraordinarily large crowd for a Monday (and against a non-marquee opponent, Kansas City), 12,717, the Cubs beat the Royals 3-2.

Everything clicked today. Kerry Wood threw four scoreless innings, striking out four. The rest of the staff gave up the two runs, one by Sergio Mitre, one by LaTroy Hawkins, and again, as he did on Saturday, Joe Borowski came in and shut down the 9th inning.

Nic Jackson homered for the Cubs, who had only six hits. I'd expect that the lefthand-hitting Jackson will be one of the starting outfielders at Iowa this year, and if he regains the top-prospect status he had a couple of years ago, he could wind up as a September callup, and possibly in the mix to replace Moises Alou in 2005. Sammy Sosa got the day off, which gives him two days off, since the entire ballclub has the day off tomorrow, the last day off until Sunday, April 4, the day before Opening Day in Cincinnati.

The Cubs made a few roster cuts today, none of them surprising at all. Brendan Harris, Jon Leicester and Felix Sanchez were sent to Iowa. Harris is hurt and may not play for a while; it's possible that Leicester and/or Sanchez might return for bullpen duty later in the year. Angel Guzman, Renyel Pinto and Ronny Cedeno were sent to West Tenn of the Southern League -- Guzman, of course, is probably the organization's next "to-be-ready" prospect. I'd expect him to be at Iowa by the second half of the season and perhaps get a September callup this year. LHP Carlos Vasquez was sent to Class-A Daytona and two non-roster players, Scott Chiasson and LHP John Foster, returned to minor league camp. Chiasson was once thought to be a bullpen star of the future, but has spent most of the last two years rehabbing from injury. If healthy, he could wind up at Iowa as well.

Oh, Mike treated me to lunch today, which I thought was awfully nice. Four weeks from today, we resume our perch on the bleacher bench we've shared for 25 years. He said, and I agreed, that this is the most-anticipated Cub season in our lifetimes. We hope it lives up to the hype.

With tomorrow's off-day, I'm going to turn this blog briefly political on Tuesday and will post some thoughts on the U.S. Senate primary election that's to take place in Illinois tomorrow.

:: posted by Al at 7:37 PM [+] ::
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Believe It Or Not, This Is A GOOD Sign

Last year, as you might recall, every time I listened to a spring training game on the radio, the Cubs lost.

Nevertheless, I was excited to listen to today's game, since there simply aren't that many broadcast games this spring.

The curse worked again. The Cubs lost again, 11-3 to the Giants at Scottsdale. It got so bad that I turned it off in the fourth inning after they went down 10-3, with Reynel Pinto, a pitcher with some promise who has zero chance of making the major league team this year, taking most of the damage in a six-run third inning. The worst of it was a grand slam by the Giants' starting pitcher, Jason Schmidt.

Matt Clement didn't throw that well either, getting pounded for two walks, four hits and four runs in a two-inning stint that had him throwing way too many pitches.

The good news is that Todd Wellemeyer came in and threw three good innings, striking out four, and keeping him in the running for the bullpen slot(s) that may be available with Mike Remlinger and Kent Mercker both hurt.

Scott McClain hit his third home run of the spring. This is almost completely meaningless, as McClain, who is 31 and spent the last three years playing in Japan, will almost certainly start 2004 as the starting first baseman at Iowa. He can also play third base, so he's a useful spare part to have at Triple-A in case of injury.

Meanwhile, the other half of the squad was in Tucson losing to the Rockies 7-2. Mark Grudzielanek made the trip and went 1-for-3. Really, I'm reaching for highlights here.

This game was apparently a long bullpen audition, as candidates Gary Glover (who was bad, allowing two homers, three walks and five runs in three innings) and Jimmy Anderson (stellar, four strikeouts in three scoreless innings) also attempted to prove they can fill the last slot in the bullpen.

These games are too confusing. There is only one more split-squad day, next Saturday when both splits will again be on the road, one in Maryvale against the Brewers and the other in Phoenix against the A's (and yes, I know Maryvale's actually within the city limits of Phoenix). I'll be attending the Maryvale game, as I like that ballpark and it probably gives a chance to see players who wouldn't otherwise get a chance to play.

Ron Santo seemed less irritating on the air today than he usually does to me; maybe that's because of the virtual meaninglessness of the game. The two of them spent a lot of time discussing their attendance guess. The 11,395 reported is about 1,000 over the listed capacity of Scottsdale Stadium, and the 8,739 the Rockies drew for the other half of the Cub squad is more than double the usual attendance for Rockies exhibition games, showing the drawing power of the Cubs even a two-hour drive from Phoenix.

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