"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, April 10, 2004 ::

Oh, Well

Today really felt like baseball.

Yes, it's still chilly here in Chicago, though I saw a lot of people out and about in just sweatshirts and light jackets. Having spent three weeks in Arizona, I wore a heavier jacket. It's still cold here!

But I went over to Mike's to make our traditional pre-season ticket exchanges, and Brian stopped by my house to pick up his Opening Day ticket and the spring training cap I got for him in Arizona (and remind me about the bachelor party that his brother Jake is throwing for him at next Sunday's game -- yes, yet another member of our group is getting married this summer), I signed up for MLB Extra Innings -- although now that I've signed up, the free preview games seem to have vanished, even though I was promised I'd still get them, but in any case I was all ready to see the Cubs win two in a row for the first time this year.

The Cubs were ready too, at least until two out in the eighth, when the bullpen, which has been so good so far, suddenly forgot how to throw strikes, and the result was what would have been a nicely crafted 2-1 win, was turned in one second into an ugly 5-2 loss.

At least for today, I take back what I said about Sergio Mitre.

Yeah, he still looks like he's about sixteen. And his stuff is just average. But today he had the Braves beating the ball into the ground; he allowed only five hits and a walk in seven plus innings, and if he'd been able to retire Marcus Giles, we'd probably be talking about that 2-1 win.

Still, the bullpen has to do its work and tonight, they didn't. Is that because of last night's lengthy game? Maybe. Andy Pratt, whose minor league career has been filled with this sort of thing, couldn't find the plate and then Kyle Farnsworth walked in the tying run and then Julio Franco, who is nearly as old as I am, kept fouling off pitches till he found the one he wanted and he doubled in three runs, and you can read this game summary anywhere, but I figure if I write it here, I'll kind of get out the frustration that we all feel at a loss like this.

Todd Hollandsworth homered for the second day in a row, starting in LF in place of Moises Alou and... well, I might just start him again tomorrow against Russ Ortiz. I figure that since Hollandsworth got some key pinch-hits for the Marlins in the NLCS last year, he owes us a couple.

I'm listening to the post-game show on Fox Sports Net right now and Steve Stone just said, "Last night the Cubs won a game that they probably should have lost and tonight, they lost a game they probably should have won."

Those kind of things do tend to even out over the course of a long season. And if Kerry Wood can beat Russ Ortiz tomorrow afternoon, the Cubs' record will be 3-3... which is exactly what it was after six games last year, and coming home for a nice long homestand.

Seriously. The Reds are not going to be in first place at the end of the season, and neither are the Tigers. The history of baseball is littered with teams with great starts -- I remember two Cub teams in particular, 1975's team started 20-10, and finished 75-87, in last place, and 1980, not a very good team at all, was 12-9, and wound up 64-98.

This team is too good to let a game like this one affect it. Now, Monday's forecast is for mostly sunny skies and temps in the upper 40's, which is better than most Opening Days.

Bring it on.

:: posted by Al at 9:00 PM [+] ::
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Notes

HEY! The Sun-Times went up in price from 35 cents to 50 cents while I was away.

They always put this up as one great advantage to the Tribune -- that they were cheaper.

No big deal, I suppose, since nearly every metropolitan paper is that price (or more) these days.

And what's with the Friday day off for teams that opened Thursday (Tigers/Twins and Giants/Padres)? Why wouldn't they have opened on Friday, taking advantage of a potential larger TV audience?

Granted that these were home openers for both teams (Detroit and San Diego) and that the Padres were going to sell out anyway, since it was the first ballgame in their new ballpark.

But I cannot remember a ballclub giving up a Friday date during the season. At least the Padres don't have to share their stadium with the Chargers any more -- the Chargers always had first call and there was a situation a couple of years ago when the NFL set their schedule after the baseball season had started and forced the Padres to swap home dates with the Giants.

They had a heck of a great game for the first one in the ballpark, too.

Finally, two position players (Cody McKay, a catcher for the Cardinals, and Dave McCarty, a first baseman for the Red Sox) have already pitched this year.

McKay threw two scoreless innings.

McCarty gave up a run in 2/3 of an inning and has a 13.50 ERA. That's better than Mike Timlin, a real pitcher on the Red Sox staff (16.20).

:: posted by Al at 11:52 AM [+] ::
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Yawn

This morning I'm really tired. And that's normal for my first day back at work after vacation, especially one this long.

But it's even more than usual because, yes, I stayed up till past 11 watching the end of the seemingly interminable, but ultimately satisfying 2-1 Cub win over the Braves in 15 innings.

Before I make some remarks about the win, let me share with you the post I had almost completely finished and was going to post last night:

I'm Gonna Take Some Glue...

... and glue the bats to the shoulders of every Cub hitter, because every time I looked up (and there were times I was averting my eyes), a Cub hitter was swinging and weakly grounding out or popping up at the first pitch tonight.

AAAARGH!!!

OK, done venting. That was also what I was saying all day after trying to get out from under the metric buttload of paperwork that you'd expect after being away from home for three weeks. Sure, it was nice enjoying the retirement lifestyle for a while (and you could get used to it too, right?) but now, back to reality, paying bills, making sure everything's OK in the house, and having to go back to work about six hours from now.

In the meantime, tonight's ballgame, another frustrating loss, 1-0 to the Braves in only a little over two hours, was so representative of the Dusty Baker school of hitting -- he never saw a pitch he didn't want his hitters to be "aggressive" with.

Seriously, what does it take? The pitching has actually been quite good this young season, and tonight, Carlos Zambrano threw really well, making the proverbial "one mistake", a pitch that Andruw Jones (and will someone please tell America's sportscasters that it is NOT pronounced "AAAAAHN-druw"? That's just the way HE says it in his Caribbean accent) smacked into the LF seats for a solo homer. Otherwise he was getting the Braves to smash the ball into the ground. This bodes well, I think, because once this offense does get untracked (and it's too good not to), the club could easily reel off several wins in a row.

To be fair, I thought the strike zone was pretty odd tonight -- Sammy Sosa in particular seemed to be victimized, taking a pitch that looked like it was on the outside corner for ball three, only to duck out of the way of the next pitch, way inside, that appeared to be ball four, and then was promptly called out on strikes.

I should have remembered this from last year, but the TBS broadcasts are now blacked out in Chicago so as to "protect" the local telecast on WGN. This is kind of disingenuous, as anyone who has cable or satellite can watch both telecasts -- anywhere except Chicago.

I wondered if there was anywhere in MLB's Basic Agreement where this "protection" was spelled out, but I can't find it. If any of you can, or know where this is stated explicitly, let me know and I'll post it here.

So, I am unable to report on Ryne Sandberg's appearance on TBS tonight, which according to my friend Dan in the Cubs newsgroup, was engineered perhaps by Cubs media types to hype Sandberg's candidacy for the Hall of Fame. This is kind of disingenous too -- the next HoF voting isn't till next January, and though retired players have done this sort of thing before (Ron Santo freely admitted the reason he got into broadcasting in 1990 was to get his name out there, and the Nellie Fox Society spent a couple decades trying to get their hero into the Hall), I think Sandberg will eventually make it on his own merits, and doesn't need a "media tour".

I was just about to click "Post & Publish" when Todd Hollandsworth skied his two-out homer off John Smoltz to tie the game.

And then there was just about a whole game -- six innings, populated freely by the Ex-Factor. The last three Atlanta pitchers -- Antonio Alfonseca, Juan Cruz and Will Cunnane -- are all former Cubs, and Cruz showed the brilliance that he flashed on occasion with the Cubs, shutting them down for three innings with five strikeouts.

I can't say enough good about the Cub bullpen, which threw eight scoreless innings, allowing only four hits (but also seven walks, which kept the Cub defense in trouble constantly in the extra innings), and there were just as many ex-Braves throwing for the Cubs last night (Andy Pratt, who was acquired in the Cruz deal, Kent Mercker, who wound up with his first Cub win, and even Joe Borowski, who, yes, pitched for the Braves in 1995 and 1996, and had once been traded for Mercker). In fact, the Cubs have no less than five former Braves on the 25-man roster (Greg Maddux and Paul Bako, in addition to the three who pitched last night), and given the Atlanta success over the last decade, maybe this is part of the plan.

Do NOT underestimate the value of a win like this psychologically, especially when the offense has been struggling. The last Cub game that went this long was the first game of that amazing day/night doubleheader last September 2, which the Cubs won 4-2 on a Sammy Sosa homer, sending them on a streak where, after losing the nightcap on a controversial call on Moises Alou's screaming line drive, they won six in a row.

Finally, I note that WGN has inaugurated a new camera angle, which is slightly above home plate from behind the catcher (but below the "high home" traditional camera position from the first row of the upper deck), replacing what I used to call the "umpire's butt" shot. This gives a nice panorama of the field and is especially useful with runners on. In switching back and forth to other games last night, I noted a similar shot also being used at Dodger Stadium by Fox Sports Net Los Angeles. Kudos to the innovative directors using these new angles.

:: posted by Al at 9:34 AM [+] ::
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This Could Be Dangerous

Back in Chicago, I wound up staying up late to watch the end of two games that had thrilling endings in extra innings. I got this from the free preview week of the MLB Extra Innings package (which I'm probably going to wind up buying).

The Diamondbacks beat the Rockies 6-5 when Richie Sexson blasted a two-run homer in the 11th inning. Guess that Shawn Chacon as closer experiment might not last too long.

And, the Padres made two wild comebacks to beat the Giants 4-3 in the first game ever at Petco Park in San Diego.

I can see if I order this package, I'm probably going to watch way too much baseball this summer. I might even watch some Tigers games, because they are rapidly becoming the story of the year so far, with yet another win yesterday, 10-6 over the Twins.

Hmmm. So what's the problem? Too much baseball? Never!

And, I received an e-mail from Jessica whose friend Dave was at yesterday's game in Cincinnati, and filed this report:

I sat behind four nuns, and drunks in our section kept asking them to bless the Reds so maybe that had something to do with it. And some boys in yarmulkes were also a couple of rows further up which further points out how baseball brings us all together. Now if we could have had a few radical Muslim fundamentalists in our section we would have had everything.

Guess none of those people were praying for the Cubs.

:: posted by Al at 11:09 AM [+] ::
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Baseball With Breakfast

SCOTTSDALE, Arizona -- If you live on the US West Coast, you're used to this, at least when a game starts in the early afternoon in the Eastern time zone.

But this is a first for me -- Arizona doesn't go on Daylight Saving Time so now it's the same time here as it is on Pacific Daylight Time.

And so it was that today's 5-3 Cub loss to the Reds was one I got to see at breakfast time. OK, so I don't really eat breakfast, not with the hours I usually work (and how weird it's going to be going back to work after three weeks off. I've gotten almost used to this retirement lifestyle!), and besides I never really liked the typical breakfast foods, and especially now that I've gone low-carb, that stuff is way off my list. It started at 9:30 am Arizona time.

And before most people out here had a sip of coffee (yet another breakfast-time thing I won't touch) the Cubs were down 2-0.

Matt Clement, unfortunately, has continued where he left off in spring training. He was all over the place today, couldn't seem to throw strikes and threw 85 pitches in what was a really poor four innings of work, allowing four runs on six hits and three walks. Oh, and there was a wild pitch too.

Meanwhile, the Dusty Baker-aggressive-hitting Cubs were swinging at just about every first pitch they could get their bats on, with predictable results. Sammy Sosa was about the only one who could solve Jose (or was that Juan? I can never tell those guys apart) Acevedo, with two doubles and his first homer of the season, the 540th of his career. He needs two more to pass Ernie Banks for the club record of 512 (Sosa hit 28 homers as a member of the White Sox and one as a Texas Ranger, so he now has 511 as a Cub) -- maybe he'll save that for the upcoming homestand.

On the other hand, about the only one apart from Sammy who's been hitting is Mark Grudzielanek, and of course, he was benched today. Yes, Dusty, you have to get Todd Walker some at-bats, but at the cost of someone who's hot sitting down for a day? Predictably again, Grudz came up to pinch-hit and got a hit, and is now 6-for-10 on the young season.

The bullpen did a decent job again, throwing four innings of three-hit, one-run ball and at least keeping the game close, but this offense, which we all thought would be improved, has simply not hit well so far.

Three games don't make a season and we should absolutely not panic. Keep in mind that the team everyone figured would be the Cubs' closest competition, the Astros, also lost two of their first three and the Cardinals are also on the verge of doing the same (losing 10-4 at this writing).

But the Reds are a team the Cubs handled pretty well last year and this month, with lots of games against them, and the Pirates, and the Mets, should be a month for the Cubs to put some wins up.

Well, enough. It's time for the Cubs to head to Atlanta and time for me to head back to Chicago. And I'm going to go and sit in the 80-degree sunshine for a little while before I go, since the next time it'll be 80 degrees in Chicago is probably June.

:: posted by Al at 2:13 PM [+] ::
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Culture Vultures

SCOTTSDALE, Arizona -- Based on Howard's recommendation from last week, this afternoon we all went to Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright's famous architectural foundation and studio located right here in Scottsdale.

When it was built in 1937, Taliesin West (Wright's original Taliesin home is in Spring Green, Wisconsin) was almost literally the only human habitation for miles around. Scottsdale was a dusty village of a couple of thousand people. Now, of course, wealthy subdivisions surround the compound in northeast Scottsdale at the base of the McDowell Mountains.

But the mission that Wright set out to do continues to this day. There's an active architectural school where students, apprentices and architects study and design. They live on the land in sheltered tents and study and work in the original buildings (somewhat modified over the last 65 years) that Wright designed.

The tour is fascinating, showing how the rocks were taken out of the mountains and formed into the walls that Wright felt made the buildings one with its environment, and touring both the buildings (including Wright's home) and the grounds of the compound. The highlight for the kids was in the very last building we toured, a cabaret-style performance center where there was a piano set into a corner of the building (apparently Wright designed homes with these "piano nooks" and told people when they asked what these cutouts were, that they needed to buy a piano and learn how to play it).

Anyway, the tour guide asked if anyone knew how to play and Rachel's hand shot up and she went out and performed "Go Tell Aunt Rhody" in front of an appreciative audience of 20. We learned later that Billy Joel, among others, has played that piano. The piano and performance area is set on a platform where there is air underneath in order to make the acoustics perfect, and you could tell that from the tour guide; when she stepped off the platform the timbre of her voice actually audibly changed.

If you're ever in the Phoenix area, this tour is highly recommended. It lasts 90 minutes and one warning -- it is a bit pricey, $22 for adults and $10 for kids under 12, but I thought it was well worth it.

All of this is not only to tell you about my day today, but to avoid discussing tonight's disheartening 3-1 Cub loss to the Reds in Cincinnati.

It's disheartening, I suppose, because of the huge buildup and anticipation of Greg Maddux' first appearance in a Cub uniform since 1992, and since Maddux had pitched very well all spring, and the Reds frankly aren't a very good team, I expected better.

Actually, Maddux didn't throw too bad a game; he made two mistakes at very bad times, and gave up two homers as a result: a solo shot from Adam Dunn in the 2nd and a two-run homer by Ken Griffey Jr. in the third, and that was pretty much it. The Cubs couldn't get their offense untracked at all today; the only run was a consolation Derrek Lee home run with two out in the 9th. Andy Pratt made his Cub debut and threw a scoreless inning. Best news is that Maddux threw only 78 pitches in his six innings; that makes two days in a row that Dusty Baker has kept a starter's pitch count at a very reasonable level.

Matt Clement is the listed starter for tomorrow afternoon's game, and that means Carlos Zambrano, Sergio Mitre (gulp) and Kerry Wood will start against the Braves in Atlanta, and leave Maddux on track to start the home opener on Monday, which as of now will be played in 45-degree weather with partly cloudy skies. As Opening Day weather goes, we've had a lot worse.

I couldn't watch this game at all (don't get the idea that I "couldn't watch"; I would have loved to, but could not, being still here in Arizona), so I followed the game both on ESPN's GameCast and MLB's GameDay, since at times both of these Internet-based feeds would freeze up and I'd have to switch to the other one. It seemed for the most part that MLB's was ahead and more timely, and it actually indicated the rain delay on its play-by-play. ESPN's site simply stopped reporting until the game resumed. I hate to admit that MLB has a better product here, but they do. Over the winter I actually was contacted by MLB to be part of its "reporter" program, where you input the information via laptop computer and send it to MLB's website, for these live simulcasts.

It sounded interesting, and it pays $85 a game, but you know what? I turned them down because I really want to enjoy baseball with my friends and keep score and I thought that doing this, interesting though it sounded, would actually feel too much like work. Baseball's fun and ought to be so, and I want to keep it that way.

And hey, what's going on with the Tigers? They won again today, 6-3 over Toronto. Last year it took them 22 tries to win three games, and the three wins is 7% of their entire 2003 win total. The way things are going, I'm glad the Cubs don't have to play them this year!

:: posted by Al at 9:30 PM [+] ::
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Go Figure

PHOENIX, Arizona -- Luis Gonzalez hit three home runs today.

Ordinarily, that'd have been great news for Diamondbacks fans. But today, the Rockies trotted out their own Luis Gonzalez, starting at second base in his major league debut (and it confused some of the Dback fans, who cheered for him when he was introduced), and Gonzalez #2 hit a two-run homer in the 9th inning, turning a close game into a blowout and your intrepid reporter, who can't pass up a ballgame when one is available, watched the Diamondbacks lose their opener to the Rockies 6-2.

If the Gonzalez thing wasn't screwy enough, I went expecting to see a low-hit, well-pitched performance by a veteran lefthander.

Little did I realize that lefty would be Shawn F. Estes, the guy who drove us Cub fans nuts all last year. The last time Estes pitched in a game that counted, he pitched a four-hit shutout against the Reds last Sept. 24, a game that was absolutely critical in the Cubs' drive for the Central title last year.

He picked up where he left off -- the Diamondbacks were pounding the ball into the ground for almost the entire seven innings Estes threw (13 groundball outs), the only exceptions being Luis Gonzalez #1's homer in the first inning and a ground ball single by Steve Finley. The only other D'back hit was Gonzalez #1's second homer of the game in the 9th inning off closer Shawn Chacon. No, not every pitcher on the Colorado staff is named Shawn. They also trotted out a guy named Brian today.

I dunno. Maybe it's the palatial home that Estes and his wife have built in the Phoenix area over the winter. Maybe it's just to spite us Cub fans.

Randy Johnson did keep the game reasonably close, allowing three runs and striking out six in six innings of rather laborious work, throwing 114 pitches. Bob Brenly was forced to pinch-hit for an effective Oscar Villareal in the 8th and that's when Jose Valverde gave up the homer to the Rockies' Gonzalez and turned the game into a blowout.

What that accomplished is sending most of the 49,213 (though the box score reported the attendance as 46,949 -- I guess maybe the total announced at the park was including freebies) home, which allowed us to bypass not only the ballgame traffic but rush hour traffic as well.

As for the rest of the game, it was the usual festivities you come to expect with Opening Day, with what has become almost a cliche, the jet-flyover, this time from Luke Air Force Base, which is west of Phoenix. It's pretty cool, but with a half-enclosed stadium with the roof open, they flew over so fast that I only spotted them out of a corner of the open roof. I kept telling my dad, who's also visiting here and came to the game today, how interesting it was to watch the roof open, but he missed the entire event by choosing that time to go to the men's room.

Meanwhile, a woman billed as "Suzy V" sang the national anthem -- I guess she got her 15 minutes of fame on "American Idol". She sang OK. Now go back to your day job, will you?

My son Mark, who also was with us, decided he was going to try to get autographs, so we went to the Dbacks team store to buy a baseball and a Sharpie -- only to find out that there were about 75 people in line and not nearly enough cashiers, which you would have expected to not be the case on Opening Day. Luckily, the line moved pretty fast, but that didn't help get him any autographs.

I also give kudos to the scorecard vendor ($1 got you a scorecard and program, a much better deal than almost any major league park); I had handed him what I thought was $2 to buy one for me and one for Mark, but accidentally handed him a $10 folded inside the two ones. He called me back and gave me the $10 back, for which I thanked him profusely.

Biggest applause of the pregame announcements was reserved for Johnson, but the D'back fans never really got a chance to cheer for much of anything after Gonzalez #1's homer in the first inning gave them a brief lead. You know, I still can't get over the fact that it was Shawn F. Estes pitching this well.

I love Opening Day and I love seeing the players lined up on the sidelines and being introduced, and this was a terrific baseball diversion on a Cub off day. I tried to stop myself thinking this, but couldn't: a little over six months from now, I hope I'm in the same ballpark seeing the Cubs lined up along the first-base line.

Mark just walked into the room and I offered him a spot for a quick commentary here, and all he said was, "Not right now."

Go figure. Not always that easy to make an 8-year-old speechless!

Oh, and break up the Tigers. They won again tonight, 7-3 over Toronto, going 2-0 for the first time in 18 years. Last year it took them 19 games before they won their second.

:: posted by Al at 10:30 PM [+] ::
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One Down, 161 To Go

SCOTTSDALE, Arizona -- I'm going to ratchet up the cliche meter today, so bear with me -- I started with the title here, and of course, that's silly; the Cubs aren't going to win 162 games, no team could, or has ever even come close. And just to prove that a win on Opening Day doesn't mean anything, the Tigers beat the Blue Jays convincingly 7-0 today, going nine games ahead of their 0-9 start in 2003.

So the Cubs, with their 7-4 win over the Reds on what looked like a gorgeous day but was only 45 degrees, cold indeed for someone like me who's spent 2 1/2 weeks in summertime here in Arizona, are tied with the Tigers with a 1-0 record.

A win in April means just as much as a win in September, of course, even though those late-season wins feel more important, and often the second game of the season is more telling than the first, because all the pomp of Opening Day is gone, the crowd's half as large, and it feels then like the season has truly begun. So when Greg Maddux takes the mound tomorrow for his first Cub start since September 30, 1992, we'll get a better idea of what's really going on as the season begins.

Not that this was a bad example today. The club looked a bit sluggish even after Corey Patterson's first-inning homer and Moises Alou's bases-loaded double in the third inning, and Kerry Wood, after throwing so well all spring, couldn't seem to find the plate with a lot of his pitches today, walking three and throwing a wild pitch, and seemed to labor through his five innings and 95 pitches. But the club had given him a 5-4 lead and the bullpen pretty much breezed through the rest of the game, though Joe Borowski, also having gotten an easy two outs, then lost the plate himself and walked two batters before striking out Barry Larkin to end the game. It was a good thing the club had a 7-4 lead when Alou singled into a double play with Mark Grudzielanek and Patterson thrown out on the bases. I'd like to blame Wendell Kim for this, but I think I'd have sent the runners in that situation too. It took perfect throws to get both of them.

Mike Wuertz, who had such a good spring and made the ballclub as a result, had a nice debut, striking out two in a scoreless inning. You know, sometimes I wish these guys who wear the high jersey numbers in the spring would keep them during the regular season. Wuertz wore #70 all spring, and there have only been a handful of Cubs who have worn numbers that high during the season (the forgettable Daniel Garibay in 2000, #76, and the guy I wish I could forget, Todd Hundley, #99). Alas, Wuertz took over #43, last worn by Dave Veres last season. Let's hope he has more success than Veres did.

I don't often get to watch a Cubs game on ESPN and though we sometimes complain about Chip Caray, listening to Joe Morgan, inveterate Cub-hater, try to justify his dislike for the Cubs (I think it stems from lingering resentment over Ryne Sandberg breaking his HR record for second basemen), made me want to turn the sound down and listen to Pat & Ron. Oops! Can't pick them up in Arizona, and I'm not going to buy the MLB audio package just to listen to a couple of games the first week of the season.

So I'll just chuckle at Morgan saying the Cubs had arrived "from Florida"... gee, Joe, there's 12 teams with training camp in Arizona now. A little East Coast-centric, are we? And Jon Miller, who I actually like, at one point said that today's game was being played "in Chicago", though I suppose he could be forgiven for not knowing where he was, considering the two of them were in Baltimore last night, and flew in to Cincinnati just this morning, and maybe the cold weather froze both of their brains.

Tomorrow, with the Cub off-day, and being still here in Arizona, I will be attending the Diamondbacks' opener against the Rockies, and will report on that game tomorrow evening.

:: posted by Al at 5:05 PM [+] ::
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And Now, It Begins

Today was when it really hit me.

We were five outs away. We should be rejoicing tomorrow as we would begin to defend, at the very least, the National League championship, if not the World Championship.

I guess this hits me so hard because of the nature of what 2003 was all about. The Cubs came out of nowhere, and gave us so many special moments, too many to list here, though the Cardinal series in early September stands out as perhaps the greatest regular-season series I've ever attended.

We can't sneak up on people any more. Just about every publication and website I've read picks the Cubs to at the very least win the league pennant, if not the World Championship. Expectations are high, unlike last year when we had very few, and that's what made the ride last year so special.

And having that ride cut short in such a dramatic fashion almost didn't give us time to grieve. Nothing will ever be like that again, and having had that ride cut short, reminds me that tomorrow, we begin again, at 0-0, just like everyone else (yes, I know that the Yankees and Devil Rays are 1-1 already, and that either the Red Sox or Orioles will be in first place in the AL East after tonight), and I think all of us who live and die with the Cubs will be utterly crushed if we don't have at least a contending season.

And that's the difference -- the weight of expectations. Does that put more pressure on the players? You bet it does, and that's where having a manager like Dusty Baker will truly shine. Sure, he'll frustrate us with bizarre lineup selections and goofy platoon substitutions and will ride his starters too hard, but in the end there are 25 guys who will run through a wall for him, and you can quote statistics all you want, but there is absolutely a psychological factor to this game (just ask the Cubs after the 8th inning of game 6 whether that affected them or not), and that's where a man like Baker truly shines in his leadership qualities.

It's hard to start again from scratch when we were so darn close to the dream that all of us have had for our entire lives.

But this is what we do, as baseball fans and Cub fans, dream each year that this will be the year. For the first time in decades, that dream is more than a pipe dream. Sure, the Cubs have problems, and they've been well documented here and elsewhere, so I won't rehash them today. But what team doesn't have some question marks? Even the huge-payroll Yankees (fourth starter? fifth starter?) and Red Sox (who replaces Nomar for a month?) have problems.

The Cubs open on the road for the seventh time in the last eight seasons (2001 was the only exception), and so by the time the gates open at Clark & Addison on what we hope will be at least a fairly mild April 12, we'll already have some idea of how this team will perform. The final spring record was 16-16 (with two ties), and that means nothing. The last five World Champions have had a combined spring record of 77-84.

Tomorrow, 1:10 pm CDT, it begins. Enough talk. Let's win it.

:: posted by Al at 5:34 PM [+] ::
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