who gives a shit

mlb.com ran this story today, about how torn some yankee fans are over pinella vs torre in the NLDS. both have ties to the team, while the dodgers have more former players from the yankees' nemesis, the boston red sox.

here's my question: who gives a shit what yankee fans think?

someone really should have thought about that question before running this lame-ass excuse for a story.

the best part of the MLB playoffs this year is not having to listen to baby steinbrenners whine about how unfair the game is to the yanks when they invariably lose (as they have the last several years).

thank you, i'll be here all week. try the veal.

heartbreak and hope

for the 2nd year in a row, the new york mets miss out on the post season with a loss to the florida marlins on the last day of the regular season. pretty stinging. shea stadium goes out with a wimper, rather than with the roar of a post season game.

im sure the team is disappointed, but probably not as much as their fans. its hard to let go of the season, and to lose when you expect to play another day is shocking.

im watching the closing ceremonies at shea. the crowd is pretty subdued. not surprising. it hard to applaud for old people you dont know when you team has just broken your heart, for the 2nd year in a row.

in other news, both the twins and white sox won, so the season goes into extra innings. the white sox will face rock's brother, freddy garcia, at the cell tomorrow in a make up game with the tigers. garcia, who won a world series with the white sox in 2005 and recently asserted that he had no friends on the team, that he was a tiger now.

should be a good game. the white sox are fighting to stay a contender for the AL central, and im sure detroit is annoyed about having to play a game after the season is over.

heres how all 4 games i watched today ended up

cubs 1, brewers 3
marlins 4, mets 2
indians 1, white sox 5
royals 0, twins 5

thats a lot of baseball. but i wouldnt have it any other way.

last day of the regular season

its incredible. 162 games in the regular season, and there are 4 teams still battling for playoff spots on the last day of the regular season.

thanks to mlb mosiac, im watching 4 games at the same time, white sox vs indians, marlins vs mets, cubs vs brewers, and twins vs royals.

mets and brewers are tied for the NL Wild card, a win by one and a loss for the other determines the winner. should both teams win or lose, they have to play a tiebreaker tomorrow.

the white sox are 1/2 game back of the twins. their situation is more complicated. a twins win and white sox loss eliminates ozzie's crew. if both teams win, the white sox have to play a make-up game against detroit on monday, if they win that, sox and twins play a tiebreaker on tuesday. so the sox have to win 3 in a row to take the AL central.

today is a big day. pennants are up for grabs. a timely hit, or a misplayed ball can mean the season for a team. pretty exciting, and im sure nerve wracking for all the fans involved.

im glad i can sit back and relax. the game against the brewers is more or less a scrimmage. the cubs already own the best record in the NL, and are just trying to keep their winning rhythm in place for the start of the playoffs.

but i have have to recognize how important a day today is, even if its not for my team.

162 games in a season. and it all comes down to today. amazing.

short rest

the white sox, mets, and brewers this week are throwing their star pitchers out on 3 days rest, last ditch attempts to clinch a spot in the post season. the only team who isn't doing it are the twins, who have no real "stars" in their rotation.

maybe this is naive of me to think, but i don't understand this tactic. i know that the post season schedule allows more rest for pitchers, and therefore teams won't need a full 5-man rotation. but what good is it to wear out your best pitchers before post season even starts? tired arms dont win games.

santana pitched the shit out of the ball yesterday, a complete game on short rest. an amazing performance and fitting for possibly one of the final games at shea stadium. but the rotation is in flux. as good as he is, santata cannot win 11 post season games on his own. same for sabathia.

what good is it to make to the post-season, only to be humiliated by teams with full rotations? i don't get it.

update

the cubs have already clinched the division and home field advantage for the 1st 2 rounds of the playoffs. the games this week is just to run up some individual numbers, and maybe rest the guys who have grinded all season.

i left for the gym with the game tied in the 8th. they didnt need to pull it out, not nearly as much as the mets did.

low and behold, even when they don't have to, the cubbies came through to win the game in the 10th. sweet.

and rosenblog said it the best in today's column

When did Howry become Carlos Marmol?

i love this game. i love this team.

cubs 9, mets 6

influence

game's not over, but this post can't wait.

7th inning, 2 on, no outs. daniel murphy hits a bullet right at d-lee who is attempting to hold speedy jose reyes on 1st. lee steps on the base and doubles up reyes, and no runs manage to score in the inning.

a pretty cool play, no doubt. but the best part came 5 seconds after.

my phone rings, its a text message from hey you "That was an amazing catch by the first baseman. I would have ducted."

um, what? hey you was watching the game? and paying attention? and realized what happened?!

is it possible? have i beat her down into becoming a semi-fan? have the lovable losers won her over with their charmed ways and good looks? is she actually now worthy of the fukodome shirt i got her in august?

im pretty proud of myself right now. much more proud than i am of jeff samardzija who just coughed up the lead in the 8th.

you are only making yourself look bad

so i've always known that flipping kidding's sister and i were not the same type of people, and definitely not friends. but we have always been cordial. there are a lot of things i dont agree with her on, especially her politics and her love of guns.

but whatever, i am not without social graces, so ive always been polite and civil to her.

effective immediately, that's out the window. i refuse to be polite to people i don't respect. there's no use in trying to hide it.

flipping kidding got married this weekend. i made the trek to chi town cos it was an event i didn't want to miss. although, i did let her know that gc and i would not be going to church. you never want a heathen like me in church. BURN!

i will admit this upfront. its hard to go to chicago and not try to do to much. i thought that in the course of 55 hours, i would be able to see my parents, eat a meal with mei mei and tsiny, go to the wedding, and still have time to show cuz and cass around town.

i thought i had my bases covered when i told flipping kidding that i would miss the ceremony. not so.

her sister came right up to me when i arrived, and within 5 minutes told me how disappointed flipping kidding was that gc and i had missed the ceremony. i shrugged her off, as it was clear she was already pretty fairly lit from drinking. and its not like i have ever cared about her opinion of me.

a few hours and drinks later, she said the same thing to me again, and it infuriated me, for the following reasons:

1) she already told me. i heard her the first time. im not a drunken idiot who needs things repeated (which is more than i can say for her)

2) flipping kidding is not a child, its not her sister's job to run interference for her. if flipping kidding has a problem with me, we can work it out like civilized adults

3) is it worse for me to have skipped out on the ceremony, or for her to run around wasted, unable to hold her liquor, running her mouth about shit she has no clue about, creepily grope men who are not her husband on the dance floor, and make herself look like an idiot?

4) does it improve her night when she attempts to make me feel bad about something? that's pretty pathetic.

5) finally, its none of her FUCKING BUSINESS what i do or where i go.

being sober, the whole episode left a taste in my mouth worse than after i listened to the completely un-funny and un-clever matron of honor speech she gave.

not wanting to make a scene, i did the appropriate thing. i avoided her for the rest of the night, and told all my friends at the reception what i thought of her. none disagreed with me. two in particular had a few choice things to add.

despite drunk bitch and her uncontrollable mouth, i still managed to have a good time. it was good to see all my hewitt peeps all dressed up and having fun. we've decided we should have a party at flippin kidding's house in december when i am home, and this time i will stay longer than 8.5 seconds.

here's a cutey picture of gc, flippin kidding and myself.




oh, and congratulations to the happy couple!

2003 cubs memories

i wish that one day, i will see a picture of mark prior or see someone wearing his jersey and not feel like bursting into tears.

stupid recap story on cubs.com that reminded me how amazing it was to be witness to the 2003 season. even now i remember the tingles i had and the somersaulting stomach every time a game would start.

years later, this picture still gives me chills.


i miss 2003.

convert

whoo hoo! e-love started a blog. im so excited. its not just me and hey you anymore. his blog will probably be mostly about the white sox, but i guess they are ok. although how ok i am with them next year after they have gotten rid of crede only time will will.

here's the link to his blog. happy reading!

idiot

with the recent 2-game series at "neutral" miller park, some bonehead reporter thought it would be a good idea to ask the players what they thought of a new field, given the poshness of miller park and the straight up oldness of wrigley.

the result is this story.

conclusion: jason marquis after so many years in the big leagues, still has NO CLUE what it means to be a cubs. tear it down and rebuilt it a modern version to look like the old park? wtf.

but the best part was so-ree-over-paid. could he attempt to sound less like a moron when he talks? when asked about a new ballpark, his response was

"But I can't think, 'Oh, I want to have something like this,' because then I'll be upset. And I don't want to be upset. I want to be happy."

maybe he should attempt to learn how to navigate left field without a gps at wrigley before he talks about the cubs building another park where he will drop routine fly balls, for christ's sake.

i'm not alone

monday, a slow baseball day. cubs are off, white sox vs jays was postponed due to rain, so i ended up watching reds/brewers and padres/dodgers.

reds upset the brewers in the 9th, just like they did to cubs yesterday. amazing the importance of spoiler teams at this stage of the season. the jays are also flexing their spoiler power in the last month of the season. who sweeps the rays? wow.

padres vs dodgers, always good to watch the mad dog deal, although he's not dealing great tonight. the most exciting part of the game is the padre fan reaction when manny 'dbag' ramirez comes to the plate. in the course of one at bat, i heard individual fans over the announcers as they taunted manny. and if i could here them, im sure manny can hear them, right? some key phrases that were being called out included:

manny you're a BUM!
manny who?
various boos
a standing ovation when he struck out

the best one though, was a woman who yelled i love jason bay! awesome that a padre fan would bring up the guy in the other league on the other side of the country to taunt manny with.

im not alone. im not the only one who think manny sucks. i've got a community!

reds 5, brewers 4
padres 4, dodgers 0 (as of the end of the 7th)