brook rocks

i was driving to hey you's house the other day, and realized i hadn't driven the WRX in a while. i don't drive that much to begin with, and i had been in AZ for a week.

i was singing OAR at the top of my lungs. and we all know my singing voice is AWFUL.

but this is why i love her so much. brook will never judge my singing. shes consistent in her responsiveness to me.

buying my car was one of the best decisions i ever made. who still gets into their car after 5 years and thinks "god, i love this car"?

thanks brook.

stupid idea

just for the record, even this this rumor turns out to not be true,

THERE IS NO WAY IN HELL I WILL SUPPORT THE GIANTS SIGNING MANNY RAMIREZ

if the giants feel like they have the money for ramirez, they should attempt to spend it in better ways. they need multiple players for the roster, not to mention a personal pitching/life coach for barry zito. even a better marketing campaign to get more people to AT&T park would be ok.

signing a hothead like ramirez would be a huge mistake. remember how long it took to get rid of bonds? have we learned nothing from that dark chapter?

picking up randy johnson was a great move. don't negate that by picking up a douchebag.

sad day/deal

the cubs trade mark derosa for 3 scrub pitchers. i didnt want to believe it when i read the story, but there is no denying. what a down note to start a new year with.

im pretty sad. derosa was one of my favorites. mildly comforting is the fact that a lot of fan reaction to this trade has been negative. most fans know that derosa wouldn't have been re-signed for 2010. his amazing 2008 play priced him out of the cubs range -- they are too busy blowing millions on players who drop balls and hit next to nothing in the post season. but we were looking forward to seeing derosa in 2009 at wrigley. hes one of the few guys on the team who showed up every day wanting to play and win.

its too early to say what this trade means for the 2009 season. i think the 3 minor league pitchers are part of a bigger plan to get jake peavy, but who knows? san diego isn't talking about making attempts to trade peavy right now. im sure the cubs won't be keeping these 3, as the pitching well seems to run pretty deep these days.

what i do know is that derosa was a reason im still recovering from the failed 2008 campaign. he played hard every day and always seems to have a great attitude on and off the field. he deserved more than playing for a team that was swept in 3 games in the NLDS by manny the dbag. i'll miss his blog posts, and how he always seemed like a nice, normal guy who never took for granted how lucky he was to play for a living.

seriously, who can resist that smile?


i guess im going to have to start watching cleveland games this season. another team for the playlist. its going to be a busy season.

then again, i may only be watching toronto and cleveland on mlb.tv and the giants and As in person. im already preparing emotionally for the fact that the 2009 cubs may be another huge letdown. gods, please let me be wrong.

no deal

jake peavy is not coming to the cubs. derosa is still on the team. whew. for now.

i cant say im unhappy. i dont think it would have been a good idea to give up derosa and vitters, the #1 prospect. peavy is good at all, but the rotation is already good, and we need hitting more than we need pitching. i like having the 5th spot open for marshall, or maybe even samardzija. or rich hill (please please please baseball gods!!!!) i would have shed no tears for marquis or pie had they departed, but not even the padres are stupid enough to give up a cy young winning pitcher for a AAA superstar who cant hit in the majors and an overpaid pitcher who is amazing one day and then fucking awful in this next 3 starts.

here's the part that baffled me. the padres need to unload peavy due to payroll concerns. as good as he is, peavy was injured last year and he ain't cheap. the cubs would be doing the padres a huge favor taking him off san diego's hands. but they were too demanding, when they really were not in a position to be. did the padres GM study the cubs' current starting rotation? zambrano, dempster, lilly, and harden? its pretty dominating. peavy would make them even better, but it's not like we were hurting for a 5th starter. we're not the yankees (burn!)

how about concentrating on raul ibanez? just a thought...

the best friends... EVER!

despite a couple of gaffes, i had NO CLUE and was duly surprised and amazed on friday night by the best friends ever.

cuz had had sent an e-mail earlier in the week, asking if we wanted to climb in the city on friday night and then have some drinks. i had no other plans, and hey you wanted to make transportation arrangements right away, so the plan was quickly formed.

it was a long stressful week at work, so by the time friday afternoon rolled around, i was seriously considering bailing and just going to bed and putting the week behind me. but hey you would have none of it. we went to her brother's house and played with her 1 year old niece, possibly one of the sweetest kids i have ever met. rejuvenated (who isn't in a good mood after hanging out a happy baby?) we headed for the bart.

after some climbing at mission cliffs with cuz, hey you, bbq, mopey boy, and larry hagman, i was surprised to hear in the locker room that cuz had managed to secure a table for 6 at blowfish sushi. its a happening place, and tables for groups more than 2 usually require advance planning (as in, not the same day). but hey, who am i to question cuz's mad reservation skillz?

upon arrival, i was surprised to see b there. what a happy coincidence! as i hugged her, i figured she and baseball buddy were simply on a date to a nice fun place to eat. we simply happened to pick the same place on the same night.

nope. so wrong. behind b were 7 other friends, 4 of whom had made the long drive up from silicon valley. apparently they had been planning and plotting for weeks to surprise me with dinner and drinks to celebrate my 2 year anniversary of living in california. it had been a done deal by the time we went to joshua tree for thanksgiving. talk about pre-planning.

i was flabbergasted. and "feelings are for babies" ma was moved to tears when they presented me with a scrapbook cuz and hey you had made of all my california escapades.

its been a great 2 years for me since i moved out here. i have done things i would have never tried and challenged myself. i've learned a lot about myself. most importantly of all, i have made some amazing friends.

i never thought i would have better friends that my u of i girls. we've known each other for going on 12 years now, and, despite the fact that we all live in different states, still act as a unit on the few occasions we get together.

my new "california friends", most of whom i've known for only 2 years have proved me wrong. i've found an awesome place to live with awesome people to hang out with. i look forward to every party, every climbing trip, even every visit to the gym.

in all, there were 16 people at dinner to celebrate this milestone with me. how cool is that? here's the group shot the hostess took.

i look like i'm starting to stick my tongue out, but i'm acually laughing.
apparently i can only smile properly in 1 picture per night.

the rest of b's pictures are here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bshone/sets/72157610824231612/

i'm took some pics of the scrapbook as well, they are posted on flickr here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sharynkaryn/sets/72157610841871291/

i'm still in shock. my friends are great. i'm so lucky to have them.

going out on top

i wasn't expecting it, but wasnt fully surprised when news broke today that greg maddux is going to announce his retirement on monday at the winter meetings.

i'll be honest. i was never a big fan of the mad dog. in hindsight, im going attribute that stupidity to superficiality (cos he always looks awful in his roster pic) and general lack of understanding of the nuances of the game.

it was years before i realized that maddux was a true artist, that he didn't always get the strike out when a ground ball was more valuable. hitters got the hit when he let them. he rarely lost his cool (unless it was with a cooler in the marlins dugout in 2004 when the cubs were playing absolutely horrifically). and he was never a prima donna, despite the fact he's played with some grade-A douchebags. apparently if asinine behavoir was catching, maddux was immune. (are you listening chipper jones?)

this is a great espn article on all the reasons why maddux is irreplacable to the game. and no doubt will be a 1st ballot hall of famer in 5 short years. i wonder if the cubs will retire number 31 before that happens. they should. they knew before 2006 they were going to retire the number, otherwise they would have let lilly wear 31.

thanks mad dog. for everything.

i don't get it

no way no day will i cheer for edgar renteria. he's a thug. and im still pissed at him for attemping to break mike fontenot's nose in 2007. although, to be fair, some blame does go to sori-overpaid's hot dogging.

renteria isn't fit to clean omar's cleats. he plays dirty. with all the shortstops on the free agent market, why sign him? there are so many better, sometimes cheaper options -- david eckstein, rafael furcal, or even ozzie nemesis orlando cabrerra. and wasnt khalil greene available to be traded from the padres?

i don't get it.

no more bobby d

bobby howry is officially gone from the the cubbies, he signed a 1 year deal with the SF giants today. he returns to the team that gave him up in the storied white flag trade of 1997.

bobby d didnt always get it done for the cubs, but i am still sad to see him go. he stepped up and filled the closer's shoes when wood was out with his pesky blister before and after the all star break. too bad the rest of the season was downhill from there.

im glad that the baseball buddy and i will get to see him on a regular basis at at&t park next season. he's not that great of a pitcher anymore, and probably on the down side of his career, but having a former cub nearby is somewhat comforting. and im sure the giants fans won't be nearly as brutal on him as cubs fans were. and he's got to be better than now-departed tyler walker, right? just keep him away from barbeques.

but i don't even like the phillies that much

so yes, i am rooting for the phillies in the WS. i want to see former cubs draft pick jamie moyer get a WS ring before he retires. but i dont like them that much. im just glad there is some baseball available during this time in my life where it is still Too Painful To Watch Archived Cubs Games.

but honestly, do i like the phillies enough to sit in a bar FULL OF OHIO STATE ALUMNI during the 2 hour rain delay of game 3 of the ws? one would think not. but hey you and i did it. we showed up at pete's tavern in soma promptly at 5 pm PST yesterday, not realizing weather on the east was going to delay the game for so long.

just like for game 3 of the NLDS, the place was crawling with ohio state alumns. wtf? i thought it was a giants bar. but apparently not.

ive always hated the ohio state univeristy, and it was pretty gratifying to see Penn State pull out a last minute win. it made the torture of sitting through the game with a bunch of drunk idiots almost bearable.

even hey you realized the hostile territory we were in. there was one woman (sober, no less) who was obviously an alum, who cheered and booed every play, loudly. and in this phony way, that seemed like she was just trying to get attention. she was also trying to start conversations with strangers who wanted nothing to do with her.

hey you summarized the experience with a single sentence "i never knew how annoying i was until today (when i had to sit in a bar full of ohio state alums)"

so true.

Q: how do you get an ohio state grad off your porch?
A: pay them for the pizza

phillies 5, rays 4

an in-depth look at game 1 of the world series

COLE HAMELS IS A BEAST.



phillies 3, rays 2

good chat

i FINALLY got to talk to amiga today. and her sister. it was so good to hear their voices.

its been months. when i first moved out here, amiga was on my regular phone buddy list. when she changed jobs, that changed, and she fell off the radar.

turns out, she fell off for good reason. i found via e-mail after her birthday (JUNE 7TH!) how bad things had been for her. but we weren't able to have a good discussion about it until today.

its such a relief. her life seems to be back on track, and she sound happy and enjoying life. the best part of talking to her -- she hasn't changed. same girl. still sweet, still funny. she hasn't let the struggles of the past few months make her bitter or jaded. that's my little amiga.

im proud of her and the decisions that she has made to take control of her own life. its a hard thing to to, that pesky growing up thing. but we all have to do it sometime. and she seems to be coming throught with flying colors.

now, i just need to see her when i'm home in december. preferably at IBERRICO!!!!

S-M-R-T

today on the phone with gc, he asked what i thought the debate tonight was going to be about.

my answer: politics

sometimes i am just fucking brilliant.

too soon

cubs magical ride ends too soon. way to state the obvious.

the article has a link to video highlights from the season. but the link for reed johnson's amazing catch vs the nationals (the infamous flipped bill one) wasnt working, which meant i had to search for it on mlb.com.

so i found it, and a whole bunch of others of him, mostly highlight-reel catches and getting timely RBIs. i watched a couple, and then had to turn it off.

its too soon. im not ready to watch amazing games from the season while the wound of the sweep is still open and festering.

fuck. this sucks.

empty

its not about the cubs. really its not.

they lost. im getting over it. they play like chumps when crunch time comes. ive come to accept it. i really dont care that much. even though i discovered it later in life, i love baseball, and always will. i love the cubs too, but ive always been realistic about them, and their inability to close the deal.

the emptiness i feel is more about the season in general.

i felt at peace skipping from game to game. checking in on old favorite players, keeping tabs on the pennant races in every division.

and in postseason, with no one to root for, i can barely be bothered to turn on mlb gameday, much less make plans to mooch off someone else's cable tv to catch nationally televised games. as much as i hate to admit it, with the playing field narrowed, the only team i only even marginally want to win is the dodgers, so that maddux can maybe end his career with another ring. too bad that would come with another ring for manny the douchebag as well.

watching baseball, all 162 games per team per year is what i really enjoy. no, i dont watch every team's every game. there arent enough hours in the day for that. but its comforting to know all the games were out there, just waiting for me to turn them on.

and through this season, there's even more more to love. im not talking about individual players accomplishments, like thome's 500th HR or el loco toro's no hitter.

im talking about the consistency in baseball. every day for the months of april, may, june, july, august, and september there is baseball played, and every game is important. every game is special. every game is beautiful or ugly in its own way.

a starting pitcher who gets worked over in one game will come back will find his stuff and be unhittable in his next. hitters streak hot and cold, with no apparent reason. a team slumps, then comes back and makes their fans remember why they still watch.

i have my favorites, of course. ive never rooted for any of his teams, but to watch kyle loshe get bounced around from team to team, and finally settle in with st louis, BEFORE the post season is over for 4 years is a reason i love this game. big frank thomas, who left a bad situation in chicago to go to oakland and then into an even worse situation with toronto before coming back to the As and their fans, who love him is another example. and even though he couldnt find the strike zone with a GPS in game one of the NLDS, ryan dempster's transition from a closer who could only pitch an inning at a time, to a starter who never seemed to need extra rest was awesome.

there's going to be a lot of drama this off season. not just with the cubs, who have disappointed their fan base, again, and will need to fight to win back their loyalty. not just with the white sox who seemed to fall apart close to the end of the season but still made a great run to get to the playoffs and won an infinitely highter number of games than the cubs in the post season. however, they start the off season with a lot of open postitions to fill and decisions to make.

i'm excited to see what will happen when players file for free agency, who stays and who goes, and where they go. the playing field is leveled back to zero when the world series is over.

but there isn't trade/signing news every day. and definitely not the same volume as when games are being played during the season.

cuz once asked me when i get over my post-basball season funk. the answer is easy -- february.

the void that the off season brings can only be filled by one thing -- the start of spring training in february. and it seems so far away right now.

the season's not even over, but i miss it already.

pain, continued

i have a hangover. my head hurts. a nice physical manifestation of the pain of the cubs getting swept.

i feel stupid for having been optimistic this whole season.

winning the division looked like barely a struggle for the team. scoring a run was beyond difficult once oct 1 hit.

i dont get it. was it the pressure, the expectation of 100 years? it didnt seem to bother the guys all year. i spent enough time this week yelling at the team for playing poorly. there is no point in reaming them after the fact.

there is not going to be a logical explanation for their collapse. larry hagman asked me this morning, "why don't you just find a new team?"

if only it was that easy.

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