Ron Santo's in the HOF

Finally!

Cubs Win! Cubs Win!

The last time I had been to a Cubs game at Wrigley Field was 1993.
They're not having a very good year this year, but today, they actually
looked pretty decent and won the game. We took the train from
Northwest Indiana up to downtown Chicago and then caught the
El to the Addison Street station, where we walked the one block to
Wrigley Field. It was COLD! More like Bears football weather than
late spring baseball weather. It was also raining when we first
arrived, but after a 30 minute delay, the game started. It was a lot
of fun and there was lots of action. The Cubs beat the New York
Mets 9-3 and everyone went home happy!

Party Like It's 1941

The Cubs played the Dodgers today in Los Angeles, and it was a retro day.
Sometimes called a "Turn Back The Clock" day, Retro meaning that both teams
wear uniforms from a different era. Today it was 1941 and the Dodgers wore
uniforms copying their look when they were the 1941 Brooklyn Dodgers. The
Cubs have always been in Chicago and wore replicas from 1941 as well. It's
kind of cool that teams do this occasionally and I think both teams really did
a good job of coming as close as possible to the look from 70 years ago.
Wow...70 years is a long time!

Goodbye Ron Santo

Ernie Banks...
Ken Holtzman...
Fergie Jenkins...
Randy Hundley...
Don Kessinger...
Jim Hickman...
Billy Williams...
Ron Santo...

These were the Cubs I knew when I first became aware
of baseball...aware of being a Cub Fan. Now we've lost
one of them, as Ron Santo died today of complications
from bladder cancer and diabetes. Recently, he's been
the voice of the Cubs on WGN Radio and to date is
probably the best third baseman to play the game that
ISN'T IN THE HALL OF FAME! Hopefully the Veterans
Committee will come to their senses and vote him in.
As a player, an announcer, and as a person...he will
be missed.

Home Opener

The Cubs won their home opener this afternoon by beating
Milwaukee 9-5. Let's hope they play better this summer than
last summer, and win the Division, and maybe more.

Dawson's in the Hall

Today, former Cub, Andre Dawson was voted into
the Baseball Hall of Fame. He wasn't my favorite
Cub of that era (Sandberg of course was my fav)
but he was right up there. Like another favorite,
Bill Buckner, he played most of his middle and
late career in constant pain. Andre's pain was
caused by way too many games on artificial turf
at the horrible stadium in Montreal. When he
signed with the Cubs as a free agent, he actually
took a pay cut so he could play on natural grass
most of his games. Now, artificial turf is a
rarity in baseball, but imagine what careers guys
like Andre and Buckner would have had if they
hadn't been crippled by this equivalent of concrete
painted green! Always a class act, he made
Wrigley Field his home and the fans loved him.
As Ryno said during his own acceptance speech
about Andre... "he played the game right".
Yes, he did.

The East Valley

We've been driving around a bit since we've been in Phoenix
and most of it has been spent in the East Valley since that's
where I used to live and we know the area better. We went to
a yarn store and this was outside of it. I doubt it's the world's
largest chair, but it's probably the world's largest "Pink" chair!


No Cub fan would feel that a trip to Arizona was complete
without driving past HoHoKam Park in Mesa. HoHoKam is
the Spring Training site for the Cubs. I drove around the
entire park and couldn't find anyone that might be able to
open up the gates so that I could look around, but at least
it was interesting to see even if the team is playing badly
back home in Chicago.


There was a pretty good view of the field from past the
outfield fence.


At the entrance to the field there were round batting circles
for each of the players that have had their numbers retired
by the team...including my favorite, Ryne Sandberg.


We drove to Chandler and took a look at the condo I used to
rent. Surprisingly, very little had changed in almost 14 years!


One of my favorite flowers is the Bougainvilla. The state Department
of Transportation has chosen to use it on the sides of many of its
freeways. It brings a lot of color to an otherwise tan landscape.

One of Four

Today the Cubs (and us fans) held the first of four
celebrations that will be happening over the next few
weeks.

1. Central Division Champs
2. National League Division Series Champs
3. National League Championship Series Champs
4. World Series Champs

It will be an interesting next few weeks at Clark and
Addison!

No-No

Tonight we watched Carlos Zambrano pitch the first no-hitter
for the Cubs since Milt Pappas performed the feat 36 years ago,
in 1972. I was only 6 years old!

Best Record in Baseball

Doesn't this photo just give you warm fuzzies???

Honoring Mr. Cub

Recently, the Cubs finally unveiled a statue outside Wrigley
Field of Mr. Cub, Ernie Banks. Ernie is probably the most
popular Cub ever (especially my Mom's favorite Cub ever) and
it's about time they honored him with something other than
retiring his jersey number (14). However, they made a small
mistake on the granite pedestal holding the statue. Ernie's
famous trademark phrase, "Let's Play Two (signafying that it's
just a good day, let's play two games...a doubleheader) was
incorrectly spelled "Lets Play Two", leaving out the apostraphe.
It's since been corrected. Now Ernie can be known as a prolific
home run hitter, All-Star shortstop, humanitarian and honoree of
a statue with proper grammar.

Play Ball!

I've been thinking about baseball this week. A lot!
The major league season starts this week and I hope...
yes I really hope, that this is my team's year. I've
put a whole lotta faith in the Cubs winning it all
this year. Last year's disappointment in the playoffs
taught me nothing. I fear I'm setting myself up for
more disappointment. I fear that a World Series
Championship is a very long distance away from me.
It only seemed fitting that I ran across this really
cool map comparing the size of the Apollo 11 landing
site to a typical baseball diamond. We fly 238,854
miles to land on the Moon and our exploration area
is a barely a line drive into the Right Field Gap!
We haven't been back to the Moon in 39 years. The
Cubs haven't won the big one in 99 years. Although
I'm baffled that we haven't been back to the Moon
since, I hope the Cubs win the Series before we go
back to the Moon. NASA employees will have to look for
employment elsewhere...I'm feeling greedy.