April 25th, Cubs v. Brewers

Last Sunday, I went to Miller Park with Calli's family for a Cubs/Brewers game. The Cubs won 12-2 behind 4 home runs and a strong pitching performance by Randy Wells, so I had zero complaints about the day.

The seats were pretty nice, as well - we were in the 20th row behind home plate. If home was the center of a clock, I'd guess were at about 7 o'clock...so certainly no complaints there.

One upsetting aspect of the game was this bizarre human sacrifice they conducted before the game:

Fielder, before he consumes his prey.

Maybe I misinterpreted this, but I'm pretty sure it was some sort of combination of Bull Durham baseball voodoo and Fielder's insatiable appetite (vegetarians can eat small humans? Is that right?).

Other things I saw:

Real baseball teams don't have cheerleaders. Then again, they don't let mustachioed giant-men go down slides after homeruns. Real baseball teams let plants grow on their ballpark's walls.

Shameless. I don't want to vote for the All-Star Game anyway.

Addendum: Real baseball teams don't beg for all-star votes on their field.

No.

I hope Kendra politely declined.

All in all, it was a delightful game. I had a blast, and am glad I got to tag along. The Cubs have a 1-0 record when I'm in attendance in 2010; they should start requiring my presence.




What's that? Coincidence? Schmall shmample shmize, I say to you. Get out.

The Joys of March

What is March good for? I just turned on the Cubs spring training game against the White Sox to see/hear these things:

Angel Guzman's MRI results came back with some bad news for his shoulder.

Andres Blanco turning his ankle on a pickoff from catcher to second, eventually leaving the game.

Marlon Byrd 3-hopping a throw from shallow right-center to home in an unsuccessful (surprise!) attempt to throw out a runner scoring from second on a single.

Terrific.

Next we'll hear that Trevon Hughes and Jon Leuer both exploded their knees while getting off the bus in Champaign. Stupid March.

The Right Foot

At 2:00ish CST today, the Cubs played their first spring training game of 2010. While I'm a little guarded in my expectations for the '10 club (their best chance for postseason success came in '07 and '08, and we all know how that played out. Sadly.), they started it off well. Derrek Lee hit a solo home run in the bottom of the first inning off Trevor Cahill, and I stopped paying attention pretty soon after that. Cubs.com tells me that they won, but I don't much care. Lee started the year off on a happy note. Good enough for this guy.

Saturday Recap

Saturday was not very successful in terms of wins and losses.

My broomball team went 0-2, being shut out in both games. To add injury to insult, I was checked not into the "boards" but over them by Dan Holmes, and Calli took a soccer ball to her left eye. Everybody involved will be sore tomorrow for sure.

Joe, Kelly, and I went to Buffalo Wild Wings in Monona to watch the Badgers game. They lost by 9 to the Ohio State University...oh how I hate that. If I have children, I think that I will be adamant about them not attending these schools:

Ohio State
Michigan State (or wherever Coach Izzo is blessing fans with his presence)
Iowa
Minnesota

(That list is not final by any means.)

So the Badgers lost, the Dirty Girl Scouts lost (that was the broomball team name), and the guy sitting next to us lost the BW3 Blazing challenge...

At least the Cubs didn't lose.

Good news/bad news

Sometimes, people come back to places they never should have left. That happened (again) today, as Greg Maddux returns to the Chicago Cubs organization as an assistant to GM Jim Hendry. While I love Maddux and am glad he's back working for the best team in baseball, it sure would have been nice to have him from 1993-2003 as well...stupid Cubs.

In the bad news segment of this post, Jon Leuer broke his left wrist in Saturday's game against Purdue. It's not good news - Leuer has stepped up his game this year, and when he's not in foul trouble (v. Ohio State and Penn State) or breaking his wrist (v. Purdue) is pretty tough to guard. Thankfully, he's only expected to be out 4-6 weeks, and his broken wrist is on the non-shooting hand.

Regrets

I regret two things today, and have decided to share them with the world to ease my pain.

1: I took too long getting out of bed today to write a more drawn-out post, and will be away from my computer tonight. I can't fail my resolution on January 2nd, so a short one will have to do.

2: My dad didn't stretch me out by letting me hang on clothes hangers when I was a child, then teach me a curveball and show me to Jim Hendry. Seriously, the man is giving money away.


January 3rd update: Apparently blogger decided that it didn't want Jeff to be able to keep his resolution, and completely befuddled me in my attempts to post this yesterday. You'll have to trust me that this was actually written and ready to go yesterday, readers. (Mom)

Lunch

I'm on the road for the job this week, but I don't think the per diem would cover a lunch of this magnitude.

Yeah, you read that right - 47 thousand dollars for 6 people. That is:

my rent for 2009 for one person's lunch.
well over my salary for 2009 for a table's lunch.
...over 3.5 times what Aaron Miles made per hit in 2009? Yuck.

h/t to Serious Eats, Cot's Contracts and The Hardball Times.

Rain Day

"Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." - Bull Durham

Today it rained. And snowed. Since it would be pretty uncomfortable and not that productive to try and do archaeological survey in those conditions, we had a rain day. To fill up the time, I went with Elizabeth and Susan to lovely Princeton, WI. It seemed like half of the stores were closed - including (presumably) a potter's studio. He must have a hell of a beard, since he named it "A Hairy Potter." We went into Twister, a coffeeshop/store. Susan and Elizabeth had mochas, and I had a completely unnecessary americano. It was my 3rd cup of coffee of the day...and the best, by far. I'm not one to complain about the Americinn's complementary coffee, but it's not winning any awards anytime soon.

In addition to the americano, I bought "The Modern Gentleman: A Guide to Essential Manners, Savvy & Vice" - so far I have read Chapter One: Out and About. Nothing too spectacular, but good for soaking up time in the hotel for sure.

We had lunch at La Casbah - I had a grilled vegetable wrap with a garlic sauce. I suppose I should be bringing my camera along for these excursions...you'll have to take my word that the wrap was quite good.

Back at the hotel, I did some reading and generally killed time until 7:15, when the Cubs and Cincinnati Reds squared off in game one of a three game series. Rich Harden pitched a good game, and the Cubs offense took advantage of Micah Owing's poor command of the strike zone (a trait that the Reds bullpen shared as well) en route to a 7-2 victory.

Listening to: David Gray, "The Other Side"
Reading: "The Modern Gentleman"