Part I, January 29-February 4

Ever since Sammy Sosa walked out on his team fifteen minutes after the first pitch of the final game of the 2004 season, Cub fans have been asking the question: “Where will Sammy be in 2005?” It appears that we have the answer to that question, and it’s not Chicago.

Reports broke yesterday that the Cubs and Orioles had reached a deal that would send Sosa to Baltimore in exchange for outfielder/second baseman Jerry Hairston, Jr. and a pair of prospects. What shocked me most about the deal—apart from the fact that I was absolutely wrong about him apologizing and staying—was the lack of shock on the part of the city. The overall reaction that I’ve felt and heard is that people are not only not surprised that he’s gone, but they’re happy. I gotta say, I’m really surprised. Since yesterday, Chicago’s home town sports talk radio station (WSCR a.k.a. the Score) has been filled with calls from fans who were pissed off with Sammy and glad to see him go. Now, I can understand being pissed off at the guy and feeling like he was going to have to do something to make it up to the team and the fans, but do you really want to see Sammy in another uniform? I’m not ready for that yet. And yet barring some sudden 180 by Orioles management, it looks like this is the end of the line for Sammy Sosa at Wrigley Field.

How could this have happened? How did a guy who was the face of the franchise, and maybe of baseball, fall so far out of favor so quickly? A lot of people think it’s due to Sammy’s change in attitude, but I don’t think Sammy ever really changed. He’s the same guy he was in 1995 when he was flashing the garish “30-30” gold chains. Once he straightened his swing out in ’98 and learned to hit for average, he had more fun and his playful side emerged. He was a national hero in two countries, and spent the whole summer in the spotlight, becoming the biggest star in the city even with Michael Jordan still around.[1] And then Barry Bonds started out-hitting him, and then the Cubs packed their roster with other great players, and then Sammy got hit in the head with a pitch in 2003. His production fell, and he compensated by using a corked bat, for which he was caught and suspended.[2] He returned to the team determined to turn his season around, but if the Cubs had gone done the tube at the end of ’03 like they did at the end of ’04, Sosa may have been on the outs with the team one year earlier. There are clearly two sides to Sammy, and we’ve seen both with changing circumstances.

So what happened to make him break down and bitch out? Certainly a part of it is Sammy’s pride, as he became more and more disgruntled with the team last year when Dusty tried to move him down in the batting order. A part of it is management’s unwillingness to make Sammy follow the same rules as everyone else. And part of it is that the Cubs, once a one trick pony with Sosa as the one trick, have become a balanced team with lots of stars and an emphasis on starting pitching, clearly the team’s strength. I was the first person to say that the Cubs do not need Sammy to win, that his performance day-by-day is now more than ever less important to the team’s success. When I envisioned the 2004 Cubs before the season started, I envisioned them winning a World Series because of their starting pitching, not because of their big bats. I envisioned Wood and Prior each winning twenty games with Zambrano right behind them, and I envisioned stretches where Wood, Prior, Zambrano, Clement, and Maddux were just unhittable, stretches in which opposing batters would just come up to the plate and leave shaking their heads because they were facing arguably the greatest five-man rotation in the history of baseball. It’s not a stretch to say that those five guys could have had that moniker by midseason.

But that was not the case. Wood and Prior were hurt for much of the season, and went a combined 14-13 in 43 starts. Maddux was Maddux, an old Maddux, but still Maddux. Zambrano had a terrific year and Clement was good for a fifth starter. But it didn’t all add up the way it should have, because Wood and Prior were not the two guys who pitched brilliantly throughout 2003. You wanna talk about big bats? The Cubs had more bats than anyone, becoming the fourth team in major league history with four 30-homer guys in Alou, Aramis, Derrick Lee and Sosa. The lineup was stacked, with Michael Barrett having a breakout season and Corey Patterson turning into the guy we’ve been waiting for and Todd Walker and Mark Grudzielanek doing great work at second base. And then, even with all that, the Cubs acquired Nomar Garciaparra from the Red Sox, and suddenly we had a lineup that could compete with any team in the majors. Still, none of it mattered, because the pitching wasn’t there.

This was not the Cubs of 1998 or 2001, Cub teams that depended on Sosa for their wins and losses. Sammy had an abysmal 2004 following his incredible 2003 postseason, and yet it took a monumental collapse in the season’s final week for the Cubs to miss the playoffs. The whole team just had an awful week, with LaTroy Hawkins blowing key saves and the errors piling up in the field and on the base paths and with the club allowing bad teams to beat them. So a frustrated, prideful, injured Sammy Sosa realized he didn’t mean as much to the team as he used to, and walked out on them on the last day of the season. His teammates didn’t forgive him. Nor did the fans.

And you know what? Even with all that, I still think it’s really too bad that Sammy’s career with the Cubs has to end like this, and I think people are going to end up missing him more than they think. We’re not talking about just some player; we’re talking about the premier athlete in the city for the past seven years. When the current anger settles, people will be left with the memories, and I think that most of them will realize that Sammy was more good than bad. But it’s a long season, and if we play the way that we should, this team could come together and blossom in our imaginations as the team we want without Sammy just as the Red Sox fans learned to love a team without Nomar last year. And maybe, just maybe, Sammy will get sick of losing in Baltimore too and start to realize what he had in Chicago and how foolish he was to screw it up.

“But don’t you think that as the general manager, Jim Hendry should have a plan to replace Sammy? I understand that you take what you can get, but the goal is not to get Sammy Sosa off of the Cubs. The goal is to win a championship. That’s what we’re trying to do. I’m fine with Sammy Sosa no longer being a Cub, but I want to know that management has a plan to replace him with somebody that they want, not just with somebody who happens to be there.”

“Exactly. Is this the best move that the Cubs can make? Is it the best decision they can make concerning Sammy Sosa?”

“Hey guys. Love the show. I’m excited about this season. I’m excited about Sammy being gone. But I have to agree with you guys here. What did we get for Sammy? Who is going to be starting in our outfield along with Corey Patterson? Jeromy Burnitz? Jerry Hairston, Jr.? Jim Hendry, Who You Crappin’?”

What you are listening to here is _____ and _________,[3] the 10AM-2PM show on Chicago’s very own 24 hour sports talk radio station WSCR, the Score. Sports talk radio is nothing new, and while ESPN Radio is strong in Chicago, the Score is still the local favorite. __________ and __________ co-host this time slot Monday through Friday, and treat callers to their own brand of caustic humor. Many Chicago sports fans are optimists. Few are pessimists. _____ and _________ find their range somewhere between realistic optimism and pessimistic realism. Sarcastic, cynical, funny, and ultimately intelligence-driven, these guys make it a point of pointing out the realities of modern sports, and quite often, the stupidity of their callers as well.

“Hey guys. I just wanted to say that this is a great day for Cub fans. Sammy Sosa was a cancer, and whatever we had to do to get rid of him, I’m glad that we did it.”

“Jerome, aren’t you concerned about who the Cubs will have playing right field?”

The host-caller relationship is an interesting one. While a lot of relationships are based on need, the host-caller relationship is maybe the neediest of any relationship anywhere. The host needs callers for his show to be good, and the caller needs the host for an opportunity to be on the radio. Take this guy Ken, for example. I don’t know anything about him, and there’s a strong possibility that I will never meet him in my entire life. But for a short period of time, he has a chance to be heard on the radio by me and millions of other listeners.

“Guys, the Cubs have made a big mistake with this trade. I know that Sosa’s skills are diminishing, and I know that he had a bad end to the season--”

“Ken, you make it sound like something happened to him. The guy walked out on his team.”

“Fine. My point is, even though Sosa and the Cubs have had a shaky relationship lately, that’s no reason to trade him. He didn’t play nearly a full season, yet he still got near 100 RBI and 40 homers. He had 35. And he’s still a fan favorite.”

“Sure, but Ken, shouldn’t we expect more out of our team captain than just popularity?”

With so many diehards in the Greater Chicagoland Area, hosts obviously don’t have the luxury of developing a long conversation with one caller. It is important that everyone has an opportunity to be heard. Even so, the amount of air time granted to a particular caller depends on three key factors: the caller’s intelligence, the caller’s entertainment value, and the caller’s awareness of social cues. Some relationships last months, years, and in some cases, lifetimes. The average host-caller relationship, on the other hand, lasts maybe 90 seconds, if that. Because of this, callers often speak in an unnatural fashion, altering their breathing patterns to fit in the most amount of information that they can. There is a grace period at the start of each call, with the caller thanking the host and usually complimenting his show. Likewise, the host is happy to be speaking to someone new, and he may also be happy to be rid of the previous caller. But this grace period is short—ten seconds tops—and once it is over, the angling begins.

“It’s not just popularity. Sosa gets the fans fired up. He gets them excited about the team.”

“Ken, don’t Sosa’s actions bother you? His selfish behavior, the way he walked out on the team?”

“Well, kind of, but I don’t think that he needed to be traded because of that.”

A caller’s life is a short one, and if you’re not careful you will get cut off. Here are some tips you can use to help you from getting cut off.

2. Stroke the host’s ego with something like “I’ve got one question, and then I’ll hang up and listen to your answer.”

3. Get out before they can get rid of you. I.E. “Guys, the Bears should definitely draft a quarterback in April. We don’t know if Rex Grossman can finish a season healthy, and even if he does, we don’t know how good he will be. Quarterback is the most important position on the field, and if the Packers continue drafting QBs even though they know Favre is their starter, then the Bears should too. I’ll let you go.”

“Also guys, the Cubs need to find a new closer, because Borowski is not the man for the job.”

“The Cubs definitely need to trade Corey Patterson, because he’s never going to make it…”

See, there it is. Did you see that? I can’t be sure, but I have a feeling that Ken is on his phone right now still finishing his sentence, and that in a half a second he’s going to realize that he just got cutoff. It’ll probably come at the end of whatever point he was making about Patterson, and he’ll say something like, “Guys? Guys?” Only then will he figure out that they’ve hung up on him, that the hosts have a new caller, that the listeners have moved on. A classic case of someone overstaying their welcome.

Late Tuesday afternoon, around 3:30. I call Ben to head over to Mustard’s, and since he’s not really doing anything either, and hasn’t eaten yet, he comes out. I pick him up over at his house.

We get to Mustard’s, and it’s quiet. Not deserted, not empty…just quiet. It’s not that cold out—we’re both wearing blue jeans, and I’ve got on my Northwestern hoodie while Ben is wearing a fleece vest over a long-sleeve shirt—the sun is very bright, and there’s not a lot of wind. It’s the kind of day you’d see in a photograph, and you wouldn’t have any clue what the temperature was. It feels like a Sunday, with the Northwestern area resting after a big football win the day before, the kind of early autumn day that somehow sneaks its way into February every so often. When Ben and I walk in, Keith is sitting at the counter on a bar stool reading the Sun-Times. The other guy who is almost always working, Steve, is at the register with three college-aged girls, all three of whom are wearing purple warm-up jackets that say “NORTHWESTERN SOFTBALL.” They all look older than me. We walk past them as they leave, one by one, out the door.

“Best thing the Cubs ever did,” says Keith, as he turns the page. “Can’t win with a guy like that.”

“I don’t see how they can. There’s too much talent on that team to let it go down because of him. Hell yeah Dusty hit him sixth! He can’t hit!”

“Who do you think they’ll end up having in the outfield with Patterson?” Ben asks.

Keith folds up his paper and meanders behind the counter to the register. It looks like he’s stretching his brain.

He lines himself up at the register while Steve wraps our sandwiches and bags our fries. “Drinks?”

Steve rings us up and hands us our bags, and we pay, leaving our change in the tip cup.

OK. The Coke thing. I used to guzzle this stuff. Still do, really. It’s a real addiction, complete with withdrawal headaches. No good, right? A true story: when I was a sophomore at IU, I met a girl who was a senior. It was April, the end of the year, and though I would be on my way to camp and then back to Bloomington while she was off to New York to pursue a journalism career, we decided to just say “what the hell” and take something great for a short period of time rather than nothing at all. She was living with two other girls in a house, and after the school year ended they left while she stayed for another two weeks, just hanging out. As I had nothing to do between the end of school and the beginning of camp, I decided to drive back to Bloomington and hang out with her for a week or so. It was amazing. Great time.

So the final night came, and this was now truly the Final Night, because a long-distance was not going to happen…but as we hung out I began to feel weird, and then I realized that I hadn’t had any pop all day. It was well past midnight, and there was none in the house, and I actually got my shoes on to run out to a store to buy some Coke. Thankfully she talked me down from that ridiculous ledge, reminding me that this was our final night together. It didn’t take much, just a sweet look and a smile, but come on! I was ready to leave this beautiful girl who I probably sort of loved so that I could get my Coca-Cola fix. That’s addiction.

So enough of that. We’re going on a road trip, and I’m going to go cold turkey. I already feel better.

The road trip was born in a basement in Bloomington, Indiana, one that I probably couldn’t find if I tried.

It was second semester a year ago, a regular weekend like any other, and I was hanging out with my friend Clint at a house party. There was a band in the basement, guys our age, enjoying their college years. People were walking in and out, tiptoeing past each other up and down the narrow basement stairs. I was sitting on a couch, quietly taking in the scene, and thinking about what I would be doing in a year, when I would have both a chunk of time (post graduation, pre-real world) and a chunk of money (gift), neither of which I’d really earned. And it just became clear. See the country. My country. Our country. I’d only been West once: went to Phoenix with my parents and brother in 1998 to visit my Aunt Sharon and Uncle Eddie and their three kids, and then rented a car and drove to L.A. to see my cousins Lee and Veronica and their two kids. Traveling is always different when you’re the kid and you’re with your parents. I’d never seen the Pacific North West…a whole corner of the country that I only know from pictures. I found a napkin and a pen, and began jotting down all of the people and places I’d want to visit around the country. Now, a year later, I’m on my way.

I packed my stuff in the car last night, my parents helping, and then I said goodbye to each of them, first in the hallway downstairs, and then out on the front lawn, and then again as I sat in my car and put in my first CD.

This morning we packed Meghan’s stuff in, with her parents continually giving us more and more stuff. Meghan’s dad Don—a White Sox fan (we’ll get to that later)—kept bringing out “just one more thing” that he assured us would “fit, with a little reorganizing.” Bonnie offered me a Coke before we left—“It’ll be your last chance for Coke in Chicago,” she laughed—but I turned it down, much to the surprise of everyone around. My folks were just as confused. Big hugs all around from Don, Meghan’s mom Bonnie, and Meghan’s little sister Shanna, and then we filled the tank up, and headed for destination number one on Jack and Meghan’s Great Road Trip: the University of Kansas in Lawrence, to hang out with my brother and watch the Super Bowl.

The first stretch of this drive is incredibly boring. I’ve done it before. We took Interstate 88/80 west to Des Moines, a dreadful four and a half hour snooze fest. We had to stop for gas in Iowa, and when we got to the gas station I couldn’t take it anymore, and I hauled out of the car.

As I waited in line to pay for my Coke and a Snickers for Meg, I saw one of those USA ribbons that have been popping up everywhere lately. It’s crazy. A few months ago you saw one on every ten cars or so. It’s probably one in three now, with many cars sporting multiples. Even just on this first stretch, it’s obvious that this Wal-Mart sentiment is high in demand. There were a few at the counter, and I picked one up, realizing that it was a magnet. I had always just figured it was a sticker. SUPPORT OUR TROOPS on our front in red, white, and blue, and then I flipped it over and right there on the back: MADE IN TAIWAN. How perfect is that? What a fucking joke.

Out of the gas station, and then south on 35 towards Kansas City—it picks up a bit the closer you get to the city—and then through KC and west onto I-70, all the way to the Lawrence exit. This whole last part, starting from inside 100 miles to KC, is basically all adrenaline. Even with a second driver, you start to get a little loopy after seven or eight hours in a car. I’ve done a lot of big drives—eight hours to Hayward, Wisconsin the past three summers, four and a half hours to Bloomington for four years, Bloomington to Lawrence, Chicago to Lawrence, Lawrence to Chicago, and a spring break trip two years ago when Luke, Ben and I drove out to New York to see Josh and then down to Baltimore to see Sven, and then back—but these long ones still get to you. The length and the madness just seem “routine” now. As we got closer and closer to Lawrence, I got more and more relaxed, as Meghan and I were deep into a long-running conversation about the many subtle nuances of middle school dating, and then all of a sudden I saw the big Jayhawk that sits along side the Lawrence exit, and I realized that we were about to see my brother. I got so excited that I reached over Meghan and honked the horn twice.

We call him, since we are off the highway now, and he gives us directions to his apartment. It takes us about ten minutes. It is dark out, just after 10 p.m. when we arrive, and the parking lot is empty. The air is cold. We take what we need for tonight and head up to the second floor of his building, the kind with the doors right up on the outside motel-style. I knock when we get to the door, and a few seconds later he opens it with a huge smile on his face, and in one motion as I drop my bags he gives me a huge bear hug and picks me up, shaking me a bit.

My brother’s name is Michael Jeffrey Silverstein, known mostly as Mike, but often referred to as MJ, a name that first surfaced in the family. (This was pre-Michael Jordan explosion, before we were all on a first name basis with His Airness.) He is two years younger than me, but much bigger, and with his short, neat, dirty brown hair and clean shaven face, we look almost nothing alike. In a change, however, I’m surprised to see that he has grown out a bit of a beard. It’s one of those chinstraps, with the mustache that goes up and around in the same shape as the beard.

“Lemme take this stuff,” and he grabs our bags and brings them into the guest room. Hanging out in the TV room is his roommate Matt Mankameyer, along with some other friends I don’t remember/haven’t met. They are sitting at the poker table, playing Hold ‘Em. What a college scene. Mankameyer stands up to greet me.

“Hi Matt.” And then to me: “Baby, we met in September, when we came for your brother’s birthday.”

MJ comes back out, and rejoins his game. Meg and I sit on the couch and relax after a long day of driving, talking to Mike and Mank about their school year and our plans for the trip. We don’t stay up too late, being pretty tired and all, so we conk out shortly after midnight. The road trip has begun.

[1] Though by then, he’d played his last game with the Bulls.

[2] I was at that game, sitting on the dugout with Ben, our Packer friend Tony, and Ben and Tony’s friend Other Ben. They were the best seats I’ve ever had at any professional venue.

[3] Names deleted for legal reasons.

GO TO PREVIOUS SECTION: January 22-January 28

The end of PART I

January 29-February 4