GO TO PREVIOUS SECTION: September 18 to September 24

PART V, continued

September 25th to October 1st

September 25, 2005

Meghan is a great waitress. She enjoys it, and is terrific with customers—very polite, legitimately caring. It should also be noted that she is a terrific flirt and looks tremendous in those nifty black ass-pants they make waitresses—sorry…servers—wear. The point is, she’s very good at it, which is good, but she quite often works Sundays, meaning our time together for Bears games is limited.

She was working today, so I decided to drive down to Bloomington to watch at Yogi’s with Luke, as well as Slovin, a native of “The Nasty Nati,” as the fellas say. Indeed, we played the Bengals, who came into today’s game an unbeaten 2-0, a team that finally looks like it’s ready to become a playoff contender for the first time since 1990.

Meanwhile in Evanston, the Cats were recovering from their 34-29 loss to Penn State, their first conference game of the season. Fifth-year senior quarterback Brett Basanez is putting together a very strong season in the early going, as is tailback Tyrell Sutton. My day-to-day interest in Northwestern has diminished some over the past two years—the last game I attended came last season—but I still keep tabs, watching when I can. It’s so cool to know that Pat Fitzgerald is now one of their assistant coaches, and word is that he is being groomed to replace Randy Walker upon his retirement. Awesome.

The weather has been dreary. Rainy but not stormy, damp but not necessarily wet, shivery but not cold. Just dreary. Lots of rain and darkness, lots of wet leaves, nothing overwhelming, but a clear state of dreariness seems to have seaped into the people of Indianapolis. Everyone is hanging. The same can be said for Bloomington. Life is wet. I pick Luke up at his place, and we head to Yogi’s, where I am coming off a rather substantial losing streak: Games 5, 6, and 7 of the NLCS, Illinois in the NCAA’s in 2004, and Bears games against the Saints, Seahawks, and Packers in 2003. Of course, I did get the Peanut Tillman-Randy Moss enzone pick game, so it hasn’t been all bad…

The game is a wash. Dreary, like the weather. The Bears lose 24-7 in a crap-tacular performance that sees Cincy pick off five—FIVE!!!—Orton passes. And there was more.

Annoying Item #1: We’re surrounded by obnoxious Bengals fans who, despite their decade of futility, are beyond cocky. Every one of them is wearing a freshly pressed jersey that looks like it just came off the rack, each one marked with PALMER 9 or C. JOHNSON 85 or R. JOHNSON 32. They appear to have no real football sense; they hoot at every comment made by the announcers, and they cheer madly and obnoxiously at every first down like a five-year-old who dances and shouts after he beats you in checkers. Of course, the Bears didn’t help any, giving the Bengals fans early opportunity to shoot their big mouths off…

Annoying Item #2: …particularly after the first play of the game, in which Orton hit Justin Gage with a nice pass only to see Gage bobble the ball and have it spill out into the open hands of Cincy’s Brian Williams. Naturally, the Bears challenged, and when they lost the challenge the Cincy fans went loco, as if they’d just won the Super Bowl, or the AFC, or a playoff game, or a division, or anything at all more significant than a freakin’ first quarter challenge in the third game of the season. Then, on the very next play, Carson Palmer hit Chad Johnson for an 18-yard TD past Peanut, leading to…

Annoying Item #3: …Johnson unveiling his latest endzone celebration: the Chad Johnson Riverdance. Yup. That’s right. This black man busted out an Irish jig, and let me be the first to tell you: it looked damn good. I love Chad Johnson. He’s exciting, fun, funny, talented, athletic, and damn good at football. And now the man can dance. Still, watching him unleash that in our endzone at our field…it was tough to take. And yes, the Bengals fans enjoyed it, and yes, they did their drunken best to replicate it right there in Yogi’s.

And finally…

Annoying and Really Concerning Item #4: We have no kicker.

OK, that’s not entirely true. We have one, and his name is Doug Brien, and he is a professional kicker.[1] But lost in the midst of the 38-6 romp last week was that Brien went 1-of-3 on field goals. He then missed another today, and when he was lining up for the PAT on the back end of Thomas Jones’ fourth quarter TD run, I got nervous. And you know what? It’s definitely way, way too early to be having “that nervous feeling” about your kicker lining up for an extra point. And then I remember that this is the same guy who was cut by the Jets less than a year ago for blowing kicks in their playoff win over San Diego. This is not good. Furthermore, Paul Edinger was four for four today for Minnesota.

(On a side note, it’s funny how switching your most-watched sport can affect you. I’m so used to watching baseball of late, that the percentages threw me off when watching football, so that when I first thought about Brien going 1-3 on field goals last week, my initial reaction was: “Oh good! .333.”)

(On another side note, it was announced that today was the first day in history that the Bears, Cubs, Sox, and Blackhawks all played at home on the same day. We lost to the Bengals, the Cubs lost to Milwaukee, the Sox got blanked by Cleveland, and I have no idea what the Blackhawks did, because it’s preaseason and I don’t care. Still, a cool historical occurance.)

******

So now we’re 1-2, with the bye week coming up before we go on the road to Cleveland. This game today had a much different feel than did the Washington game. We weren’t close to anything positive today. We just got beat, period, and I suppose we’re just going to have to accept these kinds of games as the growing pains of a rookie QB. Still, I’d much rather have a game like this out of a guy who is in his third career NFL game than from a guy in his fourth NFL season like Joey Harrington.

And later…

Today is Monday, September 26^th, the first day of the rest of the White Sox’s baseball lives. There is a week to play in this 2005 baseball season, and as the Sox prepare for seven straight road games against divisional foes Detroit and Cleveland they sit two and a half games ahead of the Indians. The last three days have been a bit of a sigh and recovery period for the Sox and their fans; after dropping ten of fourteen from September 8^th to the 22^nd including two of three to Cleveland, the Southsiders won three straight against the Twins. Now comes four at Detroit before a season-ending showdown at Cleveland. This late-season slide will either be a brief road block or a season-ending Thelma & Louise cliff. We shall see…

September 27, 2003: A New Year, A New Division Champion

Due to its inclusion in the “holiday season,” Hanukkah is the best known Jewish holiday. However, while Christmas is one of the top two most important Christian holidays, Hanukkah is nowhere near the top of the Jewish pantheon of importance. The two most important Jewish holidays are the High Holidays known in some fairly exclusive circles as “The Rosh” and “The Yom Kip.” Rosh Hashana is the Jewish New Year, and when we celebrate the New Year we’re not just celebrating the seemingly arbitrary January 1^st, but rather the creation of Adam and Eve. We’re talking old school New Years. Eight days later comes Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the holiest day of the year, the day when Jews fast and atone for our sins of the year, eventually being forgiven by God. Anyhow, that’s the idea. Measure the heaviosity of those days up against Hanukkah, a holiday that celebrates a miracle of everlasting oil, and it’s really no contest.

It was the end of September, 2003, and the Cubs were closing out the fantastic final week of the fantastic final month of the season, a month that began with five games against St. Louis. The National League Central standings on the morning of September 1^st, 2003:

St. Louis 72-64, Houston 1.0 GB, CUBS 2.5, Pittsburgh 9.0, Milwaukee 12.0, Cincinnati 13.0

Whenever one of my teams is involved in any kind of playoff chase in which they need to overtake another team in the standings, I’ve always felt that the best way to accomplish that is head-to-head. And so it was with great anticipation that I looked at the five game Cubs-Cardinals series set to go September 1^st. The hype surrounding this interesting series—already a four game set, a fifth game added after a May 11^th rainout—was nearly overwhelming, but that’s where the fun comes: any crazy-hyped game or series has the potential to be among the most fascinating and historical sport ever played. Certainly there are some games that simply play their way into our memories; the Stanford Band Game comes to mind, as does the Artest-Wallace-Crazy Stephen Jackson brawl game, or the Northwestern-Michigan football in 2000; these were one-of-a-kinders. But look at how much more memorable a game is when it is hyped: the Miracle on Ice, Game 7 of the 2001 World Series,[2] any good Super Bowl. Of course, hype can also deflate a bad game (see: Game 7 of this season’s NBA Finals, Miami-Nebraska 2001, any bad Super Bowl), but when you hit one, you hit it big.

That was the Cubs-Cards five game series: big. Game 1 suggested things to come, as Mark Prior rolled over St. Louis and the Cubbie bats came thru huge in a 7-zip win. We forget how good Prior was in 2003, down the stretch particularly. Prior pitched eight shutout innings in Game 1, allowing five hits and walking three while striking out eight. His record since coming off the DL on August 5^th was now 6-0 with a 0.57 ERA.

Tuesday featured a day-night double-header. Let’s play two? I’m sure Mr. Cub enjoyed these two. Again, it all started with pitching. (Oh! To be back in the thick of that season, just to experience the great pitching…) The day game featured a masterful performance from Carlos Zambrano, who was just that season developing into an All-Star. Seven innings, four hits, two earned, four walks, five K. The Cubs trailed 2-zip until the fifth, when Alex Gonzalez doubled to score Aramis, followed by a Damian Miller double to score Gonzalez. And there it stayed, tied at two, into the ninth.

Nothing. Into extra innings, relievers on both sides efficiently cutting down opposing batsmen. Into the 15^th, Guthrie taking the Cards down 1-2-3. Leading off in the bottom half was non other than fan favorite and recent re-signee Augie Ojeda. And what happens? Augie singles to left. Womack flies out. And then Sammy—two years removed from his career year of 2001, three months removed from his career low, the corked bat[3]—Sammy lets fly on a ball so hard and so long and so smooth that it’s 1998 all over again. Cubs win, 4-2. I call Rutkoff, who is there with Dan, Ari, and Byron. He answers, screaming. No conversation. Just screaming.

The night game went the other way. This time it was St. Louis winning the pitching matchup, with Matt Morris (7.0 IP, five hits, no runs, four walk, five K, the win) outlasting Kerry Wood (7.0 IP, four hits, two runs, one earned, two walk, nine K, the loss). After a solo shot from Edmonds in the second, the Cardinals scored in the seventh on a double-error by Ramon Martinez. Then in the bottom half, Alou and Alfonseca were chucked for arguing that Alou’s bases-loaded foul was actually a base hit. The Cubs had a breakdown. They lost 2-nil. In retrospect, this was the start of something ugly, particularly with Alou, the father of Bartman and a large part of the 2004 collapse…

We closed out the series with back-to-back one-run victories. Game 4 saw a 8-7 Cubs win after a rally from defecits of 6-0 and 7-3. Alou was the hero—he drove in three of our final five runs while amassing a career high five hits. And in the final game, the Cubs won 7-6 on a one-out single from Womack.

And there it was.

The Cubs entered the series a game and a half behind St. Louis and two and a half back of Houston. They left it a half game up on the Cardinals and a half game back of the Astros. That series pretty much knocked out the Cards; those five games were the elongated-baseball version of the Charles Smith blocks.

After the St. Louis series, the Cubs rolled. We swept the Brewers in Milwaukee, split six with Montreal and Cincinnati, swept the Mets, and then split four at Pittsburgh to enter the final week of the season at 84-72, a half game behind Houston and three and a half ahead of the floundering Cardinals.

The Cubs were idle on Monday, September 22^nd, and when the Astros lost 6-3 at home to the Giants, we found ourselves tied for first. On Tuesday, the Cubs blanked the Reds 6-0 in Cincy while Houston lost 10-3 at home to San Fran. Cubs up a game. On Wednesday, the Cubs won again (8-zip this time[4]) but so did Houston. The Cubs lost on Thursday as Houston whipped Milwaukee. The teams were tied going into the final weekend of the season.

After a Houston loss and a Cubs rainout, the boys in blue found themselves with a Saturday doubleheader and a chance to clinch.

And this is where The Rosh comes in.

We were celebrating the holiday at our house Saturday night, which meant that Saturday day was Preparation Day for my mother, a woman who has always been one of the single greatest dinner hosts I have ever seen. Gracious, warm, inviting, comforting, spiritually relaxing to all, and a fantastic cook. MJ was in Kansas, so I spent the day darting in between the TV room and the kitchen, watching the Cubs as best I could as I helped Mom. (Or maybe I helping Mom as best I could as I watched the Cubs.)

And the Cubs won the first game. And it was good.

Prior finished off his Cy Young candidate season with a strong performance: six and two thirds IP, seven hits, two earned, two walk, ten K. The Farns and JoBo threw the final two and a third, allowing no runs on one hit. The Cubs won 4-2.

This was 1998 again, tracking games on what would be the final day of the season that mattered, and again we received great post-game news. In ’98, it was Neifi’s home run, Dad and me cheering, knowing there would be a one-game playoff, and in 2003 it was the news that Milwaukee had defeated the Astros 5-2. I danced into the kitchen.

“Did you hear that?” I asked Mom as she checked the temperature of the oven before putting in the chicken.

“What?”

“The Astros just lost,” I said, almost bragging, as if I’d somehow Done Something. “We beat Pittsburgh in this second game, we win the division.”

And always Mom, right on and cool as ever: “Well we should probably have champagne ready then, right?”

I smiled—“We probably should.”—and she called Dad for the champagne run, as he was already out picking up a few things for dinner.

And so it was.

The Cubs scored first on Sammy’s 40^th bomb of the season, giving him six straight seasons of 40 plus. And then in the second, things blew up. Four straight singles from Aramis, Karros, Martinez (scoring Ramirez), and Bako (scoring Karros) opened the inning, and a Clement sac, Lofton intentional walk, and Grudz single to score two kept it going. Sosa K’d, but Craig Wilson’s errant throw to second on a Grudz steal attempt allowed Lofton to score from 3^rd. 6-love Cubs. It’s only the third, yet we’re already cruising. Either Pittsburgh was on the brink of an ESPN Classic-style crusher of a comeback, or the Cubs were division champs and headed to the playoffs. We felt good.

Dad got home shortly after, bounding in the door with a resounding “Can you believe this!!???” Two Pirate runs in the top of the eighth were tempered by a solo shot from Alou in the bottom, and by that time our guests had arrived, Nana first, of course. Baker pulled Clement in the eighth after the pitcher walked in the second run; the fans at Wrigley gave the goateed-starter a roaring ovation as Remlinger trotted out to warm up. With Farnsworth and Borowski resting from Game 1, Dusty called on right-hander Dave Veres to relieve Remlinger in the ninth.

Dad passed out glasses. Mom poured the champagne.

First batter: Jason Bay. Walked. Second batter: Jack Wilson. Flied out to right. One down, and up came Jose Hernandez, twice a Cub, twice an ex-Cub. And now, here, his team’s final hope, and perhaps because it would not be fitting for little used J.R. House to be the final batter to stand between the Cubs and the division, Hernandez grounded into a double play, Gonzalez to Grudz to Karros.

We toasted our glasses, cheered and hugged and high fived. The Cubs were NL Central champions, their first division title since 1989.

It was good.

September 29, 2005

It is over. The road block has been cleared.

The White Sox are going to the playoffs.

Southsiders: you may breathe easy.

After losing the first two games of the series 4-3 and 3-2, the Sox beat Ingrid’s Dee-troit Tigers 4-2 to clinch the AL Central crown. Konerko (2 for 2, two walks, two runs scored, one RBI on a solo home run) and Freddy Garcia (7.0 IP, eight hits, two earned runs, no walks and five K) led the way for the Sox, while Magglio went 1-4 and collected Detroit’s only RBI. Poor guy…

…but there’s no time for sympathy, and no room for it. A big reason that these Sox have been who they’ve been is that Mags and Caballo are gone and Frank has hardly played. Nothing against them personally or as players, but there’s no denying that things have worked out. No more big boppers and a shakey starting five. Just smart baseball backed by a tremendous rotation and a rock-solid bullpen. Indeed, it was the rookie Jenks who closed out the game, and when Placido Polanco lined out to first the Sox were in the playoffs.

I call Luke, but his line is busy. And so I call Sven, who returned to the States from Germany on Tuesday the 27^th. The Sox are 2-0 since his return.

“Congrats.”

“Thanks man. It was me, as I’m sure you know.”

“They missed you.”

Later, I talk to Luke, who is beside himself, so excited for the postseason…

…and when we hang up, it occurs to me that although I haven’t checked the standings, the Cubs are most certainly eliminated from the wild card. Officially, that is. I check the standings, and yes, with their 3-2 win over Houston earlier today the Cubs pulled to within nine games of the Astros with only three games to play, meaning that, (sigh), yes, the Cubs have been eliminated from the postseason. Officially. And this time, no Bartman. No Game 7. No final week wipeout. Just a poor season, from start to finish, punctuated by just enough suspense and success to keep us hoping. Any final amount of attachment to 2003 has officially been severed. That team is dead. Kerry Wood is no longer The Future; neither is Corey Patterson. Sosa is gone, as are Alou, Lofton, Karros, Borowski, Simon, Grudz, Gonzalez, and anything resembling the 2003 Mark Prior. The Marlins won Game 6 two years ago.

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