Glove Affairs

During tonight's Cub telecast I spent some spare moments reading the delightful book "Glove Affairs", by Chicago resident Noah Liberman, who appeared on our Sunday ABC-7 morning news a couple months ago. It's a history of the baseball glove, both from the point of view of major leaguers and just you & me, and the love affairs players have with their gloves. There's also a lot of practical hints about how to choose a glove, and to care for one. It's a quick read, nice for a summer filled with baseball.

Maybe I was just hoping I'd find some solutions to the Cubs' fielding problems there, although today they didn't have any terrible defensive lapses. In fact, an error that had been charged to Alex Gonzalez in the eighth inning was changed to a hit in the ninth. Who knows, perhaps Houston's official scorer took pity on the Cubs' overworked gloves.

Oh, the game? You want to know about tonight's game, I suppose. Well, Shawn Estes threw well, though Dusty let him go a little too long, which made the game closer than it had to be; the bullpen did a fabulous job, particular kudos to Mike Remlinger and Joe Borowski, and the Cubs evened their critical series with the Astros with a nicely played 3-2 win over Houston, which assured the Cubs of two things: first, a winning record on the roadtrip, the longest one I can remember (14 games, with one rainout and currently a 7-5 record); and second, to come home on Monday to face the Pirates in first place, no matter what happens tomorrow, when Carlos Zambrano will face the Astros' tough Wade Miller.

I also want to mention Corey Patterson, who made a terrific running catch in CF off Jeff Bagwell to save a run, and also helped manufacture the first run of the game when he bunted his way on and stole second, his tenth steal of the year.

This club's going to win on its pitching, at least until Jim Hendry decides it's important to go out and get some more offense, and today, that's how it worked. I was about to say "pitching and defense", but, well, you know...

Maybe the Cubs ought to read "Glove Affairs" on the plane ride home. Just a thought.