Hey, I Was On TV!

Did you see me?

It was about the sixth inning (I can't remember) when I felt a presence over my shoulder; it was an ESPN cameraman, who shot my scorecard and the side of my face, then panned over to the action. Immediately, the cellphone started ringing; I kept joking I was going to give it to Jeff, my personal assistant, to answer. Jeff taped the game, as it turns out, so I'll get a chance to see this later. He and Krista are also going to a couple of the games that I'll see in Toronto this weekend.

As great as the first two days of Cubs-Yankees were, day three lived up to the hype as well, with a dramatic 8-7 win over the visitors from New York, capped by Joe Borowski's pickoff of his spring training teammate Charles Gipson, who was sent in to pinch-run for Jorge Posada. The last pickoff to end a game that I can remember was Mitch Williams' pickoff of Montreal's Jeff Huson in the division title year of 1989.

The offense woke up today and not a moment too soon; there were many heroes, including Moises Alou with a 3-run HR; Corey Patterson, singling and tripling; Ramon Martinez also homered and Sammy Sosa got his 2000th career hit. Mark Prior threw well again, striking out 10 in six innings. I wasn't so thrilled with Dusty's choice of Mike Remlinger to face Jason Giambi again, but once again, he struck him out, this after Giambi had earlier sent a monstrous HR into the shrubbery.

The Cubs match up real well with the Yankees, and in fact I saw a few weaknesses in the Yankee armor, particularly their bullpen and their lack of real good bench players. This really felt like a playoff series, and players from Kerry Wood to Mark Prior said they'd never experienced anything like it. I haven't heard the ballpark that loud since the tiebreaker game in 1998, and probably never that loud for a regular-season game, certainly not one in June.

It rained most of the late afternoon, continuing till about an hour before game time, when the sun finally appeared. Maybe summer is finally here.

My next game report will be from Camden Yards in Baltimore, where the Cubs continue interleague play. David Kelton, who lined out to left (and got a nice ovation for it!) in his major league debut, will probably do some DH duty in the AL parks in Baltimore and Toronto. I'll be at all six of the games in those two cities, as well as doing the tourist thing with the kids in Washington, DC, the next few days.

I hope the Cubs can keep up the intensity they've shown over the last three days; if it carries over, this could start to be a real special season. In any case, Cub fans now turn into Yankee fans too, as the Yanks will play the Astros and Cardinals this week.

See you from DC and Baltimore!