I had this morning's blog entry all ready to go, and had clicked "post and publish", and then my Internet connection crapped out, and the whole post vanished, so this one's written over from scratch. From now on I copy it to the clipboard before I post!
Yes, there really is a major league player named Wiki, and no, he's not a Hawaiian dance, or a raft crossing the Atlantic, but the starting catcher for the Padres, and it's short for the even more preposterous name of Wiklenman. Gonzalez is his last name, and the name's about the only memorable thing about him.
SD was the worst team I saw in the Cactus League, and they kept up that fine tradition last night as the Cubs beat them easily 7-2. Winning teams do what the Cubs did last night. Brian Lawrence, supposedly the Padres' best pitcher, hit three batters in an inning (only the 19th time that's been done in history) and Damian Miller cleared the bases with a triple (his first in five years -- cosmic things are happening...). The record book says Joe Girardi tripled last year, but I'll be darned if I can remember that, and I'm sure it didn't have the impact that last night's triple did. The Cubs had only four hits, but the triple and Corey Patterson's exclamation-point HR that put the game away were two of them. Again... this is the kind of thing that winning teams do. It's early, but a tone has definitely been set.
There is an outside chance -- if there are no rainouts and the Cubs contend all year -- that they could draw 3 million. It would take an average of just over 37,000, and with the unusually large weekday afternoon announced crowds, it's possible.
Last night my friend Sue, who's battling breast cancer, came and joined us. If you didn't know, you'd never guess, because she approaches it knowing she's going to beat it, and is never anything less than her enthusiastic self. I have great admiration for her, and I know she's going to make it past this tough disease.
Which, of course, reminds me that this weekend, I'll be doing the final clean-out of my sister's apartment. It's kind of weird thinking that a life, no matter how lived or how long, eventually winds up that way -- simply a few things and memories.
Yes, there really is a major league player named Wiki, and no, he's not a Hawaiian dance, or a raft crossing the Atlantic, but the starting catcher for the Padres, and it's short for the even more preposterous name of Wiklenman. Gonzalez is his last name, and the name's about the only memorable thing about him.
SD was the worst team I saw in the Cactus League, and they kept up that fine tradition last night as the Cubs beat them easily 7-2. Winning teams do what the Cubs did last night. Brian Lawrence, supposedly the Padres' best pitcher, hit three batters in an inning (only the 19th time that's been done in history) and Damian Miller cleared the bases with a triple (his first in five years -- cosmic things are happening...). The record book says Joe Girardi tripled last year, but I'll be darned if I can remember that, and I'm sure it didn't have the impact that last night's triple did. The Cubs had only four hits, but the triple and Corey Patterson's exclamation-point HR that put the game away were two of them. Again... this is the kind of thing that winning teams do. It's early, but a tone has definitely been set.
There is an outside chance -- if there are no rainouts and the Cubs contend all year -- that they could draw 3 million. It would take an average of just over 37,000, and with the unusually large weekday afternoon announced crowds, it's possible.
Last night my friend Sue, who's battling breast cancer, came and joined us. If you didn't know, you'd never guess, because she approaches it knowing she's going to beat it, and is never anything less than her enthusiastic self. I have great admiration for her, and I know she's going to make it past this tough disease.
Which, of course, reminds me that this weekend, I'll be doing the final clean-out of my sister's apartment. It's kind of weird thinking that a life, no matter how lived or how long, eventually winds up that way -- simply a few things and memories.