OK, OK, I know, it's just a tape of this game from May 28, 2005, but it's at least baseball on TV. It's for those of you within the reach of Comcast Sportsnet Chicago; unfortunately, the rest of you will have to just dream of watching baseball for the next couple of weeks.
Here is what I wrote about that game, a 5-1 Cubs win over the Rockies, at the time. The biggest news from that day wasn't the win, or Derrek Lee's two homers, it was the just-before-game-time trade of LaTroy Hawkins to the Giants:
East W L GB WP RS RA ATL 27 21 - .562 225 181 FLA 26 20 - .565 209 173 NYM 26 24 2.0 .520 230 210 WSN 24 25 3.5 .490 194 216 PHI 24 26 4.0 .480 227 239 Cent W L GB WP RS RA STL 32 16 - .667 254 199 MIL 24 24 8.0 .500 216 185 CHC 23 24 8.5 .489 205 195 PIT 21 26 10.5 .447 191 207 CIN 19 30 13.5 .388 223 284 HOU 17 31 15.0 .354 176 216 West W L GB WP RS RA SDP 30 19 - .612 246 211 ARI 29 21 1.5 .580 221 249 LAD 25 23 4.5 .521 236 239 SFG 23 25 6.5 .479 213 240 COL 14 33 15.0 .298 211 276... already had the Cubs 8.5 games out of first place, and under .500 despite a positive run differential.
A housekeeping note: a BCB reader, and I'm not going to embarrass you by saying who it is, posted a diary this morning that contained the entire text of an article from another website. I've mentioned this before, but I think it's worth repeating -- that's a no-no. It's a copyright violation and BCB could get into legal trouble for that sort of thing. If you want to comment on an article you read elsewhere on the web and you think would add to the discussion here, I encourage you to do so in a diary -- but just provide maybe a sentence or two in quoting it, and a link to the rest of the article, and maybe some of your own thoughts.
Thanks.
And at the risk of sounding like a curmudgeon, I'm going to be a contrarian about all the fawning that's gone on in the MSM about Michelle Kwan's withdrawal from competing in the Olympics.
Yes, I know how loved she is. Yes, I know that unlike so many other modern athletes (and despite the frilly outfits they wear, there's no doubt that figure skaters ARE athletes), she had never had even a whiff of a scandal surrounding her. But when she couldn't compete in the US Nationals, and had what was apparently a serious, chronic injury, she should have been gracious and bowed out then, and let the third-place finished, Emily Hughes, go to Italy as the rules dictated.
She took the medical exemption instead. And though she said she didn't want to be a "distraction", guess what? This has become the biggest story of the Games so far. And Hughes, for her part, now has to rush to Italy at the last minute, and in fact, is still stuck in the US due to yesterday's massive East Coast snowstorm.
Is that fair? Kwan never won Olympic gold, and wanted one more chance. That's not unreasonable, I suppose -- but if it wasn't under the right circumstances, I don't think she should have asked for the exemption. And yes, I know that doctors claim that the current injury, the one that's making her bow out, is unrelated to the original one that forced her out of the US Nationals. That, incidentally, doesn't sound quite right, either.
Kwan is still the most decorated skater of her generation, and one of the most beloved. Should that give her an "automatic" right to be in the Olympics? It'd have been like saying that the USA baseball team should have been allowed in the 2004 Olympics, even though they lost in a qualifying game, just because the USA is the home of the best baseball in the world and we had "always" been there.
It doesn't work that way. The US lost, fair and square. Michelle Kwan was hurt, and someone else qualified. Kwan may be revered, but her insistence on going to the Olympics when she clearly couldn't, will always diminish her a bit in my eyes.