NEW YORK -- Well, that's what today was supposed to be for the Cubs. Instead, they came home to Wrigley Field and made up last month's rainout against the Cardinals, and brought their hitting shoes along, blowing St. Louis out 12-3.
I'm about to head out to my meeting; when I get back later this evening I'll post more thoughts on today's big win, and a few notes on my interesting travel day.
Enjoy the evening, and GO PIRATES! Later.
UPDATE [2007-9-10 21:56:39 by Al]: Happy to return from my meeting to discover that the Cubs are back in a first place tie! The Pirates beat the Brewers 9-0 tonight.
So maybe all those comments about "oh, we shouldn't have lost to a crappy team like the Pirates" weren't so valid, right? The Pirates aren't all that bad, are they. Let's hope they win two more in a row from the Brewers.
When I got to O'Hare at 12:20, my 2 pm flight was delayed -- so I thought I'd get on the 1 pm flight. Nope, also delayed. But there was still a seat on the eleven am flight -- still sitting there almost two hours later.
By the time it got in the air at 1:40 it was almost three hours late, picked up some time in the air and I wound up landing 45 minutes earlier than I was originally scheduled.
At 4:45 pm, I figured I'd get stuck in some horrendous NYC traffic jam. Nope on that one too -- I was at my hotel in midtown in thirty minutes. So this travel day was rather uneventful for me, as much as it was eventful for the Cubs. If Aramis Ramirez can hit like this for the rest of the month, you know he can carry a team -- I've seen him get this hot for a period of time where you think he's simply going to pound the ball every time up (for example, this month-long hot streak in May and June 2005). He hasn't had one of those times this year -- yet. This'd be a real, REAL nice time to start one.
Ted Lilly threw a nice game and in so doing, became the second Cub lefthander (after Greg Hibbard, 1993) to win fifteen games in the last thirty-seven years (since Kenny Holtzman did it in 1970), and Derrek Lee also homered. The Cubs hit five doubles, including one by Lilly, among their seventeen hits.
The internet connection in the hotel here is a bit balky so I'm going to stop this post here. It's a race, everyone, with all the attendant ups and downs. Enjoy it -- and keep the faith that it will have a happy ending.