Goodbye Goose

I still remember so many things that happened twelve years ago tonight. I’ve relived some of them here so many times. But try as I might, I haven’t just let them go. I’ve been like Maverick in the movie Top Gun, wishing things had turned out differently than they did. And the only way to

Reading the old news

The paper above was ten years old today. It hasn’t yellowed very much, and it’s much bigger than today’s paper would be. Reading through it felt like a time machine, in many ways. This paper was a keeper, and so I kept it. The pain of disappointment is still very strong, ten years after the

Thoughts on Papi and Alou

Today was quite a day. Not only did I spend the day on a field trip with my daughter’s Girl Scout troop (more on that later, some day), but I had a variety of pieces running in different places. The I-still-can’t-quite-believe-it-happened comeback by the Red Sox in the ALDS–keyed by a grand slam by David

Operation Goose: An Introduction

Ten years is long enough. Ten years can sometimes feel like an eternity. And yet, for an event that took place almost a decade ago, the 2003 NLCS still feels close at hand. That’s because we have collectively frozen the moment in time, as if to preserve it somehow. It’s a natural response to something

The tie that abides

Ten years ago this fall I was out in New Mexico, visiting my in-laws as the Cubs were in the midst of their ill-fated playoff run. The one that took us all to the brink of the World Series, before vanishing into thin air. All these years later, and I’m still not over it, either.

Sammy Sosa and the ghosts of 2003

With Sammy Sosa on the Hall of Fame ballot for the first time this year, the annual debates about who should be inducted–or not inducted–have commenced. The proprietor of The Hall of Very Good asked me to make a case for or against Sammy Sosa, and the piece appears here. I came out as forcefully as I

Triple shot

My teenager had a skating lesson today, and I went out in search of some Starbucks as it was going on. It was more of a day for iced coffee, instead, but old habits are hard to break. I was on my way back to the skating rink when I saw a garage sale sign.

Farewell to the assassin

I can’t deny the greatness of Pudge Rodriguez. He’s the Johnny Bench of his generation, the player by which future catchers will be measured against. We’ll see him again in five years when he’s inducted into Cooperstown, no doubt. But I’m going to depart from the career retrospective approach that others might take. For me,

Blame Jeff Pico

I love Tumblr, even if I don’t use it very much. I cross-post a few of my posts here on my page, which shares the BlueBattingHelmet name. My Twitter page, incidentally, does not use this name because “BlueBattingHelmet” has more characters than a Twitter handle allows. I would have to call it @4BlueBatting or something

Be careful what you wish for

The picture above was taken back in 2003, at the annual Albuquerque Balloon Festival. The young girl on my shoulder is now 12 years old, and she’s still got a sparkle in her eye. She likes it when I use pictures of her in my posts, and as long as that’s the case, I’ll keep

Don’t overlook that first game

Reliving ballgames from the past is a bit like watching Titantic and hoping the boat won’t sink. The boat’s always going to hit the iceberg, and panic is always going to ensue, and that band will always keep playing with the chaos around them. Watch it again and again if you like, but those things

Has it really been eight years?

I remember the weekend before it happened. I was in Albuquerque with my family for the annual balloon festival. I had been there before, but it was different that time. The Cubs had advanced in the playoffs, and I could taste the World Series. It seemed inevitable. A couple of games in the Marlins series