Out with the old

2017 sucked, no two ways about it. The Cubs didn’t win the World Series, my older daughter went away to college (which is good for her, but I miss her a lot), and we’ve had a bully and a buffoon sitting in the White House. And the tax bill that just got passed by Congress

The Cubs’ 2016 Graveyard

Some people, in my neighborhood and in other places, turn their front lawns into faux graveyards at this time of year. So with Halloween upon us and the Cubs still playing meaningful baseball, here’s a look at some of the fake styrofoam tombstones that the Cubs could plant at Wrigley Field this year: The Cardinals’

Looking forward to some Mighty Cubs Blasts

I recently happened upon Evangeline, a poem written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I’m not very much of a poetry guy, but I found an old book at an estate sale with some poems inside, and decided to start paging through them. I even spent a quarter on the book, so I may as well see

My letter of thanks to Jack Brickhouse

Dear Jack, Today was the kind of day that makes cemeteries interesting. As I drove through Rosehill on the far north side of Chicago, I watched the dried leaves blowing across my path on the way to the mausoleum where you are interred. This is generally not baseball weather here in Chicago, but you never

The Cubs’ World Series trail led through California

One year ago, I wrote a piece for WrigleyvilleNation pointing out that the Cubs were beating teams from the old National League East in the postseason, and I liked that idea. Teams from the NL West had been nothing but trouble for the Cubs, and I thought maybe the Eastern route would pay off in

For the Cubs, nothing’s been accomplished yet

On this day off between the end of the regular season–where the Cardinals played all 162 games–and the postseason–where the Cardinals will watch it on TV like the rest of us–a few thoughts are in order. That dig at the Cardinals sounds a bit petty, but the truth is I’m glad the teams will not

Inside the Ricketts Square

My daughter, who’s in 8th grade in a Chicago public school, took biology a year ago. She was exposed to genetics and the Punnett Square, which brought back lots of old memories, and not necessarily fond ones, as I tried once again to understand alleles and dominant and recessive traits. However, I apparently remember enough of genetics

Telling a story about the Cubs

The Chicago Cubs have been a major recurring theme of this blog, going all the way back to the first thing I posted in this space. It’s shaped who I am, in some way, and I won’t ever back away from that. After taking a hiatus of almost a year from writing for WrigleyvilleNation.com, today

August and the stretch run

As the calendar turns to August, thoughts of summer start to wane. It still is summer, of course, but as the days start getting shorter the inevitability of returning to those other, non-summery seasons starts creeping in. Summer is my favorite time of the year, and I’d have a hard time relating very well to

Cubs look to buck the trend

The Crosstown classic begins tonight, and continues through until Thursday. The teams appear to be on different arcs, with the Cubs playoff-bound and the White Sox thinking about who they can trade away at the deadline coming up. But none of that matters when the two teams take the field tonight at U.S. Cellular Field.

Going for the sweep

The Cubs don’t really need to win today against the Pirates at Wrigley Field. They’ve already won the series, and have a commanding 11 and a half game lead in the division on Father’s Day. But a lifetime of waiting for this has also made this Cubs fan greedy. Today we’ll find out if the

Play ball!

It’s no accident that “Baseball” is the biggest topic in the wordcloud associated with this blog. Nor is it an accident that the first thing I wrote on this site related to baseball in some. Without baseball, I might not even have a blog in the first place. Today it’s Opening Day, and what I’ve

Something Old, Something New

It’s been a quiet February on the blog front. The enthusiasm I once had for doing this has ebbed, and I like sleeping at night, too. But I recently had my annual Cubs preview posted on Cardsconclave.com (has it really been five years of doing that? Time flies!) and I had a piece that I reconstructed from

My new toy

Can it really be that December is more than half over and I haven’t written a thing for this blog all month? Perhaps the thrill is gone, perhaps I’m working too much, or perhaps it’s the holidays. Whatever it is, my writing in other places has come to a stop too, except for a recent

Hang in there, Cubs fans

So the Mets won a game. No big deal.

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

Right Now

I must be one of the few people who prefers the Sammy Hagar era of Van Halen over the David Lee Roth incarnation of the band. I’ve written about Sammy before, and his solo work and the songs he wrote and sang for Montrose are great examples of what rock and roll sounds like. Dave,

Win Win

It’s a beautiful fall day as I sit down to type out a few words on my smartphone. Blogging gives me a chance to spend a few minutes getting thoughts down, before the moment changes and the feelings are lost. and this is a moment that I want to preserve in some manner. The arrival

Andy Grammer gets it right

A song on the radio describes how the Cubs are making me feel this year. Hallelujah!

Introducing…The Schweep

The Cubs get back to their winning ways, and the English language gets a tiny bit larger.

September Redux

2015 is the year we’ve been waiting for, Cubs fans. So let’s dance!

Failure Limerick, Part the Last

There was a Cubs pitcher named Schlitter Paid to retire big league hitters  But he failed at this task At Triple-A he did bask So the Cubs sent him off to the Sh!tter I wrote a number of failure limericks about Brian Schlitter during the 2014 Cubs season, which I hope will go down as the

Wrigley field construction

this will be going on for awhile, but a cloud pattern in the sky this morning drew me to the ballpark. I was glad I went.

Nobody on the road, Nobody on the beach

It’s been more than two weeks since I wrote anything to put in this space. That doesn’t mean I’ve stopped writing, though. In fact, I wrote a trio of pieces relating to the recent death of Ernie Banks, and sent them off to websites that are willing to share my thoughts with their readers. I

A bleachers retrospective

Hearing that the Cubs started tearing down the Wrigley Field bleachers today felt like the end of something for me. From the first time I sat in the bleachers back in 1987, to the last time I did so back in 2005, they were always a place where I felt good. Granted, a fair amount of