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

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,

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.

Time for some baseball memes

This Cubs fan is just feelin’ his oats and makin’ some memes

September Redux

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

My old baseball buddy

The southside yin to my northside yang. Happy birthday to my old friend and two-time classmate David J. Casper. May we live long enough to see the Cubs and Sox play each other in October. 

There’s baseball in the air

Baseball’s almost here! What more is there to say?

A lifetime of following the Cubs

I recently had an opportunity to take in a beautiful view of the Chicago skyline, Lake Michigan, and Wrigley Field at the same time. I enjoyed them all, but the one shot that I wanted to have with me in it was the Wrigley Field vista. That speaks volumes as to who I am, really.

Failure Limerick, Part 3

There once was a pitcher named Schlitter Brought in to face Marlins hitters After a bunt and a walk Garret Jones made a big squawk Another game lost down the sh!tter

It only cost a quarter

On opening day of the 2014 season–at least from the perspective of Wrigley Field–I couldn’t resist driving past the ballpark in the morning, before the gates opened and the crowds arrived. It was a cold and gray day, the kind that nobody would ask for if ordering up the weather were possible. But that isn’t

Fun times at Wrigley Field

This year is the 100th anniversary of Wrigley Field, since it was opened for the Chicago Federal League team (called the “Chi-Feds” and then the Whales) in 1914. To celebrate this, the Cubs have planned special promotions throughout the season, and have put up the numbers 1914 on the left of the Clark Street marquee,

On the radio

Today was a new experience for me. I spent the week brushing up on the rest of the National League’s Central division–since I could already talk about the Cubs in my sleep–and I went on the radio this morning to discuss the division with Steve Bortstein of Fox Sports radio in New Mexico. Thanks to

An apt metaphor

I’ve not been writing much in this space lately, as I’m sending off pieces to other websites instead. But I can always link to them here, so here’s a Five Wide piece I wrote, and here’s a TTFB piece. Another piece should run on FiveWide soon, but the Cubs stuff has pretty much come to

Another lost season

I wish that I had more productive creative muses than the Chicago Cubs. It’s such a draining and aggravating experience following this team. But baseball is my game and Chicago is my home and I  would rather eat my keyboard than become a White Sox fan. So here I am. I ruminated again about how

Writings about Sandberg and Monday

It’s been hard to find some time to write lately, but there are a few baseball things happening. And to feed my new column (I do like the way that sounds), I sent them in to ThroughTheFenceBaseball. The first was a piece about a Rick Monday bobblehead that was given away at Dodger Stadium the

Link to a post on ThroughTheFenceBaseball

Yesterday brought a strange bit of baseball convergence, as the Atlanta Braves retired Chipper Jones’ number 10, while the Cincinnati Reds released Mark Prior. Ten years ago, in the first round of the National League playoffs, Prior got the better of Jones in game three, retiring him three times.But in the end, Chipper Jones is

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

Link to a post on ThroughTheFenceBaseball

While the Blackhawks have come back from Boston in triumph, the Cubs are now dropping into last place in Milwaukee. The opposite nature of these two teams–the yin and yang, if you will–was not lost on me as I wrote a piece for ThroughTheFenceBaseball last night. I don’t care too much about hockey, but it

Link to a piece on ThroughTheFenceBaseball

The Cubs played a game in the fog last night, and I was inspired to write this. I hope everyone is familiar with the scene I was writing about, but if not, enjoy it anyway.

In two places at once

Today is one of those days where I have a bunch of thoughts in my head, and neither the time nor the ability to drain them all out before they get turned into something else inside my brain. But I was able to see things that I wrote in two different places online today, and