MMM, Donuts

For International Donut Day, I wanted to see if it was possible to go five years of writing a blog and NOT mention donuts along the way. Turns out it isn’t, at least not for me. The Dunkin’ Donuts ad pic was taken on a visit to Fenway Park shortly before I began this blog

Submitted for the Cubs’ consideration

Dear Chicago Cubs, I welcome the news that you will be turning away from random celebrities, in favor of giving the seventh-inning stretch more of a Chicago feel. To honor your decision, I want to kick off a campaign to secure myself an invite for one of the celebrity-vacated spots, for the 2013 season or whenever

Mission Accomplished

If there’s a piece of advice I would give to someone going to a Bruce Springsteen concert (other than to go in the first place), it would be don’t be disappointed if he doesn’t play a particular song, unless it’s “Born to Run.” With hundreds of songs on his albums, and fans who bring signs

Come on up for the risin’

Bruce Springsteen played Fenway Park the last two nights, and by all accounts they were blockbuster shows: three and a half hours, new music, old favorites, cover songs, and a Johnny Pesky tribute. What more can anybody ask for? My iPod is going to be shuffling Springsteen songs–and probably nothing else–between now and September 7.

Jake-on-the-spot

It’s now two months away from the Bruce Springsteen show at Wrigley Field. Now that my much-anticipated trip to Cape Cod is over, that’s the next big thing I have to look forward to. The Cubs are usually how I mark my time in the summer, and that won’t work this year. The heat wave

Even the throwbacks didn’t work

The Cubs have worn “throwback” uniforms–which are designed to recall earlier eras in their history–five times prior to last night’s game against the Giants in San Francisco. They won each of those games, including last summer in Fenway Park (shown above), and for the first interleague game against the White Sox back in 1997. And

and I believe in the Promised Land

Over the nine months I’ve been writing this blog, I’ve written more posts about the Chicago Cubs than any other topic. But I have other favorites, too, and Bruce Springsteen’s music is definitely on that list. This is the first time I’ve been able to fuse the two subjects together, and I’m excited to be

Now I understand

Since last September, I’ve been excited at the prospect of Theo Epstein coming to Chicago. I suggested that it happen almost immediately after the Red Sox collapsed in Baltimore on the final night of the regular season, and I’ve written about it here and here and here. And it’s always been with the assumption that

2011 in review

The year is coming to a close, and everyplace you can think of seems to take this opportunity to do a retrospective on the year gone by. I’ll join the crowd for this one time, and look at what happened in 2011 for the subject that I write about the most: Cubs baseball. The biggest

Change, nothing stays the same

As I indicated in a post from yesterday, I was able to get to Wrigley Field today and confirm that the ivy has indeed turned red. We have achieved the state of RIO (Red Ivy in October), just in time for the end of the World Series. I wish I had a picture, but as

The Buckner Surprise

At the end of tonight’s ESPN documentary Catching Hell, I found myself saying one simple word: No. To expand upon that, I offer the following instant analysis: No, I don’t see the connection between the Red Sox collapse in 1986 and the Cubs of 2003. For one thing, the Red Sox were at least in

C=100 posts

This is my 100th post on this site. I started this blog on a whim last June, since I had written a story and didn’t know what to do with it. My first instinct was to send it to Baseballisms, which is another blog that has a Facebook page I read from time to time.

I’m shutting down for the season, too

Maybe this practice has been going on for a long time and I just haven’t noticed it, but there seems to be a wave of players that are being “shut down” for the remainder of this season. Joe Mauer, Andre Ethier, Johnny Cueto, Chone Figgins, and several others have decided–or been told–that they won’t play

Finding inspiration inside a plastic bag

Anyone who has young kids in their life probably remembers sillybands (or maybe it was “sillybandz” instead). A couple of years ago, it was all the rage with kids and–as all things like this do–it has faded out since then. But a chance encounter with some last night led me to a story I want

#Cubs are now 33 losses from a historic #DoubleTriple

Soriano batting, bottom of the ninth, game on the line. Was there ever any doubt? Sadly, no. The Cubs drop one to the Washington Nationals at home, and so the journey forward through baseball’s losingest teams continues. 1978 Toronto Blue Jays Expansion team: Technically, no Overall record: 59-102 # of win streaks of 3 games