Jose can you see it?

Jose Cardenal played in many cities over the course of his big league career, and I’d be surprised if he had a special affinity for any one of them. But he was a Cub when I started following the team in the mid-1970s, and for that reason he’ll always be a Cub to me. He

Movember musings

My participation in Movember this year means–for the first time in my life–I have a mustache. The scratchiness on my upper lip is one thing, but the feeling that I somehow resemble John Wayne Gacy is something else, entirely. But rather than sharing my facial developments with the world, I’d rather tell a story about somebody else with

His place in history

A week ago, when the baseball season hadn’t yet started, and the Cubs weren’t off to their “This will be a long year, won’t it?” start of 1-4 after five games, I scanned a card highlighting long-ago Cubs pitcher Rick Reuschel. Today, in the interest of equal time–and to keep me from going off on this

Let’s start with a win

Rick Reuschel was one of the Cubs from my childhood that I remember the most. He was coming off of an 11-17 season when this card appeared in 1976, and then went on to become the Cubs’ first pitcher post-Fergie Jenkins to win 20 games in a season the following year. The Cubs have had

A very meaningful number

When I started this blog last year, I learned pretty quickly that promotion is important. The Internet, and especially the blogosphere, doesn’t come knocking on your virtual door. So I applied, and was accepted, to the mlb.com/blogs page back in September. It was a great feeling to see my face on their web page for

Hanu-Cubs, Night 1

Hanukah begins tonight, and I wanted to put my collection of Cubs baseball cards to work to commemorate the season. In order to do this, I have brought out a ceramic menorah that was purchased at a garage sale many years ago. If I was actually Jewish, I’d probably have a better one to use for

Going the distance and shutting ’em out

Rick Reuschel was one of the prototypical Cubs of the 1970s. He was from downstate Illinois (Quincy, to be exact), which is an area that, as George Will put it, is “infested with Cardinals fans.” You might think that Illinois folk would have a predisposition to root for the Illinois teams in Chicago. But you