Baseball season ends today for Chicago, making it 101 years since the Cubs last won the World Series. Last year they had to add another digit to the sign on Waveland Street. This year, they only have to increment the numbers: AC 01 64 101. ("AC" means "Anno Catuli" or "Year of the Cub;" the numbers refer to the years since they last won the division, the Pennant, and the World Series, respectively.)
Here's the sign at the beginning of this season for comparison:
The one encouraging thing from this year's regular season standings is that no one lost 100 games. Baltimore won yesterday's game against Toronto and Pittsburgh won Friday's game, limiting their possible losses to 99 pending the outcomes of today's games.
So, even though the Cubs have one more game today, I've already switched to my Red Sox hat. Playoffs start Wednesday.
Blowing off the last game of the season I bought tickets for did not come easily. I struggled with the decision for most of the afternoon. I needn't have:
The temperature at Midway has flattened out at 13°C as a thunderstorm has started passing overhead.
Oh, and après le déluge, the Cubs can resume in the top of the 4th with the last-place Pirates beating them 3-0.
So, you know, I think I made the right choice.
Actually, there will be a Cubs game, in about 10 minutes, but I won't be there, for the following reasons: It's cold out, it's raining, and I have a financial accounting exam in about a week for which I am slightly more prepared than I am to swim the English Channel.
Instead of rainy Cubs photos, then, here is a great post about ghostwriting:
I recognize the paradox [of ghostwriting celebrity memoirs]: the bookstores are already happy to sell this kind of fraud, so why can't online authors engage in the same sort of duplicity? The answer is that online authors need to err on the side of honesty and integrity in order to support not only their own work, but the internet as both a medium and distribution platform.
... Speaking of frauds, do you remember Milli Vanilli? They’re a Grammy-winning singing duo who had to give their Grammy back when it was revealed that the people singing the Grammy-winning song weren't the stage-act duo who accepted the award. C+C Music Factory got into the same kind of hot water when they replaced a full-figured singer on one of their hit songs with a shapely non-singer for that song's music video.
As for the Cubs, well, they were eliminated mid-May, so oh well. Pitchers and catchers come back in five months.
People who live outside Chicago might find it shocking and dismaying to read a newspaper report that their city's Olympics bid will, if successful, make the mayor's friends rich. For us, it's actually comforting. I mean, we all knew someone would get rich; now we have a better idea who:
Chicago 2016 committee member Michael Scott also served as a consultant to the developer on a condominium project near the proposed athletes village, a development that would increase in value if the city wins the Olympics.
Scott, who negotiated key components of the $1.2 billion Olympic Village plan, said his business relationship with the developer, Gerald Fogelson, does not interfere with his role with the bid team. Chicago 2016 officials declined to say whether Scott's relationship with Fogelson was a problem, with Daley's Olympic team poised to spend billions of dollars in coming years.
What? You think civic pride alone would motivate the mayor to put us on the hook for $4 bn to get a sporting event?
In other news, the White Sox are officially out of the post-season, but the Cubs are still hanging on.
With 10 games left in the season, the Cubs' elimination number is still a number: 1. (The rest of the NL Central has already been eliminated.)
They're also within spitting distance of the Rockies for the wild card.
Hey, it could happen.
The Cubs won again tonight, against the Milwaukee Brewers in a very fast 8 1/2 innings. Ryan Dempster had a no-hitter for 4 2/3 innings, and a solo homer by Derek Lee got the Cubs on the board.
Oddly, the park was as empty as I've seen this year. I say "oddly" because (a) it was a gorgeous, clear, 24°C evening, and (b) this was the upper deck ten minutes before the game started:
That was a troubling sign. This was not:
Of course, it hardly matters, with the Cubs now 10 games out with fewer than 20 to play. Maybe if St. Louis keep losing we'll have another opportunity to get swept by the Dodgers in the playoffs. But probably not.
Friends called me on Saturday afternoon to invite me to yesterday's game, which had perfect weather, a Cubs win, and really friggin' good seats (Field Box, section 130).
Ted Lilly got the win:
In box seats, people bring their own "W" flags:
As sleep deprivation and other physical assaults continue here in London, and as we begin a five-day sprint through all of Financial Accounting, I pause to note one of the bigger news stories from back home in Chicago. No, not the Cubs sale to the Ricketts family or United's and American's shared panic; I mean the alligator in the Chicago river:
A 3-foot-long alligator was caught in the Chicago River last night and is en route to a more suitable home, according to a spokesman for the Chicago Commission on Animal Care and Control.
Animal Care and Control called the Chicago Herpetological Society, which sent two people in a canoe last night to set traps for the reptile.
All right. I can deal with that. Moving on...
The Cubs' win against Houston yesterday started early. Here's the scoreboard after Kosuke Fukudome's two-run double in the 3rd, right before Ryan Theriot got to first on a throwing error:
The inning started with back-to-back solo home runs by Jake Fox and Milton Bradley, and ended with Derek Lee striking out and Fukodome, in one of the stupidest base-running moves I've seen in a long time, running on the dropped third strike and getting caught sealing home.
Final score, Cubs 12, Astros 3:
Notice the thickening clouds. Since this was the rain-postponed May 15th game, rain would have been ironic. Instead it just rained on my cousin a couple hours later as he walked home.
Other notable moments: plate umpire C.B. Bucknor got hit in the face twice in the second inning, but stayed in the game. And immediately after the game, both teams announced changes affecting the day's starting pitchers: Cubs starter Kevin Hart got traded, and Astros starter Russ Ortiz got released.
The Cubs, against all logic and reason, remain in first place, half a game ahead of St. Louis, thanks to Alfonso Soriano's walk-on grand slam last night in the 13th, and remained as humble and gracious as ever:
"I play nine innings all the time," Soriano said. "I had three strikeouts and was 0-for-5, but in that last at-bat, I changed my day. I got the victory tonight, and I think everybody is happy now."
But it was Soriano who looked like the goat in the 11th when he stood at the plate on a grounder to third. [Plate umpire Mike] Everitt ruled the ball was in play, though Soriano insisted it went off his foot for a foul.
"I told him, if I say the ball hit me in my foot, it hit me in my foot," Soriano said. "I don't have to lie."
Mustn't complain, mustn't complain...they did win the game after all.