Chicago Tribune op-ed writer Marty Sandberg thinks so:

Ricketts has done one thing successfully — creating the most apathetic, undemanding fan base possible. Over the past few years third-generation die-hards have quietly been returning their season tickets. The knowledgeable, fun and sometimes offensive regulars that used to pack the park and make game day such a raucously enjoyable experience have disappeared. In their place, we find a ballpark full of expense-account-toting managers, teenage girls posting self-portraits on Facebook and a few drunken college bros confused by the ramp system. And let's not forget the legions of first-timers still traveling to Wrigley from out of state, somewhat disappointed by the lethargic atmosphere they encounter. But don't worry about them — they'll stop coming soon, too.

Ricketts loves to repeat that he "just wants to run his business like a business," because he "bought a private business, not a museum." Spare us the act, Tom. When you purchased a community institution like the Cubs, you were never naive enough to think you were buying an Al's Beef franchise. The Cubs have thrived for generations because of devoted fans. Professional sports is a give-and-take relationship — Ricketts can't expect to get whatever he wants without repercussions, simply because he bangs his spoon on the table loud enough.

Does Wrigley need a little face-lift? Most definitely. But the proposed alterations to Wrigley go beyond what is necessary or even tolerable. They discard the very atmosphere the Cubs spend so much time promoting. The renovations gut the soul of a stadium that has survived so long because of its character, not in spite of it.

I've been to 24 ballparks, including Fenway and the old Yankee Stadium, and on that basis I agree with Sandberg on the value of Wrigley Field. I don't agree entirely that one or two upgrades to Wrigley would kill its character. Jumbo-Tron in Left Field? Meh, as long as it's not too big. The old scoreboard will stay there above the bleachers, right? How about a hotel across Clark St.? Almost anything would improve the current situation of a temporary sports clothing store and a McDonald's.

He's right that the Cubs need to start winning games again. They've been in last place since April 16th, and just lost their 22nd game (out of 35) yesterday.

Maybe Tom Ricketts will surprise everyone and invest in the Cubs. I don't believe Ricketts would abandon or destroy the biggest asset the organization has. We'll see, though. It's already been 104 years; what are a few more?

The Chicago City Council could ratify a proposal allowing 46 night games as early as next month:

The proposal also would permit the Cubs to host four concerts and to make changes to its schedule as soon as next month. It allows for six Friday afternoon games starting at 3:05 instead of the traditional 1:20. The Cubs would like to move back some Friday afternoon games this season if the City Council approves the night-game plan.

The changes are consistent with a tentative agreement struck last month involving Emanuel, Tunney and the Cubs. The introduction of the night-game ordinance is the first legislative step in a process to renovate historic Wrigley Field.

Cubs' ownership has proposed spending $500 million to make extensive renovations to the ballpark and develop surrounding property in the North Side neighborhood. But before the Ricketts family, owners of the team and Wrigley Field, makes the financial commitment, it asked the city to ease regulations that limit night games and advertising signage in the ballpark. The family says more night games and signage would allow the team to generate more revenue that would be used to pay for the park restoration and field a more competitive team.

I would, of course, go to more games if the ordinance passes. I used to live three blocks from Wrigley, though, so I understand the deleterious effects more night games could have on the neighborhood. Still, if Ricketts' improvements actually help the Cubs win games, I'm in.

I find it fascinating when someone whose entire brand rests on its association with a particular place makes this kind of threat:

"I'm not sure how anyone is going to stop the signs in the outfield," Ricketts said upon the unveiling of drawings of his renovation plan, "but if it comes to the point that we don't have the ability to do what we need to do in our outfield then we're going to have to consider moving."

Ah, yeah. "Consider" moving. Tribune columnist Steve Rosenbloom scoffs:

Look, if you’re going to play the move card, then play it like you mean it. Ricketts didn’t. He came off like a guy who wanted nothing to do with those words in any order. It was done so weakly, in fact, that I’m surprised there wasn’t closed-captioning.

I can see how people got the wrong idea, though. Supporters were thrilled to have Ricketts hint even slightly that he knew how to play politics. Nope. Sorry. Not happening.

The only place anyone might believe Ricketts could move the Cubs today is Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood.

Meanwhile, the Cubs actually won last night, putting them only three games behind the 4th-place team. We can't even give our tickets away at this point.

Crain's has details this morning about what Ricketts wants to build at Wrigley:

Two weeks after the Cubs and city officials announced a "framework agreement" on a $500 million renovation of Wrigley Field and development of its surrounding property, the team has released images of its plans, which include a 6,000-square-foot jumbotron in left field and a horizontal 1,000-square-foot advertising sign in right field as the framework outlined last month.

With the images now complete (you can see them below and on Crain's Tumblr page here), the Cubs later today will formally file their planned development application with the city's Plan Commission, the first step in what could be a months-long public process to get approval for the entire project.

The huge Jumbotron in left field (below) probably won't happen exactly as Ricketts wants; the other stuff, including the hotel across Clark Street, probably will.

We went to last night's game against the Padres at Wrigley. It just never seemed to end:

After trailing 8-0, the Cubs rallied some with home runs from Luis Valbuena, Starlin Castro, David DeJesus and Cody Ransom. But [Cubs starter Edwin] Jackson put them in too deep of a hole to escape, and most of the crowd had departed by the seventh inning of the 3 hour, 28 minute game.

We stayed the whole game, though. The weather was gorgeous: 27°C with a few high wispy clouds, with a stiff breeze out of the south. The wind accounts for the high score; so does the Padres going through their entire lineup—with a lagniappe—in the fifth.

Here's the season so far; let's see if the line moves up at all in the next 136 games:

That's "The Year of the Cub" in Latin. At the moment, that year looks like this:

The numbers—04, 67, 104—refer to the years since the Cubs' last division, league, and World Series championships.

They had to put another digit on it after the 2008 season. My guess is the current 7 digits will last about 33 more years.

At least they've won a few recently, and have gotten back up to .400. I'm going tonight; we'll see if they can make it to .423.

Being a season-ticket holder includes a "Rookie Day" open house at the park. Ours was yesterday. The open house included access to all the stands, the first-base-side warning track, the visitors club house, and the press box:

Visitors club house:

And the right-field wall, up close and personal:

More later or tomorrow.

As a large part of my brain noodles on how to get multiple IDPs to work with a single RP, a smaller part of my brain has looked out the window and realized Chicago is having a normally crappy April:

• The are 5-13 after allowing a run in the bottom of the 13th last night in Milwaukee;
• It's 13°C 7°C and raining, which is great because we need the rain and cool weather; and
• ...well, that's all I got right now.

I had a third thing, but SAML got in the way, I guess.

It can happen, if the fielders get complacent after a run-down:

When Braun and Segura both wound up at second base, Segura, as the leading runner, had the right to the bag, so Braun was out when he was tagged by Cubs third baseman Luis Valbuena even though he was standing on the base. However, Valbuenna, though he tagged Segura twice, never tagged him off the base (if you pause the video on the second tag you can clearly see Segura’s left toe on the base), so Segura was able to retreat safely to first base, though he needn’t have done so. He was safe on second.

SI has the video.

The Cubs still lost, because as bad as their fielding was, their hitting was worse. Oh, and manager Dale Sveum got thrown out of the game, too. Awesome.

For months, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Cubs owner Tom Ricketts, and 44th Ward Alderman Tom Tunney have wrestled over the scope and manner of making necessary renovations to 99-year-old Wrigley Field. They appear to have reached a deal:

The city and Mr. Tunney have agreed to allow the Cubs to erect a video screen in left field, as well as a right field advertising sign "in the style" of the existing Toyota sign that currently sits in left field. The Cubs will work with the city on placement of both signs "to minimize impact on nearby rooftops to the extent consistent with the needs of the team," according to a statement from the Cubs.

The Cubs will be allowed to hold 40 night games per season — up from the current maximum of 30, capped by a 2004 neighborhood protection plan — under a new special City Council ordinance that will allow for additional night games when required by Major League Baseball's national TV contract. The 40 night games do not include playoffs or other games that are not counted under the current ordinance. The Cubs will also be allowed to start six games at 3:05 p.m. on Fridays (unlike the usual 1:20 p.m. starts).

They'll also extend beer sales, build a hotel across Clark St., and put up more advertising.

Now if only they'd renovate the pitching staff, and possibly the hitting.

I think I had a better time than the people freezing to death at Wrigley:

In my profession, I get to sit at Peet's Coffee at 6:30am and watch action-packed videos like this:

I know what you're thinking: "slow down, tigerblood. Slow down."

I'm also pushing a new build of customer software up to production, and waiting for my coffee to kick in.

At least I'm not blowing three runs in the 10th with a damned balk, like other people I could name.

I used not having my charger with me as an excuse to leave my laptop off for 36 hours. That didn't prevent me getting email, of course. (Who can live without email?)

Because of some family scheduling, while I'm in the Bay Area this weekend the Giants are at Wrigley, meaning I'm missing games there and at AT&T Park.

I listened to the game yesterday driving down from the city to the peninsula, catching the Cubs 2-run homer in the 7th, followed by the nausea-inducing announcement that they brought Carlos Marmol in as a reliever. Yep: Cubs lost, 3-2.

Tomorrow I have an 8am conference call, and Tuesday I have a 7am call, but until then...I'm on vacation. I might even watch today's game on TV.

Well, the team has done better.

After graciously allowing the entire Brewers lineup to come to bat in the 1st inning, the Cubs managed to stagger through eight more innings before completely blowing it in the bottom of the 9th:

A wind blowing out at 24 mph turned Martin Maldonado's fly ball into a three-run double in the Brewers' four-run first off Edwin Jackson, but the wind changed directions in the ninth, just in time to foil the Cubs' rally.

Yes, it was well worth the many dollars we spent on season tickets this year, which—to remind folks joining us mid-game—we did because the waiting list is up to 125,000 names.

Here's the beginning of the game, all misplaced optimism and Friendly Confines:

And here's the end of the game, with none of the aforementioned:

Oh, well. Only 80 home games to go.

Parker and I took our first walk in pouring rain, but things seem to have cleared up. The Tribune expects OK weather for the 1:20 start:

Despite a wet, gloomy and cool start to the day, conditions should improve dramatically this afternoon in time for the Cubs opener. Temperatures around 7°C this morning will rebound into the teens later today with the passage of a warm front.

The Cubs, now 2-4 for the season and having already replaced their benighted reliever Carlos Marmol, would at least not lose a rain-out...but I'm happy to see my first game in seven months at Wrigley.

Chicago has finally gotten up to 21°C for the first time since December 1st. My screens are back in, my dog got some good walks, and my apartment is fresher.

I just hope it's like this on Monday.

ICYMI:

• James Fallows looks at United Airlines diverting a flight because a passenger complained.
• I found a blog about urban sustainability I probably won't have time to read, even though it's interesting.
• The Cubs have been in first place all season. (They're 2-1.)
• This is the coldest April opening in 20 years, with Saturday's predicted 19°C temperature the warmest Chicago will have been in 18 weeks.
• Singer-songwriter Antje Duvekot has a new video.

Back to the mines.

So, at the last possible moment, after much debate, my cousin and I bought our season tickets to Wrigley Field. Great view, beautiful park, possibility of a World Series this year—two out of three ain't bad.

Once again, here are the seats:

And here is the view:

I'm sure I'll post more photos from that spot over the course of the 2013 season. And I may yet finish the geas this year, despite possibly blowing my entire baseball budget this afternoon.

Probably lighter posting the rest of the week. We've got a major delivery tomorrow afternoon, and it's still not done. Ah, software development...

Well, my cousin and I did it. We put down our deposit for two season tickets to Wrigley Field. Even though we both prefer the first-base side, we found better seats right by the press box on the third-base side:

Specifically, these seats:

With this view:

Now we just have to pay for them and go to a lot of games. Otherwise, it's back to the end of the line, which now has nearly 120,000 people in it.

It's finally happened.

After 13 years, my cousin has gotten to the top of the Cubs season ticket waiting list. Only a year ago, he was 10,000 away from the top, but for some reason the list got radically shorter this season.

He and I long ago made a pact to go in together. And today, we found out what that means. We have an appointment at Wrigley Field at 9am Saturday to pick seats. And to pay for them.

We can skip the appointment, of course, but that means going to the back of the line—which now has 115,000 names on it. In 12 years my cousin moved up 4,000 places; that makes the list something like 300 years long.

What to do, what to do. I'm not sure the Cubs will have a better season next year than they did this year, and I'm not sure I want to part with all that money. Oh, we'll probably have to put most of them on StubHub, of course, but that doesn't mean we'll sell them. Moreover, we're not doing this to sell the tickets, we're doing this to go to Wrigley Field a lot.

We thought we'd get there in 2015, 2020, even 2025. A couple of older guys, hanging out at Wrigley, watching baseball, you know?

Time to create a decision model...

(Here are the FAQs about Wrigley season tickets. And fortunately I don't have to cough up the money all at once: "Your first payment, due at the time of your seat selection to secure your seats, is based on 10% of the post-tax total for the seats that you select. The first payment is non-refundable.")

Major League Baseball released its 2013 schedule today. Here are the highlights for the Cubs:

• They start the season April 1st in Atlanta.
• The home opener on April 8th will be against Milwaukee.
• The first appearance at a park I haven't gotten to yet won't happen until they visit Seattle on June 28th; but:
• ...with their first-ever trip to Oakland immediately following on July 2nd, I sense a trip to the West Coast coming next summer.
• Same with back-to-back series in two other parks I haven't seen, Colorado (July 19-21) and Arizona (July 22-25).
• They end the season in St. Louis, playing our arch-rivals, the Cardinals.

The Cubs will not be visiting New Yankee Stadium, Minnesota, Texas, or Toronto, the other four parks in the 30-Park Geas I haven't visited yet.

Chicago's local CBS affiliate has a Cubs-specific schedule.

Clearing out the ballast:

• Despite the initial forecasts, Hurricane Isaac's remnants missed Chicago.
• Beloit College, just outside Rockford, Ill., has published its Class of 2016 Mindset. Since 1998 they've published a list of facts about the way incoming first-years think. This year's list includes "Women have always piloted war planes and space shuttles" and "A bit of the late Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek, has always existed in space."
• The Economist's Gulliver blog bemoans Tampa's and Charlotte's piss-poor walkability, and how Tampa especially repudiates the loony-right conspiracy theory about Agenda 21.
• The wackos also got on NPR this morning with a story about yet more efforts to forbid Sharia law, which ended with the vacuous understatement "The proposals are a solution in search of a problem, according to many." Apparently NPR just wanted to shine a light on the crazy without correcting it.
• Speaking of crazy, with just four weeks left in the season, the Cincinnati Reds are the best team in baseball right now, with the Washington Nationals just behind them. The Cubs, now 51-82, earned their "E" just yesterday, fully two weeks after the Houston Astros (41-93) became the first team to earn mathematical elimination this season.

Updates as conditions warrant.

The 30-Park Geas took me to Petco Park last night, where the 4th-place Padres beat the 4th-place Cubs:

I thought the park was OK. Like some of the other 21st-century parks, it seemed to lack character. It felt more corporate than, say, Camden Yards or even AT&T Park. The fans seemed to agree, as only about 27,000 showed up (out of a capacity of over 42,000.

But the lack of demand for seats let me get an 8th-row field box for under $80. And that, in turn, let me get photos like this one of Alfonso Soriano stealing 3rd:

Or this one of Travis Wood pitching:

I'm now up the coast, at my folks' house. More photos tomorrow.

I hung out with some very old friends yesterday, and throughout our barbecue we checked up on the Cubs. By the time we went inside, it was top of the 7th, no score.

Then this happened:

Rafael Furcal's go-ahead single in the seventh turned out to be a mere appetizer as the Cardinals also matched an 86-year-old franchise record for runs in an inning. St. Louis totaled 10 hits with multiple hits by three players including pinch-hitter Allen Craig, who doubled twice with an RBI.

The Cardinals totaled nine doubles for the first time in franchise history since setting a modern major league record with 13 doubles on July 12, 1931, against the Cubs.

Cubs starter Matt Garza was taken out after three scoreless innings with cramping in his right triceps, an injury that wasn't obvious and prompted speculation that he had been traded. The Cubs added a bit of intrigue, waiting until the bottom of the sixth to announce the injury and the fact X-rays -- as a precaution for possible elbow issues -- were negative.

Germano got unlimited warmups in the fourth, an indication he was entering because of an injury or ejection, although the rule book also allows for an unspecified sudden emergency. Germano allowed a run in three-plus innings before the roof caved in on the Cubs, who allowed 12 runs in an inning for the first time since July 30, 2010, at Colorado.

Twelve runs. One half of an inning. Twelve runs. Only the presence of one friend's 11-year-old daughter kept us from expressing our true feelings about what we were watching unfold before us.

After 35 years of watching them do things like that, I'm starting to think of moving on.

Thunderstorms yesterday delayed the start of the Cubs-Dodgers game yesterday, with a first pitch almost three hours later than the scheduled 1:20pm start time. We got to the park at 2:30 during a brief break in the rain, relieved to discover the game was still on, and that we'd dressed warmly enough for it.

Fortunately our seats were under the awning. Unfortunately the weather got colder. We lasted until the middle of the 2nd, then went elsewhere to watch the end of the game.

The Cubs ultimately won in the 11th. Dodgers pitcher Jamey Wright accidentally beaned Cubs pitcher Jeff Samardzija, loading the bases, and then walked David DeJesus to end the game. By this point, we were warm and dry 5 km from the park, so we didn't get to hear "Go Cubs Go" after all.

As an aside, I have to say that watching the groundskeepers roll up the infield tarp is fascinating. They appear to have it down to a science.

The 30-park geas continues apace.

What a surprising phenomenon.

Miami has constructed the—well, let's not pussyfoot here—newest baseball park in the country, and somehow has created the most boring venue in history for watching a baseball game ever devised.

In fairness, I went to the park expecting the Marlins to win, for the simple reason that my Cubs suck like a Dyson this year. (No, really, I mean more than usual.) The Cubs did not disappoint, leaving forty men on and losing 127 to 3. I feel confident that we'll go all the way to 160 games this year, and possibly next year, though I'm skeptical of the Cubs getting into the post-season during Parker's lifetime. Or mine.

I digress. I was excited to go to the newest of baseball's jewels, and to see what $515m buys a club these days. I was...underwhelmed. And then I got antsy. And then I decided that $515m buys a baseball park so devoid of anything resembling baseball that it's best described as a "Baseball Experience" at some theme park in a place where no child has ever held a bat or a ball.

By the third inning, I hit upon the one thing that, more than any other, explained my discomfort and disappointment. There are no shadows. Not on the field, the players, the stands, on nothing. Everything looked flat and sterile. It was like being locked in a warehouse on the first spring day of the year, knowing that life was brighter and more real outside, but unable to join it until the sadness in front of you finished.

Outside, it was 25°C and sunny. Inside, it was 23°C and...inside. No breezes, no shadows, no connection to the rest of the world. Inside Marlins Park I experienced Entertainment, not a baseball game. (I spoke to a press agent at the park who confirmed that they closed retractable roof about an hour before game time, because they worried about the heat. The heat. In Chicago we cry for joy when we have a game day this beautiful; in Miami, they close the roof.)

Apparently I'm not the only one who thought so, judging by my section around the 5th inning:

I'm not satirizing here. This was the 7th game ever in this park, and barely 3/4 of the seats had asses in them. And do you know why? (I'm addressing you, Mr. Loria.) Because it wasn't baseball. It was indistinguishable from any other corporate-designed, corporate-managed Experience that attempts to distill something down to its marketable components and misses entirely the reason that people enjoy it. People who like Marlins Park will probably Olive Garden, the Twlight books, and Mitt Romney: facsimiles all. But none of them real.*

I mean, would Wrigley Field ever stoop to this?

All right, I concede, Ricketts might hire cheerleaders, but they'd be real cheerleaders, dammit.

I will close with this, the view from my seat, which the park designers got right. Every seat in the park, I am certain, had a good view (which we know is not the case at Wrigley). But after tomorrow's game, I'm going to rank-order the 20 parks I will have seen, and I suspect Marlins Ballpark might come out poorly.

* And also not worth $40 for the ticket and $10 for each beer. Not to mention, for the love of dog, can you at least have more than four awful beers on tap? Heineken, Corona Light, Bud Light, and Miller Light qualify, collectively, as 1.25 beers—and Heineken is 0.8 beers on its own. Is there a single brewery in Florida? Dang.

In 2011, I:

• took 8,198 photos, including 4,352 in Chicago, 881 in Japan, 588 in Portugal, and 337 in the U.K. (and only 71 of Parker). This is almost as many as I took in 2009 and 2010 combined (9,140), and more than I took in the first 8 years I owned a camera (1983-1991, 7,671).
• flew 115,845 km but drove less than 4,500 km
• visited 5 countries (the UK, Spain, Portugal, Canada, Japan) and 8 states (California, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Indiana, North Carolina, Texas, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin) in 35 trips. Sadly, this meant Parker boarded for more than 100 days
• spent more than 186 hours walking Parker, which partially made up for all those days being boarded
• wrote 539 blog entries, with the most consistency in the blog's 6-year history (averaging 1.48 per day with a standard deviation of only 0.11)
• got 2.3 million hits (object views) on the Daily Parker, and 1.7 million on Weather Now, including 47,956 and 181,285 page views, respectively. According to Google Analytics, the blog had 28,613 unique visitors, and Weather Now had 26,539.
• read only 34 books, but as these included the first four of the "Song of Ice and Fire" series, it should count as 46
• started and ended the year in the same place (Duke of Perth, Chicago)
• went to only 8 movies, 3 plays, 3 concerts, and 3 baseball games, which is terribly sad

Oh, and I also got a master's degree. (Almost forgot.)

I'm David Braverman, this is my blog, and Parker is my 5-year-old mutt. I last updated this About... page in February, but some things have changed. In the interest of enlightened laziness I'm starting with the most powerful keystroke combination in the universe: Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V.

Twice. Thus, the "point one" in the title.

The Daily Parker is about:

• Parker, my dog, whom I adopted on 1 September 2006.
• Politics. I'm a moderate-lefty by international standards, which makes me a radical left-winger in today's United States.
• Photography. I took tens of thousands of photos as a kid, then drifted away from making art until a few months ago when I got the first digital camera I've ever had that rivals a film camera. That got me reading more, practicing more, and throwing more photos on the blog. In my initial burst of enthusiasm I posted a photo every day. I've pulled back from that a bit—it takes about 30 minutes to prep and post one of those puppies—but I'm still shooting and still learning.
• The weather. I've operated a weather website for more than ten years. That site deals with raw data and objective observations. Many weather posts also touch politics, given the political implications of addressing climate change, though happily we no longer have to do so under a president beholden to the oil industry.
• Chicago, the greatest city in North America, and the other ones I visit whenever I can.

I've deprecated the Software category, but only because I don't post much about it here. That said, I write a lot of software. I work for 10th Magnitude, a startup software consultancy in Chicago, I've got about 20 years experience writing the stuff, and I continue to own a micro-sized software company. (I have an online resume, if you're curious.) I see a lot of code, and since I often get called in to projects in crisis, I see a lot of bad code, some of which may appear here.

I strive to write about these and other things with fluency and concision. "Fast, good, cheap: pick two" applies to writing as much as to any other creative process (cf: software). I hope to find an appropriate balance between the three, as streams of consciousness and literacy have always struggled against each other since the first blog twenty years ago.

If you like what you see here, you'll probably also like Andrew Sullivan, James Fallows, Josh Marshall, and Bruce Schneier. Even if you don't like my politics, you probably agree that everyone ought to read Strunk and White, and you probably have an opinion about the Oxford comma—punctuation de rigeur in my opinion.

Another, non-trivial point. Facebook reads the blog's RSS feed, so many people reading this may think I'm just posting notes on Facebook. Facebook's lawyers would like you to believe this, too. Now, I've reconnected with tons of old friends and classmates through Facebook, I play Scrabble on Facebook, and I eagerly read every advertisement that appears next to its relevant content. But Facebook's terms of use assert ownership of everything that appears on their site, regardless of prior claims, which contravenes four centuries of law.

Everything that shows up on my Facebook profile gets published on The Daily Paker first, and I own the copyrights to all of it (unless otherwise disclosed). I publish the blog's text under a Creative Commons attribution-nonderivative-noncommercial license; republication is usually OK for non-commercial purposes, as long as you don't change what I write and you attribute it to me. My photos, however, are published under strict copyright, with no republication license, even if I upload them to other public websites. If you want to republish one of my photos, just let me know and we'll work something out.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope you continue to enjoy The Daily Parker.

Two more photos from yesterday. First, my hat's off to this guy, who has suffered more than most of us will ever know:

See more photos at The Daily Parker.

Cubs pitcher Carlos Zambrano warms up before yesterday's game at Wrigley Field, Chicago:

Canon 7D at ISO-400, 1/800 at f/5.6, 171mm, exactly here.

In this shot, I corrected the color to 7500K (based on a gray card reading), pushed the contrast, and desaturated. Later today I'll have another shot of Zambrano in which I did almost the opposite.

I like afternoons like this one. Yes, it was a little warm, and yes, a little sticky. But I had seats in aisle 10, row 6 at Wrigley, which failed to suck:

Zambrano pitched, with a few walks here and there but mostly nothing for Cincinnati to hit:

And you know? I always like seeing things like this:

More photos later. Right now, I need about five showers, three for the sunscreen and two for the hot weather.

The Economist's Prospero blog piles on the Cubs after attending the Crosstown Classic last week:

Teams like the Cubs give people a safe space in which to lose. Fans get the benefits of commiseration without incurring any real costs. The predictable losers also allow other teams to win. So really the Sox fans should be grateful for the Cubs. Such losers may not be so lovable on scrutiny, but their ineptitude has an extra civic function: they take one for the team. They’re a sacrifice fly.

And on the Fourth of July, yet! Limey bastahd.

He may have a point, though.

Dusty Baker walks from the mound to the dugout at Wrigley Field for the last time as manager of the Cubs:

1 October 2006, ISO-200, 1/800 at f/6.3, 200mm, here.

Last night Chicago got hit by severe storms that included hurricane-force winds:

Violent storms raked large sections of the Chicago area Tuesday evening, knocking power out to nearly a quarter million Chicago area residents and transforming some thoroughfares into darkened obstacle courses, hard to navigate with streetlights out and debris, ranging from large trees to power poles and garbage cans, impeding if not entirely blocking travel. Police in some of the hardest hit areas were forced to light flares to mark fallen trees.

Eyewitnesses reported seeing transformers exploding at the height of the storms while others described some neighborhoods as "war zones" after the onslaught of storms.

... The storms generated gusts as high as 130 km/h at Wheeling and 120 km/h at Peru, Elmhurst and Wheaton.

I was inside, as you can imagine, as the storms ran over my part of the city, with horizontal rain and, well, lots of wind. At one point I watched the groundskeepers at US Cellular Field blown around as they tried to get the tarp over the infield.

Ah, global warming.

The 30-park geas can resume now that I'm done with school.

Go to The Daily Parker to see how far I've gotten and where I still need to go.

Still, when you see something like this, it hurts:

When it finally ended, the Brewers wound up with an 18-1 win, sending the Cubs to their sixth straight defeat and leaving them a season-worst 14 games under .500 at 46-60.

The Cubs tied a franchise record with 26 hits allowed. The loss dropped them into fifth place in the National League Central, a half-game behind the Astros.

Acting manager Alan Trammell said before the game that "being professional" is one of the things the Cubs are looking for from their players as they play out the string. But acting professional and looking professional are two different things, and the Cubs haven't resembled a major league team since giving up a major league-record 11 straight hits on Friday in Colorado.

"This is major league baseball," Trammell said afterward. "You expect to be better."

Twenty-six hits? Eighteen runs? Wow. Just, wow.

Nothing special about the game, but I do love the shot:

Having the second-oldest ball park may give Chicago its largest outdoor party 88 days every summer, but I can't deny that other parks have better amenities. The steel troughs in the men's rooms, for example: ew. Now that Wrigley has a new owner, there's talk of expansion and renovation ahead of its centennial in 2014:

The project will be called "Wrigley 20-14" and include construction projects during the season so the Cubs can use it "for another 100 years," according to President Crane Kenney.

The focal point of the massive restructuring will be the long-talked-about "triangle building" to the west, a project that will include knocking down the outer wall on the third-base side to form a large open-air courtyard that would include concession areas and shops.

In the end, all of the concourse will be widened and include expanded restrooms, some of which will be completed for this season. It also means construction will be ongoing during the 2011 and 2012 seasons.

I think that will help make the games more enjoyable. Now all we need is a Marlins-style team of unknowns who play well together (instead of being the team where former stars go to die), and we might actually break the 101-year drought.

My cousin sent me this example of...something...but I couldn't stop laughing:

So what news story should I focus on today? The Cubs using the bankruptcy code to speed up their sale to the Ricketts family? General Motors ramping up production by 45% to see if we'll bail them out a second time? Former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling's appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court?

No, I want to point people toward the Night of the Stripping Dead event at the Admiral Theater tomorrow night:

Exotic dancers and zombies, the two grand pillars of American subculture, have finally joined forces -- thus proving our nation's obsession with the walking dead has irrevocably crossed the line of mainstream consciousness, where now strippers are parodying a trend.

Wednesday night, club organizers are throwing an event...where professional makeup artists will transform otherwise pious dancers into undead dancers.

Riiiight.

For completeness, the Admiral Theater is on Lawrence just east of Pulaski.

The Twins hadn't even polished off the Tigers yesterday before Major League Baseball unanimously approved Tribune's sale of the Cubs to the Ricketts:

The vote was made during a conference call. Tom Ricketts, who has headed the sale for his family, could take day-to-day control of the Cubs by the end of the month.

Commissioner Bud Selig says the Ricketts family will be "great owners and custodians" of the storied franchise perhaps best known for a World Series championship drought that now stands at 101 years.

... The $845 million deal also includes Tribune's approximately 25 percent share of regional cable TV network Comcast SportsNet Chicago.

Oddly, this item was the top story on Crain's Chicago Business this morning but totally buried on the Chicago Tribune's own site.

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.