August, 2008
August 27th, 2008
At This Rate, Operation Stop Being A Fat Fuck Will Take 6 Months
Starting weight: 224
Last week’s weight: 224
Target weight (maximum): 205
Target weight (ideal): 195
Just like last week, I lost one pound. And that was before eating too much pizza last night with with the Chicago Pizza Club.
The good news is that I ran outside yesterday and my ankle was fine. The bad news is that I didn’t run very far and haven’t run today. Pathetic.
This week’s weight: 223
Change from last week: Lost 1 pound.
August 27th, 2008
Sweet Swingin’ Billy Williams
Not too much to say about this Hall of Famer who was one of the greatest Cubs of all time. I’m enough of a fan that when I got to my gate at the airport in July to go to the All Star Game and saw him sitting there, I actually introduced myself and started a conversation with him. That was odd as normally I ignore celebrities on the rare occasions I see them. But Billy Williams is more than a Cubs legend, the man has been a fixture with the organization for most of the last 52 years. Maybe it was because I was particularly excited about baseball at the time as I was on my way to the All Star Game, but whatever the reason, I decided to say hello. He seemed happy to talk to a fan, and I had nothing else to do, so I chatted him up for a bit.
He was as happy to talk about himself as I was to ask questions. Like most players of his generation, he has some bitterness about how much money today’s players make, but he was actually pretty funny about it. I gently tried to get him to admit that Ronny Cedeno should be starting over Ryan Theriot, but he wouldn’t take the bait and said Lou Piniella liked Theriot as a starter. Most importantly, he, like me, seemed genuinely excited about this year’s team.
Billy Williams
Rookie of the Year: 1961
All Star Games: 6
Consecutive games played: 1,117 (formerly the NL record)
Times cheated out of the MVP: 2 (1970 and 1972)
Uniform Number: 26
August 26th, 2008
October 1: Moving Day
Other than the house I grew up in, I have lived in my current place longer than any other. That will all end on October 1. If anyone knows of an apartment available that allows perfect dogs, is close to a train, has hardwood floors and a dishwasher, and is $1100 or less, let me know. In fact, please go research places and look at them and just pick one. I don’t like looking for apartments.
Also, if you know anyone who wants my apartment (which will be clean by October 1), send them my way.
August 25th, 2008
I’m Noticing a Pattern
When I step back and look at the history of the Cubs, I’m repeatedly stunned at how bad they have been for so long. This is a team that was one of the best franchises in baseball in the first half of the 20th century and probably the worst in the second half.
Despite decades of sucking, thanks to WGN and exceptional marketing, they remain one of the most popular teams in the country. And most fans of the Cubs, like fans of any team, have an inflated sense of the value of players who put on their team’s uniform.
Such is the case with Damian Miller. Miller was the offensively mediocre, but defensively very good catcher for the World Champion Arizona Diamondbacks. A free agent after the 2002 season, the Cubs brought him on board via free agency as the catcher in the first year of the Dusty Baker era.
In 2003, Miller went from being a mediocre hitter to a bad hitter. He was still apparently an effective defensive catcher as the Cubs young pitching staff turned in a great season. In the playoffs, hit hitting was even worse as he was 3 for 21. After the season was over, the Cubs traded Miller to the A’s for a bad defensive, but good offensive catcher named Michael Barrett.
In any event, Damian Miller is the man who wore number 27 for the Cubs who I’d most like to remember. He is a much better choice than Mel Hall, who was arrested last year for sexually assaulting not one, but two teenage girls while he was about 40 years old.
August 24th, 2008
28: A Dissapointing Legacy
In the offseason between 1988 and 1989, the Cubs decided to stand up for Ryne Sandberg, the team’s star player, and they traded Rafael Palmeiro to the Texas Rangers as part of a 5-player trade. The impetus for the trade was that Palmeiro was nailing Sandgerg’s wife. In any event, one of the players the Cubs got in the trade was a pitcher named Mitch Williams.
In 1999, an underwhelming Cubs team played some shockingly good baseball and made the playoffs with Mitch “Wild Thing” Williams as the closer. While he usually got the job done, he rarely did so smoothly. When he later, as a member of the Phillies, gave up Joe Carter’s walk-off World Series winning home run, I don’t think a single Cubs fan was surprised.
Another, even more anonymous, Cub who is important today is one Roosevelt Brown. From the fall of 1998 to the summer of 1999, the year after college, I lived in St. Louis. When I went down there to find a place to live before moving there, I stopped by Busch Stadium to buy two tickets to every Cardinals home game beginning on September 7, the day after I would be moving there. Why? Because Mark McGwire was closing in on Roger Maris’ single-season home run record and I wanted to be there. And I was, and it was exciting. So before I left St. Louis to move back to Chicago, I bought tickets for the final weekend of the season when the Cubs would be playing the Cardinals. Not only would I get to see the Cubs, but if McGwire or Sosa were going to set a new record, I wanted to be there to see it. I also thought the Cubs were going to be a playoff team that year and hoped to see them clinch the division.
As the end of the 1999 baseball season approached, the Cubs were far from a playoff team and McGwire and Sosa, while impressive once again, were not going to break McGwire’s 1998 record. Still, St. Louis is less than a 5-hour drive and I had a friend there I could stay with, so I went down for the games.
On Saturday, October 2, 1999, Mark McGwire hit his 64th home run of the season to give the Cardinals the lead. But the most exciting moment of the game occurred when Roosevelt Brown blasted his first major league home run to give the Cubs the lead for good. For the next year or two, my friend Edy and I followed Roosevelt Brown’s career with some interest. I truly believed he was going to be a good player. I think Edy was just amused by me.
In any event, Roosevelt Brown turned out to be a disappointment. Not unlike Mitch Williams (though he was much better that Brown). But today they are both important figures as they shared the number 28.
