Chicago -
By Tom Latourette and Marty Gangler
Just a baseball club, known as the Chicago Cubs
They haven’t won anything, since 1908
It’s like their fate is sealed, playing there in Wrigley Field
Fans pray and wait in vain, since 1908
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Ivy growing on the outfield walls
Fans pee in horse troughs
They’ve got no stalls
Eamus Catuli
It says there in right
The years go on and on and on and on
Posted on August 9, 2007
By Marty Gangler
The Chicago Cubs last won the World Series in 1908. That was 99 years ago. Last week we lost a Cubs fan who was around for 92 of those 99 years. Papa, my grandfather, died this week without ever seeing the Cubs win the World Series. But that never seemed to bother him. He never turned the game off, never stopped following the team, never stopped going on the road to see them play. I can’t even remember Papa ever complaining all that much about Cubs management. He was just a fan.
Posted on August 6, 2007
By Jim Coffman
My almost-six-year-old does not suffer summer gladly. When she is overheated, Alana lets us know, vociferously and persistently. So I must admit I felt some relief when her T-Ball season came to a close last Sunday shortly after high noon, if for no other reason than it meant we could go find some shade and kick back a bit.
Well, we couldn’t kick back too much because one of us parents had to take Alana’s two-year-old sister Jenna home for her nap. And although Alana then wolfed down a snack (one of those lovely, individually wrapped Rice Krispies Treats that taste like they have been marinated in saccharine for a week), something had to be done about lunch. And that something would have to involve a restaurant not afraid to burn through as many fossil fuels as it took to keep us nice and cool. It was important that mom or dad stay out with the older kids (it ended up being me) because our two-year-old’s best chance for actually sinking into sleepy time was keeping our other kids as far away from the house as possible.
Earlier at the game, the primary problem was that the areas where spectators gather around the Rookie League diamond (and the areas around the benches) are just about devoid of sizable vegetation. Check that, there is one decent-sized tree down the right-field line and by the second inning or so just about all the parents of kids on both teams were huddled together underneath it. We had come prepared – with a water bottle and a back-up – and every inning or so we not only had Alana guzzling down all the H2O she could hold, we also had her cooling herself off with water poured on the inside of her wrists and on her neck.
Posted on August 3, 2007
