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World Series Notebook 4: Deja Vu All Over Again

By Steve Rhodes

Bats go cold, team goes down 2-1, one of the best pitchers in the universe looms. Oh, and Jason Heyward is getting the start in right. What, us worry?
Coco Puffs
“Down the steps of the visitors’ dugout at Wrigley Field, a drain cover littered with used gum and sunflower-seed shells and tobacco spit and the other various detritus that finds its way into baseball players’ orbits greets those who walk by it. To the left, in a small alcove, is a urinal, a sink, a foamy-soap dispenser and a small cupboard, home to a rosin bag and a pump-spray bottle of Bullfrog sunscreen, which when combined make for a tacky substance pitchers use to get a better grip on the ball. Grimy does not begin to describe the entirety of the scene,” Jeff Passon writes for Yahoo! in “How The Indians Spoiled The Cubs’ Special Night.”


“Ten more paces on the fetid green carpet yields a left turn, and 19 past that is right, and then a quick turn left and one more right, toward a ramp, and after ascending that, on the 49th step from the dugout, stands a single batting tee. These are the trappings of a century-old park, ones with which the visitors long have dealt, and so Coco Crisp hauled his bat along this path around 9:20 p.m. local time Friday, getting himself ready, ready for anything, because in these playoffs, this World Series, the Cleveland Indians understand sometimes they need to leap headlong into the muck.”
And they got it. Click through to read the whys and wherefores.
Schwarber, Schwarber, Schwarber
The lineups for Saturday night are out and Jason Heyward is getting the start in right field. Not to beat a dead roster choice, but couldn’t the Cubs use Matty Szczur or Tommy La Stella about now?!
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Related: Joe Maddon’s Dilemma: When To Play The Kyle Schwarber Card.
Ben’s Bike
“The Cubs experience has been everything Zobrist could hope for, enhanced by buying a house in the Wrigleyville neighborhood within a mile of the stadium, close enough that his family could walk,” the Tampa Bay Times reports.
“And that before a September game, Zobrist rode his bicycle – in uniform – to the stadium, fans rolling down car windows to wish him well.”
That’s cute, but here’s the lingering question I’ve had about this: Did he bring his uniform home the day before just so he could ride to the ballpark in it? I mean, when players drive to the game they were their regular clothes and change in the clubhouse. I guess he just wanted to experience riding to Wrigley on his bike steampunk-style.
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And here’s the answer in this video that the TBT failed to embed because it’s a newspaper and doesn’t understand the Internet yet.

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By the way, the article also mentions the singing of Zobrist’s wife, Julianna, so here you go:

Note: Julianna is scheduled to sing “God Bless America” before Game 4.
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Oh, what the hell. Meet the Zobrists:

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By the way, Ben Zobrist is from Eureka, Illinois, which took a community photo in his honor this week.
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Repping Beachwood
Hey, look: Me and our very own Kiljoong Kim in this AP article about Cubs fans.
Here’s the video that was mentioned (incorrectly) but not embedded or even linked to, because newspapers:

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Posted on October 29, 2016