It looked a little tough out there, with no outs, three runs in and a man on second.  Down by three in the first, we were, and we needed help.  But Eli went in and got the next three guys, and we scored four in the bottom of the first.  We mercied them in five innings, 15 to 4.  It was a great game for our guys against a good team.  Tom hit an inside the park home run… this on antibiotics, and every other cold medicine one father could think of before the game.  We played with nine guys, and it was damned exciting.  We play again on Saturday, then again on Monday.  Woof. 

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool that to speak out and remove all doubt.

–Abraham Lincoln

Hey, maybe the Chicago Sun Times reads my blog.  They took the Cubs logo border off their website a few days ago, right after I publicly complained about it.  Okay, publicly meaning right here, to you, my loyal reader. 

Somebody really had fun putting together our baseball schedule for the early part of the season.  We play Thursday, Saturday and Monday.  Good thing we’ve got pitchers. 

We lost, but showed great heart, coming back from errors on the field, always coming back.  The team is going to be fine, and possibly terrific.  The new kids finally got their taste of the big leagues, and the game is fast for them right now, but I saw flashes of competence and more.  Our crafty veterans showed they can’t just come back and think they’re ready without working out and practicing.  It will take some time, but by the end of the season, we will be a tough team to beat.  

The new season begins today, and we are the first game.  We hoist the trophy from last year, with our names engraved on it, and begin our defense of the title on the same day.  This should be fun.  We lost our first game last year, as the team needed to find itself and begin to believe in itself.  That takes time, and nurturing.  

Hey, Happy Birthday, Jump.  

If you have gone to the Chicago Sun Times sports page online recently, you will see that the President of the United States is probably annoyed.  I know I am.  It seems only one professional baseball team plays in Chicago, according to the Sun Times.  Cubs logos run down either side of the page.  The Sox are a complete non-entity.  I know the Cubs are supposed to win the World Series this year, in fact, everybody else might as well not bother to play, it’s such a certainty.  But the President of the United States is gonna be mad at you folks over there in Sun Times land if you keep this up.  Me too. 

I have been accused, accurately, of being cranky when I don’t feel well.  My wife, one of the few readers of this blog, is now laughing.  Probably hooting.  But it’s time to have fun again.  Fun at the ballpark, as the boys will have lots of fun, win or lose.  Fun at the keyboard, fun researching, just time to have fun.  Let’s start right now. 

And today there is sun.  The fields are wet, but we will practice at a middle school that replaced their grass with artificial turf.  Our first game is Saturday, after opening day ceremonies.  We will lift the trophy that has the boys’ names on it, for winning the championship of Santa Monica Little League last year.  It was quite a game, T playing with a 102 degree fever, extra innings, and we went into the Tournament of Champions the next day and got beaten, but no one cared because we had won the city championship.  Our first All-Star game, we put up 13 runs in the top of the first inning.  Baseball was fun, and I hope it will be fun again this year. 

It rains hard, and I’m glad for it.  There are a few caveats to that.  I imagine our practice will be rained out again today.  And I have an aging automobile, something over 14 years old, a car of which I have a certain amount of affection (try as we might not to anthropomorphize our things).  It has low mileage (my office is across the back yard, attached to the garage), it runs great (I take it to the mechanic, he tells me how clean and solid it is), it has good sight lines (I’ve driven a lot of potential new cars in the last few years and the back windshields get smaller and smaller, the posts get thicker and thicker so you can’t see what’s going on around you), and it’s getting to the point where the car is so old it’s almost a classic.  The boys will be able to drive it in a couple of years if I still have it.  There is one thing, though.  It has a moon roof.  I don’t use the moon roof much, but because it has a moon roof, when it rains, the rain naturally gets in through the cracks, but the car is well enough designed that there are small holes to handle the run-off.  Those holes get plugged every few years.  But I don’t know when they’re plugged until it rains.  And when they’re plugged, the rain overflows in the moon roof track and drips into the interior of the car.  I find it when I go to drive it in the morning.  Deep sigh. 

It was between the brothers, Kay.  I had nothing to do with it.