The Unfortunate Seven

The Cubs are an astonishingly pathetic 2-11 over their last four series, so it should come as no surpise that no one except for a handful of sadists -- myself included -- seems interested in how bad this team is. Being in a negative frame of mind on the topic of my favorite sports franchise, here are my seven least favorite Cubs of the 2000s:

7. Jose "I Wear Orange Oakleys At Night" Hernandez, '03

6. Lenny "Cornrows And Motorcycles" Harris, '03

5. Jose "Quit Asking If I'm The Batboy" Macias, '04-'05

4. Paul "Perpetually Squinting Because My Worthlessness Is Blinding" Bako, '03-'04

3. Neifi "I Run On My Tip-Toes Because I Think I'm A Ballerina" Perez, '04-'06

2. Kent "The Broadcasters Made Me Suck" Mercker, '04

And the single biggest disappointment in Chicago sports history:

1. Todd "It's Tough To See The Ball When You're Wasted On Painkillers" Hundley, '01-'02


Since I'm on the subject, does anyone have a copy of my "Dear Paul Bako" letter from 2004? That thing was a WIS post before there ever was such a thing!

Random Thought Of The Day

Do you think that in the Cartoon Universe, Calvin quit hanging out with Hobbes once he discovered girls, or do you think they just started chasing skirt together?

Cubs.com Fantasy Headline

"Welcome Home, Joe: Girardi Era Begins"

Signs

Contrary to popular belief, I am actually dying to say nice things about people. However, every time I try to say nice things I get mocked or am otherwise misunderstood, particularly when nice comments are made in front of my dysfunctional family or my equally dysfunctional friends.

Take, for example, an occasion a couple winters ago, whilst we were cruising along the Intracoastal somewhere in the vicinity of Boca Raton. In front of about twenty or thirty people, I happened to remark to one of our guests, "I love spiral staircases. Don't you think they're romantic?" My family immediately launched onto me like a pack of wild hyenias for being so cheesy and attacked me to such a point that I was forced to make a hasty retreat into one of the cabin bedrooms whereupon I took a nap. Granted, I was about fifteen beers deep at that point, and it wasn't so much a nap as a pass-out, and I probably didn't really need to have my arm around the woman's shoulder considering she was one of my littlest sister's friend's mom, and I probably didn't need to lower my voice to the pitch of Barry White's before I made the comment. But my point is, my intention was to point out one of my favorite architectural details frequently seen in one of my favorite places in the world, and everybody had to rip on me for it. One result of the experience, aside from the retelling of the story every time one of my siblings or parents gets more than two drinks in them, was that several months passed before I had anything good to say about anything, particularly architecture or romance.

At Dahlgren's recent wedding, I was again the victim of yet another misinterpretation, this time involving the delivery of a certain hand signal. After taking Communion I passed in front of the alter where Dahlgren and his wife were sitting, looking all happy and in love, and I could sense that everybody in the church was waiting for me to do something completely stupid. Instead, I tapped two fingers against my heart, that being the universal sign for "much love" or "always in my heart." At the reception, however, a rumor began circulating that I'd given them the sign for the shocker. I'm not going to say I didn't think about doing just that, but I swear to God I really didn't do it. I could see how the mistake was made, considering that I'd spent a good portion of the afternoon in the hotel bar, and that I am prone to doing ridiculous things at large social gatherings, particularly while wearing a suit. In reality, what really happened was that Master At-The-Bat thought it'd be funny to say that I gave the shocker sign to the newlyweds while they were still on the altar, though for the life of me I cannot understand why anyone would believe him since he is the only I person I know who takes things even less seriously than I do.

One final example illustrates my point. A couple weeks ago I was engaged in conversation with one of my brother's college friends that basically amounted to: The kid doesn't think I like him. I was dumbfounded by this revelation, considering that I'd been out drinking with him twice that very week. I told him that I thought he was a good guy and that I had his back, especially since we both went to 'Nova and he's very close with my brother. He asked me why, then, I always have my hands slightly extended to my sides when speaking to him -- apparently he took this as a non-verbal sign of some sort of confrontational attitude I have towards him. I told him I wasn't sure why I held my hands out at my sides. Probably, I said, it's because I was raised on one side of the family by lawyers and on the other side by Italians, both of which are groups renowned for using their hands while speaking, the combination of which frequently results in waving my hands about like I'm trying to imitate a bird flying. I solidified my point by telling him (in jest, but I don't think he picked up on it) that, by waving my hands about at my sides rather than waving them around in front of me as is my natural inclination, I prevent myself from giving potentially misinterpreted gang signals to passing homies and/or delivering awful cuss words in sign language to unassuming deaf folk who happen to be in the area. He looked confused and didn't really buy it, and though we've hung out several times since and maintain friendly relations, I've noticed that he notices that I now thrust my hands deep into my pockets whenever I'm talking to him.

I am somewhat tired of being misunderstood, though I do not expect this condition to pass any time soon, and I do not think there is anything I can do about it. This weekend Page's wife asked me if I was happy and I replied, "I'm comfortable with my confusion." This is true and some would say it is sad, but it's not really sad. Things are not exactly as I want them but that's okay. Sure, I should move out of this small studio apartment I lived in during my grad school days. Sure, I should go out more with serious women rather than continually fall for the drinking-buddy party-girl type. Sure, I should try to wear something other than jeans and a tshirt from time to time. Sure, I should try to get a real job or get off my ass and finish this story. However, those things don't seem to be happening right now, so be it. I told her that that in life, as in baseball, you don't get to call the pitches you'd like to see. I'm fine with that and who I am. I'm swinging at the pitches I think look like good ones to hit, and just doing my thing.

That fact aside, I oftentimes feel like everyone abandoned me or that I abandoned myself. Some would say that I'm just thinking too much and to let it go and move on, but I'm being serious here. I find myself alone a lot at times when I shouldn't be. Over the course of three separate weekends this summer, I was reminded of the fact that a majority of my closest friends live in places other than Chicago. If I was more willing to get on a plane more often, I would have a much more robust social life. I love this city but most of the people I love the most aren't here with me to share it. Sometimes that fact gets to me and it's a hard realization to overcome. To love a city alone, or to love the people but not the place? I'd say that this conundrum, which I rarely ever mention, is much more indicative of my personality than certain odd mannerisms and scrambled physical cues. And so, I find myself being unable to say certain things I wish I could say, while the things I am trying to say are often misinterpreted by the recipient.

And so continues the confusing and often sordid tale that is the life of Pat.

Conversation Of The Weekend

Tom: "Hey Pat! Ya know, I saw something when I was pulling in..."

Me: "The muffler on the driveway?"

Tom: "Yeah. The muffler on the driveway. It's like eight feet long. Just sittin' there. Side of the road. Old rusty muffler. Probably fell off some equally old rusty car. The guy apparently didn't even notice."

(Pause.)

Me: "Think I should go move it?"

Tom: "What? The muffler? No fuckin' way! That thing adds character, man!"

Patpourri

"The study of history is is the best medicine for the uneasy mind; for in history you have a record of the infinite variety of human experiences plainly set out for all to see; and in that record you can find both examples and warnings: fine things to take as models, and base things rotten through and through to avoid." -- Livy, The History of Rome, Book I, 29 BC.

Patpourri

Earlier today, on WGN Radio:

Pat Hughes: "We're delighted to have with us in the booth today's celebrity conductor for 'Take Me Out to the Ballgame,' legendary comedic writer, director, actor, and North Side native, Harold Ramis. Harold, how are ya?"

Harold Ramis: "How am I? I'm miserable. I'm a complete mess."

Hughes (chuckling): "Why do you say that, Harold?"

Ramis: "Well, there's this old saying about writers: The only thing worse than writing is not writing. It's like working on a term paper every single day."

The Blahs

Blah blah blah. Blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah. Blah.

Before, During, After

Two For One

I returned from dinner in the suburbs and turned the Cubs game on in the 6th. I had a feeling it would be a long, three-up-three-down night after Murton tied it in the 9th, and I was right. By the 12th, I fiddled with all-star batting orders and pitching staffs to pass the time.

There are admittedly flaws here. These guys are not necessarily the best players at their listed positions--for example, Beltran is a better hitter than Taveras but Taveras has, in my estimation, a slightly more lethal arm and seems to cover a much larger outfield with more effectiveness. One or two might not play all that much at their listed position--the DH/1B thing aside, Young moved back to second after Soriano was traded but he's still currently the best healthy second baseman in the AL, in the way that Michael Jordan was the best basketball player in the world during his short-lived retirement. As far as the bullpen combos go, these are the pairs of teammates I would most love to call in with a really tight lead and the bases loaded late in the game. Also, I didn't include any players who are currently on the disabled list for a really big injury, but maybe I did if they are just pitchers who need to skip a couple starts for some rest.

So here are the two teams I would love to run out there as of this very moment--August 15th at 10:15 pm--for the purpose of destroying each other in a best-of-three series that starts tomorrow afternoon:


National League

SS: Jose Reyes, Mets, Switch
LF: Alfonso Soriano, Nats, Right
DH: Albert Pujols, Cards, Right
RF: Lance Berkman, Astros, Switch
3B: Scott Rolen, Cards, Right
1B: Ryan Howard, Phils, Right
C: Michael Barrett, Cubs, Right
2B: Chase Utley, Phillies, Left
CF: Wily Taveras, Astros, Right

SP: Carlos Zambrano, Cubs, Right
SP: Roy Oswalt, Astros, Right
SP: Brad Penny, Dodgers, Right
SP: Dontrelle Willis, Marlins, Left
SP: Brandon Webb, Dbacks, Right
SU: Cubs: Scott Eyre, Left & Bob Howry, Right
CP: Billy Wagner, Mets


American League

2B: Michael Young, Rangers, Right
SS: Derek Jeter, Yanks, Right
1B: David Ortiz, Red Sox, Left
LF: Manny Ramirez, Red Sox, Right
DH: Jim Thome, White Sox, Left
3B: Alex Rodriguez, Yanks, Right
RF: Jermaine Dye, White Sox, Right
CF: Vernon Wells, Jays, Right
C: Ivan Rodriguez, Tigers, Right

SP: Curt Schilling, Red Sox, Right
SP: Johann Santana, Twins, Left
SP: Roy Halladay, Jays, Right
SP: Justin Verlander, Tigers, Left
SP: Jose Contreras, White Sox, Right
SU: Tigers: Ricky Ledezma, Left & Cesar Rodney, Right
CP: Mariano Rivera, Yanks, Right

In the bottom of the 15th, I decided that the American team would likely beat the National boys but that it would definitely be a great series. In the top of the 18th, Murton finally broke up the tie with a two-run single, and Rich Hill retired the Astros in order. By that point, the Cubs had used all players on their 25-man roster, and Houston used everybody except for their four other starters.

5 hours and 36 minutes. 542 pitches. It was the longest game ever at Minute Maid Park (nee Enron Field, lest we forget recent history). Two full games for the bounty of one. Free baseball is the best.

I clicked off the post-game show and scratched my head. Thought about packing for Dahlgren's wedding this weekend but decided to put it off until tomorrow. Read about the Roman Empire for a while and fell asleep on the couch with all the lights on.

Who doesn't love slow summer nights?

Wonder Theater Of The World

D^2 = Delusional Dusty

Who you crappin'?! It was over April 19th!

Defense

Congratulations to my favorite G-Man on his first big bust!!!

Explaining Myself

Though I am sure some of you found them interesting or amusing, I apologize for the torrent of pictures and links I've posted over the last 10 days in lieu of original material. As you know, this site was meant as a collection of my personal reflections on the world around me (or as Page once commented, "What I See is Pat's perpetual rant"), and being such it serves as a mirror for what's on my mind at any particular moment in time. In short, I feel I have a responsibility to give you something--anything--as a reward for your dutifully stopping by, even if it is not of my own creation.

By way of explaining myself and these unoriginal posts, a series of very awful experiences I endured last week have found a way to rear their ugly heads into most of my thought processes, thereby polluting anything creative I've attempted this week, with the exception of a couple of lines in the Pruitt story. So even though I've had several comedic and ironic tales in mind when I sat down at the computer, pleasing tales proved no match for the previously mentioned terrible events and the rancorous thoughts that follow, and certainly I will not write of them. I can say, and those of you who know the story will know where I'm coming from on this, that municipal police are little more than barely literate journalists with the power to detain.

Abruptly moving on, I have an extraordinarily difficult time not telling it like I see it. This is not to say that I always tell the truth, but I find it nearly impossible to hold my tongue in practically every situation. Admittedly, this is one of the strengths of my character as well as a major personality flaw. This tack has come to dominate all things in my life, regardless of the exact circumstances. For example, I recently had no problem telling a cute girl that she has all the power when it comes to hooking up or going home alone, nor by the same token did I hesitate to tell the same girl that she's a piece of shit for cheating on her boyfriend. This is not to say that either statement is completely true; that is just the way I saw it.

In reviewing my notes and completed passages of the Pruitt story, I often find myself taken back by some of the things I've written. Sometimes I think that they are too good to be of my own invention, that somebody else must have written it and I am simply ripping them off. One memory that comes to mind whenever this happens involves a paper I wrote in high school about the spread of communism. "Like the smoldering embers of a pile of dry leaves," I wrote, "communism grew into an uncontrollable conflagration igniting the entire forest that is eastern Europe into a blaze of socialism and, ultimately, cultural decay." I can still remember that because my teacher accused me of plagiarism. "There's no way a freshman in high school could come up with that line on his own," she said. I thought about what she said for a second and, frankly, I didn't really remember writing it, but I must have because it was right there on the paper, so I read it over again. I replied at long last, "Whether you realize it or not, I am a talented guy." She didn't respond, so I took the ballsy step of leaving the room without invitation or further comment, and she never mentioned it again.

But that example is indicative of the way I've always been. I don't know why this is, or how exactly I come up with the words I use. I know, of course, that I am a steadfast consumer of a wide range of writings, primarily when it comes to books that most people were happy to leave behind once they left school. But anybody can go out and read a bunch of dense material; that doesn't mean they can turn around and create equally engaging material of their own. As I see it, writing is really just a clever trick. You take a character or a story idea, you establish a beginning, you figure out the ending, and then you fill in the spaces in between. This process has never been a difficult one for me to accomplish. I know people who freeze when posed with open-ended questions. I tend to answer these inquiries with the question and follow-up, "Are you really, really sure you want me to answer that? Because I'll go on forever if you want me to."

I myself as well as my writing style have often been accused of being long-winded and rambling, and I admit that this is completely true. However, before the phrase was recorded, I pledged myself wholeheartedly to Widespread's recent intonation that, "In a world with no meaning there's detail." Anyone can give a dry, blow-by-blow account of what they did, what they saw, what happened. But what did they think? Were they moved? Do they look at things differently now? Never tell me you went to a restaurant and that it was good. I want to hear what the menu was like, what the decorations looked like, whether or not the waitress was hot, if your eyes popped out when you got the bill, and if the valet guy stole your change. There's such great beauty in detail, and in a very real way details are all we can actually, truly share with one another. Life is detail.

I have dedicated myself to striking down pedestrian, rote commentary such as, "It's cloudy tonight," with, "These are werewolf skies." If you don't like that, if that's not your style, then don't come around here anymore, because it's highly unlike that I'm going to change. Cliched though it may be, it is true that we only have one life so we better make something of it. And, though I admit to spending an inordinate amount of time staring out the window blowing spit bubbles while muttering to myself about this Pruitt story, please be assured I never consider any activity a waste of my time, that the things I am doing right now are leading up to something bigger and better, though I cannot at this moment prove that to be the case. And, at any rate, maybe, just maybe, if I am successful in conjuring up the right combination of odd phrases and little-used descriptions to illustrate a point or an experience, I might be able to convince you to think about things a little more deeply than you might be accustomed to doing, then you will be turned on to the possibilities of your own reactions in even the most commonplace situations, possibly even in spite of your favored inclinations.

Random Thought Of The Day

What if the left hand doesn't care what the right hand is doing?

Mystery Man

Who is the real Fidel?

Conversation Of The Weekend

Dave: "Hey Pat, when are you gonna get around to havin' kids?"

Pat: "As soon I make enough money to afford a nanny."

Mixed Messages

Point. Counter-point.