Dodgers 20-34
Cubs 33-21
POTG: SS The Riot (2 H, 2 R, 2 BB)
Runner Up: LF Soriano (2 H, 2 RBI, R), RF Fukudome (2B, BB, R), 2B DeRosa (BB, H), CF Reed Johnson (2 H, SB, SH, R, RBI)
So, I went in Wrigley around 30 minutes before it got going. I’ve found this year that 7pm start game I go to requires leaving at 3pm and getting home around midnight, and this was no different. It definitely effects how you feel after the game when it expands into an eight hour journey. At least I was able to talk the people I was with into going to a place to eat dinner (though I recall not really liking whatever I had a Goose Island), instead of standing around outside the park waiting for the person who actually had the tickets.
We finally go in, and I husteled to find an empty line without really thinking about how it doesn’t really matter, because I’ve got to wait for the person going thru bag inspection. The upside is even though I’ve got more time to kill before I can finally sit down, it gives me plenty of time to root around in my jacket for loose change so I can play the Scratch and Win game. Apparently my plan of dumping all my change into the big change jar as I come in to the house is failing, because I found enough for myself and for everyone I was with. Not that it helps them so much – there’s absurdly low ratio of winning these things, making them almost Giveaway Days without having to actually give much away.
The bag line is slow. I absent mindly scratch my card, and clear off a big gap across the middle. “You are” .
I stared at it a second, knowing that meant something but not sure what. Realization crept in – it’s not going to say “You Are A Loser”, I have people for that. I sped scratched the rest off and mostly ditched the people I was with to run to the right field redemption spot ASAP.
You have to understand, autographs mean nothing to me. You get to a certain point in life, and you realize that signing your name to something ain’t that big of a deal as many times as you do it a day, probably less so if you’re being paid to do it. What people seem to want, what I want anyway, are moments with these people, tiny bits of these people to know them. You can’t find that in a dashed off autograph – that’s only ink.
But this is different – this is Z!!!! If you’ve put up with these gamelogs for the last couple of years, you know this is an exception.
The Exciting Procedure Of Winning An Autographed Ball!
Guy 1: takes your ticket, reads off the number
Guy 2: writes your number down on his log
Guy 3: cross off your number on his log
Guy 3: punches a hole in your card
Guy 2: hands you a bag and congratulates you
lots of people: stand around in the most excited line ever
As luck would have it, the prize give away was in right field and my seats were in extreme left field. I held onto that bag tighter than a soccer mom holds onto her purse in Compton.
The ball comes already in a case, which is nice and surely cuts down on the temptation of throwing it on/at the field. (Though it’d hurt more in the case.) All I know is that after I showed people – and never let them hold it farther away than I could grab back – I stuck in my hoodie pocket for the rest of my night and never let it out of my sight. I was crazy excited to win this.
Our seats were close to where Alou had a fit, and either I can talk about that foor a billion paragraphs or none. Let’s go none.
I probably should mention the game at some point, but it was mostly another eh Jason Marquis game. He wasn’t horrible, but he left in tons of trouble. Cotts was nice enough to let it in and remind all of us why he hadn’t been up in a long time, but Michael Wuertz did one of his usual deals where he gets the big out of a jam and no one remembers because he sticks around long enough to blow it later.)
It was as much the Rockies pitchers self destructing as the Cubs hitting from there. The errors in both the 7th and the 8th opened the flood gates – the 7th inning one is the biggest WPA play of the game (which gives credit to Lee for being the batter, which is one of my major problems with WPA.) The Rockies were obviously a wounded team, hurting mentally from the loss of their top guys as much as they psychically miss them. Again, no big hits, but enough of the smaller ones to make this one work.
Marmol dominating was awesome. Wood coming in to strikeout the side, around a meaningless single, was pretty fun to watch too. I was close enough to the bullpen to see Leiber actually start to warm up in the 8th once the game got out of a save situation, but either Jon didn’t get warm quickly enough or Lou decided he might as well use Kerry after getting him warm. I’m fine with that in this sort of situation, where it seems like it’s going to be a vital closing situation and changes too face to adjust, but it was odd how Leiber warming was never mentioned in the post game – no one asked if he wasn’t ready, they just went with Lou telling them Kerry was ready.
Hoffpauir would sure be playing 140 games a year in a DH league.