Home Opener

Posted on May 11, 2007

By: Adam McGrath

Very, very early on the morning of April 9th, Pat McCarthy and his buddy Tim Donahue walked up to the front door of Casey Moran’s, one of the ubiquitous Irish Pubs that populate Wrigleyville. Normally, these two would have been stumbling out the door at this time of day, instead of waiting in line to show their IDs to get in. Today, however, was different. Today was the Cubs Home Opener, and Casey Moran’s was the place to start the day off right, by drinking lots of Bud Light and trying to win tickets to the game from the members of the Q101 Morning Fix, who were doing their first live broadcast ever.

“So far so good,” Pat said to Tim, as they were each handed a complimentary T-shirt for being two of the first 200 Cubs fans through the door at 5:30 a.m. on a Monday morning.

“I guess the weekend continues,” replied Tim, as he searched to see if his favorite bartender was taking this special shift.

The weekends were what these Chicago natives had been living for the past couple years. As they shared a dorm room at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, they now shared a two-bedroom apartment in a mid-rise building on the 1100 block of N. Lasalle St. It was only a couple quick stops on the L down to Harold Washington College, where Tim taught students older than himself how to put a paragraph together. Pat, on the other hand, had an hour-long commute out past O’Hare to the U.S. Cellular Headquarters, where he’d been moving up in the New Acquisitions department.

Both young men had grown up with a passion for the Cubs, groomed by their fathers and uncles to root against the Billy Goat curse and maintain hope that the championship would come to the north side. The sting from the White Sox’ glorious journey to the top two years ago, and the city’s embrace of that feat still lingered in everyone’s minds.

“Ginger Jordan looks pretty good in person,” remarked Tim, as he scoped out the setup of the eclectic group of comedians/disc jockeys from the still nascent morning radio show that was a blend of skits, bits, and legitimate journalism.

“And did you have any idea that Clarissa Jenkins, the traffic girl, was a white guy putting on a black woman’s voice?”

“Holy shit, you’re kidding me! That’s almost as funny as Jim Lynam’s rants about Lance Briggs.”

“Yeah, he’s passionate about his Chicago sports – check him out there in his high school football jersey. He looks like he’s had a rough night.”

“I wonder what McCarthy will say today—probably be something snarky about this being the Cubs’ year.”

And that was the real topic for discussion today, how the Cubs might actually make it back to the playoffs, and not blow it like in ’03. Thankfully, the names Thome and Konerko were the furthest words from the crowd’s lips today. With the acquisition of Soriano, and the return to form of D. Lee, the offense looked like they might be able to put up some runs this year. The two young men chatted about the players to watch, the $300 million spent in the off-season, and whether Dempster would be run out of town if he insisted on blowing every save opportunity thrown his way. Not to mention the new manager of the club, the singular Lou Pinella.

“Maybe he can bring some fire to these guys,” Pat said.

“Well at least we better not see him napping in the dugout.”

The early morning matured as the bar filled up with Cubs fans, an even mix of young, preppy North-siders and rugged die-hard fans sporting their Ryne Sandberg jerseys. The Bud Light flowed, hopes were voiced, Madina Lake played some tunes, and everyone had a good laugh at the jokes of the radio show crew. Every hour they gave away a pair of tickets to the game, but Tim and Pat were not among the lucky winners. They left Casey Moran’s around 11 with nothing more than their novelty T-shirts and a good buzz going. They had already decided to stick around the ballpark even if they couldn’t get into the game, so they made their way over to The Cubby Bear to try to get a seat and some grub. On the short walk over, they passed the massive line outside the gates, filled with buzzing Cubs fans from all walks of life. Even though the team was only 3-3 after their first week on the road, nothing could dampen the crowd’s enthusiasm. They spotted the “Woo-Woo” guy near the front of the line, taking pictures with some small children, while others looked down at their feet, reading the inscriptions on the personalized bricks that were planted in the sidewalk during the off-season.
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Tyrone Hill Writes a Haiku after watching the NCAA Championship Game

Posted on April 4, 2007

By: Sam Powers

Joakim Noah
Repeat college champion
Uglier than me

Sam Powers is a teacher at a private high school in North Carolina and, yes, he knows his name is the same as Screech from “Saved by the Bell” ha ha, very funny, never heard that one before. He’s tried to be a Carolina Panthers fan, but just couldn’t muster up the enthusiasm for an expansion team, so he sticks to basketball.

This is The Redskins’ Year…

Posted on March 5, 2007

By: Ronald Otis

I just got off the phone with Steve. He’s pretty psyched about the Skins’ off-season so far, although he said he kinda hoped we would have done more. Maybe Adalius Thomas or Stallworth. I told him it’s only been a week, and he says we had Randle El, Archuleta, and Saunders by this point last year, so why should we get hyped about Smoot coming home?

Good point, I said. Maybe we’ll pull off a trade for Lance Briggs. We don’t have a ton of draft picks this year, but we can always send some from next year. That’s the thing other people don’t understand when they rag on us for giving up all these draft picks—we get new ones every year. For free. Why not trade them? It’s like finding oil in your backyard and then not selling it. If we hadn’t traded our picks last year, we never could have signed TJ Duckett, then, you know, who would have run when Portis went down?

Anyway, we’re off to a good start, I think. The Eagles are cheaping out as usual; they’re such a joke. The only time they ever did anything was ’04 when they spent a bunch of money, and still they don’t get it. We get it, though. We know.
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