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2005-04-27 - 1:31 p.m.

Cubs game recap?

Nope. It was too exhausting and frustrating. I was going to do a deep and profound discussion about how this game was a microcosm of being a Cubs fan in general, what with the Suckage, then the Home Runs, then the Good Pitching, then the Pitching Injury/Ejection, then the Horrible Bullpen, then the Glimmer of Hope, then the Dashed Hope and Crappy Feelings on the Ride Home. But blech. I just can't do it right now. I got 6 hours of sleep (probably not such a big problem for many of you but I do NOT to well on less than 8 hours of sleep), my throat hurts from yelling, I nearly had to kick some drunken idiots in the shins, Zambrano's blistery finger is still bothering him (and apparently he's mentally 15 years old right now), and so on and so forth.

My scorecard was a mess. It was a challenging night for keeping score. I was way up in the back of the lower deck (they were actually pretty good seats -- behind and just to the right field side of home plate, and if it had rained we would have been covered!), but I couldn't see the scoreboard at all. So since I'm blind as a bat (my husband sees far better without any vision correction than I do with my newly prescribed contacts), I missed scoring a few plays as errors. I thought the Dubois error bounced off the wall and therefore wasn't an error for a few innings. I also ran out of places to put pitchers. I think I ended up fitting seven pitchers into the four available slots. (Way to go, me!)

Want to know the real way I got screwed last night?
-It wasn't TribCo raising ticket prices while fielding a mediocre (though expensive) team.
-It wasn't the aforementioned mediocre team making error after bad decision after mental lapse.
-It wasn't Dusty Baker bringing in Remlinger to face a lefty when ANYONE ELSE in his position would know by now that Remlinger gets righties out better than lefties. Yes, it goes against the accepted dogma of lefty v. righty. But most of the fans saw that hit coming the second his foot left the bullpen. Nope, it wasn't that.

-It was that TribCo, in their desperate grab for more money to NOT use towards the team, RAISED F*CKING SCORECARD PRICES. Instead of $1 plus $0.25 for a little pencil, it was $2 with a free pencil thrown in because they all just have such big hearts. You know, sometimes I really wonder how much I'm going to be able to take from them.

On the plus side, I'm so pissed at them for working out the teeniest possible way to screw me, I'm not really that bitter anymore that I was only able to get tickets to one game.

The silver lining?

It really has nothing to do with the Cubs. But it did make me feel better at 10:30 last night.

The Red Line train we got on was operated by the coolest el operator in the history of operators of elevated trains.

We (being that we knew we wanted to be on the last car anyway) were waiting at the far north end of the Addison stop. All of the confused out-of-towners and/or exclusively-car-driving people were bunched up right in the middle of the platform and were taking 5,492 YEARS to get on the damn train. (Okay, I was a bit annoyed after the game. I'm slowly starting to get over it) The train operator came on the intercom and said, "Okay, people, I can fit 700 people on my train but you'll all have to spread out and get in other cars to make it." He then proceeded to get on the intercom at about 5 minute intervals the rest of the way.

Right after we left the Addison stop, he said, "This is a Red Line train south to 95/Dan Ryan. We'll let you off so that you can catch rides to the West Side, South Side, Suburbs, bars, hotels, whatever you want."

A few stops later he said, "Car number 2064 just rang me on the intercom to let me know it's Raphael's birthday. Happy Birthday, Raphael! I won't sing it. Y'all don't want to hear that."

At Clark/Division, he said, "All, if you get off here, you'll be at the north end of the famous Rush Street. There are lots of bars and it's the place to be to see and be seen."

At Chicago, "Here's the south end of Rush Street. As well as the Magnificent Mile. It's too late to do much shopping today though!"

At Lake, "This station is closed for repairs. You'll have to walk back from Washington. It's not such a bad walk, though. It's only about 2 blocks and it's a beautiful night!"

At Roosevelt, "I know you've all had a great time riding with me and you're a great bunch of passengers. But this train will be heading back north after this stop because of the one-track construction going on south of us. Everyone needs to exit the train and wait 6-7 minutes for the next one which will be headed south to the end of the line."

I wasn't quite sure at that point if I was more disappointed to have to get home later than otherwise or that I wouldn't be able to listen to this guy's tour of the city anymore.


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