as many people, i'm sure, one of my favorite times ever was the summer following my senior year of high school, the great summer of '98. one of the highlights of that summer involved driving around aimlessly with my friend chuck, listening to either pat hughes and ron santo on wgn or to guided by voices.

one of my favorite evenings of this summer came one night when the cubs were playing in cincinnati, and there was a rain delay. pat hughes began discussing, among other things, the type of shirt worn by the grounds crew.

we then proceeded to grecian kitchen delights, on crawford st. in evanston, for the first time. and thus was a legend born. (the restaurant, i mean. i hope it's still there.)

while inside, they had the cubs broadcast on t.v. but, due to the rain delay, they showed old highlights. and this meant bringing out the outstanding 1989 game in which the cubs came from nine down to defeat the astros, 10-9 at wrigley field. (it was the talk of soccer practice that afternoon.)

the reason all of this came back to me today is because i was talking to the president of the bandits fan club today, and we were discussing the broadcasts. and he said "the thing i really like is how you've added fashion analysis to your broadcasts this season." and i said "huh?" and he said "like this: 'trainer cory andrews trots out to tend to the fallen player. cory's wearing khaki shorts and a twins windbreaker, navy blue with red sleeves. cory's wearing white low-top shoes with white socks.' " and i said "oh yeah," and then thought of that night when pat hughes, the great one, taught me that it's okay, nay encouraged, to describe everything.

i watched the boys blow an eight-run lead in the bottom of the eighth inning last night. no joke. two relievers combined to retire zero of the eight men they faced. it was a 14-13 loss.

and here's the funny/sad/a bit cool part: minnesota twins general manager terry ryan is in town, watching them for three games (today being the final one). i got to interview mr. ryan today, and he said two notable things:

"that was probably the worst performance i've seen from one of our affiliates since i've been with the twins"
(he's been g.m. since the inter-strike period of the mid-1990's...he played in the organization for four years and was hired full-time in about 1984 or so


and

when asked about how the players react to his presence..."are they excited?, do they give off an uncomfortable aura?..." he said "i think some people were pretty nervous yesterday."

he's a real nice guy, but he pulls absolutely no punches.

in other news, i'll interview the person who will immediately shoot to the top of my "most famous people interviewed" list tomorrow, future hall-of-famer paul molitor. (buck o'neil is the person that will probably make me most nervous. i was shaking during that one.)

molitor's a baserunning/infield instructor with the twins. but it's not a token title...he actually works, so that's cool

i'm no legal expert, and i've only been following the kobe thing sparingly, but i've got a question... you see, yesterday on sportscenter, it was reported that 'new information is emerging on the alleged victim that may call into question her credibility.' so i'm thinking she must be a heroin addict or something. but it turns out that she attempted suicide during the course of her freshman year. and i'm thinking that i don't see how this calls her credibility into question.

the second thing that they mentioned on sportscenter was that kobe bought his wife a diamond ring worth $4 million as an apology. and i'm alone, stinking and unafraid, so i've got no reason to give advice, but i'm all like "dude. that's your problem precisely. do something for her. don't spend like 0.5 percent of your annual income on her. dumbass."

and then i'm thinking that it is a bit reassuring to see him go through all this crap. because, clearly, he's an asswipe.

also, i bought murmur the other day. i don't know what took me so long.

i had to play 'the sad game' on the bus after tonight's game today, and it cost me an opportunity to catch up with my pal nemo, who's dealing with re-entry difficulties. (not really.)

you see, the boys lost tonight. not bad. but ugly. 2-0, for the second straight game. this means that we have to be somber when we get on the bus. and not just the players, but everyone.

so there's some laughing or whatever going on in the back half of the bus, and i'm giggling with nemo (telling him about ronny santo and his 'nardi girls' - - nemo wasn't impressed) and then our manager (he's supposed to be the last one on) gets on and says to the bus "you think it's funny? yeah. real funny. you think it's funny. you'll find out what's funny." it's at this point that i say quietly "gotta go. talk later," and hang up and look sad.

postscript to last night's story: i whined about the baseball america situation to our strength coach, ryan, as we departed the bus yesterday...i don't know what pissed me off so much, but i was pretty upset. anyway, today, as we're departing for the ballpark again, ryan says to some players 'hey - - did you guys get kevin's baseball america back? [they look on dumbly, but acknowledge that they didn't.] it was his, and he paid for it [note: this is not true] and you borrowed it... that's pretty brutal."

and, lo and behold, 20 minutes later, what should appear on my lap but a copy of baseball america?! and then, after the game, what should appear on my lap but a second copy of baseball america!?, reclaimed from the locker room where it was so callously left.

i wanted to kiss ryan. and then i found out he digs the jayhawks. and i wanted to kiss him sloppily. i resisted both urges.

the greatest band in the world has announced that they'll be releasing their third box set in september. the box, which comes on the heels of 1995's box, which was just their first four previously unavailable albums re-released and a fifth disc of outtakes, and 2000's suitcase, 100 previously unrecorded tracks dating as far back as 1974. i still haven't digested suitcase.

anyway, this new box might be a bit of a price gouge, but why not?, i say. includes five cd's and a dvd:
- one disc of live material
- one "greatest hits" disc, comprised of matador stuff (this means no "want one")
- one disc of unreleased tracks . . . whether this digs into already-released-on-suitcase material, i don't know
- one disc of b-sides and ep's from the matador days (which means no static airplane jive or "tropical robots," i guess
- a dvd of the 1996-created-1998-released documentary watch me jumpstart, updated to include every gbv video. this would, i hope, include "glad girls"

and the superstar of the bunch...
- the long-promised cd reissue of forever since breakfast, the 1996 debut ep featuring the classic "let's ride," previously available only on a many-times-over dubbed cassette

i sure don't know what the price tag is, but it scares me. but i'll probably buy it anyway.



in other news, this will come off as harsh, but sometimes you forget what pampered fucking brats athletes are. sometimes it takes a wake-up call to remind you, you know?

a small thing triggered this, and maybe i just wanted to be angry about something. anyway, baseball america day is a big one for me - - the day this bi-weekly publication arrives in the office for my consumption. i get a lot of information from it. it's a bible for me. so i grab my copy and intern kevin, who's coming on the day-trip to cedar rapids, grabs a copy for himself.

i arrive on the bus to find that kevin has already loaned his copy to one of the players - - - he'll get it back later. in my portion of the bus trip, i do some sleep, some sports illustrated, some baseball america. i decide i'm done with ba and begin to close my eyes. kevin asks on behalf of a player if he can borrow my baseball america, my bible.

i begrudgingly acquiesce, with the under my breath statement "make sure you get it back."

game comes. game goes. back to the bus.

i whisper to kevin, "time to go on baseball america reconnaisance. kevin turns to kevin, the player who borrowed my copy. "do you have baseball america?" "last i saw it was in the training room."

kevin searches for the other one. gone.

fuckers. i mean really. show some fucking consideration. that's all.

great moment on the bus today. usually, i'm in the third seat [the row-by-row arrangement is as follows: 1 - trainer (left seat), manager (right); 2 - hitting coach (l), pitching coach (r); 3 - strength coach (l), me (r) ].

however, today, due to our pitching coach driving to the park, i moved up a row and sat directly behind the manager (with eight-year-old son in tow).

so, manager's son and i played catch before the game. he was stunned by my barehandedness, i was stunned by his smoothness with the backhanded pickup.

after the game, i arrive about 10-15 minutes before we'll take off, with manager's son in his appointed seat. so we get to talking about his game - where he plays (SS, 2B), whether he likes pitching (not really), if he'd like to move to center when he gets older (he likes to dive, but he likes SS best), and what his goals are for the future (break Hank's HR record and Rickey's SB record).

and i ask who his favorite players are. he's says "sammy sosa is definitely number one. then luis gonzalez and albert pujols." and i say "what about the corked bat?" and he says "doesn't matter."

so then our manager comes on the bus, and i say "you taught this boy well." and he says "huh?" and i say "sammy's still his favorite." and he says "you gotta be loyal."

probably the most refreshing part of this was being around an eight-year-old that know and loves baseball. not many of 'em anymore.

in other news, i gave my stolen copy of r.e.m's automatic for the people a spin today. if "the sidewinder sleeps tonight" doesn't get you, you have no soul. i think r.e.m. is one of the great bands that i've never done, despite a roomie who has them planted permanently in the top five, i'd guess.

maybe i'm just dumb.

what's happened in the past few days:
i purchased tickets to san francisco, going with the tuesday evening to sunday night/monday morning red-eye plan. plan is oakland on wednesday, pac bell on friday and saturday nights, tbd for all of thursday and sunday. perhaps solo-tourism.


brother dave came out to the ballpark on saturday afternoon and got the grand tour. it's always fun when brother dave shows up. dave had to head out before the game, but he was around for about an hour.


mommy and daddy made it out to the saturday night game, got their name on the scoreboard and everything. we announced a season-high crowd of 6,018, the game was quick and well-played. it's so fun when the stands are packed and the crowd is into it and things like that. en route to post-game ihop (mommy and daddy following me - - they were heading to grandma's post-game), i decided beer was more appealing than ihop. free beer on dad rules.


saturday morning resulted in a funny occurence. you'll recall, perhaps, that i plowed through nick hornby's high fidelity in late may. same off day that i got high fidelity, i also placed an 'order' through the library for fever pitch, his book about his obsession with british football club arsenal. after months without hearing a thing, i called to check on it on wednesday, july 9th. they explained that the copy reserved for me was checked out in 2001, which means it ain't coming back. but they offered to pursue a copy from a non-area library, asking patience because it would take 3-4 weeks.

well anyway, they proceeded to call three days later, and i picked it up saturday morning, the 12th. i'm about halfway through. yesterday, on saturday morning, the 19th, while i was showering, the davenport public library called again, saying they'd obtained the book i wanted. i called back to see if this was indeed the same book. and it was, only this copy came from des moines (the one i'm currently reading came from dubuque.). efficient, yet inefficient.

sideways rain from the perspective of a fifth-floor apartment rules. no loud thunder...just plentiful lightning and solid, solid rain.

and a note to my pal flax: thanks for your loyalty to these ramblings.

i've already spent considerable time here discussing my acquisition of post cereal miniature major league baseball bobblehead dolls, but i'd like to add one final piece to the story.

last year, i did aokay, acquiring just two sets of doubles: pedro martinez and jeff bagwell. i also acquired ichiro, bernie williams, and some sort of retro model (similar to the style featured on espn baseball commercials, maybe six years ago).

this year, i think i've been a more devoted consumer, buying alpha-bits and super golden crisp (fruity and cocoa pebbles have long since switched to some sort of ea sports video game) long into the summer. anyway, i've purchased seven boxes, acquiring the following: giambi, griffey, giambi, schilling, schilling, giambi, giambi. i mean, that sucks.

i'm looking for my series two ichiro and haven't gotten it. and, of course, i'm really looking for my sammy, but...

this angers me.

i'm planning this trip to san francisco, and it keeps getting longer and longer.

how it's being stretched on the back end:
i'm working with two conflicting interests: the desire to maximize gurs time makes me want a sunday afternoon/evening flight, but the loss of two hours while traveling west to east makes any sunday evening flight virtually impossible; this means that the trip gets shifted forward to monday morning arrival.

how it's being stretched on the front end:
besides sumo and potentially gurs, the main reason to head out west is to see pac bell park, apparently the most beautiful structure in baseball today. however, since i'm in the area, i should make a point to see one of the most moribund structures: network associates coliseum (formerly the oakland coliseum). however, the a's are home wednesday (and the giants for the weekend), meaning that i'd have to get there wednesday for the game. however (again), the a's play a wednesday afternoon game, meaning that i'd have to get there tuesday night.

when you combine the desire to get there tuesday night with the near impossibility of return travel on sunday night, well...

it's looking like a tuesday night moline-to-chicago followed by a sunday red eye to chicago followed by a monday morning chicago-to-moline.

we shall see. it'll be a blast, however.

my friend dan the unstadt, about two months ago, sent me his summer mix tape. i promised him that i'd listen, and then i didn't. and then i promised i'd focus on a bus trip, and then i didn't.

but today, i listened to it in the environment in which it is supposed to be heard. i was driving. it was low-80's. the windows on the car were down. and it was sublime.

the early awkwardness i initially noticed didn't affect it. and it way way hits its stride when the apples in stereo and donovan kick in.

in all, a first-class effort.

today was a good day. i was forced to get up early to drive some players to a baseball clinic that they were giving at a camp, and the bus left at an uncharacteristic late time - - - 5:00. This gave me the entire middle of the day, from 10 (when i left the clinic) until 2 (when i had to begin doing work for the broadcast), to be productive.

i hit the grocery store. i bought vegetables. and i made gazpacho.

i ate chilled upon returning from tonight's game (an outstanding win) and, i'll be honest, sometimes i amaze myself. that gazpacho is good.

two cool things from work today:


- for some reason, the p.a. guy decided it would be funny to wish me a happy birthday, which doesn't really make sense, seeing as my birthday was months ago or is months from now, depending on your perspective. but apparently, a relief pitcher heard the announcement. this relief pitcher got the loss in tonight's game. but this relief pitcher still wished me a happy birthday after the game. i was thankful, explained that it wasn't my birthday, and he looked perplexed. but it was still nice of him, yknow?


- secondly, for whatever reason, the club's manager generally parks next to me. his eight-year-old son is traveling with the team for a few weeks. his eight year old son saw my car and said to his dad "that car is tight." that makes two of us.



i was listening to the magnetic fields' 69 love songs today. i'm confused whether it's as good as i thought it was or not. perplexing, really.

many people who attended the medill school of journalism, one of the alleged finest such schools in the country, do so because they want to be on tv or because they want to be sportswriters. a smaller percentage actually believe in the importance of news, and the importance of delivering news fairly and properly. i certainly did not reside in the latter category - - i often did poorly on our fourth grade-styled current events quizzes.

based on this, i'm not a person who (in the one election i've experienced) tends to be interested in pre-presidential politics. primaries, schrimaries, i say...gimme my two options already.

however, lemme say that i'm quite intrigued. there's this dude, you've perhaps heard of him, who is downright fascinating. his name's howard dean, governor of vermont, and he's gone from democratic dark horse to not-dark horse, due largely to his web site, a fundraising magnet.

anyway, this dean character's opened some sort of fundraising/campaigning office a block from my apartment, and his platform fascinates. anybody who's 'radical' enough to support things such as universal health care and repealing recent tax cuts is fine by me.

come september, i might have a new hobby.

i'd just like to state that i think dave letterman (or his producer) is an absolute genius.

today, from the man who brought us bits such as "know your cuts of meat" and "will it float?" and "is this anything?" and "who wants to hang up on regis?"...

and segments such as "george bush joke that's not really a joke of the day" and "words of wisdom with dr. phil" came something new, and something [arguably] better...

millionaire or kenny?

in this game (viewed by yours truly in rerun format), dave and paul are presented with a person. i'm assuming a generally unassuming person (tonight's person was certainly unassuming). and they discuss the person and decide whether he's a millionaire, or a gentleman named kenny.

it's quite honestly, at least in theory, genius. in execution, it was fair.

a night on the road often involves sitting in the dingy hotel/nearby bar, making small talk, receiving free or discounted beer, and playing the bar trivia game.

this is the trivia game, many have it, that features photo hunt and a wheel of fortune type knockoff and things like that.

anyway, the way these work is that you bet a percentage of your points (1/4, 1/2, all) and work to get 3 million points, which is the minimum required for bonus round qualification. categories include general, food and drink, entertainment, music, sports, and perhaps one other.

being that we work in sports, we often think that we should answer sports. but when it comes down to it, i think i know more music trivia than sports trivia at this point in my life. or perhaps, there's just less trivia-game worthy music trivia to know.

anyway, i got as hot as i've ever gotten in music trivia last night. and the net result was 45 million points. "...this grunge band had hits with rooster..." and i didn't need to read anymore. "...this country artists american recordings was his first..." and i scream johnny cash.

it was incredible. absolutly unreal. ass whoopin-riffic.

and so was the highlight of my july 4 weekend. lovely beloit indeed.

i gots to say (although i know most of the world stopped caring, if they ever cared, in 1997) that i think the new guided by voices record, earthquake glue, may be a phenomenal disappointment. art-wise, not sales-wise. (they don't anticipate sales anymore.)

i downloaded from soulseek yesterday, and i've only been through it once, and this was in a semi-sleep state, but hardly anything grabbed me. this is uncommon, and a bit sad if it remains the case.

i think the highlight might be a song called "the best of jill hives," only because it's real simple and focuses on what is still probably the best voice in rock, the voice of one robert pollard.

in other news, for reasons i won't go into, there's a picture of robert pollard posted in the office. an intern said to me, "who's that, patrick duffy? which is funny, no?

bittersweetness today. favorite player on the team, one of the genuinely nice guys i've ever met, gets called up today. i'm incredibly happy for him, but sad for me.

bittersweet, eh?

in other news, at some point, the strangeness of the cookie-related targeted ads at the top of the page was discussed here. (it had been advertising, among other things, the most recent gbv album for sale.) recently, due to my recent trip to kansas city, i've been getting kansas city-related ads. "panoramic photographs, arrowhead stadium." how cool/scary is that?