"Nobody's got style"

I am slightly behind on everything Cubs-related because of midterms, but this is probably the best thing I have seen in 2009 so far, and I'm not really exaggerating.  I find it indescribably wonderful that they needed to put out a big Slip-n-Slide-looking thing so they could teach grown men how to fall on their faces without hurting themselves.  That is why baseball is America's pastime.

In other news: the blowout against the Sox yesterday was pretty cool, I hope Micah Hoffpauir keeps rocking on, I need to check out the audio on the Cubs/Padres matchup that I think is going on right now, and...Curt Schilling wants to pitch for the Cubs?  Huh.

Twenty Things I Learned from the 2008 Chicago Cubs

1.) I don't think I can do this again.  Cubs fandom is, as my mother mentioned frequently this weekend, part of my heritage, and I've dealt with the disappointment that goes along with that many times, not to mention the Rockies last year.  This was the worst loss I can remember, though, because this year's team was (as you may have noticed) my favorite.  I just can't go through another season that ends that way.  

But more than anything, I don't want to feel like this season was all for nothing.  Right now it does feel that way, but I'm trying to remember that this team was special; they taught me some things, and here are a few of them.  All pictures from the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, or Getty Images via Yahoo!Sports.

2.) Let's begin with shallowness, okay?  I think we all need a little shallowness after last week.  Thus: something about this team really, really makes women want to have their babies:

And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

3.) No one in baseball - in fact, no one in the world - has a better autobiography than Carlos Zambrano.

4.)  You totally want to hear the first line of Z's autobiography again, right?  I knew you did:

"The life of Carlos Zambrano is that of the eagle that flies in the middle of a storm and, facing opposing winds, ascends powerfully until it reaches the top of the mountains."

5.) At the beginning of this season, I barely knew who Reed Johnson was.  Now, he's the guy who made The Catch (and did other great defensive and offensive work).  I hope he sticks around with us for a good long time.

6.) We have some good guys on this team:

7.) Ryan Theriot and Mark DeRosa: best manlove ever, seriously.

8.) Cincinnati and Cleveland are TOTALLY different cities.

9.) Puppies.  Also, Geo lounges very handsomely and Theriot and DeRo laugh like frat boys.

10.) Ted Lilly barreling into Yadier Molina like a crazy man (not to mention almost throwing his own no-hitter the day after Z's)?  That guy is intense.  Probably as the result of a lifetime of being named Theodore Roosevelt Lilly.

11.) All of the following, which my friend R. the Red Sox fan laid out for me one night when we were talking about baseball fanfic.  I wrote down everything she said because it was so true:

"I feel like our team [the Red Sox, that is] would be a story like Blade Runner.  Everyone is insane, and some people, like Josh Beckett, are either an alien or a robot.  Tito is the guy trying to save the world and restore justice and order.  Your team is more like a story about a family reunion.  The family is crazy, but not in a bad way.  Geo and Ryan Dempster would be the guys everyone loves, who hold the whole family together.  Then someone would be the crazy uncle who everyone's scared of.  I see about four candidates there.  [She didn't name them.]  Z would be the guy who frightens the children just by being so gigantic, but by the end of the evening the children are all hanging off him going, "Daddy, pony!"  On that note, then there's Mike Fontenot."

12.) Which provides me with an excellent segue:

Mike Fontenot: Amazing Person

This man definitely deserves his own subsection.  Where to begin?

13.) Perhaps with this interview at Bleed Cubbie Blue:

BCB: I read an article last year that said you watch [Theriot's] kids sometimes. Is that true?

Mike: I think that was the "Sports Illustrated" where it said I’m more of a kid than his kids. That he came in there and I was jumping on the bed.

BCB: That’s the one. So, is it true?

Mike: Not necessarily. I wouldn’t say that I was jumping on the bed. I mean, I might have done it once or twice but Houston, his son, was the main one jumping on the bed and I’m like hey watch out and he started getting a little crazy. But I’ll go over there, spend time, hang out. And he just had another one, so they have three now. I’ll go over there and hang out every once in a while.

14.) Zambrano on Fontenot's hitting prowess: "I didn't know short men could hit the ball like that.  He hit the ball like a man, you know?"  Z's right; Fontenot hit .365 in July and almost hit for the cycle on,  if I remember correctly, June 20th.  He went on a similar hot streak last year.

15.) And to what can we attribute this "hitting the ball like a man"?  

"I don't know," Fontenot said. "I've always had decent power my whole life. I guess it's bat speed. Timing a little bit. My grown-man strength."

16.) And of course, the highlight of this particular section has got to be:

The explanation of what's going on in this picture may be more awesome than the picture itself:

"I really can't remember where we got it from," Fontenot said. "It's just driving a nail into the ground, and then we implemented a thing where I jump on his back and he carries me to the promised land."

17.) Ryan Theriot could beat up Mike Fontenot (although he wouldn't), but even the two of them combined couldn't take out Z.  Theriot can also pitch.  He has a 0.00 ERA.

18.) No Cubs pitcher had thrown a no-hitter in 36 years, until this guy came along:

19.)  Every time I thought they were done, they weren't even close.  There was that insane comeback game against the Rockies, there was the game I went to, there was that hideous losing streak in September.  They always came back...

20.) ...except when it counted, right?  It's so hard to believe it's over, even now.  So does the rest of this stuff mean anything at all?  

I think it does.  We'll remember how miserable it was to lose last week, but maybe we'll also remember everything that happened during the rest of the season, and I haven't even covered half of it here.  I think, for me, the last word on this year will always be Geo's home run in the game I went to.  I hope everyone else has a story like that from this year  - that they got to see something amazing, whether on TV or in person.  And I hope that, whenever I think about how much last week hurt, I'll also think about how I got to be at that game, and how it encompassed everything I love about baseball.  I can't help thinking a passage in Mark Helprin's story "Perfection," which is about baseball and God, among other things, where he writes,

[It] was as if God had chosen that moment to make his presence known, and [fans at the game] reacted accordingly in wonder and delight.  For the moment, at least, they felt as if the deepest circles within them had been squared, their ragged doubts knit smooth, and the world were ablaze with the light of perfection.

Great. Batting ninth again.

I have a wealth of hilarious and/or exciting baseball links to share after last night and today, but for now I just need to mention this: the headline on Yahoo!Sports after today's game (in which Ted Lilly pitched almost seven scoreless innings, leading the Cubs to a 6-1 win) said, "No no-no, but not bad."

Oh, Theodore Roosevelt.  This is not helping your inferiority complex at all, is it?

A warm glow of contentment

I'm very happy about sweeping the Braves, and also happy that a fight didn't break out tonight, even though the benches cleared after Teddy's incident with Yunel Escobar.  Escobar then, our announcers explained, "spent the commercial break staring menacingly into the Cubs dugout."  Brrrr.  I'm also glad Aramis seems to be okay - it looked like he was really in pain after that slide.  I hope he'll be back soon.

In perusing other Cubs blogs, I'm reminded that some of the bad blood between the Cubs and the Braves started last year, after Teddy was ejected from a game for hitting Edgar Renteria with a pitch.  Later, Renteria slid into second and punched Mike Fontenot in the face.  Really?  You feel like hitting somebody and you pick Mike Fontenot?  That's just so low.

Some love for Teddy and Geo

I'm surprised to see I haven't said much about Ted Lilly here.  As I've mentioned to several of you, I believe Ted is basically the visible embodiment of my soul.  He always looks so anxious and distressed, no matter how he's pitching, and he says things in his postgame press conferences that make you want to cry and then hug him.  Here are some words from Ted on today's game against the Pirates, which we won 5-1:

"I still feel like I put myself in a lot of bad situations," Lilly said. "Fortunately, I was able to get out of it. I think you can only get away with that so many times. I've done that quite a bit throughout the course of the year and found a way out of it, and there have been some times I've had some big innings and put us behind."

Fortunately, Geovany Soto, awesome on every level, knows how to handle Ted.  Observe:

After that, Lilly faced no more than four batters in any one inning. Credit catcher Geovany Soto for helping to settle his starter down.

"He knew that I was scuffling with my curveball," Lilly said. "He helped me have a little more confidence and made me throw my changeup a little bit more and made me use my slider. Sometimes I get stubborn out there, and there will be times when something's not working and I want to force it to work. He was good with me today in that regard."

"Early in the game, we [weren't] really [on] the same page," Soto said. "After the fourth [and] fifth inning rolled around, I think we stepped it up a little bit. We were doing a better job being on the same page, getting ground balls and getting first-pitch outs. He got rolling after that."

Have I mentioned that I love them both?  Very, very much?  Well, now I have.

My summer in baseball

Here are the games I've gone to, or will be going to if all goes according to plan, this summer:

1.) White Sox/Rockies on Father's Day.  I mostly went to see the Rockies, who I will probably always have massive affection for even when they play poorly.  They won.  I cheered for them, but only inside my head, because the fans on either side looked very hostile and I didn't want anyone to hit me.  I also didn't wear any of the nine million items of Rockies gear I somehow acquired during my time in Denver, but I'll try to be braver next time.

2.) A minor-league game the last weekend in August (I think): the Schaumburg Flyers vs. a team I believe is called the Gary South Side Railcats, my new favorite team name.  I love minor-league games so much, you guys.  If anyone in the Chicago area wants to go to another one, let me know.  And on an entirely different level of excitement:

3.) Cubs/Brewers, September 18th.  Okay, so my friend and I couldn't get tickets next to each other, but they're in the same general area.  Generally.  Now all we have to do is hope that "Reverend Zambrano," as my game companion called him recently, will be pitching.  But I'd be happy with Teddy Roosevelt Lilly too.  Well, frankly, I'd be happy even if it was Ryne Sandburg's minor-league team with the weird, creepy mascots - I just can't wait to be back at Wrigley.