No love in Chi-town tonight.

October 15, 2003

I hate to be the one who says it, but to all the Cubbies fans out there, the ones screaming for blood for the poor Cubs fan who deflected the foul ball last night at Wrigley, prevented the left fielder from catching the fly into the stands and thus exteended the inning that the Marlins scored a total of eight runs in; to all the Cubs fans who faithfully watched by their team until the bitter end: I’m sorry, but I told you so. It’s just not in the Cubs’ nature to win in the clincher. 58 years since their last World Series, 95 years since their last victory in the World Series, you’d think it was their time.

But watching the Cubs play the last three games was like watching the Three Stooges play baseball at times. Errors left and right, and then last night’s 8-run inning with a pitcher who had been in the game too long at the helm that they never mentally recovered from. I really feel for the fans in Chi-town tonight, but I hope that my friends who have been rooting for the Cubs don’t get me wrong: it’s not that I don’t like the Cubs, but they really stunk it up and I didn’t really want to root for them playing like that. I watched the game on Sunday when the the Marlins pitcher threw a shut-out against the Cubs, and I knew then that the Marlins were going to beat the Cubs, even being two games down and facing elimination.

Maybe next year, Cubbies.

I don’t mean to sound callous, but they really played a bad game. Their pitching was pretty bad for the last three games, and the Marlins took advantage of it and responded with grade A pitching of their own. They just didn’t deserve to advance with antics like that. I’m just appalled the Chicago people blame the fan last night for losing the series. He had to disconnect his phone, he didn’t go into work today, and last night he had to be escorted out by security–for his own safety. They even gave him another jacket to not be so conspicuous. Now everyone, all together now: it’s just a game! And there’s always next year. I’m sure that the Cubs fan who deflected the ball last night was surely responsible for the Cubs blowing a 3-1 lead in the series.

That reminds me, I should lock my door tonight….

Today my knee felt a lot better. I don’t know what made the difference, but I felt good enough to walk around with a bandage, without icing, and with only a few Tylenol in my system. I set up camp in the living room this afternoon to watch the Red Sox/Yankees game (Red Sox won, tying the series and forcing a seventh game there, too) in front of the fire, and I even felt good enough to lift weights and do other exercises while I sat out there. Sure felt pretty good to be moving my body again. I can’t wait to get back into jogging!

*ducks thrown object by his Mother*

But seriously, I’ll definitely start just by walking distances for awhile, and not jogging again for at least two more weeks to make sure that my knee is fully healed before I try any shenanigins again. I can do without the hard impact for a bit, but I’m not giving up jogging completely by all means. I’m just not going to push myself as hard. This period with the laid-up knee actually reminds me a lot of two years ago–almost to the day, I’d wager, if I went and checked my emails and website entires–that I had an ingrown toenail. Now, I know what you’re thinking–knee injury and ingrown toenail? What ties them together? The connection is that both are ailments one usually sees a doctor about, and I managed to squeek out of both without visiting one. I hate going to the doctor, and I resisted even when I had strep throat last year–interestingly enough, exactly a year ago–but going to the doctor is ultimately what cured me. I don’t like seeking help for things I know I can do on my own, even though I knew that I had to go to the doctor for strep. So I just researched what I had to do for my ingrown toenail, and I took care of it and healed it myself. Same thing with my knee. I just took it easy, made sure that I kept off it and iced it enough, and I knew that I could get better without seeking professional help.

I guess I shouldn’t get TOO excited since it’s still aching a bit and I have some more time to go before I can say that I’m 100% cured. Or 99.9% cured, whichever, since I’ll likely never be fully recovered from an injury like this, if I did do some real damage. But feeling good enough to do sit-ups and push-ups was a start. I’ll see how I feel in the morning. If it’s still aching and not throbbing, I may use heat and not cold, since the best I’ve felt the last couple of days is after my hot morning shower. Might be a nice change from getting those interesting spasms in my knee brough on by the numbing cold.

Today’s pictures are the last two easy sets of pics that I have already completed, so if I work on more tomorrow, I’ll have to get into either the sets with multiple pages that I’m unsure of what to do with or the ones with more than 30 shots on a page. *sigh* It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it.

West Waluga Park Pictures
Rock River Waterfront Pictures

And thank you for pointing out my typo in yesterday’s picture announcement, Barbara. I was typing fast, trying to get the blog entry done before 10 PM when “Nip/Tuck” came on, so I didn’t proof-read. Then again, as I’ve gone through my pictures I’ve found typos that I made four years ago and never corrected, so I didn’t proof-read then, either. But I guess that misspelling the name of my alma mater probably isn’t a good habit to start. BelOIT, not BelIOT. BelOIT.

I’ll leave you with this note: my October ailments seem to be getting worse and worse. Two years ago this week was an ingrown toenail, last year this week was strep throat, and this year a fairly debilitating knee injury. What does next year have in store for me? You be the judge.

Sorry Cubs fans, but what did you really expect?