robnail

Piniella might discover the Fountain of Youth before the end of the series and bat lead-off in Game 4, too.

Top of the 2nd inning = 1969, 1984, and 2003 rolled into one giant hot dog (or California sushi roll?) of terror, force fed down our throats. What did we do to deserve this? How can we cure ourselves so we don't have to subject ourselves to the next worse thing? Answers, please, someone.

Bravo! =D> =D> =D> =D> =D> More or less what I was going to say. Great post. I don't see why somebody needs a homer announcer to help him experience the highs and lows. Didn't say I needed any help. Just saying I like it better as a listener/viewer.

Reminded me of Beltran getting frozen by Wainwright in game 7 of the '06 NLCS. Sign of things to come?

Odds that LaRussa gets a DWI tonight? I demand Cincinnati police cruisers install HD cameras with audio kits stat.

I think the Caray/Stone and Hughes/Santo broadcast teams set the standard for what a sports broadcast should be. In their own way, each combines an extraordinary talent for one aspect of sports broadcasting with the sense of raw homer-ism and fun that make sports so enjoyable in the first place. Stone's color commentary could serve as a secondary baseball education over the course of a full season, while Hughes' smooth delivery and remarkable ability to adjust is an example of of gold-medal live reporting. Sports "fans" love to rant and rave about babbling home-town sportscasters as if they have some divine right to be provided with a full broadcast team of the highest quality, so that said "fan" may experience some hypothetical nirvana of sports information dispersal when watching a game. I don't get it. I watch or listen to games to experience the emotional highs and lows, to yell and scream and be a kid again. I watch or listen to games to escape. When something thrilling happens in sports, there's nobody better to have in the booth than a blatant homer. Don't believe me? Listen to the Appalachian State broadcast of last year's Michigan upset. During the decisive play, all you hear is a passionate alum--probably a guy who played, probably a guy who never thought in a million years his little school cold knock off freaking Michigan--screaming his head off. There's no analysis. There's no breakdown of Michigan's blocking scheme versus Appy States' special teams package. Just pure passion. It was beautiful. It was sports. While post-stroke Caray and all-the-time Santo have required WGN to seek out extraordinary talents to balance out the deficiencies of some very deficient homers, I have never in 25 years as a Cubs fan felt like I was missing something. But there have been many times I felt like there was somebody behind the mic feeling the way I felt.

I remember the Guzman game as well. Watched it in my best friend's basement. I think it was one of his first starts with the team...sigh...such high hopes we had.

Houston has officially replaced Milwaukee as my team-I-wish-really-bad-things-upon. Those crybabies can't exit the Wild Card race soon enough. Our real celebration will come the day those tools get eliminated and we don't have to make an extra trip to Texas while our Division Series opponent gets to fly to Chicago a day early.

I have fond memories of counting down the big blue number printed in The Daily Herald every morning before school...

Now I feel bad for hating Brewers fans and wishing ill upon their team. Damn conscience. Haha, don't feel bad. Trust me a secret part of me kinda wanted to see a hit. However.. I did hit record of the DVR. A No hitter is history. History is what makes baseball great. The reality is Brewers fans are all we have left to kick around after the '05-'06 Sox-Cardinals coronation. Feel free to get hot, guys. I'm not feeling very comfortable about the possibility of our bats being stymied by 45-year-old Jamie Moyer in the playoffs. The scenario just feels too Cub to keep in play.

Didn't Mitch Williams walk the bases loaded then strike out the side in the home opener against Philly that season? I seem to remember that....vaguely. I had to listen to most of the games on WGN back then because my folks did not have cable TV. Yes! I remember watching that in the living room after rushing home from school. Pretty sure it was Opening Day, not the home opener. It's so comforting knowing there are others who remember distant baseball games so vividly. Hopefully this year will serve as our catharsis and we will no longer be in need of group therapy. If not, perhaps we have found that very group...

Now I feel bad for hating Brewers fans and wishing ill upon their team. Damn conscience.

good call. i was really young, but i was already full immersed in cubdom, so i snuck out and watched the postgame celebration from behind my dad's recliner. when did we clinch? i have this memory of doing it in montreal, and hearing harry caray say "the joy of victory" as the camera showed the cubs celebrating, and "and the agony of defeat" as it showed andres galaragga in the expos' dugout, but i've never been able to remember if it was true or made up. that's funny, because i can never tell if my memory of it is real, or if its been exaggerated over the years. i remember being in the back seat of the family's station wagon while my dad and i waited for my sisters buying leotards, and it was on the radio... mitch williams probably wasn't even on that team. I remember '84 this way: I'm sitting in our kitchen, watching a black-and-white TV (this much has been verified as true) but my Dad keeps telling me that if the Cubs get one more out, they win the World Series. That's where the memory stops. Something got swiss-cheesed somewhere, because my dad is not and never has been the type of sadist who would tell a lie like that to a five-year-old.

good call. i was really young, but i was already full immersed in cubdom, so i snuck out and watched the postgame celebration from behind my dad's recliner. when did we clinch? i have this memory of doing it in montreal, and hearing harry caray say "the joy of victory" as the camera showed the cubs celebrating, and "and the agony of defeat" as it showed andres galaragga in the expos' dugout, but i've never been able to remember if it was true or made up. Yep, it was absolutely in Montreal. Mitch Williams got the save. I think a checked swing was involved in the final out.

1. Z's No-hitter. It's something I've never seen in 29 years as a Cubs fan. Only two other possibilities for that distinction. And it happened before 20,000 true die-hards. Special. 2. Woody's 20k game. It was eerie how similar it felt watching Z against the 'Stros tonight. 3. Going up 3-1 on Fla. in '03. They wouldn't do THAT to their fans...would they? 4. Clinching the '89 division title. My official induction into the hall of Cubby heartbreak. 5. Beating Atl. in '03. A postseason win IS possible. 6. Sosa's 61st/62nd against the Brewers in '98. Powerful stuff, no matter your suspicions. The playoff win against SF would have to be a close 7th.

Let's be positive. Perhaps tonight signaled the arrival of a mature, pragmatic Zambrano who practices the utmost care and caution when considering his right arm, which he knows is an irreplaceable commodity both on the field and in the hearts of die-hard Cubs fans. All those years of bat busting and Gatorade jug-tossing were prelude to a triumphant coming-of-age just in time for a Cubbie Coronation. And the arrival of the Easter Bunny.

I'm standing up at a wedding that will be held in New Orleans. The rehearsal dinner is Fri., Oct. 17. The wedding is Sat., Oct. 18. The groom is from Chicago and is a Cubs fan, as are most of his extended family that will be there. I know two people who will be praying for a short series if the Cubs make the NLCS.