Ilk's Book Club

Slow day, so here's my current reading list:

On The Nightstand: Jared Diamond's Collapse. I started it back in February, and it's a great read...but the damned book is too big to schlep anywhere, so the only time I read it is before bed.
In the meantime, I knocked out Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas while in Florida in March (for the second time). I started getting The Economist again a few weeks ago, which is nice portable lunchtime reading, but takes a lot of time to pound through.

In the Queue: The Future Once Happened Here by Fred Siegel, Sideways by Rex Pickett, Juiced by Jose Canseco.

I Give Up: Coming Of Age, by Studs Terkel. All the stories started to sound the same after a while. I much prefer Studs' narratives to his interviews.

The Numbers Game

3 walks vs 16 strikeouts.

Great numbers if you're a pitcher. Horrendous numbers if you're the starting right fielder for the Chicago White Sox.

I was moderately excited when the Sox went out and grabbed Jermaine off the free agent market last December. I was under the assumption then that he could still hit and wasn't a lousy fielder. Thus far this season, he's been Joe Borchard-like at the plate and seems to be lost on high fly balls and shots hit to his right.

Is Timo Perez warming up in the wings?

Greasy Grimy Smelly Cubbie Guts!

Although I long ago (well, 5 years ago) shifted my baseball allegiances to the South Side, I still try to head up to Wrigley Field a few times a year before they tear the place down.

Went last night, and had the quintessential Wrigley experience:

-Didn't get to our seats until after the game started. This is my biggest pet peeve in baseball, since I keep score. Lord knows there's a snowball's chance in hell of any Cubs fan knowing what the first two batters did. One cool thing--our seats were directly behind the infamous Steve Bartman seat, which is marked with a Cubs sticker on the back. If you insist on seeing it in person--it's Field Box 4, Row 8 on the far left side of the section.

-The bathrooms were overflowing. Not with people (smallish crowd for Wrigley on a cold night), but with a nice pungent mixture of piss and water about 2 inches deep on the floor. I pity any kid who had untied shoelaces. My buddy Paul described it as reeking like "microwaved piss." I don't wanna know.

-Fans next to us were loud and obnoxious underagers from Calumet City. They thought it was clever as shit that they had a "Nomar Getbetterciaparra" banner. They were holding it up at Jason DuBois as he warmed up in LF, and they didn't take too kindly to it when I told them that Nomar does not wear number 4.

-Two fights broke out in the tunnel right behind our seats. The fights drew more attention than the game from most of the blue-wearing yutzes.

-Carlos Zambrano had one of his meltdowns. Got shelled, plunked a batter, got tossed, pissed and moaned his way to the dugout. Waaa waaa freakin' waa.

-Reds closer Danny Graves fell off the bump after one of his pitches, and the dinguses next to me thought it was hysterical. They were like "what kind of dumbass falls off the mound?" I looked them straight in the eye and says "what kind of dumbass falls coming out of the batter's box and ends up missing 3 months?" Absolute dumbfounded silence was all I got in return.

Howyoudoin'

I've always had a bizare affinity for the mob, and I think it's because of my Italian roots. From my great-uncle Joe's "candy store" that he had when I was a little kid in Rochester to episodes of "The Sopranos," I'm captivated by All Things Wiseguy.

Two of my friends have the misfortune of having very Italian surnames, and the amount of grief they catch from me is sick. One of the guys happens to be the veep of a trucking firm, and I've developed a whole ficiticous life about him..all based on the real-life cast of characters surrounding him including a sassy much younger wife and a son-in-law poised to take the reins of the family business. The other guy recently moved to Dallas to be closer to his parents, and jokes about working in waste disposal and his old man offing Kennedy just abound whenever we talk.

Chicago's had its share of mobsters...the Accardos, Spilotros, and of course dear old Alphonse Capone. This week, the FBI cracked down on the Chicago outfit, with a crowing US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald smiling as he talked about da capture of 13 of Chicago's finest dons and capos.

Jimmy Zooks and The Moose managed to avoid prosecution this time.

Errata

Killer Bee pointed out to me Saturday night that David Allan Coe wrote "Take This Job And Shove It," but Johnny Paycheck made it famous.

I stand corrected.

White Sox Rewind: Week Three

Record for Week: 7-0. Season: 15-4. (Note to ESPN: The White Sox have the best record in the major leagues. Better than the Red Sox, better than the Yankees, and better than the Cubs. Feel free to stop verbally fellating Terry Francona any time now.)

The Good: This team just keeps on scratching out runs. Seems like they're jumping ahead in the first inning every time. Even when Contreras (Monday) and El Duque (Sunday) bring their "C" game at best, they always seem to come up with the double play when they need it. Cliff Politte was nothing short of awesome out of the pen (4 IP, 1 H, 1 ER in 4 innings of work), setting up for Shingo who at least didn't manage to blow anything this week. Damaso Marte makes a great play covering the plate Saturday night to prevent the winning run from scoring. Pablo Ozuna raps the perfect dribbler down the line to get the win Sunday. Jon Garland dominates the Tigers and works 8 innings without blowing up in any of them Wednesday. Ozzie Guillen owns the sports section above the fold with his crazy [bleeping] quotes. And how about Joltin' Joe Crede?

The Bad: Sox are near the basement in terms of BA with RISP. They've had plenty of chances to crack games wide open and fail. AJ's got a bum toe after being hit by a pitch and is going to miss a few games. Paul Konerko is 1 for his last 11. Jermaine Dye is just flailing at everything. Dustin Hermanson's back is bugging him...and we need him at setup.

Ahead: At Oakland 4/25-4/27, vs Detroit 4/29-5/1.

Thoughts: We never play well at the Mausoleum in Oakland. Ever. To take one game out there will be a monumental accomplishment, two would be a miracle, and three would signal that it's time for the Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse to come riding in. If we sweep Oakland, The Cell better be packed Friday night--I don't give a rat's ass how cold it is.

Notably Quotable

One of the best things about poker night at the Killer Bee's is the amazingly broad selection of music pumped over his stereo. When the shuffle button is pressed on his MP3 player, don't be surprised to hear Modest Mouse, Poison and Bob Dylan back to back to back.

Staying true to his Wisconsin northwoods roots, the Killer Bee's a big fan of country music. None of that friends in low places or strawberry wine shit though, I'm talkin' real country music about whiskey, jail cells and boning your cousin. One of the Bee's favorites is a guy named David Allan Coe, who had a big hit with "Take This Job And Shove It" way way back when.

Coe's a somewhat bitter man, and it sure doesn't seem like much has gone right in life for him. So it's no surprise that on an extra bad day, he penned an ode to Jimmy Buffett which I heard for the first time last night. Lyrics are here...they're priceless.

Mehh.

Nothing too exciting to write about today.

Power went out overnight. K shook me awake this morning and asked me (exact words) "where did the numbers on the clock go?" I had to stumble through the pitch black house to the kitchen to find my cell phone and turn it on so I knew what time it was. It was about 5:15. Ugh. I'm normally not up until like 6:30 or so, and every little bit of sleep counts.

Sox need to adopt a closer-by-committee.

Yawn.

Oops!

US Airways (which used to be called US Air), the airline that once sent Ilk's luggage to Kansas City while taking Ilk to Buffalo, sold a bunch of tickets to exotic locale podunk towns for $1.86 instead of $186 over the weekend.

These destinations included Altoona, PA (home of the AA Phillies affiliate Altoona Curve), Watertown, NY (the snowfall capital of New York State, averaging like 120" per year), and Asheville, NC (which I believe has some sort of NASCAR track--either that or you can go there to buy cheap furniture).

Oh, and there's a new Pope.

Slow news day, indeed.

Ilk's Self-Absorption Update:

No dice on Buffett tickets.

Thank God.

Slices! Dices! Juliennes!

Got my Golfsmith Big Red Book over the weekend. It's 200+ nice glossy pages (very nicely presented, it probably cost them a fortune) chock full of everything a golfer could want. I flipped through it last night while watching the Braves-Phils snoozefest on Sunday Night Baseball just out of sheer boredom.

Most of it is the usual stuff golfers need. Clubs? Already got a nice set...thanks Dad. Balls? Nahh, I buy them by the gross at Costco. Shirts? Forget it. When your girlfriend works for a bank that sponsors just about everything in sight, there's never a shortage of golf shirts to be had.

But then you come across the interesting stuff...training aids. They've got about 20 pages of stuff that's guar-UN-teed to improve your game. Some of the swag closely resembles medieval torture devices. There's straps to keep your elbow from flying, braces to keep your knee from bending, clubs that bend if you snap your wrists too soon, and even a driver that's safe for swinging indoors, although I'm sure my mom would have something to say about that.

I'm guessing all this shit doesn't work at all...but I'd love to be proven wrong.

White Sox Rewind: Week Two

Record For Week: 4-2. Season: 8-4.
The Good: Mark Buehrle's masterpiece Saturday vs Seattle...12 Ks, 2 hits, well under 2 hours. Carl Everett bouncing back from bouncing off the wall and not missing a game. Cliff Politte, Luis Vizcaino and Dustin Hermanson acting like a bona fide trio of studs out of the bullpen. Taking 2 out of 3 from Cleveland on the road. Gorgeous weather for all 3 games at US Cellular this past weekend. Frank Thomas back in town, saying his foot feels better and he wants to win instead of whining about his contract.

The Bad: Jermaine Dye's struggles at the plate. AJ Pierzynski's struggles at the plate. Has Shingo lost his mojo? The dumbass geezer sitting one section over from me Saturday who reached down and grabbed a ball of the field, leading to a triple for Ichiro and wrecking Buehrle's shutout bid. Last week's bullpen hero Neal Cotts turning into this weeks' bullpen goat.

Ahead: Vs. Minnesota 4/17-4/18, At Detroit 4/19-4/20, At Kansas City 4/22-4/24.

Thoughts: Tomorrow's the first half-price Monday of the year and the weatherman says temps in the 80s, which should make for a wacky night at the Cell. There's something about the combination of cheap tickets, warm weather and beer which makes fans run on the field (bothersome) or flash right fielders (not so bothersome). Minnesota racked off several wins in a row before losing a squeaker at Cleveland today, so the onus will be on the Cubans to contain them. Fans will be calling for Torii Hunter's head in the wake of last year's bulldozing of Jamie Burke. Detroit and KC always suck, but always seem to cause us fits nonetheless.

One Year Ago Today...

...The Better Half and I moved into our new place. She wanted no part of me getting in the way of the movers, so she sent Russell and I off to the Sox game while the movers unloaded. Hey, it beat 1) being at work and 2) getting run over by surly mover types, so I'm not bitchin'. In fact, the Sox beat KC in the 9th on a walkoff dinger from Mr. Intestinal, Magglio Ordonez.

So it's been a year. Aside from a crummy fridge that had to be replaced and a leak in the sliding glass door, there really haven't been any major problems that we couldn't handle.

Our neighbors on one side are a touch wacky with their screaming kid, dinosaur hanging from the ceiling and porno-sounding sex on Sunday mornings, but other than that we've had a grand old time.

Har de har har. 

Wasted Away Again...

The Better Half never reads the paper during the week. Usually she'll only pick it up on Sundays, and proceed to read all the stuff out loud that she thinks is important. You know, vital stuff like airfares to Europe (yuck--small beds, bad breakfasts) and famous people who died within the past week. (Frank Perdue, we hardly knew thee)

But for some reason, she felt compelled to pick up the Metro section last night, and loudly announce in a most gleeful voice that tickets for Jimmy Buffett at Wrigley Field go on sale Monday. Longtime readers know that I don't like Buffett, and I don't like Wrigley Field. Buffett's talent is marginal at best, and while I like sitting on a beach slowly getting drunk off a froo-froo drink in a coconut shell as much as the next guy, I don't enjoy the music of a guy who has written 200 songs about it, and then decides to cover my favorite CS&N song because he's running out of material. I can only imagine what Wrigley Field is gonna look like when it's over taken by 45,000 meatheads and their lei-wearing girlfriends as they piss and puke all over the place. The bathroom lines are going to be ridiculous, the beer lines will be even worse, and good luck getting on a Red Line train. On top of that...tickets are like $130. There's no way in hell I'm paying that for what promises to be a kludge of an experience.

Oh yeah, on a side note--the Northsiders now come out to the strains of a song called "I Love My Cubs," which is performed by a certain Jimmy Buffett. This should be enough to make any self-respecting Sox fan walk away slowly.

Ilk's Consumer Product Review: Mountain Creek Lager

A few nights ago while perusing the aisles of my local Trader Joe's, I came across a nice big Mountain Creek display. I'd seen a bunch of kids knocking these back at the Sox opener a couple days prior, so I figured I'd give the stuff a try. At $2.99 a six-pack, you can't beat the price. I figured since TJ's got it right with 2-buck chuck (which is great to stock the wine rack with for parties or when alcoholic friends of yours housesit) that they probably had another winner on their hands with this stuff.

Wrong-o.

The can brags that it's "brewed in small batches." After tasting the stuff, I'm guessing the reason for this is that they can only get the panthers who secrete the piss that's used as the basis of this stuff to whizz a couple times a day. It's sour, and has a nasty bite from start to finish that reminds me a little bit of the moonshine the manager of the plumbing department at Menard's brought me while I was slaving there in the summer of 1994.

Pouring the beer from can to glass reveals a dark yellow color, with plenty of head. It smells pretty stale and musty.

Although it tastes nothing like Busch Light (which also tastes bad, just in a very different foam-mixed-with-puke kinda way), I'd put it in about the same place on the beer scale.

Ya get what ya pay for, I guess.

Hey Jermaine! How 'bout a big cuppa shut up?

Jermaine O'Neal opened his mouth yesterday, and as usual nothing but crap came out.

Jermaine thinks that because NBA commish David Stern wants to raise the eligibility age for NBA players to 20 that it's racially motivated.

Jermaine says that Stern's idea is "unconstitutional" and that you never hear about this in baseball or hockey. Well Jermaine, there's a reason for that. There's something in baseball called the minor leagues. If you're a hotshot ballplayer coming out of high school (and they are very few and far between), you're gonna be taking a lot of 8 hour bus rides to little podunk towns like Beloit and Pawtucket before you get to The Show. Your momma isn't going to be able to buy you a Hummer with a built in PS2 when you're 17 based on your future earning potential. Same deal for hockey players, many of whom toil playing for club teams in Canada or Europe before they reach the NHL.

Respect is earned, Jermaine. Chances are if you're good enough to get drafted at 18, you're good enough to get a full ride to a top-tier program and spend a couple years in college learning something (not to mention working on your jump shot) before you become an NBA 'balla.

Hell Jermaine, maybe if you played college ball, you wouldn't have stunk up the league for the first 4 years of your career.

Gimme a break.

White Sox Rewind: Week One

Record for the Week: 4-2. Season: 4-2.

Good: Mark Buehrle's gutty performance at the opener last Monday, walking away on the upside of a 1-0 ballgame. El Duque dazzles the Twins on Friday and Jon Garland overcomes a case of the pukies to walk away a winner Saturday. Taking 2 out of 3 in the Baggiedome is a seldom-occurring good thing. Carl Everett spraying the ball in all directions. Paul Konerko hitting home runs like, well...Paul Konerko. Ninth inning rally last Wednersday thanks to back-to-back blasts. Neal Cotts working setup.

Bad: Rotten bullpen management by the Ozzman in last Thursday's nightmare loss to Cleveland. Shingo's pitch selection. Joe Crede's offense. Joe Crede's defense. Whiffing 14 times on a nationally televised game.

Ahead: At Cleveland, 4/11, 4/13-14. Vs. Seattle, 4/15-4/17.

Thoughts: Cleveland, while improved over last year, still isn't as great as the pundits would have you believe. Seattle is off to a slow start, but Ichiro always has our number.

Yuck.

Bad bad day for the Sox bullpen yesterday. Not only did they manage to blow a 5-2 lead and wreck a rare good outing for Jose Contreras, but they also managed to shit the bed so badly that they ended up losing 11-5. Ouch.

There's an old 70's dusty called "Love Is Like A Baseball Game." Well, yesterday's baseball game was kinda like love, only in a bad way. You know, when you've got the girl home on the first date, she's ripping off her bra and clawing at your trousers...and all of a sudden she's like "Oh yeah, I have herpes. And a boyfriend."

I'm gonna pin the blame for this square on Ozzie Guillen. This isn't the NL. You don't burn through your ENTIRE bullpen to the point where you have 5th starter Jon Garland and backup catcher (!) warming up out in the left field 'pen. Now we're gonna have at least one necessary arm (Vizcaino) nice and rubbery for the Minnesota series this weekend. Grrr.

Caught the season finale of "The West Wing" last night, one of only 2 shows that I absolutely have to watch when they're on.

It got me to thinking, convention politics these days is so sanitized. The networks know this, and they've cut back their convention coverage to like 2 hours in prime time. The balloting is always a mere formality. In fact, I think every event outside the New Hampshire primaries and the Iowa caucuses has turned into pretty much a formality. Was Super Tuesday even a factor in 2000 or 2004?

Then again, a brokered convention makes a party look like they're in complete and utter disarray. But oh, those ratings!

Meanwhile, the Sox pull off an April 2004-like comeback in April 2005. The debate over smallball vs longball rages...

Ha!

One of Ilk's least favorite GOP political consultants ran for mayor of a little burg in the far west suburbs. The election was yesterday. He got a grand total of 92 votes, or right about how many votes I got when I ran for condo board secretary last winter. The difference? I won.

I can't mention this guy's name, as he's very libel-happy. But the poor little Napoleonic twit's gonna have to find something else to do with his time now.

Gag.

UNC Tar Heels: NCAA Basketball :: Boston Red Sox: Baseball

Could the officiating be any more biased? Sean May steamrolls Roger Powell. No charge. James Augustine looks at Raymond Felton funny from 10 feet away and gets whistled.

Could the whining be any worse? Billy Packer screaming about ILLEGAL SCREEN! ILLEGAL SCREEN! the last 6 minutes of the game every time Illinois set their offense. Meanwhile, UNC's traveling left and right and all over the place, and Packer's paying no mind.

Could the fawning be any more shrill? Quick, let's all verbally fellate Roy Williams. He's had it so hard coaching at Kansas and being Dean Smith's assistant. For Christ's sake, Bruce Weber's last job was at SOUTHERN ILLINOIS. The guy's mother died the week before the tournament started, and he just gritted his teeth and went to work. He spent umpteen years working for Gene Keady, one of the grumpiest old men in the world.

Oh well, at least the Sox won. Although all the local news channels were fawning about the Team Up North this morning. This is such a recurrent theme in my life.

Historic day today. Happy 58th, Dad.

Go Time!

The Yankees soundly thrashed the Red Sox last night, restoring karmic balance and order to the baseball universe. Perfect prelude to the season.

White Sox and Indians...NEXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXT.

PLAY BALL!

I may audioblog from the game later on, we'll see.

Hope Springs Eternal...

It's 60something in Chicago today. The wind is whipping a little bit, but it still feels like a heatwave after the crap we've been enduring since last October. Decided to hop on the bike and take a ride. For some reason, I just felt compelled to ride south. (Of course, this would bite me in the ass as I slogged back north to finish up)

What better destination the day baseball season starts than US Cellular Field? The place was abuzz with activity. The producers' trailer was in back with the doors wide open, getting ready to bring you all the fun with Hawk and DJ all season long. The players' lot was chock full of SUVs with dealer license plates, so I'm guessing there must have been some kind of team meeting going on. Tons of pimply young kids and crusty old men with ponytails were heading in through the employee entrance, so the Sportservice staff must have had their team meeting as well.

Rode up to 32nd Street and cut back east. Ran into Jimbo of Jimbo's fame, nattily dressed as always in his dago tee and beret as he put plastic tables and chairs out in anticipation of big drunken crowds on his "patio" tomorrow.

Passed by St. Jerome's, where the Vatican flag out front was draped with black. Parishoners yelled to each other in Croatian as they headed to their cars.

24 hours and a few minutes from now, Mark Buehrle will set, wind, and unleash his first cutter of the season. I'm not sure how I feel about the Sox this year--I think the chemistry's going to be a lot better but the power is going to be a lot worse--but I am sure that I'm ready for baseball season.

Tomorrow we'll see the red white and blue opening day bunting, hear the strains of John Fogerty's "Centerfield." The parking lots will be filled with the smell of brats and sazziges, cooking on grills manned by folks playing baseball hooky. There's new grass on the field kids. Let's play ball.

Pontiff-icating...

Regular readers of my babble will know that I'm not a very religious person. Religion makes people blow up babies, fly planes into buildings and shoot doctors, and that's really not my scene. Makes it kind of hard to be a Republican this day and age without religion, but oh well. I'd put myself on the spirituality scale at somewhere between apathetic agnostic and downright atheist.

For some reason though, I've always had nothing but admiration for Pope John Paul II though. I mean talk about a guy who's just serene and likable. A friend of mine had an audience with him 4 or 5 years ago, and said tearfully when I asked him about the picture he had of it "you look into his eyes, and I swear God is looking back at you.

JP II burst on the scene in the late 1970s, and no one had ever seen a skiing Pope before. No one had ever seen a globetrotting pope quite like him before either...and he only intensified his travels after the assasination attempt, tooling around in his Popemobile. His serenity and charisma overwhelmed everyone he met, and even as his health began to fade, he kept on smiling and kept his schedule up.

Now it looks like the end is nigh. I'm not sure exactly where folks go when they die, but wherever it is, the Pope deserves top-notch accomodations.

On a lighter note, the NY Times ran a piece today about the 20th anniversary of one of the greatest hoaxes in sports, Sidd Finch. Fun reading. I still have the original SI somewhere...