Once There Were Giants

...but not Friday afternoon at Wrigley, as Ryan Dempster fanned 11 and the top of the Cubs order combined to score 5 and drive in 5 of the 11 runs the team spanked off of Madison Bumgarner and a cast of ignominious thousands, including a possibly needle-free Guillermo Mota.

It was another freezing afternoon by the lake, and through the first few innings a fog rolled in from left field—above, you can see it obscuring all the apartment buildings usually visible to the east. I had expected to see more businessmen at a businessman's special, but between all the anoraks and the fact that no one dresses for the office anymore, I was sartorially disappointed. Was there something wrong with the era in which Frank Sinatra, Toots Shor, and J. Edgar Hoover may or may not have all gone to a day game in suits and hats? I tell you it must have beat the sight of today's bloated and gear-bedecked fans chawing through a helmet full of nacho cheese. Mustn't it?

Photograph by C. K. Thorncliff, via Wikimedia Commons

The game was fairly close—and mighty slow going—with the Cubs up just 3-2 after six and a half. After a lusty "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" from Mike Krukow, the Cubs erupted in the bottom of the seventh for five small-ball runs. The same group brought forth three more in the eighth, and so for the first time this year I (and Watson) got to see the Cubs win at home. At least, I think that's what happened—after a while I was mostly thinking about the toddy waiting to warm me up at home. Maybe by June it'll be decent baseball weather.

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