3 x 2 = 3

In a strange twist of scheduling, I have seen three MLB games this year (in two stadiums) yet seen only three teams play: the Cubs, the Dodgers, and the Braves.


We wrapped up our California tour with a brief visit to Dodgers Stadium, where we saw them play the Braves for a few innings before I had to get to the airport for a redeye. For some reason I thought we'd be able to stay till about the seventh, but a pitchers' duel it wasn't, so it was more like the fourth. We did  get to the park a bit early and so had time to hike up and down the hill from the parking lot and wander through the various levels of the place. We would have had a smoother exit had we been able to find the car later; instead, we wandered the dark aisles of dull silver SUVs for... well, let's not get into specifics. I made my flight, that's all that matters.

Back in Chicago, it was time to go shiver and get wet at Wrigley again, this time in the company of the now soon-to-be-nine-year-old Nephew, whose interest in baseball has evolved from incidental to all-consuming. The kid can (and does) rattle off statistics for hours on end, but he'd yet to go to an MLB game. Some might argue that the Cubs this year are more of a Triple-A phenomenon, but even so it's a step up from the Fort Wayne Tincaps. The Nephew is from Ohio and was styling himself an Indians fan (largely, I think, because his older brother had already claimed the Reds), but as our frigid afternoon wore on, he took comfort in the somewhat too large Cubs sweatshirt that was also part of his birthday present, and possibly his allegiances began to shift. Poor kid.

The newest Cubs fan, unaware of the lifetime of heartache that awaits him.

We watched the Cubs lose to the Dodgers, then Watson and I returned three days later to watch them lose to the Braves. The strange thing is, they actually won all the other games in those series. Is the curse actually just me??

Chipper Jones, how I loathe you.