summer in full swing shoutouts!

A quick recap about the previous 24 hours in the life of goose:

with the cubs "in town" (i.e. in arlington, texas to play the texas rangers, owners of the worst record in baseball and current home of famed cubs slugger sammy sosa), me and good friend, classmate, and fellow cubs fan stephen b. of baton rouge, la., decided we should head on up for a game. note: we did know that the trip was 200 miles. each way. and it was a 7:35pm start (that's 19:35 for my european readership). but with an ipod freshly scrubbed clear of meredith brooks (i had this cd? how? why? did i join a militant feminist group in the early noughts?) we zipped up state highways and surprisingly made it to our seats by the bottom of the first. just in time to realize that slamming sammy was up. and only 1 home run short of 600 in his career. it was going to be a great night. we were jazzed for sammy to "uncork" one and the cubs to lambaste the woeful rangers. but such was not our night. though we did get to see sammy hit a deep drive over the right-center wall in the 5th inning to join the hallowed club of aaron, bonds*, ruth, and mays. the place went nuts (and it was easily 50% cubs fans). he even gave a props chest thump to the cubs dugout which we loved. and then of course, just for old times' sake, he struck out his next at-bat. that's our sammy! and the cubs gave up 3 errors, leading to 3 runs and lost the game 7-3. that's our cubbies!

So a double-thump chest bump and finger kiss back to chest back to kiss back to chest and double kiss the victory sign and salute the sky sammy shout-out to sammy sosa. one of my favorite cubs not named mark grace (my all-time number one), ryne sandberg (my all-time number two and perhaps the first major leaguer i tried to emulate in little league before i realized i couldn't field a ground ball), and andre "the hawk" dawson. and doug glanville. but sammy is right there. though with andre patrolling right, i'd put sammy in left.

a quick review of "Great Moments In Baseball" Shout-out to myself: given that i make it to about 1 game a year, given my allegiances and relative distance from wrigley field, i've seen sammy hit his 600th, fernando tatis hit two grand slams in the same inning (both off of chan ho park), seen team usa win a gold medal (against cuba, 2000 olympics, with my rallying cry of "smoke the cubans!") and seen mark mcgwire hit the upper-upper deck at yankee stadium (in his rookie year, i believe). and of course, red ivy in october. i feel pretty fortunate as a fan. and of course, how can i forget mark grace hitting a home run on OUR birthday (we share cake too) to get the cubs to actually win a game during their hideous 1997 season and having my brother, the good Dr. Carr of Guam, catch a foul ball in the 9th (from the bat of bill spiers, i believe). that's my all-time favorite. though seeing sammy go yard last night was pretty neat. for a non-cubs moment.

Gratulerer med dagen! shout-0ut to good friend and founding member of the "we don't like tequila anymore" club, stian n. of tonsberg, norway. i'm certain it was a great birthday and only accentuates the fact that the last two weeks of june and the first week of july is the greatest density of birthday party potential anywhere. to summarize: d. mike and the future mrs. d. beth of cambridge, ma. (19 june), stian n. (20 june), little goose (22 june), brother euge (27 june), goose his oneself (28 june), slider (2 july) nara w. of los angeles (3 july), our nation (4 july). there's literally little opportunity to slow down between all those slices of cake.

and finally, with summer officially here (as noted by unwashed hippies descending upon stonehenge), a big shout-out to summer corn! you must get some! steam it! butter it! eat it! preferably while sitting on a deck or porch with a beverage of your choosing nearby and some music. i'm preferential to anything with a reggae beat, but it doesn't matter. whatever makes these long days of sunlight more enjoyable.

--goose