Rookies don't do this kind of stuff.
Not this late in the season, not when it counts, not against the Brewers, and not for the Cubs.
At least none that I can remember.
Geovany Soto is such a stud.
You may have noticed that as the season's gone along Geo has been "figured out" by opposing pitchers, and he keeps "figuring out" how to get the pitchers all unfigured again.
Rookies don't do that.
So no, I wasn't at home in my back yard yelling, but I sure was in the hallway at work.
I would imagine either you or somebody did the same, right?
It was the kind of hit that makes you love baseball - the kind that you dream of making when you're little.
Piro and Oif were in my office, people stopping by thinking we were watching, but it was just Emily's radio in the window sill on about volume 2.
We're working.
Now it's the bottom of the 9th and the Cubs are gonna lose 2-6.
It's over.
Somebody says some cheese and crackers are left from a meeting or something, and the guys leave.
Then Pat Hughes' voice is saying CAN YOU BELIEVE IT while Ron is making the kind of noise that would cause me to lose my voice: Geovany Soto has just tied the game with a 3 run homer.
I ran down the hall, yelling.
It wasn't over of course, just more life for the Cubs.
But Marmol and Wood shut everything down with Kerry striking out 3 in the 11th and then getting in a little trouble in the 12th before getting the 3 groundouts.
And then in the bottom of the 12th, Derrek Lee (YES!) gets the enormous walk-off single, knocking in pinch runner Jason Marquis.
Cubs 7 Brewers 6.
With Big Z's no-no, Ted Lilly's god-like performance, and this impossible come from behind victory by a team-ful of heroes, it's been kinda nutty lately.
Good nutty.
And now it's the Cardinals coming to town for the last regularly scheduled home series of 2008.
Then the Mets away.
Then to Milwaukee.
Is this not the most exciting season in your lifetime?
I'm older than you, and I'm sayin' it is.
Go Cubs.
ps: This illustration originally went in VINELINE, and it's based on fact.
I am a loud man, and I would imagine that most people on my block know that a Cub fan lives in my house.
