You know what?
Baseball is a funny game.
Which is exactly what Darwin Barney said shortly after his errorless streak ended on Friday night.
Yeah, it's a shame he just tied it, but any way you want to talk about it, 141 games without an error is plain old astonishing.
And one of the few honest-to-God bright spots we have for this awful year of ball in the Bigs.
So he's in the record books next to Placido Polanco, with something like "2nd base, single season errorless streak, 141 games" written behind them.
Congratulations, Darwin!
Of course this all happened in loss number 98 for our '12 Cubs, with 5 games to go.
Whatever, I think we all knew this was gonna happen back around early June.
Trying?
Yep.
Which segue's nicely into my little bit on jury duty.
I found out that there are different kinds...
Last September I had to go, I got chosen to sit on a jury in a civil case, I spent 2 days and we found the guy suing the other guy to be a liar.
Then I went home with a certificate and a guarantee that I'd done my American Duty for a year.
So this last September when I got a summons in the mail, I tossed it.
Hadn't been a year yet.
Then one day I got a call from my wife saying we were in danger of being fined (I think it was $1500) if I didn't call and straighten out this obvious misunderstanding with our government.
So I called, and I was a little short with the woman who I spoke with.
I think I may have said something like, "Why are you pestering me.."
The lady wasn't happy with my tone, and that's when I found out there's different kinds of jury duty.
And I had to play ball or risk that fine.
Here are the rules to this one.
Last Sunday night I had to call a number to find out if I had to show on Monday.
If the message said no, then I had to call again on Monday night to see if I had to show on Tuesday.
And that goes on for 2 weeks.
But I had to go in on Monday.
About maybe 50-60 people go into a room, we're handed a brief description of what the crime is.
Conspiring to possess and intent to distribute marijuana.
Then, we fill out a questionnaire that opens with questions like "where do you work?" and "how long you lived here?" and closes with questions about your life's experiences with drugs. "Do you know anyone who's been arrested for drugs" and stuff like that.
We were then led to a courtroom, the judge sat everyone in a certain order, and he went through each questionnaire with each person.
If there was something of a personal nature that the judge wanted to know about, he saved it for a sidebar later.
I got there at 8:30, this part got done about 12:30.
An hour for lunch.
Then the sidebars with personal questions.
They put on a white noise machine so no one can hear the conversation, and you had to go to the front of the courtroom where all the lawyers eyeballed me as the judge asked away.
About 4 he called off 14 names - 12 jurors and 2 alts.
I wasn't one.
I know if I was on the jury, I'd be sworn to not talk about the case.
But since I wasn't I guess I can say the case was about a little matter of 11 tons of pot.
How long you think that trial's gonna last?
What kind of organization is involved in something that big?
I am SO glad they didn't call my name.
Anyway, I have another week of calling in.
This morning I was riding my bike and a black cat did a textbook crossing of my path.
So I'm kind of freaking out.
