There was a time in America when most people thought that black and white TV was enough. But it wasn’t, now we have color/digital/plasma/HD/watch-your-favorite-show-on-your-cell-phone. There was a time when cars that could go 55mph were enough. But it wasn’t and now we have remote key entry/multi CD disc changer/GPS to keep you from getting lost in the parking lot/cars. And there was a time in the Rebel household when the Fair Lady Rebel Kim and her “Boy I Outkicked My Coverage When I Married Her” husband thought that three beautiful daughters were enough.
But the void was always there, and I’m happy to say that last Tuesday (just 17 ½ hours before the trade deadline expired; and I thought Hunter Pence was untouchable) the void was filled when Baby Rebel, Cooper Wrigley arrived. The stem is ON the apple!!! Named for the location of Baseball’s Hallowed Museum and Baseball’s Ultimate Shrine, Cooper arrived exactly 18 years to the day that the Cubs beat Philadelphia (actually the Cubs and Phillies split a doubleheader that night, but I’m focusing on the positive – and to bring things full circle, the Cubs beat the Phillies last Tuesday 7-3) in which Sandberg homered twice and Sutcliffe had a complete game win. Unlike the win that night, Cooper’s delivery was not completed in a snappy two hours and thirty-eight minutes. He made Kim work for 8 ½ hours. And since he arrived nine days before the 19th anniversary of the Cubs first scheduled night game, he also provided me with the best birthday present possible. The lengths Kim will go to not have to go shopping and fight the crowds! Just as we were told in school, the best gifts are homemade, not store bought.
I, being the proud and over-anxious Papa, have already put my name on the waiting list for tickets to next year’s Cub Convention
The girls are beside themselves in maternal joy and cannot wait to teach him things that he doesn’t need to know yet. Like how to hide the cookies for a late night snack, how to throw a Frisbee so that it rocks Papa right in the pills, how to get away with absolute murder with a quick smile and the bat of an eye.
Soon Cooper will round out a formidable lineup during Bentel Infield Practice. With Katelyn covering the hot corner, Ally providing the target at first and Kristi anchoring the keystone, Cooper will fit in very nicely at shortstop (he is, afterall, the shortest of the four).
All the joy and mayhem in the Rebel household has made me truly understand (and unabashedly admit) that I am half the man Dick Van Patten is. Four really is enough.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Monday, July 23, 2007
Decade By Decade
The All-Star Game sparked a lot of things. It sparked a reminder of just how terrible Chris Berman has become. It sparked yet another exciting way for the NL to lose. And it sparked a conversation between the DoorMatts and myself (and here I have to take a timeout a give props to my peeps for planting the seeds of thought for countless Monroe Doctrines. Matt has been a creative contributor to at least five of them).
During the pre-game ceremonies, Willie Mays came out and the announcer made a comment about him being the “Greatest Living Ballplayer”. It got Matt to thinking about about the greatest player from each decade. SIDE NOTE: Our criteria was that the player had to dominate all of the decade. Matt’s contention was that the early years provided easy, big stud winners and that the ‘70’s, ‘80’s and ‘90’s didn’t have the clearcut dominant choice. Here’s what his thoughts and the conversation generated (see if you have any problems with any of these guys being called “The Greatest Living Ballplayer”):
1910’s: Ty Cobb
1920’s: Babe Ruth
1930’s: Jimmie Foxx (This is a Rebel belief although I would be happy with Lou Gehrig. Foxx kicked booty for all ten years, while 1939 was the year Lou had to retire).
1940’s: Ted Williams (A strong argument can be made for Joe Dimaggio, but William’s numbers were just clearly superior.
1950’s: This one boiled down to Musial, Mantle & Mays. When you first look at them during that decade, it seems close. But upon closer evaluation of the top offensive stats, it’s really a two horse race between Musial and Mantle (Mays is a distant third). And for consistency and durability, the 1950’s belong to Musial.
1960’s: Hank Aaron (Willie Mays started to fade at the end of the 60’s although if we had half decades [1956-1965] Mays would most likely dominate).
And here’s where things get interesting. Matt pointed out that each of the previous decades you could point to one massive star (Ruth) or a bunch of really, really great ballplayers (Foxx, Gehrig; Mays, Mantle, Musial; Williams, Dimaggio) and no matter the name - you wouldn’t mind hearing them called “The Greatest Living Ballplayer”. But in the ‘70’s it wasn’t that obvious. Was it because we had seen these guys play and so they weren’t “immortal”? Was it because not only did we see these players in their hey day, we had actually most recently seen them when they were hanging on, unable to consistently catch up on a fastball? Or was the overall talent level lower than previous decades? I would think it’s part of the first two questions. With African-American players and Latin players getting their opportunity, I can’t believe the talent level was lower.
1970’s: This was actually tough to figure out during our conversation. Mike Schmidt came to mind, but the problem is he started slow in the ‘70s and faded in the late ‘80’s. He kicked ass from 1976-1985. Johnny Bench came to mind. Reggie Jackson came to mind. We had decided that Willie Stargell would be viewed as the best of the 1970’s, but statistically evaluating them the same way as Musial, Mays and Mantle, the best ballplayer from the 1970’s was Pete Rose.
1980’s: The issue we face in the 1980’s and 1990’s is that roles seem to have specialized. In earlier decades we had legends that did everything. Ruth led the league in homeruns and batted in the mid .300s. Same for Musial, Mantle, Aaron etc. Once we get to the 1980’s we have Ricky Henderson who dominated in some categories and lagged in others. So for overall performance we narrow it down to Dawson, Brett and Yount. Again, evaluating them the way we did for the other decades, Dawson and Yount tie for the lead. I would love to say “you decide”. But we are all about making a statement here at the Monroe Doctrine, so the selection for the 1980’s is Dawson for year to year consistency.
1990’s: I hate him, he doesn’t deserve what he is about to receive, but in the 1990’s there was no one close to Barry Bonds. I don’t feel bad about including him here because statistically the questions for him arise in 2000 when his numbers should have started to tail off instead of take off.
I would enjoy your thoughts. Don’t agree? I don’t blame you, by tomorrow I may not agree with myself. Post your thoughts to the Forum.
During the pre-game ceremonies, Willie Mays came out and the announcer made a comment about him being the “Greatest Living Ballplayer”. It got Matt to thinking about about the greatest player from each decade. SIDE NOTE: Our criteria was that the player had to dominate all of the decade. Matt’s contention was that the early years provided easy, big stud winners and that the ‘70’s, ‘80’s and ‘90’s didn’t have the clearcut dominant choice. Here’s what his thoughts and the conversation generated (see if you have any problems with any of these guys being called “The Greatest Living Ballplayer”):
1910’s: Ty Cobb
1920’s: Babe Ruth
1930’s: Jimmie Foxx (This is a Rebel belief although I would be happy with Lou Gehrig. Foxx kicked booty for all ten years, while 1939 was the year Lou had to retire).
1940’s: Ted Williams (A strong argument can be made for Joe Dimaggio, but William’s numbers were just clearly superior.
1950’s: This one boiled down to Musial, Mantle & Mays. When you first look at them during that decade, it seems close. But upon closer evaluation of the top offensive stats, it’s really a two horse race between Musial and Mantle (Mays is a distant third). And for consistency and durability, the 1950’s belong to Musial.
1960’s: Hank Aaron (Willie Mays started to fade at the end of the 60’s although if we had half decades [1956-1965] Mays would most likely dominate).
And here’s where things get interesting. Matt pointed out that each of the previous decades you could point to one massive star (Ruth) or a bunch of really, really great ballplayers (Foxx, Gehrig; Mays, Mantle, Musial; Williams, Dimaggio) and no matter the name - you wouldn’t mind hearing them called “The Greatest Living Ballplayer”. But in the ‘70’s it wasn’t that obvious. Was it because we had seen these guys play and so they weren’t “immortal”? Was it because not only did we see these players in their hey day, we had actually most recently seen them when they were hanging on, unable to consistently catch up on a fastball? Or was the overall talent level lower than previous decades? I would think it’s part of the first two questions. With African-American players and Latin players getting their opportunity, I can’t believe the talent level was lower.
1970’s: This was actually tough to figure out during our conversation. Mike Schmidt came to mind, but the problem is he started slow in the ‘70s and faded in the late ‘80’s. He kicked ass from 1976-1985. Johnny Bench came to mind. Reggie Jackson came to mind. We had decided that Willie Stargell would be viewed as the best of the 1970’s, but statistically evaluating them the same way as Musial, Mays and Mantle, the best ballplayer from the 1970’s was Pete Rose.
1980’s: The issue we face in the 1980’s and 1990’s is that roles seem to have specialized. In earlier decades we had legends that did everything. Ruth led the league in homeruns and batted in the mid .300s. Same for Musial, Mantle, Aaron etc. Once we get to the 1980’s we have Ricky Henderson who dominated in some categories and lagged in others. So for overall performance we narrow it down to Dawson, Brett and Yount. Again, evaluating them the way we did for the other decades, Dawson and Yount tie for the lead. I would love to say “you decide”. But we are all about making a statement here at the Monroe Doctrine, so the selection for the 1980’s is Dawson for year to year consistency.
1990’s: I hate him, he doesn’t deserve what he is about to receive, but in the 1990’s there was no one close to Barry Bonds. I don’t feel bad about including him here because statistically the questions for him arise in 2000 when his numbers should have started to tail off instead of take off.
I would enjoy your thoughts. Don’t agree? I don’t blame you, by tomorrow I may not agree with myself. Post your thoughts to the Forum.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Potpourri of Fun
As we enter into the summer season, I offer you a potpourri for your senses.
Homerun call we’d love to hear: Call Pamela Anderson because Bay watches that one fly out of here!
Apparently what happened in Vegas, stayed in Vegas: Bad news to report – After scouring the World Series of Poker website, I could not see that Bob finished in the money in Event #25. (or Event #27) Since Bob appears to be a rather talented poker player, I can only attribute his poor luck to not having a cool poker nickname. A lot of the top players have great names. There’s Mike the Mouth, Amarillo Slim, The Professor (not our own Dave Holian, but Howard Lederer), The Unabomber, Fossilman. I think that’s what is holding Bob back. So to try and help him out, I’ve come up with some sure winners and a couple of alsorans.
* Plainfield Bob (Doesn’t really have a kick to it, nevermind)
* Insaniac (He is a father of four young ‘uns afterall)
* Red Hot Bob (A tribute to his grandfather and the CFCL all wrapped in one)
* Mr. Amazing (How does a guy convince his wife he should go to Vegas for a week and a half and gamble?)
* Dirty Rat Bastard (First year in the league last year and he finishes ahead of me, not to mention that this year he steals Kelly Johnson from me in the draft so I guess it would be . . . )
* . . . Double Dirty Rat Bastard
Can’t be right all the time: It appears that the Monroe Doctrine doesn’t share the same opinion as vaunted Tribune sportswriter, Teddy Greenstein. Teddy kicked out an article in advance of the Cubs/Sox series giving grades to the four baseball broadcast teams. He grades Santo/Hughes as an A-, even going so far as to laud Hughes for his overpronounciation of Matt Murton. I don’t know that they deserve an A, but I do have to give Hughes credit for taking his traditional 5th inning break while the Cubs were in Texas and therefore letting Corey Provis get the chance to call Sosa’s 600th homerun. Hughes obviously saw that Sosa was due up and anything was possible. But he didn’t bigtime Provis. Of course, if I were Hughes, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near Sosa and his 600th.
Greenstein did get one grade right. He gives Farmer/Singleton a D. If Farmer would show half the class and professionalism that Hughes does working with Santo, the Sox radio broadcast would actually be listenable.
Happy Anniverary: Yesterday to Ryne Sandberg and Bruce Sutter. Twenty three years ago marked the coming out party for Sandberg and the Division winning Cubs. And to celebrate, Uncle Lou managed like Don Zimmer in ’89. A good day all around.
Homerun call we’d love to hear: Call Pamela Anderson because Bay watches that one fly out of here!
Apparently what happened in Vegas, stayed in Vegas: Bad news to report – After scouring the World Series of Poker website, I could not see that Bob finished in the money in Event #25. (or Event #27) Since Bob appears to be a rather talented poker player, I can only attribute his poor luck to not having a cool poker nickname. A lot of the top players have great names. There’s Mike the Mouth, Amarillo Slim, The Professor (not our own Dave Holian, but Howard Lederer), The Unabomber, Fossilman. I think that’s what is holding Bob back. So to try and help him out, I’ve come up with some sure winners and a couple of alsorans.
* Plainfield Bob (Doesn’t really have a kick to it, nevermind)
* Insaniac (He is a father of four young ‘uns afterall)
* Red Hot Bob (A tribute to his grandfather and the CFCL all wrapped in one)
* Mr. Amazing (How does a guy convince his wife he should go to Vegas for a week and a half and gamble?)
* Dirty Rat Bastard (First year in the league last year and he finishes ahead of me, not to mention that this year he steals Kelly Johnson from me in the draft so I guess it would be . . . )
* . . . Double Dirty Rat Bastard
Can’t be right all the time: It appears that the Monroe Doctrine doesn’t share the same opinion as vaunted Tribune sportswriter, Teddy Greenstein. Teddy kicked out an article in advance of the Cubs/Sox series giving grades to the four baseball broadcast teams. He grades Santo/Hughes as an A-, even going so far as to laud Hughes for his overpronounciation of Matt Murton. I don’t know that they deserve an A, but I do have to give Hughes credit for taking his traditional 5th inning break while the Cubs were in Texas and therefore letting Corey Provis get the chance to call Sosa’s 600th homerun. Hughes obviously saw that Sosa was due up and anything was possible. But he didn’t bigtime Provis. Of course, if I were Hughes, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near Sosa and his 600th.
Greenstein did get one grade right. He gives Farmer/Singleton a D. If Farmer would show half the class and professionalism that Hughes does working with Santo, the Sox radio broadcast would actually be listenable.
Happy Anniverary: Yesterday to Ryne Sandberg and Bruce Sutter. Twenty three years ago marked the coming out party for Sandberg and the Division winning Cubs. And to celebrate, Uncle Lou managed like Don Zimmer in ’89. A good day all around.
Monday, July 9, 2007
Who's Your All-Star?
We are already at the Mid Summer Classic point of the baseball season. That means we have just finished the voting procedure implemented by baseball that Chicago politics has used for the past century – logging on to our computers and voting 25 times for the candidate we most want.
In a recent Baseball Tonight (seen locally on ESPN), the “experts” were providing their .02 on who should be the final member of the NL squad. Brandon Webb, Carlos Zambrano, Chris Young, Roy Oswalt and Tom Gorzelanny were the choices.
Barry Bonds apologist John Kruk said that Chris Young deserves to go and pointed to Young’s statistics as reasons why.
Steve Phillips says he would take Brandon Webb over Chris Young or others because he is looking at the possible match-ups later in the All-Star game (needing a strikeout late in the game). This is a very intriguing approach. Not surprisingly Phillips looked at it as “building a team” and trying to plan for various game scenarios. The problem is that Phillips is trying to round out the team based on match-ups to win the game and the rest of the team is put together based on popularity. Considering that the winner of the All-Star game dictates home field advantage for the World Series, Phillips’ is probably the best way to approach it, but the whole team isn’t picked that way.
You know, when I started to write this, it was going to be a complaint of how stupid the All-Star game selection (fan vote) is. Usually a city decides that Ryan Doumit deserves to be the starting catcher (much like Cincinnati did back in 1957 by electing seven starters (and leaving off Aaron and Mays). But when I look at the starting line-up for the NL (we’re not going to examine the AL because, well frankly, it’s the AL) I am amazed at how prescient the voters were.
Russell Martin at catcher – The right choice. LoDuca could have gotten the traditional love or McCann could have been voted in because of what he did the last two years.
Prince Fielder at first – This would have been easy for the fans to go with perennial All-Star Albert Pujols. But Fielder, again, is the right choice.
Chase Utley at second – Unless you’re voting for Biggio on the “What he’s done for the past 20 years” plan, again the right choice. Uggla started slow and could have ridden his success from last year, but the fans showed some intelligence.
Jose Reyes at shortstop – A lot of talented shortstops out there, but Reyes is head and shoulders above all of them this year. Rollins started hot, but his .323 OBP doesn’t cut it.
David Wright at third – Probably the best selection. Depending on what statistic you wanted to argue, you could say Cabrera or Ramirez is more worthy, but being close in Runs, RBI and Home Runs AND having 18 stolen bases pushes Wright to the top.
Now we get to the outfield where I have some issues. No, not because Cub Alfonso Soriano didn’t get voted in; but because Bonds did. The Bonds apologists can point to his high OBP, but he’s been streaky (like Soriano) and doesn’t play everyday due to age and injury.
The fans selected Carlos Beltran, Bonds and Ken Griffey Jr. Here’s where I think they made some mistakes. Matt Holiday should be starting. Carlos Lee should be starting. I guess I don’t have a problem with Junior, but Brad Hawpe deserves consideration and he didn’t even make the team.
Beltran made it on past performance, not this year’s merit and Bonds made it because baseball couldn’t imagine him not playing in (hopefully) his last All-Star game which happens to take place in his home park. Fortunately the remaining selection process (LaRussa and the players voting) brought Holliday and Lee on board.
Over the years I’ve heard guys argue that there doesn’t have to be a representative from every team. I always thought they were wrong. Not because they were, but because of the tradition. For as long as I can remember, each team has had a representative. But since the rules have changed (the winner deciding who has home field during the World Series) baseball should do away with every team getting a representative. Freddy Sanchez is having a season that wouldn’t be worthy of All-Star consideration in High Rookie Ball, but there he is, headed for Frisco by the Bay. If Pittsburgh has to have a rep, Gorzelanny should be the one going. So with this archaic rule, baseball still can’t get it right.
Then I started thinking from a ballplayer’s perspective. While going to an All-Star Game as a player would be cool as hell, imagine being the Freddy Sanchez (or Robert Fick) example. Forever you would be known as an All-Star but in your mind you would know it was only because you were (supposedly) the best player on a pathetic team. The only accomplishment, wasn’t a great year with superior statistics, it was having signed with a bad team that had to send a representative.
Again, Bud, if you’re going to do it right, do it right the whole way. Look at the big picture and understand that if you want the game to be meaningful (and you created the rule for it to be meaningful) you should give both leagues the opportunity to create a team they feel is best suited to accomplish the goal.
In a recent Baseball Tonight (seen locally on ESPN), the “experts” were providing their .02 on who should be the final member of the NL squad. Brandon Webb, Carlos Zambrano, Chris Young, Roy Oswalt and Tom Gorzelanny were the choices.
Barry Bonds apologist John Kruk said that Chris Young deserves to go and pointed to Young’s statistics as reasons why.
Steve Phillips says he would take Brandon Webb over Chris Young or others because he is looking at the possible match-ups later in the All-Star game (needing a strikeout late in the game). This is a very intriguing approach. Not surprisingly Phillips looked at it as “building a team” and trying to plan for various game scenarios. The problem is that Phillips is trying to round out the team based on match-ups to win the game and the rest of the team is put together based on popularity. Considering that the winner of the All-Star game dictates home field advantage for the World Series, Phillips’ is probably the best way to approach it, but the whole team isn’t picked that way.
You know, when I started to write this, it was going to be a complaint of how stupid the All-Star game selection (fan vote) is. Usually a city decides that Ryan Doumit deserves to be the starting catcher (much like Cincinnati did back in 1957 by electing seven starters (and leaving off Aaron and Mays). But when I look at the starting line-up for the NL (we’re not going to examine the AL because, well frankly, it’s the AL) I am amazed at how prescient the voters were.
Russell Martin at catcher – The right choice. LoDuca could have gotten the traditional love or McCann could have been voted in because of what he did the last two years.
Prince Fielder at first – This would have been easy for the fans to go with perennial All-Star Albert Pujols. But Fielder, again, is the right choice.
Chase Utley at second – Unless you’re voting for Biggio on the “What he’s done for the past 20 years” plan, again the right choice. Uggla started slow and could have ridden his success from last year, but the fans showed some intelligence.
Jose Reyes at shortstop – A lot of talented shortstops out there, but Reyes is head and shoulders above all of them this year. Rollins started hot, but his .323 OBP doesn’t cut it.
David Wright at third – Probably the best selection. Depending on what statistic you wanted to argue, you could say Cabrera or Ramirez is more worthy, but being close in Runs, RBI and Home Runs AND having 18 stolen bases pushes Wright to the top.
Now we get to the outfield where I have some issues. No, not because Cub Alfonso Soriano didn’t get voted in; but because Bonds did. The Bonds apologists can point to his high OBP, but he’s been streaky (like Soriano) and doesn’t play everyday due to age and injury.
The fans selected Carlos Beltran, Bonds and Ken Griffey Jr. Here’s where I think they made some mistakes. Matt Holiday should be starting. Carlos Lee should be starting. I guess I don’t have a problem with Junior, but Brad Hawpe deserves consideration and he didn’t even make the team.
Beltran made it on past performance, not this year’s merit and Bonds made it because baseball couldn’t imagine him not playing in (hopefully) his last All-Star game which happens to take place in his home park. Fortunately the remaining selection process (LaRussa and the players voting) brought Holliday and Lee on board.
Over the years I’ve heard guys argue that there doesn’t have to be a representative from every team. I always thought they were wrong. Not because they were, but because of the tradition. For as long as I can remember, each team has had a representative. But since the rules have changed (the winner deciding who has home field during the World Series) baseball should do away with every team getting a representative. Freddy Sanchez is having a season that wouldn’t be worthy of All-Star consideration in High Rookie Ball, but there he is, headed for Frisco by the Bay. If Pittsburgh has to have a rep, Gorzelanny should be the one going. So with this archaic rule, baseball still can’t get it right.
Then I started thinking from a ballplayer’s perspective. While going to an All-Star Game as a player would be cool as hell, imagine being the Freddy Sanchez (or Robert Fick) example. Forever you would be known as an All-Star but in your mind you would know it was only because you were (supposedly) the best player on a pathetic team. The only accomplishment, wasn’t a great year with superior statistics, it was having signed with a bad team that had to send a representative.
Again, Bud, if you’re going to do it right, do it right the whole way. Look at the big picture and understand that if you want the game to be meaningful (and you created the rule for it to be meaningful) you should give both leagues the opportunity to create a team they feel is best suited to accomplish the goal.
Monday, July 2, 2007
Four Your Consumption
As our forefathers provided us with the liberty we currently enjoy and celebrate on July 4th we will forego with the foreplay (something Grage hasn’t seen in a while either) and embark on a journey to enjoy the number 4.
We could start chronologically and recognize that Georgia became the fourth state of the union on January 2, 1788, beating Connecticut by a week. Or we could go back a few months and revisit our draft. Albert Pujols was the fourth player (and most expensive) drafted. Carlos Delgado was the first player that took four minutes to draft. Dustin Hermanson (who?) was the first player drafted for .04. The fourth round took 40 minutes to complete. All of which led to the teams we currently have and The Kenndoza Line being in fourth place.
To be a little less geocentric we could look to the heavens and realize that Mars is the fourth planet from the sun. Mars gave the name to March, but April is the fourth month of the year.
Going back to a baseball theme, the Lambchops were the fourth owner (of the current twelve) to join the CFCL but the Splinters and Kenndoza Line are in their fourth year with the CFCL. Four of our owners are single and a fourth of our owners live outside of Illinois. Is it fore-shadowing that the fourth letter in the alphabet is “D” (as in Dem Rebels) and that Mars is known as the Red Planet (Red being the main uniform color of Dem Rebels) that Dem Rebels are on their way to the next fourth of what will hopefully someday be four CFCL Championships? Or has their owner simply had a fourth of vodka to drink?
Lou Gehrig, known as the Iron Horse (Iron being in Period 4 on the Periodic Chart and horse being a four legged equine) and Don Zimmer (who managed the Cubs for four years) both wore number 4.
Keep in mind the reason for the season, our country is celebrating its 231st year of freedom and when you plug that into this mathematical for-mula it reads 2(3-1) = 4!
While I wish each of you a Happy 4th of July I also wish a safe one for you as well. Please come back with four fingers (and a thumb) on each hand.
As we begin our holiday celebration I send you off with the appropriate warning: “FORE!”
We could start chronologically and recognize that Georgia became the fourth state of the union on January 2, 1788, beating Connecticut by a week. Or we could go back a few months and revisit our draft. Albert Pujols was the fourth player (and most expensive) drafted. Carlos Delgado was the first player that took four minutes to draft. Dustin Hermanson (who?) was the first player drafted for .04. The fourth round took 40 minutes to complete. All of which led to the teams we currently have and The Kenndoza Line being in fourth place.
To be a little less geocentric we could look to the heavens and realize that Mars is the fourth planet from the sun. Mars gave the name to March, but April is the fourth month of the year.
Going back to a baseball theme, the Lambchops were the fourth owner (of the current twelve) to join the CFCL but the Splinters and Kenndoza Line are in their fourth year with the CFCL. Four of our owners are single and a fourth of our owners live outside of Illinois. Is it fore-shadowing that the fourth letter in the alphabet is “D” (as in Dem Rebels) and that Mars is known as the Red Planet (Red being the main uniform color of Dem Rebels) that Dem Rebels are on their way to the next fourth of what will hopefully someday be four CFCL Championships? Or has their owner simply had a fourth of vodka to drink?
Lou Gehrig, known as the Iron Horse (Iron being in Period 4 on the Periodic Chart and horse being a four legged equine) and Don Zimmer (who managed the Cubs for four years) both wore number 4.
Keep in mind the reason for the season, our country is celebrating its 231st year of freedom and when you plug that into this mathematical for-mula it reads 2(3-1) = 4!
While I wish each of you a Happy 4th of July I also wish a safe one for you as well. Please come back with four fingers (and a thumb) on each hand.
As we begin our holiday celebration I send you off with the appropriate warning: “FORE!”
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