Don't Stop Believin'

My Great Aunt Gladys was a big baseball fan. Her old black and white photo albums contained pictures of her outside the Baltimore stadium in the '50s or so. I remember her being particularly fond of the Kansas City Royals during the late-70s and early 80's during the George Brett era. I believe her allegiance to the Royals stemmed from the fact that our family roots stretched down into Missouri. She would make occasional visits down there to visit her nieces and nephews. So, I guess that you can say that the love I have for the game of baseball was nurtured by Aunt Gladys since I spent a lot of time with her growing up.

Putting that aside, my first real baseball memories come from attending White Sox games at the old Comiskey Park as a kid. I can clearly remember attending a game right before the start of school when they gave away school supplies to all of the kids in attendance. It was a night game and I sat in those old wooden seats with my mom, Bill, Camille, Phil, and others. I was enthralled with the box of round reinforcing stickers used for fixing torn loose-leaf paper holes that was in my giveaway bag. In true Veeck fashion, there was an after-game firework show, too. The old, exploding scoreboard brought lots of excitement to the old ball park.

As I got older, I fell under the spell of the Cubs and spent many summer afternoons in the bleachers at Wrigley watching the '84 Cubs during that historic year. My allegiance is to the City of Chicago. I do not bleed Cubby blue any more than my southside pride causes me to jump up and down and throw my hands up in the air as I witness history in the presence of my daughters on a chilly October night.

The White Sox are the 2005 World Series Champions! Did I just type that? Yes, the Chicago White Sox swept the Houston Astros with a team that truly represented the melting pot of America. A team that worked hard together without the ego that inflates many of today's professional athletes. I saw it with my own eyes and will savor it my mind for the years to come. Perhaps, my girls will tell the story to their own children one day, too.

Do you remember where you were?

Marquette Park and Chocolate Chip Cookies

I ditched most of my workouts last week due to a nagging end-of-the-summer cold. The paranoid part of myself thinks that the mosquito which bit me the week before gave me the West Nile Virus. The logical part of myself believes that my post-race recovery somewhat weakened my immune system after the Nike 10K Run Hit Wonder on 9/23/05.

It has been hard to sleep. I'm tired of coughing. The show must go on; so, in order to not loose what I've worked so hard to attain, I headed out this morning at 6:30 a.m. for what I now call my Sunday long run up to and through Marquette Park. It was 55 degrees outside and the sun was just coming up. Autumn mornings. A "Dry Fit" shirt that is amazing. A portable CD player that does not skip (yet). The turn onto 67th Street that leads to the park. Air filling my worn lungs. Out of nowhere, the smell of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies fills the air. Keep running because that is what you're here for. Scattered morning greetings to the familiar faces that I have encountered since I began this route back in early August. Smiling faces of different colors. The older Hispanic man. The African-American woman who walks with a big stick and shly says hello. The seasoned runner who once said, "good pace." The glasses-wearing gentleman who I pass right around 7:00 a.m. who is training for the Chicago Marathon. How can I tell? You just can ... from his form, the t-shirts he wears, his seriousness ... but he always raises his hand to say his hello. We are this odd community of runners who meet once a week in the fabled park that Dr. Martin Luther King once marched through ... if he were to see this diversity, he'd realize that his dream is coming true.