Game #36 - Cubs vs. Nats

Game #36 – Cubs vs. Nationals
Monday, August 19, 2013
Heather, Wigs & Julie

No Sunday game for us this week, as it was time for “forced family fun” as Kevin’s family likes to call it. We are closing in on 40 baseball games, but have some work to do on the 40 restaurants. Wigs put together a list of the “Final 15”, saying I had veto rights on 3 of them. Ha ha. Will keep you all posted.

Beautiful night on Monday – warm, but not too hot. Perfect night for baseball! Before the game, we heard that David DeJesus was traded to the Nationals. Sad to see him go – he seemed like a stand-up guy who provided leadership in the clubhouse.

Great game – Samardzija pitched well and got the run support he’d been lacking in his last few starts. He had a complete game with 105 pitches (his 2nd this year) and 5 strikouts with no walks. He’s got 168 strikeouts on the year, which is 4th in the NL (behind Harvey of the Mets w/187, Kershaw of the Dodgers w/182 and Wainwright of STL w/173). Yu Darvish of Texas is leading the Majors with 214. Wow.

There were 5 home runs by the Cubs – 2 each by Schierholtz and Donnie Murphy (!) and one by Dioner Navarro – all to right or center field. Fun times! There was one HR by the Nats that went to Waveland Avenue. Even better – the game only went 2 hours and 14 minutes. I guess that’s what happens when 10 of the 11 runs are scored on homers. Zip, zip, zip.

A couple funny things: as I was getting ready to leave for the game, I looked at my watch and it was 5 to 7. Yikes – so in my hurry to leave, I grabbed the next game tickets from my season ticket book and headed out. Well, when I got to the gates, my ticket wouldn’t work. I thought maybe I gave them the ticket I sold on Stub Hub, so gave them the other ticket. That didn’t work either. The scanner guy looked at the ticket and they were yesterday’s tickets. Ugh. He told me to go over to the box office and see if they could help. I did that, and they were able to print a new ticket for me. (Phew - if I had to go home, I was not coming back… Which would have been a bummer since it was such a good game.) So back around to bleacher entrance, and into the game. And I just missed Schierholtz’s homer (in bottom of the 1st), which went right behind Heather/Wigs and the guy sitting right behind Wigs ended up getting the ball.

Later on in the game, Schierholtz threw a ball up between innings, and the guy who got the home run ball, was going for it. I’m not sure if he tipped the ball or someone else did, but in slow motion, the guy was losing his balance, falling down 3 rows and across the aisle, bent left leg way backward, his back also bent at an unnatural looking angle, and I thought he was going to face plant. He somehow came up with the ball and didn’t kill himself in the process. I was trying to stay away from the kerfuffle, and was practically in Wigs’ lap. (Sorry Wigs.) Wigs’ thought he was going to faceplant and die. I’m sure he’s sore today. And whoever stopped his fall is probably sore too. Was it really worth it??? Crazy.

Recap:

Cubs Win 11-1

My season record: Visitors 23, Cubs 13 (a .361 winning percentage…)

Parking update: No update today