Mike Downey Makes Me Laugh

In a dark and mordant way, of course.

The highly estimable Trib columnist (and avowed White Sox Fan, for those of you who believe that sort of thing influences the coverage) used this weekend's washed-out games as an excuse to write another of his patently stupid pieces.

In a nutshell: Carlos Zambrano and Fukudome suck ass. Nick Swisher and Clayton Richard are the bees' knees.

Most amusing was this nugget o' joy. Don't you dare crack on Downey's boys:

Ozzie Guillen nevertheless has had his Sox in first place for more than 100 days. He continues to get criticized by people who seem to believe that being in first place for most of four or five months is easy as pie (and I don't mean Felix).

I even read a couple of days ago that the Sox are "unraveling." They are? When was that? The day they almost fell way down to second place?

It's a fair cop. But it also jogged something in my memory that led me back to the archives.

What was Downey saying back on 27 July? Why, he was carping about another team that was "unraveling:"

Well, you fun-loving, song-singing, "W"-flag-waving Cubs fans, you still feeling confident in the Confines? Did you see this coming?

Who knew?

Who knew before Saturday's 12-inning, 3-2 defeat at Wrigley Field that your team's customary "June Swoon" would turn out to be a July one instead?

According to the good folks at Baseball Reference.com, the Cubs were tied for first place with the Brewers heading into action on the 27th.

Sweet zombie Jesus! That's just like almost falling way down to second place!

Since then (again, according to the Baseball Reference.com folks), the Cubs are 28-14, even with their recent crappy streak.

For those of you scoring at home, that's a .667 winning percentage. Not that anyone at the Tower would tell you that. Or about Geo Soto winning the Rookie of the Month award (but that's another story).

Poohhead 1991?-2008

My big buddy left me this morning. He'd been sick for a while, but the vet had just called me this morning to tell me that the test results from yesterday had shown a lot of improvement, and so I was happy, thinking that he and I would have a while together still. A few minutes later I walked into my front yard, and I knew as soon as I saw him that he was gone.

Poohhead chose to move in with me right about the time was getting divorced, and ever since then he's always been there for me to talk to. He was a big kitty, and very passive most of the time, but every so often he'd really surprise me by going after another cat for being in his bushes. He'd be there every afternoon to meet my car when I came home from work.

Before Pooh came to stay with me, I didn't even especially like cats. I learned that, no matter what a lot of people think, cats are very loving and very loyal to people who earn their trust. Thank you for trusting me, big guy. I miss you already.