Pitchers and catchers reported to the Cubs’ spring training facility in Mesa, Arizona this week. The Cubs have a new center fielder and leadoff man, Juan Pierre. This marks the official end of the tragic Corey Patterson era.
Sammy Sosa, exiled to Baltimore last year for an oversized ego and shrinking stats, seems about to retire from baseball.
On paper, the Cubs have a tremendous starting pitching staff, a world beater in Derek Lee and a couple of good position players. Middle relief remains a question mark, and two huge holes in the outfield must be patched up. The big question: Will Kerry Wood stay healthy?
But hope springs eternal. Any team can have a bad century!
I never took Myrna to a game at Wrigley Field. I think often now of what we did, and what we did not do. When we met in Chicago in the middle of winter, I took her to Wrigley in a cab in the middle of the night. It was one of those bitterly cold nights in the Windy City, with snow swirling in the air to add to the insult. Myrna was wearing the tiniest of open toe heels.
“I’m not walking in this,” she told me.
So, I hoisted her up piggy-back on my shoulders and carried her around the great shrine of Cubdom. We’d just had dinner and a couple of drinks, so it seemed like a lark.
We never attended a Cub game together at Wrigley. The ache never goes away, Myrna. I still wonder, every moment, where you have gone. You were always in such a hurry. How will I find you again in the next life?
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