Spring Training,Cubs tickets and other random thoughts
Spring training kicked off yesterday. Baseball is back and for me it doesn’t get any sweeter than that. The Cubs opened up the Cactus League by facing the very same team that eliminated from postseason play, The Los Angeles Dodgers. How ironic? I guess the schedule maker has a sense of humor. Unlike the playoffs the Cubs beat the Dodgers, the Manny-less Dodgers that is. I know it’s only spring training, but it is nice to start off winning and build the confidence up over a 162 game season. The Cubs don’t have too many question this spring, but they do need to figure out a few issues. The competition for the fifth starter spot is going to be interesting. Sean Marshall, Aaron Heilman, Jeff Samardzija and Chad Gaudin are all in the hunt for that final spot in the rotation.
Now Piniella has said that Marshall has a leg up on all of them, but I have a feeling Hielman may surprise a few people this spring if he is healthy. There is just a vibe I have about him. Also the starting job at second base is up for grabs as well. After trading DeRosa much to the ire of the fans second base became open. It’s between Mike Fontenot and Aaron Miles. I’m guessing that they’ll split time between the both of them. I wonder why we keep picking up St. Louis rejects. Miles and Taguchi. Edmonds was the exception. I got my Cubs tickets over the weekend.
Me and my family will be going to 50 games. Only two games were sold-out that we wanted. A game against St.Louis on a Saturday, which is to be expected. It’s the weekend and the Cardinals are a big draw. The other game left me scratching my head as to why it was sold out. A Tuesday night game against Houston. Weird.
I had an interesting experience with the ticket agent on Saturday morning. He thought I was some sort of drug dealer or some counterfeiter because when I handed him the money I was given to pay for the tickets he gave me shit about it saying, ” Nobody comes here with that kind of money.” and threatened to make sure I couldn’t buy anymore tickets the rest of the day. I made another trip back after the ordeal without issue, but the guy had no right to make that kind of accusation. I didn’t let it bother me considering I had my tickets and that’s all that mattered to me.
Switching gears here, I found out when a few of my favorite TV shows will return. I was watching Adult Swim on Cartoon Network and they flashed a screen with the date for new Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Hell yeah! I love me some Aqua Teen. March 29. What is interesting about the new season is four of the first new episodes came out on the sixth season DVD, but I’ll watch them regardless because ATHF is the shit. Also returning this April is Rescue Me.
New episodes start April 7th. I got hooked on this show after a TV class I took here at Columbia showed us the pilot episode. The show is amazing and I’m geeked for some new episodes. It’s on FX so they can push the envelope a bit. If they were on any of the basic networks like CBS,NBC,ABC or Fox they probably wouldn’t be able to get away with most stuff they say or do. This show, like most were wiped out by the writers strike last year. So in order to keep fans around they created these mini-episodes that aired over the summer.
Some were pretty goo while others not so good. One in particular was the one where they recreated the moments before they got the call for 9/11. A very powerful episode. It left me a loss for words when I read the newspaper that was thrown on the table after they left the room and the date said September 11, 2001. Even better news is that FX picked up the show for a sixth season before the fifth season has even aired. 22 episodes in season five along with 18 additional episodes for the sixth. Not too shabby if you ask me.
I saw a preview for Watchmen and it looked ridiculously good. Now I’ve never read the comic or have any knowledge of the series, but based off of the preview I saw I would definitely want to see it. That is all for now. Until next time.
