2004: The Shot Heard Round The World & An Omen

Mike again played Pony in 2004.  His team that year let him pitch.  He actually did OK. 

But the baseball mistress is fickle and she served him up well that year.  Mike finally played a team that had one of his best friends, Tim McCole.  Mike wanted to get Tim out in the worst way.

That's Tim vs. Mike at the plate above, moments before Tim sends a ball high into the air into center field.  High but not deep.  The center fielder had a clear bead on the thing and....he dropped it.  Tim I think ended up a 2nd base.  Cy Young there on the mound was a red with anger as the color of his jersey.

Two more important thing happened that fall.  On omen perhaps of bad things to come.

The Cubs blew the Wild Card, giving up a 1.5 game lead they held on September 25....

....And this {pictured below} happened.

2003: Of Ponies, Bartman & Corked Bats.

Mike began his final tour around the River Forest Baseball Leagues with Pony Ball.  Pony is an intermediate stage before high school.  The nice thing about it was that it was an entirely different group of coaches who had little preconceived notions of what positions Mike should play.  That first year he moved around a lot but played a lot of third base.  The earlier picture that shows him swinging at a ball 2 feet over his head was from this year.  Below is the full sequence of that pitch.

The Cubs though possibly witnessed their worst heartbreak since the 1984 season when Leon Durham let a ground ball go through his gloves.  Many are aware that the Cubs were close to going to the World Series in 2003.  Many don't know that the Cubs were 5 outs away from reaching Nervana when a fluke pop up ball was deflected away in the stands by a fan named Steve Bartman.  The Cubbies became unglued and gave up 8 runs in the inning.  There was still another game to be played but it was all over but the shouting.  Cubs were never really in game 7 of the NLCS.

2003 was also the year of Sammy Sosa's corked bat and the years of possible steriod use became louder in baseball.  For the record Sosa has never been found to have used anything.  Neither has Lance Armstrong.

Baseball: Majors.

Mike played two years of Majors Baseball in River Forest.

The team his first year went to the Championship Game. His team was no-hit/perfect pitched by former Chicago Bulls player Randy Brown's son.

The next year his team was again favored as one of the top contenders but somehow they couldn't put it together and there was another early round exit.

Those years the Cubs also returned to their mediocre form.  Mike was still swinging at high pitches.

We Interrupt This Progarm

OK here's a major screw up.  I think I have the years wrong, meaning that I have Michael a year ahead of where he ought to be.  Time being what it is just bump up the years on his baseball career to this point.  The stories remain the same even if the year's wrong.  My bad or as somebody else could say right back. 

Way to go there sport.

1999: You Peaked Too Soon.

The Cubs returned to mediocrity in 1999.  Not so Mike's team, his 2nd year in Minor's Baseball.  That year his team was supposed to be pretty good.  The most important factor was that his team had a pretty good stable of pitching which is what wins at that level {it also wins at the major league level}. 

Mike's team cruised through the early part of the season.  At one point they administered a whipping to a team coached by one of my very good friends, Tom Verticchio.  Now Tom is a guy with lot's of competitive years of baseball under his belt, including both high school and college.  So Tom has a pretty good eye for the "horse flesh" at Mike's level.  As they went through the handshake lines after that game Tom uttered some of the most prophetic words I've every heard, "Congrats Mike but you team's peaked too soon".

That game proved to be the high water mark of the year.  Between injuries and mediocre pitching performances, the team struggled to finish out the regular season.  They took a dive in the playoffs and were promptly finished off.

No words uttered have ever proven more accurate. 

1998: Wild Cards & Home Runs.

Elsewhere in baseball the Cubs also defied expectations by making it to the playoffs as a wildcard team that year.  We briefly discussed their wild card loss earlier.  What stands out the most from that year was the home run race between Mark McGwire and the Cub's Sammy Sosa.  The media attention for the two was constant.  First it was to see who could surpass Roger Maris' old 61 home run mark.  After both passed that milestone the race was on to see who could hit the most for the year.  

Mike and I were at the Cubs game on September 13, 1998.  In that game Sammy Sosa hit home run numbers 61 & 62.  For a time he held that record to himself.  McGwire would surpass it later that night and then go on to win the race for the whole year.  But for a brief moment Mike and I witnessed baseball history.  It's still one of my favorite live sports memories.  Even better that I got to see it with him.

As a post script Sosa actually hit a third ball that day that would have been a home run but it drifted foul and out of the park.  

1998: Cheating

I previously stated that Mike's first year of Minors Baseball wasn't supposed to be a championship year.  However, Mike had two great coaches who molded this group of novices into a pretty good team.  They were so good that they managed to get to the semi-finals of the playoffs and had previously dispatched the team expected to win the whole thing.  Now River Forest in those days gave you a 2nd shot if you lost early in the playoffs.  You went into the loser's bracket.  It was this same team that Mike and the gang had to play again to go to the championship game. 

Mike's team jumped to an early lead and held it into the final inning.  Here's the picture.  Two outs with the other team down by a run.  Tying run is at third.  Pitcher throws the ball, opposing coach sends the runner on third towards home.  Catcher sees the kid coming and loses focus on the ball which goes to the backstop.  Problem:  This is a no steal league.  Problem:  Coach sends kid anyway.  Problem:  All parents and the kids on the bench see coach tell kid to go.  Problem:  Umpire didn't see it.  So the run is allowed to stand.  Mike's team loses in extra innings. 

This marks three developments in Mike's young life.  1.} He learns that some people will cheat to get ahead.  2} He learns that some people are A**holes.  3.} It will mark the beginning of Mike's being close to the "Big One" without being able to grab the brass ring.