Three weeks since my last post. No excuses. I started a new job on April 6th and I’ve never learned so much or felt like my brain had been squashed and fried to a level mush as I have in the past three weeks. I get home and all I can do is ‘tweet’ and watch the game. Statistical analysis and even witty retorts when I get home regarding the Cubs and the Majors are hard to come by when you feel like 90% of your brain isn’t working. You’ve heard the term ‘leave it all out on the field’? That’s how I feel like my brain capacity has been performing. I get home at night and I feel like I have 10% left. That’s basically enough for me to remember how to put the key in the door, eat dinner and log on to MLB.TV and watch the game. A few nights I didn’t even get out of the office until 11:00pm. I was able to log in at the office and watch the game because no one else was around but man my brain could use a little performance enhancing drugs lately.
But like I said in the above paragraph, no excuses. I should be blogging. It’s one of the things I enjoy most and if I’m going to hope you guys keep coming back to visit, I know how important it is to keep posting. I kick this one off like this because of the comment Jeff left in the Prose and Ivy Chat room in the column to the right. You’re right dude, my bad. This baseball season has been unreal so far…lots to talk about. Whatever I can muster up, I’m sure I can manage to unlock the door, eat dinner and log on to MLB.TV on only like 5% brain power and blog with the other 5%. You’re right, my bad.
I’ll admit too, without going into details, I’ve been straight up bummed lately. I’ve been performing stand up comedy for eleven and a half years now, acting for about half of that and producing tv/film projects for half of THAT, including a few pilots for my own shows that I created and have pitched to networks. Simply to get this off my chest before diving into baseball because I really haven’t told anyone about it and it’s really effected my desire to write lately, I recently found out that an idea of mine may have been straight up stolen by a network. I won’t say who and I won’t say what, but I will say this. A production company I have a deal with to represent my pilot in the marketplace recently pitched the project to said network. They loved the idea. They thought it would be a great companion to another show they have in the same genre. When they said what they show was, I couldn’t believe my ears. They were basically telling the production company in the pitch that my new idea would pair up nicely to a show they have coming out and without them knowing that the production company that was pitching it to them was representing me…basically…without them knowing who they were talking to…stated that they have a show I pitched to them a year ago. They loved it and thought it’d be perfect for their demographic yet nothing happened. ONE year later and all of a sudden they have a show JUST like it coming out…that I CREATED. It’s up to the lawyers to do their thing now, but I seriously can’t believe it. I commit eleven and a half years of my life to my career in comedy and just like that, instead of enjoying what should be an amazing time in my career, successfully getting a show I created that I would write, produce and star in on the air…I have to deal with this crappy side of it where it seems to have been stolen out from under me. Some executive at the network with no tie to the dedication and amount of time that I’ve poured into my career does something completely unethical and now here I am in this position. It sucks. It seriously sucks. And it’s effected my desire to do a whole lot of anything accompanied with the exhaustion of the new job.
Anyway. I came to the page today and while I’ve occasionally posted a comment in my chat box or a tweet on Twitter over the past few weeks, I hadn’t really blogged. When I came on today and saw Jeff’s comment about me not blogging in a while, it bummed me out further. I love this blog, I love following the Cubbies and love communicating with everyone on here about the season. Can’t let frustration or exhaustion get in the way of my enjoyment on here and I’ll have to remember that going forward. Thanks for the kick in the **** there Jeff, appreciate it.
ALL of that being said (phew) game and a half out tonight as it stands and a crazy season so far across baseball and in the NL Central. I can’t believe we’re looking at four team race and I can’t help but wonder if it will hold up the entire season. I can’t help but hope the Big Z comes around and the injury bugs decide to fly elsewhere for a bit. The article on here about Fukudome and his old batting coach recovering his old stroke was really interesting. Comparing hitting to boxing is really smart. Have to use your legs and transfer the power properly or else you’re going nowhere. Hopefully Fukudome will keep it going throughout the entire season this year since he’s got one year under his belt and doesn’t have to worry about things like moving his entire family over and adapting completely to a whole new environment and batch of new teammates.
Soriano looks great, it’d be great if Lee would wake up. Bradley for that matter. I feel like if Bradley were to come around and Lee wakes up, this is going to be a whole different race in the Central. I can’t believe we’re only 1.5 games out with the injuries we’ve had to Z, Lee, Zambrano, Bradley, Ramirez, Soto…and on and on. This team, healthy…very dangerous. Can’t wait to see us heal and start tearing away in the Central. No expectations…but come on. This roster, healthy? Good stuff.
I don’t know about sticking with Gregg. Long term anyway. I understand we’re only midway through May so I wouldn’t quite jump the gun and make the switch yet either (to Marmol) but seriously, Gregg has to be on the on the edge of his seat and looking into his rearview mirror all season long knowing that there is a perfectly capable firethrower that could step in and take over in a second. We’re lucky to have the situation we have with two capable pitchers with some teams barely competing with closers that can hardly claim to put any real fear in the opposing batters. Just need Gregg to be more consistent and then no reason to look in the rearview and all the world to be confident, use Marmol’s gun to set him up and close out the eighth before Gregg shuts ’em down in the ninth.
I like the way Piniella has worked the rosters and obtained the most out of this bunch this year. Can’t be easy when the middle of the lineup is mush. I know about mush. Not easy to work with.
Here something maybe some of you Cubs fans can answer for me…here’s Cubs.com photo of this year’s Cubs to vote for for the All-Star game.
Prose and Ivy 