The other nice feature of this great new job sked I’m on now is the 84-hour gap between the end of one work week and the start of another. It’s plenty of time to get outta town for a little fun before worrying about the return.
I hit suburban Chicago on the off days this past weekend. My folks threw an Easter Sunday bash at their place in Huntley, IL My Mom made a ham. My Dad hammed it up. It was a crowd of 16 regulars plus me. I’ve missed most of these gatherings over the last decade but now I can slip in for some of them on a Saturday night.
Cub fan Dan brought a coconut cream pie and a banana cream pie. The coconut was delish. Every element of the pie was extraordinary. So was the bunny-shaped cake made by my sister-in-law Fran.
The weather was 75 and sunny. It was a good day to celebrate the end of a long, cold winter.
On Monday I went to the dentist so the hygienist could excavate jelly beans stuck in my teeth. That afternoon, my Dad and I attended an exciting high school baseball game in Marengo, IL. It rained off and on throughout as Marengo HS knocked off Elgin Larkin 5-4 in eight innings.
The scars of Chicagoland’s tougher-than-usual winter could be seen on Marengo’s bumpy, browned-out infield. The outfield grass was iffy, too. Still, this was a fun, non-conference high school baseball game that included multiple lead changes and significant tension over a questionable balk call by the home plate umpire.
Lanky Larkin righthander Tanner Gardon (listed at 6-6) got himself into a bases loaded jam in the second inning with his team up 1-nil. Unexpectedly, the home plate ump called a balk which brought in Marengo’s first run. This kinda rattled Gardon (pictured above – center) and was really not the call you want to see in that situation from an umpire in a high school baseball game. Umps should not be looking for subtle, hard-to-detect failures by the pitcher to hold the set. Not with the bases loaded. Not when the kid is already struggling. Why not quietly offer a verbal if you notice something irregular or deceptive in the motion? Or if you have to call a balk, why not call it with a runner on first. This was an attempt by blue to insert himself into the game.
The response from Larkin’s head coach Matt Esterino was remarkably cool and collected. A series of subsequent bad calls from both of the game’s umpires went mostly against Larkin later and each time Esterino calmly sought an explanation and then reminded his squad to remain positive. It was very gratifying to witness Esterino’s bold display of good sportsmanship when the situation could easily have devolved into heckling and hostility.
I flew back Tuesday morning on the first departure out of O’Hare to LaGuardia. The sun was coming up on a new day as the 737-800 launched due east. I got a pretty good look at the city (pictured above) from my window seat on the right side of the aircraft.
When I got back to my Queens neighborhood, several blocks were taped off as firefighters sprayed water on the smoldering remains of a big building fire on 37th Avenue from the night before. My councilman Dan Dromm spoke with curious constituents and Channel 7’s Lisa Colagrossi could be seen standing outside the security perimeter. The Argentinean steakhouse and Italian restaurant housed below where the five-alarm fire gutted a vocational college above appear to both be badly damaged.