Part II, April 3-April 9

Hey Hey! Holy Cow! It's Baseball Time!

To give you an idea of how incredibly pumped I am for this 2004 baseball season, let me say I hate exclamation points. I think they’re overused. My previous 24 columns contained a total of four exclamation points, and two of those were in the one I wrote about the Cubs during last year’s playoffs. For those of you scoring at home, that’s seven Cub-related exclamation points out of nine.

Monday is Opening Day, marking the end of an agonizing 182 day wait since Game Seven of the National League Championship Series. For five-and-a-half long months, my fellow Cub fans and I have waited for this season, tortured by thoughts of what-ifs and endless replays of the disaster that was Game Six. But that will all be over soon. It’s springtime, and it’s a new season.

I know what some of you “Cub fans” are thinking. “Wait a second? They play baseball in April? Are you sure? ‘Cause, uh, I didn’t buy my Cub hat until September.” Yes, there’s baseball in April. Amazing, but true.

All ribbing aside, this column represents a terrific opportunity for those of you who jumped on the bandwagon late last year, because I am inviting all you “Cub fans” to experience an entire season of Chicago Cubs baseball absolutely free. After just a few short months, you’ll be so thrilled with the joy of following the Cubs I guarantee you’ll want to stick around for the rest of this season and many seasons to come.

Being a Cub fan is not easy, though it may sometimes look like it is. A common misconception about Cub fans is that we don’t care how the team does as long as we have fun. Certainly there are people who go to Wrigley just to have a good time. I will not deny that. But true Cub fans—and there are many of us—care deeply about the Cubbies. We are Chicago fans, and Chicago fans are among the most loyal and diehard of all fans.

To see us having fun at Wrigley and assume we don’t care about the game is absurd. We were all devastated by the ends of Games Six and Seven. Drinking couldn’t even cheer me up after that series. I just went home and went to bed.

Remember, we have not been to a World Series in 59 years. That’s too much pain for any fan to bear. If we wore our feelings on our sleeves, there would be no real Cub fans left. We would’ve all died years ago from self-inflicted head bashings into walls.

I have a great deal of respect for true fans of any club, because I know what true fandom is about. What makes the Cubs special is not that we embrace losing, but that we embrace life. We get through the painful years by enjoying what we do have—a team we love, a team that loves us, a great ballpark and the knowledge that when the Cubs finally do win another World Series, it will be sweeter than anything we’ve ever imagined. Being a true Cub fan is about learning to appreciate what you have rather than dwelling on what you don’t.

So to my fellow Cub fans and all of you coming aboard today—and it had better be today and not September, since you’ve been warned—I say to you, go Cubbies, and I’ll see you in the World Series. That’s right I said it, because you know what? Curses are for losers.

The Cubs open their 2005 season tomorrow, and if I hadn’t already experienced the 2004 season it’s likely that I’d feel the same right now as I did a year ago. But that’s impossible. The 2004 Cubs were among the most disappointing clubs in franchise history, a history with a history for producing disappointing clubs. I can’t very well enter 2005 with the same levels of optimism that brought me into 2004, can I? Why, I’d have to be a damn fool to be thinking that way, right?

Let’s face it: even with the debacle that was the end of the ’04 season, I’m still blindly and boldly optimistic about this team. Why not? We have only one large roster question, which is our corner outfield spots. I wouldn’t mind losing Sammy and Moises so much if I knew the exact plan to replace them. Still, some combination of Jeromy Burnitz, Jerry Hairston, and Jason Dubois should get the job done. It’s a long season, and there is a lot of time to figure the roster out.

Other than that, I feel really good about our team. As it was the past two seasons, the key to this team is pitching. If Woody, Prior, and Zambrano can do what they are supposed to do, we should be in contention for a division championship. If they don’t, we’ll be in trouble. Simple as that. The real shame of the questionable outfield is that we have put together our best infield in years. Derrek Lee and Aramis each have the potential to be amongst the best ever in Cubs history to play first and third. Michael Barrett is a solid catcher, providing more of a bat than either Damian Miller or Paul Bako. Grudz is gone, which means Todd Walker will be the every day second baseman, and even though I loved Grudz I am happy with Walker. And at short, former All-Star Nomar Garciaparra will try to rebound from his injury-filled 2004. Even if Nomar isn’t Nomah!, he’ll still be a solid player.

So that’s that. I like our team, and perhaps most importantly I have faith in Jim Hendry to improve it when necessary and as he sees fit. Dusty’s popularity in the city took a hit last season, but I still think that he’s a helluva manager. The upper echelon of the Central is the same as it has been the past few seasons: St. Louis, Houston, and the Cubs. If the Cubs don’t compete for a playoff berth this season, there is something seriously wrong going on here.

There are some days for a sports fan that are special. Days that you know you’ll not be forgetting for many years to come. Days in which the stars are aligned and the sports gods are smiling and you are blessed with two or more major sporting events on the same day. Today was one of those days. Baseball’s Opening Day in the afternoon, and the Illinois-North Carolina title game at night. The end of one season, and the beginning of another. As a fan, you can’t really ask for more than that.

The day began with a trip to the Space Needle, and a walk around downtown Seattle. It’s a fine city, doable, nothing spectacular, though to be fair I wasn’t really paying that much attention to the sights. My mind was focused squarely on the task ahead: beat the Tar Heels. The Cubs game was important too—it’s Opening Day, so you’d like to get a win and start the season on a good note—but really, you’re talking about the first of 162 games. If we lose, no big deal. But with a championship on the line in the Illinois game, my attitude was different. All morning I had visions in my head of the Illini hoisting the trophy, of Dee and Deron and Luther running the break and blitzing Carolina with their speed and athleticism, of this team showing basketball fans around the country what we in Illinois already knew. In St. Louis, some 2100 miles away, the Illini were preparing for the most important basketball game of their lives, with Glickman right in the thick. Meanwhile, in Seattle, Meghan and I were getting ready for a great day of sports.

If a diehard’s actions and emotions mimic those of the players he is watching during a game, the same can be said for his actions and emotions leading up to a game. With 162 baseball games in a season, the importance of each individual game is minimal. Due to the length of the season, players must keep their emotions on an even keel. It is the same for fans. The atmosphere at a Cubs game is always different than the atmosphere at a Bears game, because each Bears game is ten times more important to the team’s success than each Cubs game. Fans know this, and act accordingly.

Likewise, a fan’s pre-game focus for a playoff game is much more intense than is his focus for a regular season game. There are certain activities that remain constant—players must stretch, dress, get taped up and iced down, study film and prepare—but the importance placed on these actions is heightened due to the importance of the game. The same can be said for a fan. Every diehard has pre-game rituals, whether they help him prepare for a game at a stadium or one in front of a TV. When watching a game at home, a diehard must have everything set up before the game begins. This generally includes the food, drinks, seating, and access to a telephone. If the game is a random baseball game in the middle of July, the preparation is quick and sparse. If the game is the Super Bowl, the preparation is detailed and time-consuming, down to the details of chip and dip placement on the small tables in front of the couch and the loading of the fridge with extra beer, just in case. And like most aspects of sports fandom, game preparation is a mindset. Before that random July ballgame begins, there will be a normal day, and that day will continue after the last out has been made. In the middle will be three hours of entertainment and relaxation, in which the fan will simply revel in the joys of watching his team. However, on Super Bowl Sunday, all events and activities will be filtered through the Big Game Mindset, and from those first blinking moments when you open your eyes in the morning until your last waking moments before you fall asleep, you will know that today is Super Bowl Sunday, and all else is second.

Just as we had in Eugene, our first order of business in Seattle was to locate the perfect venue, one that would suit our entertainment and sustenance requirements. We asked the concierge at our hotel, and though he seemed hazy as to the location of the Top Spot In Town, he was aware of a new sports bar/restaurant that had opened recently. He told us it was across the street from the Space Needle, and that he was pretty sure it was just called “Sport.” This sounded like an odd name for a restaurant; not the Sports Palace or the Sports Place or the Good Sport…just Sport. But we checked it out on our way to the Space Needle.

Needless to say, it was the perfect—PERFECT—location. What a dream. Although we stayed in Phoenix, Irvine, and San Jose for too long and bricked on heading south after leaving Kansas, I am glad that the trip has developed as it had, because had we left any of those cities earlier we probably would not have been in Seattle on this day, and thus would have spent our day in a lesser establishment. In fact, if I could have altered space and watched those games anywhere in the country, I would have picked this joint over my house, Sven’s house…even Mustards, provided that they had a TV in there. This spot in Seattle…this was the spot.

That said, my immediate first impression of the joint was, well, odd. The restaurant is located on a corner, with an awning that swoops around in a half circle from one side to the other. It is adorned with many anonymous sports figures “in the act” as it were: the baseball player swinging, the basketball player dunking, the football player throwing, the hockey player shooting... the kinds of pictures that are usually found on folders for school or Old Navy children’s clothing. Not a put-off, but also not the most obvious sign of an epic sports bar. Once inside, I was struck by the framed jerseys in the front lobby: LeBron James, Todd MacCulloch, and Jamal Crawford’s New York Knicks jersey. Odd choices in Seattle, with the latter two not even big names in their own cities.

An obvious answer, and one I should have picked up on immediately, but the sight of a Jamal Crawford Knicks jersey in a frame hanging from the wall of a Seattle sports bar is enough to make any Bulls fan turn his head in confusion. But that first reaction was brief, and as soon as we walked into the seating area, any amount of befuddlement was wiped away and quickly replaced by complete awe.

I’ll say it again: this place was an absolute dream! In describing Sport in all of its glory, perhaps there is no need to mention anything beyond this simple and astounding fact: along with an unprecedented number of televisions all around the bar and restaurant, there are flat-screen high-def mini TVs implanted in each individual booth. Do you realize how many televisions that is? I didn’t take the time to count, but it’s a ton. And to have one in each booth, to give the customer such power and choice…simply incredible. Perhaps there are places like this all over the country, or perhaps it is just as groundbreaking as it seems to be. Either way, I dug it.

We checked the place out shortly after our visit to the Space Needle—which, incidentally, we did not ascend, as it cost money to do so, and I couldn’t see paying to go to the top of a structure that was shorter than the Sears Tower in order to look down upon a city that was not Chicago—and after immediately deeming it totally awesome for our purposes, we went back to the hotel to change. Meghan put on her Cubs jersey (it’s a generic jersey with no name or number, though I’m planning on getting her one for her birthday in two weeks), and I put on my SANTO jersey with my homemade DEE BROWN t-shirt “jersey” on underneath. We dressed quickly, and then turned back to head over to Sport. It was imperative that we arrive early; we both felt that there was no point in finding a great place for Important Sports Viewing if we did not have good seats.

I was so jazzed up and filled with adrenaline that I probably could have run the whole way back without getting tired, but Meghan was enjoying her stroll through a new city on a beautiful day, so I bounced along with her as we went. Somewhere in St. Louis, the Illinois Fightin’ Illini were preparing to play for that national title. The team that had won the love of Chicago’s basketball fans were getting ready to show a national audience why they were a truly special team. Carolina was a great team; there’s no doubt about that. But they were just a collection of talent; Illinois was a team. Illinois was special, had been since Day One, had been since they ran over Wake, had been well before I realized why. This team was going to be remembered, and they were going to win a championship as well.

The Cubs game began at 2:10 PST, with the Illini game set to tip at 5 PM. Meg and I arrived at Sport promptly at quarter to two. We got a booth in the restaurant section, and got ready for baseball.

Shortly after arriving, we were joined by a friend of mine from camp, Adam Heldman. Adam is the younger cousin of my camp friend (and Cincinnati native) Alex Heldman, and has lived in Seattle for nine years. In that time, he grew to love the Seahawks more than the Bengals, and though he has strong roots in “the ‘Nati”, he is now truly a Seattle man through and through. It was Adam’s first trip to Sport, and like us, he was impressed.

What a day! As Corey Patterson prepared to open the Cubs’ 2005 season, I was filled with a feeling of connection to fans all across the country. There we were, a couple of Chicago kids in the midst of a cross-country road trip, sitting in a restaurant in Seattle and watching our Chicago Cubs playing the Diamondbacks in Phoenix while the White Sox opened their season at the Cell against the Cleveland Indians. Twenty-five minutes north of there—forty-five with game day traffic—my parents were watching Opening Day in Wilmette while Don and Bonnie sat in Rogers Park. Meanwhile, in St. Louis, Glick was among the thousands of basketball fans who were getting ready to watch the Illinois Fighting Illini battle the North Carolina Tar Heels for college hoops’ National Championship, with fans in Champaign and Chapel Hill eagerly awaiting the matchup.

The Cubs came out swinging against the D-Backs, scoring two runs in the first and five more in the second. It was 7-zip after our half of the second; by the middle of the seventh it was 14-3. At approximately the same time, the Sox and the Tribe were scoreless heading into the bottom half of the seventh, but not for long. Paul Konerko led off the inning with a double, new White Sox right fielder Jermaine Dye moved him to third on a sacrifice fly, and Aaron Rowand brought him in on a fielder’s choice to short. The Sox held on for a 1-0 win behind eight innings of two hit/shutout pitching from Mark Buehrle and a one-two-three save from closer Shingo Takatsu. The Cubs were victorious as well, ripping off a 16-6 victory behind the bats of Aramis, Corey, and new right fielder Jeromy Burnitz. Carlos Zambrano was imposing yet erratic; he was pulled with two outs in the fifth after giving up a bases loaded walk to pull Arizona within a 9-3 margin… Zambrano’s final line: 4.2 innings, seven hits, three earned runs, four walks, eight strikeouts, no decision.[1] Needless to say, he was not pleased…but we got the win, and that’s what matters.

“Yeah, he was good. But how ‘bout Zambrano striking out eight guys in four and two thirds innings?”

“I will. So, moving on,” and I paused, smiling as I transitioned, “you ready for basketball?”

I used the bathroom, and when I returned Meghan was on the phone with her father. She was laughing.

“Here,” she said, motioning to me with her phone, “he wants to talk to you.”

Don was relentless. “You’d think they’d eventually be able to put together a staff that can pitch into the fifth. I guess if you want to see pitching like that this year, you’ll have to go to Comiskey.”

“I’m sorry, Don, I can’t hear you. There’s too much bullshit on the phone.”

He cracked up at that, and I handed the phone back to Meghan. It had been a good start to the day, and all kidding aside with Luke and Don, I was very excited that both the Cubs and the Sox had won. The more positive Chicago sports karma we had going into the Illini game, the better. This, I felt, was vital. We couldn’t have any Illini fans grumbling even a little bit about either the Cubs or the Sox losing. With both teams turning in W’s, it was as if they said, “All right, our job is done, and we did it right. Now you go do yours.”

Adam split after the conclusion of the baseball games, heading home to do homework and to watch basketball with his family. The transition from Opening Day baseball to the last game of the college hoops season was a smooth one; I took off my Santo jersey to reveal my homemade Dee jersey while Meghan ordered a pizza for the two of us to share, and that was that. In all of the excitement surrounding baseball, I hadn’t had a chance to fully note just how good the food was at this place. We had a nice stream of appetizers during the Cubs game, moving from mozzarella sticks to chicken fingers to buffalo wings between the three of us. Everything there was good. Rare is the place that combines top notch food with great game access; I’ve always felt that the grub at Buffalo Wild Wings is vastly overrated.

It wasn’t long after the baseball games had ended that the basketball crowd began filing in, and to our surprise there was a good number of Illini fans in attendance. As we got closer and closer to tip-off, I kept thinking back to the night three years earlier when we sat at Luke’s frat house and watched IU play Maryland. I remembered the feeling of disconnect, the feeling of being an inside observer rather than a full-fledged participant. Now was my chance to experience what so many of my schoolmates had experienced that night, and this time there was a good chance that victory would be the end result.

While Illinois had a terrific trio of guards, all three of which will probably end up in the NBA, the UNC trio of PG Raymond Felton, SG Rashad McCants, and F/C Sean May was as dominant of a collegiate trio as I’d seen in a long time. I struggle to think of one better…the first that comes to mind is Laettner, Hurley, and Hill, though Grant Hill was a freshman when Duke won their first national title. Carolina is rolling with three All-America candidates, and they’re all juniors. That’s damn impressive.

The game started well. Deron Williams hit a jumper to open things up, but before the Illini had scored again the UNC Three were all on the board. May made a layup to establish his inside position, McCants knocked down a three and got another hoop, and Felton put in a pair of free throws on a James Augustine foul. 9-2 Heels…early…

Back came Illinois, bang-bang-bang, with a trey and a lay from Dee followed by a layup from bench standout and cult favorite Jack Ingram. Tied at nine.

And back and forth it went. The Heels would make a run, and the Illini would come right back, never really getting ahead, but never falling back without coming back. Carolina went up 23-17 on a Felton three, but Luther got one to pull it back to three, and then more of Ingram, with a trey of his own and a pair of freebies to pull the score to 27-25. Still behind, but feeling pretty good. Not moving ahead, but hanging right there. Not delighted, but not nervous. And then…

Carolina got it going, and when a layup from McCants put the Heels up ten with three and a half to play, I began to get nervous. It was well due. Carolina closed out the first half on a 13-2 run and headed into the locker room with a 40-27 lead. The wheels were coming off. Time for a turn around.

Like football, basketball is a game of matchups. The ’90s Bulls were proof of this. They are the only NBA team of the modern era to have won a championship without an All-Star center, focusing instead on MJ’s post game for their interior scoring. But what really put the Bulls over the top was their versatility. Michael, Scottie, and Toni could all play inside and outside offensively, and Pippen could guard anyone from point to power. Our “point guard” was really an off-guard, our small forward ran the point, our center was usually our fourth offensive option on the floor, and at any given time we had at least two and sometimes four guys on the floor who could play multiple positions. Their lineup was so malleable, that when Longley got hurt they could slide Dennis into the center spot and keep on rolling.

An inside game is crucial in basketball, because it does the same thing that a solid running game does in football. Both are low risk/high reward offensive attacks, and both wear out the defense in ways that jump shots and the passing attack never will. Coming into the game, everybody knew that the inside matchup of Sean May against James Augustine would be crucial, and perhaps it was this matchup that led to Carolina’s 13 point half time lead. May shot four of five from the field in the first half for eight points; Augustine was relegated to bench status for much of the half when he was hit with his second personal at the 11:30 mark. Not good. Augustine had been a stud during the first three games of the tourney (11 and 15 against Fairleigh Dickenson, 23 and 10 against Nevada, and 11 and 10 against Wisconsin-Milwaukee), and after a weak regional final in which he fouled out on four points and six boards, he had rebounded with 11 boards and solid interior D against Louisville. Augustine was the unheralded key to the Illini’s ascent during the 2004-05 season, and if he was unable to turn things around for the second half, the Illini would have to learn to cope without him.

As fate would have it, Augustine opened the second half with a missed jumper, followed by a May bucket inside. Carolina’s lead was fifteen, which was nervous, but with the Arizona comeback still freshly in mind, the Illini and their faithful knew that the game was far from over. Luther Head knocked down a jumper…but then…yuck. Back-to-back cheapo fouls on the beleaguered Augustine knocked him out of the game; four fouls, and he hadn’t even played ten minutes. Carolina got a layup from May, followed by the classic “Deeeeeeee for threeeeeeee” and after Felton and Head matched treys, May went inside for another dunk. The big fella now had fourteen in the game with three buckets in the first minute and a half of the second half, and the Carolina lead was fourteen.

But basketball is a game of momentum, and a game of runs, and with seventeen and a half minutes remaining in the national title game, the Illini made their move. Deron hit a jumper, Luther bagged a layup and followed it up with a three, and Deron answered with a three of his own. The 10-0 Illini run had cut the lead to four with fifteen and a half to play. The crowd at Sport swelled with applause when Williams hit his three; it seemed like the whole place was orange and navy, with but a few baby blue Heels fans sprinkled in for dramatic effect. Illinois then traded a Marvin Williams dunk for another Deron Williams trey, and a single David Noel foul shot for a Roger Powell layup, and with that the Carolina lead was cut to 52-50.

The Illini had outscored the Heels 23-12 in the second half, and at that point I had the same exact thought that every other Illini fan in the country must have had: Here Comes Illinois.

Felton is a wonderful point guard, and looks like he’ll be the best pro of the three. And McCants is a terrific scorer, even if he is a little streaky. But during this tournament, particularly in this championship game, May had the look of a man who knew exactly what he could accomplish and knew exactly how he was going to accomplish it. Again and again, Carolina went inside to May, and it seemed that every time he touched the ball, he scored. It was this element of Carolina’s offense that was so demoralizing; May wasn’t just a powerful offensive weapon, but also a constant reminder that the Heels possessed an option more consistent than anything Illinois could bring.

52-50 as the streaking Illini came back, and then Sean May…a layup and a free throw, followed by another inside basket. Seven quick points for the nimble big man; 59-50 UNC. Deron and Jawad Williams traded treys, and after Roger Powell’s bucket cut the lead to five, May went back to work, getting a jumper and going three of five from the line. The lead was now back to ten, 65-55, and though the game was far from over—Come on Illinois! Knock down those treys! Run the floor! Come on Dee! Get it going. (Show fans across the country why you were the best team all year)—it had been made abundantly clear that UNC would be able to ride Sean May to the title, if they wanted to. In five minutes, May had outscored the Illini 10-5 on three baskets and four free throws.

Driving layup for Dee, ‘J’s’ from Ingram and Luther and then Ingram again, who was providing a great spark off the bench in place of Augustine; the long, slender inside man fouled out at the seven minute mark with his Illini trailing by six. A sad end to a sad game for a gutsy and talented player who had a wonderful season…Augustine’s final line for the game: nine minutes played, 0-3 from the field, two rebounds, no points, and five fouls. We shook our heads sadly when he left the floor, and every Illini fan in the gym or watching on TV felt for the guy. Fouled out in the final game, barely even leaving his mark except as a trivia question...

No time for sadness or malaise! We’ve got a game to win and a comeback to finish. A missed jumper from McCants, and then a foul on Felton against the speedy high-socked human fast-break headbanded blur of a point guard, Dee Brown, who calmly knocked down a pair.

“YES! YES! YES!” we shouted in unison as Dee knocked down the second free throw and backed into his defensive stance. “DEEeeeeeeeeeeee!”

Felton hit a three, Deron hit a two, and then May, always May, back inside to May who was fouled by Ingram and converted both free throws.

4:21 to play. UNC 70, Illinois 67, and after a missed trey by Deron there was a timeout on the floor. Bathroom time.

My personal benchmark for memorable trips to a public bathroom is the well-documented post-game trip following the Bears-Eagles playoff game in January of 2002, and until this day, no other bathroom trip could rival it. Not anymore. Without saying a word to Meghan, I stood, turned towards the exit, and set out for the bathroom. Four other Illini fans stood at the same moment and walked with me, and we quickly and naturally formed a single-file line and marched into the bathroom like a basketball team exiting out of the tunnel. We did not say a word to each other, nor did we ever make eye contact, yet there we were, five strangers brought together in a Seattle sports bar to watch a college basketball team from Illinois, and the manner with which we walked was exactly the same. It was obvious to anyone involved that the five of us were in sync, both in body and mind: I have to pee quickly and efficiently in order to get back to the game before the commercial break is over, but at the same time I have to remain focused on the task at hand, which is helping Illinois defeat North Carolina. At that point, with four minutes to play, I had no doubt that the Illini would win. It was within their sights, so simply, so clearly, and the proof was in the five of us, the five strangers who marched into the bathroom with a shared single-mindedness and determination that can only be brought out by the act of supporting a team—YOUR team—in the biggest game of their career.

Like the odd details placed in murder scenes in the Godfather movies, details like a faulty hallway light or open blinds or a toll booth opperater dropping a coin and then ducking out of sight, Illinois’ return from the timeout felt, well, odd. Lots of time remaining—if any team knew the value of the final four minutes of a tourney game, it was Illinois—and yet Dee came out of the timeout and missed a three. Melvin Scott missed a jumper, and then it was Luther Head confidently knocking down a triple.

3:00 to play, UNC 70, Illinois 70. Illinois fans screaming wildly, me and Meghan included, leading me to believe that the determination of the Bathroom Five was paying off. And yet...

Marvin Williams missed a shot, and with loads of time on the clock, Deron fired and missed a three. McCants missed a layup, but Williams tipped it in to give the Heels a two point lead with a buck forty-one remaining. And then…a missed trey from Luther. Timeout Illinois after the miss, and then, after the break, still trailing by just two, Deron took and missed another three.

What I’d been afraid of was finally happening: the Illini were shooting themselves out of the game. Live by the Three, Die by the Three, and that’s exactly how it went down. After erasing UNC’s ten point lead and tying the game at 65 and later at 70, the Illini had failed to adjust their mentality from Comeback Mode to Crucial Late Game Possession Mode. They had specialized in clutch three-point shooting all season—their biggest Heart Of A Champion moment came in the comeback against Arizona, which was sparked and puncuated by key threes—and yet in this critical sequence, with the title on the line, they were playing themselves out of a championship. Five missed threes in four minutes, and two of those came at 72-70, when a two was all they needed. A two puts you in overtime, a three makes you a hero, and the heroic Illini were overthinking themselves, setting aside their trademark combination of speed and brains in the name of One Big Shot. Not now. Come on guys. Not now. My heart sunk. Foul on Deron, 26 seconds left. Now we could feel it slipping away. Felton split a pair. 73-70 UNC, oh please no, not now and now they felt as if they had to get a three, even though a quick deuce would suffice. Luther missed from the arc, foul on Deron, and this time Felton hit both. 75-70 UNC, ten seconds left, and now they needed a miracle.

Not once had I considered this as an outcome. Illinois lose? I suppose it was possible, but it seemed so incredibly unlikely that before the game I was ready to anoint them among the greatest teams in Illinois state history, regardless of sport or rank. This team was quite clearly one of the most beloved squads to represent for the I-L-L, and it seemed obvious that they were going to take home a title. This was a championship team. That was clear. Undefeated until the final game of the season, a streak that ended at the hands of a last second trey, and then straight through the Big Ten tourney before blasting through the first three rounds of the NCAA’s. Then Arizona, the breakdown, the comeback, the madness, the kind of game that builds towards a championship. The dismantling of Louisville…on to the final…one game away…

I felt…what? Not cheated, because even in my post-game dismay I was aware of the gift that we’d all been given, a gift in the form of a basketball team. No…it was shock and sadness that I felt. The end of this story was inconceivable. It was an intensified version of my feelings at the end of The Bad News Bears; never, NEVER, could I have imagined the Bears losing on a play at the plate. The good guys are supposed to win, right? This was a fairy-tale, and we know how those end.

As I sat there in, well, shock, CBS ran a promo for their hit show Amazing Race as the first commercial of their first post-game commercial break. How could they do that? Didn’t they know that the Illini’s magical run had just come to an end? Who could possibly care about Amazing Race at that point? You’ve just had your heart ripped out while watching your Illini lose in the NCAA Championship Game, right here on CBS. Next up: Amazing Race. It was as if the game was just another CBS show, just another program in the lineup, and now that it was over it was time to move on to the next one.

But this wasn’t just anther show, and it wasn’t just another game. This was the end of something special, something beautiful, and it ended with the death of the hero. Hans Gruber killed John MacClaine, and as Bruce Willis lay dead, Alan Rickman ran off with Holly MacClaine, the villain walking off into the sunset. How could it happen like this? Sure the Heels were excited, as were their fans, but did they really care? I mean, did they really care? These 2005 North Carolina Tar Heels were a terrific team, and had earned the title. I’m not trying to knock them or their accomplishments, but what did it mean to them? Wasn’t it Just Another Title? Would this team be remembered ahead of the ’93 squad or the ’82 squad? And what about Roy Williams? So the great coach finally won a title. Would he be remembered ahead of Dean Smith? Now, with a title, the ’05 Heels were a “great team,” but what would they have been without a title? This was supposed to be Illinois’ championship. That was supposed to be Dee and Deron and Luther up on the stage, dancing around in championship shirts. That was supposed to be Bruce Weber cutting down the nets, and Roger Powell exiting with a championship to cap off his senior year. This team would always be remembered, title or not, in a way that Carolina would not be…

…and as I’m saying all of this to Meghan in a stream of undoing while walking back to our hotel, I realized the significance of my words: the title didn’t matter. It would have been great, but it didn’t matter. Even without the trophy, the 2005 Fightin’ Illini were a great team. UNC was fabulous, but they needed a title to validate them in a way that Illinois did not. Felton, McCants, and May were a fabulous trio, and they had earned the national title. But while each season is assured to produce one champion, each season is not assured to produce one classic team. And that’s what these Illini were for us. A classic team. They were ours, and if I was feeling this, I could only imagine how Glick and the other fans who had been there the whole season were feeling. Maybe they were still too upset to have the epiphany that I was having, but it would come, and when it did they would realize that they didn’t need a title like they thought they would. It would have been great—it would have been GREAT—but this Illinois team will live on just as strong without one. They were eternal in a way that a trophy never could be. They were ours. The 2004-2005 Illinois Fightin’ Illini.

The Cubs will play again tomorrow, as will the White Sox, with each team suiting up for Game 2 of 162. By the time those teams take the field tomorrow, the ’05 Illini will officially be a memory, one that will live on with us as long as basketball is played.

Official today, the Los Angeles Lakers are mathematically eliminated from the Western Conference playoff race, and I am a happy man.

That sounds rather bitter, I know. I’m not, really. It’s not really something that I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about, but when I heard today that Team Kobe is going home for the first time since Pre-Kobe, I couldn’t help but be a bit delighted.

It’s nothing personal. It’s simply that I enjoy being proven right. Rarely do I demonstrate my “told you so” capabilities, but this is one of those times. The Miami Heat are on their way to the top seed in the East here in Year One of Shaquille. Meanwhile, Kobe’s first Shaq-less season has sent the Lakers to the lottery. And with both of those results soundly in tow, it seems that my long-running sentiment that Shaq was far and away the more important half of the Shaq-Kobe duo has been validated. Abu-yah!

(Note: severe rant coming. Those of you not interested have my permission to proceed to the end of the section. Thanx. Mngmt.)

When Kobe entered The League in the fall of 1996 as a high school superstar, he was given the same fate of many high-flyers who don an NBA J: he was Anointed. Newest-latest. The Next MJ. The difference, though, between Kobe and the others, was that Kobe had the good fortune of ending up on a team with Shaquille O’Neal. Kobe was a pre-mature All-Star in his second season, though he would become a legit one soon after. The Lakers lost to Utah in the ’98 Conference Finals, and went out to the Spurs in the ’99 Conference Semis. But before his fourth season in the league, (and his fourth with Shaq), Kobe was given the gift of Phil, as in Phil Jackson, who came back from his one-year NBA hiatus to coach the Lakers. Phil ironed out the kinks in the lineup; he took Kobe, Glen Rice, and Shaq and sprinkled in a taste of Showtime (A.C. Green) and a dash of Doberman (Ron Harper). And then…BAM! Off ran the Lakers, behind a career year from Shaq, who was already in the midst of a Hall of Fame career. Kobe was only 22, and with Shaq dominating inside, Kobe was able to do his thing from the perimeter. The Lakers found only one true challenger to the title—Scottie’s Portland Trail Blazers, who were fifteen minutes away from the Finals before falling apart in Game 7—and ran over the Pacers on their way to the championship. For the next two years, the Lakers feasted on a relatively weak and watered-down NBA, capturing two more titles and completing the now cliché Three-Peat.

Kobe was clearly half of a dominant duo that had won three consecutive titles, and he was clearly a terrific player—top ten for sure—but it seemed to me that the championships were clouding everybody’s judgement. It seemed as if the media and the fans had finally found their New Michael, and they continuously pointed to the titles as proof that Kobe was far and away the best perimeter player in the league. We started hearing absurd statements, with people suggesting with a straight face that Kobe was already better than Michael at equal points in their careers. Kobe is only 24, and already he has three rings. Michael didn’t have one until he was 29. Therefore…

It seemed obvious to me that while Kobe was a terrific player, there was no logical way that anyone could claim that he was already a better player than Michael. To list:

1. Yes, Kobe had three rings by the age of 24, but he had spent all six of his NBA seasons playing with Shaq and three being coached by Phil. He also entered the league out of high school, while Michael came to the league after his junior year in college. When Michael was 24, the Bulls didn’t even have Scottie or Horace yet, and he’d been coached by Kevin Loughrey, Stan Albeck, and Doug Collins.

2. Michael had to be the number one scoring option on his team, as well as the team leader. Not so for Kobe, who was quite clearly the Lakers’ number two scoring option.

3. Yes, Kobe had three rings in his first six seasons, but that’s almost incidental, in a way. In Michael’s first six seasons, he dragged a garbage team to the playoffs, led the league in scoring four times, scored 63 points in a playoff game at the Boston Garden, and, HELLO!, won an MVP. His averages for rebounds and assists per game topped out at 8 flat, while Kobe never went over six in either category in his first six seasons.

How could anyone honestly say that Kobe in 2002 was already better than Michael? How could anyone honestly say that Kobe was more important to the Lakers than Shaq? Trade Kobe for AI, and the Lakers definitely still win three titles. Trade him for Vince, T-Mac, or Paul Pierce, and they definitely compete for three, even possibly winning three. Trade Shaq for…who? What interior player could replace Shaq from 2000 to 2002? As good as the Spurs have been with Duncan, they’ve never been able to go back-to-back. KG’s never won a title, neither has Webber. It seemed obvious to me that while Kobe gave the Three-Peat Lakers something that could have been recreated by a few different NBA players, Shaq’s production could not be reproduced by any single player.

The Lakers, apparently, disagreed with me, and shipped Shaquille off to Miami in the summer of 2004 in an effort to appease the younger Bryant, a nod to the future rather than the present.

OK, that last part is a stretch, but still. It always seemed so obvious to me that there was no way any intelligent and honest basketball fan could put Kobe ahead of either Michael or Shaquille…and now it’s been proven. And while it must be stated that I feel no ill-will towards Kobe, it also must be stated that I was right. Overrated is just that, but sometimes it applies, and if it does anywhere, it does here. The Lakers are going home, and Kobe is going with them.

After leaving Seattle this morning, we headed out on I-90 East, which means that from this point on, we’re on our way home. Amazing to think, ain’t it? Out here in the deep reaches of America, out in a land where I’ve become accustomed to seeing mountains instead of skyscrapers. Stretched out drives, deep horizon, long winding freeways reaching into the sky, the kind that Bob Dylan sang about…

We crossed through the narrow tip of Idaho on our way to Montana, and arrived in Missoula at around ten PM to hang out with my camp friend Mike Cousins. Missoula is a cool town; it’s kind of a broke man’s version of Bloomington, only set in the Northwest. When we arrived in town, I called Cousins to find out which way to turn off the highway.

Away from the mountains. That ended up being an excellent suggestion; when we explored the town the next day, I saw exactly what he meant. Missoula is surrounded by mountains, including one that is marked with a giant “M.” This is the mountain that students climb on various occasions and for various reasons; we were planning on doing it, but somehow it didn’t happen.

Still, this has been a real cool town to experience, even if we haven’t scaled the M. What’s always amazing to me is to see these towns that are nearly invisible to the rest of the country. Even Missoula has more exposure than many other towns due to the University of Montana. When we were driving around Puget Sound, we passed house upon house, homes of families who live in corners of America that are relatively untraveled. Go to New York to see the sights, and you pass by the homes of thousands of people. The same can be said for stops in L.A., Dallas, Phoenix, San Fran, Atlanta, Denver, Seattle, Boston, D.C., Houston, Cleveland, Miami, Detroit, Philly, and of course Chicago. We hear the news that comes out of these cities. We hear about their sports teams, their politics, and their weather. But just as abundant as these cities are the small towns, the communities made famous by Mellancamp, Dylan, Kerouac, Jim Jarmusch, and even the Coen Brothers. These towns hardly even exist in the public eye, yet there they are, all around, everywhere you look. I find it absolutely incredible.

“Wyoming. We were supposed to be in Denver tonight to stay with some camp friends of mine, but there’s this crazy snow storm in effect. We couldn’t get into the city, so we stopped here. Plus we were tired as hell for some reason. Neither of us felt like driving. Just one of those days.”

Seattle is one of Ben’s two favorite non-Chicago cities. The other is Boston. “It was…OK.”

“I mean, it was cool. We honestly didn’t see much of it. We checked out Puget Sound, and we spent most of Monday at this beyond-crazy sports bar. We walked around some, but we didn’t really Experience Seattle. It was kind of damp.”

“Really…very interesting. I’ve wanted to go there ever since the third grade, when I found out there was another Evanston in America.”

Over the past four days, we’ve driven from Seattle to Missoula, and then down through Idaho and Utah, checking out the Grand Tetons, and finally into Wyoming today. This has been a truly incredible week. Idaho is amazing. Hands down the most underrated state in the country. It gets a bad rap…the Fredo of states. Weird shape, weird name, shoe-horned in between Washington, Montana, Utah, and Wyoming, four states with strong reputations for their vast landscapes. Cowboy America…but it has been Idaho that has blown me away the most. We took the state highways through, long, sweeping roads, and the sights were amazing. Just beautiful. Just when I’d gotten used to mountains, we came upon a sea of snow-covered pine trees. Just an endless congregation of snowy pines. They looked like model trees that would be used for a Christmas candy hosue, the kinds that you sprinkle powdered sugar on for the snow effect. That’s what these looked like, only lifesize. They were nowhere to be found, and then we came around a turn while driving up a mountain, and suddenly we were surrounded. All we could see on either side for a mile were snowy pines. It was crazy.

These are the sights that are most shocking. Something so simple pushed to an extreme. Over the past few days, we’ve driven up hill in snow at a 45 degree angle only to find a small diner at the top, we’ve seen nature’s Greens and Blues and Whites all next to each other as if the different seasons were all convening at one spot, and we’ve seen postcard-esque landscapes that continue to upwards of twenty miles. Just an absolutely different day-to-day view than I’m used to.

As I told Ben, Meg and I have now set a return date. We are going to come in for Passover on April 23^rd and surprise my parents. I decided that shortly after leaving the theater in Missoula where Cousins, Meghan and I saw Sin City. Meg liked it but found it to be a bit squeamish. Cousins and I agreed several times while watching that it was “wicked.” I knew nothing about Frank Miller’s graphic novels, but I’ve seen some stills from the books against some stills from the film…they’re spot on. It was entirely appropriate for director Robert Rodriguez to credit Miller as a director; the film is the comic translated into cinema. Just a beautiful, brilliant, bloody mess.

(It should also be noted that after the movie, we went out looking for dinner. Meg and Cousins felt like sandwhiches, and so we went to Subway, where, in a nearly unprecedented turn of bravery, I decided to order a plain turkey sandwhich with two slices of American cheese and no veggies. It was rather nervous; I had to request that the guy making the sandwhich change his gloves before making mine. They seemed to be dripping with some kind of undesirable sauce or something. The sandwhich was good. Meg was impressed by my courage, and Cousins just thought it was amusing to continuously remind the Subway guy that I could not have any vegetables, all the way up to the point at which my sandwich was in the bag and I was paying, doing it in a very subdued and realistic yet entirely overbearing manner. It was all rather Cousiny.)…(I love Cousins.)

Anyhow, shortly after leaving the theater, I decided that there was no way I could miss Passover. The Rosh and the Yom Kip may be more important, and Hanukkah may be the holiday with presents, but to me, no Jewish holiday tops Pesach, at least not in our family. Passover in April, Thanksgiving in November; these are our two big family holidays, and I love them both. Both are filled with tradition, particularly Passover, where we’ve used the same Haggadah in our family since the mid-’50s. Until his death three years ago, Papa sat at the head of the table and led the service, even though it was a round-the-table read. Now it’s my dad filling that job. One day, it will be me and my brother. Pretty cool.

I’d been thinking for some time now about returning for Passover, though I’d been entirely non-committal the whole time. My mom’s been asking me since the end of March if it was possible for us to come in for Passover, and each time she asks I’ve been telling her “we’ll see.” I’ve since switched to “We’d love to, but I just don’t think it’s possible. We’ve got too much to explore. When else am I going to be Out Here on the road?” My mom understood, but I know that she was disappointed. And so was I, as I thought of the prospect of missing Seder for the first time in my life. Just couldn’t happen. So instead of that, we’re going to bring it home incognito. My parents think that we’re still in Idaho right now, as we’ve added one day to each stop for our parental reports. We’ll also be “stopping through” South, and maybe, North Dakota, which should keep us far enough away from Chicago to prevent my mother from being able to reasonably tell me to “just come home already.” Man, do I love a good caper. Also, we’re running out of money.

So now it’s Wyoming until this storm dies down, and then off to Denver before hooking back into Lawrence and another visit with MJ. The Northwest has been absolutely gorgeous, right up there with the drive up the coast on 101. This is why I wanted to take this trip. The sights are worth the high gas prices, and then some.

My name is Jack M Silverstein, but ever since the second week of camp in 1993, my first summer at North Star, I have been known simply as “Abu,” as in Abu the monkey, as in the monkey from Aladdin, a monkey that three counselors in 1993 decided I looked like. They began calling me Abu, and I did not object, and three weeks later when my parents came up for visiting weekend they were hard-pressed to find a camper that knew me by any other name. Twelve years later, as I head into my ninth summer at camp,[2] I haven’t out-grown it or grown tired of it. North Star is a driving, tangible influence on my life, and I’ve known and recognized that for a long time, yet it wasn’t until this road trip that I fully appreciated the fact that camp has brought me friends from so many different places. No matter where we went in the U.S., it seemed as if I had a camp friend there, one who was eager to open his doors to both me and Meghan. Incredible.

Late night phone calls. Get used to them. I send them out, and I welcome them, and now my long time friend Aaron Hamer is calling me, and I love it. Hamer is down at Emory in school, hanging out with some buddies…

“Yeah. Like the monkey.” And we go from there, shooting the bull and picking each other up and carrying on like old friends…which is how new NSC people feel. He is my friend’s friend, and he is my co-worker, and he is now a part of the North Star community. That’s really all it takes.

[1] Gotta love a sentence that features a semi-colon, a colon, and an Ellipsis.

[2] 1993-1997 as a camper, four years off, and then back in 2002.