Cubs win, one month to go

The Cubs just finished the last difficult part of their schedule, playing the leading contenders in the NL Central at home and on the road against NL West leading Arizona and San Francisco. During that stretch they managed to go 7-5 and GAIN ground on the rest of the division.

The schedule the rest of the way is the easiest in baseball except that they're in a stretch where they play 24 games in 23 days thanks to a couple of makeup games against the Cardinals. On the other hand, the Cardinals don't have an off day the rest of the season. The Cubs have four games left against a team with a winning record. 15 of their remaining games are against Houston, Pittsburgh, and Florida, three of the four worst teams in the National League.

While the lead is only 2.5 games, it will take an incredible choke to not win the division.

You Don't See This Everyday

First off, haven't blogged much over the past couple of months. I've been busy looking for a job (more on that later), playing and reading about poker, taking care of dogs and our house and watching a lot of baseball.

They say if you live long enough, you'll see everything. While I've watched hundreds of baseball games in person and thousands on TV, I just saw something I'd never seen before -- a 2-1 (catcher to pitcher) double play. The Tigers are playing the Yankees and had runners on first and third with one out. With a 3-2 count the runner on first broke for second, the batter struck out and the catcher threw to second base, which is all pretty normal. But the pitcher Roger Clemens cut off the throw and had Brandon Inge trapped between third and home. He ran him down and tagged him out without a throw. Pretty good for a 40+ something guy.