Just ... keep ... swimming ...

I feel incoherent these days. Not a bad kind of incoherent, necessarily ... just kind of ______.

A few days off work will do me some good, she decided.

I would like to be in California right now.

I have decided that the answer to my annual summer baseball woes is that I shall henceforth root for the St. Louis Cardinals AND the Chicago Cubs. I mean, let’s face it: Thanks in no small part to The Lovely, I watch 3 or 4 times as many Cardinals games as I do Cubs games, and for the past several seasons, I have actually been more familiar with the Cards’ lineup than the Cubs’.

Plus: Most games, the Cardinals are more exciting to watch, primarily from the standpoint that you know they are always IN the game. The Cubs are exciting to watch, also; however, with them, it’s more a matter of wondering, When is something bad going to happen?

And: How often do they actually play each other in a season? What, maybe 15 games at most? Other than that, yes, they are both playing for the National League Central Division title — but, in theory, all things being equal, what one team does has no bearing on what another team does, except in head-to-head matchups. In other words: The Cardinals have won a lot of games this year and have built a solid lead in their division; the Cubs have lost a lot of games, which has kept them from putting together any kind of serious run for the title.

This is a simple game: You throw the ball. You hit the ball. You catch the ball. — The Durham Bulls’ manager in the film Bull Durham

Every year, the Cardinals are good and the Cubs are mediocre to bad. Every once in a while, the Cubs are good and the Cardinals are mediocre to good.

Seems like it just might be a win-win situation for me ... and, really, that’s what it’s all about, anyway.

: )

Chico Magdalene