August 13, 2018
It's 2016 All Over Again
Last night the Cubs were facing Max Scherzer and the Washington Nationals. If you're not familiar with the National League, Scherzer is on the short list of "best NL starting pitcher." And by short, I mean "him and Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers". And for seven innings, he proved the old maxim that good pitching beats good hitting, completely shutting down the Cubs.
Meanwhile, the Nationals were having a difficult time with the Cubs newest acquisition, Cole Hamels. While not quite as sharp as Scherzer, he still had a great outing for a team that hasn't had many of those this year. Despite that, the Cubs were down 3 - 0 going into the bottom of the ninth.
The Nationals brought in reliever Ryan Madson to close it out. He got the first batter, then gave up an infield single. He hit the next batter, then coaxed a pop fly for the second out. Madson then hit another batter to load the bases. What happened next was magic.
Skip to 2:45 for the moment of a lifetime
David Bote has played a grand total of 35 games of major league ball in his career, all of them this year. He became the third player in baseball history to hit a walk-off grand slam with two outs and trailing by three... and he had two strikes on him,and he was a pinch hitter to boot. Good way to end a game.
I'm starting to get those 2016 vibes from this team, because this is exactly how the 2016 team did things. I'll take that, yeah.
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08:29 PM
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August 11, 2018
Duckford Blue
It was another late night at the job last night. 11 hours on the clock, almost 12 if you count the lunch break... by the time I finished my mandatory 10 hours of OT for the week, it was 945pm and I was the last person in the building that wasn't one of the three cleaning crew people. Even they were leaving out the back door as I was heading towards the front. Honestly, I think I had been the last person in the building since around 7pm... pretty much everybody tries to be gone as early as possible on Fridays. Except for me, of course, mostly because I enjoy singing while working and I don't want to disturb my coworkers.
Sure, that's the reason. Really. It has nothing to do with my not being able to drag my butt out of bed with any alacrity in the morning. Anyway. My work done, I grabbed my cane and headed out the door to the parking lot. Where I saw a police car sitting right behind the Duckmobile, headlights on and clearly running my plates, or whatever they do these days. Technology: ain't it grand? Immediately I began wondering what did I do wrong? Because that's the first reaction of anybody when a police officer begins an out-of-the-blue interaction with you: the police are talking to me, ergo I must have done something wrong. Even if, like me, you haven't had a traffic ticket in 32 years and the last time you were in court was for jury duty.
I began trudging towards the car, parked at the far end of a decent sized parking lot and after a long day of work... and ohbytheway, the police car too... when the police officer yelled "Is this your car?" I had to restrain an insane impulse to yell back "No, this one is," point at an empty parking spot, and start miming unlocking the door, getting in and driving away. Instead, I behaved like an actual adult and yelled back "Yes, that is my car." Another question came back: "Are you Wonderduck?" "Yes...?"
The officer backed up a bit, then drove right up next to me, driver side window to my left. He smiled, or at least that's what I inferred from the movements the big furry caterpillar on his upper lip suggested. "There's no problem, it's just that a lone car in a big darkened parking lot late on a Friday night... just thought it'd be good to check it out, y'know?" I explained myself, finishing overtime, last one in the building, yadda yadda. "Great, glad there isn't a problem. You have a good night, Mr Duck."
And he pulled away, leaving via the lot's back exit (coincidentally, the same way I usually leave). A few moments later, I see him go flying past, gumballs spinning, siren screaming.
So that was how my Friday night at work ended. Upon reflection after a day's separation, it wasn't as exciting as I thought at the time.
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August 07, 2018
Yes, I'm Still Alive! Hooray!
Overtime is really kicking my llama's arse. Weekends have been spent sleeping or doing even less than usual. Weeknights... well, I'm usually getting home between 9pm and 10.
Which is not to say I haven't been keeping eyes on things, heavens no. For example, Smiley Ricciardio is going to be leaving Red Bull at the end of the season and moving to the Renault works team. Lets face it, with golden boy DH Verstappen on the scene, Dannyric was never going to be The Man at the Bull. Whether moving to Renault will be a good career move or not remains to be seen, but at least he's free of the Dutchman. Who will be replacing him at Red Bull? I don't know, because there's a huge X-factor involved, namely that Verstappen has the ability to nix any driver the team tries to bring in. So don't be so quick to say Pierre Ghastly, current hotshoe over at Toro Rosso, my friends. He'd be totally logical, which means that DH might just say "no."
In other F1 news, Force India nearly died recently... because Daimler-Mercedes and team sponsor BWT supported FI driver Sergio Perez essentially sued his team for $4million of unpaid debt. Force India's engine manufacturer Mercedes says the team owned them around $10million, while BWT claimed that their sponsorship deal was really "just a loan." The team went into receivership, and was quickly snapped up by a group of five deep-pockets, led by Pleasant Stroll's daddy and the billionaire father of GP3 driver and FI's test driver, Nikita Mazepin. I'm pretty sure I know what the driver lineup for Force India will be in 2019.
Okay, I'm tired. More sometime soon.
Posted by: Wonderduck at
08:33 PM
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