8/04/2004 10:07:00 AM by Rob

This is why we watch the games

8th inning of Cubs-v-Rocks last night, Todd Helton's at bat, is the reason why we watch the games.

Let me set the scene for you from the Casa de Sloth.

Cubs are clinging to a 5-3 lead. Neither team has done much since the second inning, and Wood is pitching a masterful game. This is the furthest along he has pitched in a long time, since before his DL stint. Very rarely does he move along with a low pitch count, and entering the 8th, he was only in the low eighties. Might this be the most improbable of complete games? Especially considering how badly he got jocked in the first inning? A little Greg Maddux seems to have rubbed off on him, as Kid K only has a small handful of K's entering the inning. There are more efficient ways to record the out.

I had somehow missed ever seeing an Aaron Myles at work, but I knew that he was a candidate for the Greek Olympic Baseball team. I always wondered how that could possibly occur, but unshaven in the 8th, he sure looked Greek. Anyway, he popped up, I believe. The rasta-loser Royce Clayton did get on, though, which brought up the always beastly Todd Helton, who started to proceed to foul off fastballs.

And I'm sitting there moaning, because I'm watching the pitch count go up, up, up, and I'm sitting there CONVINCED that Wood will tire out. I can see the slider isn't working, and I can see the situation where he decides to try the slider ONE MORE TIME, only to watch Helton bang it in the stands and tie up the game.

Then Wood decides to reach back in the day, when he had the curveball from hell, and he bends up a muthafuckin' bitch-spit pretzel that, to Helton, must have taken about six weeks to cross the plate.

The league's leading hitter bent his knees, dropped his hands straight in front of him, snapped his head back and swore. My kid thought he used the Lord's name in vain. I thought he tossed out the standard obligatory F-bomb. Nevertheless, it was nasty, dripping, filthy, fucked-up, wack, sick, stoopid, and grab some bench, Nature Boy.

That's why we watch the games. Sure, anyone can watch SportsCenter and gawk when Sam-Me actually gets ahold of one and sends it ten miles high in another area code. But actually watching the games gives you the good stuff, watching a guy crumple like a used rubber on a 37-inch curveball.

That's why it has been so important this year to win. WE have never had such talent on the pitching staff, and who knows when in God's name we will ever luck out like this again?

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