Top Plays #5

And at number 5 in the top plays for Saturday: Juan Pierre against the ivy to catch Albert Pujols's hard drive and save the game for the Cubs.

Kalen, Bob, and I went to the Cubs game on Saturday, and it was one of the best games of the past couple of years. The Cardinals took an early 2-0 lead by the 2nd inning, with Zambrano not looking his best. Then he settled down at shut down the Cardinals for the next five innings. In that stretch, the Cubs took a 3-2 lead. Then it was back-and-forth. The Cardinals scored once in the 8th on a home run to tie the game. Then the Cubs scored in the 8th on a bloop hit. Then the Cardinals once again tied the game in the 9th, and almost took a bit lead: the bases were loaded due to walks by Dempster, with one out and Encarnacion up. Ohman struck out Encarnacion, and the Wuertz came in to face the fearsome Albert Pujols. Pujols then hit the ball to deep center field, just left of dead center. It was about one foot from being a home run, but Pierre was able to leap and catch the ball at the very top of the ivy, then first time I've seen him actually make a catch against the wall (I've seen a couple time that he just missed).

So, that led to extra innings. In the Cubs tenth there was a double, a bunt that wound up being a single, a strikeout, an intentional walk, and then Phil Nevin hit a line drive to left over the head of the drawn-in left fielder, and that was the ball game. Lots of tension and excitement, and a good result in the end.

That was most of Saturday. Today I woke up and Ryan already had all his stuff packed and down by the front door ready to go. That doesn't mean we left right away, though. We kind of relaxed for most of the morning instead. We finally let about 11:30am. It was pretty easy getting him moved into the dorm. Most everyone had already moved in, so we were even able to park in the metered spaces behind his dorm, so we didn't have to mess with unloading stuff at the curb and then moving the car. Instead, we parked and Ryan went in to get his key while I unloaded the car and stacked stuff on the cart we'd brought. I think we then only waited about 15 minutes in line for the elevator -- I don't know how long it took Ryan and Ellen last year but he said the line wrapped around the corner of the building then. This year, the line was maybe 10 people/carts long for this first load. We got that up, Ryan met his next-door neighbor, and we went to get the rest of his stuff from the girls' apartment. Just as we were loading, Kalen arrived (she left Aurora 30-60 minutes after we did), so I could help her get a bit of her stuff back into her apartment. Then we returned to Ryan's dorm, got a real parking space again, and for the second cart the elevator line was only about 3 people long, so got things into his room quick.

Then I came home and mowed the lawn, and have mostly been vegging tonight.

So, now all the kids are back at college. Now everyone can start updating their blog regularly again (I'm looking at you Ryan -- Matt's been keeping his up now). Everyone can do a Gencon report, including Ellen.

I'll start my Gencon report, with at least the first two days, next.