By the Numbers

My mother raised her children to be well rounded, which is as good an explanation for why Michele and I were downtown Sunday afternoon.  The idea was for us to check out Lurie Garden in Millennium Park.  I mean, Chicago’s motto is “city in a garden,” right?  But after yesterday, they to need to update that along the lines of “Look out for the triathlete zombies!”.

   Spandexed bodies with numbers on their arms lurked everywhere, lakefront and surrounding streets, all part of the Chicago Triathlon.  If it’s any consolation, these monsters don’t crave human flesh; then again, they didn’t look too worried about knocking anyone down, either.  I dealt with two of them on my bike ride the other day, when I happened to get a flat where the swimmers get out of the water.  I had one bench while these two guys getting ready for Sunday took the one next to me in order to strip off their wetsuits.  Talk about awkward.  I don’t know who came in first or what the different distances are for the different events.  I believe in doing one thing at a time, except swimming.  Unless the boat’s sinking, I’m good.

Back safe at home, I more-or-less watched the ESPN Sunday night ballgame; Jessica Mendoza did color again.  The only problem I could see was when she talked about batters dealing with different pitches.  John Kruk was also there, and for him, it’s all about the time he faced So-and-So’s split finger or slider.  Mendoza naturally wants to talk about So-and-So’s riseball, which doesn’t quite translate.  With luck, she’ll figure a way out of this.

Oh, did I mention that the all-but-$300-million Dodgers were no-hit for the second time in nine days, with the Cubs’ Jake Arrieta doing the honors last night?  Talk about lack of return on investment.