Cell phones ARE actually useful!

As I mentioned in my last post, I had a softball tournament up in Antioch, Illinois or more precisely, we stayed in Antioch and the tournament was in Salem, Wisconsin, just across the border. About half a dozen of us went up Friday though so we could spend the night closer to the fields instead of having the hour plus drive prior to batting practice at 8:00 a.m. As it turns out, the drive would have been the better option.

In order to avoid traffic, I left DURING the Cubs game and was able to miss most of some very bad local traffic. Going north on 94 that far though is rarely an easy trip. It wasn't too bad though and I arrived much earlier than my teammates. That allowed me to take test drives to the fields and to where we supposed to go out that evening: Blarney Island. You actually go to Port Blarney bar and then they take you on a pontoon boat to the island (for $7). If you live on the lake (or have a boat to toss in the water) you can motor yourself out to the island and dock yourself at one of many slips. The place was pretty crazy as you can see from the pictures if you go to the website. A la Mardi Gras, the staff would get up on the top deck and throw beads down to women who flash their boobs. As usual in those situations, 95% of the women who were flashing, you wish wouldn't. A few of them KEPT flashing their chests or just took off their tops entirely and I had to find something else to look focus on. Ugh. Some were cute though and it was very much a party atmosphere so it was all good.

As in Vegas though, I was basically herding cats since I designated myself the driver, you can't drink that much at 41 and get up at 7 to play a day of softball in 85 degree weather anyway. Unfortunately, you can't really drink that much and be 30 either if you're going to do that kind of activity effectively. As in Vegas, my teammates could not restrain themselves. When I finally got them rounded up, we just missed the ferry back to land. Almost an hour later, we were finally back at the hotel. It was about 1:00. Ugh.

The morning came early and several of the guys were dragging from the night before, including myself (though for me it was just lack of sleep!). One of our starting outfielders went out in CHICAGO too and missed the first game. His brother, who also plays the outfield, was definitely a notch below usual for him as well. But not all was lost. Though we lost the first game, we won three in a row (including beating the team that beat us to start the day) and went into the championship game with a Super World Series bid on the line against a team that we have beaten often, but who has beaten us the last two times we have played them (Southside Connection). We jumped out to an early lead and only briefly trailed during the game by one or two runs. Going into the seventh and last inning, it was tied 13-13 after one terrible call by the umpire going against us(which actually involved me while playing third) led to several runs and then some silly errors by us also leading to runs for them. In this organization, at our level, home runs over the fence are not allowed and you are penalized heavily for doing so: it's an out for you and the other team gets a run. I could go into the reasons behind this, but I don't want to bore you further. Anyway, a guy on our team, with two outs, hit a home run which not only ended our half of the inning, it gave them the game 14-13. Clearly it wasn't his fault as we had plenty of chances to not screw up.

So we took second place, played 5 games and were headed home by 5:30. That's how you run a tournament. Next week, Arlington Heights I believe. It's supposed to be 95 degrees!!

I was planning on a relaxing day today and after biking to church and back, I went to one of my favorite haunts called Hamburger King for brunch. For some reason I decided to take my cell phone with me. Fortunately I had it as some softball buddies called and invited me to the Cubs game, which turned out to be a 7-6 thrilling victory over Houston and a series sweep for the Cubs. Several beers were imbibed during and after (at Bernie's) so it was a much better day than I had planned. Hope you had a great weekend!!