I'm in Sacramento. Summer Sanders...Where Are You?

Greetings from Sacramento! You know what? Chris Webber was right...

You see, Sacramento probably ranks about #753 on the list of the cities that I most like to visit. Immediately following Pocatello, Idaho and immediately preceding Paris.........Texas on the list, Sacramento is about as exciting as watching a documentary on the making of Ishtar. There is a very good reason why, after spending more than four years living in Cow Town USA, Adam Rich has spent more time in rehab than Steve Howe and Lani O'Grady (who played Mary Bradford) suffered uncontrollable panic attacks for more that 20 years.

And to think, in all the times that I have visited the capital city of California, I have never run into Ah-Nold, famous Sacramento native and Playboy graduate Barbi Benton or any of the members of the rock band Tesla. Heck, I walk the city streets with a cup of ice at the ready, fully prepared to make the acquaintance of Ron Artest.

And, not surprisingly, I have not seen Sacramento native Lance Briggs at any of the soup kitchens, under any bridges pushing shopping carts or playing the harmonica for loose change. Although, Drew Rosenhaus is certain to make us believe that, given Lance's "meager" wages, panhandling is what it has come down to for the Chicago Bears' linebacker.

And now I learn that my travels have cost me the opportunity to attend the farewell parade and party for one Stephen Hawking Hairston. What was your favorite moment of the Hairston era? Mine was that time he hit a hard foul ball, down the left-field line. Remember that? That was sweet.

Trading Hairston was inevitable. I mean, how many second basemen does one team need? Hawking Hairston may be out the door, but good ol' Thing One and Thing Two are still bumping their kites on the wall, Tony Womack has made a glorious return to the North Side, and, despite the fact that he has traded in his infielder's glove for a first baseman's mitt out of necessity, Todd Walker remains that best second sacker option on the team. And, should major league baseball suddenly pass a law that every team needs at least five second basemen on their roster, Delino DeShields has got to be available somewhere.

...and once Todd Walker gets shipped to another team (it will happen), perhaps we can pilfer third base coach, Jaws Cora, from the South Side. I'm sure that Einstein Jones would be delighted to introduce him around the clubhouse. Just keep him away from the buffet, make sure that Silence of Lambs is not shown on the locker room TVs, and keep Fine Young Cannibals off the stereo.

***Speaking of trades, you've got to imagine that the White Sox are going to be in the market for a relief pitcher or two. Yes, I know that they remain in second place in the American League Central, but, make no mistake about it, this team is extremely good. The only weakness that I can see is the bullpen. Cotts and Big Bobby have been solid and Matt Thornton has been suprisingly good, but Cliff Politte, Boone Logan and Brandon McCarthy continue to struggle. So, who will be available? I'm don't know, but rumor has it that Kenny Williams is asking whether Roberto Alomar has perfected the curveball that he has been working on in Salinas, Puerto Rico and whether Carl Everett is ready to ditch his .250 average with the Mariners and give pitching a try. Williams recognizes that, like a good Kerry Wood injury joke, everyone needs a standby that they can always turn to.

***Last weekend, the Cubs set an all-time attendance record for a three-game series at Wrigley Field, including playing in front of an announced Sunday afternoon crowd of 41,698, which, according to Len and Bob, was the largest crowd to see a game at Wrigley since 40,000+ screamin' Steve Ontiveros fans packed the park in 1979. Given these numbers, you've got to give the folks in charge of remodeling Wrigley a ton of credit as they apparently found a way to add 172 seats to the park on Saturday night and more than 1,500 seats since the Cubs' opening weekend against the Cardinals in April. That's some quick work. Who's in charge over there? Ty Pennington?

My question is, where precisely did they add those extra seats? Did they set up rocking chairs on the dugouts? Chaise lounges in the outfield? Bean bags chairs in the dugout? Did they sell seats in the bullpen? I think I may have seen former Cub reliever Alan Benes eating a hot dog and sitting next to Roberto Novoa. He has to pay to get in now, right? Things have not gotten so bad that he is back on the team, is he?

Now, I do not actually think that they added any seats, but I cannot understand how Opening Day was sold out, the first Saturday game against the Red Birds was sold out, last Friday was sold out, as was last Saturday and Sunday. All five games were played at 1060 W. Addison, yet all five games had different reported attendance figures. I know that the standing room crowd varies, but the crowd total varies to such an extent that the SRO drunks cannot possibly tell the whole story. Does anyone know why the figure differs from game to game? I mean, it really should be rather easy to figure out, shouldn't it? Take the total number of seats, and presto! It's not difficult math. You don't have to channel up the spirit Pythagoras. Even Ron Santo should be able to make a reasonable guess in the Cub Foods Attendance Game.

By the way, is anyone else relieved that they took calculus in school. Talk about a useful life skill. Like learning about the Franco-Prussian War, reading Moby Dick (I get it...Ahab's father never showed him any affection...or something) and square dancing.

So, why is the attendance so inconsistent? Was Jennifer Aniston's entourage really that big?

***Yesterday (it's still Wednesday here on the left coast), I recommended that you all visit the remote parking lot at Turner Field in Atlanta to see the fence where Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run and it got me thinking. So many new ballparks have been built in the last 15 years and I presume that most team officials did not even think about preserving history. For example, I've searched all around U.S. Comiskular, but cannot for the life of me find either the charred patch of grass where Disco Demolition night went terribly wrong or a mass of twisted plastic that once took a spin on the RCA turntable while teens got down in their polyester, butterfly collared shirts and bell-bottom velour pants to The Trampps great hit Disco Inferno. I also doubt that the Cardinals, in preparing for the opening of the new Busch Stadium, had the foresight to preserve for posterity the tarp that ate Vince Coleman, forcing the speedster to miss the 1985 World Series. And I am certain that the clubhouse at Jacobs Field in Cleveland does not contain the most famous piece of sports memorabilia in the history of Indians' baseball. Albert Belle's corked bat? Nope. The police photo of Belle after running down trick-or-treaters with his car on Halloween night? Nope. His diploma from the Eddie Sutton Alcoholism Clinic? Uh-uh. Why, the cardboard cut-out of Rachel Phelps, complete with tear-away, leopard-print dress, of course.

Now, we know that eventually Wrigley Field will have to be replaced and I would like to see the Cubs start thinking about what historical "artifacts" they are going to maintain for future generations to enjoy. And there are so many to choose from, but I have got to go with the Bartman seat, autographed by Moises and complete with abandoned headphones, Harry Caray's puke bucket and the dumpster under the seats in the left field corner, where Sammy disposed of his vials and hypodermic needles, er, I mean, his empty bottles of Flintstone Vitamins. Yeah...Flintstone vitamins...that's it.

By the way, "thesister" and I used to fight over who got the Dino.

What Wrigley Field historical "artifact" do you think should be preserved forever?

***Corey-o-Meter: It is official. Kid Corey is a solid major league outfielder. Hitting sixth in the lineup tonight, he went 1-4 with a stolen base. Yesterday, he hit two home runs in four at-bats, had a stolen base, and made a terrific catch, taking a home run away from a Devil Ray player. Season: .290 (which incidently would place him second on the Cubs in average: minimum 50 at-bats...I ain't sold on Womack, yet)- 7 home runs (3rd on the Cubs), 20 RBI (only four Cubs have more) and 19 stolen bases (that's three more than Juan Pierre). Yeah, but we got Phil Nevin.

***Random Thoughts commenter Bearister was right...we do not have to watch pop flies bounce off Aramis Ramirez's head, relay throws bounce out of Thing Two's glove allowing two runs to score on a single sacrifice fly, or Juan Pierre bounce out of the batter's box after hitting yet another harmless gound ball to the second baseman. There are plenty of other sporting events that we can watch. There's the NBA and NHL playoffs. There's the Arena Football League postseason. Minor league games in Joliet, Schaumburg, Crestwood and among the cows in Kane County. The midget-tossing championship in Norway. Professional golf tournaments that CBS, ABC and ESPN surprisingly continue to allow to go on despite the absence of Tiger Woods. The national spelling bee, poker, darts, log rolling, skee-ball, competitive Old Maid, and some stupid show on ESPN where athletes play the Madden football video game against one another (seriously, this just may be the single stupidest show in the history of ESPN). Well, thanks to "theson," whose wakeup recent wakeup habits suggestthat he is preparing to one day play for former Temple coach John Chaney -- I'd better tell him (1) that he is caucasian and (2) that, thanks to Nehemiah Ingraham, Chaney has retired having gone to the same number of Final Fours as Gene Keady, I have learned that the French Open is also going on as we speak.

Tennis? (Hey, like Rod Carew, I believe in spraying to all fields). It really strikes me how far tennis has fallen in the minds and hearts of America. Not that long ago, tennis actually registered in this country. In the early 90's, we cheered for native sons Sampras, Agassi, Courier and Chang. We recommended to our friends that they not hang out with Jennifer Capriati or risk getting to know the inside of a South Florida holding cell. Heck, we even marveled at the athletic ability of Venus and Serena and wondered why we can't seem to develop biceps that big.

And then the late 90's rolled around and tennis remained in the nation's conscience. Women continued to cheer for tennis' bad boy, Agassi, even after he jumped the shark and married Steffi Graf. Men watched the early rounds of the women's draw and drooled at Anna Kournikova (given Anna's relative lack of tennis talent, watch the late rounds and you were stuck watching "half a man" -- it's Martina Hingis' quote, not mine -- Amelie Mauresmo, knowing that even if you were attracted to the French tennis star, unless you were willing to put on your favorite sundress, high heels and a wig, your chances of landing her were about the same as getting Jerry Seinfeld to admit to the lady cop that he watches Melrose Place). We wondered when Pavel Bure and Sergei Fedorov would come to blows. We silently hoped that the Russian mob would get involved. Through it all...we had Anna.

Now, it's 2006 and ... uh... Maria Sharapova is hot and... uh ... that's about it. The bottom line is that American tennis has been reduced to the overrated Andy Roddick (please don't tell me I've got Andy Roddick fans here), Lindsay Davenport and a bunch of others that nobody cares about. Roddick was supposed to be the next big thing, but has not lived up to expectations. His ill-fated relationship with Mandy Moore remains what he is best known for. It's actually quite sad. Tennis is actually not a bad sport to watch on TV (although, it was a lot more fun when John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors spent more time yelling at the poor umpire and throwing their rackets than actually playing tennis). Unfortunately, it has become about as relevant in this country as David Hasselhoff.

***Finally, Random Thoughts commenter "thewife" has graciously posted a link to some article about women in the late 1800's for everyone to enjoy. I'm sure its very interesting and you know I want to read it, but I'm much to busy thinking about Jessica Alba and Anna jumping on trampolines. Hey, you're right! We are sick!

***Today's Sports Trivia: Four players in the history of major league baseball have registered eight consecutive seasons with more than 30 home runs and 100 RBI. Who are they?

***Yesterday's Pop Culture Trivia Answer. Luke Skywalker almost went from using the force to using the forks in the Bradford household, as Mark Hamill was originally cast as David and played him in the pilot episode.