Summer Fun

The Chicago Cubs are in the playoffs for the third consecutive year. This is the first time it has happened since those halcyon days of 1906-1908 back when, well, you know what, I am not up on my history from that time period. I'm sure something big was going on. 1908 was a presidential election year, so that was probably big. Apparently Hitler's mom died in 1907. Google tells me that Upton Sinclair's 'The Jungle' was published. (See, we're learning and it's fun.)

The odds are the Cubs aren't going to win the World Series again this year. This isn't a comment on the quality of the team, but just basic math. By the time the Cubs' playoffs, there will be 8 teams remaining. They'll have to win three multiple-game series to win back-to-back titles for the first time since 1907-1908.

Take a minute and flip a coin, calling it in the air. No, seriously, go ahead. I can wait. If you got it right, do it again. If you got it right a second time, do it one more time. If you got it right the third time, congratulations, you just won the World Series. While not exact, that's the basic math the Cubs would need to win again.

So the odds aren't great that it'll happen. And that's ok, because looking at World Series titles as the only measure of baseball success is a terrible way to enjoy the game and a great way to miss out on some truly amazing things.

In 2001, the Seattle Mariners won 116 games in the regular season. Only the 1906 Cubs won as many games in one season. It was a magical season (the Mariners, I don't remember that Cubs team). But Seattle lost in the playoffs. Calling that season a disappointment would take away the six months of amazing play the Mariners put together. Coincidentally, the Cubs didn't win the World Series in 1906 either. It's a small sample size, but I'm confident in saying winning 116 games in the regular season is not a good way to win the World Series.

From 1991 to 2005, the Atlanta Braves put together one of the most dominant stretches in sports, winning the division title 14 years in a row. But for all that success, the won the World Series only once. Measuring success only by championships means that both the Toronto Blue Jays and Florida Marlins were more successful during that time than the Braves despite the fact that both Toronto and Florida only made the playoffs twice during the Braves' run of dominance.

Because baseball plays 162 games over the course of six months, the best teams tend to rise to the top over the course of a season. There's enough time for the randomness of any individual game to become statistical noise. But when there's a best-of-five playoff series, suddenly that randomness of one game can have a huge impact on whether a team advances or not. The best teams don't always win. It may not be the fairest way to determine a champion, but it's the one we've got.

That's not to say I won't be incredibly disappointed if the Cubs lose in the playoffs. I will be. But I know the odds are long.

Having said that, this summer has been so much fun. I got to to a game at Wrigley Field in July and another Cubs game in Tampa earlier this month. (They went 1-1 when I attended if you're keeping track at home. Which, if you're keeping track at home, can we talk later? That is weird and you shouldn't be doing that.) I've spent countless hours watching games and highlights. For better or worse, the Cubs announcers are my summer soundtrack, filling the air with the sounds and sights of my baseball season.

And so a week from tomorrow the playoffs start. I'm nervous and anxious and excited all at once. There's a chance for all my time invested, the season could be over by the following Monday for the Cubs. That would be disappointing, but not enough to overwhelm the awesome summer I had.

Now is the time in the blog post where we dance.

via GIPHY

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Nacho Man

Celebrity is a weird thing.


Take a few seconds to watch this video from last night.



It's an amusing video. The poor guy in the front row gets his nachos knocked out of his hands by Addison Russell flying in trying to catch a foul ball. In his attempt, Russell inadvertently kicks the dude's nachos and spills them on the field (and gets some on his arm.) A few innings later, he brings the guy some replacement nachos and poses for a picture.

It's a cool story to tell your friends today at work and to reminisce about with your girlfriend (who, coincidentally, is the person Russell landed on in his attempt to make the catch.)

But that's not the world we live in now. Nacho Man became a minor sensation on what was otherwise a fairly boring 10-2 game. He was first interviewed by the newspaper the Chicago Tribune. Then, an inning or so later, he was on television giving an interview about what it was like to have a player wind up in his girlfriend's lap and spilling his nachos. Hard hitting journalism this was not.

He tweeted the photo with Russell which obviously made the rounds among baseball fans.

Later, he got a foul ball and gave it to a kid (the correct thing to do, by the way, even if you have a kid at home) for which he drew praise. The game basically became a distraction from Nacho Man. Foul balls hit in the vicinity of Nacho Man were mentioned.

And you know what? It was fun. The guy was having the time of his life. People were walking down to his seat between innings for pictures with him. Someone even asked for his autograph.

 For a guy who just hoped to get a foul ball, he ended up having the story he'll tell when he's out for drinks with his friends or (hopefully) at the reception of their wedding. If this happened to me, I'd turn it in to a 7-part blog series and my wife would have to prohibit me from talking about it ever again or face imminent death.

I hope this guy enjoys his 15 minutes of fame.


Also, I really want to know what the person who got the autograph is going to do with it.

Has it really been 20 years?

A group of smart, intelligent people who graduated 20 years ago. And me, I'm in there too.

Of all the people who have ever lived, I'm fortunate to be a member of a select club. There are only roughly 230 people who are can claim membership and we had a meeting of sorts last night. We don't meet often and we're not all always able to go, but it's always special to get together.

Ok, that is vastly overselling my 20-year high school reunion, but in a sense, it's true. There's only a little more than 200 people who can say they graduated in 1997 from the high school I went to. Some of us grew up here, going from kindergarten through high school here. Others moved here at some point during elementary, middle or even high school. We all had different hobbies, interests, cliques and clubs we were a part of. But at the end of the day, we all share the fact that for whatever else we've had in life, we all had she shared experience of finishing high school together.

The ubiquity of Facebook makes reunions a lot less mysterious than they used to be. Not only did I have a general idea of who all was coming, but I knew, more or less, what was going on with almost everyone there.

But social media is no substitute for actually getting together. Being able to hear the voices of the guy you played soccer with or finding out the pretty girl who sat behind you used to cheat off of your paper when she could. (I hope I got those answers right for both of us, Brandy. And I'm glad I could help.)

Then there's finding out what, exactly people are doing, not just where the live or where they work.

It's finding out the girl who you were on the Math Team with in elementary school now works in analytics for Delta. Or that one of the sweetest girls in school is a kindergarten teacher where she seems like a perfect fit.

It's being able to solve the mystery of what happened to that quiet, but really funny guy I sat next to in Biology my senior year and who seemed to have left no trace of himself online.  (He didn't make it, but someone at the reunion says he now lives in New York and works for Google. The fact that he works for Google and can't be found online makes me wonder if he knows something we don't.)

But it's also hanging out with the guy who lives three doors down and the guy who has a kid in my kid's class. It's doing more than just a polite hello to that classmate you see at the athletic fields as you're going to your kid's game and she's leaving her kid's game.

It's finding out one of your former classmates lives in the same town as your in-laws and hitting it off with her husband (though we both had a lot to drink at that point so it's quite possible he doesn't actually like me that much.)

And then there's running in to that girl who, every time she sees me she tells me how much she enjoys my blog and that I should write more. And she is just so sweet that I can't help but try to write more.

It's the random coincidence of talking to a guy whose mom was your wife's Pre-Cal teacher in college (and your wife confessing that she failed the class and him feeling bad about it.)

But more than anything, reunions are about nostalgia. Yeah, high school wasn't the greatest. I think even the people who really enjoyed it wouldn't necessarily go through it again.

But we all lived that experience together. We all freaked out about the tests and dealt with the stupid drama that comes with being 14 to 18 years old. We went to football games and parties and did whatever extracurricular activities we did that seemed important at the time. Whatever cliques existed 20 years ago have long since disappeared. It was just fun to talk, catch up, share stories and enjoy each other's company.

But then we all had to go our separate ways. For some of us it was just across town. Other's had flights to catch including one girl who had to get a flight back to Dallas before leaving tomorrow for London. I have no problem saying she's a better person than I am. Still others had to drive a few hours home where we'll go about our lives.

I realized as I was writing this that I kept writing "guys and girls" instead of  "men and women." That's the power of nostalgia. For everything that's happened in the 20 years since we graduated, my strongest memories of just about everyone there is from when we were kids. We were guys and girls, and in my mind's eye, we still are.

Now if I can just run in to the girl who always wants me to write, maybe I can actually write more regularly. 

This blog post available for a limited time

So I was watching tv the other day and this commercial came on.



Now normally I pay no attention to commercials. In fact, the overwhelming majority of my television viewing is online, either with Netflix, Amazon or MLB.tv, or watching PBSKids with my son, so commercials are rarely seen in my house. (Good for most of the year, bad when asking my son what he wants for his birthday and/or Christmas and I get an "I don't know.")

But for some reason I watched this one and my first thought was "I must be hungry because that looks pretty good" and I'm generally opposed to eating at Subway not so much on principle, but because I don't find their food all that good.

My second thought, however, was less inspiring. The end of the ad said the sandwich was there for only a limited time. As I usually do, I had twitter open when I was watching and tweeted the following:

Aren't all offers only for a limited time as the icy hand of death comes for us all?

— Luke Martin (@lukermartin) September 18, 2017

So yeah, a Subway commercial both made me want their product and also consider the brief existence we spend on earth. I not only wasted 30 of those seconds watching an advertisement for a restaurant whose food I don't even like, but now I'm contemplating my own mortality.

I'm only disappointed it wasn't an Arby's commercial as I generally enjoy the Nihilist Arby's parody twitter account.

Impending nuclear apocalypse, eh? Well, here at arbys we're gonna do what we always do: wait for our inevitable deaths

Enjoy arbys

— Nihilist Arby's (@nihilist_arbys) August 9, 2017