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Hanging Up His Spikes

One year after leaving the Cubs, Kyle Hendricks officially announced his retirement earlier this week.  Following an eleven-year Cubs career, where he was the last remaining member of the 2016 World Series champions to play for the North Siders, he spent this past season with the Angels.

Hendricks was first acquired by the Cubs at the trade deadline in 2012 as part of the return from the Rangers for Ryan Dempster.  He made his major league debut nearly two years later, throwing six innings against the Reds at Great American Ballpark and earning a no-decision.  2016 was his best season, winning 16 games and posting a 2.13 ERA in the regular season and making five post-season starts, giving up just two earned runs in 21 2/3 innings between the NLCS and the World Series.  He had struggled with injuries and worsening performance over his last three seasons, making his departure feel inevitable.

Hendricks’s numbers in a Cubs uniform, both for games I attended and overall, were:

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All Season Batting Leaders – Through 2025

It’s been six years since we last took a look at the offensive stat leaders per season for the all the games I’ve attended since 1984. While there hasn’t been a whole lot of movement for most of the categories in the last six seasons, I figured the time was right to take another look. So, without further ado, here’s the updated list. We start, as always, with everyone’s favorite offensive stat:

Home Runs

Year Name Total
2010 Paul Konerko 17
2004 Moises Alou 15
2004 Corey Patterson 13
2004 Sammy Sosa 13
2003 Moises Alou 12
2008 Carlos Quentin 12

Hits

Year Name Total
2003 Mark Grudzielanek 67
2004 Moises Alou 57
2003 Moises Alou 57
2007 Derrek Lee 57
2006 Orlando Cabrera 56

Runs

Year Name Total
2004 Moises Alou 44
2003 Sammy Sosa 34
2003 Tim Anderson 32
2010 Paul Konerko 31
2003 Moises Alou 30
2008 Jermaine Dye 30
2006 Tadahito Iguchi 30
2008 Nick Swisher 30

RBI

Year Name Total
2021 Jose Abreu 38
2010 Paul Konerko 35
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Fitbit XI – Week 42

After 25 weeks, nearly half a year, my 30,000-step week streak came to an end.  Things got off to a decent start on Sunday, finishing with 4200 steps.  A nice increase on Monday pushed me up to 4700 steps.  An additional 31 steps on Tuesday would have put me at 4200.  A thirteen-day streak of 4000+ step days came to an end on Wednesday, as I finished 10 steps shy of 3700.  A big jump on Thursday left me 14 steps short of 4700.  Another big drop on Friday required 33 more steps just to get to 3700.  A lazy Saturday wrapped up the week needing 32 more steps to reach 4500.

Total steps: 29,635

Daily average: 4233.6

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Prolific Authors – Fifteen Books

It is time once again to take a look at the authors I have read the most, dating back to high school.  This year, I’m once again on pace to set a new record for books read in a year, so I thought it would be nice to take a deeper dive into those books I’ve read through August of this year. Since our last check-in, I’ve read an additional 1xx books, so there should be some movement over the past two years.  Without further ado, it’s time to take another look and see if my “favorite” authors have changed much over the years.  We continue today the lone author I’ve read fifteen times, who just so happens to be a fictional character.

Richard Castle

Debuting in 2009, the television series Castle follows the lives of Richard Castle, a best-selling novelist, and Kate Beckett, a New York homicide detective, as they solve various unusual murders.  As Castle, portrayed by Nathan Fillion, wrote and released Nikki Heat novels on the show, those novels were released in the real world as well, the first of which, Heat Wave, was released in 2009.  The two most recent efforts, Heat Storm and Crashing Heat, were released after the cancellation of the show, though it appears unlikely that there will be any future installments.

Richard Castle – Driving Heat

The first seven books in the series were eventually revealed to have been ghost-written by Tom Straw. It is unknown if Straw wrote the final entries, though I highly doubt he was responsible for the last one, which had a much different feel to it.

 

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Marlins All Time Leaders – Through 2025

To paraphrase from a famous movie, the one constant through all the years has been baseball.  With the World Series behind us and the hot stove about to get into full swing, we begin our look at the all-time leaders in both offensive and defensive categories for all 30 teams. We kick off today taking a deeper dive into the Miami Marlins.

The Marlins began life in 1993, joining the National League along with the Rockies.  In 2012, they rebranded from the Florida Marlins to the Miami Marlins in conjunction with the opening of their new, taxpayer funded stadium in the city of Miami.  I’ve seen 156 players wearing the various Marlins uniforms in the 28 of their games that I’ve attended live, including three of their four victories during their unlikely triumph in the 2003 NLCS against the Cubs and once, as the home team against the Expos, at US Cellular Field in 2004.

Home Runs

Name Total
Miguel Cabrera 4
Cody Ross 3
Dan Uggla 3
Ivan Rodriguez 3

Hits

Name Total
Miguel Cabrera 18
Luis Castillo 17
Juan Pierre 17

Runs

Name Total
Miguel Cabrera 14
Juan Pierre 13
Luis Castillo 10

RBI

Name Total
Miguel Cabrera 13
Ivan Rodriguez 10
Alex Gonzalez 9
Dan Uggla 9

Doubles

Name Total
Alex Gonzalez 6
Derrek Lee 3
9 tied with 2

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Book 56 (of 52) – Speaking In Bones

Speaking In Bones – Kathy Reichs

When a web sleuth visits Temperance Brennan with theories and new evidence in a cold case, she starts Brennan off on an investigation that eventually solves two missing persons cases, a decades-old murder, and a present-day homicide.  In her personal life, Brennan finally gives Ryan an answer to his proposal.

Speaking in Bones is the 18th entry in Kathy Reichs’ Temperence Brennan series and is now the seventh book in the series that I’ve read.  My enjoyment of the series only grows the further away we get from the ending of the television show, Bones, that it inspired.

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2025 BBWAA Award Predictions

The Baseball Writers of America have announced the finalists for their awards for the recently completed baseball season, which will be announced next week.  It is a good bet that few of my original predictions for the winners will be accurate.  Hopefully, these new predictions will be slightly better, especially since I’ll have a 33% chance of being right.

American League

Most Valuable Player: Aaron Judge, Cal Raleigh, Jose Ramirez

Judge has won this award two of the last three seasons and his performance in 2025, when healthy, would ordinarily merit a third, but I have to believe Cal Raleigh, who became just the seventh player to reach the 60-home run mark and the first to do so while catching over 1000 innings, will bring home the award.

Cy Young Award: Hunter Brown, Garrett Crochet, Tarik Skubal

With all due respect to Brown, this is a two-way race.  Skubal seemed the obvious choice through much of the season, and I am guessing he will win, but Crochet probably made it much closer down the stretch.

Manager of the Year: John Schneider, Stephen Vogt, Dan Wilson

As usual, I didn’t make any predictions for this award prior to the season.  Schneider would be the obvious choice if voting were done today, after leading the Blue Jays within inches of a title.  Dan Wilson should also get some support for finally pushing the Mariners past the Astros.  But, if I had to guess, I would say Stephen Vogt will win, after the Guardians came out of nowhere to pass the Tigers for the AL Central crown after losing Emmanuel Clase to a gambling scandal mid-year.

Rookie of the Year: Roman Anthony, Nick Kurtz, Jacob Wilson

Another award I didn’t predict prior to the season.  Kurtz should run away and hide with this award after knocking 36 home runs with an OPS+ of 173.

National League

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Fitbit XI – Week 41

I extended my 30,000-step week streak to 25 weeks, thanks to my annual birthday trip to Boston and my highest step total since July.  Things got off to a good start on Sunday, finishing with 4900 steps.  A night out for a birthday dinner led to 5700 steps on Monday.  Confusion at the airport for my flight to Boston left me with 4700 steps on Tuesday.  I managed to surpass my daily step goal for the first time since early August on Wednesday, wrapping up the day with 7800 steps.  My return flight home on Thursday led to 5800 steps.  A return to work on Friday, along with trick or treat duties afterwards, left me with 4800 steps.  A lazy Saturday wrapped up the week with 4400 steps.

Total steps: 38,206

Daily average: 5458

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2025 College Basketball Tipoff

The Purdue men’s basketball team kicks off the 2025-2026 regular season tonight against Evansville.  With Danny out of school and losing my John Purdue Club pre-sale opportunities, it may be a while before I attend another regular season home game, but, like last year, I can look for road opportunities.  So, with the 129th season in school history about to get underway, let’s take a look at the results of the now 25 men’s college basketball games I have attended in my lifetime, with the latest coming at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa.

All-Time Team Records – Men

Team Won Loss Winning Pctg
Indiana Hoosiers 1 0 1.000
North Texas Mean Green 1 0 1.000
Virginia Commonwealth Rams 1 0 1.000
Butler Bulldogs 1 0 1.000
Purdue Boilermakers 17 7 0.708
Northwestern Wildcats 2 3 0.400
Illinois Fighting Illini 2 4 0.333
Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders 0 1 0.000
Gonzaga Bulldogs 0 1 0.000
Houston Cougars 0 1 0.000
Iowa Hawkeyes 0 1 0.000
Iowa State Cyclones 0 1 0.000
Long Beach State 49ers 0 1 0.000
Ohio State Buckeyes 0 1 0.000
Penn State Nittany Lions 0 1 0.000
Tennessee Volunteers 0 1 0.000
Vermont Catamounts 0 1 0.000
Jacksonville Dolphins 0 1 0.000