Author / admin

by admin

Fitbit 12 – Week 13

Things keep moving in the right directions as I kept my 30,000-step week streak alive for the tenth straight week while also running my streak of 4000+ days to 47.  The week got off to a good start on Sunday, needing a mere 2 additional steps to finish with 4600.  Monday was just slightly lower, ending with 4500 steps.  A nice improvement on Tuesday pushed me up to only 7 steps shy of 4800.  A lunchtime walk helped me to 5600 steps on Wednesday.  An additional 22 steps was all that stood between me and 5200 on Thursday.  An afternoon trip to Wrigley Field on Friday put me over my daily goal and just 25 steps away from 7700.  A trip to the Chicago Public Library in Bridgeport for a presentation on Dick Allen helped end the week with 5100 steps.

Total steps: 37,576

Daily average: 5368

by admin

iTunes Top 200 Artists: #51-60

Music.  It is a powerful thing that brings people together, creates memories, and evokes emotions.  It is the universal language that speaks to the soul.  It forms the soundtrack of our lives.

It has now been five years since we last counted down the Top 200 artists in my iTunes library, featuring the songs I have listened to the most since 2007.  It is time to do so again, seeing which performers still resonate and if any newer ones have joined the fray.  So, without further ado, here are my most listened to artists, based on number of plays as of January 1, 2026.

We continue today with our next batch of ten artists, at least three of which had a key member die prematurely and another three helped greatly by inclusion in my baseball victory playlists.

#60: Warrant
iTunes stats: 178 plays
Previous ranking: #65

Formed in 1984 in Hollywood, the band, whose lead singer died of alcohol poisoning in 2011, picked up 47 new listens, which moved them up five slots.

#59: Run-D.M.C.
iTunes stats: 125 plays
Previous ranking: #61

The rap pioneers from New York added 39 new listens to their six songs in my collection, including their collaboration with Aerosmith.

#58: Cracker
iTunes stats: 183 plays
Previous ranking: #56

A small 20% increase for the Georgia rockers thanks to 30 new plays over these past five years.

#57: Klaus Badelt
iTunes stats: 184 plays
Previous ranking: #48

The composer dropped nine spots in the rankings due to the White Sox no longer using his theme from Pirates of the Caribbean as part of their pre-game routine and its subsequent removal from my victory playlists.

#56: Hole
Continue reading →

by admin

150 Years Of Cubs Baseball – First Basemen

Originally founded in 1869, the Chicago Cubs became a charter member of the National League in 1876.  Over the next 150 seasons, the Cubs have played more than 22,000 games, scored over 103,000 runs and recorded more than 200,000 hits, more than any other team in baseball history.  Nearly 2,300 players have worn a Cubs uniform, earning eight division titles, 17 NL pennants, and three World Series championships.

Fans have witnessed generations of unforgettable players, from historical heroes like Joe Tinker, Gabby Hartnett, Ernie Banks, and Billy Williams to more recent stars like Ryne Sandberg, Derrek Lee, Kerry Wood, and Anthony Rizzo.  The team has called Wrigley Field home for 110 of those 150 seasons.

To celebrate this milestone, the Cubs are holding a fan vote to select the franchise’s anniversary team.  Each week, we will go through the provided options for each position and declare who should, and, if different, who will, win the fan vote.  We continue today with the eight selections for first baseman.

Cap Anson was one of the first superstars of professional baseball.  He joined the Cubs franchise, then known as the White Stockings, in 1876, the first year of the new National League.  In addition to managing the team from 1879-1897, he was the NL batting champion in both 1881 and 1888 and led the league in RBI eight times between 1880 and 1891.  He helped the team to five pennants between 1880 and 1886.  He was posthumously elected to the Hall of Fame in 1939.

Bill Buckner joined the Cubs in 1977, moving to first base due to a staph infection in his ankle the previous year.  He would win the NL batting title in 1980 and be named to his lone All-Star team in 1981.  In 1982, he set the major league record for assists at first base with 159.  Following some late acquisitions in 1984, Buckner found himself the off man out and was traded at the end of May.  He is a member of the Cubs Hall of Fame.

Phil Cavarretta spent 20 seasons with the Cubs, making his debut in September of 1934, just two months past his 18thn birthday.  He was a four-time All Star and, in 1945, he won the NL batting title and the MVP award while leading the Cubs to the pennant, their last one for over 70 years.  In his final season with the Cubs, he set the modern franchise record by playing in his 1938th game.  All told, he would hit .317 in three World Series appearances for the Cubs.

Continue reading →

by admin

The First Time

Previously, we’ve looked at the most recent time I’ve seen each of the 30 major league baseball teams play.  Three weeks into the 2026 season, I thought it would be worth going into the wayback machine and see when the first time was that I saw each team live and in person, to the best of my knowledge.  My records only go back to 1984, so anything before that is as yet unidentified.

Breaking it down by decade, we have twelve teams I saw originally during the 80s, eleven in the 90s, and the remaining seven came in the 2000s.  For franchises that have moved, I have lumped them all together.

Earliest Game

Team Name Year
Texas Rangers 8/14/1984
Chicago White Sox 8/14/1984
Toronto Blue Jays 8/30/1984
Boston Red Sox 4/19/1985
San Diego Padres 7/8/1985
Chicago Cubs 7/8/1985
Baltimore Orioles 7/26/1985
New York Mets 8/4/1985
Kansas City Royals 8/20/1985
Cleveland Indians/Guardians 7/16/1987
Seattle Mariners 9/18/1987
California/Anaheim/Los Angeles Angels 7/28/1988
Detroit Tigers 4/20/1991
Milwaukee Brewers 7/18/1993
Pittsburgh Pirates 8/2/1993
Continue reading →
by admin

Book 21 (of 52) – Another Thing To Fall

Another Thing To Fall – Laura Lippman

When Tess literally rows into a television production, she finds herself with a new job: protecting/babysitting the show’s starlet.  As the production continually runs into increasingly elaborate pranks that threaten to derail the show’s future, Tess starts investigating, starting with her charge.  When those mishaps escalate to murder, she starts to make some headway, she needs to track down the clues that will lead her to the culprit before the whole production is shut down and Hollywood leaves Baltimore behind.

In Another Thing to Fall, the tenth entry in Laura Lippman’s Tess Monaghan series, the action gets a little meta, as Lippman was married at the time to David Simon, the man behind the Baltimore-set HBO hit The Wire.  With only two more entries to go in the series, we are nearing the end and I should wrap things up later this year.

by admin

CBS Upfronts

For reasons I don’t entirely understand, CBS unveiled their plans for the 2026-2027 season this week, well ahead of the traditional May timeframe for their upfront presentation.  The week starts with a revamped Monday without the familiar comedy block starting out the night.  FBI and its spinoff CIA both move up an hour, followed by Harlan Coben’s Final Twist, a true crime series hosted by the best-selling author.  Tuesday gets turned over to the NCIS franchise, with the original version leading off the night, followed by the new NCIS: New York and the returning NCIS: Origins.

Wednesday continues as all reality, with extra-long episodes of Survivor followed by The Amazing Race.  Thursday has the network’s only remaining comedies, with Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage followed by Eternally Yours, about a vampire couple whose 500-year marriage has grown stale.  Another installment of Elsbeth and the new Cupertino, a legal drama set in Silicon Valley, finish out the night.  Friday remains the same, with Sheriff Country followed by Fire Country and Boston Blue.  Sunday kicks off with 60 Minutes, followed by Marshalls, Tracker, and reruns.

On tap for midseason on Wednesdays are the returning NCIS: Sydney, Ghosts, and Matlock, along with Einstein, starring Matthew Gray Gubler as the great grandson of Albert Einstein who is forced to help the police solve their toughest cases.

Gone and never to be seen again are The Neighborhood, DMV, and Watson.

by admin

Fitbit 12 – Week 12

Yet another good week as I kept my 30,000-step week streak alive for the ninth straight week while also running my streak of 4000+ days to 40.  A trip to Rate Field on Sunday to see the White Sox sweep the Blue Jays got the week off to a great start, finishing with 6600 steps.  Monday needed just 23 additional steps to reach 5000.  Things slowed just a bit on Tuesday, falling to 4700 steps.  Another small drop on Wednesday left me with 4500 steps.  Things picked up again on Thursday, ending 37 steps shy of 5300.  Another nice day on Friday ended 22 steps short of 5100.  A morning walk on Saturday ended the week a single step shy of 5800.

Total steps: 37,019

Daily average: 5288.4

by admin

Book 20 (of 52) – Chili Dog MVP

Chili Dog MVP: Dick Allen, The ’72 White Sox and a Transforming Chicago – John Owens and David J. Fletcher

The early 70s were a time of change on the south side of Chicago.  As the ballclub that called Comiskey Park home recovered from the then-worst season in franchise history in 1970 and threats to move the club out of the city they’d called home for seven decades, the demographics of the surrounding neighborhoods started to shift and noted White Sox fan Richard J. Daley, longtime mayor of the city, started to lose his vice-like grip on the Democratic party.  Those changes crystalized in 1972, with the arrival of Dick Allen, a baseball superstar whose reputation was perhaps less than stellar.  But, taking a young ballclub under his wing, he led the upstart White Sox to their best season in five years, challenging the budding dynasty in Oakland for the AL West title.

Chili Dog MVP: Dick Allen, The ’72 White Sox and a Transforming Chicago, by authors John Owens and David J. Fletcher and editor George Castle, tells the tale of that 1972 White Sox team, while also touching on the things going on around it, both physically and temporally.  They cover the ownership transfers from Arthur Allyn to his brother John in 1970 and then again to Bill Veeck in 1975.  The interconnected revival of Harry Caray’s career announcing for the White Sox with the rise of young organist Nancy Faust, who would spend 40 years with the franchise.  The arrival of Roland Hemond and Chuck Tanner in late 1970, who helped turn the franchise around and were instrumental in the acquisition of Allen and convincing him to come play in Chicago.  And, of course, the career of Dick Allen, especially his three years in Chicago, from the promising beginning to the bitter end, when he quit on the team and temporarily retired towards the end of the 1974 season.

The 1972 White Sox were just a little before my time, so this was a nice glimpse into the franchise just a few years before I was born.  If I have one complaint about its composition, it is that it is treated, and edited, more a collection of one-off essays rather than as a comprehensive story, so details and characters are re-introduced and re-described numerous times.  That small change could have streamlined the tale and probably cut a good ten pages or so from the tome.

by admin

iTunes Top 200 Artists: #61-70

Music.  It is a powerful thing that brings people together, creates memories, and evokes emotions.  It is the universal language that speaks to the soul.  It forms the soundtrack of our lives.

It has now been five years since we last counted down the Top 200 artists in my iTunes library, featuring the songs I have listened to the most since 2007.  It is time to do so again, seeing which performers still resonate and if any newer ones have joined the fray.  So, without further ado, here are my most listened to artists, based on number of plays as of January 1, 2026.

We continue today with our next batch of ten artists, including two I have seen perform live.

#70: Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons
iTunes stats: 162 plays
Previous ranking: #67

The inspiration for the musical Jersey Boys drops three spots after gaining 33 new plays.

#67: Toad the Wet Sprocket
iTunes stats: 168 plays
Previous ranking: #62

A five-spot drop thanks to a 23% increase in listens for the 90s alternative band from Santa Barbara, California.

#67: Oblivion
iTunes stats: 168 plays
Previous ranking: #73

The local punk band, fronted by a former co-worker, added 47 new listens to the ten tracks from their final album to make up this total.

#67: John Williams
iTunes stats: 168 plays
Previous ranking: #68

The composer of some of the most popular and recognizable film scores in cinematic history, including the Star Wars and Superman series, picks up 41 new listens over the last five years.

#64: The Bangles
Continue reading →

by admin

150 Years Of Cubs Baseball – Catchers

Originally founded in 1869, the Chicago Cubs became a charter member of the National League in 1876.  Over the next 150 seasons, the Cubs have played more than 22,000 games, scored over 103,000 runs and recorded more than 200,000 hits, more than any other team in baseball history.  Nearly 2,300 players have worn a Cubs uniform, earning eight division titles, 17 NL pennants, and three World Series championships.

Fans have witnessed generations of unforgettable players, from historical heroes like Joe Tinker, Gabby Hartnett, Ernie Banks, and Billy Williams to more recent stars like Ryne Sandberg, Derrek Lee, Kerry Wood, and Anthony Rizzo.  The team has called Wrigley Field home for 110 of those 150 seasons.

To celebrate this milestone, the Cubs are holding a fan vote to select the franchise’s anniversary team.  Each week, we will go through the provided options for each position and declare who should, and, if different, who will, win the fan vote.  We continue today with the eight selections for catcher.

Willson Contreras first joined the Cubs in 2016 and became the 30th player in modern MLB history to hit a home run on the first pitch of his first major league at bat.  Contreras made it on to the post-season roster and helped the Cubs end their 108-year title drought in winning the 2016 World Series.  He became the everyday starting catcher in 2017 and was elected to the All-Star team three times.  He spent parts of seven seasons behind the plate for the Cubs, appearing in 30 postseason games across four seasons.

Jody Davis joined the Cubs in April of 1981, quickly becoming the team’s starter.  During his Cub tenure, he was named to two All-Star teams and won the Gold Glove in 1986, a season where he set the all-time MLB record for number of baserunners caught stealing with 89.  Davis remained with the Cubs through most of the 1988 season.  He will be inducted into the team’s Hall of Fame later this year.

Silver Flint played for the White Stockings from 1879-1889.  He, alongside pitcher Larry Corcoran, is believed to have developed the first system of signs between a pitcher and catcher to indicate pitch selection.  He was the first catcher in MLB history to catch three no-hitters.  Off the field, Flint had financial difficulties that nearly got him banned from the league.

Gabby Hartnett spent the first 19 years, from 1922-1940, of his career with the Cubs, appearing in six All-Star games and earning the MVP award in 1935.  Perhaps best remembered for the “Homer in the Gloamin’” in 1938, Hartnett was considered the best National League catcher until the emergence of Johnny Bench.  He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1955.

Continue reading →