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A Shakeup In Wrigleyville

Just over nine years ago, the Cubs stunned the world by hiring Joe Maddon to manage the team while still employing Rick Renteria in the same role.  Since that worked out so well, Jed Hoyer and company decided to do it again, shocking everyone by announcing they were hiring Craig Counsell to become the new manager of the Cubs while simultaneously firing David Ross.  Counsell, 53, becomes the highest paid manager in MLB history with a five-year, $40 million contract after leading the Brewers to four NL Central titles in his nine seasons with the club.

In what was supposed to be a rebuilding year, the Cubs were primed to sneak into the playoffs before a September swoon knocked them out of contention.  That swoon likely cost David Ross his job, even if it wasn’t necessarily his fault.  Now Counsell will try to lead the upstart Cubs, and their new core of young talent expected to graduate to the big leagues in the next year or two, past his old club and back to the post-season for the first time since 2020.

Ross finishes his tenure with a 262-284 record in four seasons, with the one division title in 2020.  I imagine he will get another shot at the manager gig someday.

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You Ought To Be In (36) Pictures

Many years ago, using the weekly TV guide that came with the Sunday Chicago Tribune, I started keeping track of all of the movies I had seen over the course of my lifetime.  The guide would list the two main stars for each movie, and that is a tradition that I’ve carried on in my database ever since.  Given those guidelines, it is time once again to look at the now 107 actors that have starred in at least 10 films that I have seen, as of July 1.

We wrap up our series today with the lone actor that has starred in exactly 36 movies that I have seen, a new high from three years ago.

Bruce Willis

The actor that I have seen in the most films is Bruce Willis, who maintains a five-picture lead over his closest competitor.  I first saw him in 1985’s Moonlighting, the pilot to the television show that introduced him to America.  His first big screen work that I saw was 1988’s Die Hard.  His longest streak was four years, from 1995 through 1998.  I’ve seen him in multiple films in nine different years, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2014, 2019, and 2020.  The last time I saw him in a film was 2020, when he checked in with three different performances: 2017’s Once Upon a Time in Venice and, both from 2020, Hard Kill and Survive the Night.  Unfortunately, Willis’s family announced last year that he was retiring after being diagnosed with aphasia, a disorder impacting his language expression and comprehension.

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A Change Can Do You Good

New general manager Chris Getz put his first stamp on the White Sox organization yesterday, declining the team’s $14 million option on Tim Anderson’s contract for 2024, making him a free agent.  Anderson, who was arguably the face of the franchise, saw his fortunes fall in the second half of 2022 and continued to freefall in 2023.

Drafter by the White Sox in the first round in 2013, Tim Anderson made his major league debut on June 10, 2016, going 2-3 in a victory against the Royals at US Cellular Field.  Replacing veteran Jimmy Rollins, who would be released five days later, Anderson played 99 games, hitting .283 with nine home runs, and finished seventh in Rookie of the Year balloting.  Showing that he was still a work in progress, Anderson slashed .257/.276/.402 in 2017, with a 2.1% walk rate, the lowest in the major leagues.  Defensively, he led the major leagues in errors, with 28, as well as fielding errors (16) and throwing errors (12).  He showed slight improvements in 2018, with slight improvements in his OBP and slugging percentage, while reducing his overall errors.

2019 was Anderson’s coming out party.  He led the major leagues with a .335 average while raising his OPS to .865, setting career highs with 167 hits, 32 doubles, and 81 runs.  He still had some issues on defense, leading all major league players with 26 errors, leading to the lowest fielding percentage amongst all shortstops.  His hot bat continued into the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, notching a .322 average and an .886 OPS.  He won his first Silver Slugger award while leading the White Sox to their first post-season appearance since 2008.  He thrived in the Wild Card series against the A’s, going 9-14 in the three-game series.

Anderson continued to prove that he his offensive improvement wasn’t a fluke when baseball returned full time in 2021.  He was named to his first All Star team and, on the game’s biggest stage, he hit a walk-off home run against the Yankees in the inaugural Field of Dreams game in the cornfields of Iowa.  Overall, he hit .309 and posted an .807 OPS while hitting 17 home runs and driving in 61 RBIs.  Continuing where he left off the previous October, Anderson hit .368 in the ALDS against the Astros.

Things started to sour for Anderson in 2022, both on the field and off.  Injuries limited him to just 79 games and left him with his lowest OPS since 2018.  Off the field, an Instagram post by a woman who was not Anderson’s wife insinuated they were in a relationship, and he was the father of her unborn child.  Looking for a fresh start, Anderson played with Team USA in the 2023 World Baseball Classic, earning praise from manager Mark DeRose and outfielder Mike Trout.  Unfortunately, those good vibes did not spill over to the 2023 season.  After an early injury, Anderson struggled the entire year, his OPS dropped to a career-low .582 and he managed just a single home run.

Now Anderson will look to rebuild his career outside of the only franchise he has ever known while the White Sox look to find a stopgap shortstop for 2024 until 2021 first round draft pick Colson Montgomery is ready to take the reins.

Anderson’s numbers in a White Sox uniform, both for games I attended and overall, were:

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Prolific Authors – 6 Books

Way back in December of 2011 (and again every other December since), we’ve taken a look at the authors I have read the most, dating back to high school. Since I’ve far surpassed my “normal” reading output the last three years, I thought it would be nice to once again take a deeper dive into those books I’ve read through the start of October. Since our last check-in, I’ve read an additional 118 books, so there could be some movement over the past two years, but it’s time to take another look and see if my “favorite” authors have changed much in that time span.  We continue today with the two authors I’ve read six times, down two since 2021.

Silent Weapons – David Mack

David Mack

All six of his entries come from Star Trek: The Next Generation works I’ve read on my Kindle.

Scott Turow

The Chicago-based lawyer, who I first read in 1992 with Presumed Innocent and Burden of Proof, returned to my attention in 2021 after an eleven-year absence.

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Book 49 (of 52) – The Outsider

The Outsider – Stephen King

When a young boy is brutally murdered, the police and the district attorney think they have an impeachable case, with DNA and fingerprint evidence matching their chief suspect.  After they arrest him, though, they find out he has an iron-clad alibi, allowing bits of doubt to creep in.  When he is killed on the way to his arraignment, more mysterious happenings start to occur, leading a group of interested parties to hire an investigator who has previous experience with the strange and unexplainable.  When the natural world does not have an explanation for what is happening, will a police officer be able to expand his thinking to include the supernatural as a possibility?  And can they stop the supernatural creature before it attacks again?

Stephen King’s The Outsider, released in 2018, first made my acquaintance in 2020, when the adaptation aired on HBO.  I watched the first episode and meant to go back for the rest, but never did.  At some point, I picked up a copy of the eBook on the Kindle app and, being the Halloween season, this seemed like a good time to dive in.  It took a while for King to get to the “Stephen King” part of the tale, but once it did, it was an enjoyable ride.  Some of the characters from this book appear in other King works, so I feel like I now have a nice springboard back into his more recent output.

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College Basketball Tipoff

The men’s Purdue Boilermakers kicked off the 2023-2024 season last night, the 126th in school history, so let’s take a look at the results of the now 20 men’s college basketball games I have attended in my lifetime. You’d think it would be more, since I was a big fan and we had a great team while I was in school, but for some reason I only made it to two games while enrolled in college. The other 18 have been post-graduation, with the latest three coming last season thanks to a trip to Bloomington and the Big Ten Tournament being at the United Center.  Anyway, without further ado, here are the standings for those 20 games.

All-Time Team Records – Men

Team Won Loss Winning Pctg
Virginia Commonwealth Rams 1 0 1.000
North Texas Mean Green 1 0 1.000
Indiana Hoosiers 1 0 1.000
Butler Bulldogs 1 0 1.000
Purdue Boilermakers 12 7 0.631578947368421
Northwestern Wildcats 2 3 0.400
Illinois Fighting Illini 2 3 0.400
Vermont Catamounts 0 1 0.000
Penn State Nittany Lions 0 1 0.000
Ohio State Buckeyes 0 1 0.000
Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders 0 1 0.000
Long Beach State 49ers 0 1 0.000
Iowa State Cyclones 0 1 0.000
Houston Cougars 0 1 0.000
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It’s Hard To Hold A Candle

We are entering the home stretch of 2023, and, to prepare for Danny’s upcoming birthday, we have various shots of him from the 2022 Purdue football season.  From left to right, he’s outside the co-rec heading to Slayter Hill for the band’s pre-game performance, finishing lunch following the pre-game practice, and standing on the sidelines of Ross-Ade waiting to take the field.

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Fitbit IX – Week 40

Another week of training put me in a big hole, but a weekend trip out East almost pulled me back up over 30,000 steps.  The week got off to a decent start on Sunday, finishing with 4600 steps.  Things fell off a bit on Monday, going down to 3300 steps.  Another week of morning training started on Tuesday, which left me 25 steps shy of 2500.  Wednesday saw a slight increase, coming just 4 steps away from 2600.  Thursday saw a big increase, jumping back up to 4100 steps.  Celebrating my birthday on Friday pushed me up over 4500 steps.  A trip to Boston on Saturday to see Angelina was easily my best day of the week, finishing with 8000 steps, the first time I passed my daily goal in nearly a month.

Total steps: 29,687

Daily average: 4241

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You Ought To Be In (31) Pictures

Many years ago, using the weekly TV guide that came with the Sunday Chicago Tribune, I started keeping track of all of the movies I had seen over the course of my lifetime.  The guide would list the two main stars for each movie, and that is a tradition that I’ve carried on in my database ever since.  Given those guidelines, it is time once again to look at the now 107 actors that have starred in at least 10 films that I have seen, as of July 1.

We continue today with the one actor that has starred in exactly 31 movies that I have seen, a level left bare 3 years ago.

Tom Hanks

In 1984, Tom Hanks splashed on to the movie scene in the aptly titled Splash.  My biggest Tom Hanks year was 2017, when I saw four of his films, and there were six other years where I saw at least two of his films.  He has added a single new film, retaining his second-place position, which came earlier this year when I saw A Man Called Otto, the adaptation of the similarly named Fredrik Backman novel.

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Prolific Authors – 5 Books

Way back in December of 2011 (and again every other December since), we’ve taken a look at the authors I have read the most, dating back to high school. Since I’ve far surpassed my “normal” reading output the last three years, I thought it would be nice to once again take a deeper dive into those books I’ve read through the start of October. Since our last check-in, I’ve read an additional 118 books, so there could be some movement over the past two years, but it’s time to take another look and see if my “favorite” authors have changed much in that time span.  We continue today with the seven authors I’ve read four times, down one since 2021.

Amber Benson

The former Buffy the Vampire Slayer star checks in with the five entries in her Calliope Reaper-Jones fantasy series.

Angels & Demons – Dan Brown

Dan Brown

Brown, who became a publishing superstar with the release of The DaVinci Code in 2003, moves up the list thanks to 2009’s The Lost Symbol.

Diane Carey

First read in 1991, she was a stalwart of the Star Trek: The Next Generation novel line, which accounted for four of her five entries.

Jeff Mariotte

The former WildStorm VP and DC editor stands pat with his entries from the Buffy and Angel series of novels.

The Willow Files Vol. 2 – Yvonne Navarro

Yvonne Navarro

All five of the Chicago native’s works that I’ve read revisit the Buffy the Vampire Slayer universe.

Tom Perrotta

A nice two-book jump for the American novelist and screenwriter, whose works have a tendency to wind up on screen.

William Shatner

The actor best known for his role as Captain Kirk in Star Trek checks in with his efforts, whatever they may have been, both with his TekWar series and on two Star Trek novels.