The Fix Is In!

From Muskat's "Cubs Fall To Giants' Power Display"

CHICAGO -- Sean Marshall became the 430th Major League pitcher to serve up a home run to Barry Bonds on Saturday. He won't be the last.

How do you know? He will be facing Cubs' pitching tomorrow, sure, but this is a very obvious and worthless sort of observation. Do you know who scored the NFL's first two-point conversion? Tommy Tupa. Who will be the 430th man to do so? It does not matter! But whoever it will be, he won't be the last!

On second thought, maybe Carrie Muskat has a time machine. Unless she's wrong, and Bonds breaks Aaron's record by hitting his next 28 homers against Sean Marshall.

A rookie mistake thwarted a potential ninth-inning rally.

"God got the guy out," Giants manager Felipe Alou said.

"We'll take divine intervention at any time," Stanton said.

Why do sports journalists insist upon crediting some higher being for everything? Even if she didn't write it herself, she got the quotes and decided to use them to shape the "Cubs Are Cursed" angle of her article. Yet she contradicts herself when she blames the loss on the somewhat un-god-like Ryan Theriot (every God on the 432 B.C. Greek Gods team had at least 137 homers). So which was it, Carrie? Did a fan see Jesus in a hot dog right before Stanton threw? Maybe we should blame Bartma---I mean the fans. Or was it that asshat Theriot for clogging up the bases? (Yes he reached on a walk.)

Marshall knew all about Bonds.

Yeah, he's somewhat well known among baseball nerds. I'm surprised that Marshall was familiar, though, because he's such a n00b.

With two outs in the Giants' sixth, Bonds walked and Durham followed with his 21st home run, followed two pitches later by Alou's 15th blast to open a 4-1 lead.

Please do not refer to anything Moises Alou does as a "blast" or a "shot".

The game was one Cubs catcher Michael Barrett would like to forget. He left after five innings when he took a foul tip off his groin. Barrett was feeling ill and was taken to a local hospital as a precautionary measure. His status was day-to-day.

I thought he came to the game "mentally prepared for the worst". Apparently he was not physically prepared. And ill? He was hit in the testicles by a baseball moving 90-something mph that was coming at him (awful, awful word choice) from an angle he was only mentally prepared for. Ill...just is not the word for this. Ask a man how it feels, Carrie.