They're playing this on both courses

Drew and I went for a mini-golf outing today. It was originally intended simply to be a trip to Par King in Lincolnshire so that Drew could experience that course, but when he wasn't a huge fan and I was annoyed that my attempt to break par was derailed by the goddamn roulette wheel on 18 (I didn't even think I was playing that well, but it turned out I was basically trashing every personal course record prior to carding a 6 on the stupid game-of-chance final hole), we made a side trip to Mount Prospect, thanks to my absolutely awesome ability to remember the names of streets I read once, nine months ago. There we played both courses at Twin Links, our favorite Chicagoland course (and also one of the cheapest - $9 to play both courses, as opposed to Par King's $7-for-one). On the first course we both got 48 after Drew gave away a six-shot lead on the last four holes - this was the first (and, as it turned out, the only) time to date that either of us recorded a score worse than par on either Twin Links course. On the second course, Drew tore up the record books, setting or tying new personal records for everything except "most holes in one in a round," and setting or tying most of the course records. (I refer only to my personal stats, obviously.)

I guess no one really cares, and if you do the summaries are already on the mini golf page. I guess what I'm saying is, I love mini golf. If you're town and you want to play, well, I'm your man. (Tyler?) Few things are more fun than a good mini golf outing, I find.

The Blak School

As you may have seen, Coke has this new product called "Coca-Cola Blãk" (I don't know if that letter will show up properly on your screen or not. Originally I thought the line over the A was a straight line, which would actually make the phonetic pronunciation "Blake," but it turns out, having looked at the bottle up close, that it's Coke's trademark dynamic ribbon). It bills itself as "Coke effervescence, coffee essence," or something like that. Alma knew I had to try it, so she picked up a package and gave me a bottle.

Never in my life, that I can recall, have I had such a wildly mixed reaction to a soda. First of all, let the record show that I went in expecting to hate the stuff. I mean, coffee cola? I think there's a reason that Pepsi Kona can't be found in every corner store. But my reaction actually went something like this:

"Hmm... this doesn't taste terrible... sort of like caramel... I really don't want to drink any more."

Zero to repulsed in 4.6 seconds? It tastes sort of like a caramel Frappuccino or something, but the key problem is that "Coke effervescence" they brag so much about. While it doesn't make me want to gag like Jones sodas or Splenda-infused abominations, I don't think there has ever been a less chuggable soda in wide American release. You want to nurse it like a hot coffee. (Also, the aroma emanating from the bottle? Not the greatest.) The fizz bothers me, and I think the aspartame probably does too; I wouldn't want to put NutraSweet in my coffee, so why would I want to drink this? The recent trend towards cutting calories by going dutch between sugar and sweeteners bugs me; using sugar enables companies to avoid using the dreaded "Diet," while throwing in some Splenda (as the unfortunately repulsive Jones Twisted Lime does) enables them to keep calories down and also make sure that I will find their products wholly undrinkable.

I guess that, once again, I really find myself confused about who this is being marketed to, which seems to happen with most new soda flavors. I mean, if you like coffee, you're going to drink coffee, not some half-assed C2 relative that tastes vaguely like a latte. And if you're the sort of person who gets their caffeine fix from Coke, it's probably because you didn't like the taste of coffee to begin with. What's more, I see no evidence that Coke Blak has any more caffeine than regular Coke. So I'm going to drink this instead of coffee because it has less caffeine and doesn't taste as good? Sold!

Coffee cola has proven somewhat popular in certain other countries, but then again, guarana-flavored sodas are all the rage in Brazil and that's not exactly the world's sweetest fruit. My suspicion is that here in America, we just like our pop far too sweet - whether sugary or "sweetened" - to put up with something like this. And just as Pepsi Kona hit the skids after some unsuccessful test-marketing, I'm guessing Coke Blak will ultimately not be around for that long.

Big Head Bonds and the Monsters

The most annoying part of any media circus is the part where some members of the media, deciding they need a different angle, start talking about whether the media - of which they are a part - is treating the public figure caught in that circus fairly. It's needlessly self-referential and frequently is insultingly underthought.

Take Barry Bonds. No one has liked Barry Bonds outside of San Francisco for a decade or so. Yet with the perjury allegations and everything else, some members of the media have begun to suggest that perhaps Bonds is being persecuted, especially by their peers.

Let's get something straight. Yes, a lot of members of the press don't like Barry Bonds. That's because he has been, by and large, a jerk to them over the years. Sports journalists can be creeps themselves, but Bonds had the option to play the game like every other guy, and he chose the "unaccomodating prick" route instead. And then he violated the sanctity of the game (in all likelihood, at least) and proceeded to lie about it.

Compare this to Pete Rose. Rose was chasing (and broke) a long-held record. He also violated the sanctity of the game and lied about it. Rose's violation didn't even have anything to do with the record he broke - if gambling affected his play at all, you'd have to assume it was in the form of getting fewer hits than he could have. Yet Rose, who unless I'm mistaken was a fairly popular player, has also been fried to a crisp in the press over the years. He's had his defenders, but so has Bonds.

Is Bonds being singled out? Maybe. But on the other hand, no other potential steroids user is even in the 600-home run club, let alone the 700-HR club. Sure, Sosa and McGwire were more popular than Bonds - but they also never seriously knocked on the door of true immortality. Bonds has brought the scrutiny on himself by doing something two other men have ever done but doing it in incredibly suspicious circumstances (at best). What else is someone supposed to say? Bonds is still active (unlike the other two), he's just six shy of Ruth, and he's doing it under a huge cloud. That's a story, like it or not. There's really no positive angle to take.

If he makes another cake joke, I'm gonna kill him

Okay, hear me out. Those of you who are not Cubs fans, or just not rabid Cubs fans, or not really big sports fans in general, can't fault me for this. And anyway, this is just last year's "Diary of a Mad Cubs Fan" except with commenting enabled (always better than not). Isn't this better than every other post being seven paragraphs on the Cubs for the next five months? Exactly.

"Wow! He's still got it!" - Look Magazine

It's two days early, but happy 40th birthday to Greg Maddux, who chose his third year with the Cubs to finally stop his unfortunate recent tendency to spend the first several weeks of any new season sucking wind. For the record, Maddux's last three starts to a year:

2003 (with Braves): Lost first three starts, with the Braves losing the games 10-2, 17-1, and 16-2; in the third game, against Philadelphia, Maddux allowed 10 runs (seven earned) on 12 hits. His ERA at the end of that stretch? 11.05. It took him until September to finally get under 4.00 for the season.

2004 (with Cubs): Lost first two starts, the first a hard-luck 3-1 decision against the Reds, but the second a 13-2 home loss to Pittsburgh in which Maddux went just 4.2. He proceeded to allow seven earned runs in six innings in an 11-10 loss to the Reds in his third start, though he avoided a decision in that one. His ERA after three starts? 8.62. He got under 4.00 as early as June 16, though.

2005 (with Cubs): Oddly enough, this might have been his best start of the three - he lost his first start (5-4 to Arizona, giving up all 5 ER in just 5 IP), then took three straight NDs before getting a win against Houston. Naturally, this was the year he went 13-15 with a 4.24 ERA - his worst ERA, fewest wins, and only losing season since 1987 (when he was 21).

But what do we know now? You can't count out Greg Maddux.

Sure, the very act of me writing this will probably cause his arm to fall off, but as I said after his win in the first game against St. Louis, I'll take 6.1 and one earned run from Maddux every fifth day from now until October. Maddux allowed four hits on Friday and struck out one; today he allowed just three hits and struck out seven, including the literal side in the top of the third. (As my dad often gripes, announcers will mention "striking out the side" any time a pitcher records all three outs in an inning on strikeouts. But what if the pitcher also gave up four runs that inning? The literal "striking out the side" is three up, three down, three Ks. Maddux did that.)

Right now his ERA is 1.46. He's 2-0. Maddux hasn't been 2-0 since 2002; his ERA hasn't been within two runs of 1.46 at any point since he finished 2002 with a 2.62 mark.

Oh, and he now has 320 career wins, within shouting distance of Roger Clemens (341) for the most of his generation. I don't know if he'll get there (Clemens might also yet decide to come back and tack on a few for good measure), but if he stays healthy he should have 330 all but in the bag as long as the team doesn't fall apart behind him. 330 would move him into the top ten all time and pass Don Sutton, Nolan Ryan, and Steve Carlton, among others. Only five guys who began their careers after 1900 would have more wins. I really hope he finishes his career in Chicago; they blew one chance to keep him in town and now he's going into the Hall of Fame as a Brave, but to have his career come full circle as he chases Clemens in a Cub uniform would be a small measure of justice. Don't let this guy finish his career as a Diamondback or something.

I realize I probably sound disproportionately optimistic so early in the season (and one day after proclaiming "Cubs suck" in the post title), but I'd like to try enjoying my Cubs fandom for at least one year. I already told Drew to plan on at least one trip to Wrigley a month; it's criminal that a Cubs fan can have lived within earshot of the park for going on two years now and never have been to a single game there in that time - in fact, I haven't been to a game since a 2-1 win over the Brewers on May 7, 2003, a two-hour, 20-minute game won by Shawn Estes and lost by... get ready... Glendon Rusch. Not a single player who took the field for the Cubs that day - Tom Goodwin, Alex Gonzalez, Sammy Sosa, Eric Karros, Mark Grudzielanek, Moises Alou, Mark Bellhorn, Ramon Martinez, Damian Miller, Troy O'Leary, Hee Seop Choi, Shawn Estes, Antonio Alfonseca, and Joe Borowski - is still wearing the uniform. Less than three years later. Wow. (On the other hand, look at that lineup! I think it can be argued that the only positions at which the Cubs are currently worse than they were to start 2003 are the outfield corners, and what they lose in power they gain in youth.)

But I'm rambling again. The point is - Wrigley trips, and not infrequently. Sure, it's not the cheapest thing in the world to do, but how many times do you live this close to your favorite team's home stadium? You'd think, having grown up so far from the Cubs, I would feel more draw to see them now. And it's not that I don't, it's just that I'm not exactly rolling in cash. But there comes a point at which you say "the hell with it." And at least I'm drawing a paycheck now, unlike the majority of last season. So we're doing this.

(For the record, I did come back to Chicago a number of times as a kid, but I never saw a Cubs game - the only ballgame I saw in Chicago between 1985 and 2000 was a freaking Sox game. I believe, based on the Retrosheet box scores, that it was the April 29, 1993 game against the Brewers, the infamous "As if!" game in which Dan Pasqua came up in the bottom of the seventh with the Sox clinging to a 5-4 lead and two out with a man on. Someone nearby mentioned a home run Pasqua had once hit off the Ragu sign, well behind us; recalling his .205 average of the previous year, I snorted, "As if," prompting Pasqua to immediately hit a home run a few rows in front of us in the right field seats, and the Sox fans in front of me to turn around and go "As if! As if!" in a simultaneous burst of delirium and disdain. Not good times.)

Cubs suck

Well, really, Glendon Rusch sucks, and Will Ohman sucks too. But how do you only score two runs in a game started by Bronson Arroyo? The last time he came to Wrigley Field, the Cubs scored seven runs on 10 hits in four innings in a 14-6 win on June 10, 2005. Now they're already 0-2 against him this year? Also, why does he have two home runs? I wasn't expecting Rusch to be the second coming of Milt Pappas, but this is embarrassing. Though fortunately, at the current rate, the Cubs should finish approximately 130-32, losing only Rusch's starts.

On to better things. The Cubs locked Derrek Lee in for five years at $13 million each - and yeah, that's a ton of money to give a guy based pretty much on a single season, even if that season was completely fucking awesome. On the other hand, early returns are favorable this year, and I'd rather have the Cubs overpay for a guy who reverts to .280-30-100 form than let a guy go who can go .330-45-110 for the next few years. Remember what happened when they didn't want to pay Greg Maddux in 1992.

Speaking of transactions the Cubs have fucked up, I was talking on a message board last night and noting that, right now, the Lee trade is looking like one of the better moves the Cubs have ever made. Then I went down the line and realized that, apart from a couple of particularly infamous bad moves, the Cubs haven't been quite as miserable, at least on the trading front, as we might like to think over the years. Thus, a pair of lists.

The Five Worst Trades in Cubs History

Honorable Mention: Every trade bringing a washed-up veteran to Wrigley
Until very recently, the Cubs had a long and storied history of trading for guys who were well past their prime, like they were trying to increase the gate by trotting out old superstars or something. Among the one-time stars who played briefly for the Cubs late in their careers and did little to nothing: Dizzy Dean, Jimmie Foxx (though he was actually claimed off waivers), Ralph Kiner (decent, but never the 50/120 guy he'd been five years earlier), Monte Irvin (a Rule V draftee, but again, in his last season), Bobby Thomson, Richie Ashburn, Lew Burdette, Robin Roberts (again, not a trade, but it was his last stop), Bobby Bonds, and Ron Cey (who, astonishingly, hit 25 homers and knocked in 97 for the '84 Cubs, though he hit just .240 - he also held down the third base spot for several years, against all odds). And that's just the half-century between 1934 and 1984.

5. March 27, 2002: Cubs trade Dontrelle Willis, Julian Tavarez, Ryan Jorgensen, and Jose Cueto to Marlins for Matt Clement and Antonio Alfonseca.
This isn't exactly the quintessential "mortgaging minor-league talent bites you in the ass" example along the lines of the Red Sox giving away Jeff Bagwell for 15 games of Larry Andersen in 1990, but it hasn't exactly worked out that well long-term for the Cubs, which is the only real way to judge these things. Clement went 35-36 in three seasons with the Cubs, his best coming in 2003, when his 14-12 record "helped" the Cubs to the NLCS. (Worth noting: Clement did win his only start in that LCS.) Alfonseca, one of the last times the Cubs tried to find a closer by picking someone who had done it for a while and then washed out somewhere else, saved just 19 games in Chicago; El Pulpo was replaced by Joe Borowski in 2003 and went to Atlanta after the season. Meanwhile, Willis has become one of baseball's hottest young pitching stars, breaking through with a 22-10 record for Florida in 2005. And it's not like the Cubs need starting pitching or anything.

4. April 3, 1987: Cubs trade Dennis Eckersley and Dan Rohn to A's for three minor-leaguers.
Eck started 81 games for the Cubs in two-plus years, then started just two the rest of his career, as Oakland turned him into one of the most dominant closers in the history of the game. This one may not be entirely fair, since "make him a closer" would have been thinking way outside the box for most teams, but the fact remains that the Cubs gave away 390 career saves and an ERA of 0.61 in 1990.

3. February 11, 1977: Cubs trade Bill Madlock and Rob Sperring to Giants for Bobby Murcer, Steve Ontiveros, and Andy Muhlstock.
Let's say you have a Cy Young Award-winning pitcher on your team. It only makes sense to ship him out after one bad year for a rookie third baseman, doesn't it? However, if the Cubs looked bad when they traded Fergie Jenkins to Texas for Madlock in 1973, it worked out for them - Jenkins won 25 games in 1974, but Madlock won batting titles in two of his three years with the Cubs. Then, cementing the jinx on their hot corner, the Cubs sent the 25-year-old two-time batting champion to San Francisco for washed-up ex-Yankee Murcer. They ended up shipping him back to the Bronx after two undistinguished seasons; Madlock won two more batting titles and a World Series ring with the 1979 Pirates.

2. December 5, 1988: Cubs trade Rafael Palmeiro, Jamie Moyer, and Drew Hall to Rangers for Mitch Williams, Paul Kilgus, Steve Wilson, Curtis Wilkerson, and two minor-leaguers.
Typical Cub thinking, embodied both here and in the Madlock deal - if one great hitter is good, then two mediocre hitters are even better! It's like the management was making deals exclusively based on how many players they were getting back, which is sort of like hitting on 19 because you don't have 21 yet. Palmeiro's 1988 year was something of a breakout season, as he hit .307; the Cubs immediately traded him for a sketchy closer who lasted just two seasons in Chicago and five other guys who were, even at the time, total nobodies. The real kicker is that Moyer ended up winning more than 200 games for his career after starting 28-34 in three seasons with the Cubs; he was probably included mostly so the Rangers would get some pitching back. Of course, Moyer didn't put together a 20-win season until he was 38, in 2001, so it's not like this one backfired hideously or soon.

1. June 15, 1964: Cubs trade Lou Brock, Jack Spring, and Paul Toth to Cardinals for Ernie Broglio, Bobby Shantz, and Doug Clemens.
Brock-for-Broglio was the centerpiece of this deal; none of the other four players had done much before or after. At the time it probably looked like the Cubs were getting a steal. Brock, a young outfielder, had a fair amount of speed but was only an average bat, hitting .258 in 1963 and just .251 through 52 games for the Cubs in '64. Broglio, on the other hand, had been a 20-game winner in 1960 and was 18-8 with an ERA under 3.00 in 1963. Then the trade happened, and it was like Brock turned into the ghost of Ty Cobb and Broglio turned into a t-ball stand. Ernie was 4-7 for the Cubs down the stretch in '64; Lou rapped out 146 hits in 103 games, hitting .348 and stealing 33 bases en route to a Cardinals World Series title. Brock's finish was so strong he finished tenth in the NL MVP balloting, not exactly common for a player who changed teams midseason. The rest of it we know; Brock topped 3,000 hits, stole 938 bases (including 118 in 1974), and ended up in the Hall of Fame. Broglio went 3-12 in 1965 and 1966 combined, with ERAs well over 6.00 each year, and never pitched in the majors again. Aside from the Babe Ruth sale, there may not be a more lopsided result from a trade in the history of baseball.

So this is getting a little long. I hope the Cubs fans in attendance, at least, will bear with me for the best trades in Cubs history.

The Five Best Trades in Cubs History

Honorable Mentions: Cubs get Ferguson Jenkins from Phillies and he wins 147 games in seven-plus years; Cubs get Rick Sutcliffe from Indians and he goes 16-1 (points off for trading Joe Carter and because Sutcliffe never quite recaptured that magic in seven additional seasons); Cubs trade Sammy Sosa to Orioles just before he turns into a complete stiff.

5. July 23, 2003: Cubs trade Jose Hernandez, Bobby Hill, and Matt Bruback to Pirates for Aramis Ramirez and Kenny Lofton.
Lofton was a rental for the '03 playoff run, but Ramirez looks like he's going to be the guy who finally fills the hole at third left largely vacant by a true talent in his prime since Madlock was shipped out of town. A legit .300/30/100 guy, Ramirez has also brought his errors way down since joining the Cubs (and he hit four home runs in those 2003 playoffs).

4. November 25, 2003: Cubs trade Hee Seop Choi and Mike Nannini to Marlins for Derrek Lee.
Say what you will about the Marlins, but they know how to run a fire sale. Lee was a legit .280-30-100 candidate with Florida; with the Cubs, he's turned into a .330-45-110 guy. Time will tell if Lee justifies his big extension by putting out more Triple Crown caliber seasons - fingers crossed - but even if he reverts to earlier form he's yet to be approached by Choi in terms of production.

3. December 12, 1903: Cubs trade Jack Taylor and Larry McLean to Cardinals for Mordecai Brown and Jack O'Neill.
Maybe the Brock deal was just karmic payback for this one. Taylor was okay for the Cards for a couple years, but Brown only became the backbone of one of the most dominant teams in baseball history, the 1906-1909 Cubs who averaged well over 100 victories a year (including 116 in 1906) and played in three World Series, winning the franchise's only two to date (in 1907 and 1908, of course). Brown had six straight 20-win seasons for the Cubs (1906-1911) and recorded six years of sub-2.00 ERAs, including his 1.04 doozy in '06.

2. January 27, 1982: Cubs trade Ivan DeJesus to Phillies for Ryne Sandberg and Larry Bowa.
Bowa was in the twilight of his career, and he still stayed with the Cubs longer than DeJesus stayed in Philadelphia. With that virtual wash out of the way, it's like the Cubs got Ryno for nothing at all. Sandberg, of course, went on to an MVP year in 1984 (as he led the Cubs to within a game of the Series), nine Gold Gloves, ten All-Star Games, two more top-five MVP finishes, and the Hall of Fame.

1. March 30, 1992: Cubs trade George Bell to White Sox for Sammy Sosa and Ken Patterson.
Maybe this is why White Sox fans hate the Cubs so much. Bell had two great seasons for Toronto in the mid-80s, but his best years were behind him by 1992, the .255/25/112 he put up for the White Sox that year being more or less emblematic of that. One more year (in which he hit .217) and he was out of baseball. Sosa, despite the acrimonious ending, became the face of the Cubs for the better part of a decade, stepping into Ryno's stardom void with a breakout 36/119 season in 1995 (Sandberg's first retirement year). I wouldn't be shocked to hear that Sosa's stats helped lure Sandberg back for two more years at age 36, but this was already turning into Sammy's team. Between 1995 and 2003, Sosa hit 444 homers and drove in 1,146 runs. The steroid cloud hangs over him now, and he was probably on something at some point, but Sosa was a 30/100 candidate as early as 1993 (though he was also a 30/30 guy back then), so it's not like his power was completely inorganic. Either way, he was a fan favorite until just before the end, and he led the Cubs to two playoff appearances - as many as they'd had in the 46 years before his arrival - and within five outs of a date with Destiny in 2003.

Thoughts? Disagreements?

Taken out of the ball game

Chuck Klosterman has a good column today on Page 2 (and in the upcoming issue of ESPN the Magazine) about the problem with Barry Bonds' chase of Babe Ruth. He notes that Bonds' numbers are "as colossal as they are meaningless." I agree with most of what he writes; Barry Bonds is, or at least was, a phenomenal player with or without steroids, but it seems difficult to argue that he deserves to be considered one of the two best power hitters who ever lived. Of course, aside from Ruth, many of the biggest numbers were racked up by hitters who owed them at least in some measure to longevity. This is true of Bonds as well to some degree, but his major power, the kind that has driven him into rarefied Ruthian air, didn't hit until he was 35. That year (2000), Bonds hit 49 home runs, and he has not hit fewer than 45 in a full season since; he had only hit that many once in 14 previous seasons. Of his 708 home runs, 263 have come since the age of 35.

On the other hand, Hank Aaron hit 47 home runs (a career high) in 1971 at the age of 37, and you're not going to find anyone accusing him of taking steroids. I'm not saying Bonds didn't take steroids - it seems virtually certain at this point that he did - but as Klosterman himself notes, there's no real way to know what the effects of steroids, if any, are on number of home runs. In 1973, at 39, Aaron still hit 40 home runs; this is not suspicious, yet Bonds' 45 at the same age in 2004 are preposterous? Aaron was fortunate not to break down as quickly or easily as many other players of his time; perhaps Bonds would have in the absence of steroids, but then again maybe he would not have. The real problem is that we will never know.

I don't intend this as a defense of Bonds; I think he's pretty much a loathsome human being and it's possible that not even Roger Maris was this unpopular a choice to surpass Babe Ruth. What I'm doing here is agreeing with Klosterman. What Bonds, or perhaps simply the steroid era, has done is throw a haze over all record-keeping in general. The fact that we can point to historical precedent for many of Bonds' accomplishments just throws things into further disarray. We don't want to trust Bonds' numbers because of steroids, and yet we're not sure whether they're that off. Ultimately, the biggest problem is Bonds' personality; this is not the kind of guy you want chasing a beloved record. As Klosterman points out, he has all but stated he doesn't care about the game of baseball; I do disagree with Klosterman when he suggests that Bonds doesn't care about his own legacy, though. To the contrary, I think that that is all Bonds cares about. I think he will be less bothered by retiring without a World Series ring - as he will - than perhaps any player in history. For Bonds, it's about piling up the numbers. It always was; why else would he have turned to steroids in the first place when he was already one of the two or three greatest players of his generation at worst? If you take books like Game of Shadows as gospel, Bonds appears to have felt that he could substitute raw numbers for admiration. People liked McGwire and Sosa; no one (with the possible exception of Giants fans) likes Bonds, but you can't ignore 73, or 715.

And that's the problem. Records shouldn't just be about the numbers. They should be about the years of compilation, the players trying to get championships at the same time, the fans with them every step of the way. To Bonds, records are the numbers, and barging his way to the top of the charts is the only thing he needs to cement his legacy. Never mind that he could get to 800 home runs and he'd still be one of the five least popular players in history at this point; his name is up there and you can't say anything to him. It's depressingly clinical, and that's the point Klosterman's really getting at - numbers compiled in this way just don't mean anything. Where's the motivation to care? But Bonds' position in, most likely, no worse than second place all-time means you can't discuss the all-time home run leaders without mentioning him - and who on earth wants to do that? We always wondered if you could really compare statistics across eras; now we find out that even if you can, doing so is just depressing.

Another baseball post coming later.

Acting!

Is the health craze finally over? Despite the fact that they're still using the slogan "Eat fresh," Subway appears to be getting more and more desperate to catch up to Quizno's in the "sandwiches that really aren't even pretending to be healthy" department. Maybe it's the difference between lunch and dinner, since Subway's latest ad campaign is evidently pitching sandwiches for the latter, but seriously: a meatball sub smothered in mozzarella cheese and served on garlic bread? Could anything be farther from the spirit of the Jared ad campaign that basically helped make Subway a household name? A foot-long meatball marinara is well over 1000 calories according to Subway's nutrition facts, and it's not clear to me that this even takes into account the garlic bread. I'm not saying that Subway has to produce only sandwiches that adhere to a strict calorie limit, but there's something mildly deceiving about positioning yourself as the sole health-conscious restaurant in the fast-food sphere and then starting to roll out items like this; some people may be fooled into assuming that because it's Subway it's still totally good for you no matter how much cheese and butter you're downing. And yes, I'm a big personal responsibility advocate and I wouldn't back a suit against Subway for such things - I'm just saying it's a little shady. Sure, people should look up this stuff, but you can't ever underestimate the laziness and stupidity of the population at large when it comes to this sort of thing.

Although honestly, I'm far more bothered by the commercial, which features Jon Lovitz being, and I'm fairly confident of this one, about as annoying as a person can be. Was he hired for this gig based solely on the "Master Thespian" sketches on Saturday Night Live 20 years ago? Every time he screeches "And now dinner! Subway Restaurants!" I silently prepare my TV for its upcoming death by defenestration.

Cleaning out the junk (food)

I've been sort of neglecting my duties recently as pop/candy/snack/general crap connoisseur extraordinaire. I know you all read this blog eager to know what I thought of the latest flavor modifications. It happens that I frequently try these things at lunch, then jot down a quick review in Gmail before returning to work. Then I never ever get to them again. So here come a few things I've reviewed that you may even have seen at the store.

Dr. Pepper Berries and Cream: I actually just tried this over the weekend, but it's the only new review of the bunch. A vast improvement over the Cherry Vanilla variety, this is easily one of the most interesting flavor variations to date. The flavor of Dr. Pepper is still present, but the raspberry flavor kind of attaches to and mixes with it, generating a sort of "black raspberry" flavor that is simultaneously easy to notice and yet still relatively subtle. I can't say I noticed the cream much, but considering I came in expecting more of the same as Cherry Vanilla - i.e. a complete inability to taste much of anything beyond the regular Dr. Pepper - I'm not about to complain. I'm not sure the world needed a black raspberry soda, but kudos to Dr. Pepper for doing something a little different. This is one of the few of the myriad flavor-combination soda varieties that I can actually recommend, and considering that Dr. Pepper's previous attempts were so mediocre (see: Red Fusion), I'm glad to see they've gotten it right this time.

Black Cherry Vanilla Coke (1/31/06): Not bad. The black cherry is a bit muted - as, really, black cherry flavors tend to be - but the vanilla is pretty good. In other words, it's basically as though Vanilla Coke had never ceased to exist in the first place. I'm not sure why soda manufacturers have started to insist on adding multiple flavors to their base flavors all at once, particularly when I'm not sure I've tasted one yet where all included flavors really stood out. (In Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper, you really can't taste either of them, so at least this is an upgrade over that.) This isn't wine, I don't need to be tasting "subtle hints of vanilla, with a cherry finish." It's fucking Coke; just make the pop and be done with it.

Kit Kat Coffee (1/31/06): For people who like the overpowering odor of coffee but would rather not feel any of the benefits, Kit Kat's new coffee spinoff is the candy of the year. For the rest of us, it's just a Kit Kat that manages to make you smell like you just worked a double shift at Starbucks. I suppose it tastes fine enough during the eating process, but if your nostrils are open at all the aroma will knock out your tastebuds from noticing much else anyway. Kit Kat clearly didn't learn anything from the relative understatedness of coffee ice cream.

Two older pop reviews which have been in the archive for a while but which I don't think have been posted anywhere else:

7Up Plus Cherry (11/15/05): I'm sure that my telling you that this flavor has the exact same problem as the original 7Up Plus will come as no surprise to anyone. It's actually not quite as odious - the cherry mixes slightly better with the Splenda than the original berry mix did - but it's still pretty bad. It's funny because Splenda combines fine with cola - Diet Coke with Splenda is a perfectly reasonable alternative to original Diet Coke, with a minimal difference in flavor - but it just doesn't work with fruit. This may be more true of artificial sweeteners as a whole, but aspartame, despite a harsher chemical edge, doesn't have the sickly-sweet issue that Splenda does - letting 7Up Plus linger for more than a couple seconds causes involuntary spasms and a threat from my tongue to secede from my mouth in protest.

Black Cherry Fresca (11/9/05): I'm not sure what Fresca thinks they're doing. Challenging the Diet Rite monopoly on the "endless flavors of diet soda" market, perhaps? But rather than simply make a straight-up diet black cherry soda, Fresca has chosen to combine the flavor with its standard grapefruit. The result is, well, pretty abominable. Original-recipe Fresca already has one of the strongest aspartame kicks of any diet soda, and the black cherry's clash with the citrus is harsh enough that the chemical punch only becomes more pronounced. It's possible that another flavor - the other one I saw, but did not purchase, was Peach Citrus - would work in such a combination, but black cherry and grapefruit just don't mix, especially when there's no sugar involved. Stay far, far away from this one.

Before anyone asks, yes, I do plan to try that new Coca-Cola Blak stuff. I fully expect to be grossed out, though.

A true "heartbreaking loss"

I think it's just human nature to be disproportionately upset when famous people die, particularly in untimely fashion. I think it's because of the way we view celebrities as these ageless wonders. We get older, but they stay the same age. That's why it frequently comes as a shock to see a more recent picture of someone we largely knew for exploits a while ago - they look like that now? And what does that say about us? Even people who don't live off Us Weekly use celebrities as a mirror more than they would admit, and possibly more than they even know.

This extends to sports as well, and possibly in even greater a fashion, because sports figures generally do have finite shelf lives, whereas actors can, conceivably, keep showing up in movies for decades. Think about the players you grew up watching, in any sport. Even if you're only my age, how many of them are still playing? Especially in baseball, which I've watched for longer than any other sport, a lot of the stars of my youth are gone, and those who remain are, to a man, in their final years. But the mortality of sports personalities is always shocking, in part because we think of athletes as so well-conditioned - but also because we never think of athletes as being that much older than us, due to that shelf life. (Which is a little odd because sports usually make us, at least while younger, throw off our conception of age. "40? That guy's ancient!")

Which is part of what stunned me about the untimely death of Maggie Dixon, the head women's basketball coach at the United States Military Academy. I am, by all accounts, not a fan of women's basketball, but even I had not missed the story; Dixon, a WNBA reject, had turned to coaching, starting at DePaul, working her way up to top assistant in a few short years, and then heading to Army, where she guided the team to its first-ever NCAA Tournament berth. Dixon was carried off the floor by her players when the Cadets won the Patriot League tournament, an image that ran on every sports show in early March. Maggie and brother Jamie, the men's head coach at Pittsburgh, became the first sibling duo to reach their respective tournaments in the same season.

And then, without warning, Maggie Dixon was gone, cut down at the age of 28 by an episode of cardiac arrhythmia apparently caused by an enlarged heart and a problem with a valve, according to the coroner's report. Taken to the hospital on Wednesday after collapsing, she died Thursday night.

We've seen players, even stars, taken in the primes of their lives by many things, including heart ailments. Two of the first names that came to mind for me were Hank Gathers and Reggie Lewis, names echoed by Mike Wilbon today on PTI. Such deaths, because of the age of the people involved (Gathers was just 23, younger than I am now) and their apparent peak physical condition, are shocking.

Dixon was little different - as a fairly recent former player, she was certainly still in good shape (at least outwardly). And she was certainly young - just a year older than Lewis had been, and at 28, one of the youngest Division I basketball coaches, men's or women's. But there was, indeed, something different about Dixon. Lewis was already an All-Star and had played five seasons in the NBA; Gathers had led Division I in scoring and rebounding as a junior at Loyola Marymount and was a bonafide college star in his senior season.

Dixon, by comparison, was effectively unknown to all but the most devoted women's basketball fans until March. Her rise to the top was meteoric - many observers, some of whom possibly had known of Dixon largely in passing prior to the Patriot League tournament or at least Army's surprise 20-win season, were predicting that she would shortly use Army as a stepping stone to even greater positions and success. That sudden rise makes her death all the more shocking - with her recent appearance on the scene, and her youth, everyone assumed she'd be around and successful for a long time. And, perhaps even better than that, she was a good story - the sister of an already successful coach, a first-time head coach taking over an unsuccessful program and immediately turning it around in dramatic fashion, and by all accounts a bright and motivated woman loved by those around her. Andy Katz's story about the relationship between the Dixon siblings brought me to tears.

Untimely deaths frequently help confer a measure of immortality. Just ask Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, and Kurt Cobain. And would Hank Gathers' name be as memorable today if he had toiled through a decent but unspectacular pro career? This is surely cold comfort to anyone who knew Maggie Dixon, however. Early signs suggested that she was poised to make immortality within her profession on her own terms. Yesterday, it was her own mortality that stopped her, a shocking loss to anyone who understands that sports are never just about the box scores.

They'll do it every time

This is the third Opening Day game of the last four in which the Cubs scored at least 15 runs - a 15-2 win over the Mets in 2003, a 16-6 win over the Diamondbacks last year, and now a 16-7 win over the Reds. And on the road, no less!

But here's the thing. I hate to be pessimistic about the Cubs, especially this early, but they always seem to have these stretches, usually early in the year, where they pile up a bunch of runs against mediocre opposition, and I get all excited. "Wow, look at this offense!" And then the bats shrivel up and Dustyball rears its ugly, non-base-stealing head.

I'm inclined to look more at the defensive problems - seven runs to the Reds? - than at the offense, which is probably less representative of future results than its counterpart potentially is. Zambrano, right now (and perhaps for the year) the "ace" of the staff, threw 105 pitches in just 4.2 innings, giving up 5 earned runs and tossing as many walks as strikeouts. Good start, Opening Day pitcher!

But a good start for Pierre (three hits, three runs), and for Murton as well (three hits, three RBI, two runs, dinger). At least that's something, but we'll see how well it holds up.

Final Bore

I'm probably the seven hundredth person to make that joke, but I don't even care. These games were utter snoozers. The tournament always seems to go out of its way to do the opposite of what you think will happen; a lot of double-digit seeds pulling first-round upsets usually means three #1s make the last four, while a year like 2000 can produce just a single win by a team seeded #11 or lower but gives us a 1-5-8-8 Final Four. This year proved to be no exception. The tournament of surprises, the first in the 64-team era to give us a Final Four without a #1 seed, yielded one of the most uninspiring Saturdays in history.

George Mason/Florida was over just after halftime, LSU/UCLA even sooner. LSU played, I'm pretty sure, about as poorly as they could have. Sure, give UCLA credit for doing what they've been doing, but it is by and large brutal to watch. If only Gonzaga could hold a lead.

So both the higher seeds won and both games were not very fun to watch, certainly not down the stretch like we'd been accustomed to the past couple rounds. It didn't help that UCLA/Florida was the one final matchup I didn't want to see, since I liked LSU and George Mason most of the four teams and wanted to see at least one of them make it. Plus, LSU's loss means Alma doesn't win the Challenge (and no offense to Stan, but he's not going to buy me pizza), though she does finish second.