Wondering About Baseball, Loop Rock Girl Contest

October 6, 2012 @ admin → No Comments

Weekend wonders: Wondering whether Albert Pujols watched his former team, the St. Louis Cardinals, win the National League wild-card game Friday (Oct. 5), while his offseason offers time for reflection. A reminder that baseball is not a one-man game — no matter how good you are.

Loop Rock Girl contestant Katie in Chicago Cubs attire fits right in with today's baseball theme.

* Speaking of former Cardinals, wondering who Tony La Russa would root for if the World Series turned out to be the Cardinals and the Oakland Athletics. He did manage each time to a World Series crown (actually two with St. Louis). The one big-league ballclub he managed but didn’t win with the Chicago White Sox.

* Speaking of the Sox, former Sox slugger Jim Thome is in the postseason — with the Baltimore Orioles. Wondering whether it’s more surprising he is in the postseason at age 42 or that the Orioles are for the first time since 1997.

* Wondering who will end up where in the game of musical chairs involving Sox television broadcaster Steve Stone, Cubs TV analyst Bob Brenly. And if Stone departs, who oves into the booth next to Ken “Hawk” Harrelson? Both Brenly and Stone are as good as it gets.

* Wondering whether who feels worse: White Sox fans (whose team failed to make the postseason) or Texas Rangers fans (whose team faltered down the stretch to let the A’s win the American League West and whose team lost to Baltimore in the wild-card game).

* Speaking of the Rangers, wondering what portion of a share former Cubs pitcher Ryan Dempster and catcher Geovany Soto will receive. Wondering how satisfied the Rangers were with Soto (.196 batting average, .253 on-base percentage) and Dempster (7-3, 5.09 earned-run average with 70 strikeouts in 69 innings pitched).

* The Commission on Chicago Landmarks has given the Cubs permission to move a brick wall at Wrigley Field so they can add 56 seats. Wondering when the Cubs will add talent to the team to attract fans to fill those seats.

* Speaking of the Cubs and talent (not often lately that the two have gone together), wondering whether president of baseball operations Theo Epstein is delusional in thinking he can trade left fielder Alfonso Soriano for anything approaching top dollar (especially considering Soriano’s salary is the very defininition of top dollar).

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As part of this job, your correspondent occasionally has to go to great lengths to provide quality content. And so it was Friday (Oct. 5) in traveling from the corporate headquarters of elliottharris.com to Hawthorne Race Course in Stickney, Ill.

It did help that the incentive for the sojourn was the track hosting a Flirty 30 party that featured 30 finalists in the Loop Rock Girl contest.

Among the young women competing for the coveted title is Katie, who was gracious enough to take some time from campaigning for votes to chat with yours truly. Voting for the contest is Oct. 8-12 at wlup.com. And, yes, there will be more videos next week featuring a few other Loop Rock Girl hopefuls.

Here is the interview from Friday’s festivities: