Baseball In The Daytime: 5-9-08

Just one game today, kids, your standard Cubs-are-home-on-a-Friday-let's-play-before-dark affair. God bless the Cubbies, and we'll get to the game preview in a sec. But first, a fairly tremendous feat.

Courtesy of Walkoff Walk, that baseball blog with whom we once had a juvenile one-sided feud, comes this freakishly unbelievable story of quite possibly the greatest baseball achievement of all time. A kid who pitched a perfect game and hit for the cycle ON THE SAME FLIPPING DAY. Read on...

A senior right-hander, Wall struck out six batters and retired 15 in a row in a five-inning, 18-0 victory over Coal Ridge. At the plate, the left-handed hitter tripled, singled, doubled, then homered in only four innings.

Later, Wall rescued a school bus full of children, wrote a bestselling novel and patched a large sinkhole in I-25 using only a square-point shovel. He then finished his homework, brushed his teeth and went to bed. Pretty good day.

Arizona @ Chicago Cubs, 12:20 Mountain Those mighty D'Bags, who just one week ago looked as though they might clinch the NL West crown by Flag Day, have fallen on comparatively hard times. After splitting a series against the Phillies and losing one to the Mets, they're a pedestrian 5-5 over their last ten. Meanwhile, the Dodgers have caught fire and pulled to within three and a half. Luckily for the Snakes, the rest of their division is comprised of crippled war veterans and baseball-playing moles--and moles have no sense of the strike zone and will therefore swing at anything.

Meanwhile, on the North Side, everyone's favorite lovable losers are struggling their own selves. The Cubs have dropped three straight series, including one this week to the lowly Reds. They sit two back of St. Louis, who never really seems to lose ballgames. Today they'll send Ted Lilly out against visiting Dan Haren. I'm sure it's on WGN, which even homeless people get on their cable packages. Play Ball!