Talking Baseball At The Old Chicago Pizza And Taproom In Lakewood, Colorado

Yesterday afternoon I ventured out to Lakewood, Colorado, located to the west of Denver and in a completely different universe, to have lunch at the Old Chicago Pizza and Taproom with my friend Stuart, seen in the photograph above. For some inexplicable reason, a lot of people like living in Lakewood. There is a treatment for that, which involves driving down Colfax Avenue from one side of town to the other, but perhaps that would be too great a shock for vulnerable residents. In any case, as I have mentioned before, you can't see Lakewood from the bar area at Old Chicago, and so no problem. Over lunch, Stuart and I discussed the state of our respective baseball teams. The last time we had lunch, Stuart's team, the Chicago Cubs (Stuart is originally from the North Side of Chicago) had gone into a June swoon and were barely above .500. As of yesterday, they were 9 and 1 over their last 10 games, 11 games over .500, and 5 games out of first place in the National League Central. My South Side heroes, the Chicago White Sox (I am originally from the South Side Brainerd neighborhood of Chicago), are still in first place in the American League Central and 6 and 4 over their last 10 games, but a mere 4 games over .500. The Sox are holding their own, but have some big names on the injured list, including Munetaka Murakami, "the Japanese Babe Ruth," who was leading the American League in home runs when he pulled a hamstring on May 29th. They definitely need those players to return to the lineup soon if they want to make the playoffs. As for our adopted hometown team, the Colorado Rockies, they are currently tied with the Kansas City Royals for the worst record in baseball with a .398 winning percentage. But they are 5 and 5 over their last 10 games and have a number of promising rookies, and so it looks like they will eventually put together a good team. It might be 2 or 3 years down the road, but it is better than the situation the club has been in the past 5 seasons or so. The important thing is that Coors Field, where they play, is a great place to hang out, win, lose, or draw. Although winning would be better.