50 years of Friendship (14 Fictional)

Today is the 4th of July 2026. 250 years ago the founding Fathers of The United States gathered in Philadelphia and adopted the Declaration of Independence.  I wasn't there, but I've heard stories.  200 years later when I was 11, It was kind of a big deal to celebrate the anniversary of the founding of our country.  So I went with my parents to the town of Lisle, Illinois and attended their 4th of July Parade.  I'm not sure if the parade was exactly on the 4th.  I think the parade may have been on a Saturday and my sources say (and by sources, I mean I just asked Alexa) that the 4th was on a Sunday.

We went to Lisle, because my Grandparents lived there and during the Summer there was often a gathering of uncles, aunts, cousins and sundry relatives who would gather there.  I do remember that during the parade there was a girl a few years younger than myself and I was assisting her in the gathering of candy.

Fast forward no score 14 years give or take a month later and a 25 year old version of myself meets a graduate student at Western Illinois University who just happens to be from Lisle, Illinois.  In later years that person would become my best friend, my wife, the mother of our children, and the best school psychologist in Kane County. ( The last distinction is a matter of conjecture but in the near decade I've been in the teaching biz I've never encountered better.  ) 

We are big Mad About You fans and there is an episode where Paul and Jamie discover they may have met years earlier on a trip to a museum.  For many years now I have held that Amy was in fact the young girl who I befriended at the parade.  Amy told me recently that she is now not sure if she was at that particular parade since she remembers going to a bicentennial parade in Hinsdale where hrt grandparents lived.  However, I still cling to the notion that today is the 50th anniversary of the best friend any of us could ever ask for,  A friendship filled with fireworks and plenty of parades.  

Amy and I 2026 4th of July Parade

Meanwhile back in 1976,  the White Sox hosted  a doubleheader against the Texas Rangers to commemorate the bicentennial. 

The ChiSox defeated the Rangers 7-6 in the first game which took 12 innings. The Rangers over came the South Siders 3-2 in the 2nd game. The White Sox lost 97 games that season but as the doubleheader began on July 4th they were only 5 games below .500 which is how they ended the day as they split the double header.

 The Cubs played in New York on Independence Day and lost to the Mets 9-4.  This was the 10th consecutive game the Mets won in a row.  Mount Prospect native and former Cubs slugger Dave Kingman scored after being walked.  Unfortunately for the Cubs, Kingman had not yet come to them and was playing for the Mets. Fortunately for the Cubs, they were also playing a doubleheader and ended the Mets 10 game winning streak with a 4-2 victory.  Jose Cardenal, Rick Monday,  Cubs heroes of mine at the time each went 2-4 in the first game and were hitting .304 and.288 respectively for the season at the end of the double header.  Bill Madlock, the Cubs third baseman who was the 1975 NL batting champ while with the Cubbies also was 2-4 in the opener did not play in the second game but by the end of the season had inflated his 7/4 .310 batting 29 points to get his 2nd consecutive batting title. 

Sox Cubs Comparison 62 games into the season

The start of the baseball season is filed with promise.  New players, new coaches, new chapters waiting to be written.  Walking along with promise is expectation and prognostication.  At the beginning of the  season ESPN wrote a piece with how they expected each team to fare for the season.  They projected each teams WL record as well as  their odds of making the playoffs and winning the World Series.  For the purpose of this post I am only concerned with the two Chicago teams.  

The Cubs were projected to finish 89-73 with a 68% of making the playoffs and a 4.8 % chance of winning the World Series.

The White Sox were projected to have their 4th 100+ losing season in a row finishing 61-101 with a 0 % chance of making the playoffs or winning the World Series.

Yesterday the Cubs and the White Sox both finished their 62nd game of the season leaving them both with 100 games to play.  As I write this the Cubs are playing their 63rd game as the Sox have the night off.  The following stats go through the first 62 games and will not be updated if the Cubs finish their game before I finish this post.  

Record                                Cubs                    Sox

After 62 games                    32-30                    33-29

1st 15 games                        7-8                        5-10

Next 16 games                     12-4                      8-8

Next 16 games                     10-6 E                  10-6 E

Last 15 games                       3-12                     9-6

Home games                        18-13                    20-11

Road games                          14-17                    13-18

East                                       11-5                      3-6

Central                                   8-9                       12-5

West                                       6-3                        9-6

Interleague                             7-13                      9-12

Day                                        13-15                     14-15

Night                                      19-15                    19-14

Extra Innings                            4-3                       4-4

1 Run                                       9-7                       12-6

Cubs Sox                                 1-2                       2-1

Post Cubs Sox                          3-12                     9-7

Home                                       0-8                        6-1

Road                                        3-4                        3-6

Bold denotes better winning percentage

During the first 62 games the White Sox are 4 games above .500 and the Cubs are 2 games above .500. The White Sox hold a better record than the Cubs in 11.  The Cubs are ahead in 7 and they tied with each other 1 time.

Baseball reference lists the odds for a team to make the playoffs on a daily basis.  As of yesterday the Cubs had a 61.5 percentage chance of making the post season.  This is 6.5 percentage points lower than ESPN's pre season pick.  The 61.5 breaks down as 6.1 percent chance of winning the division and 55.4 of  being a Wild Card team.  As of yesterday the Cubs had a 2.5% chance of winning the World Series. This is about 1/2 of where they were picked pre-season.

The White Sox according  to the same data have a 52.7% chance of making the playoffs which is exactly 52.7% more that ESPN gave them.    This breaks down as 17.6 % chance of winning the division and 35.1 % of making the Wild Card.  The White Sox are now showing as having a 1.3 % chance of winning the World Series.

In order for ESPN's prediction to hold true the White Sox would need go 28-72 in the next 100 games.  This means they would have to win 5 less games in the next 100 than they did in the first 62.  For the Cubs to match ESPN's predictions The Cubs would need to go 57-43 for the final 100 games which is a .570winning percentage and certainly very doable. 

Dave Out Loud: Rubik's Cube 3 by #

Panda at the Zoo

I 2010 My Wife and I took our family on vacation to Washington DC . One day we went to the National Zoo with our children 4. 8 and 10 at the time and we had a lot of fun with my sister and her family. This video is of a rather active panda bear.

Bears 2026 Schedule Release Video

The Bears schedule was released yesterday and apparently each team does so with a video. I guess thats what you get when you live in a gender reveal world. The video is actually quite good, so I decided to share it here.