GAME 3:
As I type this, the drizzle is wafting its way down to the bundled-up, hurried post-lunchtime masses on the damp streets below. The gray clowds are darting between the two antenna's atop the Hancock Tower. And the thermometer is holding steady at a crisp 48 degrees.
It's a cold, gray early-October day in Chicago, indeed.

However.

All will be forgotten and Mother Nature will be forgiven when the forcasted late-afternoon clearing clouds give way to the gloaming, and the collective din of el trains, program vendors, bustling outdoor beer gardens, traffic cop whistles, Ronnie "Woo-Woo", paint can drummers and the Wrigley Field organ reverberating between the three-flat homes, and beyond, begin to build between Addison, Clark, Waveland and Sheffield Avenues.

A fine sight it will be when I walk between the shadows of the newly-retired Ron Santo #10 flag and the left field bleaches.
A fine sight it will be when I look higher to see the divisional flags standing at attention in a wind-out, Northeasterly direction.
A fine sight it will be when young (Prior) meets old (Maddux)in a dual of power vs. presision, perfectionist vs. poise and proud vs. proud.
And a finer sight it will be when the Braves, from the south, will gaze up above the Centerfield scoreboard later this chilly evening to see a white flag, adorned only with a Cubbie-blue "W", being hoisted to the heavens for all of Wrigleyville to see.

(Of course, hearing Joe Morgan utter his first, "When I played, I was the best because I..." will bring all of the above to a crashing halt)

An easy, but slightly annoying solution to the "Joe Morgan dilemma" is to tune into 720 AM and listen to Ron and Pat, while simultaneously watching on T.V. The annoyance is the delay of the television broadcast is one second longer than that of the radio. If you can tolerate hearing what happens slightly before you see it, problem solved.