STORYBOOK AFTERNOON: You couldn't write it any better than this...

An old friend treats me to a sushi lunch yesterday, and we wrap up around 1PM. Man, I think. If I hop on the El right now I'll be at Wrigley in time for the second inning.

Then again my business is slow, and I probably should just go home and listen to Santo and Hughes on the radio.

I hop the train to Wrigley, jump off at Addison, and score a primo ticket, five rows up just past first base, for twenty bucks. Yes! I enter the ballpark, find my seat, and settle in.

Shit. Wood has just given up a grand slam. Aww, man. Turns out the guy next to me scalped his ticket, too, and he's here solo, so we commiserate over how streaky Wood can be, whether or not we like the Glanville deal, and so forth. We're having a great time with our casual, intermittent banter. I buy a floppy hat to protect my expanding forehead from the fantastic afternoon sun. I buy a couple beers. I start to feel guilty about spending so much cash. It's adding up.

I find a $50 bill on the ground underneath my seat. No one else claims it. My guilt disappears like a grand-slam ball heading for Sheffield Avenue. If only the Cubs would have staged a late-inning comeback, it might have been the perfect day.

I leave the ballpark and buy a giant, ice-cold bottle of water. I walk two miles to my car in the perfect fading sun.