the 312 hole

After stating the obvious yesterday, Carlos Zambrano decided to speak his mind – rationally and under control. No anger. No cursing. And frankly, Carlos was right about everything he said. After six losses in a row, the Cubs are miserable. Someone needs to get fired up and get this team in line.

Chicago media jumped on the opportunity to call out Big Z – demanding a suspension, fine or even a trade. They are all idiots. This is the message I suspect Big Z would like to deliver to these media members:

I would like to think that the Cubs may have one of the best 7th-8th-9th inning combos in the league with the trio of Marshall, Wood and Marmol. The main kink in this plan becomes apparent when any one of these guys needs a day off, which means we get introduced to some rookies and a mediocre wide receiver turned horrible pitcher. Undoubtedly, these days off will happen a lot given Wood’s bionic arm and Marmol’s occasional moonlighting as “Wild Thing” Vaughn. Regardless, Marshall and Marmol had extremely solid seasons last year (Wood can still bring it, too), and if they can produce similarly again in 2011, we may not have to be so nervous every time Zambrano cramps up in the 6th inning. The first week of the season has not been all too kind to Marmol and Wood though, but let’s hope it gets turned around sooner than later.

Thank goodness Soriano is actually hitting the ball this April. In 2010, he didn’t hit his 3rd homerun until April 30th – 22 games into the season. This year, he’s at 3 homers after only 6 games. He gets booed enough for all of the other shenanigans he pulls, and at least when he’s hitting homeruns he can catch a break from the boos. He still can’t catch a ball, but at least he can hit.

Here are a few photos from the Cubs’ opening weekend against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Spirits were high and seats were empty. Now, just 5 days into the season, spirits are low and seats will be even more empty. The Cubs have lost 2/5 of their starting rotation to the DL – and hopefully the short-kind of DL, not the Dr. Andrews-kind of DL.

Anyway, here are a few shots from the game on Saturday. More photos to come later.

Click here to see a few more photos.

A year ago, the real champs cut down the nets at the Final Four in Indianapolis. A team like the 2010 Blue Devils (and a class-act player like Nolan Smith) cutting down the nets was more fulfilling than watching the Huskies do the same last night – amidst allegations and sanctions.

March Madness has officially started, and like many Duke fans… I’m holding out hope for an ending like last season. For memory’s sake, check out the below video – Duke’s victory over Butler back in Indy. How sweet it was.

2010 NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four from Jeff Trost on Vimeo.

Well… Football season is over. But there is hope… Nascar season is right around the corner – if you’re into that sort of thing. I visited Texas and went to my first Nascar race back in November, and I will say, it was a pretty interesting experience. The best part: you can bring in your own beer, food, cigars… whatever. It’s probably not for everybody, but it sure does entertain.

Click here to see more photos.

As the snow approaches Chicago, I figured I’d recap some of the photos from January – which could not be more different than a snow storm in Chicago. I spent about half the month traveling, and a good portion of that was spent in San Francisco – always great to be on the west coast in January. Other stops included Las Vegas (no pictures from this visit!), Atlanta and North Carolina. If it wasn’t for this latest snow storm, I would be kicking off February with a trip to Boston, but I have no doubt that February will have plenty of its own exciting travel. Here is a selection of January shots:

I really wanted to like Milton. Over two years ago, when Jim Hendry made Milton his big off-season move, I was excited. I thought Milton had turned the corner. I thought he would come out of his shell and perform in a big market. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I took this photo during a game back in 2009, and it exemplified his time as a Cub – a loner.

Now, as Geoff Baker of the Seattle Times is reporting, Milton Bradley has finally turned a new corner – just not the corner anyone wanted for the dysfunctional outfielder.

This story is still breaking, but I’ve had two police officers from the LAPD confirm for me in the past half-hour that Milton Bradley has been arrested on a charge of making a criminal threat. No other details yet, except that I’m told it was California Penal Code section 422 that is the violation at play here.

The charge is potentially serious, especially if filed as a felony. It involves threatening to kill or injure somebody and for the target of the threat to take it seriously. Here’s a website that gives an interesting primer on the whole thing. This section used to involve making so-called “terrorist threats” but has been changed to “criminal threats” (likely because of increased awareness about terrorists since 9/11 and not wanting people to confuse this with somebody threatening to hijack an airplane).

When I saw Milton Bradley was a trending topic on Twitter, I really hoped he had done something good, but like so many others, I’ve been burnt by this false hope before. I knew nothing good was behind his trending moment in the sun.

Now that I have returned to Chicago after a week in San Francisco, it does me no good to compare the two January climates. I’m shivering just thinking about it. This past Saturday, the weather was great. We decided to head down to Baker Beach for some sun. There was a lot of action on the beach – fishermen, tons of dogs and lots of tourists. I brought along my camera and was armed with one lens. The fishermen were catching crabs at a pace of about one an hour, so there wasn’t much to document there.

The most interesting activity on the beach was definitely the wakeboard surfers. As it is, I don’t own the right gear for shooting surfers out at sea, and I definitely don’t have the right gear when I only bring my 24-70mm lens. Luckily, these surfers were making runs at the waves as they approached the shore, so I was able to get up very close to them as they’d take their 1-2 second ride on the wave. I wasn’t popping a flash or anything fancy. I was just snapping photos as these guys were going about their surfing. I was pretty happy with the shots I was able to get, and it definitely gets me excited for Costa Rica in a few weeks. I’m thinking I should be armed with some better gear for that adventure, and I may be able to improve on these shots.

Click here to see more photos.