When we discovered Sunday that Brett Myers would make his debut at Wrigley Field with Mark Prior starting for the Cubs, we decided to make this one of our few excursions to the ballpark. Through a friend, we were able to acquire tickets six rows behind the center of the Phillies' dugout, left of first base, and in prime Knoblauch territory.

Due to the logistics of picking up the tickets, we arrived at the park at noon for the 1:20 p.m. start. We hadn't eaten before arriving at the stadium, so since we wanted to pay as much attention as possible during the game, we found our seats and grabbed a couple of hot dogs while we watched Philadelphia take batting practice. All but three players were wearing their warm up jerseys, so discussion at that point centered around trying to identify the Phillies without the benefit of reading their names off their uniforms.

Players are supposed to only give autographs by the dugout until 45 minutes before the game per Wrigley rules, but no one gave Brandon Duckworth the memo. He very nicely leaned over the middle of the dugout and started signing. We'd brought a ball hoping to get Myers to sign and date it but decided Duckworth was likely the best we were going to do at that game. I'm our designated autograph hunter, as after kids, we figure players would rather sign for women. Duckworth was very friendly and had a nice smile. He seemed to be enjoying relaxing in the dugout the day before his scheduled start.

Coincidently, Cubs' Manager Bruce Kimm spent the 20 minutes immediately prior to the game signing by the Chicago dugout. Among his many colorful quotes last week, Kimm commented that "To be honest, when things are going good, players don't need a manager. They don't need me right now. They're playing good. It's when things go bad. That's when they need a manager." As you can likely tell by his designation as "Turkey of the Week", we have more than a few problems with Kimm and his baseball philosophies. I fully expect to spend an article discussing his flaws once things have settled down a bit after July 31st.

Before the game could start, the obligatory three first pitches were thrown out. It happened to be BluBlocker Sunglasses Day, though rather than actual sunglasses, Cubs' staff handed out coupons for "One pair of BluBlocker Sunglasses Exp. 8/24/02", "Good only at Walgreens". There was also a discount for Walgreens' One Hour Photo service on the back. An executive from BluBlocker tossed the first of the three pitches. The crowd reacted much more enthusiastically to the next person to take the mound. I'm not sure if anyone noticed whether the shapely Miss Blublocker, Leila Sas, was wearing sunglasses. Her long brunette hair reached down almost to her knees, and her custom- fitted Cubs' jersey top was quite snug. Peter Frampton, who later sung "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" during the seventh inning stretch, threw out the final first pitch.

Attending a Cubs' game was a nice treat after the horrible anthems at the Futures' Game and again at the All-Star Game telecast. Daniel Rodriguez, the police officer from Manhattan South Precinct who sang at the World Series in New York and has since become known as "America's tenor", was there to sing "God Bless America." I'm not overly fond of "God Bless America.", as I feel any number of songs, including "America the Beautiful" and even "My Country 'Tis of Thee", not to mention the nation anthem, are better conduits for expressing patriotism in the United States. However, Rodriguez's performances are undeniably stirring. Cubs' public address announcer Wayne Messmer followed with his typically well-sung and accurate national anthem. The Cubs did make the mistake of billing Rodriguez as David rather than Daniel on the scoreboard, as well as on the WGN telecast of the game, which we taped for later reference.

Mark Prior took the mound at 1:25. This game was also our first time at a Prior start, as though he debuted in Chicago, we were unable to get good tickets to the night game. In his role as leadoff hitter, Doug Glanville saw all of two pitches in his at-bat before grounding out. Glanville had five at-bats in the game. For the first three, he took the first pitch before making contact for an out on the second. He didn't even bother waiting one pitch in his final at-bats, hitting a single on the first pitch of his fourth plate appearance and fouling off a ball on the first pitch of his final at-bat before grounding out on the second. Even if he weren't only hitting .226 with a .275 OBP and .291 SLG, his short plate appearances should disqualify him from consideration for the leadoff role.

Prior sat down Jimmy Rollins with a flyout and Bobby Abreu with a swinging strikeout for a one-two-three first, making way for Myers to take the mound for the first time in a major league game.

Philadelphia drafted Myers out of Jacksonville's Englewood High School with the 12th pick of the first round of the 1999 draft. After signing, Myers went to the Rookie-level Gulf Coast League. In 2000, the Phillies promoted him to Piedmont in the A South Atlantic League. Last year he jumped directly from A-ball to AA Reading in the Eastern League. He's displayed excellent skills at every level, though he had a bit of a home run problem last season at AA. Philadelphia sent him to AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre in the International League to start this season. At the time of his major league promotion, he had a 97:20 K:BB in 128 IP with 121 H and 9 HR allowed. Myers replaces Terry Adams in the rotation, after the Phillies moved Adams to the bullpen. Philadelphia cleared space for him on the roster by placing Robert Person on the DL with shoulder and elbow pain. Joe Roa will fill Person's rotation spot.

Mark Bellhorn led off for Chicago yesterday and became both the first batter Myers' ever pitched to in the majors and his first major league out. Unfortunately, the first pitch of Myers' career was a ball. Bellhorn did a much better job than Glanville of showing patience in order to allow the batters behind him to see more of Myers' pitches. He took the first three pitches thrown, two for balls and the third for a strike, before popping out to Rollins.

Bill Mueller also demonstrated sensible patience when facing the young pitcher. He took the first pitch for a strike and the second for a ball, and though he swung and fouled off the third pitch, he took the last three and became Myers' first major league walk and the only walk Myers allowed yesterday. Sammy Sosa popped out to shallow right field after four pitches, and Fred McGriff hit the second pitch he saw for a grounder to Rollins, who threw to first to end the inning.

Myers' first major league strikeout ended the second inning when Todd Hundley went down looking on the fifth pitch of his at-bat. The rookie began the third with two more strikeouts, sitting Alex Gonzalez in a five pitch swinging K and Prior swinging on 6 pitches. Moises Alou struck out swinging in the fourth, and Gonzalez again went down swinging in his second plate appearance for Myers' only other strikeouts in the game (although he struck out in all three of his plate appearances). Of the 89 pitches he threw in the game, 55 were for strikes. He threw first pitch strikes to 17 of the 27 batters he faced.

The first major league hit Myers allowed was to Mark Bellhorn, who homered to right in the 3rd inning. However, the only other hit he allowed in the game was a Todd Hundley line drive double, far and deep into right field in the 8th. He allowed a total of three baserunners over 8 innings.

He induced the remainder of the batters to make outs through unsuccessful contact. Hundley, Fred McGriff, Bellhorn, and Chris Stynes all had a flyout apiece. Alou, Mueller, and Sosa all had two ground ball outs, while Corey Patterson, McGriff, Gonzalez, and Prior each grounded out once. Patterson was also out on a bunt and lined out to center. Over the course of the game, Myers had a 14-7 ground to fly ratio.

As previously mentioned, Myers didn't fair as well at the plate, striking out in all three of his at-bats. He showed bunt for almost every pitch in his first plate appearance.

Myers is only 21, so the Phillies need to be careful with how many innings they allow him to pitch this season, especially since he already has 128 in the minors. Luckily, he was very efficient in this start and only needed 89 pitches to get through eight innings. Chicago really helped Myers by putting the ball in play on the first pitch in their last five plate appearances against him. The only two Cubs to see at least three pitches in all of their plate appearances were Bellhorn and Sosa. Although there was a conference at the mound following Hundley's eighth inning double, Philadelphia Manager Larry Bowa wisely decided to let the young pitcher work through the inning, rather than pull him at the first sign of difficulty despite a low pitch count.

Prior also pitched quite well, compiling an 8:5 K:BB in 7 IP with 4 H and only one homer. He gave up the homer to Marlon Anderson, who had singled earlier in the game. The other hits were a double by Mike Lieberthal and the single by Glanville. When Tom Gordon relieved Prior for the top of the eighth, the score was 2-1 Philly. Gordon then proceeded to allow the Phillies to score two additional runs. While Jeff Fassero came in to finish the eighth and surprisingly closed things down without allowing further runs to score, the damage was done. Alfonseca pitched a perfect ninth inning, maintaining the save opportunity for the Phillies.

Myers left the game with a 4-1 lead over the Cubs after the eighth but had some tense moments waiting for Jose Mesa to close it out in the ninth. Ultimately, Mesa was able to end the game despite allowing a Sammy homer, securing Myers' first major league victory.