A Day In April

By Ron Maly

I've gotten word that the Chicago Cubs are in a first-place tie in the National League Central for the first time since Aug. 6, 2009. Four of the six teams in the division [including the Cubs] have 9-9 records. The other two teams are under .500. I'd call that a pretty bad division.

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I'm very happy that Iowa football coach Kirk Ferentz has named Hawkeye strength coach Chris Doyle [pictured at the right] his assistant of the year. Doyle deserves all the praise he can get. And I predict defensive coordinator Norm Parker will win the award next year. At least I hope so.

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Headline in today's Datebook section of the Des Moines Register:

5 great new pizza joints in D.M.

Why is it that pizza restaurants are called joints? They never call steak restaurants joints, do they?

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I took a quick count today and found that I've written roughly 4,880 of these Internet columns on my various websites since authoring the first one 11 or so years ago. The site with the largest number of columns was the one with 3,381. That's a lot of writing, if I say so myself. Consequently, I plan to occasionally revisit some of the columns I wrote in the past for the benefit of readers who have never read them. You never know who you might see in some of those nearly-5,000 columns.

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I just got back from Hy-Vee, where I wound up spending $167.01. Hopefully, that'll get us through tomorrow. The lady loading groceries at the drive-up area got everything into the trunk of the 1989 Toyota, which is, of course, the official car of this website. A hundred and sixty-seven dollars and one cent sure doesn't go as far as it used to.

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In reference to the official things of this column, the 9-foot basketball pole that's the official basket of the column is now up and running--thanks to Kevin and Nathan, who did the heavy lifting. The pole spent the winter in the backyard. I swished a few 12-foot set-shots in the driveway last evening just to make sure the the net and the rim are still official.

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I hope no one is surprised or disappointed that Bobby Lutz was a one-and-done guy at Iowa State. I guess I didn't really think he was going to be a lifer on Fred Hoiberg's Cyclone basketball coaching staff. He stayed a season in Ames, and got his foot back in the Division I coaching door. And, heck, he's got North Carolina State blood [or at least some sort of basketball blood from the state of North Carolina] running through his arteries.