Good Times, Bad Times, Sunday Times

Check out Barry Bearak's piece on former Cubs prospect Adam Greenberg. On the very first pitch of his very first major league at-bat, Greenberg was beaned by journeyman reliever Valerio de los Santos. The pitch damaged Greenberg's inner ear which temporarily threw off his equilibrium and set in motion a chain of events which permanently damaged his prospects of making it in the bigs. His tragedy combines Cubs fans' and Jewish mothers' worst nightmares and eerily parallels the misfortunes of Dr. Archibald "Moonlight" Graham, who never made it past the on-deck circle (but was immortalized in baseball's favorite tour de schmaltz: "Field of Dreams").

"Head Trip" is a fascinating story, told very competently by Bearak, who can't quite seem to get the quotes he wants out of Greenberg, whose discussion of his offseason business in housing foreclosures frustrates a story line that seems to want to head towards either high tragedy or inspirational comeback and doesn't quite achieve either. Regardless, we will be checking the Royal's minor league stats this summer and rooting for brother Greenberg, who deserved better treatment than he got from the Chicago Cubs, who will undoubtedly now have to add the curses of legions of Times reading Jewish grandmothers to the Curse of the Goat. They'll deserve it.

Onto the self-congratulation department...Check out page 40 of the T: Travel supplement where our homepretzels Jay, Oliver and Dan up at Bodega in Boston get big love and spread some in a No Mas direction. Mickey Duzyj's "Kid Dynamite" No Mas x 5Boro deck is up in the cut. Congratulations my dudes, and thank you for the light.