Today in 1908 ... Cubs split, germy kids, and the power of pie

The Cubs split a doubleheader with the Phillies. Meanwhile germy kids still go to school, and the power of pie.

If you have kids (like me), there is nothing worse than finding out some other parent sent their kid to school with a fever or the stomach bug. Next thing you know, you find yourself scrubbing down your entire house with Clorox wipes and Purell, in hopes that you can somehow ward off the evil poops of the stomach bug or having a fever rip through every member of your family. And in the back of your mind you think, "I'm gonna beat that parent up if I find out who caused this!"

Anyway, the moral of this story is twofold ... 1) That parent sucks, and 2) Just be happy all you have to deal with is a fever or the stomach bug. For you see ... parents in 1908 were WAY worse! Today in the Tribune, research from the Chicago Board of Health showed that over 2,000 students were sent to school with various contagious diseases ... including measles, scarlet fever, scabies, and tuberculosis. Tuberculosis! It's one thing to get diarrhea from your daughter's stupid classmate, but at least you ain't gonna die! (You just feel like you're gonna).

On to baseball ... Ed Reulbach pitched like crap yesterday, so his reward (or punishment) was to get his ass back out there on zero days rest and pitch again. This time the results were much better ... a complete game shutout and a 3-0 victory of the Phillies in game one of a Sunday doublehader. On offense, Heinie Zimmerman went 3-4 with an RBI and a run scored. He also won the award for "nickname that always made 12 year old me laugh hysterically because his name sounds like a butt." (OK confession ... it does still make me chuckle as an adult).

In game two, the Cubs were stymied by Phillies pitcher Frank Corridon, who delivered one of his two shutouts on the year for a 2-0 Cubs loss. On offense, the Cubs loaded the bases in the eighth with nobody out, but couldn't put together a run thanks to a nice catch in right field by a guy with a toothpick in his mouth. That's right ... Phillies RF John Titus apparently played the field with a toothpick in his mouth, presumably as a way to dare death to come take him during a baseball game choking incident.

Here's ol' Johnny boy now ... I can't see his toothpick, but let's just pretend it's buried in there somewhere under that gigantic bushy mustache ...

In other news, the power of lemon pie landed two dudes in jail as Navy deserters. Apparently, these two guys joined the Navy with the promise of "superior food" (or at least that's what they claimed), and when they found out their training ship didn't serve any tasty lemon pie, they immediately jumped ship and ran away.

Yeah that's all well and good, but the military kinda doesn't like deserters ... or maybe we should say "desserters" (See what I did there? BAHAHA!). So when the Navy investigator was on the hunt for the two he ... no joke ... found them eating lemon pie at a restaurant and talking about how "if we'd have had some of this, we'd still be on that ship." Ahh young idiots ... basically nothing has changed from a 19 year old moron in 1908 vs. one today hitting himself in the junk on YouTube trying to film a badass skateboard trick.

In summary ... Lemon pie is a powerful beast. Also, the Cubs split puts them at 45-29 for the year. Pittsburgh didn't play, so nothing changed in the standings and we're still tied. Another game tomorrow against the Phillies.