I was at Wrigley Sunday, but for reasons having to do with the car accident I got into on my way to the game, we wound up leaving in the top of the eighth inning. In between the time we left the park and got back to the car, Derrek Lee hit the go-ahead home run. As my son pointed out, we missed Lee's homer twice: in person and on the car radio.

(By the way, if you're the parasite behind the wheel of the gold/tan Honda with Illinois plates who hit my car on Lakeshore Drive then drove off, I hope you go to hell. Parasite hell, bad driver hell, beater gold Honda hell...however it happens to work out.)

As happy as I was to learn that the Cubs had taken the lead, knowing we--I'm sorry, I-- blew our chance to be part of the party back at the park made me sick to my stomach. Then, as Pat Hughes described the top of the ninth inning on WGN Radio and tried to characterize the electricity still crackling in the air because of Lee's longball, he just HAD to say, "...and not a soul has left Wrigley Field," and I felt a little worse. One out later, Ron Santo just HAD to say, "That game we won on Ramirez's home run was big, but I think this might be the biggest game of the year," and I felt yet worse.

Of course, I'm glad they won. But I'm thinking that for as long as I live, this will be the game I remember as the one that reached its crescendo while three boys and I were walking back to our car, instead of perched on the ends of our seats; the game that would have provided us the explosive joy of seeing our favorite team come all the way back from a 5-1 deficit in the middle of a desperately tight pennant race...if only we hadn't left 15 minutes before the decisive blow.

But like I said, I'm still glad the Cubs won.

AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh