All Hail the Mighty Castro

Oh, Starlin! Sure, being anointed the savior of a baseball team that hasn't won the World Series for 102 years can be daunting to anyone, let alone a 20-year-old, but based on your debut, it seems you may acclimate well.

In case you haven't heard, Starlin Castro, a shortstop from the Dominican Republic who the Cubs just brought up from Double A on Friday, made history in his first big league game while wearing lucky number 13.

I myself was oblivious to history until about 1:30 this morning, but found out about Castro's exploits in a most fortuitous fashion.

You see, I was at the White Sox game last night, invited by my friend Dave to share his great seats. It was a pretty good game that the White Sox wound up losing 7-4 in 12 innings. The Blackhawks, who were on my mind from their 8:30 start time, wound up winning by the same score in a game that ended just as I got home. After listening to the Hawks on the radio on my drive, I instantly turned on the postgame highlights show on Comcast Sports Net after getting in bed. The Hawks are now up 3-1 and heading home in their second round series with Vancouver.

After seeing all of the Hawks' goals, and hearing Canuck goalie Roberto Luongo give a sorry bemoaning of his team's play--not once mentioning his--I watched the NBC season debut of my favorite show, Friday Night Lights, which I had DVR'd from earlier in the evening. It was, as I expected, really good. I then watched a month-old episode of House that I also had in my DVR queue.

I think it was about 1:37am when I was done with my viewing for the night, but in getting out of  DVR-mode, the TV was still on CSN and a replay of the Cubs game was on (I don't even know what CSN or WGN-Radio did when both the Hawks and Cubs were on simultaneously).

And, I swear to you, Starling Castro was up to bat (in replay) at that exact moment; his first major league AB after hitting .376 this spring in AA. I think I may have seen one pitch before he hit the next one over the right field wall for a 3-run homer in his first big league plate appearance. It was pretty amazing timing, as although I was aware from the White Sox scoreboard that the Cubs had won 14-7 and I knew they were bringing Castro up, I was ignorant to what he had done.

Ready for sleep, I checked the web on my iPhone and learned that Castro also hit a 3-run triple, giving him 6 RBI, the most anyone has ever had in their first major league game.

A wondrous beginning to what should be a long and prodigious reign of Castro in Chicago. At least until he winds up a Dodger, Yankee or Met. A Starlin is Born, indeed.