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If you want a taste of Wrigley history, stop at the corner of Waveland and Kenmore Avenues, beyond the left-field bleachers. There youll find the ballhawks, a group of Cubs fans who hang out with their baseball gloves on -- from before batting practice until after the final out -- hoping to snag a home run ball from beyond the ivy.I spoke with a couple of them before a recent game: Rich Buhrke, whos been chasing glory for 57 years, and Dave Davison, with a mere three decades on the job.I watch them scan the skies; the stiff north-by-northwest winds suggest slim pickings during the nights game, and with no batting practice scheduled, itll be slow. So they have time to chat.My first question: Why? Whats the purpose of spending so many days outside Wrigley, all for a ball?Buhrkes answer is as pure and simple as a game of catch: Ive had so much fun -- since I was 12 years old.When you get a homer -- on the fly or after it bounces around the crowd -- he says, For that instant, youre part of the game, and its a big thrill. I still get an adrenaline rush.While back surgery has slowed Buhrkes running game, its now all about predictions, positioning and playing the angles.It takes deep baseball knowledge to be a ball hawk. They monitor pitchers who tend to give up lots of homers, as well as hitters tendencies. They can read the reactions of the crowd along the back wall of the bleachers to tell if a ball is indeed headed out of the park.They also monitor their own statistics. Buhrke has snagged 179 in-game home runs over the years, including Ron Santos 299th and 300th career blasts. He has homers both given up by, and hit by, Cubs pitchers Fergie Jenkins and Scott Sanderson. He also has footballs from point-after-touchdown kicks, back when the Bears played at Wrigley. But his first home run ball might be his most memorable.It was Don Zimmers first dinger as a Cub, after being traded to Chicago from the Dodgers in 1960. Zimmer hit it off his former Dodgers roommate, Johnny Podres. Buhrke got it signed, but the signature faded over the years. Decades later, he went to an autograph show to get it re-signed. There, Zimmer proceeded to tell the inside story of the home run. It came on a 2-0 pitch, a count where the book says a .250 hitter should take a pitch. But Zimmer swung away, and Podres gave him an earful about it all the way around the bases.Every time we see each other, it comes up. You gotta show him this sometime! Zimmer told Buhrke.So when Podres was in town for another autograph show, Buhrke brought him the ball, and said, Don Zimmer told me to come over by you. Podres laughed and told the same story Zimmer had.Then he signed the other side of the ball.The ballhawks are also famous on their own terms. Theres been a documentary film made about them, with Cubs uber-fan Bill Murray narrating, which was screened at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.And Davison has another sort of modern fame: his own bobblehead doll. At the 2002 All-Star Game in Milwaukee, Davison snagged a ball Sammy Sosa blasted out of Miller Park during the Home Run Derby. The TV announcers discussed his feat, and years later, folks from the Milwaukee-based National Bobblehead Hall of Fame met Davison at a card show and asked him if hed want to be immortalized. It finally happened this year, and you can buy one from Davison, along with jewelry made from baseballs he has caught.Other developments this season, however, havent been as good for Davison, Buhrke and the other ballhawks.Thanks to bleacher expansion and what Buhrke calls That Monstrosity -- the new left-field video board -- many balls that wouldve gone onto Waveland Ave. stay in the park. The hawks estimate they get 60 percent fewer balls than in past years. Beyond physical changes, manager Joe Maddons noted disdain for batting practice doesnt help, either. Maddons philosophy of batting practice kills us, Buhrke says. The ballhawks know if BP will happen when the Wrigley Field grounds crew climbs up to spread the netting that protects the video board, and if it doesnt, well, then its time to settle in and tell some stories.These guys know the geography of the games history at the Friendly Confines, and they act as unofficial historians and ambassadors for Wrigleys most famous home runs. Out-of-town fans come looking for the spots where famed long shots by Dave Kingman or Sosa landed on Kenmore Ave. This afternoon, some random fan sought a Mike Schmidt landing zone, and was informed that that particular ball went up the alley, not down the street.You can find ballhawks inside the park as well: During one of the pregame videos the Cubs show on the new board, Buhrke himself appears, holding up a ball as Harry Caray shouts, Holy Cow! Buhrke had never seen the film until I captured an image for him, and based on his age, clothes and other clues, he says its from the late 1980s. He thinks it mightve been an Andre Dawson ball, but cant be completely sure.This season, Davison scored the most historic out-of-the-park ball of the year to date. On May 27, backup catcher David Ross 100th career home run hit the NUVEEN sign and ricocheted into the first front yard on Kenmore. Buhrke had predicted that such caroms would come, but Davison admits he thought the sign was mostly air and that it wouldnt cause any crazy bounces. He happily eats his words: Rich was right, but so far Im the only guy who benefited from it.After Davison snagged the ball, for the rest of the game the Cubs had security shadow him to ensure he wouldnt switch the ball out for another. They neednt have worried: Davison happily gave the ball to Ross, asking only for a photo with him. The grateful Ross praised Davisons generosity.People dont realize when they do stuff like that, its the memory, Ross said to MLB.com. Ill always remember that guy gave me that ball and was kind enough to do that. Now that guy is connected with me for life in my memory.Another memorable time for the ballhawks was the steroid era, when Sosa, Mark McGwire and other sluggers sent countless balls out of the park. It was as exciting as hell, Buhrke says, but as a good baseball purist, he continues, [PED use] never shouldve got into baseball, and now that its out, keep it out. He advocates harsher penalties for juicers, who he says are role models, whether they want to be or not.The ballhawks are role models of a sort, too, exemplars of passionate fan engagement with the game on their own terms. They attend many games, and sometimes follow the Cubs on the road. Theyre part of baseballs genuine folk culture, but over the decades theyve watched that folk culture transform into corporate culture.The starkest example of this transformation at Wrigley is the rooftop clubs. Before Jim Murphy put some seats on top of his tavern, you could watch the Cubs from a rooftop only if you knew someone who lived in the building. Youd clamber up a ladder to the roof, hand up a couple of folding lawn chairs, a cooler with a few cold brews and a transistor radio with Lou Boudreau and Vince Lloyd calling the game.Nobody made a buck off it. Now, the Wrigley rooftops are quintessential corporate America, with $100 tickets that have food and drink and TVs and lawsuits flying around like fungo balls.But the ballhawks are a living memory, a connection to Cubs fan culture before East Lakeview became Wrigleyville. They may perch beyond its walls, but they are as much a part of Wrigley Field as the ivy.Cheap Kyrie Irving Shoes .In my heart and mind Im competing for India, luge competitor Shiva Keshavan told The Associated Press in an email interview. Every day Im flooded with messages from Indians all over the world telling me they are supporting me. Wholesale Kyrie Irving Shoes . Darren Helm scored on Detroits sixth attempt in the shootout and then Jonas Gustavsson stopped Andrew Shaws shot, lifting the Detroit Red Wings to a 5-4 win over the Chicago Blackhawks on Wednesday night. https://www.cheapshoeskyrieirving.com/ . Siddikur, whose previous win on the circuit came in Brunei three years ago, finished his bogey-free round with a birdie on the 18th for a total of 17-under 199. Indias Shiv Chowrasia, who has finished runner-up in this tournament twice, was in second place after a 66. Kyrie Irving Shoes For Sale .1 million pounds ($61.2 million) on Saturday, giving the beleaguered English Premier League champions a major lift. Kyrie Irving Shoes Deals . Jordan Lynch, the all-purpose Heisman Trophy finalist from Northern Illinois, failed to make it into that exclusive club.TROON, Scotland -- Heres an updated weather forecast for the next four days at the 145th Open Championship: It might rain. It might not be the kind of light, fluffy rain that feels refreshing on a lazy afternoon, either. It might be hard, heavy droplets pounding down from the heavens that force everyone to run for cover. Or it might not even feel like its barreling down from the sky, instead swept up by the wind and forming the type of sideways rain that so often permeates this golf tournament. It might do this for an extended period of time every day. It might keep going, too, day and night, through the end of the weekend, until a rain-soaked, waterlogged champion is eventually awarded the Claret Jug.Or it might not.The reality is that predicting the weather here remains a bigger mystery than trying to extricate oneself from the Coffin Bunker. Its more inconsistent than a 20-handicappers putting stroke (and sometimes uglier). It might be nasty all morning then warm and sunny all afternoon. It might rain for five minutes, then turn to sun, then to wind. Wash, rinse, repeat. In perhaps the most quizzical scenario, it might be totally calm on the first tee and completely bonkers on the ninth green. At the same time.That was the case last year, when much of Saturdays round at the Old Course was suspended due to overly windy conditions on the far end of the course, while thousands of spectators spent the day reveling in sunshine and a light breeze throughout the town of St. Andrews. With all due respect to Bob Dylan, there were more questions than answers blowin in the wind.Royal Troon sports similar physical characteristics to St Andrews, in that the outward nine holes all face to the east, meaning players make the turn at the furthest part of the property from the clubhouse, then literally turn around and head inwardly west, into what is the prevailing wind.As for the official weather outlook, heres the beginning of the forecast for each of the four tournament days:Thursday: Fine and mainly dry with some sunshine throughout the day...(Well, that doesnt sound too bad.)Friday: Mostly cloudy with rain at times ...(A bit vague, but we can work with this.)Saturday: Details remain uncertain at present...(Hey, nothing like a little honesty.)Sunday: Like SSaturday, details remain uncertain.dddddddddddd.(OK, lets call it brutal honesty.)What we do know -- or at least, what we think we know -- is that this weeks weather wont be the worst in recent Open Championship memory.The worst Open weather Ive ever played in was 2002 at Muirfield, Colin Montgomerie said this week, echoing the sentiment of anyone else in that field. That was horrific.The third round that year was contested in pouring rain, heavy wind and chilled temperatures. The lasting image of that day was Tiger Woods, in the thick of his prime, posting his lone birdie on the 17th hole then dramatically raising his arms and taking a sarcastic bow on his way to shooting an 81.I regret scoring 74 on the second day, because that put me out late in the awful weather, Monty said with a smile. But that was the worst ever. I had lost circulation by the fifth hole. I had sent in for -- I was with Callaway -- you know these big, big mitts in July. Whats going on? It was crazy.For those who werent around 14 years ago, the tournament which provided the worst conditions that youll remember was a major, but not this one.Just three years ago, the second round of the PGA Championship at Oak Hill Country Club was plagued by a furious storm that never halted play.Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano refused to hit the tee shot on 18, because there was standing water on the teebox, let alone the greens, Jordan Spieth remembered. But they werent blowing the horn. We couldnt even see the fairway, it was raining so hard. But we played through it.Even Shane Lowry, from the not-so-warm-and-sunny country of Ireland, agreed with this assessment. I was one of the first groups out on Friday morning, and it was just brutal weather, he said. That was probably the worst rain and the worst wind I played.That might not happen this week. There might not be any sideways rain or enough wind to barely keep the flagsticks in the holes. We might not witness any world-class players shooting 81, then bowing sarcastically to the crowd. The weather might not be as ugly as possible.Then again, it might. Hey, its still early. And as they say, details remain uncertain. ' ' '