High water mark

My wife and kids think I'm a pack rat. Or maybe a hoarder.

I prefer to think I'm part squirrel. I like to stockpile things.

You never know when they'll come in handy.

I learned a long time ago that, if I throw away something that has anything remotely to do with sports, then a week or so after pitching it in the trash I'll find a need for that discarded item.

It never fails.

I could have a program, a scorebook or some other item go untouched and collecting dust in my basement for 15 years, and shortly after throwing it in the trash I'll be writing a story and saying "I wish I hadn't thrown that away. It would come in handy right now."

I guess that's one of those unwritten rules of sports.

Some things I'm glad I still have stashed away are three-ring binders with boxscores from every Wild Things game and various statistics from each season. There is one binder for every season from 2002 to this year. Those binders come in handy on days like today, when I received a text from WJPA Radio's Randy Gore.

Radio Randy wanted to know when was the last time the Wild Things, who take a 14-5 record into tonight's game at Rockford, were either 9 or 10 games above .500. Thank goodness for those three-ring binders because that's something you can't determine with a Google search.

The answer is: Washington was 55-40 after the final game of the 2007 regular season.

Since then, the closest the Wild Things have come to 9 games above .500 was last year, when three times they were 6 games above .500, the last time at 15-9 following a June 14 game against Normal. Washington was 5 games above .500 in 2008 under manager Greg Jelks. In the other seasons since 2007, the Wild Things never came close to 9 over.

By the way, keeping a three-ring binder of stat sheets for a team is something I learned from former O-R sports staffer Bob Grove. He used to keep 'em for the Penguins, and I have a feeling he still does so that he can pull out some obscure facts during Penguins radio broadcasts.