The Famous Chicken still owes me a couple of hits

By Ron Kantowski

Tuesday, June 16, 2009 | 12:07 p.m.

NOW

I read today where The Famous Chicken -- the original El Pollo Loco; a k a Ted Giannoulas -- is thinking about putting all his eggs in the retirement basket at age 55.

Somewhere in a tattered blue photo album in a box in my mom's garage -- or maybe it's in my upstairs closet -- there's a photo I took of TFC (when he was the San Diego Chicken) during his Wrigley Field debut. It must have been around 1977. He stuck his beak out of one of the little inning holes in the venerable scoreboard and the place went absolutely nuts.

The next summer (or the one after that), I was at Dudley Field in El Paso, Texas, carrying around one of Tom "Bruno" Brunansky's slightly broken Louisville Sluggers, when I spotted TFC yucking it up with the Diablos' relief pitchers in the left-field bullpen.

When I went over there, he took my slightly broken bat and started doing one his chicken incantations on it, waving his little gloved hands like he was trying to hypnotize it.

When he handed the bat back to me, the voice inside the beak assured me I was going to hit for the cycle.

I think I went 1-for-4. But I still thought it was cool that The Famous Chicken knew his baseball.

THEN

To me, a great song is one you hear on the car radio and will drive around the block for until it's finished playing.

As I was getting off the 215 on the way to the office this morning, Springsteen's "Jungleland" came on.

I was roughly nine minutes and 33 seconds late for work.