Reading Material

Outside of seeing Clare, we haven’t much enjoyed our trips to Indiana—pitch-black highways at night, a gangster who charged us $120 to not tow our car, near-endless cold and snow.  At least Saturday’s cold had a silver lining.  I stepped into a Target to warm up and walked out with the first baseball magazine I’ve bought in years.

I admit, part of the reason I bought Lindy’s Sports 2015 Preview is they pick the White Sox to win the AL Central.  But, really, the format’s a joy to behold:  Scout’s Take (“A lot of us were wrong about [Jose] Abreu.  He’s got more than a slider-speed bat.”); Key Arrivals and Departures (Matt Lindstrom, good riddance); Projected Batting Order and Rotation; Top Organizational Prospects (including hot-yoga devotee Micah Johnson); and Organization/Management Direction, with the arrow pointing up for the Sox.  All that plus a Phenoms list of baseball’s top fifty prospects, a rating of the best players by position, some interesting articles w/o too much sabermetrics and the Cubs picked for fourth!

It’s enough to make a person feel young again.  

Tomato, Tomahto

Cold is cold, whether at an NCAA Division I or Division III softball game.  And bad pitching is just the same, along with the size of the crowd and the bad umping and the dads making sure the world can hear their every comment.  The one big difference would probably be the heaters.  Valpo and visiting parents carried around portable propane ones while a plug-in unit warmed up at least part of the Valpo dugout.  I couldn’t tell if the other side had one, too.  

This was the first softball game I ever watched without my daughter putting in an appearance on the field.  Oh, I could hear her, all right, shouting “Out!” from the dugout, for an outside pitch.  Clare had figured out the visitors’ signs and shouted them out to the Valpo batters.  She’s also working with a girl who has a Craig Counsell, straight-up batting stance that could use a little modifying.  So, the ex-Bluejay is learning and teaching, which is good.  But why can’t there be a fifth year of eligibility, based on good conduct or average distance of home runs hit in a career?  I could go for that.

In the meantime, there’s nothing like 35-degree temperatures to make a person feel old.  That or the parents in the stands really were that much younger than me.  Still, we’re basically alike, geezers and young folks.  We pace, we yell, we feel the agony and the ecstasy that goes with being the parent of an athlete (or aspiring coach).  When it was all over, the Valpo parents huddled around an open-sided tent for chow.  That was one thing we never did in D III.

For the Good of the Game

 Scott Boras is crying to high heaven that his client, Cubs’ rookie hitting sensation Kris Bryant, is being jerked around by the Cubs while Theo Epstein says any decision on Bryant’s making the club out of spring training will be based solely on the best interests of all involved.  Meanwhile, Commissioner Rob Manfred says it’s none of Boras’ business what the Cubs decide to do with Bryant.

Business—now, there’s the key.  It’s all about the business, or money, for Boras, Bryant and the Cubs.  At issue is the matter of keeping Bryant under contract.  If he makes the team by Opening Day, the 23-year old third baseman becomes a free agent in six years; if the Cubs send him down and then call him up in late April, they control his rights for an extra year.  Apparently, nobody thought of this scenario when the current players’ agreement was negotiated.

If sportswriters weren’t so lazy, they’d ask each of the parties involved if their stand isn’t influenced by money.  Would the Cubs send Bryant down if it would cost them more?  Would Boras want his client on the roster if that meant less money for either of them?  And when was the last time the commissioner’s office took a stand not based on what was best financially for the owners?

This reminds me of something Clare told her Valpo coach a few weeks ago, about the difference between NCAA Divisions I and III.  In D I, players are motivated because they get a scholarship.  In D III, it’s the game alone that matters.  Of course, nothing so ideal has a place in the business Manfred and Boras are in.    

Getting to look a lot like Christmas

 Nothing like waking up to a dusting of snow, and this a day before we go to Valparaiso to watch Clare work her magic, e.g., charting pitches, in the dugout.  How I love springtime in the Midwest.

Depending on what happens in the next 24 hours, it could be worse.  Clare’s sophomore year of high school, she opened the season in 38-degree weather; that was the day that taught me to combine long underwear with a winter coat and a minimum of two sweatshirts.  Five days later, I helped Euks shovel snow off the field at Morton.  Maybe I should mention here that a March sun can be deceptively weak when it comes to melting the white stuff.

But the winner for softball misery—again, tomorrow notwithstanding—happened on a Wednesday night in more-or-less late April Clare’s freshman year at Elmhurst.  The Bluejays played at Judson University, forty miles north and west of Chicago.  The game-one temperature topped out at 40, which wouldn’t have been bad but for the wind and the time; the game started at 5:30.  In the top of the first, Clare hit a ball on the line to dead centerfield.  Anywhere else and it’s gone, but the Bandits also played at Judson, and they wanted a roomy outfield.  So, the ball hit off the fence at 230 feet, giving Clare a double.  There’s the highlight of the evening, unless you count watching your daughter splash through the standing water in right field.  The second game started around 7:30, by which time the mercury was going into freefall, along with the Bluejays.  On the plus side, I’ve never been back to Judson in the four years since.

       And I don’t need tomorrow to “top” that.

What Makes a Solid Citizen?

 George McCaskey found his inner George Bush this week.  The Bears’ chairman looked into the eyes of free-agent defensive lineman Ray McDonald and must have seen straight into his soul.  In any case, it was enough for the Bears to give McDonald a one-year deal.  As for those two sexual assault incidents (not to be confused with the time McDonald’s fiancé may have pulled a gun on him during an argument), well, where there’s smoke there’s not always fire.  Someone go tell Mrs. O’Leary.

Three days before the McDonald signing, Chuck Bednarik died at the age of 89.  Bednarik played both center and linebacker for the Eagles from 1949-1962.  The nickname “Concrete Charlie” had as much to do with Bednarik’s ferocity on the field as his offseason job selling the stuff.  Oh, and he flew thirty missions over Europe during WW II as a gunner on a B-24.  This is my kind of guy.

To the best of my knowledge, Bednarik was not known for beating on women; for that matter, neither are players from his generation.  Were they inherently better than the Ray McDonalds of the world?  I doubt.  Have Bednarik and McDonald trade birthdays, and they very likely would be trading reputations, give or take a felony.  Times are different, indeed.

Bednarik went to war before he played football, and he acquired a nickname in part due to the fact that he didn’t make enough money with the Eagles to kick back in the offseason.  Football for the Chuck Bednariks and Dick Butkuses even was a stage in life, not a career.  And, along the way, community expectations were placed on them—serve your country, use your God-given talents to provide for your family.  Money has changed all that.

No, I don’t want us going into another world war or revert to paying athletes chump change.  If owners can make hundreds of millions of dollars (or more), then players are due their millions.  What I do want is all millionaires and above to feel the same sense of humility that athletes once brought with them onto the field.  A little more Jackie Robinson and Chuck Bednarik would go a long way in keeping athletes’ names off the police blotter. 

Ever the Gentleman

A college baseball player tweeted his displeasure this week over the news Disney planned to do a movie on Mo’ne Davis by referring to the 13-year old pitcher as “that slut [who] got rocked by Nevada” in the Little League World Series last summer.  When said writer got booted off his team, Davis came to his defense.  “He made one dumb mistake,” she emailed the school president in support of the oaf’s reinstatement.  “I’m sure he would go back and change it if he could.”  The maturity points here go to Ms. Davis.

Clare got the same kind of treatment playing baseball when she was eleven.  Her team lined up for the after-game handshake, during which one boy said, “Nice game, bitch.”  I only found out well after the fact, or else I would’ve been in a whole lot of faces.  If something like that happened now, I’d worry about the speaker needing dental work.  But, at the time, it nearly crushed a child who merely wanted to play the game she loved.  We really need to do better as parents.      

The Future of Football

 Promising San Francisco 49ers’ linebacker Chris Borland retired last week.  One season of butting heads in the NFL was enough for the former Wisconsin Badger.  “I just want to live a long healthy life,” explained Borland of his decision, “and I don’t want to have any neurological diseases or die younger than I would otherwise.”  Wise words from a 24-year old.

So, does this spell the beginning of the need for America’s top sport?  I doubt it.  If Borland were Gayle Sayers or Dick Butkus, maybe, but he’s just a good football player whose name most fans won’t remember in another two weeks.  The beauty and the terror embedded in a good NFL doubleheader will remain intact.

There’s something inherently satisfying about seeing—and executing, no doubt—a good play, the block that springs a nice run or a pass pattern that nets a first down on fourth and long with the clock ticking down.  On top of that you have a player like Sayers, who would have been perfect on the Black Sox; since it was impossible to tackle the man, he always had a clean uniform.  Old Man Halas must’ve saved a bundle on laundry.

Sayers would take a handoff and confront yet another blown assignment by his offensive line.  Hello, my name is Ray Nitschke, and I want to tear your head off.  To avoid that fate, Sayers would run left ten yards, right twenty and circle back before heading downfield for whatever yardage the Bears needed.  There was never a more graceful runner before or since.  Such moves were the antithesis of a game that at the time allowed the blindside tackle and helmet spearing, which may be why Sayers’ career spanned only five full seasons and another two injury-shortened ones.

Sayers was the opposite of Walter Payton, who thrived on contact.  Hit Payton once, and he gained another ten yards; smack him a second time, and it meant another twenty yards at least.  Payton was the offensive version of Dick Butkus, terror incarnate.  Waiting for the snap, no. 51 would spit across the line of scrimmage; much worse was to follow.  The blindside, the spear—Butkus could hurt an opponent any number of ways.  He gave no mercy and expected none.  If ever there was a warrior ready to be carried off the field of battle on his shield, it was Butkus.

So far, neither Hall of Famer has turned his back on the game that made them both famous.  Until they do, fans have free reign to see who compares today to what Sayers and Butkus were back then.  The violence can be ignored in the search for beauty and terror.  

Florida Through the Snow

 It’s expected to snow three-five inches today.  That by itself is depressing, more so when you figure—as I am—this is the week for Elmhurst softball in Florida.  As we speak, those plucky Bluejays have taken the field, sun overhead, breeze to their backs, clouds lazy and large.  But there is no fifth year for parents or players.  A diploma is nice, but not the snow that comes with it.  

Courage

People are forever talking about gutless politicians, so imagine my surprise to find an act of political courage coming out of the Lone Star State, of all places, with the subject of comment being pro football, no less.

But Dallas mayor Mike Rawlings couldn’t keep quiet when the Cowboys signed defensive end Greg Hardy this week.  Hardy beat domestic-violence charges last summer when his ex-girlfriend refused to testify against him, this after a financial settlement had been reached between them, I might add.  Yes, according to my rulebook, a player who is done with the justice system shouldn’t face more face punishment from the league in question.  But that shouldn’t keep fans from blasting their team for acquiring a bad character.

Which is what Rawlings did, according to the Dallas Evening News.  “”I’m a big Cowboys fan,” said the mayor in published comments.  “I want them to beat the Eagles every time they play.  But at some point, being a sports fan gets trumped by being a father, [or] husband, [and] wanting to do what’s right for women, so this [signing of Hardy] is not a good thing.  I don’t think I’m going to be buying Hardy jerseys any time soon.” Rawlings also called the Hardy signing “a shot in the gut.”

Yet words that took guts to say.

Patience

The first sentence out of the mouth of any true South Sider is, My favorite teams are the White Sox and whoever’s playing the Cubs today.  On Friday, that was the Sox and the Sox in Arizona.

It’s only spring training, yes, but I hate losing 10-7 with the bullpen giving up eight runs from the sixth inning on.  This is the kind of thing that puts me into full Steinbrenner mode.  Zach Putnam has an ERA of over 19?  Bye-bye.  Matt Albers looked lost on the mound?  Ditto.  And Tyler Flowers is hitting less than a buck (.100)?  Show that man the door.

But God has seen fit to make me a fan, not an owner, so I have to learn the value of patience.  Except for Flowers and Putnam….

March Madness

I love the National Anthem too much to be considered a traitor, so think of me as an alien unable to comprehend the importance of that thing you Americans call March Madness.  And bracket selections matter why, exactly?

If the NCAA were serious about being an enforcement body, it would’ve announced sanctions—some of which are being appealed, by the way—against Syracuse during the tournament for maximum effect, but that would get in the way of all those feel-good, big-upset stories the networks need to sell commercial time at obscene amounts.  So, we pretend this is “Hosiers”-style basketball, all about dedication and second chances and going through life with the memories of that game when we slayed Goliath, or sat in front of the TV watching it happen.

Remember Kevin Ross, the 1980s’ Creighton basketball player who later went to grade school to learn how to read?  It’d be nice to hear from him, especially to see what if anything has changed in the college “game” since he played…and went to school.      

Let Him In

Pete Rose has petitioned new baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred to have his lifetime ban lifted.  In other words, Rose wants to get into the Hall of Fame.

Any petition ought to include the following, in boldface: I CHEATED, I LIED, I’M A JERK.  And it should include a letter of support from Ray Fosse (seriously, and if you have to ask, you don’t know baseball).  If Rose did that, I’d be inclined to rule in his favor.  As to the HOF, I’d put him back on the ballot, as long as he agreed that, if elected, he began his induction speech with I CHEATED, etc., and his plaque would note his admission to gambling.

Anything less, though, and the man can die a pariah for all I care.  

Must-see TV

The new video board going up in left at Wrigley Field will be just a shade under twice the size of the beautifully anachronistic scoreboard that dates to 1937.  The past will not so much meet the future as get lost in its shadow.

It’s funny how we all start off “old-school” in sports.  Kids shoot hoops in the alley or play a game of pickup at the park.  The game, not the venue, counts.  The same holds for high school, at least all the gyms and fields I ever stepped on and for those colleges not part of the ESPN-NCAA sports-industrial complex.  Players play, spectators watch, and nobody thinks of their comfort.

Ditto minor-league baseball, where the experience is given a coating of romance and nostalgia a la Bull Durham.  Then everything changes as soon as the game turns “big league”—fans get their concourse mall, players their McMansion clubhouse and owners their obscene profits.  But we lose something intangible with our reliance on instant replay.  And domes and luxury suites….

Baby Steps

It took Clare to stop playing softball to have her first real road trip, eleven days and three cities, including a five-hour stopover at Midway in Chicago for a connecting flight from Colorado to Florida.  Did I mention the 87-degree temperatures my daughter had to endure last week?  Poor baby.

But the transition from player to coach really is hard, especially for anyone who spent her entire career as a starter.  (See somebody’s softball records for the Elmhurst Bluejays to get an idea.)  Coaching is all the worry, none of the fun of playing.  How else to explain the tub full of dirty uniforms in Clare’s hotel room?  Or the 400 miles of driving a van full of D I players who have no idea how good they have it?  OK, some of the driving was to Cocoa Beach, but still.

The payoff for those so inclined to suffer through the above?  Clare was able to talk to some girls after their at-bats and have input on at least one lineup (and it won).  That’s why she doesn’t complain (except to her parents) about having to get out of bed at 4:45 AM to catch the early flight back to Indiana to be followed by a night class and paper due.  I’m not sure I could manage it, but I’m proud of the child who’s done it so far.   

Ray Meyer, Old School Contd.

 The men’s basketball coach at DePaul University stepped down after amassing a 54-105 record over five seasons.  It just hasn’t been the same since Ray Meyer stepped down 31 years ago.

Yes, you guessed it, Meyer was very old school, as you would expect of anyone who coached 42 years (1942-1984).  I got to watch Meyer as an undergraduate in the 1970s.  This was when the “L” had place names instead of colors and the Blue Demons played in that indoor bandbox known as Alumni Hall.

The thing about Coach, as everybody called him, was his dual nature, shy and not so shy.  He never sought attention or upstaged anyone.  See him walking on campus or talking to a reporter, and you might mistake him for the most mild-mannered retiree.  Oh, but to see him at practice, he was all fire and brimstone; the court had burn holes in it, I swear.  For some reason, Al McGuire of Marquette brought out the best in Meyer, who excelled as the underdog.  McGuire was all Brooklyn flash, but he saw a kindred soul in Meyer, a coach who believed in team ball and at least a smidgen of education for his players.  McGuire and Meyer may have been the original bromance.

I half think Meyer made a deal with the devil in his last years, abandoning his style of coaching to accommodate star players; they took him deep into the NCAA playoffs but never all the way.  At the time, DePaul also abandoned Alumni Hall for a generic big box in the suburbs.  Winning was never as sweet as it happened on Belden Avenue, by the “L.”

Eventually, Meyer turned the reins over to his son Joey, who had a pretty good run at it, until 1996, when he was forced out after a 3-23 season.  Coach resigned in protest.  None of the five coaches has found a way to recapture the magic of Ray Meyer at Alumni Hall.  The university and city are working on a new facility, but it’ll be located miles from where Blue Demon basketball made any sense.  You almost have to feel sorry for the next coach.          

How We Do Things in Berwyn

 When Clare was eight or nine, we went to the Berwyn Rec to talk to some of the people who run the place.  I wanted to make sure my daughter could keep playing baseball because that’s what she wanted to do.  And the guys there said, OK.

One of those guys is the basketball coach where Clare went to high school.  Morton has this great underdog reputation—the bungalow crowd isn’t supposed to be so good at sports, especially against the well-heeled schools in the West Suburban Gold Conference.  To beat Downers Grove South is to know how David felt coming home after his fight with Goliath.

The basketball team has been pretty good for the last eight years or so.  This season, they made it all the way to sectionals, eliminating the defending state champs in the process.  After a game this week, one of the players told the Tribune, “Coach has been yelling at me to crash the boards.  I never do.  I just sit there and watch.  I finally did it because I knew we needed it, and after that dunk [that highlighted an 18-1 run late in the game], I knew the [home] crowd was into it.”

One of the graduating seniors is going to Harvard, and the above game took out St. Ignatius.  Every David in every Berwyn bungalow should feel proud.  

Old School

I know, I know.  Everything old in baseball is new again.  Once upon a time, it was called “showboating.”  Now, we have players “pimping,” as in homeruns.  Either way, I hate it, the bat flip followed by the trot, the hitter’s eyes simultaneously on the ball and himself.  My answer to this would be a fastball under the chin, every time.  Cubs’ manager Joe Maddon is a bit more diplomatic.

Earlier this week, catcher Wellington Castillo homered and went into his act.  According to teammate Javier Baez in the Tribune, Castillo wanted to tell coach (how sad, that) Manny Ramirez he “pimped out.”  In response to this little bit of theatre, Maddon said, “I would just prefer our guys act like they’ve done it before and that they’re going to do it again.”   Amen.

This is what I remember about the Yankees of Mantle and Maris, Berra and Ford—they beat you with cold precision and a minimum of emotion.  If that’s old school, count me in.  Oh, and Clare, too.   

Best-laid Plans

It was love at first-sight for me, baseball wise, with Toronto’s Marcus Stroman.  The five-foot nine, 23-year old righty starter posted an 11-6 record as a rookie last season with a 3.65 ERA and a 1.17 WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched).  To give you an idea how exceptional that last stat is, it took Sandy “the left hand of God” Koufax eight years in the majors to record a better WHIP.  As to character, Stroman pals around with ex-Sox fan favorite Mark Buehrle, he of the “get it down in two hours” mindset for pitching a game.  Like I said, love at first sight.

The White Sox could have drafted Stroman but chose outfielder Courtney Hawkins instead.  Hawkins is two years younger and has made it to spring training already, so maybe my team wasn’t as clueless as usual in scouting talent.  Or we could just be dumb-ass lucky.  Stroman tore the ACL in his left knee during fielding practice this week and is expected to miss the entire season.  

Here’s hoping Courtney Hawkins wasn’t the right choice by default.

Kissimmee Memories

Clare stepped off the plane in Orlando last night to a thermometer reading of 87 degrees.  Did I mention I hate my daughter right now?

After today’s games, the girls want to hit the beach, even though the Tigers and Astros are playing (literally) just down the road from them.  We saw those two teams in a spring training game four years ago.  Clare should remember it well; I do.  She had already hit her first college homerun for Elmhurst, on our 31^st wedding anniversary, which was a nice touch.  For our one off-day in Florida, we decided on a ballgame.

The seats were great, just three rows from the field a little behind first base, and Miguel Cabrera was a revelation; he had time enough for a whole bunch of autographs.  But the Tigers’ bullpen seated just in front of us wasn’t so nice.  They—and you guys know who you are—kept staring and staring at Clare, perhaps because she was dressed in the way of a 19-year old Midwestern girl looking to get a little color before heading back to the tundra.  About the seventh inning, there came another round of stares that broke the camel’s back, so to speak, or prompted a parent into action.  It wasn’t me but the mother bear, who glowered long and hard enough until she got a mumbled apology and no more stares.   

And now the new softball graduate assistant gets to play mother bear.

Clueless

Derrick Rose addressed the media for the first time since his meniscus repair February 27.  Rose was doing better incommunicado.

The enigma from Englewood said that, unlike Bulls’ management, he had no timetable for his return.  No, instead, the injured guard is “thinking about getting the most out of every day.”  Peace of mind has come from giving his life over to God.  That’s what the man said.

And this, too: “I’m just trying to take my time, listen to my body, cheer on my teammates while I’m out, just try to better myself as a person, a basketball player, a businessman and a teammate.”  He might want to check on the value of that Derrick Rose brand right not.  On second thought, he might not want to know.

Clare spent the weekend freezing in Ft. Collins, Colorado.  My daughter is coming to grips with the fact she’s stuck in the dugout, at least as far as college softball is concerned.  If the devil is looking to make a tempting deal, he could do worse than offer Little Hurt a few more years of eligibility, for there are those in life with a talent but nowhere to practice it.

To say nothing of millionaire athletes both talented and clueless.

Notes on a Requiem Mass

 I’ve disliked Jerry Reinsdorf from the day he engineered the destruction of a classic ballpark so that a publicly-funded outdoor mall could take its place.  Add to that his running out of town the best basketball player of all time along with a coach who could weave silk out of old gym shorts.  I also have this thing about billionaires, a kind of human cockroach with money.  Yes, the eminently rich Reinsdorf was recently elevated to billionaire status.

But the man is also human, as was shown by last week’s death of Minnie Minoso.  Reinsdorf says he fell in love with the ex-Sox great the first time he met him.  Even a rich man could see what this poor man had accomplished both on and off the field, though I wonder how the relationship would have progressed had Reinsdorf followed through on his threat in the late 1980s to move the Sox to Tampa.  Anyway to recognize the goodness of this human being, who had no wealth beyond the adulation of countless Sox fans, may be what gets Jerry Reinsdorf into heaven in the end.

It was fitting that a ballplayer from the 1950s should have his funeral mass at Holy Family Church, which dates to 1857; neither that kind of player nor place is common these days.  And it was a good thing there were pews enough to fit everyone.  Of course, the mighty got to sit up front while the ordinary squeezed in where they could.  I’ll give a break to Frank Thomas because he is extraordinarily big.  For a man who once admitted he didn’t know all that much about Jackie Robinson, Thomas showed he’s learned enough to appreciate the life and contributions of the first black Latin player to reach the majors.

And, soon-to-be 88-year old Billy Pierce can sit wherever he wants.  The lefty great—go and compare his career stats to Whitey Ford—walked unaided to the pulpit to offer his praise for an old teammate.  Perhaps someday the Hall of Fame will find a way to include Minoso and Pierce while one of them is still alive.

At the end of mass before everyone processed out, a young man walked to the altar and played a tape Minnie Minoso had the foresight to make.  “Since I came over here in 1951, you gave me your love and your respect,” offered the voice of a man who could not be dead.  Ever polite, Saturnino Orestes Arrieta Armas Minoso thanked his listeners, then added, “I love you and God bless you.”
He did, for somewhere between 89 and 92 years.  

Who, Me?

Who, Me?

The NCAA has just come down hard on the Syracuse basketball program, long the domain of Coach Jim Boeheim.  It appears that players from time to time had other people do assignments and “volunteered” for youth clinics after being paid to do so.  Oh, and the drug protocol came with the occasional wink or nod.  Who knew?

The punishments probably will include forfeiting victories and the loss of scholarships, if not a ban on postseason play.  It could have been worse, but the university won brownie points for alerting the NCAA of possible problems.  School officials didn’t move to correct those problems necessarily, but they kept track of them.  How brave.  As to Boeheim, the coach acknowledges there were violations yet he feels “disappointed.”  Why?  Because “The [investigating] committee chose to ignore the efforts I have undertaken over the past 37 years to promote an atmosphere of compliance.”  Huh?  Division I coaches are the closest thing to God on earth; what they say goes.  If the Syracuse basketball program stinks, the odor starts with the head coach.

Next week, I’ll probably drop in on Clare’s old softball coach at Elmhurst; he wants me to score games this year.  Coach Mike has an office to make the tiniest Manhattan studio apartment look like the Ritz, with stacks of paper threatening to bury coach and visitor alike.  There are also pictures, including more than a few of my daughter.  But I’m willing to bet there isn’t a slush fund stashed away in a desk drawer or a paper written for one of his players.

That’s a lesson Division III could teach the big guys, if only they cared to listen.

Let Them In

The Tribune today had a big story on baseball in the Dominican Republic, which is providing anywhere from 25 to 40 percent of the players on minor league rosters.  In the Dominican, most people are poor, and baseball is the escape route of choice.  The odds of signing a six-figure bonus are slim, but better than the lottery.

The national pastime has always lent itself to the ideal of social mobility; mill ball and stickball fed major-league dreams and minor-league teams long before the northward flow of Dominican talent.  And just as sure as Dominican agents take an ungodly cut out of a signing bonus for their services (as much as 30 percent according to the Trib), pro scouts cheated Midwestern farm boys eager to sign a contract.  Some things never change.

But they should.  Major-league baseball is all too willing to cultivate talent in the Caribbean no matter the potential for abuse.  Closer to home, supremely gifted athletes wait for a chance to play that never comes.  Their crime is their gender.  That or they’re not poor enough to exploit yet.         

#9

Baseball, unlike football, has a past that matters.  Take Red Grange or Y.A. Tittle out of the NFL, and who cares?  Do the same to MLB with Babe Ruth or Bob Feller, and you have a problem.  Who broke the color line in football or the NBA?  Who broke the color line for the Brooklyn Dodgers April 15, 1947?  And why did Minnie Minoso have to die yesterday?

I was too young to ever see Minoso play, but the film clips they showed on the news were enough to get a sense of the man and his times.  Baseball on the South Side of Chicago in the 1950s produced a body electric, fueled by Minoso, Aparicio, Fox and Pierce doing battle with the Yankees, White Sox pinstripes superior in look if not result to those other, more famous ones.  Minnie Minoso didn’t so much run the bases as he flew around them.

All those 1963 hits and 1136 runs scored and 1023 runs batted in didn’t start until Minoso reached the age of 25, or 28, or later; the exact age remains a mystery.  The stats did not depend on Minoso’s ability to speak English, which came slowly, or to deal with the prejudice of fans who disliked a player both black and Cuban, which came right away.  Minoso simply produced in such a way as to win the undying affection of those born south of State and Madison.  I saw that at SoxFest four years ago.

Minoso was walking by and stopped to autograph a ball for me; he was like royalty in a three-piece suit.  A line of people formed instantly.  No one joked or slapped the old player on the back.  Rather, they stood quietly in line waiting their turn to greet the man who by his play so long ago would now be our king.