Kind of Sad

Clare called Thursday night after John Danks’ latest start to say that Danks was trending on Twitter.  Because Danks is not Tom Brady or Stephen Curry, that’s not a good thing.  Basically, it means a lot of people are taking to the Twittersphere to express their extreme displeasure with Danks, and they’re doing it in rather direct fashion.  Think George Carlin and his seven certain words.

The White Sox lefty is 0-7 in his last seven starts over the last two seasons.  This year, he’s 0-4 with a 7.25 ERA.  I’ll give Danks credit; he’s not pretending everything is hunky-dory anymore.  “There are 24 guys in here that are setting the world on fire,” he said after his start—and loss—in Baltimore Thursday.  He even admitted “I got in the way of something special tonight.”  The Sox gave him a two-run lead in the first that turned into a 10-2 loss.  Danks gave up six of those runs, all earned.   

Danks would be right to blame all his problems on shoulder surgery he had in 2012; since then, his ERA has never been lower than 4.71.  He’s in the last year of his contract, and the Sox could simply release him, but that would mean team VP Kenny Williams made a mistake in signing him to that five-year, $65 million deal in 2011, and Kenny Williams doesn’t make mistakes.  But a 7.25 ERA may force Williams to act regardless.

The Twittersphere certainly hopes so.

Repent!

This must be how a street preacher feels in the midst of so much sin, only we’re talking the NFL draft instead.  People, get a grip before it’s too late..

Street preacher or zombie watcher, because all I see are fans, sportscasters and sports writers lurching from one football story to the next.  Who’s drafting whom?  Who’s moving up in the draft?  Who’ll go in Day Two?  How ’bout them Bears?  We’re in the fourth week of the baseball season, and I couldn’t find coverage of Chicago teams on one five o’clock newscast.  Jake Arrieta, 5-0 with a 1.00 ERA after beating the Brewers yesterday, was little more than an afterthought on the sports’ pages today, this in Chicago, a Cubs’ town.  All hail, Baal, the one true god.  All hail the NFL, the one true.… 

Anniversaries

Some things you don’t forget, or throw away.  Five years ago on Saturday, Clare was a freshman at Elmhurst, the only freshman to crack the starting lineup.  In fact, that afternoon she was batting cleanup, as befits a player with five homeruns. It was Senior Day and the last two games of the season.  If the Bluejays swept Carthage, they would make the postseason tournament in the first time in fourteen years.

The score was 1-0 Carthage going into the bottom of the seventh.  The first batter up singled.  The next batter was one of the graduating seniors, a very good hitter the coach didn’t want bunting; she lined out to right.  That brought up Clare.  As soon as she went into a bunting stance, parents—not me, other people—yelled, “What are you doing?  Don’t have her bunt!  She could hit a homerun.” Clare laid down a perfect sacrifice, 1-4, on a 1-0 pitch.  (I scored all of Clare’s high school and college games, counts included.  That should give the grandkids something to puzzle over thirty years from now.)  The next batter struck out, and Elmhurst did not go to the postseason.  Oh, in the first inning of the second game of the doubleheader, Clare homered off the same pitcher.

Four years ago today, at Lawrence University in Wisconsin, my daughter pulled off a really neat trick in her eighth at-bat of the day.  As to the first seven, five of them were outs swinging at the first pitch.  We argue about the last at-bat.  I say she swung at the first one, my daughter says No.  Either way, Elmhurst was down by a run in the top of the seventh, one out and one on.  Clare swung and hit a ball that went over the fence and ended up in short right field of the adjoining baseball field.  One of the fathers who live streamed the game said the Lawrence announcers were pretty much dumbfounded by what they had just seen.  The next day, again on Senior Day, Clare went two for three with a double, a run scored and an rbi in a game that clinched Elmhurst’s first postseason appearance in fifteen years.   

Five days later in the tournament, Clare hit another first pitch over the fence in left.  The ball must have gone at least 275 feet; add another 150 to get a rough baseball distance.  That was a thing of beauty, as was her final at-bat on Senior Day two years ago yesterday, a game-winning two-run double off the right field fence.

I hate how with each anniversary things get further away.

More Karma

If you believe in the above, there was no way the Blackhawks were going to beat the Blues; too much karma.  By that I mean Patrick Kane and his late night out last summer that resulted in something—though we don’t appear likely ever to know exactly what—along with Andrew Shaw showing a side of himself in the heat of battle that was better left hidden, if not kept buried deep in the closet.  Personally, I think it was more likely that St. Louis was the better team.

Not that you would’ve gotten a sense of that from the Chicago media, television in particular.  The sports’ “reporters” I saw kept talking about the Hawks’ near-invincibility in game seven showdowns; this line was repeated until the line between journalist and subject was went invisible.  Mind you, the players were too smart to say anything so stupid and sure to motivate their opponents.  But the folks on Channel 5 just couldn’t keep their mouths shut.

Hot air discharged from the mouth at some point creates very bad karma.  That might be worth remembering with the Cubs.

Told Ya So

I may be a broken clock, but that doesn’t keep me from getting it right twice a day, including Sunday’s Pirates-Diamondbacks’ game.  Guess who lost.  Hint: Arizona, the team that had to use pitchers to pinch hit, pinch run and play left field.  That’s what happens when you carry 13 pitchers.

So does Pittsburgh, but the Pirates at least had the good sense not to get anyone ejected in an extra-inning contest.  When Arizona’s Nick Ahmed got tossed for arguing balls and strikes in the 12^th inning, Arizona began flirting with disaster by employing three—count them, three—of their starters in non-pitching roles.  A raise of hands for who thinks it’s a good idea to have Zack Greinke pinch hit, with that $206 million contract of his?  Or Patrick Corbin to pinch hit?  At least Greinke poked a single.  Or Shelby Miller to pinch run for Greinke and then play left field?   The Pirates lined two rbi hits Miller’s way.  He fielded them cleanly, but do you think his being out there focused the attention of the Pittsburgh hitters?  And who wants the final out of the game to be Shelby Miller going down on strikes?

As my friend Forrest used to say, stupid is as stupid does.    

Repeat After Me---

Girls can’t play baseball.  Maybe that’s true, though I’ll go to my grave believing otherwise.  The proof is in the box scores, if only general managers would bother to look.

Let’s start with the White Sox.  Oops, that won’t work because the Sox didn’t play Avisail Garcia in yesterday’s win over the Rangers.  Garcia, all 6’4” and 240 pounds of him, had a seat on the bench, the better to go over his 7-for-58 start for the season.  That translates into a .135 batting average, wouldn’t you know?

But let’s not pick on Garcia.  Logan Morrison, a 6’2” 240-pound seven-year MLB veteran, is batting a robust .080, as in 120 points below the Mendoza line.  That’s what happens when you go 4 for 50.  And let’s not forget 6’4”, 210-pound Chris Colabello.  He’s started the season off hitting .069!  What could be worse than going 2 for 29? you ask.  In Colabello’s case, getting caught taking PEDs, along with the 80-game suspension handed down last week.

Repeat after me—Girls are too small to play baseball.  Just never mind that the Astros’ Jose Altuve, with his 5’6” and 165- pound frame, is currently hitting .316.  Altuve is a career .305 hitter in this, his sixth season.  At least baseball is consistent.  It hates small players almost as much as it does female players.

Unsocial

Last month, a twentysomething from the Medill School of Journalism interviewed me for a project he was doing; it had to do with the 25^th anniversary of the White Sox opening their new mall in 1991.  Over the course of 45 minutes, I almost made him long for the old Comiskey Park.

But, in the end, we are all prisoners of a particular time, if not a place.  What really seemed to excite my interviewer was how fans at the Super Bowl L—or do you say “50”?—could order and pay for concessions with their smartphones.  “They still have to wait in line, though, right?” I asked.

I see by the paper that the Twins went on social media to pay tribute to Prince, a local son; they also put their video board to good use for the same purpose.  I only hope that all the messages sent find their way to the artist in question. 

Courage behind the Mic

 God bless play-by-play announcer Pat Foley of the Blackhawks.  I’ve waited years for any Chicago baseball announcer to grow a pair whenever Commissioner and Grand Poohbah Bud Selig would drop in for a visit, and all I heard was, “May I lick your shoes soles-first, your Commissionership?” or words to that effect.    

But during Thursday night’s playoff game with the St. Louis Blues, Foley remarked to partner Eddie Olczyk, “Eddie, we’ve had a tremendous series between two great teams, and it has been compelling theater.  The two teams have been tied or [in] one-goal games 96 percent of the time so far.  But this is the third time in five games that a start time of 8:42 [PM] local was mandated.  I can say with certainty plyers cannot stand these late starts; coaches cannot stand them.  Most importantly, the fans can’t stand them.  So, as we approach midnight, AGAIN, on a work night, a school night, a simple question:  An 8:42 puck drop—” at which point the broadcast cut to commercial.

NHL Commissioner Gary “What concussions, I don’t see no concussions” Bettman said that Foley “didn’t have his facts straight” because everybody was fine with the starting times.  Do you think Bettman regrets the NHL HOF giving Foley its broadcasting award in 2014?  By the way, the game went into double overtime before the Hawks won 4-3 at 12:36 AM. 

A note to Commissioner Bettman:  It is against the law to contract for someone’s murder.    

Wrestling Amateur Athletics

The Tribune did a nice story the other day on Joe Rau, a wrestler with next to no degrees of separation from Clare.  Rau went to St. Patrick High School, along with one of Clare’s Berwyn baseball teammates, and he graduated a year ahead of her at Elmhurst.  I think they knew each other enough to say “Hey, how ’ya doin’?” in the hallway.

And Rau is just like my daughter in that he found his true calling early on.  For Clare, it was hitting a few months shy of her fourth birthday.  For Rau, it was wrestling by the time he was six.  The two are also similar in flying below the radar until they suddenly break out.  The softball player and the wrestler had very good high school careers, except when they didn’t, and then blossomed yet again at that D-III mecca of Elmhurst.  Oh, and they’re both nuts about the Chicago Flag with its four red stars positioned between two blue stripes.  (Let the deciphering of said symbols and colors begin.)  Between them, they probably can dress head to toe—as in socks—with flag-adorned gear.  So far, only Rau has the flag tattoo, though.

Next week the NFL draft comes to town, and with it all the wannabe stars.  But I don’t think Joe Rau will be around for it.  This week he was at the Olympic trials in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.  And Clare just called to tell me now he has to go to Istanbul for a last chance to qualify as an individual wrestler.  I wonder if ESPN will televise his matches?

On This Date...

This is a good week for ballpark anniversaries.  On April 20, 1912, Fenway Park and Tiger Stadium both opened.  (The first time I saw Tiger Stadium on color TV my jaw dropped.  The blue of the home uniforms, the green field, the Edison-white of the bulbs in the scoreboard all made me want to go there, which, unfortunately, I never did.)  Four years later to the day, the Cubs moved into their new home, the former Weeghman Park.  It would be renamed Wrigley Field in 1926.  This is one South Sider who would stick the overused modifier “iconic” on the Friendly Confines.

While we’re at it, let’s not forget April 18, 1991, when my White Sox opened what they tried to pass off as the new Comiskey Park, which was and is a mall by any other name.  The Tigers ruined the grand opening by a score of 16-0.  That’s karma, my friends.

Stream of (Un)consciousness

White Sox lefty John Danks has two starts this season, good (?) for an 0-2 record and 7.94 ERA.  On Saturday, he went 6-1/3 innings against Tampa, during which time he gave up six hits, three walks, two homers and five earned runs.  To Danks, this is progress of a sort.  He told the White Sox website, “I threw the ball a lot better than my line will show.  Threw some good pitches down; didn’t swing.  Didn’t get a call.  It just didn’t matter.  That’s the way it goes.  It’s part of it.  It’s baseball.  But I certainly feel a lot better than I should with the line that I put up there today.”  The story’s headline read: Danks finds positives, takes step forward in loss.

Really?  Aside from the gibber-speak, I see a pitcher who won’t look in the mirror.  Danks is kidding himself and insulting fans in the process.  But Danks has $14 million left on his contract, and the White Sox are nothing if not a team that plays the contract instead of playing for results. 

The New Math

White Sox starter Carlos Rodon got bombed by the Angels last night. In the top of the first, Rodon gave up a hit to the leadoff hitter; retired the next batter before walking the two after that; and then proceeded to yield five straight singles, the last to Johnny Giavotella, who came into the game hitting a robust .107 (3 for 28).  Maybe I should mention here that the Angels had just dropped three straight to the woeful Twins.

So, Rodon’s night goes nine batters, and the White Sox roster is in chaos.  My God, they had to use three relievers, and they only have seven!  One bad game and the 12-man staff has to add another pitcher.  Will that 13^th pitcher pinch run or pinch hit or come in to play defense in the late innings?  This is Stupid Baseball, 101.  If you stink the next game, use a position player for an inning or two.  If you want inning-eaters, commit the organization to teaching the knuckleball.  But don’t go with eight relievers.  That’s nothing short of stupid.    

Los Blackhawks

I’m more of a Our Lady of Czestochowa sort of guy while most of my Berwyn neighbors lean in the direction of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  No matter.  We get along OK, but it can be interesting.

Take the folks across the street.  Some Sundays in the summer, a neighbor comes out of his house dressed in cowboy gear and carrying a leather-tooled saddle worth a whole lot of money; I can only imagine where he’s going.  And our next door neighbors on occasion will throw backyard parties complete with mariachi band.  (To be fair, I probably generate a fair amount of comment, too, especially with the life-sized Uncle Sam flag holder I put out on the front porch each spring.)   But none of that explains the Blackhawks flag I saw flying down the street yesterday morning.  Sports in America really do have their own way of creating e pluribus unum.

I saw that up close at city hall three years ago in June; it was time for a new vehicle sticker.  The person in front of me in line and the clerk were speaking in Spanish.  Again, no matter.  I grew up in a household and a neighborhood where plenty of people spoke more than one language.  With my parents, it was Polish, but you could also hear Italian or Lithuanian without too much effort, and German, too, though that was a little scary for all us wannabe GIs.  .  Anyway, the person in front bought his sticker, and I stepped up.  The clerk looked at me and, without skipping a beat, asked, “How ‘bout those Hawks last night?”  Because the situation demanded it, I did my best casual fan imitation.   

The Acorn and the Oak

 Friday night, I watched the White Sox/Rays’ game on TV.  Clare’s apartment complex isn’t wired for cable, so she sat out on her balcony and listened on the radio.  No doubt, Ed Farmer called a very nice game, that being a 1-0 complete-game win by Chris Sale.

It’s early, but what a difference a year makes.  Last June, Sale took a 1-0 lead into the seventh inning at Tropicana Field only to have Asdrubal Cabrera hit a two-run homer, enough for a 2-1 Rays’ win.  On Friday, with one out in the bottom of the ninth, Brandon Guyer of the Rays hit a ball I thought was gone.  So did Sale, judging by how he flinched after delivering the pitch.  But, No, Melky Cabrera caught it backed up against the wall in left.

And to think that would give us the same 8-2 record as Da Cubs.  I hope nobody on the North Side is too upset with that.  

42-42=?

Yesterday, MLB commemorated the 69^th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color line in 1947.  Everything was ever so dutiful, as it was last year and all the anniversaries past.  The players all wore Robinson’s #42, and the announcers listed his accomplishments.  The NYT made sure to run a story on just how racist a bench jockey Phillies’ manager Ben Chapman happened to be.

And by being so dutiful to the letter of Jackson’s legacy, nobody to the best of my knowledge said one word about the possibility of women playing major-league baseball.  In the past week, the NYT did a story on the status of transgendered members of the armed forces.  If that, why not a story on women ballplayers? Or is breaking the gender line in baseball the kind of news that’s not fit to print?

Next year will mark the 70^th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s feat.  I wonder what, if anything, will be different from this year.

Heores Just for One Day

 I used to pick Clare up from grade school to go hitting.  Now, we coordinate across state lines.  The old way was easier.

My daughter treats a bat and helmet with the greatest of affection; to her, they are tools, toys, props and accoutrements.  She is the only person I’ve ever seen make a fashion statement with sports’ equipment.  I take that back.  For Clare, the equipment is the fashion.

This was the first time she’d been hitting in months, not that it stopped me from grumbling through that first token.  Then the rust fell off, and the line drives started.  Remember Batman, the TV series?  Everything became WHACK!  POW!!  CRACK!!!  I half expected Burgess Meredith to waddle out from behind the pitching machines and surrender to the forces of good (hitting).

As ever, Clare drew an audience of guys, three this time, who had been taking their hacks in the 80-plus mph cage.  Yeah, let’s see the girl do anything.  Huh?  Holy crap!  Did you see that?  Yes, Batgirl really can turn on a fastball. 

Afterwards, we talked a little.  It’s April, my daughter wants to be playing, but she’s out of eligibility.  She complains that professional softball is a little, insulated sorority.  I complain it has no deep-pocket investors willing to grow the sport.  I look at the MLB standings and see both the Twins and Braves are 0-9.  No sir, we wouldn’t want women messing up things on those teams.  I saw Pablo Sandoval break his belt—or his gut break his belt—on a swing.  Oh, we can’t spend $95 million on a woman ballplayer.

All we can do is buy tokens to feed the pitching machines at Stella’s off of Ogden Avenue.

Day Two

The best thing about the UIC softball field is the Chicago skyline in the background; Sears Tower—I’m a traditionalist when it comes to building names—looms over the centerfield scoreboard.  The worst thing about the UIC softball field is its proximity to Lake Michigan.  The wind blows off the lake most days in April, yesterday included, and aluminum bleachers hold the cold all too well.  So does my butt.

I saw a hint of the new Clare after the game when she gently instructed a player to help another carry some gear.  Today, I may see a bit of the old Clare.  The Cubs are off to a 7-1 start, End Times.  Last night, the Blackhawks lost the first game in their playoff series with St. Louis; the sky is falling!  The Bulls didn’t make the playoffs.  Really, does anyone outside the Bulls’ front office care?  All I know is my daughter is supposed to come home this afternoon.  She graduates with a master’s degree (which will still leave her one less than the old man) and is in the process of cleaning out her apartment.

After we unload her car, there may be time for a little hitting at the batting cages.  Such a sweet swing you’ve never seen.

The Road Not Taken

 Yesterday was textbook softball weather—sunglasses and wool blanket.  You sit, you freeze.  Michele and I sat, we froze, all to watch other people’s kids play.

That’s because Valpo was in town to play UIC.  This afforded us a few glimpses of Clare in the dugout or venturing a few steps out; our daughter is very conscientious about shaking hands with players walking her way.  Did I mention the cold?

I earned two degrees at UIC, the second of which allows me to profess professionally on at least one subject and try my luck with as many as I think I can get away with.  A phone call here, a different recruiting need there, and this is where Clare could have ended up.  But the Division III she took part in for four years could’ve given those two Division I teams a real run for their money; the chip on the shoulder never goes away, I guess.  If nothing else, the field is nice (though not nearly as nice as the neighboring baseball field underwritten by UIC alum Curtis Granderson).  But all NCAA softball music remains the same—bad, loud, borderline vulgar— whatever the division.  Just once, I’d like to hear a little Allman Brothers while pitchers warm up.  Oh, Sweet Melissa.

Anyway, the way that east wind blew off the lake, I’m thankful Clare found a home at Elmhurst.  Did I mention Valpo will be back at UIC this afternoon, and us, too?  Just for a glimpse or two.      

Silence is Golden

If Derrick Rose didn’t exist, someone would have to invent him, just for the heck of it.  Last week, Rose said that if the Bulls didn’t make the playoffs, that would give him extra time to spend with his son.  Well, for the first time in eight years the Bulls won’t be headed into the postseason, so be on the lookout for Rose senior and junior at a playground near you.

As ever with the Bulls’ foot-and-mouth guard, there’s more.  Yesterday, he said, “I love the way I played.”  Why, exactly, remains a mystery.  It wasn’t his willingness to put the team on his back and carry it into the postseason—that kind of talent has to play more than the 66 games Rose did this year.  And Rose’s inability to mesh with fellow guard Jimmy Butler—they’re going to try to work it out during the summer, says Butler—makes you wonder to what extent the Oft-injured One believes in teamwork.  The soon-to-be-departed Pau Gasol doesn’t much, and where did that get the Bulls?

The good news for Rose and the Chicago media is that Cubs’ manager Joe Maddon is ready to take his place as a maker of comments as profound as they are dumb.  Maddon got a look at the Cubs’ new clubhouse and declared to the Tribune, “It’s all about now, and I’m all about now.”  In other words, the clubhouse can be “a great recruiting device, beyond the city and organization and ballpark and team.”

No, Joe, it won’t be.  A player will take an extra $10 million if it means putting up with a crappy clubhouse before he’ll want state-of-the-art digs without that extra dough.

Indigestion

Signing up for this is God’s way of saying you have too much money—a $5000 package deal for the upcoming NFL draft in Chicago provides lodging; “premium seating” for all the rounds of the draft; lunch with Mike Ditka; and breakfast with Gale Sayers.   

Really, lunch with Da Coach?  What exactly would you talk about, politics and Ditka’s chances of working in the Trump Administration?  Maybe Secretary of State or chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities.  I can just see it, the premiere of the NEH funded ballet, “The Sled,” which tells the story in dance of a tackling sled used by the Green Bay Packers.

Any such package as the above should come with a waiver that allows local, state and the federal government to tax the recipient as it sees fit.  I mean, if you’ve got money to burn for a BLT with Mike, it’s only fair.

Luke Was Right

In the fall of 1989, White Sox Hall of Famer Luke Appling appeared at a downstate memorabilia show, and I just had to go.  For some reason, not many people felt the same way, so I had Old Aches and Pains all to myself, for the price of an autograph.  How that man did talk.

He complained about the April weather in Chicago and how the snow bit into the back of his neck at shortstop and how he once found a rusty lid from a tin can that had found its way into the infield and how he was robbed of extra bases on Opening Day 1940, when the umpire called his shot down the left field line foul, so Bob Feller got himself a no-hitter and 1-0 win.

Appling was the oldest Opening-Day shortstop for the White Sox at age 42.  Second-oldest would be Jimmy Rollins this season, at 37.  I wonder how he liked the home opener Friday with all the snow showers or yesterday when the grounds’ crew had to shovel snow off the tarp and the game-time temperature was a balmy 32?  If only he could compare notes with Appling, who passed away at age 83 in 1990.

If only John Danks could’ve compared notes with Bob Feller for the home opener, maybe he wouldn’t have given up five runs in the first two innings.

Dynamic Pricing, All the Time

 The opening of another baseball season means another survey on ballpark costs.  If you believe the folks at GOBankingRates.com, the most it will cost two people to get tickets, two beers, two hotdogs and parking is $157 at Fenway Park.  The second most expensive is Wrigley Field, at $116.06.  In comparison, the Cell is a bargain, at $68.45.

But that’s not close to the cheapest, $47.60 to see an Angels’ game (Trout and Pujols and pray for rain).  The Dodgers are second at $55.10, followed by the Diamondbacks ($57.93) and Rockies ($59.30).  There are any number of factors going into the cost of a game—supply and demand (as in Cubs’ tickets vs. Sox tickets); taxes; player contracts; and good, old-fashioned greed.  What interests me most is supply and demand.  In the olden days before cable television, teams sought to maximize revenue by drawing ever more fans, with good baseball and/or big stadiums.  The Dodgers played good baseball at Ebbets Field, which had a peak capacity of 35,000.  In contrast, Yankee Stadium could seat over 67,000 fans during the time of Mantle and Berra.  Municipal Stadium in Cleveland was even bigger.  If Rocky Colavito went on a tear, he could find himself playing before 74,000 fans at home.

Progressive Field, the Indians’ new home, has a capacity just over half of Municipal Stadium’s, at 38,000, which makes it the third smallest park in the majors, ahead of only Fenway and Marlins Park.  That was no accident.  Fewer tickets mean higher prices.  Those teams with cheap tickets I mentioned earlier?  Take a look at their seating capacities: Angels (45,000); Dodgers (56,000); Diamondbacks (49,000); and Rockies (50,000).  Of course, more seats don’t guarantee lower prices.  Yankee Stadium has a capacity of just under 50,000, fifth biggest in baseball along with the third-highest two-fan ticket costs, at $109.40.

That said, I’ll take the old days, ballpark wise.  The White Sox once got over 55,000 fans into Comiskey Park for a Sunday doubleheader against the Twins (Bat Day, I think).  The best they could do at the Cell for the 2005 World Series was just over 41,000.  I bet there were 14,000 or so fans who would’ve been willing to sit behind a post.  

I Want My MTV

 As I’ve said, the three most striking venues for baseball I’ve ever been to are Comiskey Park, the Field of Dreams and Doubleday Field.  U.S. Cellular is more of a mall, with the roof peeled away.  How do you improve a place like that?

Why, you put up a n 8,000-square foot video board in centerfield, plus two 2,400-square foot boards on either side; I am so proud as a taxpayer to have contributed to this $7.3 million “improvement.”  People who know me know I want nothing more in life than to be able to connect to a big video board by typing in the right hashtag, #endtimes or something similar.

Video killed the radio star, and it’s doing a number on the national pastime, too.   

Fashion Statement

Clare called yesterday morning, and I could almost feel the steam coming out of her ears through the phone.  “Did you hear what that guy for the Blue Jays said?”

By that she meant Toronto manager John Gibbons, upset after his team lost a game in Tampa because of the Chase Utley Rule, which basically says a player can’t slide into second with malicious intent.  Well, the umpires ruled that Jose Bautista did exactly that with a slide that found at least one hand around the second baseman Logan Forsythe’s right leg.  The bases were loaded in the top of the ninth, and Forsythe made a bad throw that would have allowed two runs to score, giving Toronto the lead.  Instead, it was game over.

Mr. Gibbons was none too happy in his post-game comments.  “Maybe we’ll come out wearing dresses tomorrow,” he told reporters.  “Maybe that’s what everybody’s looking for.”  In fact, no, they’re not.  Speaking for my daughter, we’re looking for grace under pressure.  Gibbons lifted a curtain to show something else.  It only got worse, or dumber, the next day when Gibbons reacted to criticism over his remark:  “It doesn’t offend my mother, my daughter, my wife, who have a great understanding of life.  I do think the world needs to lighten up a little bit.”

But John, the world was doing just fine until you said the new rule was turning baseball into “a joke.”  Guess the joke’s on you.     

Something for Nothing

I wasn’t wild about the White Sox trading for Jeff Samardzija going into last season.  It was three young players and a prospect for a pitcher who always reminds people of what a great receiver he was in college.  Well, Samardzija’s taken his headstrong act to San Francisco while those three players acquitted themselves well against the Sox last night.

Josh Phegley—Rick Hahn and/or Kenny Williams liked Tyler Flowers more behind the plate—and Marcus Semien—we got to keep Carlos Sanchez—had two hits apiece, with Phegley scoring two runs, and Chris Bassitt went 5-1/3 innings in a non-decision.  After giving up a three-run homer to Todd Frazier in the fifth, Bassitt stood on the mound, biting his glove.  Back in the dugout after the inning was over, he took to biting on a towel.  Something about that I find endearing, as opposed to, say, the routine of our starter, Jose Quintana.

The man is the pitching equivalent of Mike Hargrove, the Human Rain Delay.  A runner gets on base, and Quintana turns into a statue.  He leads the world right now in career non-decisions.  There may not be a sabermetric measure for this, but I say the slo-mo works on his teammates’ psyches.  The only way to see if I’m right is for Quintana to quicken the pace with runners on base.

Hey, Mr. Plate Umpire, do us a solid and enforce the pitch clock, will you?

If You Could Read My Mind (in Czech)

 When my in-laws come to visit, they love to go to a Bohemian restaurant on Cermak Road.  I recommend the chop suey, which in all my life is the only restaurant dish that tastes exactly like my mother’s.  Who knew Eastern Europeans were so fond of Asian food or that somebody recorded Gordon Lightfoot’s “If You Could Read My Mind” in Czech?  Try getting that out of your mind once you’ve heard it.

So, maybe I was too preoccupied last night with the music to care about who won the men’s NCAA basketball championship.  All it means to me is that now the 19-year olds can start declaring for the NBA draft.  But I will say Hawk Harrelson sounds a lot better with a Czech soundtrack playing in my head.  I think the Hawk was saying how good the White Sox were going to be this season, but all I could see is that they were less bad than the A’s in the season opener.  Oh, well, it’s a start.

Speaking of things Czech reminds me of that great SNL skit with Steve Martin and Dan Aykroyd playing “Two Wild and Crazy Guys.”   And who can forget “Da Bears”?  In fact, I think it’s time to rework that one into “Da Cubs.”  Da Cubs vs. the ’27 Yankees?  Chicaugah 63, New Yorkie 2.  Jake Arrieta had a shutout tru eight but was lift for David Ross in da ninth, when Root ‘n Gehrig connected.  No more catchers pitchin’, guys.

Spring Sports, as in Snow

 You have to love spring in these parts; otherwise, you’d go insane.  Saturday, it snowed so hard at times I could barely see out the window.  Then the sun came out, then it snowed some more, then hail, then sun, then snow….By evening, the sun had melted everything, and you would’ve thought it was in fact April, save for that bone-chilling cold.

At least I got to watch the show from inside; Clare wasn’t as lucky in Valpo.  They had a doubleheader, and a graduate assistant is nothing if not a groundskeeper.  But what do you do when the snow and hail freeze on the tarp?  Wait until Sunday, of course.  Clare sent a picture of the ice she’d shoveled off the tarp into a wheelbarrow; very impressive.  They cleared the tarp and got the sun to cooperate in getting rid of the snow off the rest of the field.  Valpo takes two from Northern Kentucky.

Let me mention here that in beautiful suburban Chicago yesterday the temperature started in the 30s and hit 70 by afternoon.  Today, we’ll be lucky to break 40, and the forecast is for snow flurries on and off for the rest of the week.  College softball and baseball in the Midwest sees more snow than football ever does, I swear.

The bad weather gives a bad rap to Midwestern softball and baseball players; the weather doesn’t let them practice like they can on the West Coast, so they’re not considered to be as advanced as athletes in the Pac 12.  What they don’t say is that perfect weather is all very Darwinian because only the strong—and lucky—survive.  I’d like to know how many careers in California or Arizona are ruined at a tender age because too many pitches were thrown too soon, too many games played under perfect skies.  The kids who make it out of high school are kings and queens of the jungle, I’ll grant you.  But in the Midwest, those injuries never would’ve have happened because of that same lousy weather.  Injuries not sustained at the age of 15 are potential injuries a body can literally outgrow.

On top of that, Midwestern athletes are tough as nails.  I’d like to see anyone from the Sunbelt try to hit or pitch in our Chicago weather.

Almost Funny

I ran across two cringe-worthy items in the paper this morning.  The first was a prediction from a USA Today sportswriter that the Red Sox would be in the World Series.  Really?  How exactly is that going to happen with Pablo Sandoval and Hanley Ramirez on the roster?  Those two come with bloated contracts, bad attitudes and big waistlines; Sandoval and Ramirez probably rung in the New Year with a combined weight closer to 500 pounds than 400.  Let’s check on the standings come June to see how close those Red Sox are to clinching—or from the basement in the AL East.

And then I see that U.S. Cellular will be offering a Hooters buffalo chicken sandwich.  God knows, I love women and the female figure.  I do not, however, love it when women are made to walk around half-dressed in order to pick up extra tip money.  No, they won’t be doing that at the Cell, unless the idea is to get grease burns over 50 percent of the server’s body.  But why is Hooters at the Cell in the first place?  This “business” sends a bad message to everyone’s daughter.  Hold the sauce.

Equal, or Comparable

The fight for equal pay for equal work is easier than one involving equal pay for comparable work.  If A and B (or Man and Woman) do the same job, they should get the same pay.  But if the jobs are different, how exactly do you compare?

That’s a good part of the problem facing professional women’s sports and why I think it’s a mistake to add more differences into the discussion (see Elena Delle Donne and the lowered rim).  Recently, the argument over pay has focused on women’s tennis and now, with a formal protest to the Equal Economic Opportunity Commission, soccer.  Proponents for equal pay have television ratings on their side, at least for soccer, and any tournament featuring Selena Williams does pretty well, too.  Opponents can cite the difference in match length for tennis (best of three sets for women, best of five for men), but there is no difference in time of game of size of field in soccer.  So, the comparison is easier and tilts more towards equal for equal.

Of course, everything would get turned upside down if a woman would ever break into the ranks of an all-male sport.  Where have you gone, Branch Rickey, when a nation turns its lonely eyes to you?     

Turnover, Delle Donne

The road to hell, goes the old saying, is paved with good intentions.  Consider the one WNBA Chicago Sky forward Elena Delle Donne offered up last month.

First, some background.  Speaking to New York Magazine, Delle Donne said she wants people to see “our game and the product that we put out there.  That’s the biggest way to get people to speak about the game and our talents, instead of always just being like, ‘Oh, a female player…’  I’m a basketball player.  It’s funny how they always have to add that; they don’t say ‘male’ basketball player.”  Eight days after the interview ran, Delle Donne raised this question with USA Today Sports: “Why not lower our rim and let every single player in the league play above the rim like the NBA does?”  As precedent, Delle Donne cited lower nets in volleyball, shorter distances in golf and fewer sets in tennis.

In other words, get people to stop thinking of women athletes as inferior by making things easier.  “Might as well put us in skirts and back in the kitchen,” WNBA star and Phoenix Mercury guard Diana Taurasi told ESPNW.com, and I agree.  The more difference you put between the genders when it comes to sports, the easier it is to dismiss women’s accomplishments.  Women hit a 12-inch softball instead of a baseball for reasons that totally escape me.