A Glimmer of Hope

"Luck is the residue of design,” Branch Rickey believed.  Tim Anderson and Nick Capra of the White Sox must have been listening Thursday night.

With two out in the bottom of the eighth, Anderson broke from first on a full-count pitch which  Rymer Liriano proceeded to punch through the left side of the infield.  Anderson scooted to third and kept going when Capra, the Sox third-base coach, waved him home.  The throw from Angels’ left fielder Ben Revere went to second instead.  The gamble paid off.

The play worked because Anderson hustled, picked up his coach and knew—as Capra probably did—that Revere has a weak throwing arm.  Speed kills the opposition, to know the opposition is to be ready to beat the opposition.  Even the skeptic in me sees a glimmer of hope in this rebuild. 

The Lie in the Numbers

On a day that finds Kris Bryant of the Cubs with 73 RBIs, FanGraphs listed him as the NL’s best player as determined by Wins Above Replacement (WAR).

What about fellow third baseman Nolan Arenado of the Rockies?  Somehow, Arenado’s 129 RBIs don’t add up to Bryant’s 73.  And the Diamondbacks’ Paul Goldschmidt’s 120 RBIs or the Marlins’ Marcell Ozuna’s 119 or even the Cubs’ Anthony Rizzo’s 109.  Nope.  Something about those players the magic formula did not like.  So, Bryant it is, although, to his credit, Bryant doesn’t seem all that impressed by his anointing.

I pity the fans of any team that bases player decisions on such nonsense.  “Sabermetrics” can lead straight to the same basement the Philadelphia A’s used to claim as home.

The Elephant in the Room

At the ballgame Sunday, I checked to see if any of the players took a knee or did something else in protest during the National Anthem.  But all the Royals and White Sox stood for the anthem, like me.

Professional athletes make imperfect symbols and/or champions for social issues.  The player who looks ever so uncomfortable visiting the children’s hospital doesn’t suddenly become articulate on the issue of police violence.  By and large, athletes are simply a bunch of young adults who play professional sports.  At twenty-five, they’re overpaid and underprepared to do anything else.  Consider Giants’ receiver Odell Beckham Jr., who raised a fist after scoring one touchdown against the Eagles Sunday, then mimicked a dog urinating after scoring another.  Beckham, who turns 25 in November, claimed to be confused over “the rules on what you can do celebrating.”  Uh-huh.   

But outside of Colin Kaepernick and a few others (and Kaepernick has tried to make himself into a knowledgeable social critic), no one asked to become symbols or activists; the job was foisted on them by the man in the White House.  Compared to Donald Trump (whose name rhymes with “clown,” if you try) those athletes protesting during the National Anthem will all get their faces on Mt. Rushmore before Trump ever does.  And that includes Odell Beckham.

Sunday Sunday, Contd.

Watching ballplayers half my age doesn’t make me feel old, not really.  But going to a ballpark does.

My dear daughter is what I think they call a tech native, meaning she was born to the stuff.  Not me.  During the game Sunday, two White Sox “ambassadors” made their way to our seats, asking, “Is anyone here Clare?”  And they looked at me.  Wow, for a second I thought they might be confusing me with General Claire Chennault of Flying Tigers’ WW II fame, but no such luck.  They wanted my progeny, Boom Clare, as she goes on Twitter.  The child had tweeted something team-related that earned her an autographed photo of Jose Abreu.  I tried to stay out of the way as her picture was taken.

Then we have the matter of ballpark music.  Nancy Faust at the organ is long gone, replaced by the sound system from Hell, which explains using AC/DC to pump up the crowd.  I actually know the song that plays before the White Sox take the field.  It’s “Thunderstruck,” only I know it from the TV series “Supernatural.”  So, while everyone else is cheering for Tim Anderson and Yoan Moncada, I’m looking for the Winchester brothers to sprint out of the dugout and start decapitating ghouls and monsters.  Can’t we just go back to Na-Na-Na-Na Hey-Hey Goodbye and call it a day?

And I still can’t figure out why a ballgame needs an m.c.  The game on Sunday had one, a guy who’d pop up on the video board between innings to interview fans or direct everyone’s attention to some lame contest being played during warmups.  Eliminate this crap and a game might not go two hours.  Eliminate this crap, and I wouldn’t be going crazy in my seat.

The Sox pioneered the idea of turning back the clock, to dress the players in old uniforms and announce batters with a megaphone.  How 20th century, how my cup of tea.

Take a Chill Pill

What I love about the Bears pulling off a 23-17 upset over the Steelers is how it irritated certain people.  There’s this one columnist for the Tribune who likes to bill himself as the master of snark going bonkers because the team won with the much-maligned Mike Glennon starting at quarterback.  Over on WGN Radio, which used to carry the Bears, two ex-players were shouting themselves to the point of a stroke on account of defensive back Marcus Cooper Sr., who would’ve run back a blocked field goal attempt if only he hadn’t slowed down before reaching the Steelers’ end zone.  A Pittsburgh player caught up with Cooper and punched the ball away.  Six points turned into three.

A funny thing, though.  On the radio station that now carries the Bears, another ex-player had all sorts of positive things to say about the game.  Personally, I think Glennon should give way to rookie Mitch Trubisky, but the grief Glennon has been getting has made me reconsider how I treat an athlete like James Shields.  Nobody likes to lose, nobody likes to pay to see their team lose.  But we all—myself included—need to take a chill pill.  Until sports officially become a substitute for war, it’s just a game, guys.

Sunday Sunday

Yesterday being the last Sunday of the season for the White Sox, we had to go; it’s become a tradition.  Chris, Clare’s fiancé, couldn’t make it, being that yesterday was the last Sunday in September and college football in season doesn’t let coaches sneak off and watch another sport.  So, it was the three of us with three great seats.  Really, Subhub is an incredible bargain when you want to go watch a baseball team with 90-plus losses.

We were thirty feet past the Royals’ dugout down the first-base line, three rows from the field, parallel to the top of the infield lip; we saved something like $90 off the face value of the tickets.  For one day at least, I can report that the White Sox rebuild looks to be in fine form.

Start with Lucas Giolito.  The right hander pitched seven innings of one-run, five-hit ball, with five strikeouts and no walks.  What’s not to like in those numbers?  Giolito is 3-3 on the year, with a 2.38 ERA over 45.1 innings.  Again, what’s not to like?  At 6’6”, Giolito doesn’t try to overthrow the ball; instead, he seems to like to throw high strikes.  So far, nobody’s caught up to him.  Off his performances the past month, he’s a lock to be in the rotation come April.

Over on the position side, Yoan Moncada also looked (pretty) good.  Moncada made a B+ play in the top of the first, going far to his ride and throwing to first while sliding.  Then, in the bottom of the first, he doubled off the wall in left-center field and scored on a homerun by that Renaissance Man, Avisail Garcia.  Now, if Moncada can just keep the same focus for his next at-bat and the one after that, he’ll be onto something.

Did I mention Adam Engel, he of the .177 batting average?  Engel made yet another over-the-shoulder catch and looked fast—because he is—scoring a run in the fifth inning.  Defensively, Engel is quickly approaching Ken Berry status, and Berry is the best Sox center fielder I’ve seen in fifty years.  (Aaron Rowand was the most fearless, not quite the same).  Engel, then, can catch the ball with the best of them and run the same way.  Please, somebody, teach the young man how to make consistent contact before it’s too late.

The Royals look to be a team going in the opposite direction of the Sox.  First baseman Eric Hosmer in particular had a bad day, dropping a foul pop and failing to dig out two low throws.  Fan favorite Melky Cabrera flashed a little of what I call “bad Melky” in the seventh inning when Avisail Garcia lined a ball down the right field line with two runners on.  Cabrera broke into a jog either because he thought the ball was going out or going foul; it did neither and ended up for a double.  In the top of the eighth, the Royals’ Jorge Bonifacio hit a ball just like Garcia’s.  With the Sox already up by seven runs, right fielder Rymer Liriano chased after it as if his life depended on it (and it does, professionally speaking).  Liriano nearly ended up in the seats, but he caught the ball—and made an impression.

I’m glad to report that we spent all of one dollar at the park, for a scorecard.  Otherwise, we brought in our own water and sandwiches.  For those who care, beer ranged between $8.75 and $9.75 while lemonade could be had for $7.50 and popcorn $4.  According to a program I have from my first season of being a real fan, lemonade and popcorn in 1964 each cost all of a quarter.  If you wanted to keep the same profit margin and just factor for inflation, that would be $1.97 in current dollars.

I don’t know what pizza cost at the park, but the one we had from Benny’s when we got back home tasted great and cost just under $20.  Why my wife and daughter ordered black olives on their side of the pizza is beyond me.

A First Time for Everything

It’s not every day you see a ballgame end on a 9-2-4-6 double play, and I’m pretty sure it was first time in MLB history such an occurrence began with a base hit, but that’s what happened in Friday night’s White Sox-Royals’ game.

The Royals had the tying run on second base with one out when Lorenzo Cain lined a single to right.  Avisail Garcia stumbled forward as he charged the ball, somehow maintaining his balance as he threw to the plate.  The one-hop throw beat a sliding Whitt Merrifield, which explains the 9-2 part of the play, but there’s more.  Sox catcher Omar Narvaez then threw to first, where Cain had wandered off into no-man’s land.  Second baseman Yoan Moncada then made a one-hop throw to second which shortstop Tim Anderson corralled before tagging out Cain as he tried to slide in.  End of game.

Imagine, this happened the same night ex-Sox Todd Frazier got picked off of second base in Toronto via the hidden ball trick courtesy of Ryan Goins.  Like they say, you just can’t beat fun at the ol’ ballpark.

For Real

A lawyer for one of the Wheaton College football players facing criminal charges says his client is “disappointed, frustrated” by a situation he thought had been resolved after a school investigation.  The lawyer also asked why it took authorities so long to bring charges over a hazing incident that occurred eighteen months ago.  This is obviously someone who believes the statute of limitations for a crime should be shorter than the expiration date on a gallon of milk.

The big takeaway here is that it really counts once the law gets involved.  Anything else, whether a school or NCAA or NFL investigation, is just for show.  If Dallas running back Ezekiel Elliott assaulted his girlfriend, I want him facing charges, not being suspended by Roger Goodell.  If these Wheaton players committed a crime, they should be punished according to the law, not a school administration.  My six weeks of law school keep me thinking of due process.  Will Elliott get his, did the alleged victim of the hazing at Wheaton?  That’s what a court of law is for.

Unfortunately, the legal system is an imperfect vehicle for justice.  In Ohio, where Elliott’s assaults allegedly occurred, the state requires the couple is in fact a couple living together for criminal charges to apply.  Obviously, state and federal law have to change when it comes to the issue of domestic violence.  If Elliott serves his six-game suggestion (which he’s fighting in court) but is never convicted, how will that help the next person in Ohio assaulted by a partner?

And if those Wheaton players had faced nothing worse than community service and an eight-page essay?

Going Home Again

Jerry Reinsdorf apparently never read Thomas Wolfe.  The way Reinsdorf has been acting lately, not only does he believe you can go home again, he thinks people he used to employ can, too, even if they were fired.

Forget his kind words for ex-White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen earlier this summer; those didn’t include a welcome back to the organization.  This week’s announcement about the Bulls’ rehiring of Doug Collins, though, comes with a full pardon.

Collins, fired after the Bulls’ exit in the 1989 NBA playoffs, is going to be some sort of senior advisor in the front office, a poor man’s Jerry West, if you will.  But there’s more going on here.  Really, this is what happens when a sports’ mogul hits his eighties, the regrets refuse to shut up until they receive proper attention.  So, Reinsdorf (kind of) makes peace with Guillen and finds a spot with the Bulls for Collins, who always struck me as a decent if hyperemotional sort.  I just have one question.

How do you say you’re sorry to the ballpark you so needlessly tore down?

"Almost"

Yesterday, I did my “almost” bike ride, going from 92^nd Street on the Southeast Side of Chicago up into Evanston.  This means I almost went from the Indiana border to Wisconsin, give or take some miles here and there.

The south leg of the ride is the most interesting, at least for this historian.  A few years ago, the city of Chicago extended Lake Shore Drive down to 95^th Street, with a bike path included.  The street and path cut through what appears to be hundreds of acres of undeveloped land.  Off to the west, rising out of the weeds and wild flowers is a Gothic church that looks like it could be in rural France or Germany.  That’s St. Michael the Archangel, and I was riding through the site of U.S. Steel’s South Works, which donated the steel that made the towering majesty of St. Michael’s possible.  The plant was closed in the 1990s and all buildings razed.

There are two clues of the land’s steelmaking past—a slip and two walls.  The slip allowed ore boats to pull in off Lake Michigan and unload their cargo into a massive crib.  Two 25- to 30-foot high walls from that crib run parallel to the slip, which has to be close to 1,000 feet long.  Steel-making may be one of the noisiest activities on the face of the earth.  You can hear the birds sing where the blast furnaces once roared at South Works.

Further north, I passed the two public golf courses Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel wants to turn into a stop for the PGA; the old South Shore Country Club course in particular looked busy, as it always does.  Then I went through Jackson Park, where a very long time ago the father of Lou Gehrig’s wife used to run concessions.  At the north edge of the park is the Museum of Science and Industry, that hearty survivor of the Columbian Exposition of 1893.  North of that is McCormick Place and north of that Navy Pier, where the “Law and Order” actor Jerry Orbach went to school; so did my sister Barb.  North of the Pier was a lot of sand and water, all the way into Evanston.

My turnaround point is across from Calvary Cemetery, where the writer James T. Farrell is buried.  Farrell probably would have traded in his considerable literary fame (based mostly on the Studs Lonigan trilogy) for a nice ten-year career with his beloved White Sox.  How strange for a South Sider to be laid to rest so far from home.

It was a thought to help propel me back to where I left my car in Hyde Park.

And They Will Know We Are Christians by Our Love, by Our Love

Clare couldn’t wait to tell me Monday night.  “I sent Mom a story you have to read!”  I told my daughter I would do it as soon as I finished shaving.

The story in question involved a hazing incident at Wheaton College, a rival of Elmhurst College in the CCIW.  Clare and I were never fond of Wheaton and how they pressured the opposition to pray with them after a softball game.  For me, it was knowing that an evangelical Christian institution looks askance at how we Catholics pray, to a saint as much as to the Almighty.  I once suggested to Clare she take a statue of St. Francis with her the next time Wheaton came calling to prayer.

The problem for a school like Wheaton—or Notre Dame, for that matter—is that a public profession of faith (for that, check their website) draws attention.  An athletic scandal in the SEC isn’t exactly news, but when it happens at once-upon-a-time-squeaky-clean South Bend, send in the reporters.  And that’s what happened this week.

On Tuesday, five Wheaton football players were charged with felonies in connection to a hazing incident March 2016—as in eighteen months ago—that, according to reports, resulted in injuries that required surgery on both the victim’s shoulders.  The charges were serious enough to merit a $50,000 bond for each defendant.

I should note here that none of the players has been convicted of anything, which is more than the Wheaton website does.  Oh, you can find the story about the Thunder being the fourth-ranked D-III football team in America and the one about the seventeen Wheaton alums who have signed pro football contracts (NFL, USFL, Arena) since 1979, and how faith played a role in Jackie Robinson’s baseball career, but nothing on this hazing story.

According to sources, the school had already punished the players involved, by having them do community service and write an eight-page essay about their actions; this is what you might call a classic slap on the wrist.  Wheaton visits Elmhurst on Saturday.  For some reason, Wheaton has decided to suspend players it has already disciplined.  I wonder why.

Go, Blue Jays!    

Too Much Talk

On Saturday, as the White Sox were banging out 17 hits off of Tigers’ pitching, broadcasters Hawk Harrelson and Steve Stone gushed on and on about the state of the rebuild.  Why, a certain unnamed scout really thinks the Sox have a whole bunch of talent.  But such talk had to be put on hold Sunday afternoon, as Matthew Boyd, he of the 6-10 record and 5.33 ERA, came within one out of a no-hitter.

Tim Anderson, thankfully, managed a two-out double.  Anderson has really put it together over the last five weeks after a disastrous first-half of the season, caused in large part by the shooting death of his best friend, and he could even end the year batting .270.  Considering how long Anderson spent batting under .200, that would have to be considered a major accomplishment.

Maybe the Sox do have a ton of talent in the minors; I truly hope so.  One way to tell is by how many of Sunday’s pitchers are back next season.  Starter Dylan Covey has an 0-6 record with an 8.18 ERA, and he spent months on the DL.  Relievers Chris Beck (6.67 ERA) and Mike Pelfrey (5.64 ERA) just pitch like they’re hurt.  Pitchers with stats like that do not a good staff make.  Just sayin’.  

Knowing How to Act

Early in yesterday’s Bears-Buccaneers’ game, Bears’ linebacker Willie Young sacked Tampa Bay quarterback Jameis Winston for a five-yard loss.  Young celebrated by acting as if he were reeling in a big fish.  You see, Young likes to fish in the offseason, so…

In the second quarter, with the Bears already down 10-0, Young was called for a holding penalty on third and goal.  That set up a first down and another Tampa touchdown.  Even though he was instrumental in keeping the Bucs’ drive alive, Young didn’t celebrate.  Personally, I think he could do a great flounder.

The final score of the game was Tampa 29, Chicago 7.  The game wasn’t as close as the score might indicate.

In the Land of Make-believe

The Oakland A’s have announced a new stadium plan, again.  It’s probably more accurate to say another “idea” or, if you lean toward the cynical, “pipe dream.”

Whatever your term of preference, the A’s want to move closer to downtown Oakland (forget Gertrude Stein’s “There is no there there” putdown of San Francisco’s poor relation) with the requisite water backdrop.  But we’re not just talking baseball here, no sir.  Why, according to team president Dave Kaval, the project will entail building “a ballpark bigger than baseball, a gathering place to bring our community together.”   Truly, W.P. Kinsella couldn’t have said it better.

But that doesn’t mean Kaval knows what he’s talking about.  For openers, seating capacity for the new stadium is pegged at 35,000.  Pardon me to invoke the law of supply and demand, but the fewer seats available the higher the ticket prices.  How will that bring a community together?  And how will the A’s finance their new home?  They say it’s going to be private funding, which would be great, but we’re talking about a team with the second-worst attendance in MLB and one with a well-earned reputation for doing things on the cheap since the days of Charlie O. Finley.

Maybe the A’s will sell shares in the Brooklyn Bridge to raise the necessary revenue.  You never know.

Sweet Memory

Sweet Memory

I was making my way through the box scores this morning when something in “On This Date” caught my eye: the Pirates routed the Cubs 22-0.  That glorious pasting took place on September 16, 1975, and I was among the 4,932 fans in attendance.

Four or five of us went, South Siders embarking on North Side adventure; we took my 1967 Impala convertible, if I remember correctly.  (Trust me, the Chevette was a real letdown after the Impala.)  I probably kept score, which had to be hard, considering that Rennie Stennett went seven for seven with five runs scored.  As for the other 17 Pirate hits, they must be deeply, if happily, buried in my subconscious.

Both the White Sox and Cubs won 75 games that year.  The second coming of Bill Veeck would come the next year and the South Side Hitmen the year after that (featuring Richie Zisk, who went 2 for 5 while batting sixth for the Pirates that day).  All in all, it wasn’t the best or the worst of times, just average.

And so long ago.   

For the Record Books

True White Sox fans are said to love their team (while ripping it, see: Jerry Reinsdorf, new ballpark, Chris Sale trade) and whoever is playing the Cubs that day (Go, Cardinals!).  For added measure, I pretty much hate all the other teams in the AL Central Division.

Take Kansas City, (please).  My dislike of the Royals dates to the 1970s, when Willie Wilson and company ran themselves silly, courtesy of the Astroturf at Kauffman.  The artificial turf was replaced with real grass over twenty years, and the Royals still run themselves silly against us.

Ditto the Twins.  The Metrodome used to be a house of horrors for the Sox, some Twinkie hitting the “Baggie” in right field to insure a win.  The Twins have a new home, but the Sox keep losing up in the Twin Cities.  Holy Killebrew, Carew, Puckett…

I used to like the Indians because of Strat-O-Matic.  Talk about a pitching staff: Sam McDowell, Steve Hargan, Luis Tiant.  But it’s different when the real thing beats your real thing.  Another thing, those stacked Cleveland teams from the mid- to late-90s underperformed and cost me a pizza come World Series time.  Factor in Chief Wahoo, and I don’t like the Indians.

Which brings us to the Tigers.  With them, it’s more love-hate.  I fell in love with the Start-O-Matic Tigers because of Gates Brown (great cards with good coverage), whom I actually got to interview once.  The real team had cool uniforms and a wonderful ballpark in Tiger Stadium with that the upper-deck overhang.  But the idiots tore the park down, and I can’t stand Victor Martinez.  So, add Detroit to the “do not root for” list.

Obviously, then, yesterday’s 17-7 Sox beat-down of the Tigers was thoroughly enjoyable.  It’s always nice when your team has 25 hits, even if 21 of them were singles.  And Avisail Garcia continued his breakthrough season by going five for five with seven RBIs, tying a franchise record held by Carl Reynolds in 1930.

I used to have a team picture of the 1930 Sox.  It was over a yard long and nearly a foot wide, each player shown separately.  The first year Clare went to nationals in Kansas City, I sold the picture on eBay to help finance the trip.  If Garcia can tie Reynolds, then maybe one day I can buy back that picture.  I check every day.  

Paging Alice

I like biking the 606 Trail because it allows for doing laps, 2.7 miles in each direction, and not a car or a truck to cross my path.  People are another matter.

On Tuesday they brought along a whole lot of crazy with them.  I had one jogger I was ready to pass on the left suddenly decide to do a U-turn; runner-cyclist head-on crashes are not a pretty site.  Luckily, I was able to get out of the way.  Then, about twenty minutes later, a runner ten or so feet in front of me decided all of a sudden she didn’t want to get wet from the sprinklers watering plants that line the trail.  Again, this happened just as I was getting ready to pass, a body jumped right in front of me.  “Oh, sorry!” said the rightly embarrassed jogger.  I think she was grateful I missed her.  At least I hope she was. 

Then there was this guy—kneeling, no less—who looked to be slashing away at the trail pavement with something in his hand.  “It’s controversial!” he said, looking up at me as I rode by.  On the way back, I saw what he had written in chalk: The Pope is a Nazi pimp.  Who knew?

You know the penny-farthing, that Gay ’90s bike with the huge front wheel?  Well, someone had his own version on the trail.  It may have happened between the suicide joggers.  This character comes riding in my direction on a welder’s dream, one frame mounted on top of the other; how he got on the seat I’ll never know; ditto steering.  Better yet, the two frames put together formed a kind of cradle in front, where character #2 perched...facing backwards.

The trick for me is to do as many laps as possible before body parts start to rebel.  Tuesday, I managed fourteen before pulling off the trail at St. Louis Avenue; there’s some grass and a tree that are perfect for a weary body.  It was the kind of day an apple should have fallen on my head.  Instead, when I got back on the bike, a woman in her 70s walked up and asked, “What direction are you going in?”  I pointed east.

“Oh,” she said, disappointed.  “By any chance, did you see our son?  He’s in a wheelchair, but he hasn’t passed us by yet.”  Sure enough, a lap or two later, I saw him, a man in his thirties wheeling away from two elderly people I assume were his parents.  Somebody must be unhappy in that family dynamic.

All my times on the 606, I’ve never once seen a rabbit.  So, tell me, how did I fall down the rabbit hole?

In re the Chief

Well, I see the Indians have won 20 in a row, which has the fans in Cleveland and the talking heads on the MLB Network all agog.  Give one of the guys at the MLB desk a drum and he’d fit right in at Progressive Field.  Who knew coverage of the Indians would cut into Red Sox and Yankees’ time?

One thing about that coverage, though.  It showed these signs of Chief Wahoo, which is baseball for “dumb, stupid and racist,” that were dotting the stands.  These weren’t handmade jobs.  No, somebody went out and spent money to insure clear color and sharp graphics.  All of which made the underlying message impossible to miss.

Except for those three clowns at the MLB desk.  

Like Old Times

Clare thought it was close to a year, if not more.  I said it was more like nine months.  Either way, we went hitting last night after dinner.

My daughter came over in part because her fiancé basically doesn’t exist outside of work Saturday-Monday, in season; Tuesday-Friday it’s only twelve hours or so a day.  Of course, I’m more than happy to help fill up her time.

When it was over, Clare confessed to how nervous she was.  “I thought I was going to really stink.”  She didn’t.  Oh, she showed some rust in her first ten or so swings, but that pretty much disappeared midway through the second token.  Balls soon went “Whack!” and “Bong!”, the first from hitting the wooden canopy over the pitching machines at Stella’s, the second from hitting one of the two vertical metal roof supports that go some thirty-five feet.

If I say my daughter hit well at 70-75-80 miles-per-hour, there needs to be an asterisk attached.  The machines are no more than forty feet from the batter, so balls are coming in good deal faster than advertised.  If I were a physics’ major, I might be able to work up a formula, but I’m not.  I will, however, tack on another 10 mph for every speed, 7.5 mph if you threaten me with a beating.

On the drive back home, Clare told me how frustrating it is not to be involved with softball.  So far, the jobs haven’t broken for her that way.  As it is, most people would say work at the Kellogg School of Management is a pretty good gig.  But if you ever saw my daughter hit, you’d know why she wants in on the game.  Walt Hriniak, meet your match as a hitting coach.

Before Clare left, we had our traditional end-of-summer S’mores.  And then she gone, back to her new life.

Not Quite Autumn

We spent a cloudless Saturday afternoon cheering on our Elmhurst College Blue Jays against the Olivet (Michigan) Comets in what proved to be an entertaining 26-20 game, Olivet.  NCAA D-III football games that go just over 2-1/2 hours are one of life’s small pleasures.  My future son-in-law, though, takes these games the way Doug Collins used to with the Bulls.  Collins never learned to deal with losing; in the playoffs, each loss left him looking exhausted to the point of collapse.  Chris will have to figure out a way to cope in the same way his future wife the White Sox fan has.

Sunday morning we went up to the Chicago Botanic Garden for their dahlia show; Michele grows them—flowers with a rich color palette that range from golf ball to 16” softball in size—and wanted to see what other people are up to.  I cared so little about the Bears’ home opener it didn’t bother me to miss the first half on what proved to be an equally beautiful Sunday.  Chicago lost on the last play of the game, naturally; the Cubs got swept by the charging Brewers; and the White Sox pounded Madison Bumgarner as Jose Abreu hit two more homers to break 30 for the third time in his four-year career.

It’s the little things in life, the sun and the effort at small schools and half-empty ballparks, that help give it meaning.

 

The Path(s) Not Taken

The White Sox could have gone in a different direction.  Instead of a rebuild, they could have signed Jeff Samardzija after his free-agent year with the team in 2015.  Instead, they handed Samardzija his 13^th loss of the season last night in a 13-1 beat-down of the visiting Giants.  James Shields pitched seven innings of two-hit ball for the Pale Hose.  I verge on speechless.

You have to wonder how the Giants’ front office felt after Samardzija gave up four homeruns, with the bullpen coughing up another two.  I also wonder what the fans at Guaranteed Rate Whatever thought when Jose Abreu decided to try and stretch a double into a triple in the eighth inning. When the cloud of dust settled, Abreu was safe at third, which gave him the cycle, only the sixth time in Sox history.  (I must be very old, since I’ve been around for all of them except Ray Schalk’s in 1922.)

Former Sox GM Kenny Williams was a stopped clock getting the time right with Abreu, who has a good chance of hitting 100 RBIs for the fourth time in his four major-league seasons.  After the game, Abreu heaped praise on teammates past and present while referring to himself as a warrior (one concerned with his family weathering out Hurricane Irma down in Miami).  Some people think a rebuild means trading away anyone out of diapers.  Translated to the South Side, that would mean Abreu (age 30), Avisail Garcia (26 and hitting an impressive .321) and possibly Yolmer Sanchez (only 25 but a possibly unwelcome challenger to the anointed Tim Anderson and Yoan Moncada).

It’s not even spring, and yet I feel the hope budding for next year.  That is, if the Sox keep who they have on the field while finding out whom among their prospects can actually pitch at the major-league level.

Money Back, Guaranteed

There should be a law that when the home team brings in a position player to pitch during a blowout, the fans get their money back.  That way, the  17,019 people on hand at Guaranteed Rate Whatever Thursday night at least would have had the satisfaction of knowing they weren’t paying to see the garbage the White Sox tried to pass off as baseball in an 11-2 loss to the Indians.  Furthermore, Rob Brantly is supposed to catch, not pitch.

Let’s start with the fact that Mike Pelfrey (3-11, 5.51 ERA) got a surprise start, and he did not disappoint, at least Cleveland hitters.  Pelfrey gave up four runs in the top of the first before recording an out.  The Indians pounded out 16 hits to three for the Sox, who did manage to strike out 13 times against Corey Kluber.

Oh, and do you know why Pelfrey started instead of Carlos Rodon, who was scheduled to go?  It seems that Rodon reported stiffness in his left shoulder, not to be confused with the left forearm problem that shut him down for nearly all the first three months of the season.  Rodon has been placed on the DL and will not pitch again this year.  Happy Rebuild, everyone.

Trained for This but not for That

I don’t focus all that well in the morning when the hour hand is still close to the six.  So, it took me awhile to process the caption in yesterday’s Tribune.  For a couple of seconds I thought it said the woman shown in the picture was the Blackhawks’ general manager.  No, she’s the general manager of the new practice facility being built near the United Center.  My bad.

Then on the back page was this story about the people in charge of nutrition for the Cubs and White Sox.  I kept reading but couldn’t find anything about why both jobs happened to go to women.  What a coincidence.  I mean, aren’t men trained in nutrition?  I guess that’s like asking if women are trained to coach male athletes.

According to Plan

There’s a progression, if you will, for starting pitchers who go bad.  They get sent to the bullpen, and, if they can’t provide meaningful relief innings, they get relegated to slop.  After that, it’s time for the unconditional release.  Derek Holland has gone through all the stages over the past month, including his release this week from the White Sox.

In 135 innings, Holland gave up 156 hits, including an astronomical 31 home runs to go with a 7-14 record, 6.20 ERA and 1.71 WHIP.  Even for a team that doesn’t care about winning now, this was too much. 

The difference between Holland and James Shields (2-6, 5.72 ERA), you ask?  It’s elementary, my dear fan, it’s elementary.  Or should I say contractual.  Holland was at the end of his one-year $6 million deal.  A year from now with the guaranteed portion of his deal done, Shields in all likelihood will be next Derek Holland, after Mike Pelfrey (3-10, 5.13 ERA), that is.        

Journeymen

The last we checked in, Darwin Barney was with the Blue Jays, with Gordon Beckham kind of floating around.  Fast forward to September 6, 2017, and it’s the same old same old.

After batting a respectable .269 off the bench for Toronto in 2016, Barney has a .225 BA this year.  That’s the kind of number that usually leads to a release come October.  But by all accounts, Barney is a nice guy and should draw interest somewhere.  I’d say his career is one step ahead of Beckham’s.

The onetime future of the White Sox spent the year at Triple-A Tacoma, where he hit a blah .262.  That just won’t cut it when you’re thirty years old and eight years removed from that one really good rookie year (.270 BA, 14 homers and 63 RBIs).  Beckham was a September call-up by the Mariners and has appeared in one game so far.   

They say April is the cruelest month.  For certain ballplayers, September is, too.

Karma

Yesterday, James Shields the fielder was on the receiving end of James Shields the pitcher, but only after the pitcher tried to do in one of his outfielders, again.

In the top of the second inning against Cleveland, Shields left a ball out over the plate that Carlos Santana drove to deep right-center field.  White Sox center fielder Adam Engel did what he does best (Hint: unfortunately, it doesn’t involve hitting the ball) and set off to make yet another great catch, but the fence got in the way and sent Engel sprawling onto the warning track.  Not that the intrepid Engel—or as a number of fans including Clare tweeted, “An Engel in the outfield”—was done, what with Shields on the mound.

Three innings later, the Indians’ Austin Jackson lined a ball to dead center.  Engel, who plays as shallow a center field as I’ve ever seen—was off and running.  Without missing a beat, he leaped at the fence, caught the ball and reacquainted himself with the warning track.  Lying flat on his back, Engel still managed to hold up his glove, the ball safely inside.

Too bad for Shields he couldn’t have pulled off a play as good in the seventh inning, when Cleveland rookie Francisco Mejia lined a ball up the middle.  Shields had no time to react as the ball hit him in the right knee.  He’s listed as day-to-day.  Heaven forbid he miss a start.

But at least now James Shields knows what it’s like to be a fielder when he’s pitching.

Silly Season

The Cubs just brought up their eleventh relief pitcher, which can only mean one thing—it’s September, MLB’s silly season when expanded rosters encourage all the worst tendencies in the national pastime.

A quick look at the box scores will confirm this.  The Mariners used five pitchers in a 10-2 rout of the A’s; the Angels needed six men on the mound to lose to the Rangers 7-6 on the road; and the Red Sox went with seven on the way to losing 9-2 in the Bronx.  When will the geniuses in the dugout learn that more bad is just more bad?

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred wants to speed up the time of games.  In that case, he should start by keeping track of his September contests.  I’m willing to bet they average 3-plus hours easy.  One solution would be to limit the number of September call-ups to five.  Another would be to use all those extra players to take the game up a notch offensively.  I’m preaching, but nobody’s listening.

Intersections

Yesterday was too nice for me to accept that September, especially a Saturday afternoon, means football.  Elmhurst opened its season at home, so Clare was there, and her fiancé had to be there; a team without an o-line coach is hardly a team at all.  Me?  I insisted on driving to Plano, an hour west of Chicago, to see the steel-and-glass house Mies van der Rohe built on the banks of the Fox River.

We didn’t listen to any football or baseball on the radio going; on the way home, I only listened long enough to find out that the Cubs were thumping the Braves, 10-4.  The eventual 14-12 Cubs’ win made for a silver lining of sorts.  Maybe the bullpen is starting to collapse.

I didn’t bump into Jon Lester in Plano if for no other reason he was on the mound at Wrigley.  I was content to watch the White Sox survive appearances by Carson Fulmer and Juan Minaya to beat the Rays 5-4.  Today I’ll quiz my daughter on how well her alma mater did on a September afternoon.

Love 40

The U.S. Open is well under way in New York, and, as ever in September, I’m returned to high school, most likely junior and senior years.

You wouldn’t think pro tennis would draw that much interest in a boys’ Catholic high school in the late 1960s, but it did, at least with the people I moved with from class to class.  There was a buzz in the hallways at the start of the school year, courtesy of Arthur Ashe and maybe Bill Cosby.  For whatever reasons, Cosby’s TV show “I Spy” appealed to my demographic.  We all wanted to travel the world as spies who used tennis as their cover, I guess.

I played tennis with all the finesse of Moose Skowron.  I hit the ball hard and far, only the first of which is ever a good thing.  I’d convinced myself I could walk on at DePaul University and earn a scholarship; that was a whole lot more exciting (see “I Spy,” above) than my job at the time, stocking shelves at the Walgreens on 59^th and Pulaski.  But once I started at De Paul, reality set in, and I kept stocking those shelves.

Clare caught my interest in tennis, and we played a few times when she was in grade school; Morton West also held summer camps, where she drew the attention of the school tennis coach.  My daughter hit the ball hard while keeping it inbounds more than I ever did.  But there are choices in life, and she went with hitting balls that were harder and, in the end, bigger.

Still, it’s coming on Labor Day, and I’m back at St. Laurence.

Mind Your Own Business

Michele and I are in the midst of a “staycation,” which found us yesterday at Lincoln Park Zoo.  You can’t beat free admission.

With my wife making like a 12-year old during a program where two polar bears did stuff for food, I spied the crowd and saw a familiar-looking face next to me.  It belonged to a man in his early thirties who had one kid in the stroller and another holding his hand.  It took me a few seconds to place the face until, Bingo, that’s the Cubs’ John Lester.

When the program finished, the Lesters went their way and we went ours, which happened to be in the same direction.  I told Michele who that was, and she texted Clare; our daughter said uncharitable things in the way of a good White Sox fan, which I won’t repeat here and didn’t tell Lester there.  You never, ever punish a celebrity who’s trying to be normal, and you never, ever do that with kids around.  I think Clare would agree, if we traded places, and I’d probably be the one telling her what to say.

A woman recognized Lester and his wife and shook their hands.  That was OK in my eyes; show respect and move on.  Save the nasty stuff for the blogs.