Dumbing Down, Part I

Maybe it’s because I’m advancing into the upper regions of middle age, but it sure seems that a number of very good ballplayers from the days of my youth—the ’60s and ‘70s in case you were wondering—have been ignored by baseball Hall-of-Fame voters for absolutely no good reason whatsoever.  Tommy John won 288 games and lent his name to a surgical procedure, but no entry; never mind, as voters have, that he lost 1-1/2 years to that surgery.  Jim Kaat amassed 283 wins over a 25-year career that began with the original Washington Senators, but no entry; never mind those two 20-win seasons he had with the White Sox as a 35- and 36-year old.  Yet this July, Jack Morris with 254 wins will be inducted into Cooperstown, and a number of voters want Mike Mussina (270 wins) to join him.  And let’s not forget all the support Curt Schilling, Mr. Personality, has garnered with his 216 wins wrapped around a bloody sock.   

There’s one more player truly deserving of the Hall: Rusty Staub, who died Thursday at the age of 73.  Staub had an extraordinary, 23-year career that, to me at least, deserves HOF enshrinement: 4,050 times reaching base (not counting errors), 41^st highest all-time; 292 homeruns; 1466 RBIs;  2716 hits; and a .362 career on-base percentage.  In a consideration of Staub’s career for the New Times, a writer cited all these stats to go with the comment, “Most of those career totals are, admittedly, below Hall of Fame standards.”  Really?  What baseball planet do you hale from, buddy?

Let me thrown in a few more details on Staub. He’s 19^th all-time with 100 career pinch hits.  In 1983, he had a stretch of eight straight pinch hits (which ties the major-league record) and 25 pinch-hit RBIs on the season.  He hit his first home run at the age of 19 and his last at the age of 41.  He hit .423 for the Mets in the 1973 World Series with 11 hits and 6 RBIs against the vaunted Oakland A’s.  Without Staub, it’s doubtful the Mets even get to the Series, let alone extend it to seven games

Sportswriters are forever pointing out the bad characters already in Cooperstown, starting with Ty Cobb, this as a rationale for opening the HOF to “juicers,” as my daughter likes to call steroid cheats.  And yet no one demands that “good guys” get into the Hall.  Staub would certainly qualify.  He went out of his way to learn to speak French when he played in Montreal, and his foundation raised millions of dollars for the families of  NYC police and fire personnel killed in the line of duty.

Rusty Staub not Hall of Fame material?  Give me a break.

One Down, 161 To Go

Yesterday’s White Sox Opening-Day 14-7 win over the Royals in KC was ever so delightful in ever so many ways, beginnings with Sox starter James Shields. Sox fans got to rip Shields and watch him win the game, too.

Four batters into the bottom of the first inning, and the redoubtable Shields was down 4-0, but, from the fifth batter on, you could say he threw six shutout innings.  Apparently, it was the old arm slot that got Shields into trouble; once he went back to the lower one that worked for him late last season, everything went fine.  And he didn’t start off with the lower one from the start because why?

But the real story from yesterday’s game concerns Matt Davidson and Tim Anderson, who hit three and two homers, respectively.  Davidson and Anderson both remind me of Paul Konerko a little, thoughtful and never jerky in their responses to questions.  Davidson hit 26 homeruns last year only to find that his Wins-Above-Replacement figure was -.9.  Ouch.  Anderson dealt with a different negative entirely last year, losing his closest friend to gun violence.  Stay thoughtful and jerk-free, guys.

The New York Times picked Kansas City to finish ahead of the Sox this season.  From what I saw, the Royals are already back in rebuild mode.  Why else would manager Ned Yost use nine pitchers?    

Furthermore

Furthermore

Not only do I want fewer pitchers on a staff, I want them throwing an array of pitches now out-of-fashion.  Call it my guerilla war against the boppers.

Hitting right now is all about the launch angle.  Ever bigger guys want the ball over the plate, waist down to the knees, the better to drive deep into the stands.  This is why I like White Sox starter Lucas Giolito, who consistently throws high strikes.  You can’t launch a ball that comes in at the letters.  (Are you listening, daughter?)

Being a Sox fan of a certain age, I’m also a believer in the knuckleball as thrown by Hoyt Wilhelm and Wilbur Wood.  Wilhelm came to the Sox at the age of 39 and pitched outstanding relief on the South Side for six seasons, 1963-1968.  He never pitched fewer than 81 innings and never had an ERA higher than 2.64; in fact, he had five seasons with an ERA of 1.99 or lower.  Wilhelm then managed to pitch another four years after leaving the Sox.

Wood was almost as good, but different, switching from reliever to starter once Chuck Tanner took over as manager in 1971.  Wood had four straight years of twenty or more wins followed by a season where he went 16-20.  If the knuckleball (which is actually thrown by digging your fingertips into the ball) allowed Wilhelm to throw a lot of innings in relief, it allowed Wood to throw from 320 to 376.2 (1972) as a starter.  The knuckleball thrown right does away with the need for extra pitchers, relievers or starters.

Hitters love to hit fastballs. They hate the knuckler because it stays in the 70s, if not lower.  (Managers and catchers hate it because the grip leads to unpredictability, as evidenced by increased wild pitches and passed balls.)  But there are at least two other pitches that can also leave batters unsure and unsteady at the plate.

First is the screwball, which breaks opposite of a curveball.  When a right-hander throws a curve, it breaks into a left-handed hitter and away from a right-handed hitter.  Well, the screwball does the exact opposite.  The knock on the screwball is that the motion puta increased stress on the pitcher’s elbow, but some recent research questions that assumption.  As luck would have it, Hector Santiago of the Sox throws a good screwball.  If pitching coach Don Cooper is awake, he might want to have Santiago show teammates how it’s done.

Last but not least we have the palm ball, held, yes, in the palm of the pitcher’s hand.  It’s a kind of super changeup used by the likes of Trevor Hoffman, Jim Palmer and Satchel Paige.  Imagine a relief staff featuring knuckleball, screwball, palm ball; the big boppers would hate it.  Just for added misery, I might even throw in a fork ball or two.   

Argh!!#@***

Yes, if Zack jumped out the window, Jack would be sure to follow.  In other words, the White Sox are doing what most everyone else in baseball is by opening the season with a 13-man pitching staff.

Tell me, in this age of sabermetrics, the exact advantage of this change, give me a WAR (wins above replacement) number showing the exact value of the last three pitchers on a staff versus the bench players whose spots they’ve taken.  How much more valuable is 1/3 of an inning pitched compared to a pinch hit, assuming the pitcher can get the out without yielding a run?  I’m curious, I want to know.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record (or whatever the 2018 equivalent is), pitcher-heavy rosters make for bad baseball.  For starters, forget about platooning.  Basically, everyone’s a starter, and don’t be fooled by those so-called chess moves of Cubs’ manager Joe Maddon.  Ben Zobrist may be able to play four or five positions, but he won’t be doing it all in one game, unless Maddon starts using pitchers as position players alongside Zobrist.

Pinch-hit is a vanishing skill, along with pinch-running.  You also can’t use that many defensive replacements late in the game because those extra players aren’t on the bench anymore.  But you can get your matchups out of the bullpen to your heart’s delight.

Whoopee.  Argh.    

The Problem with Fairytales

The NCAA just loves having Loyola in the Final Four because it gives credence to the myth of the D-I student/athlete.  The more times Ramblers’ coach Porter Moser talks about character or the more times TV announcers mention that a Loyola player is a junior or senior (four of the five starters are upperclassmen), it helps viewers to forget the “one-and-donedness” of Rick Pitino and John Calipari.

But not everyone loves a Cinderella story.  In yesterday’s Tribune, Sean McManus, the chairman of CBS Sports, said Loyola making the Final Four was “not the best of all scenarios.”  Here’s why:  “From a television standpoint, you really root for the big teams,” like Calipari’s Kentucky squad that couldn’t be bothered to shake hands after its loss to Kansas State.  You see, Kentucky is one of “the bluebloods,” by which McManus means their games make a lot of green for CBS.

But not to worry.  The NCAA doesn’t need a Cinderella in the Final Four every year.  Things can go back to normal in 2019.  There’s your March madness.  

Comings and Goings

I’m pretty sure my interest in the Transactions’ part of the sports section dates to October 18, 1966, or the day after.  The Senators released 32-year old outfielder Willie Kirkland on October 18^th in my freshman year of high school.  The notice probably ran the next day.

With 148 career homeruns, Kirkland would have been a great pickup for my White Sox, or so I thought at the age of 14.  But Kirkland was too young.  In 1967, when the Sox would challenge for the AL pennant down to the last weekend of the season despite hitting all of 89 homers, they acquired outfielders Jim King (two months shy of 35) and Rocky Colavito (two weeks shy of 34).  It’s fitting somehow King was part of the deal that brought Colavito to the South Side.

Along with the end of a season, the start is a another good time to scan Transactions for a sense of who’s coming and who’s going.  The Sox have something like nine players who are making their first Opening Day roster; those are some of the “comings.”  Nationals’ catcher Pedro Severino, a prospect rumored to be part of the Adam Eaton deal, is one of the “goings.”  So is Gordon Beckham.

The onetime golden boy of the South Side may be done at age of 31, after his release last week by the Mariners.  Beckham never replicated the success of his rookie season in 2009, when he hit .270 with 14 homeruns and 63 RBIs in just 378 at-bats.  After that were injuries and maybe a dash of stubbornness in regards his approach at the plate, but the man definitely played a nice second base.  How he missed earning a Gold Glove is beyond me.

If Beckham earns a second act, it’ll be with his sixth team.  Otherwise, T.S. Eliot was right—April is the cruelest month.  And March, too. 

The Saddest of Coincidences

Last June, the Cubs drafted Chris Singleton, an outfielder out of Charleston Southern University.  The ninth-round pick could be a sleeper, with speed to go with a nice on-base percentage.  Ordinarily, I don’t care about who the Cubs pick, but Singleton is different.  His mother was one of the nine people killed in the 2015 church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina.  I’m not sure I could handle that kind of tragedy.  Singleton, though, seems to have accepted it and not let it affect his view of humanity.  I can’t help but root for a player like that.

Meanwhile, the White Sox last June took shortstop Mikey Duarte from UC Irvine in the 23^rd round; I didn’t become aware of Duarte until months later, sometime after the October mass shooting in Las Vegas; Duarte’s 21-year old sister Christiana was among the 58 victims.  Duarte doubled in his first spring-training game this week; in a postgame interview, he said he dedicated the hit to Christiana.  It’s pretty obvious that her death still weighs on him.  Again, I can’t help but root for someone like that.

I just wish these young men had been made to exhibit grace under a different sort of pressure.  

Rebuild? What Rebuild?

This is what happens to the best-laid plans of mice and NBA front offices.  The Bulls traded Jimmy Butler in the offseason for three young players to build around—guards Kris Dunn and Zach along with forward Lauri Markkanen.  But for the last week or so that trio has been absent from the court, Dunn with turf toe; LaVine with tendinitis in his surgically repaired left knee; and Markanen with back spasms.  The idea behind a rebuild is for the young players to gain experience, not flirt with the disabled list.

Of the three, LaVine may be the one who doesn’t come back this season; so much for the trio developing on-court chemistry.  So, stuff that should be happening now will have to wait for next year, when there’ll be another first-round pick to plug into the equation.  If you don’t know how Dunn, LaVine and Markkanen play together as it is, adding yet another new face just complicates things.  As it is, sitting your three young players to guard against further injury (while insuring a better draft position) can lead to a fiasco like Wednesday’s 135-102 loss to the Nuggets.

Rebuilds are tricky things.  What worked for the Cubs hasn’t for the Pirates, or the Browns, or the Kings.  If I were the Bulls’ front office, I’d be reaching for the Maalox right about now, that and looking for a lucky horseshoe or rabbit’s foot or….

 

Caught Red-handed

White Sox fans tend to be directional haters—we hate certain teams from the East Coast and the North Side.  We also tend to say the Chicago media will look for any excuse not to cover our team.  But pull us aside and ask us if we really believe that, we might admit that’s just our South Side talking, until now, that is.  Now, we have proof.

Yesterday marked the third time in six days the Chicago Tribune passed on running a Sox story from Arizona.  There was room, mind you, with three-quarters of the front page of the sports’ section devoted to NCAA basketball tournament artwork (and, ironically, an ad for the Sox), but no Sox story.  Heck, if anyone deserved to left out of the sports’ section on Thursday, it was the Bulls, who the night before gave up a franchise-worst 113 points by a visiting team, after three quarters; our baby Bulls apparently forgot to play defense or that there are four quarters to a professional basketball game.  That explains a final score of Denver 135 Chicago 102.

But what about the Sox?  Well, the Trib laid off two sportswriters last week, which in the world of journalistic piggy move-up has left the Sox without anybody to cover them.  This marks the beginning of the end of the world as we know it, and I don’t feel fine.  But I am serious.

Both Chicago dailies are in a death spiral; the end of print here is more a matter of when, not if.  News in the future will be delivered, all cramped, on a screen.  My grandchildren—if I should be so blessed—will have no idea what it’s like to have the kitchen table covered with sports’ stories and box scores, to say nothing of the Sunday comics in color.

I was a sickly kid who learned about sports through watching and reading.  I’m pretty sure the comics taught me how to read and the box scores gave me a reason to learn arithmetic; batting averages and ERAs are all about multiplication and division.  I just needed some motivation to figure out quotients and multiplicands.

All the great columnists, those who could make you feel like you were an athlete and an athlete was no different from you, are gone.  The box scores are shrinking to the point of invisibility.  The new motto for the new journalism will be: All the news that fits to app.

God help us all.

How Could I Forget?

When your wedding anniversary more or less falls on the start of the high school and college softball seasons, you have yourself a built-in memory aid.  It also helps to keep notes, which I did from the time Clare started softball.  So, let me tell you about Opening Day, Thursday March 20, 2008

The ever-scrappy Morton Mustangs opened on the road at OPRF High School in Oak Park.  Only a sophomore, Clare was already a starter; no one ever doubted her ability to hit.  As a freshman, Clare started off her high school career by going one for three on the day of our 27^th anniversary, with three RBIs.  You could say there was a synergy between the sport and the date.    

Clare’s sophomore season started in cold sunshine at 4:30 PM.  Maybe the mercury reached 45 degrees, maybe not.  According to my notes, I wore jeans; two pairs of athletic socks; a shirt; two sweatshirts; a pair of long underwear to go with a pair of briefs;  heavy jacket; ski cap; and gloves.  Michele and I shared a wool blanket, which probably held off the cold for, oh, a half-hour if we were lucky.

Clare played left that day and batted sixth; she went two for three with two singles.  It was hard to tell what was worse, the cold or those two Oak Park mothers sitting behind me before Michele got there from work; they were discussing whether their daughters would be attending Brown or Claremont.  I didn’t much care for the final score, either, 2-1 Oak Park.  And, yes, it snowed the next day, forcing the cancellation of games Saturday and Monday.  I helped shovel out the Morton dugouts Tuesday so we could get a game in.  Clare repaid my hard work with her first double of the season.

Three years later, on the exact date of our 31^st wedding anniversary, life was ever-so-much better.  Clare was still batting sixth, now as a college freshman at Elmhurst, and we were in Florida, where civilized people start the softball season.  Clare hit her first Elmhurst homerun that afternoon, against Taylor College.

I would no more forget my wedding anniversary—the young bride was resplendent in white that Saturday in March—than I would any of these games.              

Rust

The pride of a certain Big Ten school of management visited her parents last night.  It being March, we went to hit before we ate.  The rust in the swing was to be expected after two-plus months of inactivity.

Spring is the best time to go to the batting cages, all those big-league dreams and weird swings crowded together.  First a father, then his son commented on what “a good swing” Clare had.  The boy couldn’t have been more than eight.  He was perched next to me, hands on the top railing, feet on the middle bar.  “She played baseball first,” I told him.

“That’s why she has such a good swing,” he answered.  Out of the mouth of a child….  

Early-bird Special

The Tribune had an interesting story Sunday about out-of-season tournaments in travel baseball and softball.  It seems that some area teams think it’s OK to have nine- and ten-year olds play past midnight while 18u teams are willing to start a tournament at 11PM on a Saturday and play until 5 AM Sunday.

The coach for one of the 18u softball teams explained that the idea was to make up for a bunch of outdoor, fall tournaments that were cancelled due to bad weather.  I hate to break it to these folks, but the top-level—and by that I mean on the level of AAU crazy—teams are likely to go South and West in search of good weather to play in; if your Illinois team is playing locally or even regionally in September and October, your organization isn’t considered to be among the best.  Sorry.  As for 10-year olds playing past midnight, that’s plain stupid on the part of parents and coaches.

Clare’s first travel team played into the wee hours of the night at a tournament, but that was before her time.  The worst she ever dealt with was a five-game Saturday in June, when we were out the door by 5:30 AM to be at the field in beautiful Kankakee at 6:30 AM (both coaches were late) and didn’t leave for home till 11:30 PM.  This was a college-exposure tournament, even though Clare was fifteen on a 16u team.  Let me put it this way.  I doubt any coaches hung around to see us play our last game that night.

A good rule to live by for parents in travel baseball and softball: scholarships are won in the daylight, not at night under a dome in February.

Two-bad

Oh, how major-league baseball and the national sports’ media touted Japanese pitcher-outfielder Shohei Ohtani as the second coming of Babe Ruth, a double threat on the mound and at the plate.  When Ohtani signed with the Angels last December, Sports Illustrated offered this online gem of an observation: “The Angels finally have another superstar to pair with Mike Trout.”  I wonder who they were writing about.

In his most recent start last Friday, Ohtani went 1.1 innings against the Rockies, giving up seven runs (all earned) on seven hits and a walk, with three (pity or overeager, you decide) strikeouts.  So far this spring, Ohtani has yielded 17 runs in 8.1 innings, which comes out to a 16.20 ERA.

Poor Mike Sciosia.  The Angels’ skipper had to make a silk purse out of that performance and those stats.  The best Sciosia could come up with was, “You saw the stuff that’s there [so did the Colorado hitters].  His stuff is picking up, which is a good sign.  Harnessing it is what we’re going to have to work on.”  That, or just tracking the flight of balls as they leave the atmosphere.  And did I mention that Ruth II is hitting .100, which is what happens when a hitter goes 2 for 20.

As the Angels try to figure out what to do with their wintertime superstar, allow me this question:  What made Ohtani a better risk than the best hitter in college softball, the best pitcher?  Somebody should ask Jennie Finch her thoughts on the matter.

Lost in the Shuffle

Lost in the Shuffle

This is March Madness, both at the high school and college level.  I get it, that’s where the sports’ coverage goes.  And most of what’s left over should belong to the Blackhawks and Bulls, who are playing out the string in their respective seasons.  And the Cubs deserve their Cactus League due, on account of all the predictions that they’ll be back in the World Series come fall.  But, why or why, do the Bears get to knock the White Sox out of the sports’ section altogether?  The Tribune, at least, couldn’t be bothered with South Side baseball.

Instead, the Trib gave page-one coverage to the Bears matching Green Bay’s offer to restricted free-agent Kyle Fuller; a single cornerback counted for more than an entire major league baseball team, and one of the “legacy” sixteen at that.  Shoeless Joe and Cuban Comet, make way for the Munsters.

Today being Sunday, there’s more space in the paper to play with, and the Sox received some pity coverage, after the Bears, of course.  Our pigskin heroes merited all of page six and two-thirds of page seven for an in-depth treatment of free-agent acquisitions at the wide-receiver position, past and present.  But, hey, the Pale Hose showed up on page nine.  That’s progress.

What’s really impressive is that Loyola placed ahead of the Bears.  The Ramblers nearly dominated the front-page of Trib sports with their one-point victory over Tennessee; this time the winning shot occurred with 3.6 seconds left.  Clayton Custer’s 15-foot jumper hit the front of the win and then the backboard before rattling in.  How cool that Porter Moser and his crew move on to the Sweet Sixteen.  But notice I said “nearly.” For there, at the top of page one of the Tribune sports’ section, was this headline: Allen Robinson’s comeback trail leads to Bears, but now he must prove himself.

In Chicago, even March Madness yields to the ghost of Halas.

Tarnished by the Touch

Tarnished by the Touch

With all the money that D-I men’s sports generates and the corruption that comes with it, the NCAA must be giddy over the Loyola-Miami basketball game, a 64-62 thriller decided by a deep—and I do mean deep—three-pointer by Loyola’s Donte Ingram with .3 seconds left in the game.  Too bad the media covered it.

Loyola may have to wait another 33 years to make its next NCAA tournament appearance.  Coach Porter Moser could be eyeing a big-school job like Louisville or UConn (as one sports-section cynic speculated).  Or Loyola could go the way of DePaul and lose sight of what makes its program special (hint: overachieving, well-coached athletes who look like they may have actually spent some time in class).  A thousand calamities could befall Loyola the way they did Northwestern, last year’s Cinderella not invited to this year’s dance.  You can only hope they enjoy the moment even as media coverage goes ever so by-the-numbers.

Gosh, live remotes from local bars to get fan reaction.  That’s pure 2015 Blackhawks, 2016 Cubs, 2017 Northwestern.  Why not find some Loyola graduates serving in Afghanistan, unless they’re too busy trying to stay alive to comment?  Failing that, how about somebody in the local media who happens to be a Loyola alum?  What, there aren’t any?  In which case, doesn’t that say something about how jobs get filled in this town.

The one, easy yet unique story angle concerns Loyola’s chaplain, who happens to be a 98-year old nun.  Sports’ telecasts love showing nuns for reasons I don’t quite understand; maybe it has something to do with the habit some nuns wear to cover their heads.  Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt wears one, and she sounds very sincere while talking on-camera.  It’s all about cute, though I doubt anyone is paying attention to how sharp this nonagenarian sounds.  She emails scouting reports to the players and reminds them to stay within their game.

That’s not cute.  That’s someone being a role model for those of us who hope to live to be Sister Jean’s age someday.

Clueless

Carson Fulmer of the White Sox pitched again Wednesday, which means balls were flying out of the park again.  In 1-2/3 innings against the Brewers, Fulmer gave up seven runs on five hits, two of which stayed in the park, as Hawk Harrelson would say.  After allowing a grand slam to Ryan Braun (the second of Braun’s two homers in two innings), Fulmer grooved one to the next batter.  Wow, you’d think a pitcher would want to avoid back-to-backs after a grand slam.

But was Fulmer worried, you ask?  Was Alfred E. Newman?  “Just a bad outing, Fulmer told reporters after the game.  “I don’t think it’s mechanical.  I’m just catching some of the zone that I’m trying not to do.”  Huh?  What?  If it’s not mechanical, it’s must be head-ical, yes?  When you’re putting pitches where you know you shouldn’t, that’s textbook dumb.

Here’s more from a first-round draft pick sporting a 18.90 ERA with 18 hits and seven homers in 6-2/3 innings this spring:  “It’s a game of inches.  You throw a pitch on the plate a couple more inches that [than?] you wanted, guys are going to barrel it.  It’s frustrating, but I’m definitely in a good place right now.”  Carson, the only place you’re going to be soon is Triple-A Charlotte, if not worse.

For what it’s worth, I’m the same way as a fan as I was a parent.  I insisted my daughter own up to stinking when she did; honesty, especially directed at one’s self, builds character.  Clare learned that, and Avisail Garcia seems to as well.  Garcia failed to run out a ground ball in the first inning of Wednesday’s game, and Sox manager Ricky Renteria promptly benched him.  First, God bless Renteria for expecting all his players to hustle.  Second, listen to Garcia, as opposed to Fulmer.

“Everybody makes mistakes.  You have to be honest with yourself.  You can’t lie to yourself.  I didn’t run, they take me out.  That’s it.”  Garcia didn’t question his manager’s decision.  “No, no.  Learn from it, and that’s it.”  Let me note here that the 6’4”, 240-pound Garcia does not exactly have a sprinter’s build, yet he’s one of, if not the, hardest runners to first on the team.  The slipup was out of character for Garcia, but not the way he accepted the consequences.

Are you listening, Carson?

Spring, Maybe

Tuesday’s snow yielded to Wednesday’s sun, except in those spots where the shade prevailed.  It reminded me of the time when Clare was a sophomore at Morton and her coach called and asked me to help him shovel snow out of the dugouts so they could get a game in early in the season.  Such are spring sports in the Midwest.

The past few days I’ve gone to pick up Michele from the train I’ve spotted this incredibly skinny kid walking along Harlem Avenue; just like my daughter once upon a time, he had two bats sticking out of his backpack.  Late yesterday afternoon, I saw Morton baseball players huddled around the pitcher’s mound to receive the collective wisdom of their coaches.  The skinny kid was probably there, dreaming the dreams of an adolescent athlete.

By this afternoon, Coach P and his Elmhurst Bluejays should be in Florida, getting ready to start their season; I prefer memories of Florida to those of March snow.  But all my baseball and softball comes from a distance these days; that’s just the way things are.  Come April, though, I can be back in the stands, alone or, better yet, with that know-it-all everyone tells me has my exact same personality.  To which I say, it takes one to know one.  Play ball, please, soon.      

Oh, My Achin' Back

I could go on complaining about the Bears’ near-total control of the local media, but why bother?  If fans want to get excited about free-agent signings that include a second-string tight end and a wide receiver recovering from a torn ACL, so be it.  Just don’t cry come the postseason.

Since Chicago is the unacknowledged home of the rebuild (Cubs, White Sox, Bears and, in the not-too-distant future, the Blackhawks), let’s take a quick look at those rebuilding Bulls, rookie forward Lauri Markkanen in particular.  Markkanen missed his fourth game of the year last night on account of back spasms.  Hmm.

You have to wonder if this would be a problem had the 20-year old stayed in college.  Say what you will about March Madness, but you don’t have to play an NBA-like 82 games to get there; a far kinder regular-season schedule of 35 games will do.  For kids in a rush to play in the pros, that disparity gets ignored, that is, until their rookie year in the NBA.

Chicago’s own Jahlil Okafor was even younger than Markkanen when he started in the NBA three seasons ago; the pride of Whitney Young High School didn’t turn 20 until the second month of the 2015-2016 season.  Despite injuries (and immaturity), Okafor averaged 17.5 points a game.  Next year, it was 11.8 and this season, six points a game.  The 76ers lost big so they could draft the young center, only to trade him to the Nets this year.  Such are the pitfalls of a rebuild.

But, hey, Okafor had knee problems and Markkanen doesn’t.  That has to count for something, maybe

Faster than a Speeding Bullet

Roger Bannister died ten days ago, his reputation based on a record he held for all of seven weeks.  Bannister gained a measure of immortality in May 1954 by being the first human being to run a mile in under four minutes.  Mercury, meet Roger along with the thirteen men who have run faster since.

Bannister was English, which strikes me as altogether fitting.  Americans want their record setters to keep going until they can’t; Bannister walked away from track and field (pardon the pun) at the age of 25, just months after running his historic mile, for a career in medicine.  Imagine if Babe Ruth had done that.  “Ruthian” now would probably be synonymous with “quitter.”

There are times in life when we can’t be like the Babe or any other professional athlete; raising a child and/or getting to work on time doesn’t tally up like homeruns and passing yards.  You do your best all the way to the finish line and then see where your performance ranks.  With luck, you get to be your own Roger Bannister when it’s over.

Enough, Already

By my unofficial count, the Tribune sports’ section has included stories on our beloved Chicago Bears for nine days running, and probably more.  Today, you might think things would be different with Loyola finding out where it’s going in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament (Answer: the South Regional), but no.  There on page two was a story on free agents by position, any and all who could help those 5-11 Munsters of the Midway.

Think about that record for a second, 5-11.  In baseball, we’d be talking about a 51-111 team, which happens to be the exact record of the Mets in their second year of existence.  If the White Sox won 51 games on the season, they’d get a quick post mortem followed by a news’ blackout; the Cubs might merit two post mortems, along with the same cold shoulder from the media until spring training.  What makes the Bears so different?

I think the middle-aged fan base helps.  You have a bunch of guys—with female enablers—with a man-cave mentality.  They go to games, they buy the stuff advertised on games; middle-aged sportswriters, anchors and editors all work to give them their football fix.  But the fan base will get old in the not-too-distant future and start keeling over from all that beer and buffalo wings they use for fuel, and their media-enablers will retire.  Then what?  The boys and girls of Gen X don’t look to be interested in taking their dads’ place in the stands or on the couch.

It shouldn’t be long before we start to find out.

Past, Present and Future

Yesterday, during her Saturday class at Northwestern (continuing ed being one of the perks of working for Chicago’s Big 10 school) and lunch, Clare and I texted over the state of White Sox prospect Louis Robert.  My daughter can’t figure out how Robert sprained his thumb on a feet-first slide into second base.  Neither can I.

Last night, I called to tell her I saw the video of Robert injuring himself, which induced more head-scratching.  We also discussed Eloy Jimenez, acquired by the Sox in the Jose Quintana deal; Jimenez pinch-hit a two-run homer on an 0-2 count with two out in the eighth inning for his new team against his old team, a sure way to become a fan favorite on the South Side.  Then we talked about a couple of other things, one of which may have been about today.

As soon as I finish here, I’ll be driving Michele to Clare’s first wedding shower.  However did this happen?  But it has, and I’m thankful for the way everything has come together, like a rebuild only infinitely better.  

Foreshadowing

Right now, I wouldn’t want to be the Los Angeles Angels with their 6-9 record in Cactus League play.  According to the team website, free-agent acquisition Zack Cozart is batting .214, which is actually better than Albert Pujols’ .167, which is actually better than Mike Trout’s .071.  Yikes!

Then we have (media-created) phenom Shohei Ohtani, the purported two-way sensation.  Only he hasn’t done anything yet with either a bat or a ball.  Ohtani is hitting .091, or 1/11, with four strikeouts and three walks.  His pitching isn’t any better.  Against Cactus League competition, Ohtani has managed 1.1 innings with a 6.75 ERA.  This doesn’t include yesterday’s performance against a Mexican team that roughed him up for six runs on five hits in three innings.  Combining all his appearances, Ohtani has yielded ten runs in seven innings.

But he doesn’t sound worried.  “At this point, I feel like I’m taking the right steps forward,” he said through an interpreter.  Carson Fulmer of the White Sox couldn’t have put it better.           

March Madness

Someone who owned the house before us put in the kind of laundry washtub faucet that Home Depot and Ace don’t carry, if they ever did.  Replacing exotic plumbing fixtures means going to exotic plumbing-fixtures’ stores.  The guys behind the counter at the store I went to in Villa Park yesterday all looked like retired Chicago precinct captains who’d given up cigars for Lent.  I think they sold me the right faucet.  We’ll see.

Lucky for me Villa Park is next door to Elmhurst, which provided the perfect excuse to drop in on Coach P of the Elmhurst softball Bluejays.  To visit Coach P is to be treated as an honored guest.  I came away with a sweatshirt and jersey but passed on a cap; considering I was already wearing a Bluejays cap, another on top of that would just look silly.  This being a week before starting the season in Florida, Coach took me to the gym to look at his players, who were at a morning practice.

The last girls to play with Clare graduated last spring; my daughter the player now exists solely in school record books and photos in Coach’s office.  Time marches on, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.  That said, I did like what I saw of these Bluejays, taller than in the past and maybe ready to play in the CCIW postseason tournament for the first time since Clare’s sophomore year.  Coach deserves it.

Along with loading me down with stuff, Coach felt the need to introduce me to anyone within twenty feet of us: players; an assistant coach; the school athletic director; the school athletic director’s assistant; a few robins in the parking lot when he walked me out to my car.  “This is Clare Bukowski’s dad, and Clare was…” one heck of a player.

As I was leaving, we bumped into yet another player.  After the obligatory introduction, this junior Bluejay said she was off to a nursing midterm, and a little nervous.  Coach being Coach, he told her to calm down, she’d do fine.  Last week, the Big Ten played its basketball tournament at Madison Square Garden.  I wonder how many classes the players missed and how many players have visited the inside of a classroom since getting back.  I mean, who can concentrate on school when the NCAA brackets won’t be announced until Sunday?

No doubt, D-I coaches tell their players to calm down, too.  Go to class, take an exam?  That’s strictly D-III.         

Oh, Mighty Plan

White Sox general manager Rick Hahn doesn’t want to rush the Sox rebuild, so he’s pretty much come out and said that, short a miracle, righty phenom Michael Kopech won’t make the major-league roster out of spring training.  How things have changed in baseball over the past forty years.

Come April, Kopech will turn 22, an age that used to be considered “just right” for a pitcher.  I distinctly remember being a college freshman and watching 19-year old Terry Forster make the team in 1971.  A year later, Goose Gossage joined Forster in the Sox bullpen at the tender age of 20.  Teammate Bart Johnson also got his first call-up as a 19-year old.  Those three learned on the job, if you will.  While Johnson battled arm injuries throughout his career, Forster and Gossage pitched for a combined 38 seasons, regrettably, just not all with the Sox.

So, what gives with Kopech?  In part, Hahn wants to maximize the six years the team will have control of their pitcher as a major leaguer before he qualifies for free agency.  In other words, Hahn is gambling Kopech’s first full season will come with Rookie-of-the-Year stats, not Forster’s 2-3 record with a 3.99 ERA in 49.2 innings (Gossage went 7-1 with a 4.28 ERA in 80 innings as a rookie).  Fair enough, but I have to wonder if Hahn isn’t a little bit scared, too.

What if Kopech were to be pretty good this year and the Sox found themselves in contention for a wildcard berth, then what?  Under pressure by fans and the media, contending teams do stupid things around the July trade deadline; the Sox have a lot of minor-league talent that could get lost dealing for a middle reliever or platoon player.  I think Hahn would rather not be tempted.

Here’s an idea: why not just withstand the pressure?  Every deadline deal is an admission that the front office and/or coaching staff hasn’t done its job.  Stay the course, win with who you’ve got.  Now, that would be a revolutionary plan.

Tank-you Very Much

I’m not sure if they still do, but the Bulls used to pass out coupons for free Big Macs every time the team scored 100 or points at a home game.  On Tuesday night at the United Center, they needed three quarters just to reach 54 points in their game against the Celtics.  Our lads in red had all of 29 points at halftime.

This is what happens when you tank.  Only it’s become so obvious that NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has let the Bulls’ front office know he’s unhappy with their decision to sit healthy—to say nothing of talented—veterans Robin Lopez and Justin Holiday in order to “evaluate” young players.   Funny how “evaluation” turns into losing and better draft position.  Pro sports is all about appearances; if players don’t look to be making much of an effort, people may start to question the cost of a ticket.  If only for the sake of appearance, the Bulls’ front office now says it will start playing Lopez and Holiday.

Bless him, Bulls’ beat writer K.C. Johnson of the Tribune isn’t afraid to question the propriety of tanking.  Recently, he wondered what lots of losing will do to young players, and today he noted “the inherent contradiction” between coach Fred Hoiberg demanding his Bulls play hard especially when behind in a game and the front office pulling the plug on the 2017-2018 season. 

The next question Johnson may want to ask is what all this losing will do the coach.   

On the One Hand...

…I really want Loyola to do well in the NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament now that they’ve qualified by winning the Missouri Valley Conference tournament.  The Ramblers are a local team coached by a local kid.  Six of the fifteen players hail from Illinois, mostly Chicago and the suburbs, while Coach Moser Porter is from one county away in Naperville.  Oh, and seven of the players are upperclassmen.  Try explaining that concept to Rick Pitino.  

Lots of local, lots of upperclassmen, all Cinderella—this is what college sports is supposed to be about, and this is how Loyola is going to be sold on television along with one other ingredient, this being the school’s first tournament appearance in 33 years.  Don’t lose, guys, but don’t let winning get to your head.

The best-case scenario is for Loyola to become an overachieving program like Butler or Valparaiso in recent years.  Done right, nobody has to sell their soul to the devil.  But done wrong, Loyola turns into DePaul, which tried to model itself after Notre Dame or the Big Ten only to become a long-running embarrassment.  One of those per city is enough.

Wake-up Call

The last time we saw White Sox starter Carson Fulmer he was in the process of giving up four runs in one-plus innings against the Cubs, starting with a leadoff homerun to Ian Happ.  Well, yesterday in his second start of the spring, Fulmer gave up four runs to the Padres in one-plus innings, starting with a leadoff homer to Manuel Margot.  Any difference between starts?  Yeah, this time all the runs were earned, and Fulmer seems to come away concerned with the results.  After the game, he said it was “really frustrating.”  Just remember, Carson, it can get worse.  Just imagine starting the season in the minors.

On a positive note, centerfielder Adam Engel hit his second homerun of the spring, this one good for three runs.  Right now, Engel is hitting .417 with four RBIs, so maybe the offseason work Engel said he did on his swing is paying off.  You can only hope.

I certainly hope the Sox don’t end up regretting trading away infielder Fernando Tatis Jr. to San Diego.  Tatis went four for four against the team that signed him, with five RBIs.  Tatis also happens to be the top Padres prospect as well as #8 on the MLB Top 100 List.  And for all that talent we got James Shields?

Here a Tank, There a Tank, Everywhere a Tank Job

 And now the middle-aged crab will hold forth on the epidemic of tanking that seems to be sweeping over professional sports.  Exhibit A, Dallas Mavericks’ owner Mark Cuban, who was fined $600,000 by the NBA this week after he admitted that losing games is the best way for his team to get better.

A moment here to appreciate the irony of that statement (and to gloat over the inability of agent Scott Boras to get his baseball clients the fat deals they were expecting).  Remember when Cuban was the cutting edge in sports’ ownership, someone willing to venture outside the box in the quest for championships?  He was the thinking man’s Ted Turner.  Well, those days are long gone.  Since winning the NBA title in 2011, the Mavs have lost in the first round of the playoffs four times and not qualified twice; this year’s 19-44 mark should make that three failures to qualify for the postseason.  But at least Cuban still has money to burn as he pleases.

Yes, the Mavs are tanking and so are the Bulls, and the Hawks and the Kings and the Suns….It’s the same in baseball, with as many as fifteen teams in rebuild—or do you say tank?—mode.  Part of the reason is that it’s easy in both sports.  Owners have steady revenue streams that allow them to gamble their teardown will work.  Nothing will change unless those revenue streams are threatened.

A strike is one way to do that, but dangerous.  A number of paying fans will walk away for good, and advertisers won’t be so ready to spend if they sense the sport is damaged.  But, hey, let everybody strike.  And while both sides are yelling at each other across negotiating tables, maybe the federal government could get involved.

How about a law that prohibits public bodies from owning or building professional sports’ venues?  And a law that institutes a nice, big capital-gains’ tax on the sale of sports’ teams or requires paying off the cost of that publicly owned stadium from the proceeds?  And a graduated income tax to take more from players and owners than it does from regular folks?  Just asking.

In the meantime, consider that there’s no law that mandates teams have to win.  As God is my witness, I picked the year 1985 out of the blue to check.  In the NBA, 11 of the 23 teams finished under .500, and four of those losers qualified for the playoffs; talk about an exciting postseason.  Over in baseball, things were marginally better, with 11 out of 26 teams under the .500 mark.  At least the 57-104 Pirates didn’t qualify for the postseason.

Maybe the good folks at SABER could do a spread sheet on the last 50-75 seasons to see what the average number of sub-.500 baseball teams was in a season, before and after the advent of free agency.  I have a sneaking suspicion that both agents and sportswriters have forgotten just how much losing goes on in sports.  As for owners, they just want to keep it a secret, as ever.

My Side, Not Theirs

Gordon Wittenmyer wrote an interesting column in yesterday’s Sun-Times.  According to Wittenmyer, MLB players can see “power shifting towards baseball’s owners,” and players like the Cubs’ Kris Bryant “are ready to start fighting back.”  In which case, I’m reminded of the African proverb that holds, when two elephants fight, only the grass suffers.

Wittenmyer, like sportswriters from the time of Marvin Miller at his most militant, cast this as a two-way fight, and, just like his predecessors, sympathized with players who simply want “their fair share.”  Oh, please.  I’ll start sympathizing with players as soon as they stop hiring agents like Scott Boras.

And enough of this notion that, “Players aren’t simply labor like [in] other businesses; they are the product.”  What Wittenmyer fails to see is the product has no value without a customer base in the form of fans who either watch at the ballpark, in front of their televisions or some other screen.  No fans, no ratings, no merchandizing and broadcast deals, no golden goose.  This fan, for one, is tired of being taken for granted.

Both owners and players have too much money, a portion of which should be used to subsidize ticket prices, season’s tickets excluded.  You know that old joke about the $10,000 hot dog?  Well, sometime soon they’re going to start selling them at a ballpark near you.  Yes, the game is rolling in dough.  So, then why do owners keep gouging fans, and why do players keep quiet about it?  They want me to care about them?  Well, it works two ways, guys.

A strike in protest of possible collusion by owners to control the free-agent market and over other issues affecting players’ salaries?  Go ahead, but don’t expect me to side with anyone but myself.

Fish Bears

Ben Franklin thought that fish and visitors smell after three days.  In that case, what would he say about the Bears?

Think about it.  Our woeful 5-11 Munsters of the Midway last played on December 31^st (a loss, naturally), and three months later, they’re still garnering major sports’ coverage.  I wake up this morning to find a full-page action shot of linebacker Leonard Floyd on the back of the Sun-Times.  Over at the Tribune, two Bears’ stories and a photo of the soon-to-be-released Mike Glennon took up a mere 80 percent of page one in sports.  As for TV, no local sportscast would be complete without an update on which Bears’ veteran is about to be cut.  All I can say is: Does anyone out there know how to read a calendar?

Guys, it’s March, when our attention should be devoted to basketball and baseball.  The NFL draft is nearly two months off, and the upcoming combine for draft-eligible players has as much to do with demonstrating relevant skills as American Ninja Warrior does.  As a friend of mine says quoting ex-Bear Doug Buffone about the combine, how many tables does a player have to jump over in a game?

Do us all a favor, and give it a rest.  That, and devote some time to covering spring sports.  

Critical Thinking

Off his performance Tuesday against the Cubs, White Sox starter Carson Fulmer reminds me of ex-Sox pitcher Jacob Turner, and that’s not a good thing.  Turner was the sunny optimist, when it came to his pitching.  He never did badly; it was just the occasional pitch that went where it shouldn’t have, or a seeing-eye groundball that prolonged an inning.  Maybe if he were a tad more critical of his performances, Turner would have better career numbers than a 14-30 record and 5.09 ERA.  That kind of performance with that kind of thinking is what lands you trying to make the staff in Miami, where Turner currently finds himself.

And Fulmer will be joining him, if he thinks his stuff is so good.  The 24-year old righty gave up four runs on five hits in one-plus inning of work.  Granted, he could have been out of the first with just one run scoring, if not for an error by left fielder Nicky Delmonico, but that’s when you bear down, or so I’m told.  All Fulmer did was keep surrendering baserunners.  To cap it off, he sounded downright giddy about his performance.

“I was able to pound the strike zone,” he told reporters.  “I got ahead of a lot of hitters.  With two strikes, I tried to be a little too fine.  [And when he gave up a home run to leadoff batter Ian Happ on a 1-0 count?]”  All in all, “a lot of positives.”  If you say so, Carson.

Maybe I should have Clare text him.  As soon as I thought she was old enough to handle it, I always let her know what I thought of her performance that day, with the emphasis on how it could improve.  I know my daughter didn’t like to hear it always, but I wanted her to be able to critique herself the way coaches did.  It must be different for #1 draft picks.