The Girl in the Picture

Clare and Chris went to the White Sox game Saturday with a group of friends celebrating someone’s birthday.  My daughter and her husband appear to have been the only ones following the game.  Michele and I received text updates while at dinner.

They had good seats, in the picnic area in right center field.  Clare said it felt like she was back playing the outfield.  Child and father have taken a liking to Sox rookie Daniel Palka, who attacks a ball like it was Halloween candy.  But Palka didn’t start, as we were advised by text.

Lucas Giolito started and stunk, throwing 94 pitches in just 4.1 innings, hence the 5-1 deficit as the Sox entered the bottom of the seventh inning.  That was when Nicky Delmonico—the Daniel Palka of 2017—homered and Leury Garcia singled in Kevan Smith to make the score 5-3.  We caught a glimpse of Clare on the Smith single.

That must have been good luck, because in the next inning Palka delivered a bases-loaded pinch single to give the Sox the lead in an eventual 9-5 win.  (The next day, Palka pinch hit a home run for the second time this season.)  Instead of worrying about Giolito and whether pitching coach Don Cooper has a clue, we could cheer the Palka.

And the girl in the picture on TV.

Act like a Grownup

The Blackhawks had their fan convention over the weekend, and they’re still treating fans like children when it comes to the condition of goalie Corey Crawford.  Worse yet, Crawford did the same.

“We can’t disclose that [the nature of his problem], and I ask you just to respect that,” Crawford said Friday in response to questions as to what exactly has sidelined him since last December.  “There have been a lot of rumors—people tend to do that, speculation.”  Gosh, I wonder why.

The player, the team, the league do themselves no favors when they treat an injury like a state secret from the Cold War.  Fans deserve to know.  Otherwise, players, teams and the NHL deserve the rumormongering they make possible.

Oh, That Rebuild

I don’t know how White Sox fans make themselves go to ballgames, and yet over 20,000 went to Guaranteed Rate Whatever Friday night to watch Reynaldo Lopez give up not one, not two, not three, not four but, yes, five homeruns to the Blue Jays in a 10-5 loss.  The day before, the Sox hit six homers and still managed to lose.

Part of the reason for that was they tried to pitch Chris Volstad, he of the 1-5 record and 6.27 ERA.  Volstad pitched two innings Wednesday against the Angels and gave up five runs on seven hits   Sox manager Rick Renteria liked those numbers so much he trotted Volstad out the next game, too.  Lo and behold, Volstad was good for three runs on four hits in one inning of work.  You would think the Sox release of the veteran righty on Friday would be good new, but I don’t see it that way, really.

Why?  Because the Sox refuses to call up any of their highly touted rookies.  Michael Kopech, with his 135 strikeouts in 99.1 innings at Triple A, stays mired in Charlotte.  What that means is added pressure on the likes of Lopez, who was very good pitching through June, until the need to be very good every start (thereby keeping the likes of Chris Volstad sitting in the bullpen) finally became too much.  By trying to protect a young pitcher, the Sox risk ruining another.

Did I mention outfielder Eloy Jimenez?  Well, Renteria or general manager Rick Hahn does, it’s all about how Jimenez can’t be rushed, that he has to be ready for the big show by passing tests the exact nature of which can’t be revealed.  So far this year, Jimenez has hit .317 in Double A with ten homeruns and 42 RBIs and .372 at Triple A, with six homers and 10 RBIs after his promotion in early July.

Heaven forbid anyone good should get called up to play at 35^th and Shields.  That would start the clock on team control, and it might even lead to winning baseball.  We wouldn’t want that, now would we?

I Knew a Guy Just Like That

 The Tribune did a nice story on Thursday about the father of Cubs’ starter Kyle Henricks, who pitched for Dartmouth in college.  John Hendricks would sit off by himself all the way down the left-field line those days his son pitched.  That reminded me of a pitcher at Elmhurst.

Probably the best pitcher in school history; she and Clare were teammates for two years.  In all that time I never saw her father in the stands.  In fact, the first year, I didn’t even know he attended games, but Clare would spot him by the fence when she played the outfield.  Two years and not a word passed between us.  Now, both our daughters are ex-players, and he smiles, shyly, when we meet at the annual alumni game.

John Hendricks attends home games his son pitches, and agonizes through it.  That would be me.  High school or college, I’d sit there in the bleachers and grunt after every pitch Clare swung at and missed or should have swung at but took instead.  Hendricks’ wife tries to calm him down just as my wife tried with me.

That was your pitch, Clare, your pitch.

Tour de Me, Stage 60

Right around my birthday, I like to take as long a bike ride as I can stand.  If it doesn’t kill me, I figure I’m good for another year.  On Wednesday, with the temperature scraping 90 degrees, I figured 60 miles would do.  Good news is, I’m still here, though not for lack of effort on the part of the Elmhurst section of the Salt Creek Trail.

At the beginning of the 20^th century, some contemporaries of architect and urban planner Daniel “Make No Small Plans” Burnham pushed for the creation of a forest belt to circle Chicago.  Their efforts led to the creation of a system now totaling some 69,000 acres.  This cyclist thanks them for their service.

Parts of the trail I rode Wednesday make you feel like you’re in the middle of the forest primeval; I don’t know whether to expect the Knights of the Round Table to come charging out of the trees, or members of the Wehrmacht.  This particular trail leads to Busse Woods, which is a group of small interconnected lakes surrounded by yet more knight-worthy woods.  Oh, and for reasons I don’t quite understand, a large fenced-in area for a herd of elk.

Like I said, this was a 60-mile undertaking.  Around mile 45, the trail cuts through Elmhurst, not far from where Clare went to college or from where she and Chris now live.  For no good reason that I can see, the section is layered with wood chips; not quite quicksand for a bicycle, but close.  As I was pumping away and probably turning a deep shade of red, a wood chip the size of Rhode Island got caught in my front brakes.  And down I went.

The nice thing about wood chips is they make for a nice cushion when you fall.  The bad thing about wood chips is they can make you fall.  I counted my blessings, with all bones intact, and emailed the Elmhurst park district my thoughts on their choice of trail materials.  Come next year, I may be looking for another trail to take.   

Sorry, Sort of

Both NBC News and the New York Times had stories on a youth soccer referee in Oklahoma who’s turned the tables on abusive parents by posting video of their behavior.  I saw plenty of parents yell at umps and coaches.  I also showered my share of abuse on the men—and women—in blue.  Maybe there’s video of me floating in the cloud somewhere.

I never swore, I never laid hands on anyone.  I can’t speak for other parents, but with me it was all about the quality of the call.  Way too many umps had floating strike zones that changed batter to batter, inning to inning.  If an umpire wasn’t going to call a consistent strike zone, I had no intention of keeping quiet about it.

I was more smart ass than anything.  Once, when an ump rang Clare up on a shoulder-high pitch, I sounded off until the ump threaten to run me.  That’s when I said, “I’m just exercising my First Amendment rights.”  Blue didn’t know how to respond, and I kept my seat in the bleachers.

But there has to be a line.  What I say could goad others to act, though it never happened in the eight years I watched my daughter play softball.  Ultimately, the threat of violence together with the frustration that comes from watching too many bad calls will lead to the adoption of electronic strike zones.  It could start in travel and high school, then work its way to college and the pros.  There are just too many umpiring mistakes to ignore.

Yes, it would be nice if we could go back to the good old days when umpires acted as God.  On second thought, no, it wouldn’t.  Now that we have the means to quantify mistakes, the days of E-ump are numbered.  Baseball and softball will have their human element reduced, yes, but, absent abolishing technology, I don’t see an alternative.

You Had Me at "Coach"

In case there were any doubts, the Tribune settled them yesterday with a page-one story on new Bears’ coach Matt Nagy:  “Nagy’s Active Mind A Beautiful Thing/Gigantic idea board encourages Bears staff to suggest, promote, refine, execute ideas.”  Yup, that’s what you call honeymoon coverage. Along with the TV report on how players and Nagy are “bonding.”  But if I were Nagy, I wouldn’t get too comfortable with all the adulation.  If the Chicago media runs true to form, love will turn to hate in due time.

I remember when Marc Trestman was hired, and the local sports’ media went nuts over the fact he’d written a book on motivation; sports’ people acted like Trestman’s first name was a cross between “Pulitzer” and “Nobel.”  Only Trestman couldn’t apply his motivational techniques to the team at hand, and it was “So long, Marc” after two seasons.  And, hello, John Fox.

We all know how that went, right?  

This is Exactly What I was Talking About

 The White Sox stink too much for me to stay up late for a West Coast game, and, even if they didn’t, I’m too old for that sort of thing.  Instead, I went to bed nice and early, got up refreshed and looked up the score online.  You didn’t think I was going to say I checked the box score in the paper, did you? 

Lo and behold, the 35-61 Sox beat the 50-51 Angels by a score of 5-3.  Anytime young right-hander Lucas Giolito can find the plate, I’m happy, and Giolito found the plate often enough to improve his record to 7-8 (and “lower” his ERA to 6.09).  Oh, but the managing.

Rick Renteria of the Sox used six relievers, four going a third of an inning and one going two thirds of an inning; in contrast, the Angels employed a mere four relievers.  Meanwhile, at the circus known as Joe Maddon’s Cubs, ringmaster Joe again used position players, two to be exact, to pitch in last night’s 7-1 loss to the Diamondbacks; catcher Victor Caratini made his second relief appearance in four days.  Where is any of this good baseball?

Rick, look at your record and tell me why you’re managing like it’s the seventh game of the World Series.  Joe, explain to me why it’s so important to set a record for a team having the most pitching appearances in a season by position players?  Last time I looked, Babe Ruth is dead, and he ain’t coming back.

Detox

After eight years, I must finally be getting travel ball out of my system.  I’ve only thought about it twice so far this summer.

The first time was at Clare’s wedding reception, during my toast to be exact.  That Saturday happened to coincide with the ninth anniversary of Clare hitting five homeruns in a tournament, which I let everyone know about.  And this being the end of July punctuated by my birthday on the 30^th, I’m thinking of it again.  Trust me, birthdays and travel ball don’t mix, at least if you want a nice cake while your kid is playing at nationals, the last big tournament of the season.

As luck would have it, today is the ninth anniversary of Mark Buehrle’s perfect game against the Rays; we saw the last inning at a hotel in Salisbury, Maryland.  Clare had just suffered what may have been her second concussion that week at nationals.  The first happened when an infielder slapped a tag on Clare’s helmet so hard her head bounced off the infield dirt .  But a repeat of that would have been preferable to what came nest.

The second baseman tripped Clare while covering first base.  It was raining, which made everything slippery and helps explain why my daughter took to the air and did a perfect-360 before landing on her back.  When Michele and I ran out to check on our daughter, one of our coaches started yelling at my wife to get off the field, parents weren’t allowed on (it was OK for me because I was technically a coach).  Michele said simply, “Let them.”  I think the clown was afraid we would forfeit a game we were close to winning by the slaughter rule.

The Buehrle game took our minds off what had been a miserable summer—those five homeruns hit without a college coach witnessing them, the inexcusable behavior of a coach who felt the need to tell Clare she would never play in college.  (Thank goodness the college recruiters started contacting us as soon as we got home.)  You don’t miss stuff like that.


What I do miss are the at-bats, how my daughter would immediately fall into a 0-2 hole before getting serious; I learned to find refuge in the mini-eternities between pitches, foul ball after foul ball until my child connected.  That, along with the homeruns.

Say What?

I’m a Bears’ fan in so far as I like to ride my exercycle to something on a Sunday afternoon.  Given that it’s more fun to watch winning football than losing football, I want rookie coach Matt Nagy to do well (as announcers try to figure out the correct pronunciation of his name.  Nah-zhee, anyone?)  But I heard Nagy say something Thursday that gave me pause.

“We have to callous our team a little bit,” Nagy told reporters at the opening of camp.  How exactly “callous” works as a verb Nagy didn’t say, and no reporter as far as I know pressed him to explain.  Two Trib columnists, though, seemed to be on board with the message.  “How refreshing” and “how promising,” said one.  What a “departure from the country-club atmosphere the Bears have had in July and August in recent years,” said the other.

The thing is, the contact that Nagy is promising and much if not all of the local media is looking forward to doesn’t produce callouses; it risks injuries immediate and long term.  Practice hard, yes, but avoid anything that leads to concussions.  No?

Dumb, Stupid, Idiotic

Two takeaways from the 18-5 drubbing the Cardinals administered to the Cubs yesterday:  You need good pitching to win, and more pitching isn’t necessarily the same as good pitching.

Cubs’ manager Joe “The Genius” Maddon used three position players—catcher Victor Caratini, infielder Tommy LaStella and outfielder Ian Happ—on the mound in addition to three normal relievers; all of them followed starter Jon Lester, who gave up eight earned runs in three-plus innings of work.  Going into the game, the Cubs were carrying thirteen pitchers.  By using three position players, Maddon in effect increased his staff to sixteen.  Way to go, Joe.

And how would I have handled the situation?  The three position players pitched 3-1/3 innings; any one of them could have done that.  Of course, a good or even a mediocre knuckleballer could have done it, too.  Oh, where have you gone, Hoyt Wilhelm, Phil Niekro, Tim Wakefield….

Tour De Me

Do highway overpasses count on the Tour de France?  They should.  I did three Wednesday, along with two rises away from the Fox River.  None of them seems to have killed me, yet.

I bike different trails for different reasons.  Wednesday, I wanted something more challenging than the lakefront.   I found it on the Illinois Prairie Path leading out of Wheaton; the path alternates between semirural and rural areas in northern Illinois.  A variety of trees and wetlands makes for some pleasant scenery.  The coyote that jumped on the path fifty yards ahead of me was more of a surprise.  Then again, (s)he probably wasn’t expecting to be chased by an old guy on a Schwinn ten-speed.  Our encounter lasted for about fifty yards before the coyote made a quick exit off the path.

By way of a humble brag, let me say I don’t see how people bike in Iowa with all that rolling countryside; the two rises were enough for me.  The first one climbs nice and steady for a quarter- to a third of a mile.  There’s a fairly long bridge right before the rise, the wooden boards so loose its’ all but impossible to work up any speed before hitting the incline.  By the top, I looked like Marcel Marceau, pedaling while hardly moving.  Oh, and my lungs felt like they were on fire.  I could feel the burn.

The only thing that makes it bearable is the knowledge that what goes up must come down; the descent after the rise is just as steady and a good deal more enjoyable.  That’s probably what gets the folks through Iowa, along with stronger legs than I’ll ever have.  Anyway, the second rise is a lot shorter, and steeper.  By the end of it, I look like Marcel Marceau, totally gassed.  I swear the Schwinn was standing absolutely still at the end of the rise.  How I managed not to fall over is a mystery.

The trail, or series of trails, is about 45 miles long, most of it wooded and with little company.  At one point, I turned onto a county or state road and passed a large dairy farm.  The cows enjoyed what diversion I provided them—look, it’s Marcel Marceau wearing a helmet over his baseball cap.  Their owner had a sign out front, Our farm exports.

An hour later, I saw a bumper sticker that offered the perfect rejoinder:  Elect a clown, expect a circus.  Marcel finished his trip in just under four hours. Oui! 

As I was Saying

All right.  Who can tell me about Serena Williams?  And Elizabeth Cambage?  I thought so.

Cambage, 6’8” center for the Dallas Wings, set a WNBA record Tuesday when she scored 53 points against the New York Liberty.  The only reason I know this is because I happened upon the two sentences the Tribune devoted to Cambage’s feat in Wednesday’s sports’ section; that’s two more sentences than in the Sun-Times, by the way.

Yes, it’s possible that Cambage got big play on TV; my guess would be ESPN, if anywhere.  But I doubt she merited much if any attention on the local stations; the papers would’ve devoted more space if that had happened.  No, this Australian, who happens to be three months older than my daughter, set a record that generated just about as much attention as the proverbial tree falling in the middle of the forest.  Crash—did you hear something?

The sports’ establishment seems most comfortable allotting attention to women athletes in individual sports, viz., tennis and golf.  But basketball?  Good luck getting coverage.  And professional softball?  Homeruns in softball rarely make the nightly news.  Technical problems, no doubt.

I’m of the opinion women’s professional basketball and softball are doomed, absent a massive infusion of money over the course of a decade, not a season or two.  Then again, I’m just a crank who thinks girls should be playing baseball.  Women, too.    

Spring Preditictions

I must have been in a rare mood a few months ago to buy three baseball magazines.  I mean, who does that when his team is on pace to lose close to 110 games?  Oh, that’s right.  At the start of every season, there’s still hope, even for the White Sox.

With the All-Star break here, I thought it was time to give the magazines a closer look.  Yes, I buy without reading.  I buy because it’s something I’ve done since I was a kid; there’s a 1968 baseball magazine somewhere in the basement, under the Lionel layout, maybe.  I don’t read what I buy because it bothers me too much to be reminded of the difference in talent between my team and the one on the North Side.  If you think I’m bad, you should see my daughter.  Clare dropped by to watch the Home Run Derby Monday night and screamed like our guys had won the World Series when Bryce Drew outhomered the Cubs’ Kyle Schwarber for the crown.

Anyway, the three magazines in question are Athlon Sports; Lindy’s; and Street and Smith.  All three of them have the Yankees beating out the Red Sox in the AL East (not so far, guys), with the Nationals winning the NL East; that one all three of them might want to revise.  Athlon and Lindy’s also would do well to reconsider the Mets finishing in second behind the Nats; I have them as a possible 100-loss team.  The Sox are ranked either third or fourth in the AL Central.

I could point out other predictions that would make the neighborhood psychic cringe in embarrassment, but that would be cruel.  The thing is, you want predictions on Opening Day.  They’re a measure and a guess, just what fans need to settle into a season.  The only prediction that bothered me was Athlon’s rating of the top forty high school draft prospects.  Hey, guys, we’re talking 17- and 18-year olds.  Let’s leave them alone, OK?  Adolescents have enough pressure in life.  How a national magazine rates them—or chooses not to—as athletes could be the proverbial straw breaking somebody’s confidence, or worse.

Elsewhere, the good guys beat the NL 8-6 in ten innings Tuesday night to pull ahead 44-43-2 in All-Star play since that first game at Comiskey Park in 1933.

Memories

The White Sox celebrated the 25^th anniversary of the 1993 Western Division championship team, and everybody appeared to be on their best behavior, from Frank Thomas and Jack McDowell to Ozzie Guillen and hitting coach Walt Hriniak.  Outside of some general talk about “what might have been” if not for a players’ strike ending the 1994 season that August, nobody said anything in the least bit unpleasant.  So, allow me.      

The 1993 team was the product of general manager Larry Himes, who over the course of four straight years (1986-1990) drafted McDowell, Robin Ventura, Frank Thomas and Alex Fernandez.  In other words, Himes secured a HOF hitter, an excellent third baseman (if crappy manager) and two first-rate starting pitchers.  Only Himes got the boot at the end of the 1990 season for reasons that have never been made public beyond talk from Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf about the needing someone who could take the team from Point A to Point C.

You could already see how good the team was after Thomas and Fernandez were brought up in August of 1990, the last year of Comiskey Park.  The ’93 team played in the mall that Reinsdorf had the public build for him.  As I recall, there were complaints during the ALCS with Toronto that the atmosphere of the new park lacked excitement.  What mall is ever exciting?

I also recall Reinsdorf as a hardliner, if not the hardliner, among owners during the strike; here was one owner who wasn’t going to be dictated to by players.  Because McDowell was something of a free spirit unconcerned with what an owner wanted or believed in (like relatively short contracts for starting pitchers), he was traded to the Yankees at the fairly young age of 28; eventually, all the other pieces assembled by Himes would be traded or allowed to walk.  After the strike ended and Reinsdorf’s hardline stance was rejected, the Sox owner responded by signing Albert Belle in 1996 to what was then the largest contract in MLB history.  Albert Belle and Jerry Reinsdorf, a marriage made in heaven.

I honestly didn’t root for the Sox in ’93.  I opposed the team abandoning Comiskey Park and didn’t care much for how Reinsdorf behaved as an owner.  That’s the thing about kids; they don’t have your baggage.  My daughter, born in November of 1991, identified with the Sox almost as soon as she could watch a game, so I did too, again.  It’s too bad Clare doesn’t remember the ’93 club.

Those guys were pretty good.

Poor Baby

Player agent Scott Boras wants other teams to stop picking on his client Bryce Harper because they’re making it hard for Harper to command the contract Boras wants to negotiate for him next year.

Harper is having an odd walk-year with the Nationals, hitting only .214 with 102 strikeouts to go with 23 homeruns, 54 RBIs, 78 walks and a .365 OBP.  Those numbers are closer to a very good Mark Reynolds than an “average” Ted Williams, and Boras will have none of that.

“There’s no question that with the walk rates that Bryce Harper has the’ going to have less hits,” Boras told reporters earlier this month.  “No doubt about that.”  If Harper is more in the Mark Reynolds’ category, then yes.  But if Boras truly believes his client is one of the all-time greats, then no.  Twice in his career, Williams walked 162 times in a season.  In 1947, he coupled that with 181 hits and a .343 batting average; two years later, Williams managed 194 hits while again hitting .343.  Harper has never recorded more than 172 hits in a season.

Along with all those pesky walks Harper keeps getting, Boras thinks his client is being hurt by defensive shifts.  “I’ve certainly come to the conclusion that shifting is grandly discriminatory against power left handed hitters.”  Why, if shifts are allowed to continue, Boras can even see the day when parents will turn their little Bryce Harpers around to hit right-handed only.

Yes, let’s intervene so that left-handed hitters can maintain their advantage against the bulk of major-league pitchers, who happen to be right-handed.  We should always remember that what’s good for Scott Boras is good for baseball and what’s good for baseball had better be good for Scott Boras.  Or else.

Keeping Score

Nobody in my house or what is now an extended family could care less about the World Cup.  But my wife and daughter care very much about the women at Wimbledon, Serena Williams most of all.  Yesterday morning started off with Clare texting her mother complaining that the men—Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal locked in a five-hour, fifteen-minutes semi-finals contest—were delaying the start of what to her was the premier match of the day.  A few hours later, my wife left—reluctantly—to get her nails down.  “They won’t have Wimbledon on at the salon,” she was certain.  No, they wouldn’t.

Even though Williams lost the women’s finals in straight sets to Angelique Kerber, she remains one of the great draws in professional sports, if not Michael Jordan then at least in the same ballpark.  (Consider that cliché, metaphor and double entendre rolled into one.)  If the WNBA and women’s pro softball want to survive, they need players with the draw of Williams.

For that, you can call me Captain Obvious.  How to turn an Elena Della Donne into a Serena Williams remains the multi-million dollar question.   

Catching On

White Sox catcher Omar Narvaez had all of one RBI when starting catcher Wellington Castillo was hit with an 80-game suspension for PEDs in late May, and Kevan Smith—who shared catching duties with Narvaez last season—was stuck in Charlotte through no real fault of his own.  Since then, Narvaez is hitting .286 with sixteen more RBIs while Smith is batting .321 with six RBIs since his call up.  So, what gives?

In a way, absolutely nothing.  Narvaez and Smith showed last season they could hit.  Narvaez was good for a .277 BA and an eye-popping .373 OBP; Smith hit .283 with 21 extra-base hits.  Between them, they totaled 44 RBIs, which isn’t great but also doesn’t matter.  If your catchers keep getting on base, they move the line and generate more at-bats for the top half of the order.  Why the Sox signed Castillo in the off-season remains a mystery (although GM Rick Hahn may have explained it in that passive-voice, convoluted-syntax way of his).  If nothing else, Castillo was supposed to offer a veteran presence for a young starting staff.  Why, then, does walk-wild Lucas Giolito seem to do so much better with Smith behind the plate?  

The Sox could’ve saved in the neighborhood of $15 million by taking a pass on Castillo.  They have two catchers in the minors, Seby Zavala and Zach Collins, either of whom could emerge as a number-one next year.  But, No, now we have a “situation” as soon as Castillo finishes his suspension in August.

There’s only one right way to proceed when that happens.  Let’s see if Hahn and company can figure it out.  Fingers crossed, but don’t hold your breath.

Joe, Meet Torey. Bruce, I Don't Know

Here, I went and talked about how ball clubs burn through relief pitchers in extra-inning games, as well as the regular kind, before Joe Maddon of the Cubs could help me prove my point.  It happened as the Cubs and Giants hooked up for a 13-inning affair Wednesday afternoon, with the Cubs on the short end of a 5-4 score.  The losers went through seven pitchers, rookie James Norwood getting the loss in his big-league debut.

Seven pitchers for 13 innings?  You have got to be kidding me.  And throwing a rookie into the fire like that?  Again, a joke, only winning manager Bruce Bochy also burned through seven pitchers, and Dereck Rodriguez, who recorded the win, was making just his ninth major-league appearance.

Guys, take it from someone who’s studied the box scores—start looking for relievers who can pitch two or more innings at a time.

Pie in the Sky

The Tampa Bay Rays have just released renderings of a proposed new stadium.  Heaven help Rays’ fans—if in fact there are any—should this thing ever gets built.  It looks a little bit like the Twins’ old Metrodome, only flattened and with a see-through roof.

The stadium would have a mere 28,216 permanent seats for a total capacity of just under 31,000.  At one time or another, Comiskey Park had a capacity of 52,000; Ebbets Field, 35,000; Forbes Field, 41,000; and the Polo Grounds, 55,000.  And let’s not forget the old Yankee Stadium at 70,000 and Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium, 78,000.  That paltry number of seats can only mean one thing:  the Rays don’t want baseball for the masses, but the classes.

The estimated cost is in the neighborhood of $900 million, with the Rays mum on exactly how much they would contribute.  I can just imagine fans broiling under that translucent roof.  How do you spell “design fiasco”?  It shouldn’t be with public money.

Here’s a thought.  At $900 million, you could basically rebuild all of the classic ballparks.  Why don’t the Rays do that and play every series in a new-old park?  Better that than yet another Wi-Fi friendly venue.   

Pitching, Pitching Everywhere

The Padres and Diamondbacks went 16 innings Sunday, San Diego going through nine pitchers and Arizona ten.  That’s right, D-backs’ manager Torey Lovullo couldn’t find a losing pitcher until he called on catcher Jeff Mathis to move from behind the plate, where he’d spent the entire game to that point, to the mound.  Lovullo gets my vote for dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks managing award.

Think about it.  The man burned through nine pitchers before risking his catcher to injury.  Arizona carries “only” twelve pitchers, and Lovullo did use two pinch hitters.  Well, maybe number three would’ve worked if only they carried more position players.  But I show my age in saying that.

Because I have the makings of a pack rat, I was able to pull out my 1968 White Sox yearbook, which included box scores from two extra-inning games for the ’67 team.  In a 6-5 22-inning loss to the Senators, Sox manager Eddie Stanky used but six pitchers, with John Buzhardt taking the loss in eight innings of relief.  A 17-inning 1-0 win over Cleveland featured four Sox pitchers, including starter Gary Peters, who went the first eleven innings.

No, I don’t expect pitchers to go eleven, but it would be nice to see them go more than 2/3 of an inning, as two of the Arizona pitchers did.  Oh, and that 17-inning game took all of 4:32 to play vs. 5:31 for Sunday’s game.  The 22-inning game—or 21-1/3 to be precise—took 6:38, an hour and seven minutes basically for six more innings.

Really, some stuff old should be new again.

The Art of the Tank

With Sunday’s fourth straight loss in Houston, the White Sox find themselves with a record of 30-60.  If they keep up the pace, they’ll lose 107 games, or one more than the 1970 team, the all-time losers, if you will.  In which case, I will have been witness to, arguable, the two worst-ever seasons for a team that’s been around since 1901.  This is something I would not wish on my worst enemy; assuming our president even understood the game.

Now, here’s the thing—107 losses won’t even guarantee next year’s top pick in the draft, whoever that might be.  The Royals and Orioles are the proud owners of even worse records than the Sox while the Marlins and Mets (hello, Todd Frazier) might also give them a run for the money, or basement.  Oh, what wicked webs we weave when first seek to…tank.

They ought to sell tickets to this tussle in a pig sty; oh, wait, they already do, and people aren’t especially interested in paying good money to watch some very bad baseball.  Maybe that’s just as well.  The White Sox can keep following their “we will promote no rookie before his time” plan, and next to no one will notice.  But they’ll still keep charging an arm and a leg for concessions.

Some things never change.

Tiniest Sliver of Hope

What a disaster this year has been for the White Sox and, more importantly, their fans.  Nobody expected the team to be this bad, winning just a third of their first 90 games.  At least we can take solace in the development of Avi Garcia, assuming Sox GM Rick Hahn doesn’t rush off and trade him..

Garcia came to the White Sox as part of a three-way trade in 2013; one day, we had Jake Peavy, the next Peavy was shipped off to Boston and Garcia came over from Detroit.  The buzz on the newest member of the White Sox was that he had the tools to be another Miguel Cabrera.  Mostly, Sox fans were just happy he wasn’t Jake Peavy.

Garcia hit .304 in that first half-season on the South Side before missing most of 2014 with a shoulder injury.  The next two seasons were an exercise in frustration, both for Garcia and Sox fans.  At 6’4”, Garcia looked the part of a power hitter, not unlike Aaron Judge, but he struck out too much, that is, when he wasn’t grounding out.  Then came last season.

Talk about turning it around.  The 26-year old Garcia batted .330 with 18 homeruns and 80 RBIs to go with a .380 on-base percentage.  Naturally, people wondered if he could post similar numbers this year.  Through the end of April, the answer was pretty much, No.  Then he went on the DL with a hamstring injury.  For reasons best known to himself, Garcia reverted to 2017 when the Sox reactivated him June 22^nd.

Garcia hiked his average from .233 to .282, with eight homers in his last thirteen games.  I don’t know what’s more irritating now, listening to people debate whether they should trade him (for what, another outfielder?) or seeing how he was pulled in the middle of yesterday’s game against the Astros when his hamstring flared up.

When it rains it pours, I guess.

This and That

As if watching my daughter get married last Saturday wasn’t emotional enough, I then had to give the first of three toasts at the reception.  Luckily, Clare had provided the perfect opening line when she first informed me of this responsibility:  “Remember, Dad, it’s a toast, not a roast.”  I turned it into a little of both.

This gave me the chance to call out the child who dialed 9-1-1 at Grandma’s (never suspecting they’d call back and I’d pick up the phone) and who dented the PT Cruiser on the way to softball practice in high school (and who finally confessed to the crime six years after the fact).  It also allowed me to note that Clare’s wedding day fell on the ninth anniversary of the travel tournament where she hit five homeruns in two days.

With all that said, I was then ready to wish my daughter and son-in-law a love that would accompany them from here to eternity.  After the applause—polite or sincere, I couldn’t say—died down, I performed one last fatherly duty by telling Clare not to swing at anything in her eyes.  Better late than never, I say.

Time Has Come Today

According to a Forbes’ Magazine story from last month, MLB attendance is down 6.6 percent from the same time last year and is at its lowest average in fifteen years. As you might expect, Commissioner Rob Manfred is concerned.  Maybe they need more homeruns.

I mean, that’s what supposedly saved baseball after the 1994 strike, a PEDs-infused homerun barrage courtesy of Bonds, McGwire, Sosa et al.  But wait, now we have ostensibly clean players bashing away, too, Judge, Stanton, Trout et al.  Have fans grown bored by the long ball?

I have, but I’m just a White Sox fan, who was brought up on good pitching, sound defense, and speed; that formula had hardly any room in it for power.  Needless to say, the whole launch-angle thing leaves me cold.  All it does is encourage teams to seek bigger, stronger players who can hit 115-mph homeruns and pitchers who can throw 100-mph fastballs to strike out said hitters.  Loads of fun, that.

On Sunday, the Mariners beat the Royals 1-0.  For the season, Seattle is 26-11 in one-run ballgames.  The contest took all of two hours to play.  Somewhere, Mark Buehrle is smiling along with this old White Sox fan.  Of course, the Mariners may be a little upset that they didn’t get to sell another hour’s worth of overpriced concessions.  But I’m willing to bet the 38, 344 Mariners’ fans on hand couldn’t have cared less. 

On the Road Again

LeBron James has left the building known as Cleveland, yet again.  James is moving to LA to become a Laker, for four years and $154 million, with an out-clause after year three.  What can you do but wish the man well, and advise him that such moves have consequences.

Even Cavaliers’ fans must know that NBA stars rarely stay put for long; Cleveland had James, lost him, got him back, and now he’s gone again, saying very nice things about northeast Ohio on his way out.  I wonder, though, if what James the athlete has done will affect his chances for public office.  How to put this?  You move around enough, and eventually you turn into Hillary Clinton, who tried to sell herself as both a Cubs’ and Yankees’ fan.  Oh, that went over well on the South Side.

If James had stayed in Cleveland, that would have solidified his standing in the community.  He could’ve taken over as a player-coach or dictated who should be on the roster, and no one would’ve cared.  What would have mattered was his commitment to place, now, not at some point after his playing career ended.  Maybe he still has an Ohio voice and perspective on issues, but it will come with a West Coast accent that not everyone in the vicinity of Lake Erie will appreciate.

While You Were Away

While I was busy being the father of the bride and emerging from the attendant fog of wedding toasts and dances, the White Sox announced five international signings, with the players hailing from either Cuba or Venezuela.  If only my team would bother to watch more local TV.

Lately, the Chicago Bandits have been running commercials, and they’re quite good, at least as good as anything proclaiming “Ricky’s boys don’t quit.”  But they can sure stink up the joint.  Somebody from the Sox front office might want to take a trip on the Tollway to the Bandits’ stadium.  Those girls sure look like they don’t quit, either.

Given the inability of Chicago teams to scout talent in their respective backyards, I’d be more than happy to give directions.  Heck, I’ll even drive Rick Hahn out there, no charge.

Wedding Bells

After four days, the emotions are starting to recede, and I can remember at least some parts of Clare’s wedding.  It’s safe to say my daughter was a beautiful bride.

By my count, there were six softball teammates in attendance, plus one.  I put it that way because that girl was a senior when Clare was a freshman, so they only played together for a year, and, in a way, she was Chris’s guest, or at least she’s married to a former Elmhurst football player Chris invited to the wedding.  That, and she was the incumbent second baseman when Clare arrived.  “You’re the reason my daughter ended up in the outfield,” I said in introducing myself at the reception.

My daughter and her friends cleaned up quite nicely, and two of them in particular spoke with some passion when I asked if they missed playing.  I know I miss watching.  This must be what they mean by growing up and moving on.