News reports indicate that the
White Sox have made a formal offer to
free agent Manny Machado, he of “Johnny Hustle” notoriety. Among the many Sox fans who want to know why
their team is bothering with Machado and hoping he won’t take the offer (in the
area of $200 million for a possible seven years) is my daughter.
Clare didn’t have to hustle, not
really. Her high school softball coach
had known her since third grade and in all likelihood spent the next six years on
his knees praying she’d go to his school; I do know he let her play on his
summer high school team after sixth and seventh grade. And Elmhurst College came after her, not the
other way around. But none of this is to
say the girl was to the manor born.
I remember two college camps where
she was expected to dive in the dirt after balls; one of the times she risked
infection because a thigh was all scraped up.
But dive the girl did. And there
was another drill where she and a partner had to run to the fence after a ball while
a third participant tried to circle the bases before the other two could touch
the ball. Go fetch, and they did,
beating the runner.
We drove home after the Loyola University
camp, the father all proud at how well his daughter had done, the daughter an
exhausted and sweating in the back seat.
Clare played with the same intensity for her high school team, her
college team, her travel teams. It’s
become a part of her. God forbid she
runs across someone she thinks isn’t giving a full effort; that person is dead
to her.
Think Manny Machado.
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