Football 24/7

Football 24/7

 

Forgive my confusion on this last day of February.  The Bulls are tanking, the Blackhawks are “contending” for the last playoff spot in the NHL, and spring training is in full swing.  You’d think that spring dreams would get their due in the Tribune sports’ section, but No.  It’s Bears, Bears, Bears, even with their 2018 season nearly two months over and their 2019 opener six months off.

 

Just take a look at the front page, 80 percent of which is given over to a story and illustration on the need for a kicker who can kick.  (If you need to ask, you don’t follow sports).  Page two is all football, with a column about the NFL combine and a story on the latest travails of former Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel.  Page three?  Why, there are stories on the Bears’ ground game; a combine press conference featuring GM Ryan Pace and head coach Matt Nagy; and the “pressing need” at nickel cornerback.  You can find news of the White Sox on page eight.

 

Financially speaking, the Tribune is trying desperately not to circle the drain into bankruptcy, so everyone there—not at Tribune Tower because last year the paper moved out of its home of nearly a century—must be betting the Bears will keep them to solvent.  That, or there’s some kind of football virus going around the sports’ department.

That could explain why I haven’t seen anything about Toni Harris, the young woman to become the first female skill-position player to earn a college scholarship; a safety in high school, Harris will be attending Central Methodist University in Fayette, Missouri.  The problem for the Tribune is she’s not a nickel back, I guess.   

 

Swing, Battah

I saw in the paper yesterday that the Cubs’ Kyle Schwarber is going back to the batting stance he used in college.  Schwarber told the Tribune that, after a number of changes in the wake of a .211 BA in 2017, “I’m going to go back to being simple.  Squat, put the foot down and go hit.”  Sounds like a bigger version of Matt Stairs to me, but go for it, I say.

 

Hitting is all about bats and stances, along with a modicum of talent.  Clare started off like a little Jeff Bagwell, feet spread so far apart I thought she’d snap.  Then there was a little bit of a front-leg kick followed by years of fighting with her dad.  Eventually, she would alternate between a straightaway stance and a slightly closed one, with her front (left) foot pointing to first base.  There was also a slight stride into the pitch and a slight wagging of the bat as the pitcher got ready to throw the ball.  Clare didn’t get there all at once, but, once she arrived, the balls did fly.

 

I’m sure that’s what Schwarber remembers and wants to regain.  For my money, he has a pretty clean stroke, compact even for a power hitter.  Personally, I believe in keeping it simple, unlike, say, the helicoptering antics of Kevin Youkilis with a bat or the approach that Tony Batista took.  A 14^th century clock had fewer moving parts than Batista’s stance and swing.

 

So, not everyone can do it simple, in which case it pays to remember the advice of the late and astute Bill Robinson, who once said, “A good hitting instructor is able to mold his teachings to the individual.”  That kind of coach knows, “If a guy stands on his head, you perfect that.”

 

At least with Kyle Schwarber, he’s already right-side-up.

There and Gone

On Saturday, Arkansas’s Danielle Gibson became the second-ever NCAA Division-I player—and first softball player—to hit for what’s known as the home-run cycle. The sophomore hit a solo shot, two-run homer, three-run-homer and grand slam in a 15-3 rout of Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville.   The 6’0” sophomore was denied the chance at a fifth home run on account of the run/slaughter rule.

 

I know about Gibson both my daughter told me and I actually saw a headline of her feat Sunday on MLB.com.  Of course, it was gone by Monday.  We wouldn’t want people to start wondering if a player like that could hit a baseball, now would we?  I mean, does analytics even allow for such a thing?

 

Somebody ask Bill James.

Of Dates, Tables and Chairs

Of Dates, Tables and Chairs

 

On Saturday, Clare helped me disassemble our kitchen table.  Yesterday, I tossed the chairs, and today is the start of the high school softball season in Illinois.  And everything I just mentioned is connected.

 

The table once belonged to my parents, and it is part of my earliest memories of our kitchen on Homan Avenue.  At some point, I rescued the table out of my parents’ basement so it could do what it does best, only in our bungalow.  Ask Clare her earliest kitchen memories, and she’ll probably say they include being at that table.

 

I don’t know exactly when my mother told me the story, but it was after the table had come to us.  The story:  Pregnant with her first child—my big sister, Barbara—in early 1942, Mary Ann Bukowski decided that if the Japanese bombed the South Side of Chicago as they had Pearl Harbor, she was going to seek shelter under the kitchen table.  My jaw fairly dropped at the thought of it all.

 

But the table didn’t come to us with the original chairs.  They were lyre-backed and quite nice.  The problem was those lyres were plywood or a wood cut so thin that bits of the back had broken off; the chairs also came with some sort of vinyl or leather covering on the seats (without padding, in case you’re wondering) that had cracked.  My father either couldn’t find a replacement for the covering or had ripped it off intending for us to do without only to find the wood too rough for even-tough Bukowskis to sit on.  So out went the chairs.

 

And out went the chairs we had used for years since Clare’s junior year of high school.  I distinctly remember picking them up in late April, after a varsity game.  I checked my notes, and in the second game of a double header Clare batted third for the first time in her high school career.  It happened against New Trier, as in mighty New Trier, home of wealth and privilege.  We split on the afternoon, winning that second game in the bottom of the ninth.  My daughter had a walk-off single.

 

Those replacement chairs didn’t hold up as well as we would have wanted.  Then last week we chanced on a kitchen table and four matching chairs the same age as our other table, only the table is a little smaller, which is what I wanted.  There’s just two of us at home now, and a smaller table means less of a chance of walking into it in the middle of the night should someone get up for a drink of water.  But why did I throw out the other table?  I didn’t.

 

There are a few things going on where the two halves meet; the top is peeling away, and I want to see if a restorer can fix that.  If not, I’ll try.  When Clare found out we were getting a replacement table, she asked what we were going to do with the other one, which I didn’t know.  When she came over to help me take the table apart, I told her the story about Grandma and Aunt Barbara, which she didn’t know, and told her I wanted her to have the table if and when she moved into a house.  That, too, came as a surprise.  With luck, I’ll find four lyre-backed chairs somewhere before my daughter and her husband become homeowners.

And, like I said, today is the first official day of the high school softball season, when memories of a kind all come flooding back.      

Losers Writing About Failure

The dead-tree journalists at the Sun-Times are at it again, declaring the White Sox rebuild something between a disappointment and a failure.  Today, columnist Rick Morrissey wrote that losing free agent Manny Machado to the Padres “is like losing to a therapy dog” and “terribly incriminating for the Sox” because you should never “suffer the indignity of finishing behind such a historically bad franchise in the Machado sweepstakes.”  Oh, my gosh.

 

And Morrissey doesn’t want anyone bringing up the wisdom of a ten-year contract, either.  “A Machado and a Bryce Harper might not come around again for a decade or three,” writes our esteemed shadow owner and GM.  “A pair of 26-year old superstars on the market at the same time is rare.  It calls for action.  The Sox didn’t act with the appropriate financial urgency.”  Unlike, say, The Mariners when they signed 31-year Robinson Cano to a 10-year deal or Angels, who signed a 32-year old Albert Pujols to a 10-deal?  If only Morrissey had bothered to compare and contrast those signings.  I would’ve loved to read what he said about them at the time.

 

And then a couple of pages over, Sox beat-writer Daryl Van Schouwen cast some shade—I’m trying to stay hip with the kids—on the Sox rebuild by noting the injuries of  various prospects and the relatively low ranking ESPN’s Keith Law gave the minor-league system.  Law says the Sox are merely the 13^th best in baseball, behind Central Division rivals Minnesota and Cleveland.  Wow, Keith Law.  Talk about an authoritative source.  I wonder if it would be harder for Law to pass as me or me as him.

 

In general, I’m tired of sportswriters pretending to be general managers, and I’m especially tired of it with the folks at the Sun-Times.  This is a paper that not too long ago cut back on its comics’ section by a third and tried to drop its TV listings only to discover that’s one of the few reasons people bother to buy the paper.  Most days, the Times could pass for a sales circular.

 

Guys, try getting your own house in order first before you pontificate on baseball.        

Put On a Happy Face

From what I gather, White Sox fans not directly related to me are morose over the loss of free agent Manny Machado to the Padres.  I just don’t get it.

 

I caught a snippet of Machado’s news conference and was struck by what you might call a lack of maturity.  Then again, I haven’t been 26 since more than half a lifetime ago, so it could be me.  In that case, let me just say money does not make a man suddenly wise.  If it did, wouldn’t Machado have worried how he will fare in a pitcher’s ballpark?  Good thing he has that five-year opt-out. 

 

At least it looks like Sox players are ready to move on from the front office’s failed courtship of the Three-Hundred-Million-Dollar Man.  Tim Anderson sounded like he would defend his position at shortstop to the death, and Daniel Palka said the Sox will be good as constituted.  You have to love that kind of optimism.

 

And it will soon be spring, when anything is deemed possible.

Save Those Ticket Stubs

The Cubs announced they’re moving to electronic tickets this year.  A growing number of pro sports’ teams have done this in an effort to fight counterfeiters.  Basically, from now on, if you want to get into the ballpark, you’ll need an app and a mobile device.

 

So much for holding onto your ticket stubs.  I have an old White Sox program with a ticket stub glued to the front.  On August 6, 1944, the Sox dropped a doubleheader to the Tigers by scores of 10-3 and 3-1.  Eddie Lopat pitched for the Sox in game one while Dizzy Trout—father of Steve—hit a homerun for Detroit in game two.  I also have a stub from the one and only Bears’ game I’ve attended, December 13, 1970, a 35-17 beatdown of the Packers.  It was also the last Bears’ game at Wrigley Field.                          

 So, I can say I was there that cold if sunny Sunday afternoon and flash the proof, which I’ve done on more than one occasion. But now, we’ll all be able to say we were there, and people will have to take it on faith.  One other thing—do you really think counterfeiters won’t find away electronic tickets?             

  

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You Were Saying?

When we last heard from the Cubs’ Kris Bryant, he was telling the Tribune on Tuesday that, after two off-seasons in a row where the free-agent market has been slow, “I feel like the last CBA [collective bargaining agreement] we kind of got it stuck to us.”  And then Manny Machado had to go out and sign that $300 million deal.  Gosh, I wonder if Bryce Harper will sign for less.

 

Bryant also said, “Look, I get it.  It’s very hard to sympathize with guys making millions of dollars to play a game.  I totally get it.”  With all due respect, Kris, no, you don’t get it, not really.  You have no problem with escalating ticket prices and the Cubs moving to put virtually all their games on cable.  Not only is that no skin off your back, it promises to be more skin in your pocket, right?

Again, I hold no brief for the owners.  Let them do with their money as they want, provided I’m not subsidizing their stadiums in part or full.  Pay the players extraordinary salaries, or not.  Provoke a strike, or not.  But, when it comes to lay blame for killing the golden goose that is major league baseball, I don’t want anybody pointing fingers at fans.  We’re just the poor suckers who watch and pay.     

 

 

 

Silver Lining

Silver Lining

 

According to reports, the White Sox offered Manny Machado $250 million guaranteed with another $100 million in incentives.  Incentives for Mr. “I’m not Johnny Hustle”?  Little wonder that Machado took a guaranteed $300 million from the Padres.

The good news here is that the White Sox front office now has nowhere to hide—in year three of a rebuild, their young players will either start to perform as hoped or they’ll start their way out the door, in which case team V.P. Kenny Williams and GM Rick Hahn should be right behind them.  I mean, what kind of brain trust uses their #1 draft pick last June for a middle infielder (Nick Madrigal) and then pursues a free agent third baseman who wants to become a middle infielder?

 

If Yoan Moncada was worth the price of Chris Sale, he should be able to make the switch to third (and cut way down on his 217 strikeouts last season).  If Eloy Jimenez is the real deal, he’s got left.  If Tim Anderson’s improved play at shortstop rubs off on his hitting, that helps the top of the order.  Throw in Adam Engel (see Anderson, above) along with Paul Bunyan, aka Daniel Palka, and you’ve got yourself a fun bunch to watch until Madrigal and/or starter Dylan Cease get post-All Star Game call ups.  No Manny Machado signing required.

And if Moncada et al don't pan out.  Then start showing them the door along with the execs who brought them here. 

Strat-O Knows

Yesterday, I found myself playing the 1949 White Sox against the ’49 Pirates, two sixth-place teams locked in a Strat-O-Matic series.  The good guys, the American League, won in six.

 

I had 42-year old Luke Appling and his 121 walks batting third.  Let me repeat, 121 walks, and let me add, 24 (!!!) strikeouts in 619 plate appearances.  In a twenty-year career that began in 1930, Appling walked 1302 times while striking out 528 times.  By way of comparison, Yoan Moncada of the Sox has fanned 303 times in not even two full seasons.

 

Apples and oranges, past to present, never the two shall meet?  You can’t compare a Hall of Famer to a 23-year old work in progress?  Well, how about Eddie Joost, then?  He’s not in Cooperstown, in part because he was a career .239 hitter.  But guess what?  Joost walked 149 times in 1949, and he had a career .361 OBP over a seventeen seasons.

 

Or what about Eddie Yost, aptly nicknamed “The Walking Man”?  Yost only walked 91 times in 1949, but, hey, he was just 22.  The next season he managed141 free passes, and that wasn’t even a career best.  In 1956, Yost walked 151 times with the Senators.  In an eighteen-year career, Yost batted .254 while amassing a 394 OBP.  Twenty years, seventeen years, eighteen years—notice a pattern?

 

Ted Williams hit 43 homeruns (with 162 walks!) and Vern Stephens, his Red Sox teammate, chipped in with 39 long balls, so it’s not like we’re talking Dead Ball Era II here.  The whole approach to hitting was different, and in this case, superior to what it is today.  If there were more Eddie Joosts and Eddie Yosts around, let alone Luke Applings, you’d have a heck of a lot more scoring.

 

And people would realize baseball is about more than launch angles and exit velocity.

False Armistice

Clare texted Michele last night that the Padres reportedly had signed free agent Manny Machado to a big multi-year deal.  “Keep your fingers crossed,” I told Michele to text back.  “Pray to God,” answered my daughter.

 

I wonder how many White Sox players would agree, if only in private.  Does shortstop Tim Anderson want to move to centerfield because Machado thinks he can play short?  Does Adam Engel want to go from starting centerfielder to fourth outfielder?  Will Yolmer Sanchez be happy as a role player should Machado take over at third?  And Yoan Moncada?

 

Well, Moncada might not want to switch from second to third, but I’d say he’d be better at the hot corner while Sanchez has already shown how good he is at turning double plays at second base.  Make that switch, keep Anderson and Engel where they are and save your money for next offseason, when someone by the name of Chris Sale will be a free agent.

Only there's no official word yet on Machado signing.  Go, Padres, go.

Tea Leaves

Tea Leaves

 

In the past week I’ve read predictions of where free-agent Manny Machado will go based on pictures he’s posted on social media.  The fielding gloves he’s ordered for the new season are white and black.  Those are the White Sox team colors.  Ergo, Machado to the Sox.  Maybe.

 

Wait, Manny has posted a picture of baby shoes bearing the Sox logo!  (I actually scooped my daughter on this one when we were at dinner with her and Chris last week.  Of course, she immediately whipped out her phone to search for the photo).  Again, maybe.

 

It’s a good thing these purported analysts hang that “maybe” at the end of their speculation.  Otherwise, it’d sound like a prediction, the kind psychics give to gullible customers.  And that would be a crime.  Come to think of it, all these Machado-maybes are an offense.

 

Circle that Date

Clare called or texted the other day to inform her parents we’re all going to the White Sox game on August 9^th, against the A’s.  After the game will be a screening of “Field of Dreams.”

 

I go back and forth on favorite baseball movie—“Field of Dreams”; “The Natural”; “The Rookie”; “Eight Men Out”; “A League of Their Own.”  Any one of them will do in a pinch, or on a rainy day begging to be spent watching a movie.  But only “Field of Dreams” has a personal connection to us.

 

We took Clare to the movie site in Dyersville, Iowa, about a week after she hit a walk-off homerun in Bronco baseball and then on the next day finished fifth out of twenty-five in a homerun hitting contest, with all the opponents being boys.  It was the summer between sixth and seventh grade.

 

I’d bought a bucket of baseballs along and took to the mound.  First pitch a swing and a miss; second pitch a shot to the gap in left center; third pitch a line-drive head high, as in my head.  I’d give anything for those three pitches to be part of the movie. 

 

With Apologies to Joseph Heller

In yesterday’s Tribune, Cubs’ starter Jon Lester was quoted on the slow pace of free-agent signings this off-season:  “It sucks on our end.  Something has to give.  We got to figure out what’s actually going on with this stuff and get these guys [signed] who had pretty good years [but are] sitting at home right now.” 

 

In yesterday’s Sun-Times, Cubs’ starter Yu Darvish admitted that signing a six-year, $126 million contract last year affected his performance.  “Last year I didn’t say anything about that, but definitely I was thinking about [how] I had to do something for the Cubs.  I should win twenty games or something.”  Lester agreed that the pressure of a new contract can be hard to deal with.  “You try to live up to your contract every start, and you can’t do that.  You have to put that behind you as best you can,” which he thinks was hard for Darvish because of his arm injury.

 

So, let me get this straight.  Lester is upset by all the free agents who aren’t getting the deals they deserve while at the same time acknowledging the impossibility of living up to a big contract.  Isn’t that a rich Catch-22?          

Baseball for the One Percent

Good news, White Sox fans.  Cubs’ ownership may be driving off a cliff with Marquee, their new cable venture.  Once it gets up and running, presumably in 2020, the network will mean no more free broadcasts outside of a possible “game of the week” on Fox.

 

This is how team president of business operations Crane Kenney explained it in yesterday’s Tribune:  “We think the new network is going to give our fans unprecedented access and a richer, deeper connection to the team.”  Richer for whom?  Notice that Kenney didn’t mention cost.  And it will cost you, Cub fans.

 

Marquee will charge cable providers like Comcast, who in turn will pass the cost on through higher rates.  They say what goes up, must come down, but the Cubs apparently believe otherwise.  Similar network ventures for the Dodgers, Yankees and Astros have had mixed results, and cable rates have been so high for so long that consumers are beginning to flock to streaming alternatives.  Oh, and who wants 24/7 programming centered on the Cubs?  I hear ex-Cubs’ pitcher Ryan Dempster wants to have a talk show on the new network.  Personally, they’d have to pay me to watch.

 

The irony here is that the White Sox did something similar nearly forty years ago when Jerry Reinsdorf put Sox games on pay-TV.  This left the Cubs on WGN.  That was free for Chicago-area viewers and a bargain for cable viewers nationwide back in the days when cable packages were relatively cheap.  Hardly anybody wanted to pay to watch the Sox while all Chicago—and the U.S., for that matter—fell in love with the slightly daft, grandfatherly version of Cubs’ announcer Harry Caray.

 

And now, after all these years, the Ricketts family wants to return the favor.  I can only wish they crash and burn the way Reinsdorf did.  Tickets for Cubs’ games are already among the most expensive in baseball.  Up until now, at least, fans priced out of the Wrigley experience could still see games on free TV or a cable station that also broadcast Sox, Bulls and Blackhawk games.  But starting soon, Cub fans won’t even be able to do that.

Oh, crash and burn, please, I beg you.

Am Matter of Perspective

I opened today’s Tribune sports’ section to read that the Astros’ Justin Verlander thinks “the system is broken” because free agents haven’t been making a killing the last two off-seasons; it should be noted Verlander makes north of $25 million a year.  Oh, and a columnist asked, “Why do so many people label players greedy in these [salary] matters while letting owners skate?  Indeed.

 

But I refuse the either/or choice sportswriters would force on me.  As a fan, I don’t want to end up in the middle of a players-owners’ tug-of-war that ends up with me paying more to watch the game both in person and on TV.  I guess that tends to make me conservative on salaries.  Here’s the catch.

 

I’m also a taxpayer.  Critics are right that owners get away with way too much; that’s why I want to raise the capital-gains’ tax rate.  I’m also big on increasing income-tax rates on the upper brackets.  By now, it should come as no surprise I’m also a big fan of the estate tax.  I mean, what was good for Andrew Carnegie is good for me.

 

When the rich fight, the rest of us suffer.  Fair taxes on rich players and richer owners would make a nice buffer.

Loyalties

I am not Borg.  My daughter, she’s Borg down to the electronic device resting in her hand at all times while my wife is close to being fully assimilated.  Me, not so much.  So, I didn’t get Clare’s text directly last night.  She had to go through Michele, who shared her screen with me to read. 

 

The text consisted of a screenshot of the message from Heisman Trophy winner Kyler Murray, who also happens to be the Oakland A’s #1 pick from last year’s draft.  Murray announced he is “firmly and fully committing my life and time to becoming an NFL quarterback,” to which my daughter responded, Bad Idea, or words to that effect.

The A’s knew the risk in drafting Murray, so I don’t feel bad for them.  For his part, Murray doesn’t know the risks of playing quarterback in the NFL, not at 5’10”, so I do feel sorry for him, a little.  I’d say he’ll regret his choice before long, but that’s his problem.

 

What I find truly ironic is how the A’s, like all of baseball, would rather gamble on an athlete whose heart belongs to another sport than consider someone who’d give anything just to have a tryout, someone like my daughter. 

Well, like they say, what goes around comes around.

Book Reports

Well. It looks as though Lindsey Vonn was able to get through the weekend in Are, Sweden, without further damage to her knees.  In fact, Vonn walked into retirement with one last medal, a bronze.  As to what’s next for the 34-year old Minnesota native, only she and her oft-injured body know for sure.

 

As ever in sports, the young pursue the veteran.  Already, the almost-24-year old Mikaela Shiffrin has 56 World Cup wins to Vonn’s 82.  “I wrote book reports about her,” Shiffrin was quoted in an AP story today. Of course, that made me think of Clare.

 

No, my daughter didn’t ski.  I wouldn’t allow it; broken legs and softball don’t mix.  But she did spend much of grade school doing book reports on a sports figure, that being Jackie Robinson.  I’m sure there were books about Jennie Finch, who would seem to have been a more obvious choice.  Only Clare saw herself as a baseball player first.  That led her to Robinson, a fellow outlier. 

 

And the women of the AAGPBL, whose exploits were recounted, more or less accurately, in “A League of Their Own”?  She loves that movie and probably wishes it had led to a serious discussion of the role of women in baseball.  But women baseball players didn’t affect the game the way Jackie Robinson did, so Robinson it was.

 

Maybe Lindsey Vonn could get around those bad knees of hers by learning how to DH.  That would be good for a book or two.  I’m sure Clare would want to read it.

Getting Ready

After six months, this is Clare’s last week of physical therapy.  “I’m going to do the towel drill!” she told us yesterday during our visit to her apartment.  This is an inside joke between us, shorthand for any activity that makes next to no sense.  “And I’m going to swing with a stick.”  I should hope so.

 

My daughter plans to go to the batting cages because hitting is her talent, her golf.  She won’t be working to try out for the U.S. national team, though she’d get no resistance from me if she did, whatever the odds.  No, Clare will hit because it’s what she’s done since before the age of four, and, as Ted Williams could tell you, practice makes perfect, or at least a .400 batting average every once in a while.

 

“The first time it’ll be all bunts on the first token, and on the second and on the third, then we’re done,” my daughter informed me.  “The second time, all bunts the first two times, then swing away on the third token, and we’re done.”  The third time will be the charm, swinging for the fences each and every time.

 I can't wait. 

A Little Déjà vu

I was up at 6:30 on a Saturday morning to be out of the house by 7, in part because my purported better half needed an MRI on her right knee.  I told her not to drive to the basket against Antetokounmpo, but did she listen to me?

 

Walking to the car, I couldn’t help but feel that I’d been here before, if in slightly warmer temperatures.  We were always racing sunup to get to a travel tournament out in “Boo-foo,” as Clare called it.  Depending on the year, she was feeling some mix of confidence and uncertainty, or dread; that last year of travel was a nightmare, that is, until the two recruiting letters came.  Depending on the year, I probably felt exactly the same.

 Midmorning and we were in our daughter’s apartment.  I’d passed the Elmhurst softball field on the way, and now Clare had softball stories to tell.  We also talked about going to the cages now that her therapy for the labrum surgery was coming to an end.  The old mixed with the new in a most delightful way.    

 

 

Frank Robinson

Yesterday’s death of HOFer Frank Robinson reminded me of two related stories.  The first happened August 20, 1967, during the second game of a Orioles-White Sox doubleheader at Comiskey Park. 

 

The box score in baseball-reference.com pretty much supports my memory of one play in particular.  It was the top of the eighth, one out, a Baltimore runner on first and the Sox ahead by a score of 2-1.  Robinson hit a sinking line drive to center that umpire Emmett Ashford ruled a catch; centerfielder Tommie Agee threw to first to double off Paul Blair before he could get back to first.  Robinson went ballistic, for good reason.  I was sitting in the stands in left center, and Agee clearly trapped the ball.  It was a fun argument to watch, though.

 

A year later, Robinson—or more precisely, a statistically driven representation put on paper—figured in a practical joke pulled at the expense of my friend Bob.  Bob was one of five friends who spent the summer of 1968 playing Strat-O-Matic baseball.  (Yes, we were really popular with the girls back then.)  We each had two teams, one from each league for the two leagues we set up.  As I recall, Bob had engineered a trade for Robinson, and this mustn’t have sit well with Matt and Dan.  Those two took a Start-O-Matic brochure which included a copy of Robinson’s player card (full of stats, as any Strat-o geek could tell you) and cut out the Robinson card that wasn’t.  Then, with Bob over at Matt’s (I had nothing to do with this, I swear to God), Matt and Dan burned the pretend card.

 

From what I gather, our friend went almost as crazy as Robinson had the summer before.  “Doug’s going to kill me!” Bob screamed because I was the one who bought all the teams.  Bob was pretty big, already over six feet as a high school sophomore, and he was pretty mad.  Rather than face an angry Dietz, Matt and Dan let him in on the joke.

With any luck, Bob and Frank Robinson are having a good laugh over that story.  I hope so. 

Apples and Oranges

Tom Brady has six Super Bowl wins (and counting) while Michael Jordan earned six NBA championships.  Who’s the better player?  Anyone who says Brady, give me a break.

 

Yes, he’s arguably the greatest quarterback ever, but that’s it.  Consider that, with Jordan, “greatest” can refer both to his defense and offense.  Last time I checked, Brady only plays offense.  And, despite the violence inherent in the NFL, I’d still argue that Jordan absorbed more punishment in one season than Brady in six.  Unlike the Bears, who have always treated quarterbacks as something between a nuisance and a mystery, the Patriots have always understood Brady’s value and surrounded him with a first-class offensive line.

On second thought, make the Jordan/Brady getting-pounded ration 1:8.

Listen and Obey

Rich people are the most dangerous kind of blowhard.  Not only do they say “My way or the highway,” they can make it happen.  Joe Ricketts qualifies as a rich blowhard.

 

He wants his politics one way and his religion, too; the GOP and the Catholic Church can’t be too far to the right for Joe Ricketts.  He’s dumped birther garbage on Barack Obama and would probably find a can of crap to pour on me if he thought my views on the Church (color me liberal Catholic) ever had a chance of being implemented.  How nasty is the 77-year old family patriarch?  A couple of years ago, when reporters for two online news services he owned voted to unionize, Ricketts shut down both sites.

 

So, the recent email dump showing Old Joe at his honest worst should come as no surprise; the dance around the mess by son and Cubs’ chairman Tom Ricketts is more disappointing, and reminiscent of how actor Mel Gibson defended his father, another archconservative Catholic.  Only Gibson doesn’t run a baseball team his parents put up $400 million to help buy.

 

Tom Ricketts has condemned the words spoken but not the speaker.  (The MLB and Cubs’ websites are ignoring both as is the wont of certain ostriches.)  That might work if this were the first time with the old man, which it isn’t.  The first time involved Obama, and this time Muslims have been added to the receiving end of Joe Ricketts’ ire.  On top of that is how the Cubs have acquired two players—Aroldis Chapman and Addison Russell—who served or are serving suspensions due to domestic violence; last season, they also went out and acquired infielder Daniel Murphy, who thinks of homosexuality as a lifestyle choice.  This is what you call skating on thin ice.

And the temperature's rising.

Right About Now

This would be about the time I could expect a late-night phone call from Clare, with her college softball season started.  Nothing like the phone ringing at 11:45 PM.  Did I wake you?  Of course not.  And then it was five minutes nonstop of where she had blasted balls in the gym.  If memory serves, one call included mention of a broken window.  No doubt they added it on to tuition.

 

Next week, pitchers and catchers report to spring training, and it all begins anew.  So I can start rooting for the White Sox again, assessing the state of the rebuild, hoping the way fans do in the spring.  That said, I’d much rather be getting those late-night February phone calls after a late practice.

Dollars and Sense

Like most everyone else in America, I watched the Super Bowl last night, stifled a yawn or two during the 13-3 proceedings and commented on the commercials (Turbotax creepy, Audi reprehensible.  Choking isn’t funny, guys).  But the highlight of my Super Bowl Sunday was a story in the Tribune sports’ section.

 

In sports, you’d think veteran teams have to win now before they get too old, but you’d be wrong, at least with the NFL.  As the story noted, teams with a talented young core coming off their rookie contracts have to win before the shenanigans of the salary cap ensue.  The Rams have a talented young core highlighted by quarterback Jared Goff and running back Todd Gurley.  Two years from now, they could be rolling in the dough.

 

But money going to one group of players has to come from another (think taking from Peter to pay Paul).  Rams’ players will either be asked to restructure their contracts, or they’ll be cut loose in a salary dump.  Sportswriters and commentators will treat it all like a chess match, with very few if any of them asking why football has a salary cap in the first place.

 

There was another story on the same page, and a dollar figure cited practically jumped out at me—the NFL generates $15 billion a year in revenue.  Again, why have a salary cap other than to keep owners from going all Steinbrenner, or paying a decent wage to players in probably the most violent sport on the planet?  Every NFL player who’s number two on the depth chart should agree.

 

Baseball doesn’t face the health or compensation issues of football, yet strike talk abounds because of the slow free-agent market the past two seasons.  How sad, a sport that doesn’t need major change may go on strike while the sport in need of a major overhaul in the relationship between management and labor appears doomed to labor “peace.”

 

Oh, well.  I wonder if Tom Brady and Bill Belichick will be back again next year?

 

The Meaning of Sports

The temperature in Chicago on Wednesday ranged between 10- and 23-below; the wind chill offered an added element of dare for anyone venturing out for more than a few minutes.  In case you were wondering, this is why Chicagoans come with an attitude.

 

Up on the North Side, close—and I do mean close—by a frozen Lake Michigan, Loyola University had a basketball game scheduled, against Northern Iowa.  Just over 3,000 fans took the dare to see the Ramblers prevail over the Panthers, 61-60.  The exploits of Krutwig, Townes and Skokna will be frozen in time and memory:  I was there, will say the 3,011 who cheered and tried to stay warm at the Gentile Arena.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is what sports should be all about.      

Saying and Meaning

At SoxFest Yoan Moncada answered a question about team chemistry.  I understand enough Spanish to know Moncada answered that the Latino players and American players get along.  But the translator said Latin players and “white players.”  I wonder how Tim Anderson would feel about that.

 

I’m not accusing the translator—a popular guy who’s been with the team for several years now—of anything.  But the difference between what’s said and how it gets translated speaks to the challenges faced by a sport gone global.  Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese and Latin players all have to interact with English-dominant coaching staffs, to say nothing of teammates, which is why the role of the translator is so important.  The Sox translator is a big baseball fan, so the odds are he has the sports’ vocabulary necessary to convey what both coaches and players are trying to say to one another.

 

But the Asian players?  I wonder how many of them have translators who understand the nuances of the game, to say “your front shoulder is opening up too soon” or “you’re standing too straight on your follow-through”?  I’ll bet careers have been shortened because of an inability to reach players who speak a different language.

Sportswriters Say the Dumbest Things

The state of the newspaper business is pretty dire.  I’m pretty sure there are next to no copy editors left, given all the errors that creep into the paper; if it gets by spell-check, heaven help us.  I also wonder if there are any editors left to point out the virtues of consistency.

 

On Monday, Rick Morrissey of the Sun-Times wrote of the Bulls, “Then, blessedly, if you’re in it for the No. 1 pick in the [NBA] draft, Kris Dunn failed on a drive with eight seconds left, Zach LaVine missed a three-pointer at the buzzer and the Bulls fell 104-101.”  For Morrissey, “It was beautiful.”

 

That’s because the more the Bulls lose, the better their chance for landing Zion Williamson of Duke.  Never mind that the team has fallen down the rabbit hole of dysfunction, most recently shown by naming a new coach (Jim Boylen) who thinks the half-court game will come back in fashion any day now, right after bellbottoms.  Morrissey is of the opinion that a team that thought pairing Dwayne Wade and Rajon Rondo was a good idea will get it right with their next No. 1 draft pick.

 

Then, on Tuesday Morrissey shifted his attention to baseball.  Playing nine innings takes too long, yes, “But the bigger problem, one that has helped suck interest out of the game, is the tanking phenomenon.”  But apparently, it’s OK in basketball and for the White Sox because Morrissey writes that it’s “hard to carp about the rebuilding White Sox, who have had one of the best farm systems the last couple of years.”  Confused yet?

 

Well, then, how about when he writes “tanking is OK in the micro sense.  If one team’s fan base is willing to put up with enthusiastic losing in the hopes of a championship down the line, that’s fine.”  And who’s to say all the tanking teams don’t have those fan bases?  It’s not like Morrissey did anything approaching research to find out.

 

No, he just goes his merry way, saying one thing on Monday and quite the opposite on Tuesday.  Whatever Morrissey’s columns are, they’re not sports writing.