One of the Family

Today’s peek into the bizarre world known as Tribune sports is the page-one column, “Bears see a culture of winning in Cubs,” notable for two reasons.  First, it links the only two teams the Trib really cares about.  Second, well, it’s downright bizarre.

 

And I don’t mean that Cubs’ manager Joe Maddon takes up much of the column extolling first-year Bears’ coach Matt Nagy.  Right now, Maddon is trying not to be Captain Smith of the Titanic.  You wish him well, but you don’t want him talking about you, unless maybe you’re Captain Turner of the Lusitania.   

 

I don’t imagine the writer of the piece knows about either captain, or the history of the families of the teams he’s writing about.  The Bears project amiable dysfunction in the person of principal owner Virginia McCaskey while the Cubs are an evolving study of the feudin’ Ricketts.  In the latest email dump courtesy of Deadspin, any Ricketts’ sibling not named Tom seems to resent any publicity sent the way of all Ricketts named Tom.  This on top of old man Ricketts showing himself to be pretty much of a racist and the entire family demonstrating a penchant for wanting to crush all opposition to plans for what the area around Wrigley Field should be.  Just ask Ald. Tom Tunney about that.

 

The column’s right to link the Bears and Cubs, though; they’re part of the tapestry that is Chicago sports’ ownership.  The grandchildren of Charles Comiskey so hated one another they let the team slip out of family control, and let’s not forget the Hawks’ Bill Wirtz, who both feared and resented his son and successor, Rocky.  As for Jerry (White Sox) and Michael (Bulls) Reinsdorf, there you have an object lesson in the difficulties some people have in finding their butts with their hands.

 

They’re all one big happy family.      

Coming Clean

I don’t know what I expected to find in today’s Tribune sports’ section.  With both the Cubs and White Sox off, there could have been a multipage spring profile of the Monsters.  But it was just one small Bears’ story—working on depth in the defensive backfield—to go with a bombshell admission from a columnist:  Losing affects coverage at his place of employment.  Except for the Bears, of course.

 

Here’s what he said.  “The Sox already are seeing the effects of the constant losing, including a reduction in coverage by the Tribune.”  Now, why would he write that, you ask?  My guess is two reasons.  First, he’s probably making a public gesture in response to all the emails and phone calls he’s gotten on the subject, and, second, he’s going public as a way to inform his editors he’s tired of all the emails and calls.

 

Here’s the good part—this is all on the Sox.  Never mind that he Tribune has heaped coverage on the Cubs and Bears regardless their records, “the truth is people generally are more interested in reading about or watching reports on teams that have a shot at contending.”

One other point of interest is Eloy “Jimenez has to be as good as advertised for this franchise to get to where it needs to be.  It’s Eloy or bust.”  Because winning is everything, except at Soldier Field most years.      

  

Day One Scorecard

Your official Chicago Tribune Opening-Day scorecard reads:  Chicago Bears, two stories (one front page, one back page); Cubs, two stories; and White Sox, one (again, not done by a beat writer, unless a longtime columnist finds himself demoted).

 

As for the Sox 5-3 loss to the Royals, we’ll lead with the good news: Yoan Moncada looked comfortable both at third base and at the plate; Daniel Palka made a nice back-to-the-wall leaping catch in right field; and the team rallied for three runs in the ninth, even loading the bases with two out.  For what it’s worth, I thought Yolmer Sanchez had himself a bases-clearing double that turned into the final out.  Next game, for sure.

 

Now, the bad news: Eloy Jimenez looked anxious going 0-3 with two strikeouts; mediocre starting pitching courtesy of Carlos Rodon, who can’t seem to get out of the sixth inning; crappy defense as evidenced by three errors; crappy relief pitching that coughed up KC’s margin of victory; and nonexistent hitting until the ninth.  Everything gets fixed by next game, for sure.

 

The best part of the day for me was interacting with the child who is my 27-year old daughter.  Phone calls asking for weather updates (rain in KC) and what station the Sox were on, followed by texts—Eloy looks nervous, Chris Sale gave up seven runs in three innings, what does Dad think?  The last concerned three pictures of Clare swinging a length of PCV pipe in her living room.  The hitter is starting light as she works her way back from labrum surgery.

Just for fun, I said she was opening her hips up too fast.  The pictures showed no such thing, but I need to get ready for April Fool’s.          

 

Last Time, I Promise

Last Time, I Promise

 

Today, Opening Day 2019, and the Tribune deigns to give the White Sox one story (not done by a beat writer, by the way), vs. two for the Cubs and the Bears.  But the Bears don’t open for another five months and change, you say.

 

Yes, but who doesn’t want to read an interview with team chairman George McCaskey that takes up most of the back page?  Other than me, that is.  

Like a Broken Record (If You Know What That Is)

Like a Broken Record (If You Know What That Is)

 

Today, one day before Opening Day, I opened the Tribune sports’ section, and guess what?  The Bears were on page one again, with the entire back page—no ads to reduce coverage, mind you—devoted to news of the monsters.  And the White Sox, you ask?  They got two stories and a recap, all in one column on page five.  One of the stores was from the AP.

 

But, Doug, you might advise, get with the electronic age.  OK, so I went online and found pretty much the exact same thing.  I like how stories relate to one another on the printed page; layout is, or was, both an art and a necessity in newspaper production.  So, I went to the digital version of the paper first, and guess what?  The digital sports’ section was an exact copy of my morning paper.  The Sox were again relegated to page five.

 

Hardcopy or electronic, the Tribune has stopped providing box scores for all NHL and NBA games.  Today, it was one hockey and two basketball box scores; the Bulls made the cut but not the Hawks.  As for the transactions’ section, forget it.  The Tribune would have you believe nobody in professional sports is being signed, cut or traded.  I’m talking both the hardcopy and electronic versions, here.

 

Now, I could go to the latest sports’ stories and just start scrolling down.  (Is there anything sadder in life than to see human beings scrolling, scrolling with index finger to screen?)  And I will get something not in the paper, yet.  My experience has been that stories are always electronic and hardcopy, never one or the other.  All I’m doing by going online is reading tomorrow’s morning edition early.  Big deal.

No box scores, no transactions' section, no long-term future that I can see.

Can't be Bothered

God, give me strength.  It’s been a tough six months between deaths and bad weather.  Then, on Sunday we took Clare and Chris out to dinner with a $250 gift certificate.  We ran up a bill of $337.  Just so you know, I had a seven-ounce steak.

 

Sports is one of those things in life that’s supposed to help make living bearable, and maybe it would if I could just keep track.  But the Tribune won’t let me.  I pull out the sports’ section today—48 hours from Opening Day, mind you—and what do I find but a front-page Bears’ story and two more on the inside.  Ooh, a feature on one of the Bears’ offensive lineman.  It’s like I died and didn’t go to heaven.  And don’t tell me the electronic version of the Trib sports’ section is any better or different because it’s not.

 

At least the Sun-Times goes through the motions of caring about baseball.  The other week they included this gem by White Sox prospect Danny Mendick:  “I was telling my parents, ‘I played against Mike Trout.”  The 5’10” infielder from Rochester, NY, was a 22^nd round pick in the 2015 out of U Mass-Lowell.  As of last night, Mendick was batting .353 with 11 RBIs.  This is a spring-training story that virtually writes itself.

 

Oh, wait.  The great Chicago Tribune couldn’t be bothered to send a beat reporter to cover the White Sox, not when there’s Bears’ coverage to manufacture.           

Possible Regrets

Vanderbilt basketball went 0-18 in the SEC this season, which could explain why head coach Bryce Drew was fired over the weekend.  Drew headed the Commodores (and how I love to write that) to a 40-59 record and one NCAA appearance over three seasons.

 

Drew was BMOC when Clare attended Valparaiso.  First, of course, was “the shot,” the last-second three-pointer Drew put up for Valpo to beat Mississippi in the 1998 NCAA tournament.  Then there was Drew’s coaching record at Valpo, 124-49 in five seasons with two NCAA and two NIT appearances.  That alone was enough to ensure continuation of the “Drew Dynasty” at Valpo, where dad Homer or sons Scott or Bryce had led the basketball program since 1988.  But Vanderbilt came calling in 2016 and offered a reported six-year, $16.3 million deal.

Bryce Drew led his new team to the NCAA tournament his first year, after which things didn’t go so well (see above).  So, now Drew is a rich ex-coach in the way Ozzie Guillen is a rich ex-manager.  The Bealtes said money can’t buy you love.  Did they mean happiness, too?    

 

Get on Your Mark...

Whenever Clare stepped to the plate, I held my breath for a second or two as a way to prepare myself.  There was no way of knowing what would happen next.

 

She could go down on three pitches or make five outs in a doubleheader, each time swinging at the first pitch.  That left one final at-bat at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin on a dreary Saturday in late April.  On the first or second pitch, my daughter the college sophomore hit a ball out of the park and over two fences; the ball stopped rolling at the lip of the infield at the baseball field opposite.  You just never knew.

 

I’m holding my breath again, which every fan should do in the days before their team’s season opener.  Eloy Jimenez, Daniel Palka—you never know.

Extended

One contract extension I hope works, but wonder about.  The other I wish hadn’t happened.  Both, in a way, concern the White Sox.

 

The Sox signed outfielder Eloy Jimenez to a six-year, $43 million deal; with two team options, it could reach $78 million over eight years.  This fits a pattern with the Sox front office, to throw relatively large piles of cash at young players, who get far more money they would while waiting for free agency to kick in, even if the length of the contract means delaying free agency.

 

I wonder, though, what happens if Jimenez proves to be just as good as the Sox think he will be, generating 100-plus RBI seasons right from the get-go.  Four or five seasons down the line, with stats to rival Bryce Harper and Mike Trout (assuming Jimenez doesn’t eclipse them), then what?  Will Jimenez feel the team took advantage of him?  Will he demand a trade?  We’ll see.

Meanwhile, the Red Sox signed ex-White Sox starter Chris Sale to a five-year, $145 million extension.  I was hoping Sale would return to his old team next season as a free agent.  Sale and Jimenez—what a pair they would’ve been on the South Side.  Oh, well.      

 

 

Anniversaries

The other day I dreamt that my daughter was hitting leadoff—in a baseball game; she looked to be in eighth grade.  Anyway, Clare kept fouling off pitches, which is pretty much what she did in real life.  I learned to take refuge in the time between pitches.  I spent close to an eternity getting through 0-2 counts.  As for the dream, Clare kept swinging and swinging, to the point it had to be irritating the pitcher while impressing everyone who was watching.  A coach walked up to me, a smile on his face, and….I woke up.

 

Today is my wedding anniversary, notable in and of itself for my wife’s bullheaded masochism, thirty-nine years and counting.  Eight of those years were tied up with softball.  Clare’s first varsity game ever—the first game of the season freshman year of high school—fell on our anniversary; Clare drove in three runs.  She would have played on our anniversary sophomore year, but it snowed.  She homered on our anniversary both senior year and freshman year at Elmhurst.  That was in Florida and her first-ever college homerun.   

 

Our next anniversary, an RBI single; the one after that, two for four with a double and two RBIs; and the one after that, two doubles in two games, part of a three-hit day with four runs scored and an RBI.  On anniversaries, we remember and give thanks.  We even look to the future, or try.   

WAR: What Is It Good For?

Absolutely nothing, if you want to measure baseball talent (though still a great song done by Edwin Starr).  I read a Washington Post story in the Tribune yesterday that said, according to FanGraphs, Mike Trout has the highest-ever WAR through age 26.  And Babe Ruth?  He ranks 13^th, with 45.9.

 

It seems that pitching lowered Ruth’s score.  Oh, give me a break.  We can’t even begin to comprehend Ruth’s accomplishments in real time.  Who else was doing what he was back then?  For instance, at age 25 Ruth hit 54 homeruns with 135 RBIs and a .376 BA.  And let’s not forget his OBP of .532.  In other words, the Bambino got on base more often than not.  At age 26, Ruth upped his homer total to 59, RBIs to 168 and BA to .378 while his OBP “slipped” to .512.  How much would those stats be worth today?

 

Here’s another WAR headscratcher: HOF pitcher Jim Palmer amassed a 268-152 record with a career 2.86 ERA; that comes out to a WAR of 68.4.  In comparison, Rick Reuschel went 214-191 with a 3.37 ERA, yet, somehow, Reuschel’s WAR figures out to 69.5.  Palmer recorded 53 shutouts to Reuschel’s 26 and had a 8-3 mark in the postseason—including 4-2 in World Series games—to a

1-4 postseason record for Reuschel.I ask again:  WAR, what is it good for?

The Inevitable "Big Fish" Head and Lead

Well, the Angels reeled in Mike Trout, signing their 27-year old star centerfielder to a 12-year, $430 million extension.  This leads to a couple of questions, starting with, “How do you like the market now, Kris Bryant?”

 

I also have to wonder how Bryce Harper and his agent Scott Boras are doing.  Harper/Boras wanted to have the biggest contract in baseball, right?  How long did that $330 million deal qualify, 18 days or thereabouts?  Oh, and Bryce, you’re now stuck in Philadelphia for the next twelve years.  Somewhere, W.C. Fields is smiling.

 

According to a related story on mlb.com, Trout, if he stays healthy this season, can expect to surpass a whole bunch of baseball legends in WAR (wins above replacement), including Willie McCovey; Duke Snider; Luis Tiant; Don Sutton; Ernie Banks; Jim Palmer; Rick Reuschel; Derek Jeter; Frank Thomas; and Reggie Jackson.  Huh?

 

Trout at the age of 27 has proven more valuable than any and all of the above, for the entirety of their careers?  Oh, I don’t think so.  First off, pitchers’ WAR and players’ WAR verge on apples and oranges.  Players can’t dominate a game, a series or a season the way a pitcher can.  (See Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson and Steve Carlton, among others.)  Second, someone like Jeter has shown what he can do not only in the regular season but the postseason as well.  Mr. Yankee has appeared in 33 postseason series vs. one for Trout, who batted a not-too-robust .083 in the 2014 ALDS.

 

And Jeter?  Well, take your pick: .343 in 16 ALDS series; .257 in 10 ALCS; and .321 in 7 World Series.  Throw in 61 total RBIs (including 9 in those World Series), and suddenly WAR becomes a very subjective mathematical concept.  That said, I really like Mike Trout and hope he can at least match if not surpass Jeter’s numbers.

 

But that $430 million puts Trout in a brave new world (with Harper in the potential hell of Philadelphia).  That money may as well be a bullseye because he’s going to be the target of boo birds just waiting for the first signs of a slump.  And they’ll have 430 million reasons to be louder than loud, and obnoxious, too.  And, while we’re talking numbers, baseball-reference projects that Trout will hit .299 in the upcoming season, with 92 runs scored, 30 homeruns and 74 RBIs.

 

Do those numbers justify that contract?  Will they?

Door Mat

The Tribune sports’ section treats the White Sox as if they were a doormat.  Today, page one was devoted, as it seems to be a majority of the year, to a Bears’ story, on safety Ha Ha Clinton-Dix going from the Packers to the Monsters.  The Sox make page eight, barely.

 

This is the second spring in a row where the Trib hasn’t bothered with a beat reporter for the Sox in Arizona; usually, it’s the Cubs’ reporter or the Trib’s baseball poohbah doing double duty, or an AP story.  Today, “Chicago Tribune staff,” whatever and whomever that is, provided the byline.

 

Including the recap of yesterday’s game against the Giants, the Sox merited all of 14 paragraphs; a second Bears’ story, on a free-agent kicker who was recently signed, is longer and comes with a photo, which the Sox apparently don’t deserve (Clinton-Dix got two and the Cubs got two even though they didn’t play on Monday).

 

In case you’re wondering why Sox fans have a chip on their shoulder, today’s Trib can explain it.   

His Own Worst Enemy

If and when umpires are replaced by electronics, they might want to consider Angel Hernandez as a, if not the, prime cause.  Consider last week, when Hernandez threw out Astros’ manager A.J. Hinch for arguing balls and strikes in the bottom of the first inning.

 

Hinch didn’t like how Hernandez was calling pitches on starter Forrest Whitley in the top of the first, and he didn’t like how Hernandez started calling pitches on Astros’ hitters in the bottom of the inning.  Presto, change-o, away Hinch went after a wave of the hand by Hernandez.  Afterwards, Hinch used words like “unprofessional” and “arrogant” to describe Hernandez, a MLB umpire since 1991.  The ejection and comments cost Hinch an undisclosed fine and one-day suspension.

 

It’s safe to say that managers around baseball have reached the point where Angel Hernandez pushes their buttons already in spring training.  From accounts I read, Hernandez in an earlier meeting with Hinch admitting to making four mistakes a game, and Hinch yelled from the Houston dugout in the first inning that he’d already made that many.  This is not a good situation, for Hernandez or his crew or umpires as a group.

 

Hernandez comes off as someone profoundly unhappy.  MLB should consider some kind of retirement package before Hernandez necessitates the adoption of electronic eyes in blue by Opening Day.

Make That Two Million

MLB is going to offer a $1 million prize to the winner of this year’s Home Run Derby during the All-Star Break, and Kris Bryant for one is excited.  The Cubs’ third baseman told The Atlantic this week, “Man that a lot of money.  But I think it’s such a good idea.  You’re going to get so much more action.  You look at the rookie pay [scale, which baseball-reference.com puts at $545,000 last season and $555,000 this year] and [a player] like Aaron Judge.  He’s worth more than he’s getting paid.  He could double his salary just by winning Home Run Derby.  [According to baseball-reference, Judge will earn $684,300 this year.]”  Bryant, who’ll be making $12.9 million in 2019, said that, if he’s asked to participate, “I will definitely think about it long and hard.”

 

How nice to see that money can be such a motivator.  Along those lines, why not offer $1 million to that fan who picks the winning playing?  Fans could enter an online drawing by picking who they want to root for, one entry per human being.  I can think of a whole bunch of teachers; first responders; baristas; and secretaries who are worth more than they’re getting paid.  

Stop Me Before I Screw Up Again

Baseball owners can’t stop themselves—legally—from overspending, so they get the players’ association to agree to a luxury tax that works as a soft cap on salaries.  And now, because coaching staffs can’t stop themselves from over-managing, Commissioner Rob Manfred gets the players to sign off on two rule changes to keep pitching coaches and managers in the dugout.

 

Starting in 2020, the number of allowed mound visits goes from six to five, which, for fans at least, won’t be too much of a problem.  Ah, but invoking a three-batter minimum for pitchers (excluding a one- or two-batter appearance that leads to the end of the inning), that’s going to be controversial.

 

I’ll give Manfred this much—he gets it, to a degree, that the game is dragging.  That’s why he’s also cutting down on the length of commercial breaks and putting an end to the agony that is September baseball.  No more 40-man rosters come September 1.  Instead, it’ll be 28.  They ought to call this the Francona Rule, for the way Indians’ manager Terry Francona would trot out half the pitchers in the entire Cleveland organization, if only to stupefy the opposition.

 

Also of interest is the expanded roster, which goes to 26 in 2020 (and 27 for doubleheaders).  I wonder if managers will opt for yet another pitcher (or two, with twin-bills).  The 13-man staff could become the 15-man staff.  No doubt that will help pick up the pace of the game, too.

Review No. 3

Of the three baseball magazines I bought, Street and Smith’s, “America’s Baseball Bible,” has always been my go-to publication.  Somewhere in the basement are copies dating back to the 1970s.  It’s not so much “The Good Book” as an interesting read.

 

Cubs’ fans won’t like it, though; their team is picked out-of-the-running, at third in the NL Central.  That makes them no better than the White Sox in the AL Central, which is OK by me.  But what really sets this baseball preview above the others is the quality of its feature stories.  Street and Smith’s actually dares to rock the proverbial boat.

 

“Overhyped and Overpaid” questions the amounts of money being spent on Cuban players.  The piece might have gone further to consider the possibility that present-day, Cuban-style baseball is predicated on Bobby Knight basketball—the system works at the expense of the individual players.  Name a Knight alum who flourished in the NBA outside of Isiah Thomas, and he only spent two years at IU.  The same could hold for baseball in Castro’s Cuba.

 

“Ready and Willing” details the frustration of top minor-league players waiting to be called up while their teams play the service-time game; the Cubs Kris Bryant in particular was ticked off having to wait, and he doesn’t seem willing either to forgive or forget.  The story notes that Bryant is not the only talent who’s been made to wait.

 

“Where to Next?” considers the top spots for expansion (Answer: no place in particular) while “Progress or Pansies?” is a much better piece than its title suggests, about the trend to have starting pitchers throw ever-fewer innings.  The story is definitely old school, showing a real reverence for guys who went nine.

 

Lastly, at least for me, is “Shifting Views,” on the way hitters respond to shifts.  Some can’t go the other way; others won’t try; and still others try to hit “over” the shift, as in home runs.  Sox hitting coach Todd Steverson, of all people, has some interesting observations on the difficulties in getting hitters to consider counterstrategies.

Oh, and just like the other magazines, Street and Smith’s includes comments by an anonymous scout.  As for the White Sox, “This feels like a team that’s on the rise with a bullet.”  As my father-in-law says, from your lips to God’s ears.           

 

 

 

           

Review No. 2

Lindy’s comes in at 200 pages, which makes it a little shorter than Athlon’s.  “The Baseball Preview For Smart Fans” doesn’t feel the need for more space.

 

The format for this magazine isn’t all that different from the other, picking the White Sox third with the Cubs second, good enough for a wildcard spot that will not get them into the World Series.  There’s even a “Scout’s Take” on every team.  Oh, but how this scout talks.  (S)he has a bone to pick with both Chicago teams.

 

As for the White Sox, “I don’t like the way [manager] Rick Renteria handles the young players.  It looks like he gives them too much rope.  Yoan Moncada has not improved one bit, and his effort can be terrible.  Moncada needs to be sat down the next time he jogs on a play, but Renteria does not seem to want to do that.  Maybe it’s on orders from above.”  Or maybe this “scout” is making it up as (s)he goes along.    

 

There was a game in Texas last July when Moncada was on third base and Jose Abreu hit a grounder to deep short, and shortstop Elvis Andrus threw out Moncada at home.  Yes, I would’ve pulled Moncada for that, but don’t pretend Renteria is afraid to do that, not after he’s sat Tim Anderson and Avasil Garcia and called out Adam Engel for not laying down a bunt.  Moncada just got lucky.  Orders from above?  More like Renteria was distracted from all the losing.

 

Lindy’s scout is just as hard on the Cubs with “Here’s an idea.  Let [team president] Theo Epstein manage the club, work with the hitters and make the draft choices.  It seems like he is unhappy with the jobs everybody else is doing.”  OK, now tell us how you really feel.  I’ve got Epstein in Cooperstown for breaking curses in Boston and Chicago (and saving two classic ballparks along the way).  That track record merits the benefit of the doubt.

 

One last thing.  Lindy’s rates the Dodgers as one of the three best organizations in baseball.  Anybody over there watch the last two World Series, both lost by LA?         

Review No. 1

I bought three baseball season-preview magazines last week.  The one from Athlon Sports wants its buyers to know they’re getting “224 PAGES LARGEST ON THE NEWSTAND.”  They hire someone to count the competition’s pages?

 

Athlon predicts the White Sox for third in their division, the Cubs second in theirs, good enough to become wildcard roadkill.  That’s fine by me.  Each team review comes with a capsule “Scouting Report,” one paragraph long, all in quotations.  Ooh, just like a real scout did it!  I’m a sucker for this kind of stuff.

 

There’s also a bunch of stories, some worth reading, others not.  I looked at three in particular, about the decline of the stolen base; the rise—in popularity, that is—of the slider; and a review of the 2009 MLB draft.  As for the first two pieces, it’s all about analytics—the stolen base doesn’t hold up to baseball’s new mandarins while the slider does. 

Who remembers that the Nationals took Stephen Strasburg with the first pick in the ’09 draft?  I didn’t, but I do remember Jared Mitchell, selected by the White Sox two spots ahead of some guy named Mike Trout.  According to the update, Mitchell spent the last 2-1/2 seasons playing independent ball.And the Sox scouts who missed on Trout?

Please tell me they're no longer employed on the South Side.  Please. 

Strange Times

It’s End Times or strange times for baseball, you decide what moving the pitching rubber back two feet qualifies as.

 

This and several other rules—electronic “help” for plate umpires calling balls and strikes, modified use of shifts, restrictions placed on relievers—are being adopted by the Atlantic League at the request of MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred.  Wow, just what I always wanted—major-league baseball turned into the Canadian Football League.

 

Outside of the electronic eye for balls and strike, this is a recipe for disaster.  If anything is written in stone in life, it’s the distance from the rubber to the plate—60 feet, 6 inches.  Mess with that, and you call into question the very foundations of our country, more or less.  Maybe the commissioner has a young son or son-in-law trying to establish an orthopedic practice.  Whatever other reason would he have for messing with sixty and six?

 

If players are too dumb or stubborn to hit against the shift, shame on them.  If teams are too dumb or stubborn to counter expanded bullpens with expanded benches, shame on them.  If baseball needs the commissioner to save it from itself, we’re too far gone for saving.

 

On the slight possibility that we’re not, the commissioner would do well to instruct home-plate umpires to make the pitchers pitch and hitters hit; no acting like a statue on the mound or stepping out to adjust batting gloves after every friggin’ pitch.  That would save oodles of time.  So would taking one or two commercials per half inning and turning it into a crawler or a 20-second smudge.

 

One last thing—why is the commissioner taking this on himself?  Just once, I’d like to see players face the media and be made to say what they would do to speed up the game or why the game doesn’t need to be touched at all, forget the fans and ratings.  Just once.

Separate but Equal?

The U.S. national women’s soccer team is suing its parent federation for gender discrimination.  Among other charges, the women contend that the United States Soccer Federation offers them inferior compensation and training facilities in comparison to the men’s team.

 

The U.S. women’s team enjoys the kind of success and popularity of the leading men’s teams, yet the U.S. men’s team is paid better and treated better.  This would seem to be a slam-dunk for women, but I wonder about unintended consequences.

 

If the women argue they generate the lion’s share of interest and revenue in the U.S., can that argument then be turned around against women’s basketball, golf and tennis?  Ratings for women’s soccer is one thing, that for the other sports quite another (and lower).  And, if we’re having one of those proverbial conversations, is it possible that a win in court by the women’s soccer team will have the unintended effect of reviving the notion of separate-but-equal? 

 

Only now it would be applied to sports.  

Grumpy Old Man

I hit the magazine rack at Barnes and Noble today for my baseball magazines, and let me offer these words of warning: don’t confuse baseball with baseball fantasy, other than being an Orioles’ fan dreaming of the postseason.

 

Standing in line to pay, I was reminded yet again how much I miss Who’s Who in Baseball, and I didn’t even like it all that much.  But after the Baseball Register stopped publishing, Who’s Who was my default reference guide.  What has it been now, three years since Who’s Who went bye-bye?

 

Sorry, nothing online competes.  Yes, baseball-reference.com basically has the same information, once you start clicking; with the Baseball Register especially, it was all there at your fingertips.  And I have yet to see trips to the DL noted, and I never once had a hardcopy lose power.  Get wet, yes, but not go blank.  And even getting wet wasn’t the catastrophe it can be for our electronic devices.

 

So, allow me to be a little grumpy on this cold, gray Sunday in March.

Tom Seaver

Tom Seaver

 

The family of Mets’ great Tom Seaver announced this week that the 74-year old HOFer will be retiring from public life because of dementia.  My own memories of the 1969 Miracle Mets aren’t all that reliable, either.

 

I remember the black cat at Shea Stadium walking in front of Ron Santo in the on-deck circle, and I thought I remembered Seaver’s perfect game ruined by Jim Qualls with a one-out single in the ninth inning.  I would have been sixteen, working a summer job stocking shelves at Walgreen’s.  Only baseball-reference.com says it was a night game, and I only worked 9-5.

 

I also have this memory of hearing Harry Caray on the radio for the first time; he was doing a Cardinals’ game and I was at work.  I actually heard—or thought I heard—Caray say, “The Cardinals are coming, tra-la, tra-la,” after a win.  That also could have been against the Cubs, but I don’t know when, exactly.  I also thought Seaver struck out 18 Cardinals in a game in ’69, but that was Steve Carlton when he pitched for St. Louis, and it was 19.

 

We reach a point in our lives where we’re all three degrees from Tom Seaver.

Hope, March Version

I see by yesterday’s box score that Danny Mendick is auditioning for the role of this year’s White Sox spring wonder.  Mendick, a Sox minor leaguer, hit a three-run homer to give him six RBIs to go with a .357 BA.  We can all hope.  Why can’t a 22^nd round pick choice from the 2015 draft make it to the bigs?  If John Cangelosi can, we all can…dream about it at least.

 

Cangelosi went higher in his draft—4^th round, 1982—than Mendick, even though he stood two inches shorter, at 5’8”.  I remember when the switch-hitting outfielder made the Sox out of spring training in 1986.  Sox manager Tony LaRussa pretty much loved him.  A speed guy, Cangelosi did not disappoint with 50 stolen bases is rookie year.  Too bad for Cangelosi that LaRussa got fired before the All-Star break.  GM Ken “Hawk” Harrelson preferred homeruns to stolen bases.  Cangelosi was gone by the next season, and Harrelson, too, though that’s a story for another day.

 

Cangelosi managed to have himself a 13-year career punctuated by 23 transactions as figured by baseball-reference.com.  That’s a lot of traveling, though I’d bet Danny Mendick wouldn’t mind as long as it meant going from one MLB team to another.      

Heresy, Again

Way over there are Bulls’ fans venting on the state of the rebuild, the quality of the front office and the chances of drafting Zion Williamsnon.  Over here is me, and the colonoscopy.

 

The good news it wasn’t my time, quite yet, but I did have to keep an eye on someone, make sure she took her dose of liquid yao-sah at 12:30 in the morning and be ready to exit the house by 5:45 AM.  (Good news—no polyps).  So, with that as a background, I caught the end of the Bulls-76ers’ game last night, and I couldn’t have asked for more, a 108-107 Bulls’ win.

 

How did the game affect the rebuild; reflect on the front-office competence of “garpax”; alter the Bulls’ shot at Williamson?  I don’t know, and I don’t care.  I just wanted a diversion and got one.  Thank you, Zach LaVine and Robin Lopez.  And for what it’s worth, I’m upgrading head coach Jim Boylen from Terry Bevington status to Don Zimmer.  If the team keeps winning, I may declare Boylen the second coming of Ed Badger.

 

On a related note, I thought that the future of journalism was digital.  You know, news covered in almost-real time.  So, there I was, reading the Tribune sports’ section on a tablet at 6:30 AM in a hospital waiting room.  The Bulls’ story barely mentioned the game and the box score was one of those partial ones where all the information gets compressed until it threatens to turn into hieroglyphics.  Excuse me, but this wasn’t a West Coast baseball game, and it certainly wasn’t a hard-copy story.

The noise you hear might be a newspaper circling the drain.

Well After the Fact

I saw sportscasters on two stations yesterday poke fun of Marc Trestman.  The ex-Bears coach has been hired as head coach and general manager of the Tampa Bay team—so far unnamed—in the new XFL football league.

 

Strange how nobody in the Chicago sports’ media was making fun of Trestman when he was hired by the McCaskeys back in 2013.  I seem to remember one sports’ anchor who said he was going to run out and buy Trestman’s book on leadership and teamwork.  Me, I wanted to see who published the book, and, as far as I can tell, it was self-published.  Why does that matter?  Let’s just say anything self-published lacks a certain gravitas that comes with books by Knopf or Viking.

 

I also thought Trestman sounded and looked weird; the clip I saw of him yesterday reminded me of that, only more so now.  I’m not trying to beat up on the guy.  At certain points in their coaching careers, Doug Collins and Dave Wannstedt did, too, and they got fired.  The thing about Trestman is he started out that way.

 

I think it’s the product of trying too hard and failing to meet possibly impossible expectations, Trestman’s as well as everyone else’s.  Nothing about this strikes me as funny.  People who now treat Trestman as a joke are, if anything, sad verging on pathetic.  Oh, and hypocritical.

Clueless

The stable ownership of a professional sports’ team can be a blessing or a curse for fans.  In Chicago, it’s been more of the latter—Comiskey, McCaskey, Wirtz, Wrigley, minus those occasional family members, e.g., Chuck Comiskey and Rocky Wirtz, who’ve had a clue.  Did I forget to mention the Reinsdorf clan?  Well, put them at the top of the list.

 

Jerry Reinsdorf’s son Michael, president of the Bulls, was quoted in both Chicago papers today; apparently, Reinsdorf felt the need to shoot himself in each foot.  He would’ve been better off sticking a foot or two in his mouth to keep from talking.

 

The younger Reinsdorf vigorously defended the front-office tandem of John Paxson and Gar Forman, saying, “We believe they’ve done a great job.  I know that in this market, with some of our fans and some in the media, they look at it differently.  That perplexes me.”  What perplexes me is how Reinsdorf could cite the 2006 free-agent signing of Pistons’ center Ben Wallace as evidence of astute management.  When he wasn’t doing performance art on court as a statue, Wallace publicly pined to be anywhere but Chicago.

 

With the Sun-Times, Reinsdorf offered this gem:  “People think the Reinsdorfs—my dad and myself—that it’s just about loyalty.  It’s not about loyalty for us.  It’s about [how] we believe we have the right people in place.”  For what, exactly?

 

Since Michael Jordan and Phil Jackson left the building, so to speak, after the 1997-98 season, the Bulls have won zero championships.  That’s coming onto twenty-one seasons, (unless you think the 18-46 Bulls have a shot).   Paxson served as team GM, 2003-2009, before moving up to v.p.; Forman then assumed the role of GM.  Did I mention the zero championships?

 

Over at the White Sox, Kenny Williams has served as GM or team v.p. since late 2000, a period of 18-plus years.  So, since Michael Jordan left around the turn of the century, the two teams the Reinsdorfs control have won one championship in a combined forty-one seasons.  And Michael Reinsdorf says it’s not about loyalty.

What, then?  It can't be about the winning. 

We'll See About That

The headline in today’s The Athletic reads, “No team needed star power more than the Phillies.  In Bryce Harper, they finally have it.”  Or not.

 

Harper is an undeniable talent whose seven-year major league career began at the age of 19.  But is he worth the 13-year, $330 million deal the Phillies gave him last week?  Consider that Harper has yet to break the 100 RBI mark in a season.  Reach it, yes, break it, no.

 

So what?  Well, Hank Aaron managed to it twice by that age.  One of the greatest talents of all time, you say?  Well, isn’t that what Harper’s agent Scott Boras called his client?  And surely Boras would offer a slew of reasons why Harper is better than Red Sox outfielder Jim Rice, and Rice had three 100-plus RBI seasons at the age of 25.  Heck, even Will Clark had two, and last time I checked, Clark isn’t in the Hall of Fame.

 

And I can’t wait until somebody on Philadelphia sports’ talk radio points out that, starting at the age of 20, Ted Williams had four straight 100-plus RBI seasons.  Then Williams served three years in World War II, came back and had himself another four 100-plus seasons.  He would’ve had five—and six—had he not broken an elbow crashing into the outfield wall at Comiskey Park during the 1950 All-Star Game.

Phillies’ fans better hope the adage about getting what you pay for holds up.  Otherwise, they’re going to look at Bryce Harper and see Albert Pujols (the Angels’ version, not the Cardinals’) and Robinson Cano (he of the Mariners, after the Yankees).  If and when that happens, heaven help Bryce Harper.        

 

 

 

Guilty Pleasure

Friday night, Michele and I snuggled on the couch to start watching what Netflix billed as the first season of The Great British Baking Show, only we’d seen it already.  What else could I do but turn on the Bulls’ game?  (Note: Michele read instead.)  It was the fourth quarter, not to be confused with the first overtime, or the second or the third or the fourth.  Now, that was basketball, and a 168-161 Bulls’ win over the Hawks in Atlanta.  It was the most points ever scored for either team and the third highest-scoring game in NBA history.  

 

Where to start?  Well, there’s 42-year old Vince Carter, who scored 13 points for the Hawks while playing a shade under 45 minutes; I didn’t even know Carter was still in the league.  And I’d never heard of Hawks’ rookie 6’2” point guard Trae Young, a 20-year old out of Oklahoma.  Not only did Young score 49 points, he dished out 16 assists.  Holy smokes.

 

Over on the visitors’ side, Otto Porter Jr. impressed.  Bulls’ guard Zach LaVine scored 47 points to Porter’s 31, but there wouldn’t have been any overtime without Porter’s converting three free throws at the end of regulation after being fouled on a three-point shot.  Porter, who was traded at the deadline by the Wizards for Bobby Portis and Jabari Parker, had to wait what seemed like an eternity before every foul shot.  Atlanta substituted players, the ref wanted to hold the ball, the ref wanted to hold the ball some more; it all had to take between 60 and 90 seconds.  Hats off to Porter for keeping his focus.

Some Bulls’ fans and dead-tree columnists will complain that their team is winning too much, 5-1 over their last six games.  But I’m not that kind of fan.  I don’t care about tanking in order to have a shot at the #1 pick in the draft.  I’m just a guy at home with his wife on a Friday night.  The NBA gave me everything I could’ve asked for.        

Coach Dan

Coach Dan

 

I hate dogs because I love them, and they die before their time.  I was reminded of that last October, when we lost her highness, aka our basset hound Thelma.  There are no replacements once an animal has become a central part of your life.  But, through no fault of my own, we ended up with an eight-month old basset in December.  She goes by the name of Penny, though I have been known to call her Satan.

 

Our first dog was Martha, who I’d put on my lap to read the box scores to when she was a puppy; that worked so well we decided to try and do the same with a child, hence, Clare.  That one learned to read box scores all on her own, if only to check for her name.

 

Lymphoma took Martha from us when Clare was only six-months old.  So, it would have been during the time of Patsy, the psychotic basset, that our daughter met Coach Dan.  She had him for two years of Tee-Ball followed by two years of Mustang Ball.  Dan always treated Clare like she was one of his players, not his only girl player as she was for all but her first season with him.  When Dan stepped down from coaching and the team went to another father (and not me, as originally planned) and Clare somehow ended up on a different team, we learned all about how other men can treat female athletes.

 

Yesterday, we took Penny to the vet to be spayed.  I was more than a little nervous, what after losing a dog in October and a sister two months later.  But everything went fine, and the vet told us Coach Dan had stopped in for some reason, and they both got to talking about Clare.  (Dr. Mark is a big baseball fan, and he’s known Clare since she was a pup.)  It seems our old tee-ball coach had kept tabs on this one particular player.  “She hit more homeruns than my son,” he said about seasons now too long past, for fathers if not players.  And Coach knew that Clare had the homerun record at Elmhurst. 

Now, if we can just teach Penny how to bark after White Sox homerun. 

The Real Collusion

The Cubs’ Kris Bryant—who sounds awfully worried there won’t be any money left for him after Nolan Arenado’s $260 million extension; Manny Machado’s $300 million deal; and Bryce Harper’s $330 million windfall—said something the other day that offended me, and I’m not talking about his putdown of St. Louis as boring.

 

Speaking to Chicago reporters, Bryant offered this observation:  “Everybody [as in MLB owners] has money.  We’re not stupid.  We see the price of tickets, the price of the memorabilia” plus TV deals, all of which means there’s “a lot of money in this game.”

 

Not stupid?  Maybe, but ballplayers and owners are colluding fools.  Why does Bryant think ticket and memorabilia prices are so high, because fans want to throw money around to be more like their heroes?  Travel softball costs led me to cut way back on anything connected to baseball, and I’ve never looked back, outside of attending one or two games a year.

 

Kris Bryant doesn’t like how owners are splitting the pot?  Then, truly, there’s no honor among thieves.