What Goes Around...

Outside, the weather is November frightful, raw, cold and wet.  In a way, I feel good about that.  Finally, high school and college football players can see what it’s like to play spring sports in the Midwest.

Today might be too wet for softball, or not.  If I live to be a hundred and they bury me in Death Valley, my body will still be shivering from that game Clare played freshman year at Judson University.  There was enough water in right field for regular barge traffic, I swear.  And nothing like starting a doubleheader, with March barely in the rearview mirror, at 5 PM.  By the time the second game was over, 40 degrees would’ve felt warm.

This spring/fall weather of November, then, is a staple during the Illinois state high school playoffs.  Technically, yesterday’s Prep Bowl doesn’t count; it’s more of a grudge match rooted in the animosity that Chicago Catholic and public schools once had for one another.  Lo and behold, my alma mater St. Laurence (a suburban school that now qualifies for the Bowl because, well, rules change) won the Bowl yesterday in a 35-34 squeaker against Simeon.  Too bad it was just cold and gray.  Drizzle can really help cement memories.

In which case, it must’ve rained most of my four years at St. Laurence.  As God is my witness, the football coach recruited players in the corridors between classes.  “Hey, kid, you got a pulse?  Why don’t you try out for the team?”  I got asked once early sophomore year while waiting for an admission slip to my second-period class.  I made sure never to miss the bus again after that day.  There was no telling if I could decline such an invitation twice and live to tell the tale.

I went to a few games freshman year and a lot of games senior year.  Early my freshman year of college, somebody I knew from St. Laurence stopped by the house to see if I wanted to go a game with him.  I’d moved on, he hadn’t.  No, I said, offering some kind of excuse.  And that was the last I saw of Stan, going on fifty years now.

But here I am, looking out the window to see weather that reminds me of my daughter in spring and my life an eternity ago.  It must be all that turkey I ate on Thursday.

A Slow Death

Like I said, I went to bed Wednesday before the end of the Bulls-Warriors game on the West Coast.  Naturally, there was no score in yesterday’s print edition.  No, I’m supposed to go to Trib website for that.  If this is the future, somebody fit the Trib for its coffin.

Today, two days after the game was played, the print edition ran an AP story while the online edition went with coverage from the Mercury News, which is a Trib property.  My point is that the Trib didn’t bother to send a beat reporter to travel with the team; fans who cared enough could read about the game from a Warriors’ beat writer.  No, thank you.

Once upon a time, the Trib had a foreign desk and Washington bureau.  Oh, and a full sports’ section.  But those days are long gone.  

Abandon Ship

I checked on the score of the Bulls’ game on the West Coast last night before going to bed; it was tied at 69 in the third quarter against the Warriors, the worst team in the NBA at 3-15.  Check that.  The Warriors are now 4-15 after beating the visitors from Chi-town by a score of 104-90.  Short of divine intervention, the 6-13 Bulls are headed to another lost season.  If you’ll pardon the holiday pun, it’s time to pull the plug on this turkey.

The team rebuild is going nowhere in its third year.  That should mean bye-bye to Gar Forman, the GM who collected the “talent”; coach Jim Boylen, who talks a far better game than he executes from the sideline; and the players.  I’d start with the core.

Yes, guard Zach LaVine is a scoring machine; he’s also a black hole on offense.  The ball goes in to LaVine, and it hardly ever comes out.  The man is also a cypher on defense, which, to his credit, Boylen has called him out on.  As for the other key piece of the rebuild, Lauri Markkanen is seven feet of pure Jello.  Markkanen looked good as a rookie two years ago.  Now, he just looks lost.

The good news is that both Reinsdorfs are reportedly unhappy with the lack of progress shown on the court; finally, father and son appear to be fed up.  Heads will roll, as they should, but that doesn’t mean anything will get better because there seems to be karma at work here.  Those six championship teams led by Michael Jordan were great beyond measure.  Now, the mediocrity (or worse) has to be the same.

Death by Gibber

              Much if not all of what is killing baseball can be found in this sentence I ran across in a story that mentioned Yolmer Sanchez in today’s The Athletic: “The best defensive rating of any American League second baseman may not be enough to cancel out a woeful 74 wRC+ offensive figure in 2019.”  Say what? 

 Oh, “weighted runs created plus.”  That really rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?  This is what analytics does, reduce players down to an equation (and you should see the one that produces wRC+).  Casey at the Bat?  Why, wRC+.  The Sultan of Swat?  Only if sRC+ says so.  And Yolmer Sanchez?  The lazy money’s on wRC+.

Baseball is in danger of turning scouting and coaching over to the equation crowd.  There is no way on God’s good earth that wRC+ can measure what a player like Sanchez brings to a team.  You want to know what organizations will do the best in this benighted age of analytics?

The ones that never lose touch of the human element in the game, that’s who.

Strictly Business

Lead the NL in passed balls for three out of the last six seasons, and get yourself a nice $73-million contract.  Win the AL Gold Glove at second base, and get yourself released.  Such is the business of baseball, with Yasmani Grandal coming to the White Sox and Yolmer Sanchez most likely leaving.

There is a possibility, however remote, that Yolmer will resign with the Sox, though at a lower figure than the $6.2 million he was projected to make in arbitration.  All it will take is no team offering anything close to that figure; the Sox not being jerks in their offer; and Sanchez preferring the known to the unknown.  The 12-year old in me hopes something along those lines will happen.

Ditto my boy Daniel Palka, who deserves a break after going through what can only be described as baseball hell.  Palka hit 27 homeruns as a rookie in 2018 vs. 2 last season; and let’s not forget the .107 BA, though I’m sure Daniel would like to.  The Sox removed Palka from the 40-man roster last week and outrighted him to Triple-A Charlotte.  No doubt, some team will offer Palka an invite to spring training, maybe even the Sox.

I mean, a 12-year old can hope.

By the Numbers

Maybe White Sox fans are unhappy by nature; much of what I have to say about the team would seem to point in that direction.  Or maybe baseball fans are just GM wannabes.  Or both.

Anyway, I ran across a number of complaints online last week after the Sox signed first baseman Jose Abreu to a three-year, $50 million deal.  The Twitterverse complained that Abreu’s WAR the past few years didn’t justify the move and his signing would impede the development of top prospect Andrew Vaughn, also a first baseman.  Holy Rick Hahn.

Abreu isn’t the only player in town to run afoul of the analytics crowd.  Among others is Cubs’ catcher Willson Contreras, for his poor framing skills.  To frame or not to frame, that is the question, and anyone who doesn’t gets run out of town.  Also joining Contreras in the poor-framing club is James McCann.  Buy these two bums a one-way ticket to Podunk, or so the analytics would dictate.

Leadership?  Can’t measure it, so it doesn’t exist.  Clutch hitting?  Can’t attach a number to it, so it can’t matter.  Calls a great game?  Not if he can’t frame pitches.  And on it goes, until someone puts analytics in its place.

That would be me, if only I ran a team.

When Lightning Strikes Twice

Well, that certainly didn’t take long.  No sooner had I given my considered opinion on the Cubs hiring Rachel Folden as a rookie-league hitting coach, the Yankees follow suit with the hire of Rachel Balkovec as a hitting instructor in their minor league system.  And for the second time in two days I find myself offering two, as opposed to three, cheers.

The 32-year old Balkovec has a master’s degree in kinesiology (which Clare has her bachelor’s in) and another master’s in something the NYT called “human movement sciences.”  Somehow, I doubt if that involves a “see ball, hit ball” approach.

Meanwhile, Folden was quoted in today’s Tribune saying, “A good, efficient swing is a good, efficient swing, no matter what sport [softball or baseball] you’re playing.  I don’t think there’s a difference.  How you approach might be a little different, just based on who is throwing that day and just like it is in baseball.  But I don’t think there is anything that needs to be taught differently.  Efficiency is efficiency.”  Except when it isn’t.

The background of both these new baseball hires and Folden’s comments especially remind me of what a hundred years ago was called “scientific baseball,” a philosophy whereby players were pretty much expected to go by the book every time: always bunt the runner along, always look to steal, always think squeeze with a runner on third.  This isn’t scientific as much as it is robotic.  Or maybe you say “efficient.”

To me, the ideal MLB pitching or hitting instructor has career stats to back up a particular coaching approach.  Obviously, women don’t and can’t have this “cred” until they get to play in the big leagues (though it would be interesting to see if any MLB team would let Jennie Finch or Jessica Mendoza apply their softball expertise to baseball).  Consciously or not, Foldon and Balkovec are approaching their new jobs the way Walt Hriniak did.  Don’t remember Hriniak?

Well, once upon a time, from the mid-80s to the mid-90s, he was the acknowledged hitting guru of major league baseball.  As hitting coach for the Red Sox (four years) and White Sox (seven years), Hriniak taught an approach that among other facets featured the top hand coming off the bat at the end of a swing.  Carl Yastrzemski, Wade Boggs and Frank Thomas loved Hriniak, Ted Williams didn’t.  (Sammy Sosa may or may not have been traded by the White Sox to the Cubs in part because he refused to follow the Hriniak method).  Did Hriniak turn Yaz, Boggs and Thomas into HOFers?  You can argue that question until the cows come home.  It is worth noting the Sox brought back Hriniak to work with Michael Jordan, he of the career .202 minor-league batting average.

I definitely want to see women in major league baseball; my daughter would be a perfect fit.  But I also think there’s a danger of turning hitting instruction into pseudo-science.  I’ll always contend that Bill Robinson had the right idea as a hitting coach.  As a hitter, Robinson was a bust until the age of 30, after which point he collected most of his career 166 homeruns and 641 RBIs.  As a coach, Robinson believed, “A good hitting instructor is able to mold his teachings to the individual.  If a guy stands on his head, you perfect that.”

That approach allows for a Tony Batista, Mike Easler or Kevin Youklis.  I doubt the drive for efficiency will allow for much of anything beyond robot hitters.

Baby Steps

The Cubs made some news yesterday with the hiring of former pro-softball player Rachel Folden.  A college standout at Marshall University as well as a five-year veteran of the National Pro Fastpitch League, Folden will be the “lead hitting lab tech [this according to the press release] and fourth coach” for the Cubs’ rookie league team in Mesa, Arizona.

Folden is believed to be the first woman coach in organized baseball, to which I give a solid two cheers.  I’d offer three if she weren’t part of the “biomechanics” movement taking root in the national pastime.  The idea is to use machines to record athletes and show them how to maximize—dare I say, perfect?—their skill set.  You might say it’s about turning athletes into human machines.  Hmm.

I just don’t think this approach is going to work, other than to point out injury risks for pitching deliveries.  Baseball is all about tinkering, trying a little of this and a little of that.  A player sees someone else do something different and asks about it; we could be talking pitching grip or batting stance.  The old combines with the different to produce something new, and unique.  Biomechanics implies one true way, or what I would call a cookie-cutter approach.  I guess we’ll see.

It’s also interesting that the baseball establishment seems most comfortable with women doing new stuff, like analytics and now biomechanics.  I want to see if Folden becomes a base or bench coach for Mesa and then works her way up the organizational ladder in one of those capacities.  Now, that would be something.    

In the Blink of an Eye

Well, that didn’t take long.  This White Sox fan went from complaining about the dog days of November to wondering why exactly his team spent $73 million on switch-hitting, free-agent catcher Yasmani Grandal.  I know what Sox GM Rick Hahn and sportswriters are saying, but that’s not the same as a good reason.

The now 31-year old Grandal hit .246 for the Brewers in 2019, with 28 home runs and 77 RBIs.  Those stats are eerily similar to what Yonder Alonso put up the year before the Sox signed him: .250/23 homers/83 RBIs.  If you really want to push the weird factor, Grandal and Alonso were part of a package of young players the Reds sent to the Padres for…Mat Latos.  Two bad ex-Sox.  What are the odds for three?

Don’t get me wrong, I want Grandal to do well on the South Side, but that career .348 OBP comes with a career .241 BA.  As for being one of, if not the, best pitch framer in all of baseball, so what?  I’m supposed to get all excited about some stat purporting to measure how many runs his pitch framing has saved, and yet no one I’ve read or heard has brought up this stat: Grandal has led the NL in passed balls not once, not twice, but three times since 2014.  Career wise, he’s also one percentage point below average throwing out base stealers.  So, we’ll see.

But, hey, I’ll take the hot stove over the dog days anytime.

The Real Dog Days

The Real Dog Days

I don’t want to hear anything about the dog days of summer.  November in Chicago, when various shades of gray come dripping down out of the sky, is the time that will try anyone’s soul.  How all those Hollywood types doing TV and movies here must hate it.  Me, I just try to hang on until the sun decides to put in its next appearance.

So, given that these are the true dog days, baseball news is in short supply.  Thank God for the Transactions column in today’s Sun-Times; lots of teams making moves to their 40-man rosters.  Hello, Zack Burdi, goodbye, Jacoby Ellsbury.  I only wish the type weren’t so small.  A person could go blind before ever getting to what teams are doing in the National League.

The Internet is dicey for different reasons.  I don’t much care for MLB-Pravda, aka MLB.com, because every story is a form of click-bait.  That, and the photos take forever to download on my computer.  As for the sites dealing in rumors, too often they veer into pure fantasy.  For instance, I just read a story calling on the White Sox to sign as many as the top eight free agents as they can.  In this alternate universe, Anthony Rendon, Gerrit Cole and Stephen Strasburg can all end up on the South Side come Opening Day.

Better to stick to Transactions.  I see the Yankees have let go of first baseman Greg Bird, who has just the right combination of raw power and chronic injuries to interest my Sox.  Now, there’s a rumor you can believe in.

The View From Afar

Any possible affection for Bulls’ coach Jim Boylen can’t hide the fact his team has gotten off to a 4-10 start.  Some rebuild.

And it’s one that got this assessment from Milwaukee Bucks’ forward Giannis Antetokounmpo, whose team has beaten Chicago twice in the past week.  For reasons best known to Coach Boylen, the Bulls’ 6’3” Ryan Arcidiacono spent a good deal of both games guarding the 6’11” Antetokounmpo.  If nothing else, it was fearless defense on Arcidiacono’s part.   In today’s Tribune, Antetokounmpo said he wasn’t surprised to find Arcidiacono on him because “I think he’s the only one from the Bulls that’s going diving for the ball on the floor.”  Thanks, and Ouch!

Boylen is supposed to be molding an aggressive, smart, young team.  At least one opposing player doesn’t think much of the results.  Neither do I.  Either the Bulls go on a run, and soon, or heads should roll.  But this is Chicago, home to Ryan Pace, Kenny Williams, Don Cooper… 

All The Best People

There’s picture in the desk draw of my parents with Michele and me at Comiskey Park in the summer of 1990.  From looking at it, you’d never know my father’s stepfather had wanted to get rid of his two stepsons.  That’s the hand some people are dealt in life.

Bob Harris, my father-in-law, always liked my dad, maybe because they had something in common; Bob’s mother did in fact get rid of him, in a way, placing him and his twin brother in an orphanage around the age of eight.  There was a silver lining, though.  Bob met Merle, the love of his life and wife of 66 years, in the home by the time he was ten.

Bob and I didn’t always get along in the 42 years we knew one another, strong personalities and all.  Among other things, he loved college sports while I go more for the pros.  But he was a Sox fan, I think in part because Hank Greenberg was an American Leaguer.  After he aged out of the home, Bob would take Merle on dates to see the Sox play; they liked sitting in upper deck in right field.  This would’ve been at the tail end of Luke Appling’s career and the beginning of Chico Carrasquel’s.  My father-in-law loved how shortstops could throw from deep in the hole.

Bob also like the Cardinals, both for their uniform and Go-Go style of play.  On occasion, he even spoke fondly of Stan Musial, which could have been code for trying to make peace with me.  Our wars ended long ago (and let me note here Bob was too stubborn to pick up the Bronze Star he earned while fighting in Korea), so that in recent years I was in charge of coming up with books for my senior-aged pupil to read.  He was a good student and died too young, at the age of 88, yesterday morning.

Looking at my wife’s father and my own, I know this if nothing else in life, that all the best people went to Comiskey Park to root for the White Sox.  

Read All About It

What’s the old saying?  Oh, right, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.  Case in point, the Bears and their quarterback.

Yesterday, Sunday, the Tribune devoted six pages—count ’em, six—to the Mitch Trubisky saga.  Six pages trying to figure out why the Bears’ front office traded up for Trubisky in the 2017 NFL draft rather than pick either Pat Mahomes or Deshaun Watson instead.  Six pages.  Six pages to cover what could have, and should have, been summed up in five words:  Dumb teams do dumb things.  On top of this, Trubisky and the Bears’ offense stunk up the Coliseum in a 17-7 loss to the Rams.

I know, I know.  I’m a dead-forest guy trying to hold on in a digital age.  So, I went online today to the Trib’s website to look at their Bears’ coverage, and, My God.  I read a story that went on as long as Sunday’s analysis, if not longer.  Print or online, the Tribune is a media outlet of limited resources.  Coverage devoted to the Bears is coverage taken away from the high school football playoffs and the start of the college basketball season.  DePaul has started the season 5-0 for the first time since 1986.  But good news gets buried—four paragraphs on page 13 Sunday—by coverage of the death spiral.

At least there’s a silver lining to all this Trubisky-mania—the peasants and their troubadours don’t look to be drinking the Kool-Aid anymore.  Not only do people want GM Ryan “He of No Voice” Pace held accountable for his quarterback selection, a sportswriter has actually called for what would have been considered blasphemy not even three short months ago, that the McCaskeys sell the team

.No doubt the family wishes all this publicity of late would just go away.  That gets less likely with every loss.  Enjoy.   

Like a Broken Record

I just can’t help myself—every time White Sox GM Rick Hahn talks about spending money, I want him to start small and then work his way up.  In other words, find a way to sign Gold Glove infielder Yolmer Sanchez.

Don’t blow smoke about Gerritt Cole or Stephen Strasburg or Nick Castellanos.  And, whatever you do, don’t rehash the Manny Machado saga as proof of serious intentions.  That shows bad judgment more than anything.  How about being upfront with fans and media for a change?

Hahn could start by admitting he doesn’t want to break the bank signing frontline pitchers, and could site any number of free-agent signings that were a bust (Tyler Chatwood, anybody?).  Next, he could address—in as close to plain English as is Hahn-ly possible—his plans for DH and right field.  Castellanos, definitely interested or not?

Finally, Hahn need to recognize, fully and publicly, what the Sox have in Sanchez.  I know, I know, I sound like a broken record, but Sanchez really has all the makings of another Ben Zobrist, and then some.  I’d argue Yolmer has a better glove, and he’s faster on the base paths.  If he gets serious about his hitting, then you’ve really got an exceptional talent.  Consider that he’s had seasons of eight and ten triples before telling me I’m crazy.

The Sox are a team that once signed Albert Belle, the fans be damned.  Now, it’s time to keep Yolmer Sanchez.  It won’t cost nearly as much, and people will actually be happy with such a “small” transaction.       

A Line Best Left Uncrossed

With eight seconds left in Thursday night’s Browns-Steelers game and Cleveland about to win 21-7, Cleveland defensive end Myles Garrett knocked down Pittsburgh quarterback Mason Rudolph at the end of a pass play.  Unfortunately for all concerned, that was not the end of story.

Rudolph, being a quarterback, did not like being on the receiving end of what could have passed for a WWR takedown.  Whatever Rudolph did while either going down or while on his back led Garrett to rip off the quarterback’s helmet and give him a whack over the head with it.  Garrett has received an indefinite suspension from the NFL.

The reactions are as revealing as the incident itself.  Retired players are bigtime critical of Garrett and current players pretty much mum, or worse.  Here’s a tweet by the Bears’ Akiem Hicks, quoted in today’s Sun-Times: “If you don’t wanna get hit with your own helmet don’t run up.”  In other words, take your beating laying down.

For his part, coach Matt Nagy reverted to his happy-talk persona.  “The good part for us is that we know we are top 10 in uniform violations and in unnecessary roughness [penalties] and on-field violations.  I think that’s important that our guys do that.”

Three “that’s” in one sentence—Nagy must be taking lessons in public speaking from Rick Hahn of the White Sox.  What current players and coaches are unable and/or unwilling to do (oddly enough, among the exceptions is Garrett’s teammate quarterback Baker Mayfield, someone not often confused with a model of maturity) is to call out bad behavior pure and simple.

For a sport so fond of wrapping itself in the flag, you wouldn’t think that would be such a problem.

Aging Out

I can’t help shaking the feeling that sports is a young person’s game.  Pick a sport, and youth will be served, on the field or in the stands.

Jose Abreu of the White Sox accepted the team’s qualifying offer of $17.8 million for next year, the hope being that in the meantime both sides can agree on a multiyear deal.  Clare announced the news from the back seat of the car last night.  I’d picked her and Michele up at the train on our way to visit my in-laws.  They have a very good, loving granddaughter.

She’s also an intense Sox fan and wanted to know what it all meant, so I gave her my take, minus the detachment.  The baseball heroes of my youth didn’t earn $17.8 million a year.  Heck, team salaries didn’t total $17.8 million a year.  Instead, we’re talking people who fought to make $20,000-$30,000.  Only the Kalines and Aarons could hope to do better.

But times change, although I seem to be more or less stuck in the past.  I wince at any ballplayer being called “blue-collar.”  Only if he’s making minimum wage, the federal not the MLB kind.  Maybe this is all the magic of sports; as kids we don’t think in terms of finances.  We pick our heroes and want them to stay around their entire careers.  I don’t want to go back to the bad old days of the reserve clause.  But $17.8 million sure makes for a gulf between where Abreu plays and I sit.  I need to get rich.

That would solve everything.

Read My Lips

Read My Lips

Oh, those poor, poor Astros.  They couldn’t finish off the Nationals during the World Series, and they keep getting into trouble for stuff, like an assistant GM bullying female reporters and people stealing signs.  Apparently, no one in the Houston organization was taught that it’s wrong to steal.  But that’s exactly what The Athletic is alleging this week in a pretty detailed story.

First, a little background: teams have been trying to steal other teams’ signs since the dawn of baseball.  Is that bad?  Well, it depends.  If I’m sitting in the dugout and can see the base coaches or someone in the other dugout flashing signs and I can figure out what they mean, then that’s OK in my book.  I mean, I’m just sitting there.  The signs take the place of conversation.  If I’m sitting there and can hear what my opponent’s planning to do, I’m not going to stick my fingers in my ears or say, “Hey, guys, move it somewhere else so I won’t know what you’re up to.”

Ditto standing at second base.  If I can read the catcher’s sign and relay it to my teammate at bat, that’s OK.  How different is that from acting on a pitcher who’s tipping his pitchers?  What, I should ignore the tip that a fastball/curve/change is coming?  That’d be dumb.  Well, the catcher who doesn’t change signs with a baserunner at second is basically tipping pitches to the runner. 

Notice that the “theft” involves nothing more than paying attention with your own two eyes.  As long as that’s the case, everything’s fair in love and war.  But once you start adding anything to this equation—including but not confined to binoculars, zoom lenses or TV feeds in the dugout—then we’ve got a problem.  You either cheat like they did back in 1900, or you don’t cheat at all.

It’s interesting that the Astros haven’t put up a defense like they initially did for their bullying assistant GM; that certainly suggests guilt.  It’s also interesting that Houston is the poster child for the cutting-edge organization, all analytics and whatnot.  Back in the day, anyone caught (or suspected) of using binoculars to steal signs was called out as a cheat (we’re looking at you, Leo Durocher).  That doesn’t seem to bother the analytics’ crowd.  I wonder why.

Maybe no one’s come up with a logarithm to measure cheating.  Ergo, it doesn’t exist, at least for some people.

Silly Season

Silly Season So Soon

The MLB general managers’ meetings in Arizona this week begins baseball’s silly season, up to and through the winter meetings next month.  Anyone with a dumb idea and the platform to convey it has the floor.

Here are two I read today: the White Sox should be willing to trade Tim Anderson or Yoan Moncada in a super deal; Moncada should switch back to second base to make room for the free-agent signing of Anthony Rendon.  In one scenario top prospect middle-infielder Nick Madrigal plays a key role while in the other he becomes irrelevant.

Rebuilds suck, and the urge to hurry them along with free-agent signings is understandable.  In this case, it’s also dumb, taking a youth movement and giving it a little—or a lot, depending on the length of the contract—age.  I don’t want to see Rendon at a high-skill position when he’s 36; the only person who could handle the hot corner at the age was Brooks Robinson.  Consider that Robinson had three of his sixteen (!) Gold Gloves starting at the age of 36.  In seven seasons at third base, so far Rendon has yet to record one.  He’ll also turn 30 next season.

Imagine the ripple effects had the Sox had signed Manny Machado; either Anderson would’ve been moved off of shortstop to accommodate him or Moncada kept at second.  Who’s to say Machado’s presence wouldn’t have hurt those two, preventing one or both of them from having the breakout seasons they in fact did?  And now Moncada is supposed to yo-yo back to second?  Nope.  I don’t think so.

Try and sign starter Gerrit Cole because he won’t turn 30 until September (and provided he’s not a jerk, which his post-Game Seven performance suggests otherwise).  Other than that, I’d put the onus on coaches and the front office.  Luis Robert and Madrigal are that good?  Then plug them into the lineup.  Michael Kopech is ready to pick up where he left off before Tommy John surgery?  Then let him have at it, with all the support pitching coach Don Cooper can give.

Either the kids can play, or it was all a lie.  Start signing free agents now, and your repeat the mistakes of 2006-2016.  No thanks.  

Veterans Day

It’s November 11^th, Veterans Day, and the flag should be out, but it’s not.  It’s not supposed to snow so hard, not on November 11^th. 

Two days ago, I sat outside watching a college football game.  Yesterday, we ran around the backyard in the gathering gloom to mulch all the rose bushes before the snow came, on November 11^th.  And today I put the car in low to drive on Harlem Avenue to drop Michele off at the train.  That was both before and after I shoveled snow, on November 11^th.

All in all, I prefer to think of the Veterans Day fifteen years ago, when Clare was in seventh grade.  School was out, and it was a normal fall day, nice enough for me to call baseball practice.  My daughter was not always fond of taking grounders.  She could hit for hours, but fielding was an acquired taste for her.  Naturally, we did fielding first.

We worked out at Baseball Alley, home to two fields.  As a twelve-year old in her final at-bat at the smaller field, Clare put a ball over fence and viewing area into the parking lot for a walk-off (by the slaughter rule).  Four months later, she was still putting balls over the fence.  We had to move on to the bigger field, the home for Pony Ball.  Oh, she’d do alright her one season there, too, batting .322 with a .400 OBP.

I know Veterans Day isn’t supposed to be about baseball (or snow), not really.  We honor those who have served in our military.  That service helped make it possible for a father to pitch batting practice to his daughter on a day the snow saw fit to stay away.    

A Saturday Afternoon in November

We found ourselves visiting the North Side yesterday, first to eat then to cheer.  The Elmhurst College Blue Jays were visiting the Vikings of North Park University.

The school happens to be literally across the street from one of our favorite restaurants, Tre Kronor, which we’ve been going to since the late 1970s.  This is the place for Swedish fare, as evidenced by all the Scandinavian Blackhawks who used to eat there.  We especially like the breakfast menu.  I recommend Limpa toast to go with the Stockholm omelet.

Up until Clare was in college, I’d been on the North Park campus all of one time, to use the school library.  Then came four years of Blue Jays vs. Vikings’ softball, and here I was back again to watch my son-in-law coach the Jays’ defensive line and special teams.  Not having a kid on the field is both a good thing and a hard thing.  Winning isn’t as important, although the need to keep your mouth shut is, lest a parent hear something from that stranger about how his son missed an open-field tackle.

The weather was five or six degrees short of perfect, and a touch on the windy side.  But we all dressed up for March softball, and it was fine.  Sitting in the top row of the visitors’ bleachers, I saw how the field fit nicely into its neighborhood setting, apartment buildings bordering one side and the north branch of the Chicago River on the other.  When the ROTC color guard marched out to midfield before the start of the game, the crowd grew so quiet I could hear a few geese honking as they swam in the river at our backs.  Only in Chicago.

If I were a D-III football coach, there’d be no need for an offensive coordinator.  I’d have my quarterback set up in the pocket eight plays out of ten and throw downfield, interceptions and sacks be damned.  I imagined the game unfolding just that way, save for those times I watched the jets follow Foster Avenue west to O’Hare or when I heard the North Park quarterback shout out signals:  Ten Oklahoma, hut.

We could only stay for the first half because Clare had to go out to God’s country for a bachelorette party; one of her former teammates is getting married.  Time flies.  I have no one down on the field to root for anymore.  Maybe that’s what grandchildren are for.

What He Should've Said

Bears’ quarterback Mitch Trubisky certainly put his foot in his mouth answering a reporter’s question on Wednesday.  First, he said he was busy “trying to get some of these TVs in the building [Halas Hall] turned off.”  You see, the embattled quarterback is tired, tired of hearing what the critics have to say.

“You’ve got too many people talking on TV about us and what they think about us,” said Trubisky, “what we should do, what we are and what we’re not.  But they don’t really know who we are or what we’re capable of as people or what we’re going through or what we’re thinking.  It’s just outside viewers looking in.”  Oh, the injustice of it all.

Trubisky helped feed the preseason fantasy that this was a Super Bowl bound team, so he’s got to expect the backlash.  He would’ve been much better off saying something along the lines of “They’re absolutely right, I stink” or some variation thereof.  But you forfeit the right to complain about your critics when the NFL ranks you as the 28^th “best” quarterback in the league.

For Trubisky’s sake, he better win tomorrow, or the TV critics are going to come jumping out of the screen to chase after him.

Smiling Faces (The Undisputed Truth)

So, the Illinois High School Association goes to the Illinois Appellate Court to dissolve a lower court’s injunction that allows Chicago high school runners to participate in their postseason, only the appellate court refuses to act.  Lo and behold, the IHSA is all smiley faces now.

In response, the authority issued a statement that, “We remain respectful to the courts and will continue to follow the timeline they set forth.  We are excited that the spotlight can now return where it belongs, on the student-athletes.”  If only the IHSA had included a promise not to disqualify those Chicago runners after the events should it continue to fight the injunction and win.

Also, don’t hold your breath for either the Chicago Public Schools or Chicago Teachers Union to weigh in beyond a pro forma “Yay” for the kids.  Why?  Because both sides want to use the potential loss of athletics as a bargaining chip when negotiations start on a new contract five years from now.  The United States and the Soviet Union could agree on nuclear disarmament, but the CPS and CTU can’t find a way to keep athletics going during a strike.

A pox times three, for the CPS, CTU and IHSA.

Budding Bromance? We'll See

Bulls’ coach Jim Boylan is that guy who talks a little too loud, and ends up with spit on his chin.  Still, I kind of like him.

Part of it is a class thing.  Boylen spent three summers after high school on a Cadillac assembly line; that appeals to this former forklift driver.  But I also like Boylan’s approach to coaching—he’s publicly holding his players accountable.  He was quoted in yesterday’s Tribune that his players have “been weak mentally” at times this season, and he wants these baby Bulls, the second-youngest team in the NBA, to be more physical on the court.  That, too, appeals to this fan of Norm Van Lier and Jerry Sloan.  (If you have to ask…)

Does any of the above make Boylen a good coach?  The jury’s still out on that one.  Tuesday, the Bulls had a 13-point lead going into the fourth quarter against the Lakers, only to let LA score sixteen straight points in a come-from-behind 118-112 win.  As if that weren’t bad enough, Boylen didn’t call a timeout until the entire lead had vanished, and then some.  He was also slow to bring his starters back into the game.

Boylen defended both decisions in today’s Tribune.  “We’ve got to figure it out,” he said about the ability to close out games when leading.  And he wouldn’t back down on keeping his second-string in for twelve of those sixteen straight points.  “We’re going to develop that second group, and we’re going to have a bench here in Chicago.”  Come hell, high water or LeBron James and the Lakers.

Boylen’s comments could indicate a stubbornness not conducive to winning basketball; that’s what the jury has to decide.  But I’ll give Boylen this, he knows what’s at stake here.  “I’m the head coach and I’ll take responsibility for the fourth quarter.  I’ve got to do a better job getting our guys to understand winning basketball.”

When was the last time Bears’ coach Matt Nagy ever said anything so direct?

Deep State Downstate

You want to know the location of the “deep state,” that nexus of power working to thwart the will of the people?  Well, my friends, it ain’t in Washington or northern Virginia.  Try downstate Illinois instead, Bloomington to be exact.  That’s the home of the Illinois High School Association, an organization as deep as it gets.

The IHSA is supposed to work like the state equivalent of the NCAA, on a high school level, only the IHSA makes the NCAA look competent in comparison.  Apparently, sometime in the distant past the board that represents 800-plus schools in Illinois passed a rule that cancels athletics for any school undergoing a strike.  As you might imagine, that rule hasn’t exactly been popular with Chicago Public Schools’ athletes and/or their parents during the recent CPS teachers’ strike.

The IHSA did bend its rules to allow CPS football teams to participate in the state playoffs but wouldn’t do the same for cross-country runnrs, which led to a lawsuit which led to a judge’s ruling that the CPS runners be allowed to participate.  The IHSA was less than pleased with the decision.

Its director basically told the Tribune today athletics and academics go together or not at all.  “When schools are on strike, we don’t have the educational piece going on,” he said.  “I’ve got to believe at some point in our history, it was important to the rule-makers that we maintain education and sports together.”  You imagine?  Why don’t you know that for a fact?

The director was also quoted in today’s Sun-Times, charging that the judge’s ruling “creates a dangerous legal precedent that hampers our ability to uphold the rules put into place by our member schools [though exactly when he can’t say], and has far-reaching implications that impact the finality and integrity of any IHSA event.”  In other words, rules are rules.    

I’d think an organization like the IHSA would understand that good rules work while bad ones lead to lawsuits.  Leadership in the truest sense of the word would discard any and all rules demonstrated to be bad.  An organization purporting to champion student athletes shouldn’t be fighting to protect the right to keep rules that punish athletes for situations beyond their control.  Then again, I don’t belong to the deep state downstate.

Do Be and Don't Be

Sports work best at the individual level.  You root for a team for whatever reasons, and you look for particular players on the team to for.  Heaven help any 11-year-old Astros’ fans who made the mistake of making pitcher Gerrit Cole their favorite player.

As reported in the Houston Chronicle, Cole didn’t want to address the media following his team’s game-seven loss in the World Series, or perhaps I should say, his ex-team.  Cole was reported telling the team’s media-relations’ head, “I mean, I’m not employed [by the Astros]. I’m not employed [by them].”  Cole relented, provided he could speak “as an affiliate of myself.”  And, he should’ve added, his agent Scott Boras.  Why?  Because Cole addressed the media wearing a baseball cap that bore the logo of Boras’s agency. 

This isn’t where I start complaining about how modern-day players are such jerks.  Oh, I think too many of them are, but there was probably a lot of that going around fifty and a hundred years ago, for that matter.  And when haven’t teams acted the same way?  The Astros are a textbook example this postseason, given their handling of the Brandon Taubman incident.  The thing is, baseball doesn’t have a surplus of good will with its fans to screw up so much.

Too bad Cole and players like him couldn’t be more like Yolmer, as in Sanchez of the White Sox; this is a guy who gets it and who loves the game of baseball.  As of Sunday, Sanchez is also a Gold Glove winner at second base; he joins Nellie Fox as the only Sox players to win a Gold Glove at second base.  Now, there’s some history for you.

Sanchez exhibits childlike enthusiasm, which is not to say he is in all ways an overgrown kid.  In the story I read, he alluded to his uncertain future with the Sox and placed his trust in his agents.  If the Sox keep him, it could cost in the neighborhood of $6.2 million.  Me, I think it’s a bargain, both from a business and a fan’s standpoint.  Sanchez has the makings of a supersub, and one more advanced at the same age than Ben Zobrist, whose career is pretty much the gold standard for that role.  And Zobrist has never poured Gatorade over himself after a teammate’s walk-off hit.  

Don’t screw this up with Yolmer, guys.  Leave that to the Astros, past and present.

About Philadelphia

W.C. Fields had it wrong about Philadelphia—he should’ve been talking about the Bears visiting the City of Brotherly Love.  Right now, first prize for any team is going up against those monsters of the midway.  Talk about ineptitude.

I was at my accustomed station on a Sunday afternoon in fall, atop the excercyle with the Bears on the TV.  As God is my witness, I knew they were in trouble the second play of the game, when quarterback Mitch Trubisky barely got the play off before incurring a delay-of-game penalty.  The Bears were very good at penalties yesterday, by the way.  They managed nine of them.

Here’s what I don’t understand about Coach Matt Nagy; he keeps trying to minimize the damage Trubisky might do.  So, Nagy calls a run, another run and then a sidelines’ pass, the sequence varing from possession to possession but never altered.  This formula was good for a net of nine yards in the first half.  Holy Crawl Under a Rock, that’s bad.

Nagy refuses to drop his Boy Scouts’ routine; it’s all about joint effort, not giving up, blah-blah-blah.  If it’s me, I can see the writing on the wall.  Rather than continue the Halas/McCaskey tradition of never throwing over the middle for fear of a mortal sin, that’s just what I would have my quarterback do, that and scramble.  You see an open receiver, Mitch, you throw to him.  Otherwise, run.

Along those lines, the Bears might be better off going without anyone in the backfield with Trubisky; it’s not like they actually run the ball, far.  (They could also save money, another longtime interest of the McCaskey family.)  The invisible genius that is general manager Ryan Pace dumped running back Jordan Howard and drafted David Montgomery to take his place.  Howard rushed for 82 yards against his ex-team on Sunday.  That’s more yards rushing than his entire ex-team managed (a whopping 62, with Montgomery accounting for 40 of them).  Right now, Trubisky turning into another Bobby Douglass would be an improvement.

Judging from what I heard on talk radio after the game, those sheep otherwise known as Bears’ fans seem to be dropping their passive attitude.  If Trubisky and company (think linebacker Khalil Mack complaining about Eagles’ center Jason Kelce causing four off-sides’ penalties against Bears’ defenders) don’t show up big next Sunday at home against the Lions, things could get loud and ugly, or deathly quiet and ugly, depending on the weather.

I wonder which one the McCaskeys would prefer.  

Searching for Clues

For reasons best known to itself, on Friday the mysterious voice on the phone that pretends to know directions routed me past the Elmhurst College softball field.  It was the day after Halloween, snow in spots on the ground, so cold not even an action-starved parent shivered in the bleachers waiting for a hint of action.  That field is all but dead to me now.

Coach P is gone, retired after last season.  His replacement looks capable enough, but I doubt he wants the father of an ex-player hanging around.  Parents of current players he has to deal with.  Graduates, though, should take their fathers away with them.  And, truth be told, I don’t much care to watch softball games my daughter doesn’t play in.

Sports is different for me now from when I started off with a four-year old hitting prodigy.  Pro football I follow to pass the time on a Sunday afternoon; pro basketball I like as soon starting with one minute left in the third quarter and not a second before.  College sports on TV don’t interest me, though the hypocrisy of the NCAA will at least be lessened if this movement to pay athletes for the use of their image picks up steam.

That leaves baseball, which now rivals paint drying for fan interest.  I’m rooted in a version of the sport best summarized by a name rooted in an ever more distant past:  Go-Go White Sox!  Too bad the bunt, hit-and-run and stolen base are all analytically passé.  But old dogs and fans of a certain age are old to break of their habits.  It’s a month to the winter meetings, and there’ll be plenty of rumors involving the White Sox.  After that, SoxFest and after that, spring training.

And in front of me on the wall, pictures, baseball cards and pennants, all part of my mini-Cooperstown.  I’m drawn more than ever to those Sox teams managed by Chuck Tanner, which may be why I just picked up on eBay a great color photo of Walt Williams taking a swing in an otherwise empty Comiskey Park.  That will be added to the wall before long.  Going forward, I seem forever drawn to the past.