Some Guys Have All the Luck

 Theo Epstein and Rick Hahn must get up every morning and ask themselves what they did wrong to deserve the near-daily abuse they get as baseball general managers.  Oh, it comes with the territory, for sure.  But in Chicago there’s one general manager who doesn’t have to answer to anybody he doesn’t want to, and that’s Ryan Pace of the Bears.

According to today’s Tribune, the last time Pace addressed the Chicago media at a news conference was September 2^nd, three days BEFORE the season opened.  I mean, Bears’ fever had everyone by the ears, nose and throat back then, and Pace still couldn’t bring himself to appear before reporters.  This is arrogance, this is knowing what your bosses will tolerate.  In that if nothing else, Pace is a master.

Starting with spring training and going clear through the end of the regular season, Epstein and Hahn deal with the Chicago media on a weekly, if not a daily, basis.  You may not like what they have to say, and I can’t stand most of the passive-voice gibberish that Hahn spouts, but Chicago baseball GMs, to their everlasting credit, face the music early and often.  But what of Ryan Pace, architect of those 8-8 Bears?

The master of mediocrity addresses the media, on New Year’s Eve, when most people’s attention is split between making merry at midnight and watching college football come noon.  Here’s hoping reporters put Ryan through his paces, and a whole lot more.    

Trust Me

Your Chicago Bears pulled off an exciting victory against the Vikings’ second string—don’t want your most valuable players hurt going into the playoffs—by a score of 21-19 to finish the season at 8-8.  Head coach Matt Nagy said after the game the 2020 season has already started for him.  Here’s hoping it’s not a waste of his time, or ours.

Nagy’s afraid to run the ball or throw it downfield.  If he doesn’t address the reasons why, next year becomes a repeat of this year.  And even if he does, general manager Ryan Pace may be on a different page than Nagy, if not in a different universe.  I mean, who ultimately is responsible for this roster filled with invisible tight ends and offensive linemen?  Whoever it is, that’s the guy you want to great rid of.

But we’re talking the McCaskeys here, and they’re enamored with Pace.  In other words, Pace gets to clean up the mess he’s made, or frustrate us all in the attempt.  Pace thought he’d assembled a really great offensive line to protect quarterback Mitch Trubisky.  Oops.  According to The Athletic, Trubisky was sacked 38 times, ninth most in the NFL.  I think it’s safe to say that Pace knows offensive linemen about as well as he does tight ends.  See Trey Burton, Adam Shaheen, Jesper Horsted….

Pace believes in Trubisky, which is to say he never believed in Jimmy Garoppolo, at least not enough to trade for in 2016 or ’17.  The 49ers did, which is a major reason they just won the NFC West.  Garoppolo threw for 27 touchdowns in the regular season vs. 17 for Trubisky, with 13 interceptions to Trubisky’s 10.  But, hey, maybe Pace figures it out and Trubisky gets better next year.  We can always hope.

Just don’t expect much of anything.   

Christmastime

The past can be a dangerous place to spend time in.  Stay too long, and you’re liable to start talking about how great things used to be.  For you, maybe, for anyone who was lynched, not so much.  But this is the time of year the past is the most appealing to me, the most tempting.

We didn’t have extravagant Christmases when I was growing up, but they were nice, and my parents always made sure that I got a couple of good toys to make up for the disappointment that came from receiving clothes.  (EBay has allowed me to start reacquiring the contents of my toy chest, by the way.)  My father grew up in a one-parent household, except for those years with his stepfather, who wanted my grandmother to get rid of the two kids she had by her first husband.  Good times.

So, when I think of Christmases past, the memories tend to be bittersweet because of what my dad went through.  God knows what they’re like for Clare; she’ll tell you how I was a real tree-Nazi every December.  Everything had to be just right, and God forbid she drop an ornament.  We had a number of ornaments from my parents, and if one of those broke, it would’ve been like taking something precious away from my dad.

The autographed picture of Walt Williams I bought recently is both Christmas gift and New Year’s resolution.  Williams is taking a swing along the third base side of Comiskey Park, those glorious arches that circled the park in the background.  He’s wearing the red pinstriped uniform of the early 1970s, and, for a publicity shot, he sure looks serious.  Walt is also sporting some serious sideburns.

Williams had a life not unlike my dad’s, in its trials and disappointments.  The one was a ballplayer who never quite established himself as a regular, this despite a ten-year big-league career, and the other was a man who had to navigate life with a seventh-grade education.  Sometimes, we’re lucky with the heroes we choose.

Now, I have to find a good spot to hang that picture, so that’ll feel like Christmas year-round.  

Silly Season

I opened up the Tribune sports’ section this morning and nearly fell off my chair—the Bears’ got the same amount of space usually reserved for the White Sox and Bulls on the road.  How the mighty have fallen.

If only people would stop writing silly stuff about the White Sox.  Really, all it takes is a twitter account to turn someone into a reputable source, that and the imprimatur that goes with being part of MLB.com.  Read Baseball Pravda, and you come away thinking the White Sox are hot for free-agent outfielder Yasiel Puig.  But never once is it explained why that would be.

At the age of 29, why would Puig want to sign a likely one-year contract to platoon in right field?  The only reason I can see is he owes money big time and needs to get his hands on some, pronto, before the bone breakers track him down.  Unless Puig is being advised by Mickey Mouse, it would make more sense for him to start for the Marlins than platoon with the Sox.  If he puts up big numbers in Miami, he’d most likely get moved to a contender.  Sign with the Sox, the odds are against him getting the at-bats to put up big numbers that could translate into a nice contract the next season.  Oh, and one other thing.

Why would the Sox want Puig in the first place?  Puig and Jose Abreu would mix about as well as oil and water.  Outside of the alliteration, the idea of a Puig platoon just doesn’t make sense, unless you go for solutions in search of a problem.  Say what you will about Sox GM Rick Hahn (and I usually do), he doesn’t strike me as the type.  The Sox already have themselves Nomar Mazara for right field, with Leury Garcia and Adam Engel as platoon candidates.

Signing Puig would be downright silly.

A Long List

The wannabe GMs out there are cheering over reports the White Sox have signed soon-to-be 37-year old Edwin Encarnacion to a one-year, $12 million deal, with team option for a second year.  Allow me to add some perspective.

Consider the following: Walt Dropo; Larry Doby (first go-around); Ted Kluszewski; Minnie Minoso (second go-around); Roy Sievers; Bill “Moose” Skowron; Jim King; Rocky Colavito; Ken Boyer; Deron Johnson; Bobby Bonds; Carlton Fisk; Greg Luzinski; George Foster; Oscar Gamble (second go-around); Ron Kittle (second go-around); George Bell; Harold Baines (second and third go-arounds); Jose Canseco; Jim Thome; Ken Griffey Jr.; Andruw Jones; Manny Ramirez; Adam Dunn; and Adam LaRoche.  Every one of them a slugger and every one of them acquired by the Sox after they turned 30. 

Some put up nice numbers, some hardly any numbers at all.  If Encarnacion can do what  Minoso, Fisk, Luzinski or Baines did in their good years, next season should be interesting.  If not, Encarnacion joins a long list of players who came too late to the party at 35^th and Shields.

A Little Sympathy If You Will

 In some ways, Bears’ quarterback Mitch Trubisky is one heck of a lucky 25-year old.  How many modestly gifted young men have earned $29 million by that age with another $22 million or so coming their way in another year?  That’s how much Trubisky could make if the Bears pick up his fifth-year option.

On the other hand, how many 25-year olds have to put up with the abuse Trubisky has endured since September?  At some point, the constant criticism has to get to him.  Online, on TV, on the radio, in the papers—there’s no escape.  I can’t imagine he has much of a social life, either.  Oh, there’s Mr. [fill in the blank with whatever vitriol you feel comfortable with] sitting over at that table.  He’s got some nerve to show his face.

To his credit, Trubisky has stood up and taken the blame for how he and his team have performed.  Off of that, I hope he finds success, in Chicago or elsewhere.  It’s just that seeing him miss a wide open Allen Robinson the way he did Sunday night doesn’t leave me thinking he ever will.

Bears’ GM Ryan Pace has to make the call on Trubiskly, not me.  All I can do is wait, and refrain from piling on a 25-year old who never asked for all the grief he’s been getting.  As for Pace, pile on, I say. 

Now and Then

You know something’s changed when the Tribune sports’ section has a White Sox story on page one, above the Bears and on Christmas Day, no less.  By way of an omen, news on the Bulls and Cubs was nowhere to be found.

I’m not a fan of Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf or sportswriters who pretend to be general managers, so forgive me if I’m slow to the Sox bandwagon in the wake of their signing pitchers Gio Gonzalez and Dallas Keuchel.  The new hot rumor is Edwin Encarnacion at DH.  Nothing says professional athlete as mercenary pursuit like Bartolo Colon or Encarnacion.  But, hey, Sox coverage on Christmas Day is a small miracle in and of itself.  And so was my five-count.       

Allow me to explain.  Every so often, I like to go on baseball-reference.com, and it has nothing to do with RAR or WAR.  No, they always put twelve player photos on the home page.  On very bad days, I guess zero.  Today, I got five.  Try to slip David Eckstein and Jerry Koosman past me.  No way.

No on this Merry Christmas.

Not Their Type

When he threw a first-half touchdown pass against the Bears Sunday night, the Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes did a little taunting, nothing offensive, but something that let the world know he knew.  And what exactly did Mahomes do?  He counted off all ten of his fingers, as in “I was drafted tenth [in 2017], eight places behind your guy [Mitch Trubisky].”

In McCaskey World, that’s a bigtime no-no, one might even say a mortal sin.  The Bears expect two things out of their players, to shut up and stay out of jail.  If it comes down to one, better to shut up.

Mike Ditka couldn’t shut up, so he was shipped off to Philadelphia, for an underperforming quarterback, of course.  It was only when George Halas had a moment of clarity on his death bed that Ditka was welcomed back to coach.  Let me repeat here—it took Halas on his death bed to see the world as most other humans do.

The only permissible talk at Halas Hall is happy-talk, or as you might call it these days, Nagy-talk.  Head coach Matt Nagy was at it again Monday, saying how his players “are great kids.”  Yo, Matt, they’re professional football players and adults.  You might consider treating them as such.

And along the way, realize some people have personalities greater than a wallflower.    

Rot

Rot

This would be a good time, dear Bears’ fans, to remember the adage—a fish rots from the head down.  In other words, don’t blame the tail for stinking.

Don’t blame quarterback Mitch Trubisky for last night’s 26-3 embarrassment before the faithful at Soldier Field against the visiting Chiefs.  Oh, Trubisky was thoroughly outplayed by Patrick Mahomes, the quarterback the Munsters could and should have drafted instead of Trubisky.  Yes, Trubisky went 18 for 34, totaling 157 yards and 0 touchdowns vs. 23 for 33, 251 yards and two touchdowns for Mahomes.  But remember, Trubisky didn’t put a gun to anyone’s head and demand, Draft me, in 2017.

And don’t blame coach Matt Nagy, even though he’s spent this season showing he couldn’t call a cab let alone decent plays for his quarterback.  Nagy was given, or saddled, with Trubisky the day he came to town to replace John Fox.

And don’t blame Bears’ GM Ryan Pace.  No, check that.  Do blame Pace, but remember he didn’t put a gun to anyone’s head up at Halas Hall and demand, Hire me, in place of Phil Emery.

So, who does that leave?  How do you say “the McCaskeys”? 

A Real Treadmill

Clare came over yesterday to help me put together a treadmill Michele bought as a Christmas gift for herself.  If only all those holiday car commercials had gotten through to my wife, we’d have a new car, or two new trucks even.  But, no, she gets a treadmill.  Try riding one of those on the back roads to your favorite ski resort.  Oh, well.

After just 3-1/2 hours and minimal cursing (the country of manufacture has a problem matching up screws to holes), we were done.  Of course, at some point I asked about North Central.  Clare told me she and Chris did in fact watch the championship game against the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater; ESPN has a channel numbered between 200-400 for just this sort of thing.  Final score, North Central 41 Wisconsin-Whitewater 14.

My daughter the college administrator was duly impressed by how the victors were plugged in with their alumni, who gave a whole bunch of money to send people to the game in Shenandoah, Texas.  Go online and read the coverage, it seamlessly turns into a recruiting pitch for the school.  Clare also told me that Chris, who got a master’s at North Central while a football graduate assistant there, received an email not even an hour after the game ended.  It included the final score along with a pitch for a donation.  Timing is everything, as they say.

This is how college sports work, as a sort of loss-leader, especially at the D-III level.  Prospective students are sold on the school in part by the quality of its teams and facilities; North Central has been so good at multiple sports for so long there may not even be much, or any, of a loss involved.  I learned a long time ago that the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin plays hardball whatever the sport.  And my partner in treadmill assembly is the better for it.

Maybe This Time

Who knows? Three could be a charm for the White Sox and Gio Gonzalez.  The Sox drafted Gonzalez as an 18-year old; traded him away at the age of 20; got him back a year later; and traded him away a second time thirteen months after that.  And now the Sox have signed the now 34-year old lefty to a one-year deal with a club option for the second year.  Confused?  Join the club.

Gonzalez was proof that the Sox could draft talent as opposed to developing it; then-GM Kenny Williams was always in too much of a rush to bother.  After his team won the World Series in 2005, Williams thought he could earn a repeat trip in part by packaging Gonzalez with center fielder Aaron Rowand and a third player for Jim Thome.  For all you fans out there keeping score, that’s a 20- and a 28-year old for a 35-year old.      

 And, yes, there’s more.  That same December of 2005 Williams decided to package outfielder Chris Young to the Diamondbacks for starter Javier Vazquez.  How Vazquez fit Williams’ mold of a grinder is beyond me.  I swear, the man never pitched a game he refused to come out of if asked.  Young went on to hit 191 homeruns and drive in 590 runs in a 13-year career.  Part of the reason the Sox let him go—and Rowand, for that matter—is they had Brian Anderson ready to play center field.  Anderson managed 22 homers and 80 RBIs in a career that lasted five disappointing years.  Compared to Anderson, Adam Engel knows what he’s doing with a bat.

So, now, 130 wins and fourteen years later, Gonzalez is back where he began.  Here’s hoping he’s got something left in the tank.  Did I mention that we traded him that second time in a package for Nick Swisher?  My God, Nick Swisher.

How Taxing

Three MLB teams—the Cubs, Red Sox and Yankees—will be subject to the luxury tax this year.  The Cubs will be paying $7.6 million, the Red Sox 13.4 million and the Yankees $6.7 million.  This offseason, the Cubs and Red Sox have indicated they want to shed payroll and avoid the tax next year while the Yankees have doubled down, so to speak, after signing Gerrit Cole to a $324 million deal.  Interesting.

I don’t like hard salary caps, especially when owns in the catbird seat (my daughter winces at the sound of that phrase) dictate them to players.  But baseball isn’t basketball, football or hockey.  The players know how to negotiate, and they accepted a soft cap, aka the luxury tax.  So be it.

What’s particularly interesting here is that the Cubs and Red Sox own their respective parks, the Yankees not so much.  According to the New York Times, public funding and tax breaks account for $1.2 billion of the cost to erect Yankee Stadium III.  You could say the good people of New York helped pony up for Gerrit Cole.  Hope that works out, not.

The collective bargaining agreement expires in 2021, after which, who knows?  Both sides can go at it like cats and dogs, for all I care.  I feel differently if a new CBA called for every baseball team to own its own facilities, without exception.  If the public can’t have a say in how teams are run, those teams shouldn’t have access to public financing.    

It’s as simple as that.

It Starts Early

Over the past two months, allegations of abuse by present and former coaches have rocked the NHL.  So far one coach—Bill Peters of the Flames—has resigned for what he said (racial comments) as well as what he did, and another, Blackhawks’ assistant Marc Crawford, has been suspended after allegations surfaced that he kicked players on at least two occasions, though not while employed by the Hawks.  Trust me when I say abuse isn’t confined to hockey or suffered by male players only.

For Clare, it started in the spring of fifth grade, when she moved up to Bronco ball.  The new coach was what you might call a real screamer; the resulting humiliation and/or fear just a bonus.  Because of this guy, Clare started to think softball had to be better than baseball.  Only it wasn’t.

We found that out with the first travel team she made in eighth grade; I was pretty much advised by other fathers not to question any decisions by the coach, if I knew what was good for father and daughter.  Coach II didn’t scream as much as he drove players to the extreme.  One time at practice, the first baseman dropped one too many grounders during a drill.  Coach made her run and then take more grounders.  This stopped when she asked for a timeout so she could take her asthma inhaler.  Great guy that he was, the coach allowed it.

That first fall and winter of travel practice, I saw other coaches, both male and female, act in much the same way.  There was yelling along with pushups.  Why fourteen-year olds not on the field had to do pushups because the batter missed a sign I couldn’t say.  But they did.

While Clare’s varsity coach in high school was a great guy, one of his assistants was something less.  With him, it was sarcasm all the time, that plus the occasional outburst of screaming.  But I never saw anyone lay a hand on a player a la Woody Hayes until travel ball between Clare’s junior and senior year, when her coach shook a teammate by the cage of her batting helmet.  I kept the girl’s father from charging the coach, a man who told Clare she would never hit college pitching.  Maybe I should’ve stepped aside instead.

Sports is too emotionally intense not to expect people to say dumb things or things too loud; that’s what apologies and cooler heads are for.  But it doesn’t matter if the game or even the season is on the line, you never touch out of anger, and you never humiliate.

Those would seem to be the first two lessons for any coach on any level to learn.  As for the NHL, but late than never, I guess. 

D-III Rules

I’ve always disliked the Cardinals of North Central College.  They tormented us in softball during Clare’s time at Elmhurst and have made my son-in-law’s life miserable both as a player and coach.  This one story should suffice to give you a sense of what I mean.

Senior year, Clare and the Bluejays travelled to North Central, per the season schedule.  As fate would have it, my daughter would be facing her high school teammate in game one of the doubleheader.  Clare took a 2-2 pitch and laced it down the left-field line for a double and eventually scored our first run of the game.  Elmhurst was ahead 2-1 going into the bottom of the seventh.  One out one on, and the North Central batter hit a ball to this day I have no idea got over the fence.  A doubleheader sweep helped propel the Cardinals to a nice, long postseason run.

Which is just what the football team is doing this year.  That’s not surprising; see above.  What is truly different, though, is the Chicago media has taken note that the football Cardinals are headed to the NCAA D-III championship game after blowing out Muhlenberg 45-14 Saturday.  I mean, I saw TV highlights on the 10 o’clock news, and both papers ran stories, short, yes, but stories nonetheless.  Then, I caught a story about the school and the team on the 6 o’clock news Monday that must’ve gone a good three to four minutes.  Wait, there’s more—the station did a follow-up story yesterday.  It’s as if true amateur college sports actually matters.

Cardinals’ quarterback Broc Rutter has 54 (!) touchdown passes on the season, a record 30 of them to receiver Andrew Kamienski.  My son-in-law Chris got to see this duo up close this year as defensive line coach for the Bluejays.  I don’t know about Chris (who was a graduate assistant for the Cardinals a few years back), but I still hate North Central, although I kind of want them to beat U of W at Whitewater Friday for the D-III championship.

Sol go Cardinals.  I can say that because I’m thinking Cubs.

As I Was Saying

In comments to the media Monday, Bears’ quarterback Mitch Trubisky offered strong support for his offensive line, as you would expect with an organization that conflates team with family.  But the new Papa Bear, aka coach Matt Nagy, may not have appreciated his wayward child’s comment that, “We’ve just got to find ways to take pressure off our O-line” when facing a good pass rush like the Packers threw at them.

Here’s what Papa said in response, as reported in The Athletic:  “First of all, as you all know, you guys are always catching us right after the game.  And so there’s a lot of emotions that go through [presumably, a locker room].  Here we are losing a game like that and knowing we could’ve played better.  So I don’t know exactly what the question was that was asked, but I’m saying, if you sensed frustration, I think I know Mitch better than anybody in this building except maybe [quarterbacks’ coach] Dave Ragone.

“So I know the effect or what he means by any of that.  I think probably, if I’m going back and watching that, it’s probably very general and big picture, but it’s also right after the game so I take nothing by that.  We have a great relationship.” 

In other words, the kid was blowing off steam in the heat of the moment and didn’t really know what he was talking about.  Papa has spoken, and all good boys had better listen.

Aaron, Renée and I Thank You

   Well, I won’t have to worry about missing a meaningful Bears-Vikings’ game December 29.  Aaron Rodgers and the Packers took care of that at Lambeau Field yesterday afternoon by beating the Munsters, 21-13.

Allow me a few random thoughts before moving on to a main point.  First, Bears’ quarterback Mitch Trubisky may not be as bad as his critics think.  Put Rodgers on the Bears, saddle him with the same offensive line and play-calling Trubisky’s stuck with, and I bet you’d see one suddenly diminished future Hall of Famer.  Free Trubisky from coach Matt Nagy’s play calling (swing pass, run, sideline pass, repeat), and I bet you wouldn’t see anything worse than the second coming of Erik Kramer.

Second random thought—does Bears’ linebacker Khalil Mack, he of the $141 million contract, get an award for his role as the Invisible Man on defense?  Mack managed one tackle and zero sacks on the afternoon, not the first time he’s put up goose-egg stats.  Either Mack returns to form real fast next season, or the Bears will have themselves a major problem.

And now for my main point: Matt Nagy is an egg waiting to crack.  I sense it every time Nagy talks about team and culture or says, as he did after yesterday’s loss, “I’m going to stay positive with our guys because I appreciate their fight.”  Hmm.

This is more than just irritating “sunshine” talk, which has been coming out of Nagy’s mouth from the day he was hired to replace that ol’ carbuncle, John Fox.  I suspect Nagy sees himself as much as a parent as a coach, faithful and forgiving to a fault.  A person like that is likely to see criticism from a player—and if the team plays the same way next year, that criticism is coming, folks—as betrayal.  When that happens, things have a way of going from bad to worse.

See ya’ next year, guys.

A So-so Fan

This is the kind of Bears’ fan I am.  We ran around yesterday doing all sorts of stuff that could’ve been done today after church.  But who wants to buy pierogi and rye bread for Christmas Eve when the Bears are playing the Packers at noon?

And how odd that the Bears should be traveling to Green Bay as underdogs.  Demographically speaking, Chicago is Goliath to Green Bay’s David, and that’s the problem.  The Packers have a David on hand who can aim his slingshot to hit Goliath and his Midway Monsters right between the eyes.  So, underdogs we are.

This is also the kind of Bears’ fan I am.  Opera soprano Renée Fleming will be appearing in a musical, “The Light in the Piazza,” at the Lyric Opera.  Fleming is a Hall of Famer in her own right, and we were able to get tickets for December 29^th at 1:30 PM…which should be halftime during the Bears-Vikings game.  Last game of the regular season with a playoff berth possibly on the line, and I’m going to a musical.

Of course, Aaron Rodgers could wield his slingshot this afternoon so as to make game-number sixteen in the Bears’ schedule irrelevant.  If by some miracle it still should matter, the NFL can always flex a game with playoff implications to 7 PM, by which time we’d be home.  Or I could find out the final score during intermission at the Lyric.

And if it were the White Sox needing to win their last game of the season to make the playoffs, what would I do?  Go with my heart, of course.

Instant Karma

For the longest time, I thought Jerry Reinsdorf of the White Sox had the title of Biggest Jerk Owner in Chicago all to himself, but I stand corrected.  No, it doesn’t go to the McCaskeys now; they’ve always been incompetent.  Jerry, take an Uber on up to Clark and Addison to present the Ricketts family with an award they’ve worked so hard to wrest from you.

I don’t know exactly when things went south on the North Side, sometime after the 2016 World Series’ parade, probably.  Ever since then, the family and front office have been working overtime to burn through the goodwill that championship earned them.  Start with the Ricketts.  All those kids are related to old man Joe, a bigot of a human being, if there ever was one.  We’re not like him, all the younger Ricketts swear, which may or may not be true.  Either way, though, they sure do act like rich people, the kind who want your money to become part of theirs.

Exhibit A, Wrigleyville.  Talk about playing hardball, look at the war waged against the erstwhile independent rooftop owners across the street from the ballpark on Sheffield Avenue; I mean, they could have waited those folks out and bought them out one by one.  Nope.  War it was, and victory they won, if not the hearts and souls of fans and small-business people.

As for Wrigleyville itself, the area makes the parking-lot desolation around Guaranteed Rate Whatever look benign in comparison.  At least at GRW, you know going in you’re going to get shaken down when it comes to concessions because the mall was designed to be self-contained.  Wrigleyville has the appearance of a neighborhood but the same function as GRW.  The Ricketts may not own everything around the park, but they all but set the prices and buy up land for development that has the effect— intended or unintended, you be the judge—of raising property taxes on other businesses so they have little choice but to gouge fans who stop in for their food and drink.

And Heaven forbid the Ricketts don’t get their way.  They didn’t get to close down Clark Street on game days the way they wanted and had a snit that has yet to abate.  The area alderman didn’t do their bidding, so they ran candidates against him, but he won.  Not everyone bought into the notion that what’s good for the Ricketts of Wrigley is good for the 44^th Ward of Chicago.

And not everyone buys into the notion that team chairman Tom Ricketts has been peddling since last offseason, that the team budget is at its ceiling.  The Cubs rake in money like the Yankees but spend it as though they’re the White Sox.  That’ll turn off the fan base sooner than later.  Oh, we can’t afford to go after a free agent like Gerrit Cole.  Oh, the luxury tax will kill us.  Oh, we have to consider trading relatively young stars like Kris Bryant and Willson Contreras.

That last part is the karma starting to happen.  Theo Epstein and company played games with Kris Bryant’s service time.  Bryant filed a grievance that will either make him a free agent sooner or look for a new home once his time with the Cubs is done.  On top of that miscue, the Cubs’ minor-league system hasn’t been producing MLB-ready young talent, which is unlike Epstein.

Maybe he fell under the spell of the Ricketts.  That’s how bad karma works.

No, It Didn't

This is why I call myself a detached, as opposed to an enthusiastic, White Sox fan.  The other day, Sox GM Rick Hahn told reporters in San Diego for the winter meetings, “This whole process started about three years ago now.”  Oh, really?

In other words, the rebuild officially kicked off in 2017, or the 2016 offseason when the Sox traded Chris Sale and Adam Eaton.  But what do you call the period from 2013 to 2016, losing for the heck of it?  And what do you call the period from 2009 to 2019, the era without playoffs?  No, “eleven, not forty, years in the playoff desert” has a nicer ring to it, encompassing the suffering at least some Sox fans have felt, lo, these past years.

With Hahn you never know; conversational English isn’t his first language.  Maybe he meant to say “three plus four” or “three as part of eleven.”  It’s the holiday season.  I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.  But come the first of the year, I’ll become as unforgiving as Chicago in January.    

His What Hurt?

Technically, Ken “Hawk” Harrelson didn’t get elected to Cooperstown.  No, the Hall of Fame selected Harrelson to receive the 2020 Ford C. Frick Award for excellence in baseball broadcasting.  But close enough.

I’m 80/20 on Harrelson as an announcer, 80 percent despise vs. 20 percent tolerate; after all, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.  Or maybe I’m just a little bit brainwashed.  After listening to Hawkisms for 30-plus seasons, I’ve had “you can put it on the board, yes!”; “that’s a can of corn”; “go foul”; and whatnot burned into my consciousness.  And Harrelson did come up with “The Big Hurt,” a perfect nickname for Frank Thomas.

My big problem with Harrelson is how he sucked up to power, the way a dry sponge sucks up water, only more so.  Whatever Bud Selig did as MLB commissioner or Jerry Reinsdorf did as owner of the Sox was just fine by the Hawk.  No, I take that back.  The Hawk probably wishes Reinsdorf had never hired him in 1986 as Sox GM.

It should be interesting to see if Harrelson says anything in his acceptance speech about the late Marvin Miller, former head of the players’ association who also be going into Cooperstown next summer.  Hawk on occasion would say during broadcasts how players came up to him before the strike in 1994 to ask him what they should do.  Don Fehr had replaced Miller by then, and, if dislike travels backward, Harrelson had no more use for Miller than he did Fehr.

But there is one reason for all Sox fans to rejoice at the Hawk winning his Frick—the ever-smug Pat Hughes, radio voice of the Cubs, was denied the honor.  Wait till next year, Pat, or more.  

Rumore and Fact

Clare texted on Saturday that the White Sox were about to sing free-agent outfielder Marcell Ozuna.  When she came over Sunday to help put up the tree, I let her know she’d been the victim of a rumor.  “Don‘t feel bad,” I counselled.  “I saw somewhere that the Yankees had signed Gerrit Cole.”  Now, that’s what you call both rumor and fact.  Just today, New York signed Cole to a nine-year, $324 million deal.  Want to bet Lucas Giolito writes those numbers down for future reference?

This morning, Clare called as she was waiting for the bus that takes her from the train station in the West Loop to work on north Michigan Avenue.  “The White Sox traded for somebody named” Omar Mazara, he of the 500-plus foot homerun against Reynaldo Lopez of the Sox last summer in Texas.  The deal should make Lopez happy, if no one else.  

I’m sensing a general feeling of disappointment amongst all those Sox GM-wannabes out there.  The Sox didn’t get Zack Wheeler, and they certainly didn’t get caught up chasing after Cole, or Ozuna, for that matter.  Oh, boo-hoo.  Why go after big free agents if you don’t know how good the next batch of rookies—namely center fielder Luis Robert and infielder Nick Madrigal and starter Michael Kopech—is going to be?  I guess nobody’s from Missouri these days.

Mazara will turn 25 come April, with a .261 BA; 79 home runs; and 308 RBIs over a four-year career; the Sox have two years of control.  It pains me to say this, but I think this is a good move by Rick Hahn.  He gets a player who can be expected to hit 20 homers while driving in 70 runs, this at the cost of a minor leaguer who has yet to reach Double A.  With luck, Mazara will see how Jose Abreu goes about his job and do likewise.

In which case, nobody will care about Marcell Ozuna.     

I Go To Pieces

This is what makes eBay worthwhile (though my wife will surely disagree): a 3-1/2” by 5” snapshot of Comiskey Park from the late 1940s, judging by the two pickup trucks parked along the wall as well as the serrated edges of the photograph. All mine for $7.99 plus shipping.

If I have my bearings right, it’s a shot of the west exterior of the park, with the brick walls showing in all their pre-Veeck, unpainted glory.  Look hard enough, and you can make out the vaguely Prairie-School detailing that architect Zachary Taylor Davis worked into the design.  Of course, those magnificent arches are impossible to miss, as are the light standards and the 10-foot high (at least) lettering just beneath the roof that spells out the name of a place I still miss now nearly thirty years since its razing: COMISKEY PARK.

This is no reproduction.  Someone stood in the parking lot west of the ballpark to take the picture.  Then a photograph slowly turned into a piece of history, stayed stashed away in a drawer or a box or under the stairs until it found its way to me.  I already have a place picked out on my office wall for my latest acquisition. 

Yup, fits perfectly.

Winning the Offseason

Is there any prize in baseball of more debatable worth than winning the offseason? The White Sox supposedly “won” in 2014 when they traded for starter Jeff Smardzija in addition to signing closer David Robertson and outfielder Melky Cabrera.  The team went from 73-89 in ’14 to 76-86 the next year.  Then, in December 2015 they traded for third baseman Todd Frazier and infielder Brett Lawrie.  That resulted in a 78-84 record, along with the decision to start rebuilding.  So, how exactly do you really win the offseason?  That’s easy.  You win. 

Maybe Sox GM Rick Hahn would do well to study his team’s past.  In January 1965 the Sox acquired slugger Rocky Colavito, whom they immediately packaged in a deal to the Indians, netting outfielder Tommie Agee, pitcher Tommy John and catcher John Romano in return.  John was good from the start, while an injury delayed Agee’s debut on the South Side by a year.  He won AL Rookie of the Year in 1966; slumped in ’67; and was traded to the Mets for Tommy Davis in December of ’67.

That was one of two deals that made it look like the Sox had won the offseason in ’67 (as opposed to December 1965, when the Reds turned down their offer of players for Frank Robinson, who instead went to Baltimore).  Not only did they get a proven hitter in Davis, they also reacquired future HOF shortstop Luis Aparicio.  A team that went 89-73 without Davis and Aparicio went 67-95 with them.  So much for the offseason carrying over to Opening Day.

Davis was gone after a year, but Aparicio hung around for another two miserable seasons, and by “miserable” I mean team records of 68-94 and 56-196.  But here’s the weird thing.  The Sox trading Aparicio to Boston in December 1970 signaled a rebuild that was about to show fruit in the not-too-distant future.  All that losing made possible the drafting of Bucky Dent, Terry Forster and Rich Gossage.  As for Brian Downing, well, he was an undrafted free-agent signing.

Forster arrived first, in ’71, followed by Gossage the next year and Dent and Downing the year after that.  In December 1971, the Sox traded John to the Dodgers for Dick Allen, whose bat turned the team into instant contenders in ’72.  The moral of the story here is that what you do in the offseason counts, just not always how you might want.

Oh, and it pays to draft smart.   

Anticipation

Well, the baseball winter meetings get underway tomorrow, and the White Sox are expected to be busy.  I guess that’s a good thing, assuming acquiring the likes of Joc Pederson and Yoshitomo Tsutsugo would amount to anything.  For that matter, you can throw the name of Marcell Ozuna into the hooper.

The hot-stove season is all about dreaming.  Once upon a time, I plowed through stories—in the afternoon Chicago American, no less—about players the Sox were after.  The one name I remember is Jimmie Hall of the Twins.  Pederson-Hall, Hall-Tsutsugo, hopes past, present and future.  Show us what you got, Rick Hahn.   

Just Desserts

Who says bad things don’t happen to the right people?  Just look at the Mets and Knicks.

The Mets have been controlled by the Wilpon family since 2002.  The Wilpons are like the Ricketts, which is to say the less you know about them the better.  With family patriarch Joe Ricketts, it’s about hate and bigotry, with Fred Wilpon, it’s questionable finances.  Think Bernie Madoff.

Wilpon’s connection with Madoff has cost him a bundle, to the point the family has decided to cede control of the team to Steven Cohen, who’s made his money the old-fashioned way, by skirting the law and staying out of jail.  For all those Mets fans out there who think of NYC as a cut above the rest of the country, what a bitter pill their team’s ownership must be to swallow.

But, hey, it could be worse, or is, for all those Mets fans who also root for the Knicks.  That woe-begotten NBA franchise is off to a 4-18 start, bad enough to get coach David Fizdale fired.  But owner James Dolan gets to keep his plaything.  From best I can tell, Dolan has run the Knicks for 19-plus years and hasn’t seen the playoffs—or an-above .500 record—since the spring of 2013.  About the only thing Dolan is really good at is filling Madison Square Garden with his ex-coaches.  He’s at thirteen and counting.  

How sad for the city that all but invented basketball, to say nothing of baseball.  I guess what goes around comes around.

Musical Chairs

Two years ago, the White Sox signed catcher Welington Castillo, even though I thought they had two pretty serviceable catchers in Omar Narvaez and Kevan Smith.  Good thing Rick Hahn kept those two around in 2018, because Castillo got hit with an 80-game PEDs’ suspension.  Good thing Hahn went out and got James McCann last season because Castillo pretty much stunk.

Here’s where it gets interesting.  The Sox traded Narvaez to the Mariners last year for closer Alex Colome.  Narvaez must’ve liked Seattle, given how he hit 22 homeruns to go with a .278 BA and .353 OBP.  And the Brewers must’ve liked those numbers because they just acquired Narvaez to take the place of Yasmani Grandal, now with the Sox.

The knock on Narvaez is his defense.  He rated a -12.3 at fielding runs above average and a -20 runs saved.  The horror.  He also had three passed balls to go with an admittedly deficient 18 percent caught-stealing rate.  Pick the numbers you want.

Personally, I never would’ve gotten rid of Narvaez in the first place.  Those 22 homers make me wonder why he wasn’t trying to hit for power on the South Side.  If nothing else, it should be interesting to compare Chicago’s ex-catcher with Milwaukee’s.  All I ask is that Omar hit against the Cubs.

Pushing Back, Sort Of

There I was reading in today’s paper how the White Sox almost signed free-agent pitcher Zack Wheeler (who reportedly turned down more money because his fiancée wants to stay on the East Coast, even if that means Philadelphia and the Phillies), when my eye caught a blurb about how the mayor of St. Petersburg won’t sign off on the Rays’ proposal to split its seasons between Florida and Montreal.  Well, that called for a little online research.

It appears mayor Rick Kriseman wants the Rays to be all in, at least until their Tropicana Field lease expires at the end of 2027.  Kriseman said that while the city was “willing to discuss contributing to the funding for a new stadium here in St. Petersburg, we will not contribute public dollars to construct a stadium for a part-time team.”  Why contribute anything at all, mayor?

The Rays, of course, are less than happy with Kriseman’s decision.  The team released a statement saying “the Sister City concept is deserving of serious discussion.”  I must say, the use of capitals is a nice touch.  But “sister” implies a family connection that just isn’t there.  This is all about dollars and cents, with the Rays looking to maximize their intake thereof. 

I’d be willing to bet the lease agreement is a sweetheart of a deal for the Rays, as virtually all stadium leases are; the landlord, aka local taxpayers, is left with crumbs.  So, St. Petersburg should want to share crumbs with Montreal?  That’s almost as funny as thinking the Rays will ever win a World Series using openers instead of starters.

When It Counts

A columnist in today’s Sun-Times piled on shortstop Addison Russell now that the Cubs have released him.  “Goodbye and good riddance,” wrote Steve Greenberg.  “Without Russell, the Cubs are instantly better.  Or, if not better, then at least less offensive.”  If only I could say the same about Greenberg’s column.

It would be nice to know if Greenberg sensed anything wrong beyond noting how in June 2017 Russell “seemed tense and distracted and had become less pleasant to speak with” in the clubhouse.  Did you ask him what was wrong, Steve?  Did you dig?

Greenberg would’ve been better off devoting his column explaining the role of the reporter/columnist in sports.  Is it merely to report the news at hand, ask what happened on that particular play and nothing more?  That’s pretty much how reporters went about their business during the steroids’ epidemic that struck baseball.

Think about it.  Sportswriters were around ballplayers from the start of spring training through the end of the season, and yet hardly a peep was heard about the sudden, unnatural muscle mass that appeared on bodies.  Yeah, I hit the gym this offseason, and I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn I’m looking to sell.  Most sportswriters bought the bridge.  If I’m not mistaken, Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada, who broke the BALCO story, were investigative reporters for the San Francisco Chronicle, not sportswriters.

So, spare me any tough talk safely after the fact and tell me what you thought was wrong with Russell back in 2017 and if you would go public with evidence of abuse should a player let it slip.  Or would you be content to buy a bridge in Brooklyn?

Yeah, Right

You gotta love White Sox manager Rick Renteria.  I’m serious.  The Sox sign catcher Yasmani Grandal to a big deal, and Renteria calls up incumbent James McCann to tell him it’ll all work out.  Props to Renteria for reaching out, doubts as to the chances of that in fact happening.

McCann is coming off his best season in the majors, .273 BA/18 homeruns/60 RBIs, and that’s just the offense.  Catching-wise, he had a caught-stealing rate of 31 percent vs. the league average of 27 percent along with all of three passed balls.  In addition, starter Lucas Giolito loves throwing to him.  And, in so far as I’m a scout worth listening to, every time I hear McCann talk, he’s comes off as focused, humble and forever talking about teamwork.

But, yes, he did slump to .226 in the second half of the season, which is cause for concern.  So, it would seem 440 at-bats would be his ceiling.  Renteria thinks he can maximize the bats of Grandal and McCann by rotating them between catcher, first base and DH.  Theoretically, that makes sense, but how much will two catchers want to get their playing time at another position?  And let’s say Renteria pulls off this juggling act, where does that leave once-top prospect Zack Collins, he of the .186 BA his rookie season last year?

My guess is, gone, but we’ll see.  Maybe Renteria is up to the challenge of juggling three catchers, all of whom aspire to start.  If nothing else, it should make for an interesting year.

Beat That Dead Horse

I just can’t help it.  Something that encouraged me to read—and follow sports at the same time—is going belly up.  Yes, I’m talking (again) about the Chicago Tribune sports section.

Yesterday, I should have been able to lose myself in the expanded coverage that typically comes on a Sunday.  Yes, the section was twelve pages vs. the usual six, but 1-1/2 pages were given over to two ads, with most of the rest devoted to college and pro football.  The Bulls, losers in Portland late Friday, were relegated to a wire story.

The truly sad thing here is that the state high school playoffs culminated on Saturday.  Not a word in the print section (unlike the Sun-Times, which provided plenty of coverage) and nothing I could find online.  How are you supposed to cultivate readership when you don’t bother to cover the sports young people play?  Lucky for us Clare played prep softball when the Trib still cared enough to devote a few inches of space.

In the last couple of weeks, a hedge fund by the name of Alden has become the biggest single stockholder in the Trib.  Alden is known for buying papers and then squeezing a profit out of them by cutting staff bigtime.  Everything I’m complaining about--no beat reporters on the road with the White Sox and Bulls, not even a stringers to cover the high school football playoffs—pretty much predates the stock acquisition.

That’s the sports section that could be in line for further cuts as Alden takes over. 

Good Question

We took Penny the flying basset hound to the vet yesterday for her rabies shot, and Dr. Mark mentioned that the NFL had suspended Cardinals’ cornerback Josh Shaw for betting on NFL games.  “How are they going to stop it?” Doc wanted to know.  Good question.

Indeed, how can pro sports embrace gambling without courting scandal?  What’s to keep a player’s loved ones or friends from betting on the action for him, or her?  You know what they say—If you lie down with dogs (present company excepted, Penny), you get up with fleas.

And, for those curmudgeons of us out there is the question of consistency.  It was bad for Paul Hornung; Alex Karras; Art Schlichter; Shaw; and members of the Black Sox to gamble, but not the fans of any pro sport, just so long as said sport gets a direct or indirect cut of the action (and ditto for college sports)?  Oh, Daddy no understand.         

It won’t be long before the various sports’ commissioners are caught scratching themselves in public.  At that point, flea collars will be all the rage.