Abandon Ship

Maybe I missed one or two, but I’m pretty sure NBC made use of just about every Bears’ cliché there is during its broadcast last night of the Munsters’ visit to Greenbay—images of George Halas and Vince Lombardi, Gale Sayers and Dick Butkus, Sid Luckman, my god, Sid Luckman. For extra measure, the cameras showed the matriarch of the McCaskey clueless, principal owner Virginia McCaskey. For reasons best known to herself, Madame drove up for the game. Did I mention the sideline reporter citing Matt Nagy on how this was the best quarterback Mitch Trubisky has ever looked in practice? Yeah, apparently that was important. Then came the iceberg known as Aaron Rodgers. The final score was 41-25, Greenbay, and it pretty much could’ve been whatever the home team felt like making it. Akiem Hicks didn’t play, again, which at least cuts down on the number of stupid penalties per game. Khalil Mack did play, though you’d never know it from the way the Packers o-line kept him away from Rodgers. And, of course, Trubisky played, which you could tell from the two interceptions and the fumble run back for a touchdown. After the game, Coach Happy Talk said something along the lines of “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Yeah, and turnovers are never a good idea, either. The consensus seems to be that general manager Ryan Pace will be on his way out, so that’s a silver lining for sure. Bear down…

On Further Review

Maybe it’s the COVID, but I seem to be liking Ken Burns less and less these days. Actually. It goes back to his criticism of the Michael Jordan documentary, which sounded an awful lot like sour grapes. How dare another documentary get crazy reviews. So, it was in this slightly fevered (99.8 to 100.8 on any given night over the past eight days) state of mind I watched two episodes of Burns’ “Baseball” opus that ran on the MLB Network yesterday. The first thing that bothered me was his treatment of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League; Burns made it seem that the league was about baseball from the start. It wasn’t. For openers, it actually started off as the All-American Girls Professional Softball League in 1943. The name changed before the season finished, but that doesn’t mean the players then switched over to baseball, too. Rather, the AAGPBL was a hybrid operation that steadily moved in the direction of baseball. It got there right around the time of the league’s last season in 1954. So, why did Burns skip over the evolutionary nature of the league? Maybe he didn’t want it to get in they way of his narrative. Then there’s the Seventh Inning, The Capital of Baseball, aka all teams New York in the 1950s. I once got into a pretty nasty fight with author Roger Kahn on this very subject; I dared venture the opinion that baseball was played west of the Hudson, too. Khan was not amused. So, I admit to having a certain chip on my shoulder concerning the subject. Still. Burns lets his interview subjects wax poetic on the glories of Ebbets Field and Yankee Stadium. In fact, he does such a good job invoking a sense of place that you can’t help but wonder why both facilities were discarded with so little regret. I mean, I would’ve expected Billy Crystal to chain himself outside the real Yankee Stadium before its “renovation” in the 1970s. But for all his interest in the game and the players, Burns displays a tin ear for the places where baseball has been played. He spends a lot of time on Willie Mays’s catch in the 1954 World Series without stopping to note it was only possible because center field in the Polo Grounds was 483-feet deep. Now, going back to Burns’ criticism of “The Last Dance” compromising its objectivity by allowing Jordan’s production company to be involved. OK, if that’s bad, what about letting “Baseball” run on the MLB Network? That raises a number of questions about conflicts, at least in my COVID-addled mind.

The Times that Try

My very special Thanksgiving Day treat yesterday was to find out I tested positive for COVID-19. My symptoms started five days ago, so all I have to do is avoid the emergency room for another nine days. So far, so good. The dog can’t figure out why all of a sudden I’m not taking her for her walk or why Michele and I are sleeping in separate beds, although she doesn’t mind jumping up into Michele’s bed. I only venture out to clean the yard. If I cared about college football, this would be a great weekend to sit in front of the TV. I guess I care enough to at least tune in to the Northwestern game. As for everyone else, I don’t want to see Ohio State break a hundred points against Illinois. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, even Lovie Smith. Of course, the one thing that could really send me into collapse would be Matt Nagy. Just a little over forty-eight hours to game time, and Coach won’t commit to a starting quarterback against Greenbay. Big-boy pants, Matt. Right now, I’m wearing them, and you should be, too.

Matt, Make It Stop, I’m Begging You

Bears’ head coach Matt Nagy is the most prolific spouter of cliches and gibberish I can ever recall in Chicago sports. The Department of Defense and the CIA should ask Nagy to record some of his “observations” so that they could be used to break down resistance of spies and terrorists. Nagy-talk is waterboarding without the wet. In today’s Tribune, the Bears’ third-year coach—and it sure feels longer than that, doesn’t it?—offered, “I just feel like we have a good pulse on knowing that, big picture, the struggle to run the football is where a lot of this stuff starts.” And let’s not overlook this gem: “At the same point in time [what, not a point in the universe?], I’d say with the passing game, whether it’s pass protection, whether it’s routes and details of the routes [double “Huh?” here], it’s really all of that coming together at the same time [triple “Huh?”].” Mere mortals might be exhausted after expressing such profound inanities, but not Coach. He was possessed of enough strength and gibber to say, “When the quarterback is playing really, really well, it makes it easier for everybody, and when everybody else is playing really, really well, it makes it really good for the quarterback.” Gosh, really? This is the coach team general manager Ryan Pace hired because this is how Pace talks, or would like to. God, take pity on your Bears’ fans. Their front office and ownership know not what they do, or say. Really, really.

Field of Dreams, 2.0

Clare called yesterday to tell me the “Field of Dreams” game has been rescheduled for next August. The Yankees and White Sox will go at it in the cornfields. The game will be sponsored by GEICO Insurance, so get ready for a moronic commercial or two or… On-line betting sites advertise all the time nowadays. What better venue for them than what promises to be a heavily promoted cob-knockdown in Dyersville? Maybe Ray Liotta can reprise his Shoeless Joe Jackson role from the movie. Maybe MLB will acknowledge the hypocrisy of allowing betting on games while maintaining a ban on the members of the Black Sox. Liotta, maybe, MLB admitting it was wrong, doubtful. That said, I will be entering any and all contests for tickets and, better yet, accommodations. What’s a few flies and mosquitos when you can see Eloy try to navigate left field with the cornstalks beckoning?

Ah, Youth

The Bulls drafted forward Patrick Williams last week, or should I say the Baby Bulls drafted Williams? Because the 6’8” product out of Florida State is all of 19. The odds are he’ll join 20-year old guard Coby White and 21-year old Wendell Carter as starters. Lauri Markkanen would be the old man here, at 23. New head coach Billy Donovan had better like dealing with kids. Youth is not served like this in other sports. The White Sox drafted two high school pitchers in the early rounds in 2019, but neither of them has made it to the South Side yet. My God, even Mitch Trubisky was a 23-year old rookie for the Bears. But NBA teams consistently tap teenagers; give them big contracts; and put them in the starting lineup. This is asking for trouble. Allow me two Chicago examples. Jabari Parker was 19 when the Bucks made him the second pick in the 2014 draft. After four seasons in Milwaukee, Parker has played for four teams, the Bulls included, the last two years. A twenty-year old Jahlil Okafor was the third overall pick in the 2015. To say he wore out his welcome in Philadelphia after two-plus seasons would be an understatement. Okafor is now on team number four in his career. The thing is, Parker and Okafor were both considered great kids in high school, and I never read anything about them being a problem in college. But they’ve struggled in the NBA. I can’t help but feel the problem is the one-and-done approach that allows NBA teams to pluck young talent out of the college ranks. Caveat emptor. I’d argue there aren’t that many Kevin Garnets ready to step onto an NBA court at the age of nineteen. But there are way too many nineteen-year olds who think they are.

That Which Can't Be Asked

The Athletic, like virtually all other news outlets (sports or otherwise), covered the recent hiring of Kim Ng as general manager of the Marlins. And, like virtually everyone else, The Atlantic ran stories on how important it was. So far, so good. Then, on Thursday I read another story, “The White Sox international scouting operations isn’t missing a beat.” As ever, MLB teams will spare no expense unearthing talent, provided the player is male. How come, in all the stories on Ng, no one seems to have asked her if she intends to devote team resources to scouting and developing female ballplayers? Either that question is too hard to ask, or the answer risks telling us more than we want to know about the national pastime.

"Supernatural"

Yesterday, we celebrated Clare’s birthday; she’s 29, but I won’t tell anyone. At dinner, she used her Ted Williams’ glass that I’d bought two years before she was born. Michele and I were in downstate Lewisburg, Illinois, at memorabilia show featuring Luke Appling. I got to talk to Old Aches and Pains for a good ten minutes on what had to be a disappointingly slow day for the promoter. I bought the glass after our Appling encounter. The aches and pains my daughter learned all by herself playing baseball and softball. Clare may act like Appling, sound like him even complaining about a sore this and that, but she looks better than Appling ever did, even in that photo of him as a player that he signed for me. Of course, I’m partial in this regard. Speaking of milestones, I also biked to the last two episodes of “Supernatural” before Clare and Chris came over for dinner. I’ve been following the Winchester brothers since Clare was in eighth grade. In a way, all three of them have been on the same adventure, at least in my mind. Poor Clare, she had this terrible habit of falling asleep on the couch, only to wake up to something on TV that frightened the bejesus out of her. Early on, it was “The X-Files” and “Millennium,” then “Fringe” and “Twelve Monkeys.” But probably my favorite was “Supernatural.” I once drove a 1967 Impala like the Winchesters did on the show, though mine was a convertible, and I saw all sorts of monsters like they did, though mostly in the form of coaches and umps. The show was always good for an inside joke or two, like the episode where the Winchesters interviewed someone named “Brock Buckner.” Well, all good things come to an end, though I’ll probably sample favorite episodes from time to time. If you ever saw Jensen Ackles lip-synch “Eye of the Tiger” while playing air-guitar on his leg (and sitting on the roof of the Impala), you’ll know why. The weird thing here, to an outsider or psychiatrist, is how “Supernatural” and the other shows remind me of my one and only child. I guess I’m lucky that way.

Landmark, Relic

The Cubs announced yesterday that Wrigley Field is officially a National Historic Landmark. The Ricketts’ family has spent upwards of a billion dollars—much of it coming from you, Cubs’ fans—renovating the ballpark, and the designation could allow the team to recoup somewhere in the neighborhood of $100-$125 million in tax credits. Talk about a stopped clock getting something right. The story I read in today’s Tribune mentioned such iconic features as the scoreboard, ivy and marquee (sans Network). I mention this because, back in the late 1980s, I attended a public meeting on the fate of Comiskey Park where some shill for the White Sox asked, what part of the ballpark should be preserved? This fellow had a mindset which basically held that the park Babe Ruth visited as a member of the Yankees had to be exactly the way it was back in the 1920s. No exploding scoreboard, no Picnic Area, no change in dimensions. If the Ricketts all felt the same way, Wrigley Field would’ve been razed for yet another mall park. Baseball fans everywhere should thank their lucky stars that it wasn’t. Meanwhile, Sox fans can always console themselves that, if they don’t have a landmark ballpark, at least they’ll have a Hall of Fame relic managing in the dugout.

That's Entertainment

Over the summer, I got into an email discussion with a Chicago sportswriter who was upset with the fan noise being pumped into empty ballparks. This gentleman on occasion has referred to sports as a form of entertainment. “What’s the big deal?” I asked. If sports is just entertainment, artificial crowd noise is just another special effect that goes into the work. The same with steroids. Robinson Cano of the Mets was hit with a 162-game suspension by Commissioner Rob Manfred after testing positive for steroids; it’s the second time Cano has been caught in the past three years. That’ll make the claim of ignorance a really tough sell, I’m sure. But what does it matter, if it’s all just entertainment? By that standard, Cano was simply getting into character as a baseball, the way Robert DeNiro did playing the boxer Jake LaMotta, thin at the start of the film, fat at the end. Did anyone give DeNiro grief for his fluctuating weight or how he accomplished it? I don’t recall any criticism. So, we face a choice as sports’ fans: Do we want to watch an athletic contest or a Hollywood product (sit-com, tragedy or farce when talking about Chicago teams)? I say contest, which means Cano broke the rules and should be punished. On a related note, the timing of the announcement was interesting, coming just two days after the release of 2021 ballot for the Hall of Fame. What a nice message, conscious or subliminal, to send voters: Cano got punished, why not Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens? I second that emotion.

He Gone

To no one’s surprise really, Theo Epstein stepped down yesterday as team president of baseball operations for the Cubs. And I have to wonder if Donald Trump didn’t play a role in Epstein moving up his expected departure by a year. Epstein leans to the left politically while several members of the team-owning Ricketts family don’t lean so much as lurch to the right. That could wear on a person after a while. Epstein may have stepped away early for his sanity’s sake. Then, too, it’s in his nature or in the nature of the kind of baseball person he is. Consider that Branch Rickey went from Brooklyn to Pittsburgh to St. Louis, and Andy MacPhail—the Theo Epstein before Theo Epstein—directed teams in Minnesota, Chicago, Baltimore and now Philadelphia. MacPhail preceded Epstein by five years and one regime in Chicago, and Epstein is a rumored possibility to replaced MacPhail in Philadelphia. Talk about full circle. The one job I’m betting Theo Epstein won’t be offered is that of baseball commissioner; he doesn’t hate and/or fear players enough to satisfy the owners. The job of commissioner is to protect the value of baseball franchises for the people who own them, that and nothing more. Epstein isn’t moved by money, but he is smart and independent. To owners, that’s three strikes and Theo’s out (of the running).

Tool and Fool, Repeat

How bad were the Bears last night against the visiting Vikings? They managed zero first downs in the third quarter to go with a negative two yards of offense. Yes,, the Munsters lost for the fourth straight time, 19-13, to move their record to 5-5 on the season. All I can say is, Look out below! Because 8-8 looks to be impossible, 7-9 a real stretch and 6-10 is knocking on the door. Head coach Matt Nagy, formerly Inspector Gadget, is currently failing in his role as Captain Positive. Matt, if it quacks like a -2-yard duck, it’s a -2-yard duck. Don’t insult everyone’s intelligence pretending otherwise. Nagy tried to get out of the way by having the offensive coordinator call the plays for a change; the Munsters responded by gaining 149 yards on the night. Quarterback Nick Foles was carted off the field with seconds left in the game, courtesy of his non-functioning offensive line. Offensive, indeed. As ever, general manager Ryan Pace reprised his role as the Invisible Man. How ill anyone find Pace when it comes time to tell him he’s fired? Where to go from here? Put up a “For Sale” sign on the franchise, and hope for the best. But we’re talking about the McCaskeys, so that’s not likely. Mayor Richard M. Daley once talked about getting a second NFL franchise for the city. Now, that’s an idea worth revisiting.

Paul Hornung

It’s not good to be an old Green Bay Packer. Paul Hornung is the fourth Lombardi-era Packer to die this year, joining former teammates Willie Wood and Willie Davis along with Herb Adderley. Hornung died Friday at the age of 84 from dementia. I was too young and not that interested in football to know much about the “Golden Boy” from Notre Dame, Heisman winner and, almost by definition, Bears-killer. According to the Washington Post, Hornung scored five touchdowns the same day in December 1965 that Gayle Sayers scored six. Sayers died in September, again with dementia a likely contributing factor. Apparently, I’m the only person who remembers Hornung’s time in Chicago as a sportscaster, for Ch. 2, I think. He wasn’t particularly good and definitely didn’t show any great interest in working to get better. Many years later, I caught Hawk Harrelson trying to do sports on the 10 O’clock news, and it sounded like the second coming of Hornung. Yes, I’m being a little petty here. Hornung and Harrelson were both ex-jocks trying to do the best they could with what they had. Life can get tough even for the best of athletes once they step off the field. And it certainly doesn’t help when someone has trauma suffered from his playing days (Hornung was part of a lawsuit alleging helmet manufacturer Riddel with liability for his condition) with them. The Hawk, as ever, was lucky. He played a sport that let him become something more. Hornung had to deal with a condition that kept chipping away at him, year after year.

Finally

So, my now-adult child, whom we brought home for the first time twenty-nine years ago next Friday, spent four to five hours yesterday venturing between the Cloud and the new computer bringing back all my files, which makes me feel a little like Golum from “Lord of the Rings.” Now, I have my precious, times a couple of thousand. The smart-aleck kid also decided to give me a new screen-saver picture, of her hitting a three-run homer against Aurora University sophomore year; she had two that day, as I recall. The neat part is she’s just made contact, and you can see the ball starting its flight path over the fence. Wow, and she can work with computers, too. Her reward was to go hitting with the old man. We talked a little about Kim Ng and the sacrifices necessary to follow in her footsteps; for openers, you embrace the life of a nomad. Who wants that? Then we pulled into the parking lot at Stella’s, and it was time to hit. For someone who hadn’t picked up a bat in a couple of months or more, the Bambina did pretty good, getting off a few Aurora-like shots against only one swinging strike in 120 pitches. I had to wear a mask, the batter didn’t. Some people around us wore masks, others didn’t. Maybe COVID doesn’t like pitching machines. Clare dropped me off a little before five, November dusk on a gray Saturday. But I had my precious, all of them, and I can only give thanks at my good fortune.

Shattered Glass

When Clare was a toddler scooting around the kitchen, Kim Ng was a twenty-something working for the White Sox in positions up to and including assistant director of baseball operations. So, it was entirely fitting that my daughter should be the one to inform me yesterday that the now 51-year old Ng had been hired by the Marlins as their new general manager. Ng is the first female GM of any of the Big-Four pro sports in the U.S.—MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL. Cool. The one irony of the hiring that I see is that the old-boys’ network may have had a little to do with it. The Marlins’ CEO is Derek Jeter, who knew Ng from her time with the Yankees as an assistant GM. Well, I’m a big believer in the dialectic. Mix A with B, or in this case DJ with Ng, and you may end up with something totally unexpected. Ng said all the expected things about bringing “championship baseball to Miami.” What I want to know is this: Will she work to bring women into the dugout and onto the field? We’ll see.

Glimpses

The weather this week has been pretty incredible, even by Chicago standards, a string of 70-degree days followed by all-too-generous servings of the cold we associate with this time of year. I liked the warm part better. On Tuesday, I took the Schwinn out and made my way to the lakefront. The 23 miles with the wind—or gale—at my back were great, the 23 miles with the wind in my face, not so much. There were times I felt like Benny Hill on his bicycle, peddling without moving an inch. But at least I didn’t keel over. It gets dark early now (thank you, America’s farmers), and by five it’s already past dusk. That said, I could hear the ping-ping-ping of the kid three houses down, hitting off a tee. He looks to be in eighth grade, or maybe freshman year high school. I hope he gets a chance to play come spring. Between COVID and Governor Pritzker, you just don’t know. My daughter won’t be playing, for reasons totally beyond her control, although that hasn’t stopped her from calling about the White Sox, a team that seems to be making all sorts of news these days. Clare isn’t a fan of Tony LaRussa, but she does like Jose Abreu, your 2020 AL MVP. “I’ve got an autographed picture of him,” she informed me last night of a promotion she won for world’s best tweet, or something. Clare wanted to go hitting Saturday, just as soon as she’d transferred all the files off my old computer onto the new one. Oops. Apparently, I’m working on a machine so ancient the transfer can’t be done with a zip drive. So, stuff had to be sent to the Cloud, and that meant walking it up, one file at a time. Long story short, we didn’t have time to go hitting, The dear one is supposed to come over again tomorrow to get my stuff out of the Cloud and into the new pc. If it’s not too cold, too dark or too late, we might go hitting. Fingers crossed.

He Said What?

Back in July of 1986, White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf told the Tribune’s Sam Smith “ownership of a ballclub is at least a semi-public trust.” If only Smith would go back and ask Reinsdorf why he used a qualifier. Last year, in an interview on team philanthropy, Reinsdorf spoke of “our obligation to be responsible stewards to those who support us.” This begs for a follow-up question or two: Does the obligation extend to running the team, and, if so, does hiring Tony LaRussa qualify? How? I think LaRussa has a serious drinking problem that needs to be addressed. Maybe the responsible thing to do here is for Reinsdorf to pay for rehab.

Not in His Footsteps

No one is likely to confuse the Rev. John Jenkins with Theodore Hesburgh. Jenkins may be the president of the University of Notre Dame, as Hesburgh was, but he’s no Hesburgh. That would require leadership. The most charitable thing that could be said about Father Jenkins is that COVID-19 has him spooked. Jenkins rushed the opening of the school back in August and got caught not wearing a mask. Then, he went to the White House for the introduction of Notre Dame professor Amy Coney Barret as President Donald Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court. Again, no mask, and this time Jenkins tested positive for the virus. But wait, there’s more. Because football rules over everything and everyone in and around South Bend, some 11,000 fans were on hand to watch Notre Dame beat Clemson 47-40 in double overtime. People stormed the field as soon as the game ended. Later, there were parties. Who knew? Now, the university is doing damage control, basically requiring the entire student body to take COVID tests before taking off for Thanksgiving break. That’s called closing the barn door after the horse has gotten out. I doubt Father Hesburgh would’ve been so careless.

Waiting for Comment

Well, here’s another reason not to feel all warm and fuzzy about the White Sox hiring Tony LaRussa to be their next manager—LaRussa has a DUI case pending in Arizona. A Sox official said, Yes, they knew about it but couldn’t say anything more given that the proceedings are ongoing. What he might have commented on is why the Sox and their new-old hire didn’t feel a need to get ahead of this when LaRussa was brought back last month. That would’ve been the smart thing to do, and Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf is supposed to be the smartest guy in the room. Oh, wait. Reinsdorf was nowhere to be seen on the day of the hiring. As for the man of the hour, LaRussa was contacted and seized the issue right by its horns (not). When ESPN phoned him on Monday, LaRussa responded with, “I have nothing to say,” after which he hung up. Allow me, then, to say a few things in his stead. For openers, this is the second time LaRussa has been charged with DUI, the first time during spring training in Florida in 2007. The then-Cardinals’ manager pleaded guilty and said, “I accept full responsibility for my conduct and assure everyone that I have learned a very valuable lesson,” which must have been that it pays to have a billionaire baseball owner for a friend. I can’t help but think there’s a pattern here. If LaRussa drives and drinks, does he drink at work, if not in the dugout then up in a suite, the kind a special assistant might find himself in for the Red Sox or Diamondbacks? I’m also curious if alcohol affects LaRussa’s behavior. Is he a mean drunk or just a boor of a drunk? Does he get all gushy and sentimental or stare down at his drink brooding? Do the White Sox know what kind of drinker LaRussa is? They should.

Tool and Fool, Review

The Bears lost to the Titans yesterday by a score of 24-17, or was it 240-7? All you need to know about the game is that Tennessee spotted the visitors two touchdowns in the fourth quarter and still walked away with the win. Here’s my favorite play(s) of the game, third quarter, fourth and one at the Tennessee 31. The Bears decide to go for it, only they get called for two, that’s right, two, false-start penalties. Call in the clowns, or Bears’ punter Patrick O’Donnell, whoever can find his way onto the field without incurring a yellow flag. Honorable mention for favorite play—an eleven-yard run on a fake punt. That was the longest run all day for the Munsters. Coach Matt Nagy still seems confused when and how to use timeouts, but cut him some slack. Nagy’s boss, GM Ryan Pace, stuck him with a mediocre offensive line, now made infinitely worse by multiple injuries and a COVID-19 positive test. Speaking of Pace, funny how he’s made like Elvis and left the room, the planet, this plane of existence…

My Hitless Wonders

Jose Abreu, Tim Anderson and Eloy Jimenez all snagged themselves Silver Slugger Awards yesterday, to which I say: Congrats, now do it again (and again). Naturally, the news got me reminiscing about White Sox teams from long ago. The Sox were “Hitless Wonders” almost from the start; the label dates to the 1906 team (with a league-worst team batting average of .230) that shocked the heavily-favored Cubs four games to two in Chicago’s only crosstown World Series. With the construction of Comiskey Park four years later, friendly pitching dimensions made “hitless wonders” and “White Sox” more or less synonymous, at least for lazy sportswriters, and, Yes, I realize that may be redundant. It would be more accurate to call Sox teams “homerless” wonders courtesy of the home park. Consider that dead centerfield could be as much as 440 feet from home plate. I was too young to make sense of baseball in the 1950s, the era of the Go-Go White Sox, but I do know those teams have been labelled, unfairly, as “hitless wonders.” In fact, from 1951-59, Sox teams twice led the league in batting while finishing one point off another time. That compares to a league-leading team ERA of one time (1959, of course). Did they ever lead the league in homeruns in the ’50s? Don’t be silly; that was the Yankees’ domain. How many times during the decade did they lead the league in stolen bases? Every year, ’51-59. Bill Veeck traded away a ton of hitting talent after 1959: Earl Battey; Norm Cash; Johnny Callison; Don Mincher; John Romano. That helps explain the batting averages of teams I do remember: 1964 (.247); 1965 (.246); 1966 (.231!) and 1967 (.225!!). Like the saying goes, You can’t steal first base. Me, I’d just like to take those Silver Sluggers and put them on the ’64 team that finished all of one game behind the pennant-winning Yankees or the ’67 squad that nearly snuck in ahead of Hawk Harrelson’s Red Sox. Now, that would’ve been sweet.

BFFs

Well, Bob Nightengale of USA Today sure is bent out of shape. He can’t understand why White Sox fans are “livid that they [the Sox] had the audacity of hiring a 76-year old manager who’s in the Hall of Fame, winning the third-most games in history, instead of hiring a manager [ex-Astros’ manager AJ Hinch] who cheated his way to a World Series ring.” Pay attention, Bob, and I’ll explain the difference. Hinch is on record apologizing for his role in the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal. New-old manager Tony LaRussa has had thirty years to talk about steroids’ use on those Athletics’ teams he managed, and not a peep. I’d rather a guy who says he’s sorry to a guy who won’t admit to wrongdoing. If I were Jerry Reinsdorf (perish the thought), I would’ve skipped over both Hinch and LaRussa for ex-Sox catcher Sandy Alomar. Maybe you’d like to devote a column to that someday.

Compare and Contrast

Luis Robert was awarded a Gold Glove last night for his defense in center field. Robert was the first Sox rookie to win one since…Tommie Agee in 1966. Holy Memory, Batman. Remembering stuff in some detail is one of the few benefits of getting older. I remember Agee, who definitely was what would now be called a five-tool player. He came to the Sox in January of 1965 with Tommie John (and John Romano) in a three-way trade with the Indians and A’s. John made an immediate splash that season, going 14-7 with a 3.09 ERA, while Agee suffered a broken hand in spring training and had to wait a year to debut on the South Side. Fans weren’t disappointed. The right-handed hitting Agee batted .273 with 22 homeruns; 86 RBIs; 98 runs scored; and 44 stolen bases. We’re talking Rookie of the Year plus a Gold Glove. Too bad 1967 followed ’66. In his second and final year on the South Side, Agee hit .234 with 14 homers; 52 RBIs; 73 runs; and 28 stolen bases. The Sox, figuring Agee was more of a one-year wonder than a building block, shipped him off to the Mets for Tommie Davis. The best-laid plans of mice and men and Sox GM Ed Short… Agee did even worse his first year in New York before turning it around in that unbelievable season of 1969. He had three very nice years, ’69-’71, followed by two blah years, after which he was out of baseball by the age of 30. Yes, I remember all of that. So, when it comes to Robert, I want him to use the tools he was given and make me forget about comparisons to Tommie Agee.

Silly, Stupid Season

COVID-19 or no COVID-19, baseball’s silly season is here. Visit MLB.com, and writers are in a frenzy spending other people’s money while playing the always-fun game of General Manager. Then I look at The Athletic, which likes to play mean cop to MLB.com’s dumb cop. There was a story yesterday, “The Pressure Index 2.0: Ranking every MLB team’s chances to improve this winter,” by Marc Carig and Andy McCullpugh. It appears the Phillies really, really have to get a move-on. You see, they “spent stupid money to sign Bryce Harper,” but they missed the playoffs. If ownership and the front office doesn’t get its act together, “signing Harper won’t go down as just spending stupid money. It will go down as just plain stupid.” Ouch. But that’s how it is with sportswriters today. They always want somebody to do something, and then rip them when things don’t work out. Funny, but I couldn’t find anyone who thought signing Harper for megabucks in 2018 was stupid or questioned bringing in Joe Girardi this year to manage. Those were consensus great moves, except that the Phils finished 28-32 this season. They were actually better the year before under Gabe Kapler at 81-81. What’s stupid here is declaring someone a superstar when he isn’t and talking gibberish when his teams don’t perform. Like I said, it’s silly season.

Rhyme Time

Bears’ head coach Matt Nagy is a tool and GM Ryan Pace is a fool for hiring him. If only something rhymed with “McCaskey.” The Bears dropped to 5-3 after their 26-23 loss in overtime to the Saints at a (thankfully, mercifully) empty Soldier Field yesterday afternoon. The NFL should take pity on this legacy franchise and award it points for being so willing to spot the other team an entire quarter. The Bears’ offense doesn’t show up for the third quarter, allowing the opposition as many points as it can score on the defense. And, you know what, I think it’s time we attach the “o” word to middle linebacker Khalil Mack, as in “overrated.” If Mack is carrying this defense, then it must stink beyond belief. Blame that on the general manager. As for Inspector Gadget, he’s totally out of his depth trying to find ways to blast, not holes, but canyons for his mediocre-at-best running backs to stumble through. But Gadget didn’t draft those running backs any more than he built an offensive line that all falls down a second or two after the snap. That, too, falls on Pace. Nagy reminds me of ex-coach Dave Wannstedt, always positive to a fault, until he burned out. Say what you will about Wannstedt, but he never pretended he could rock a visor. Somebody should tell Nagy. And, while they’re at it, somebody should inform the scions of the Halas legacy 5-11 isn’t that hard to imagine come January 3rd. Happy New Year.