Derby Night

Last night being the Monday before the All-Star Game, MLB held its annual Homerun Derby, which meant pizza and conversation in our house. I don’t much care for ballplayers going through glorified batting practice, but Clare can’t get enough of it, or, as she put it, “As soon I signed [with a team, and I only wish that had happened], I’d ask, ‘Where do I sign up [for the contest], and how often can I enter?’” This is the child I raised, a winner of two homerun-hitting contests at travel-ball nationals in her teens. It's not so much Clare’s size as her tenacity. We traded, yet again, stories about coaches and football players who said she’d make a great middle linebacker; oddly enough, the person in question thought she’d make a good safety. Again, this is the soon-to-be parent of my soon-to-be grandson. Lady linebacker was pulling for the Mets’ Pete Alonso to repeat, and he did. Clare likes Alonso for the same reason I do—he says he models his approach to hitting after Paul Konerko, Mr. Cerebral. Not that Alonso was overly serious last night. He danced outside the batter’s box to warm up, and he definitely played to the crowd the whole night. Too bad the White Sox either didn’t know or care about Alonso’s Konerko connection. We could’ve picked him in the second round of the 2016 draft but instead took pitcher Alec Hansen, who has yet to reach the majors. You win some, you lose some, in the draft and Homerun Derby. Always good pizza and talk, though.