Refuge

What I don’t need is to have my daughter call and tell me that White Sox closer Liam Hendriks has non-Hodgkins’ lymphoma, for which he’ll start treatment today. It’s the second week of January, and I prefer news of a more upbeat nature. Hendriks’ going into full remission would qualify, but that won’t be happening this week. Somehow, I’ve become like Pig in the comic strip Pearls Before Swine (or Wise Ass on the Hill, depending on the day). I try to keep life simple and, overwhelming evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, positive. Anything remotely connected to mortality induces worry if not panic. Thank God for my two Christmas gifts, 1970 and 1980 White Sox team autographed baseballs. I’ve already said how anything with Luke Appling’s and Walt Williams’ autograph rates as heaven-sent. The 1980 ball is just as joy inducing. I mean, when was the last time anyone mentioned former Sox coach Loren Babe? Or Fran Mullins, traded by the Sox to the Reds in 1983 for Steve Christmas? Mullins’ autograph is downright beautiful, the antithesis of those scrawls that adorn balls nowadays. And far be it from me to complain about Rusty Kuntz or Lamar Hoyt. Baseballs signed by long-retired ballplayers—that’s what I need to help me through January. Here’s hoping Liam Hendriks has something just as good, if not better.