All You Need Is Love

My guess is that, if new White Sox manager Pedro Grifol has a favorite group, it’s the Beatles. And, if Grifol has his way, “All You Need Is Love” will get piped into the Sox clubhouse before every game. In a story posted yesterday on the team website, Grifol addressed the importance of team culture. Forget for a moment, if you can, that the Sox culture under Tony LaRussa was never a problem; nothing was a problem under LaRussa. OK, with that out of the way, here’s what Grifol said. “You have to understand, really, what culture looks like.” It has to do with a team fighting together and working hard, not that the 2021-22 Sox were ever deficient in those departments, no sirree. Grifol also believes in respect, of the game, of the uniform, of the fans. Do you know how that comes about? Well, I’m glad you asked. “It happens with respect, hard work, care, love, that kind of stuff.” Respect comes from respect? Good thing Grifol never had my wife in her English composition class. What I want to know, though, is, doesn’t Grifol sound an awful lot like ex-, ex-Sox manager Rick Renteria? And couldn’t the Sox have saved themselves a whole bunch of grief by keeping Renteria and just letting him pick his own coaching staff following the 2020 season? I ask because to me, at least, it’s pretty obvious the front office wants Justin Jirschele managing the team at some point. Just thirty-two, Jirschele has been tabbed to manage at Triple-AAA Charlotte this season. That means Jirschel will have hit for the managerial cycle, after stints at low-A Kannapolis, high-A Winston-Salem and AA Birmingham. If the Sox want to promote Jirschele to the South Side, that’s fine by me. Afterall, even a stopped clock gets the time right twice a day. I don’t mean this as a knock on Grifol; I hope he’s another instance of the right time, so to speak. But we could’ve avoided all the mess of the last two seasons by sticking with Renteria before moving on to Jirschele, not that there was ever a problem with Tony LaRussa at the helm. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.