This Old Man

Maybe I should shut up, take a seat next to Tony La Russa, and the two of us can work on the unwritten rules of baseball, starting with: Run after you hit the ball, don’t stand there to see how far it goes. The Rangers’ Adolis Garcia did the opposite last night in game seven of the ALCS against the Astros. With a run in and a runner on first in the top of the first, Garcia hit a ball he was sure was gone, only it wasn’t. The ball hit high off the wall in left field for what should’ve been a double, had Garcia not stood as still as a statue admiring his work. Right there, I would’ve benched him. Silly me. Garcia went 4-for-5 on the night, with two homeruns and five RBIs in the Rangers’ 11-4 rout of the Astros, a win that puts Texas in the World Series. He hit .357 in seven games against Houston, hitting five homers and driving in fifteen runs. Guess who was named series MVP? The guy I would’ve benched. At least he plays hard. By way of solace, I have to think Jerry Reinsdorf is having a worse time of things than I am. This will be the Rangers’ third appearance in the World Series since 2010; Reinsdorf’s White Sox have gone to just one series in the forty-one years he’s owned the team. The Rangers also have the ninth highest payroll in baseball this season (vs. fourteenth for the White Sox), and Reinsdorf is nothing if not a believer in fiscal prudence. He also likes old managers. Too bad he hired the wrong one. We got La Russa, Texas went with Bruce Bochy. Maybe Bochy was too young at age sixty-eight, or maybe Reinsdorf should’ve fired Bochy back in 1986 instead of La Russa. If only.