Imagine

With a nod to Albert Brooks, I imagine I’ll have to defend my life in order to get into heaven. I can just see St. Peter playing a clip of all those times I said to Clare, “And where would the ball have gone if you’d managed to hit it?” Allow me to explain. Like most seven- and eight-year olds, my daughter would commit to a pitch too early and end up swinging off her front foot. Hence, the cutting remark from Dad. I said it often enough to impress upon my daughter the importance of waiting for the pitch to come to her. Clare ended up hitting a whole bunch of homeruns in high school and college; you can look it up in your book, St. Peter. And if I still end up going to the bad place, at least give me a chance to work with Luis Robert Jr. of the White Sox. How does someone make it all the way to the majors hitting off his front foot as often as Robert does? He did it again multiple times in last night’s 4-1 loss to the Pirates. Front-foot swing, usually a miss, mope back to the dugout. It’s not a pretty look. If Robert gets traded, I imagine someone like me will tell him what I told my daughter decades ago. It’d be nice if someone from the Sox did it, you know, better late than never. Maybe Mickey Mouse will get around to it now that he’s done excusing/rationalizing Eloy Jimenez’s proclivity to hit groundballs instead of line drives. Yeah, right.