Dirty

With child #2, Clare is up all hours of the night. In a way, softball helped prepare her for that. Hit the road at 6 AM during the travel season, up past midnight for practice in college. God knows how long my daughter had been up when she walked into the kitchen this morning. Wednesdays, we watch Maeve, grandchild #2. If 7:45 AM seemed a tad early for Grandpa, not so for mother and daughter. Luckily, they were both in a good mood, which probably had something to do with adequate amounts of sleep. Anyway, my daughter had just enough time to talk about the White Sox before she was out the door for a from-here-to-eternity commute to work in north-suburban Evanston. “I know their record doesn’t show it, but at least this year they have people who look like they want to play,” she offered. Because her parents taught her well, Clare had an example in mind, rookie second baseman Chase Meidroth. “I don’t want to call him ‘scrappy’ but ‘dirty,’” by which I think she meant the usual condition of his uniform after the second inning. Last night, Meidroth had two of his team’s seven hits and scored the only run…of the ballgame. Only run for the Sox you expect, but for the ballgame with just-signed journeyman Adrian Houser making his first start of the season—this after being released by the Triple-A Round Rock Express—that, you don’t expect. But a tip of the hat to Houser for throwing six shutout innings followed by three more from four Sox relievers. Cam Booser managed not to give up an eighth inning grand slam in back-to-back games and Jordan Leasure actually recorded a save. Oh, my. As for Meidroth, he opened the bottom of the third with a single and then stole second base. He scored on a one-out single from Joshua Palacios. By then, his uniform was already dirty.