Tell Us How You Really Feel, Contd.

 

The thermostat on Clare’s PT Cruiser cracked Wednesday, necessitating a visit to our favorite garage.  One of the owners used to be involved with the local baseball travel team.  Believe me when I say the Berwyn Bulldogs were terrors of the diamond back in the day.

 It wasn’t enough for them to win tournament after tournament; no, the Bulldogs also played Pony Baseball in Berwyn, as did Clare.  She hit their pitching and tried to catch their line drives.  That’s what happened to the only girl in Bronco level baseball, for 11- and 12-year olds.

Clare was, literally, hit-or-miss the summer of 2004.  I think she had more extra base-hits than singles and more strikeouts than either.  Whenever I got upset about the strikeouts, she’d line the ball to the fence.  In the season finale, she homered, pulling the ball to left, over the concession area into the parking lot at the aptly named Homerun Alley.  By my reckoning, the ball could have gone out at the Polo Grounds, where it was 280 feet down the left field line.  Not that Clare was done.

 “I want to compete in the homerun hitting contest,” that took place as part of All-Star activities the next day.  Are you sure?  “Yes.”  Think of what Linus said in the pumpkin patch about a woman scorned for a sense of the emotions involved here.  If I’d refused, Clare probably would have walked the two miles to the field by herself.

She didn’t hit any homeruns, just double after double to the fence, which generated a whole bunch of points.  Of course, the Bulldogs showed up to strut their stuff, only to have the girl finish 5^th out of 25 participants.  I remember that morning like it was yesterday.

            But not what happened next.  There was a special Bronco travel team picked to play in California, and Clare wasn’t invited.  Getting the car fixed led to this not-so-pleasant stroll down memory lane yesterday.  “It’s not that I was jealous,” Clare told me.  No, but some snubs hurt too much to let go of, even close to ten years later.  How could I forget?

Tell Us How You Really Feel

 

From out of the depths of the school library on a Wednesday night came this text from our daughter:  I hate Adam Dunn, which is to say Clare loves Paul Konerko.

Over the course of three seasons with the White Sox, Dunn has struck out 588 times.  Compare that to 205 strikeouts for Hall of Famer Nellie Fox during the 16 years he was a starting second baseman.  The thing about Dunn is he doesn’t seem to care.  Most people couldn’t get out of bed if they were so bad at their job, but not Dunn.  He’s the Energizer Bunny with a chaw in his mouth.  He keeps swinging, and missing, swinging and…

To be fair, a good part of Dunn’s perceived nonchalance has to be his way of coping; there are probably days, weeks and months when he’d rather not get out of bed, only he’s getting paid an outrageous salary.  What Dunn and the Sox front office don’t appear to realize is that the “Who, Me Worry?” look on their dh’s face could be driving some of his teammates crazy.  It certainly has most fans, Clare included.

She’s more like Konerko, a no-nonsense perfectionist who speaks thoughtfully to the media.  (When Clare was in high school, I had her practice doing interviews in order to deal with the prep-page reporters.  I didn’t want hear “duh” followed by a cliché coming out of her mouth, and it’s worked.)  There’s one difference, though—my daughter doesn’t suffer fools as well as Paulie seems to.  Maybe a long-term contract would mellow her out. 

It’d be nice to find out.  

They Said What?

 

The Cubs spent five weeks looking for the right manager to get their message across.  Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Rick Renteria, who said, “We’re so excited about the potential, the idea, and the coming of fruition of truly winning and taking this Cubs Nation to the next level” and “I hopefully take this responsibility with a lot of pride and understanding that everybody will possibly count us out.”  Well put, Rick.

But Theo Epstein is right about the importance of being on-message.  I cringe whenever make-believe coaches talk about “opening up your hips too soon” or the right way “lock and load” for a swing.  Throw in the passive voice and an overreliance on adverbs, and you’re asking for trouble, as well as a new manager, before long.

Players almost always try to listen, and they get the message, whether intended or not.  I saw that with Clare, never more so than after a scrimmage where she went 5 for 6, with a homer and two doubles.  At the end of practice, Coach called everyone together and said:  Look at what Clare did, and she’s not that athletic.  Yes, smoke will come out of human ears just like in the cartoons.

On a possibly related note, the non-athlete athlete visited for Sunday dinner yesterday, so you know MLB Network got turned on at some point.    Two rooms away, I could hear my daughter shout at the television, “Go home, Barry Bonds.  No one likes you.”   

Now, that’s effective communication.

Calling Games

Some schools broadcast and stream their softball games, which can be interesting.  Nothing like hearing a 20-year color analyst say a 20 year old softball player has a swing like Rusty Staub, who retired over 25 years ago.

I didn’t hear the 2012 game broadcast at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, in part because I was too busy shivering through a doubleheader, but one of the Elmhurst parents caught the stream version and told me about it.  First off, understand that Clare was in a perverse zone.  She had eight at-bats on a raw, wet Saturday in April.  Six times she swung at the first pitch, and five times she made contact for an out.  But it took too much energy to yell.

We’d won the first game and were trailing by a run in the top of the seventh in game two, one out and a runner on second with Clare up.  She swung at the first pitch again, sending the ball in the neighborhood of 275 feet; to get a baseball distance, add 150 or so feet.  From what I gather, the announcer streamed the sound of his jaw dropping.

I think of this game from sophomore year because this week Cubs’ announcer Keith Moreland said he’s stepping down after three years in the radio booth.  Moreland was as good as his predecessor Ron Santo was unintentionally funny.  The one would have called Clare’s shot with a Texas drawl while the other might have missed it entirely on account of his toupee catching fire (true story, Shea Stadium).

And Harry Caray, aka the Greatest Frontrunner of All Time?  Well, it depends.  If he had Clare in his Bill Melton doghouse, Harry probably would have said something like, Where was that yesterday with the bags loaded?  Otherwise, Holy Cow!

Riding the Ump, Courtesy of Ichabod Crane

My taste in television runs to Supernatural and Fringe, at least that part I could make sense of.  Sleepy Hollow is ok, too, if only for Revolutionary War officer Ichabod Crane (huh?) brought back to life in 2013.  I can’t wait for a story arc with Rip Van Winkle.

Anyway, on Monday’s episode, Ichabod and his costar were at a Little League game when she started talking about baseball as metaphor for the American experiment in democracy.  Ichabod was so moved that he stood up and shouted at the home-plate umpire:  “I thought only horses slept standing up.”

            I for one intend to use that line come spring and thank the writer(s) for providing it.   

The Bully the Other Side of the Glass Ceiling

 

If and when a woman breaks the glass ceiling shielding the all-boys’ club of major league baseball, she’ll need to worry more about her teammates than the fans.  Old habits die hard, if at all.

Jackie Robinson was a black man in a white league where white fans predominated.  For him, hell was a road trip to Philadelphia or St. Louis.  A woman ballplayer won’t face that situation, not with half of every ballpark filled with female fans.  Let me put it this way: if the first woman big leaguer hits a homerun at Wrigley Field and a female Cub fan catches it, odds are the ball won’t get thrown back.

That woman pioneer is going to face a different kind of pressure than Robinson did.  The fans will be more supportive from the start, and there probably won’t be any Dixie Walkers trying to lead a players’ revolt; male ballplayers have evolved, kind of.  They’ll be more inclined to go the hazing route, make the girl carry their bags and pick up the tab time and again.  This happens all the time to rookies in pro sports (though a woman big leaguer would probably end the baseball tradition of first-year players dressing up as girls).  The question the recent Miami Dolphins’ bullying scandals raises is this, When would it stop?  My guess is, probably as soon as men stop feeling threatened by women.

Until then, boys will be boys when it comes to talking—or whispering—about the opposite sex; the same goes for the media.  I can imagine how the first women ballplayer will be expected to show her “feminine” side, whether wearing earrings and eyes shadow for a game or doing photo spreads in the offseason.  Annie Leibovitz beckons, and Playboy, too.           

In pro sports today, there’s no greater insult than “playing like a girl.”  With a woman ballplayer it would be “looking like a man” or a “dyke,” each inviting yet more comment.  Will that be easier or harder to handle than what Jackie Robinson went through?  We’ll see.        

Open Gym

There used to be a popular ad jingle on Chicago radio:  At three in the morning when you’re in bed, the Holsum bakers are baking bread.  I think of that whenever Clare calls late at night to talk softball.

Last night wasn’t as bad as the time sophomore year; then she got me out of bed, she was so excited about her hitting.  No, that was around midnight, and last night it was just a little after ten.  She told me about the start of open gym.

According to NCAA rules, coaches can’t do practices until the season starts early next year.  But players are allowed to work out alone or as a group.  What this means for softball is weight training and open gym on a regular basis.  So, any girl on campus who wants to spend two hours on a Sunday night 8-10 PM learning bunt coverage and outfield cuts is welcome.  Funny how only members of the softball team show up.

Clare the captain and Rachel her lieutenant are running a pretty tight ship.  They either want everybody lifting and going to open gym or having an excuse better than “I forgot.”  My daughter has already called people out on this.  If she can manage to avoid a car-trunk execution in the next few weeks, Clare will make a good coach of the no-nonsense variety.  And I can expect more yawn-and-talks.