Moving On

Moving On

Thursday we visited Valparaiso University, 90-minutes away in northwest Indiana, where Clare probably will go to graduate school in sports management.  Of course, we checked out the softball field.  “Valpo,” with roughly the same enrollment as Elmhurst, plays Division I.  It’s a “little engine that could” approach to sports which has been known to work; remember Valpo upset Mississippi in the 1998 NCAA men’s basketball tournament on Bryce Drew's three-pointer with no time left on the clock.  Anyway, Clare looked at the field and said, “I could’ve gone here.”

And today I checked on the D-III softball NCAA tournament results; all three CCIW entries won.  But we move on.

Behind the Drop in Numbers

 

A story in the Tribune this week suggests the end may be near for baseball and softball.  According to statistics cited, the percentage of people seven years old and up playing baseball at least twice a year during the period 2007-2012 dropped by 12.9 percent; for softball, the decline was a whopping 15.3 percent.  Apparently, some of those ex-ballplayers are now trying lacrosse.  Go figure.

Forget that I think girls should be playing baseball, with boys or not.  What, if anything, do these numbers mean?  For starters, the 125 percent increase in lacrosse basically means the four people playing are now nine.  Declining numbers may be the result of other sports poaching prospects, but I doubt it.  Football and volleyball are supposedly down, too, so maybe the real problem is kids turning into couch potatoes.  That, and the youth sports boom has gone bust just like the real estate bubble.

We were accessed in the neighborhood of $1200 every year by Clare’s travel team in high school; actual travel and equipment costs were extra.  Today, I wouldn’t be surprised if a majority of families were spending more than $4000 a summer to see if they have a budding ballplayer on their hands.  And who wants to spend that kind of money when there’s no guarantee a kid is going to start every game?  Before the Great Recession, maybe, but not anymore.

Another factor to consider is the quality of coaches, or lack thereof.  Two months after Clare hit .425 in junior year of high school, she was ready to walk away from softball, in large part because the two new travel coaches took a dislike to her.  They told me there were complaints about her fielding, and one of them told her she wouldn’t hit in college.  Talent won out in the end, but that kind of experience has a way of turning kids off of sports, as well it should.

Youth sports in 2014 is a brave new world where many are no longer called, so fewer show up.  In the end, cost and coaching will determine the health of all sports, whether softball, football or lacrosse.  I wouldn’t bet on the staying power of that last one, though.

Old School Announcing

We got this text from Clare last night:  “I’m sitting in the comfy chairs of the library thoroughly enjoying listening to the White Sox on my mlb radio app.  I just love listening to Ed Farmer do the game.”

Farmer is a South Side native and former Sox pitcher; his style can best be described as a no-excuses homer.  Ed wants the Sox to win, but he’ll always tell you why they don’t when they don’t.  He's also is a mean storyteller.

I can remember one from when Clare was in kindergarten, and we were doing Saturday volunteer work at her school for something called Market Day; my job was to deliver groceries.  I had the radio on to hear Farmer talking about his cup of coffee with the Orioles; Cal Ripken Sr. was one of the Oriole coaches.  “He’s talking to a group us with a cigarette in his mouth.  He smoked it all the way down with the ash just hanging there.  You know that Cal Ripken Sr. died of lung cancer, yes?”

Chicago radio announcers are a varied lot.  I go back to the days of Bob Elson, who spent a quarter-century doing White Sox games.  At least, I think he did them.  As a friend of mine once put it:  “With Elson, you didn’t know if the radio went dead or what.”  Indeed, “the Commander” was fond of long pauses.  Still, that didn’t keep him from receiving the Ford Frick Award from the Hall of Fame.

And then there was Ron Santo, he of the toupee that caught on fire during a broadcast from Shea Stadium.  Santo lived and died for his Cubs, which was why I loved listening to him when they were losing; never has the expression of pain been so heartfelt.  That said, I really did like Santo’s replacement, former Cub Keith Moreland.  He was sharp, like Farmer, with a country twang that harkened back to Red Barber.  I was genuinely sad to see Moreland step down after last season.

As for Harry Caray, he was the ultimate frontrunner.  If fans mourned Caray’s passing in 1998, I doubt that many former players did.  Among the many Caray took a dislike to was Cardinals’ third baseman Ken Boyer.  This is Bob Uecker doing Caray on Boyer, from David Halberstam’s October 1964:  “Well, here’s the Captain, Ken Boyer.  Boyer haaaaaaasn’t had an RBI in his last 52 games….I don’t understand why they continue to boo him here at Busch Stadium….Striiiiiiike one, he doesn’t eeeeven take the bat off his shoulder…here’s striiiiiiike two…and strike three….He nevvvvvver took the bat offffff his shoulder.  I don’t know why they’re booing him [p. 259].”  Substitute Bill Melton for Boyer, and that was Caray doing Sox games.  The Cubs were welcome to him.

And Ken “Hawk” Harrelson?  I think “he gone!” soon, and he won’t be missed at all.

Refighting Old Battles

I squared off against Harold Baines, he of the 1628 career rbi’s, in the Chicago Tribune on Sunday.  With Wrigley Field celebrating its 100^th anniversary, a Trib reporter thought it would be fun to offer a “what if” column, as in what if Comiskey Park had been renovated in the 1990s instead of being replaced by US Cellular Field, aka (very appropriately, I might add), the Cell?

I belonged to a group, Save Our Sox, that tried with all its tiny might to push the renovation option; my book, Baseball Palace of the World, recounts our struggles to be heard.  The White Sox did a very good job of controlling the issue by threatening to move (to Orlando’s Tropicana Field, of all places), if they didn’t get a new, publicly funded facility, and they employed a Chicken-Little attack strategy:  Eek! The park is falling down!  Run, because we sure as all hell will!

Baines was making pretty much the same argument a quarter-century later.  “The playing surface was fine,” Baines said Sunday, “but when I played in the outfield, bricks in right field would fall down.”  Liar, liar, pants on fire, Harold.  Why would city building inspectors risk injury to fans and players alike?  How did the White Sox manage to get liability and property insurance coverage, I mean, if the park was falling down and all?

The first time I took Clare to Wrigley Field, I told her to take it all in, how easy it was to walk in off the street to our seats, how close we were to the field and everyone else, how the park exuded personality from the outfield wells to the Deco scoreboard and clock.  This is a ballpark, I told her.

A renovated ballpark with an eye to 21^st century revenue streams is better than a ballpark turned into a parking lot, as at 35^th and Shields.  But the constant need to offer entertainment in addition to the game itself and the constant price gouging for everything from hotdogs to beer, I hate it.  Thank heaven for a daughter who played softball for so long and so well.

Games at Morton and Elmhurst were simplicity itself, and I was able to see my very own Babe Ruth.  If only I could have taken her to the ballpark my father took me….

Good New, Bad News

Today, the phone rang twice with the same news, from Clare and Euks—my daughter made All-Conference.  In fact, the whole Bluejays’ outfield did.  Really, they were that good.

The bad news is only for anyone delusional enough to think we had a chance at a bid.  This year, the NCAA took just three teams from the CCIW, which left Carthage outside looking in along with the rest of us.  My kingdom for a closer.

Keeping in Touch

Keeping in Touch

Clare and I talked on the phone a lot Friday and Saturday, following the CCIW tournament; the winner gets an automatic NCAA bid.  Because there is no justice in this world, Illinois Wesleyan won.

I say that not only because Wesleyan wins all the time.  There was a play Clare’s freshman year.  She slid into third and got a knee to the throat as part of the tag.  I can handle the swagger, but keep it clean, ladies.

Anywhere from two to four CCIW teams will get bids.  Right now, things are looking good for runner-up Augustana while Carthage and North Central are on the bubble.  Let me note here that Wesleyan went 12-2 in conference, with one of the losses from us, with Clare hitting a homer.

Just saying.

Speaking a Little Truth to Power

 Yesterday was a double-wait, one of which would end.  There’s the CCIW All-Conference and Elmhurst College Senior of the Year.  Clare was up for both.

Division I college and university presidents would love how sports are treated in Division III, where athletic directors can only dream of moving on to Division I.  Clare was nominated on the basis of her school and volunteer work as well as her softball accomplishments.  The president invited all nominees and their parents to a reception.  It just happened to be at the same time we were playing the U of C.

We all missed that, but Clare did show for the interview; a panel of several people asked her how she would get soon-to-be fellow graduates to contribute to the school.  Her answer:  “I wouldn’t.  People who have just graduated don’t have the money; they have to deal with student loans and getting a job right away.  The school should be finding ways to help them.”  She also has some strong opinions on the state of athletics at Elmhurst which she may or may not have shared.

If nothing else, she still has a shot at All-Conference.