Déjà vu

Clare went hitting yesterday, in part because she wanted to and in part for a class assignment on risk assessment; the hitter put down her bat long enough to take pictures of possible problem areas around the facility.  At some point she and her old hitting coach also talked philosophy.  The Valpo coach employs an approach different from her volunteer.

That discussion carried over into our kitchen, with Clare demonstrating respective approaches.  Just let’s say my daughter believes in a more fluid stance and swing.  Watching this budding coach act out her swing between the kitchen sink and the refrigerator, I thought of all the other times I’d seen her do that, in one room or another, one field or another.  And here we were again, in the start of my daughter’s 24^th year.

I don’t ever want it to stop. 

Big Hurt Birthday Treat

For reasons best known to himself, ex-White Sox great Frank Thomas has opened up a place some four blocks from our house.  When people think of Berwyn, it’s more on account of the bungalows than the craft brews or nightlife.  But The Big Hurt Brewhouse was where the birthday girl wanted to go and eat.

Her boyfriend Chris proved his worth by checking on the Big Hurt’s whereabouts; yes, he would be at the restaurant when we arrived.  In fact, he didn’t even have to be asked to have his picture taken with Clare.  Thanks to Twitter and Facebook, that shot of The Hurts, Big and Little, has gone micro-viral.  Thomas is a celebrity who didn’t have to be bothered; in fact, he acted as if it were no bother at all.  With that kind of attention to his patrons, Thomas may become a restaurateur on a par with Stan Musial.  At least I hope so. 

Happy Birthday

Twenty-three years ago this afternoon Clare came into the world at West Suburban Hospital.  I was in the delivery room, watching a miracle and Final Jeopardy.  There was a TV mounted on the wall, and I guessed right, “What is haggis?”  My daughter will tell you her dad appeared on the show when she was three.

 Clare drove home yesterday night for a long birthday/Thanksgiving holiday with news—she’s going to the spring-break tournaments with the Valpo softball team.  In fact, she’ll be with the team for all its games next year.  Not bad for a kid who walked into the coach’s office the first week of class and talked her way into being a volunteer assistant.  Now she’ll see up close how they do things Division I style.  Me, I’ll continue to think the bigger they are, the harder they fall, until shown otherwise.    

Due Process

Growing up, I treated athletes as heroes, and maybe they were.  Or the times were different, so that police and reporters looked the other way when somebody drank too much or let loose with their fists.  Whatever the reason, I never had cause to connect a member of the White Sox to felony behavior.

How times have changed, as Vikings’ running back Adrian Peterson can attest.  Peterson pleaded guilty to charges that he hit his son with a switch.  The plea kept him out of jail but didn’t put him back on the playing field.  NFL Roger Goodell has suspended Peterson for the rest of the season, a decision Peterson is appealing.  I agree.

No, I didn’t beat Clare with a switch or anything else.  Yes, I believe in sparing the rod.  But more to the point, this is the grownup world, where due process has to apply.  If an arbitrator finds that the NFL Players Association agreed in collective bargaining to the commissioner having broad disciplinary powers, then I have no problem with Peterson going bye-bye.  MLB and its players have hammered out a disciplinary code that seems to work; just ask Alex Rodriguez.  Adrian Peterson deserves no more, no less.

Athletes aren’t heroes any more than they’re role models, but they are individuals with the right to due process.  If you’re looking for a villain here, it’s the prosecutors in Texas who signed off on no jail time for Peterson.  You can’t play behind bars, unless they’re doing a remake of “The Longest Yard.”  

Giancarlo Stanton Strikes It (Super) Rich

Here’s my problem with the Miami Marlins signing Giancarlo Stanton, their 25-year old star right fielder, to a 13-year contract worth $325 million—taxpayers are footing a lot of that salary.

That’s because Dade County and the city of Miami financed most of the $600 million-plus Marlins’ baseball complex that opened in 2012; factor in interest payments, and the public will be on the hook for anywhere between $2.4 and $3 billion.  (Exact figures are hard to come by since no one wants to talk about it.  Public officials tend to blush when word of their gullibility breaks, just as teams don’t want to be seen for the greedy entities they are.)

Any team in any sport can sign any player it wants, as long as the same rules hold for those involved and their fans.  I can buy a new car every January, just as long as I can meet my mortgage payments.  If I can’t do both, (and trust me, I can’t), the repo man will drive away with one possession while the sheriff’s deputy evicts me from the other.  Fear of financial ruins makes for great discipline in the real world.  Professional sports teams ought to try it sometime. 

That, or taxpayers should force them to.

Senior Day, Revisited

Michele and I earned our good parent stripes yesterday by attending the last game of the season for the football Elmhurst Bluejays.  Clare’s boyfriend Chris is a football graduate assistant for the archrival North Central Cardinals, who managed a 38-31 win.  We sat outside, Chris called plays from the press box.

God, it was a cold Senior Day, 32-33 degrees, gray sky with a breeze that crawled down my neck and up my sleeves.  I will never again complain about the mediocre weather that Clare had in April.  Not that the parents minded, I’m sure.  They walked out with their sons who had spent a young lifetime on the gridiron.  By 4PM that would all be over, because this is Division III (Wheaton College excepted, because they get the religious kids who don’t want to go to the big schools but will take a chance on the pros).  When it was over, there were floral bouquets and memories.

Just like in April.

What, Derrick Rose Worry?

Nothing can bother Bulls’ star guard Derrick Rose, not allegations that his high school transcript was doctored and somebody else took his SAT and not the reaction to recent comments he made.  Rose is coming two seasons marred by torn ACLs.  His return so far has been slowed by several small injuries.  This week, Rose explained why he and the team weren’t going to rush things, or at least he tried to explain.

Once his playing career is over, “I don’t want to be in my [business? charity? foreign policy?] meetings all sore or be at my son’s graduation all sore  just because of something I did in the past.”  When social media lit up with criticism, Rose responded by saying “I could care  less” about criticism.  Presumably, that includes Charles Barkley calling such talk “flat-out stupid.”

Here’s what’s stupid—a 26-year old making just under $19 million a year for a team valued at $1 billion.  Priorities, people, priorities.