Kids Say the Darndest Things

 For an Ivy Leaguer (Dartmouth), Cubs starter Kyle Hendricks sure sounded dumb in the Trib this morning when he said the team doesn’t want to be like the Cardinals, who came back from a 5-0 1^st inning deficit against the North Siders to win 10-9 and post a best-ever 19-6 start to the season.

“We’re not going to try to copy the Cardinals,” said Hendricks.  “We’ve got our own unique personalities around here, and it’s been successful so far.”  Oh, really, as in zero World Series championships in the past 106 years and only one Series’ appearance in the last 70?  Kyle, the Cardinals have made 19 Series’ appearances, winning 11 times.  Anyone born since the last time the Cards won the World Series (2011) would be too young for kindergarten.  Anyone born since the last time the Cubs won, well, they’re either very, very old or dead.  Just this once, be a copycat.     

The Old Professor

In Lost Ballparks, Lawrence Ritter relates a joke that stemmed from an ad on the outfield wall at Baker Bowl:  “The Phillies use Lifebuoy [Soap], but they still stink.”  So do the White Sox, with a record of 8-14 after losing four straight in Minnesota to the Twins.

But how the players want to protect their manager.  “I really love to play for Robin [Ventura] because he’s a friend, he’s a brother, he’s like a father in some situations,” first baseman Jose Abreu told the Tribune through an interpreter.  “He lets you play your game.”  In which case, the record speaks for itself.

By all means, start getting rid of players if the losing continues.  If the front office is convinced they’re not the problem, then get rid of the manager.  And make sure he has at least a grain of Casey Stengel about him (sorry, I just don’t think it’s going to be a woman).  The Old Professor believed, “The secret of successful managing is to keep the five guys who hate you away from the four guys who haven’t made up their minds.”    But everybody loves Robin.  Hmm….

Bruce Howard, .116 Career BA

 New York Times’ columnist William Rhoden had a nice line the other day writing, “If baseball ever dies, the cause of death will be complications caused by tradition.”  Rhoden questions the wisdom of pitchers hitting, and so do I.

Last week, the Cardinals lost their ace starter Adam Wainwright for the season with a torn Achilles suffered when batting.  And the week before that, Max Scherzer, aka the World’s Richest Pitcher, jammed his thumb while batting.  In case you were wondering, Wainwright is a career .198 hitter while Scherzer clocks in at .171.

In the 1960s the White Sox had a pitcher by the name of Bruce Howard; for Howard, hitting looked to be one part mystery, one part nuisance.  Hence, the career .116 batting average.  At least Howard wasn’t Bob Buhl, who went 0 for 70 one year.

When I need a rationalization for hating the Cubs, all I need to do is think of their announcers, who are fond of labelling anyone as “purists” for the sin of questioning certain changes.  Dislike the growing number of night games at Wrigley Field or the installation of the monstrosity of a video board?  Why, you purist, you.  Don’t like interleague play?  Guess what that makes you?

Oh, but when it comes to the differences between the NL and AL, you’d think the pitcher hitting constitutes the 11^th Commandment.  New Cubs’ manager John Maddon likes to bat his pitcher eighth on occasion, but guess what?  He’s still a pitcher.  That’s something only a purist could love.      

Meaning

Sports have always occupied a good deal of my life.  At the age of 15, I cursed God (yes, though behind closed doors so my parents didn’t hear) for letting the White Sox lose the pennant in the last week of the 1967 season.  Three years later, God let me suffer through a 56-106 season with talk of the Sox moving to Milwaukee.

I felt a different kind of pain on a Sunday afternoon in November of 1968 when Gayle Sayers, the Kansas Comet, blew out his right knee against the 49ers; such a gift once bestowed on a running back should not be taken away except for cause.  With the White Sox more mediocre than not in the 1970s and the Bears a good deal worse, I found meaning in the Bulls of Motta, Van Lier, Sloan et al.  With the ‘80s came adulthood, the demands of which led me to ration energy, if you will.  Try following—really following—more than one sport while raising a family and taking care of elderly parents.

I couldn’t, but judging from all the people who showed up in downtown Chicago yesterday for the NFL draft, the fault lies with me.  Adults abandoned their regular lives to don jerseys and cheese gear in order to walk along Michigan Avenue in search of a gridiron savior if not the real deal.  (Hint: I doubt He’ll put in an appearance at Draft Town.)  I loved it when the White Sox won the World Series in 2005, but my life didn’t change all that much.  I must be missing something.  That third-round pick out of Clemson could be a sleeper.     

A Tree Falls in theForest...

Lucky tree, no one sees if it’s an awkward or silly exit from this world.  Not so my White Sox.  They played to an empty stadium yesterday, and still the world knows they laid an egg vs. the O’s, 8-2.

With racial unrest gripping Baltimore, MLB decided the game must go on, not in Chicago or D.C., where there are empty stadium at the ready, but at Camden Yards, which was to be made empty for the safety of the fans (in order to protect the village, first we must destroy…).  If only they could’ve enforced a news’ blackout so nobody would know how Jeff Smardzija coughed up six runs in the first inning.  We traded four prospects to Oakland for this kind of performance?

Marcus Semien, one of those prospects, is batting .298 with 12 rbi’s for the A’s.  Had we kept him, Semien would’ve played second, where Micah Johnson is batting .244 with 0 rbi’s.  Johnson is supposed to be fast, yet Semien has more runs scored and stolen bases.  Don’t get me wrong.  I like Johnson, and I can even stand the Smardzija deal, but things aren’t clicking as we head into the second month of the season.  Somebody wake Robin up in the dugout to convey concerns.

In the meantime, it feels like that tree is landing on my head, again and again.     

Deja Vu

Senior Day wasn’t any easier for me yesterday than it was a year ago when Clare ended her career as an Elmhurst College Bluejay.  First off, I apologized to all the seniors for showing up as the fourth old man in their dugout this season, and I proceeded to let them in on a secret—watching them play allowed me to see my daughter again.  Shakespeare wrote of “we few, we happy few, we band of brothers.”  Too bad he never saw the Bluejays this year or last.

Just Desserts

Angels’ owner Arte Moreno thought he was ever so smart by signing outfielder Josh Hamilton to a five-year $125 million contract back in 2013.  Forget about Hamilton’s drug and alcohol addictions and his relapses.  Moreno knew better, in part because he had the contract drawn up in such a way the team would be protected if Hamilton relapsed yet again.  When he did, lo and behold, there was no clear-cut “out” in the contract for the Angels.

But Moreno wasn’t alone being too smart by half; the same holds for Hamilton, who apparently thought it was enough to proclaim in front of every TV camera how Jesus was his savior.  (Note: I share Hamilton’s faith in Christ if not his need to publicize it.  I figure the Son of God is embarrassed enough having me as a fan w/o the whole world knowing.)  That the Lord helps those who help themselves must have been a lesson Hamilton forgot on the way to the bank.

So, this week the Angels traded Hamilton back to the Rangers while picking up $60 million of the contract.  Texas kicks in another $6 million and Hamilton gives the Angels what he would have been paying in state income tax had he stayed in California.  (Texas has no state income tax.)  Everybody wins, kind of, just as nobody will remember the next time a talented but troubled free agent comes on the market.  Professional sports are full of people too smart for their own good.