This I like, That I Don't

With the start of the season just four days off, here are your White Sox story lines. Good news first—Edgar Quero had himself a very nice spring. Counting yesterday’s 1-for-4 performance against the Reds, the 22-year old, switch-hitting catcher is hitting an even .300 with fourteen RBIs in 50 at-bats. Do the math, and that comes out to 110 RBIs in 500 at-bats. A regular season along the lines of that, please. Of more concern is Colson Montgomery with his .180 BA with four RBIs in 50 at-bats. Do the math, and that comes out to 40 RBIs in 500 at-bats. Good thing spring training doesn’t mean anything. Right? A Sox minor leaguer gave up a walk-off grand slam in the bottom of the ninth to the Reds, so I don’t want that to be some sort of bullpen omen. As for prospects, a group belonging to the Sox group squared off against the Dodgers in a 11-10 loss. Noteworthy: William Bergolla Jr. going 3-for-3 (Colson Montgomery, ignore at your own risk); Braden Montgomery driving in two; and George “Paul Bunyan” Wolkow homering. Two out of these three I hope, I expect, to see with the parent club before long. As for the 20-year old, 6’7” Wolkow, anything in the neighborhood of a .250 BA will earn him a promotion to the next level. You don’t want to stay at low-A Kannapolis, my friend. There you have it, the good, the bad and the maybe.

Cutting Down

Clare never had to worry about making a team, not really. The first travel team she tried out for, before the formal switch from baseball to softball, she didn’t make, but I later heard the organization didn’t field a team in her age group that summer. Then, a team she was on in eighth grade collapsed, and the older coach didn’t want her, but she found another team without a problem, even though—maybe because—she hit one of the coaches with a line drive. High school and college, though, she was pretty much a lock from day one of freshman year. So, I can only guess what players in White Sox camp are thinking right now. What I do know is there won’t be any Jarred Kelenic feel-good story short of someone getting injured and the Sox needing an outfielder; ditto for local-kid reliever Ryan Borucki. Either might have made the team in 2023 or ’24 or ’25 but not now. Bad for them, good for the organization and for anyone who considers themselves a Sox fan. What Clare does know about is dealing with a career that ends abruptly. In softball, that’s pretty much a given except for the .001 percent or so of college players who want to live an itinerant existence following a pro dream or fantasy For Kelenic and Borucki, along with a lot of people whose names appear in the Transactions’ announcements the next few days, retirement maybe closer than they’d like. But there’s no escaping it. As for the Sox, if they’re not going to stock the roster with a bunch of free-agent veterans, who makes the trip to Milwaukee for Opening Day? Stay tuned.

Waiting

The White Sox open their season six days from now in Milwaukee, and the 26-player roster is still taking shape. Regardless who makes the team, you have to wonder how set positions are going to be. Today’s lineup includes rookie infielder Sam Antonacci, and I’m inclined to ask, why? Chris Getz has flat-out said Antonacci will start the season in the minors. The 23-year mustn’t have gotten the message. He went 1-for-3 with an RBI last night against the Padres, which gives him a .313 BA and five RBIs for the spring. Oh, and three stolen bases to go with seven runs scored. How long does the 23-year old sparkplug languish in the bushes, Chris? The same question could be asked of outfielder Braden Montgomery, who also had himself a nice spring, hitting .348 with three RBIs and four runs scored. It felt like Getz couldn’t send the switch-hitting Montgomery down fast enough, lest he improve on those stats. Maybe the Sox wouldn’t have a muddled outfield picture had Getz decided to make a bold decision or two. I’ll hold my tongue on pitchers Noah Schultz and Hagen Smith, till June. If they’re struggling in the minors, keep them there. Otherwise, they should be up. I mean, it’s not a successful rebuild without proof of progress. Let these players prove themselves ASAP.

Other Springs, Past Summers

Last Saturday, we went to the Berwyn Rec for early voting in the Illinois primary. Talk about stepping into a time machine, or out of one, I guess. Old fogies went one direction, parents with kids in another. An electronic crawler announced Pony Ball signup, and I began to float through time. The father with the girl who wanted to play baseball. Which she did spring after spring through seventh grade. Then, Sunday, I started clearing out the area around the trainset in the basement; my hope is to get everything up and running by my grandson’s fifth birthday come August. If I know Leo, he’ll want full access to every side of the layout. And, if I know me, there’ll be some purchases of very old Lionel equipment on eBay to spike his interest, and mine. Know that, both by inclination and by profession, I am a collector of things past. If the thing tells a story, I’m inclined to keep it. The trainset? That’s pure Ed Bukowski. A man with three kids always in need of stuff found the money to buy a slightly used Lionel set and built the table to put it on. I have all of that to remind me. The story boards Clare used in grade school and high school do the same. They were piled in a far corner, where Leo is sure to be standing before long. All products of one history fair or another. My daughter said I could pitch everything. “I didn’t even know you’d saved them.” But I did, and I’m not quite ready to let go of one in particular, “Mustang Madness!”. It tells the story of one of the summer Morton teams Clare played on; for three years, she a Mustang not actually in high school. All I can say is, the kid could hit. Anyway, she imagined the team—which won the summer league championship, such as it was—as part of a “Field of Dreams”-like movie, with Clare being played by Amber Tamblyn. Jessica; Jezebel; Alyssa; and one other girl were played by other young actors at the time. The photos pasted on the board are of achingly young kid-athletes, posing, smiling, trying to project confidence. There are two of Clare, one in catcher’s gear (that experiment didn’t last long, trust me) and the other showing her ready to hit. The stance that launched a career’s worth of long balls. Those onetime teammates have all gone their separate ways. My contribution to that long-ago team has two children of her own now, and one of them will be starting t-ball in another week or so. Time flies. I’ll show Clare the story board. Depending what she says, I may find a place for it in the basement.

Just Stay Put

According to Jon Greenberg in today’s The Athletic, the private-equity firm owned by Justin Ishbia has purchased a 47-acre site in the South Loop literally the other side of the Chicago River where Jerry Reindsorf wanted all of Illinois to build him a new stadium. Greenberg intimated Ishbia, White Sox owner in waiting, may want to build a stadium at the soon-to-be former Amtrak rail yard. As if Sox fans care. They don’t want a new facility; the current one is fine. What they want is new ownership and a commitment to winning. If Ishbia can provide that, fans will line up to watch games while standing on one foot. I know I would.

Is This Anything?

As my good friend David Letterman would ask. In this case, does Matas Buzelis scoring 29 points and Josh Giddey recording another triple-double mean anything? I ask because it happened last night in the Bulls’ 132-107 win over the Grizzlies. Impressive, but maybe not. You see, Memphis is in strict tank-mode. They went into the game with four fewer victories than their hosts; make that five. Outside of the stats for Buzelis and Giddey, what does the win do for the Bulls? It certainly doesn’t improve their chances in the draft lottery. No, the odds are they’ll land low enough so that all the top talent is gone and/or Arturas Karnisovas will be tempted to go after another “project” like he did this year with eighteen-year old Noa Essengue. Talk about your nine circles of sports’ hell. The sooner NBA Commissioner Adam Silver moves against tanking, the better. That would definitely be something.

Everything or Nothing

Spring training can mean everything or nothing, depending on the player and/or the team. Right now, the White Sox must be thinking their 13-10 record in Cactus League play means they’re going to be competitive-plus come Opening Day while the Cubs’ Jameson Taillon has to be telling himself his 22.18 ERA in 9.2 innings doesn’t mean anything. For his sake, I hope not. Taillon inadvertently let slip the dangers inherent with the analytics’ approach to baseball. He admitted in today’s Tribune online story to always “tinkering” and that he “tinkered a little bit and messed myself up” and now needs to tinker himself back to a good place. Maybe shutting off the gizmos would be a good start. Unlike Taillon’s ERA, spring injuries count. Kyle Teel hurt a hamstring in the WBC while Mike Vasil came away from his start Saturday with right-elbow soreness. I think Teel’s injury would have happened regardless the venue. The question here is conditioning. What, the Sox want to lead the world in muscle pulls, again? Vasil’s injury comes with the territory; every pitch risks time on the IL, whenever it’s thrown. But Seiya Suzuki’s injury to his right knee, now that’s something that could’ve been avoided. Suzuki slid into second on an attempted steal in a WBC game Saturday and limped off the field after being called out; the extent of the injury is still being evaluated. Here’s a thought—don’t risk injury by stealing. Even if you succeed, it doesn’t count for your career stats. Wait, here’s a better idea—don’t play in the WBC at all.