Intern cum Apprentice

 

Back in the proverbial day, a college job bore little to no relation to the rest of your life.  Otherwise, I’d still be stocking shelves at Walgreens or dealing with eight-year olds at a daycare center on the North Side.  My, how times have changed.

It’s not the job so much, which is good because Clare has spent the last four years working in the football office at Elmhurst (Coach Clare a da Bears), as the internship.  Who came up with this idea?  I mean, it’s not enough for families to cover tuition along with room and board.  Now, students have to work unpaid internships in what may or may not prove to be their future profession.  How do you spell indentured servitude for the 21^st century?

Yesterday, Clare reached the 200-hour mark required for her internship.  In other words, she took her classes, worked and interned with the athletic departments at Benedictine University and Immaculate Conception High School.  The good news is that IC is a five-minute walk from the Elmhurst campus.

For better or worse, the internship has propelled Clare well out of her comfort zone.  She’s kept score for volleyball and basketball, worked the clock at games and written a media guide.  Now, we argue who had it harder, me keeping the book for varsity softball (scoring games plus doing team stats) and tracking the pitchers (first-pitch strikes, walks, strikeouts, ERA and pitch counts) or Clare doing stats for sports she’s never played.  Of course, I think I had it harder.  Try sharing the dugout with someone as intense as Ted Williams.

From what I gather, the refs are about as (in)competent as umps, plus they like to flirt; one ref we know from high school softball.  According to Clare, he spit on the basketball court floor during a recent game and didn’t care who saw.  Now, there’s the wide world of sports for you, up close and unfiltered.  

Elements of Thanks

 

The TV was tuned to the MLB Network.  Wonderboy is leaning up against the wall next to a heating vent, to get the bees out in case there’s a spur-of-the-moment visit to the batting cage or hitting coach.  We shared a comic in the paper about Mr. Met and discussed Frank Thomas’s chances of getting elected to the Hall of Fame on his first try next month.  My daughter’s home for the holiday.

Injuries

Clare hit that monster shot in Appleton the same day, and just about the same time, as Derrick Rose of the Bulls tore his ACL in the NBA playoffs.  And today Rose had surgery on his other knee for a torn meniscus.  Parents may hate injuries more than even their athlete-children do.

I worry about things breaking—arms, wrists, ankles, fingers and legs—or tearing a la Rose.  I worry about concussions and double vision and colds that bring on asthma.  I worry about a rehabbed shoulder from high school flaring up and back spasms.  I worry for a reason

            There has to be one last season because there has to be.  And there are no guarantees.   

Bridgeport

We spent part of last night attending a wake in Bridgeport, a neighborhood most people know about as well as Jon Stewart does pizza.  Irish Bridgeport, home of the Daley clan?  No, Polish Bridgeport, where the Bukowski and Skonieczny clans once roamed.  It all depended what block you were born on.

Bridgeport was, and in many ways still is, a hardscrabble place my father left at the age of thirteen, but we often went there to visit his mother and one cousin.  I never ceased to be amazed by how all the homes in Bridgeport looked to have sunken yards; back in the 1850s, the street levels were raised several feet, which is what caused the “sinking.”  The sidewalks also had a tendency to buckle because they did double duty as roofs; in other words, basements extended underneath.  I grew up in what is known as Chicago’s Bungalow Belt, where everything was neat and orderly.  Bridgeport was one step the other side of chaos.

My father particularly enjoyed seeing his cousin, Doc Krops, Bridgeport royalty of a non-political sort.  The man drove a Cadillac, had a bar in his basement straight out of Las Vegas and vacationed in pre-Castro Cuba.  How a dentist and a fireman with a seventh grade education could be so close is beyond me, but they were.  The best part of these visits was sitting in Doc Krops’ kitchen on a summer night, the windows open, a bottomless glass of Pepsi in my hand, when all of a sudden, Boom!  “Somebody musta hit a homer for the Sox,” said Doc Krops, his way of letting me know we were no more than a mile west of Comiskey Park.  “They coulda used that last week against the Yankees.  But what are ya gonna do?”  And he went back to telling some incredible story about Castro or serving in the Pacific during the war or parallel parking his Cadillac.

             Doc and now his son were waked just down the street from where the fireworks echoed.   

Breaking News

The birthday express arrived from Elmhurst in the late afternoon for dinner and cake.  The princess wanting cheese pierogi on her special day meant going to a Polish restaurant on Belmont Avenue.  Me, I’d like beef tongue in carmelized gravy like my mother used to make, but I digress.

I was saying something on the drive home when Clare, the cutest little Borg with phone attached at the hand, interrupted from the back seat.  “Breaking news, the Tigers have traded Prince Fielder.  Guess who they got.”  I considered the likely choices for some fifteen seconds before saying, “Ian Kinsler.”

For that Clare gave me a “Way to go, Dad.”  And the third person in the car, both mother and wife, must have wondered, How did I end up with these two?

            On a possibly related front, Clare also noted that the Orioles are monitoring the progress of White Sox free agent pitcher Gavin (“I get the first fourteen guys out before giving up five runs in the fifth”) Floyd, who is rehabbing from Tommy John surgery.  Talk about a birthday wish.  Go, Birds.

On This Day in American History....

 

November 20, 1991:  The athlete Clare Bukowski was born, an afternoon baby who debuted just after Final Jeopardy (answer that day:  What is haggis?)  As a first-time father with a queasy stomach, I appreciated the presence of a TV in the delivery room.  It gave me something else to look at.

At 6 AM on her 22^nd birthday, my daughter went to do her weightlifting.  Alas, she forgot to bring a tiara from home to wear, as was the plan.  The girl is downright goofy about birthdays, hers and anyone else’s, which is a good thing.  We all need to feel special, if only for one day a year.  And the world is better off for those people who announced to their first grade teachers, “Today is a month from my birthday…two weeks…a week.”  You know who I’m talking about.

           As for the tiara, hey, if you can pull it off, why not?  

Watching Friends Fall

 

Elmhurst has had very good volleyball teams these past four years, with deep NCAA runs the last two seasons.  For some reason, Clare has been close to a number of the players.

            One of them is her roommate, Katie.  In Friday’s regional win, Katie rolled her ankle.  This meant a night of electric stimulus followed by ice so she could be taped up for Saturday’s regional finals.  According to Clare’s texts (like tickertape updates in olden days), Katie went out a warrior, as did the rest of their team in defeat.
           
            Later, we talked on the phone, as always.  “My athletic career has coincided with theirs,” Clare told Michele.  Autumn’s warriors fall.  Long live winter sports, then spring. 

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.