In the Dugout

At the risk of repeating myself, I think that Chuck Tanner is the best manager ever to work in Chicago.  That may change if the Cubs hire Joe Maddon, as rumored.

From all accounts, Maddon both motivates and innovates.  He’ll quote just about anybody; had out cologne to hide the stink of bad team play; and channel Lou Boudreau to employ defensive shifts.  (Boudreau did it to Ted Williams back in the ‘40s).  Of course, Maddon could fail just like Dusty Baker and Lou Pinella did on the North Side.  Chicago is a lot bigger pond than Tampa; media and fans will burden any savior with crushing expectations.  Maddon also will be challenged to reach young Latin players, far more so than on the Rays.  Still, I’d rather it was Robin Ventura getting sold down the river by management than incumbent Cubs’ skipper Rick Renteria.

No doubt Royals’ fans feel pretty much the same way after KC’s 3-2 game-seven loss to the Giants.  Tying run on second base, one out in the bottom of the fifth, and Ned Yost elects to have Nori Aoki face Madison Bumgarner: slapping lefty vs. overpowering lefty.

We all know how that went, don’t we?

Now Pitching for Your Chicago Cubs--Jake Peavy

 Sportswriters generally make terrible general managers, as Gordon Wittenmyer showed in yesterday’s Sun-Times.  Wittenmyer has been all over the Cubs this year for not committing to big-name free agents.  Heaven help the North Side should he ever take control of the front office.

This is how Wittenmyer would assemble a pitching staff:  “[Jon] Lester and Peavy added to a mix that might include star manager Joe Maddon running the show?  Imagine that while watching Peavy take the mound for the Giants on Tuesday in Game 6 of the World Series with a chance to beat the Kansas City Royals” and clinch the Series for SF.

Too bad the Jakester couldn’t get out of the second inning, giving up five runs on six hits as the Royals squared the Series at three games apiece with a 10-0 whitewash of the visitors.  Peavy is 0-2 with a 12.79 ERA against the Royals this October and is a “stellar” 1-5 with a 7.98 ERA in his postseason career.  

Judging by those stats, the only people who would want Peavy on the Cubs next season are White Sox fans and Gordon Wittenmyer.

Cheating 101

True athlete that she is, Clare jumped to the defense of players caught up in the University of North Carolina cheating scandal that was reported on last week.  “They didn’t start it,” my daughter the jock observed, correctly, in my view.

It appears that over 1500 student-athletes, mostly football and basketball players, benefitted from a decades-long scheme that insured good grades, which translated into continued eligibility.  Coincidentally or not, the Tar Heels won three NCAA basketball championships during this time.

If you’re a kid with better athletic than academic skills, you’d be a fool to pass up an opportunity to boost your GPA.  What helped Clare and all the other Division-III athletes was the lack of scholarships for their respective sports; they coasted in class at their own risk.  Division I is all about the revenue for athletic departments, along with player dreams of a pro career later on.  Put those two together, and scandal is bound to happen.  Television corrupts what it broadcasts on a Saturday afternoon.

I have no solution outside of ending all athletic scholarships.  Fat chance that.  I also happen to be a freak among sports’ fans as someone who prefers the pro game to college (at least when my daughter isn’t part of the equation).  In the pros, compensation does not arrive under the table.  

Leader, Leader

I watched football and baseball repeat the same lesson yesterday: With talent more or less equal, the team with better coaching wins.

First, Giants-Royals.  KC, up two games to one, jumped out to a 4-1 lead in game four only to lose going away, 11-4.  Can you think of anything Royals’ manager Ned Yost did to stem the tide?  Me neither.  It’s not so much that his pitching choices stunk as it was the Royals seemed as flat as a can of 7Up left out on a summer’s day.

And what does Yost do the next game to shake things up?  Absolutely nothing.  Giants’ lefty starter Madison Bumgarner is in an incredible groove, and Yost runs out the same lineup as the game before; right-handed hitters Billy Butler and Josh Willingham got to watch from the bench.  Nothing like pulling the trigger, right, Ned?  After giving up one run in his first start against the Royals, Bumgarner topped himself by throwing a four-hit shutout without so much as a single walk against eight strikeouts.

And then you have the Chicago Bears, “coached” by Marc Trestman.  Last week, the Bears lost 27-14 to a Miami team they were supposed to beat.  Yesterday, they lost 51-23 to a New England team they knew they had to beat.  The defining moment for both game and season came as time was winding down and high-priced defensive end Lamarr Houston hurt himself while doing a dance after recording his first sack in eight games.  “I am very disappointed for Lamarr,” said Coach Trestman.  “I really am.”

Do you think Trestman will dress up as Winston Churchill for Halloween? 

The Incredible Shrinking Audience

The Royals took a 2-1 lead in the Series Friday night by holding on 3-2 against the Giants at AT&T Park.  I wonder how many people outside of Kansas City and San Francisco were watching.

Judging by the TV rating for the first two games, not many.  According to USA Today, game 1 on Tuesday drew the lowest opening-contest ratings ever, while Wednesday recorded the second lowest ever for a game 2.  There are any number of reasons why, starting with the snail’s pace of each broadcast.

Back in olden times, a nine-inning 3-2 game most likely would have been over in under 2:30; Friday night, it took 3:15.  Why?  Well, there was the numbing assault of commercials followed by MLB’s need to stand up to cancer, a five-minute or more feel-good exercise that was sandwiched by…more commercials.  Of course, Harold Reynolds said he liked the pace of the game.

The other problem with the broadcasts is the announcers.  Reynolds and Joe Buck should not be allowed to speak, ever.  If anyone in the commissioner’s office had a clue (which means this is purely hypothetical), the World Series would be treated as the tradition and the opportunity that it is.  For openers, the game’s best broadcasters, and only the best, should be calling the action; hello, Bob Costas and Vin Scully and maybe John Rooney.  Second, baseball needs to stop being afraid of football.  Schedule games early and schedule them to compete with the Bears, et al.  The ratings are in for the other, meeker, way.

Last, kill the ads.  The World Series is, or used to be, an event just as big as the Super Bowl.  Restore some of that glory by broadcasting commercial-free games.  Instead of someone telling me how clean my clothes can be, let sponsors put their logo in a corner of the TV screen, where Fox shills for its programming.  That’s it.  No more ads, nothing read between pitches or innings.  Do that one game, two games, seven games, and you’ll grow the sport just fine.

And do it for at least one game of the week on Fox, the MLB Network and ESPN during the regular season.  Then, let’s see about the ratings.

In Their Own Words

Baseball is sublime, whether in the person of Lou Gehrig or Frenchy Bordagaray.  We would all probably like to face death as Gehrig did, by telling a packed Yankee Stadium, “I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.”   We would all probably like to have the joie de vivre of Bordagaray.    As an outfielder for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Bordagaray came to spring training in 1936 sporting a mustache and goatee.  Manager Casey Stengel—yes, him—put up with it for a while before deciding, “If anyone’s going to be a clown on this club, it’s going to be me.”  Another time, Bordagaray spit at an umpire, which earned him a $500 fine and 60-day suspension.  Bordagaray thought, “The penalty was a bit more than I expectorated.”

Unlike baseball, football is merely ridiculous, as when Bears’ coach Marc Trestman explained why his quarterback went deep on a third-and-one play Sunday against Miami:  “We had a called individual route on the outside with an option vs. bump-and-run to throw the ball up the field.”  Is it even English to the millions of casual fans who watch football on a Sunday afternoon?  Who nods their head in agreement on reading this?  Who remembers?

I just worry sabermetrics will give the national pastime a gridiron accent.  The Sun-Times ran a recent column with this gibber-jargon sentence:  “The Royals led the AL in Rbaser with seven runs, one more than the Indians.”  Somewhere, Lou Gehrig is not pleased, and Frenchy Bordagaray is spitting his disgust.

Buck and Harold

At the end of game one of the Series, Fox announcer Joe Buck said it was good to see rookie reliever Hunter Strickland back on track after pitching a scoreless ninth inning with the Giants ahead by six runs.  Strickland hadn’t been doing too well, what with giving up four homeruns to eighteen batters faced in the postseason.  Two strikeouts in mop-up duty can make a big impression on some people.

Like Buck’s buddy Harold Reynolds.  In the sixth inning of game two, Strickland came in with the Giants down a run, two runners on and one out, KC catcher Sal Perez batting.  After the first or second strike, Reynolds said Strickland’s arm angle made it hard for right-handed hitters to pick up the flight of the ball.  Of course, that was before Perez hit a two-run double and before Omar Infante clubbed a two-run homer for a Royals’ 7-2 lead and eventual win.

If he keeps it up, Buck will surpass his performance in the 2005 White Sox-Astros Series, when he started talking about the Chicago Stock Yards, as if they were still in operation; they’d been closed down since 1971.  As for Reynolds, every coherent comment—not to be confused with every comment—is cringe worthy.  And they wonder why ratings are so low for the Fall Classic.     

Just Like Old Times

Growing up, I rooted so hard for the White Sox that, come World Series time, it was impossible for me to be for the American League, which basically meant the Yankees of Mantle and company.  That changed only after I became friends with an obnoxious National Leaguer.  Nothing like being subjected to someone endlessly extolling the virtues of Sandy Koufax to make those Robinson boys, Brooks and Frank, look good.

Last night, I turned into a kid again during game one of the Series, Giants vs. Royals.  Hey, James Shields, can’t get the ball over the plate?  Oh, right, you’re not facing the Sox.  Hey, Nori Aoki, can’t hit, can’t field?  Oh, right, you’re not playing the ChiSox.  Hey, Kansas City, get your collective heads out of your butts.  I’ve got a pizza riding on the Series with that obnoxious National Leaguer from years ago.

If things don’t improve by tonight, I may be hoping for a San Francisco sweep. 

Shrinking Giant

I didn’t dare pass along an NYT column to Clare on Barry Bonds; he’s not one of her favorite people.  The piece noted that Bonds seems to have lost his steroids-bloat while still taking most of the heat—outside of San Francisco, that is—for those excesses wrought by the Steroids Era.  Bonds doesn’t come off a hero, just less of a culprit than Bud Selig, which is just fine in my book.

Clare told me last week that the Valpo coach wanted to show one of her players a video of Bonds waiting nicely on a changeup, but all the girl could say was, Cheat, Cheat.  So much for the hostility being a D-III thing, although I do think non-scholarship D-III athletes are probably the least sympathetic group when it comes to steroids.  Another possibility here is gender, that female athletes in general don’t condone cheating.  But for that to be true, you’d have to exclude track and field.

In the end, it may be a softball thing.  Here’s a sport like baseball played by athletes who  really can’t play baseball on any serious level.  Baseball players have it all, even at D-III, because there’s always that chance of signing a pro contract as an undrafted free agent.  And along come Barry Bonds, not satisfied with his Hall-of-Fame career, deciding that with a little help he’ll turn himself into the next Hank Aaron.

Come to think of it, I can’t feel sorry for Bonds, either.

Dressing Down

The Bears stunk up Soldier Field yesterday, losing to the Miami Dolphins by a score of 27-14.  Offensive lineman Kyle Long was so upset he called out one of the culprits, those fans in the stands upset they have yet to see a home win from the 3-4 Bears.  “To be getting booed at home when you’re walking off the field down [just!] two possessions is unacceptable,” lectured Mr. Long.  “Especially when there is not a lot of noise being made on third down [which would have made it hard for the Dolphins to hear their quarterback and, presumably, have led to a turnover or chance for Jay Cutler not to cause one—or two].  Period.

Repeat after me, Bear fans: We must pay, cheer, obey, whatever the score and no matter how much tickets cost.   And never complain about parking that can go for as much as $55 a spot.

Brick by Brick

As a rule, I hate stupid and lazy.  Too bad those seem to be the two chief qualities of most anyone writing a sports column these days.  This week, the Cubs started their renovation of Wrigley Field by taking down the outfield bleachers.  Of course, television loved the pictures; the slightest hint of thought is beyond your typical sportscaster.  But print journalism is supposed to be different, the real thing, like Woodward and Bernstein or Red Smith at least.

But, No, I wake up this morning to a column celebrating the piles of debris while taking more potshots at Cubs’ president Theo Epstein, who has committed the mortal sin of not sucking up to Chicago sportswriters.  The writer in question even gave himself credit for writing that the ballpark was a dump back as far back as 2003.  You see, to this guy Wrigley is “crumbling and uncomfortable” in need of a fix up that does “without the rust, grime and leaks.”

Why you stupid, lazy so-and-so.  The engineering problems at this one-hundred year old ballpark don’t add up to $575 million, but you don’t care because it’s not your money, and you didn’t care when the Ricketts family wanted $300 million in public funds, because you didn’t figure any of that would be coming out of your pocket either.  Right?  Did you bother to ask any architects how much it would cost to make the park structurally sound with better washrooms, especially for female fans, and how much was going to create the bells and whistles needed to make fans forget how much they’re paying for a ticket?

I want a ballpark that’s first of all safe, then clean and relatively easy to navigate.  Keep your video boards and kiss-cams.  As for state-of-the-art clubhouse facilities, every ballplayer today should get down and his knees and thank God that Yankee Stadium in 1927didn’t have the amenities found in today’s clubhouse.  If it did, Babe Ruth might have hit 120 homeruns.               

 

Where Does All the Time Go?

Where Does All the Time Go?

The first 2-1 game between the Royals and the Orioles in the ALCS featured ten hits over the course of 2 hours and 55 minutes; the second game was a minute faster, maybe because there only nine hits.  Over in the National League, the Giants-Cardinals’ games contests went anywhere from 3:03 to 3:53, all of them in regulation.

Come the World Series broadcast on Fox (“Don’t miss Sleepy Hollow or The Simpsons”), I’m betting every game closes in on 3:30.  Heaven forbid another Don Larsen comes along to try and pitch a perfect game.  Producers would have to find ways to slow things down to fit in all the commercials.  Maybe a telethon:  We’ll get back to our regularly scheduled inning as soon as we reach $50 million in contributions to our advertisers.

Or we could bid on keeping Joe Buck from talking.

Destiny, with a Short Shelf Life

 Ask the Tigers after getting swept by Baltimore, and the Orioles likely were a team of destiny.  With the O’s now one game away from being swept by the Royals, who have already swept the Angels, and KC is next in line as a team of destiny, or “Yostiny,” as manager Ned Yost’s crew has been called by some sportswriters.  But however they say “destiny,” I say “lightning in a bottle.”

Either one would describe the 2005 White Sox, after sweeping the defending world champion Red Sox in the ALDS and losing all of one game to the Angels in the ALCS before sweeping the Astros in the World Series.  Then general manager Kenny Williams had to go and take the cap off the bottle by trading away Aaron Rowand….We haven’t been close to the Series since.

If the Royals make it, I’ll be pulling for them; I have a pizza on it.  But Royals fans, beware.  Each season has its own logic, its own rules and winners and losers.  Come April 2015, this year’s destiny could very well go the way of last summer’s lightning.   

Souvenir

Twenty-five years ago on a Sunday in mid-October, Michele and I drove downstate to the town of Lewistown for the annual fall festival that centers on native son Edgar Lee Masters.  As I recall, the local cemetery was filled with actors playing characters from Masters’ Spoon River Anthology, which is set in a fictionalized version of said cemetery.  I had another reason for going—Luke Appling, at the time very much alive, had been booked to appear at a local memorabilia show.

Since there was no one else in line, we had the Hall of Famer all to ourselves.  Appling complained about Chicago weather (“you had to dig the snow out of your neck at shortstop”); being cheated out of a base hit on an umpire’s call during Bob Feller’s Opening Day no-hitter in 1940 (“go ahead, ask him”); and the play of Pete Rose (“what is he, 215 pounds, and he slides into the second baseman, 159 pounds?”).  Throughout our conversation, Appling kept flirting with Michele, which she denies to this day.    

Along with an autographed picture of Appling, I bought a drinking glass, with the image of a smiling (who knew?) Ted Williams on it, along with the subliminal command to drink “Ted’s Delicious Creamy Root Beer.”  Whenever Clare faced some sort of challenge, a big game or tryout, I had her use the glass.  The idea was for her to see herself in the image of Williams, a hitter who had no use for pitchers other than as a means to an end.  It seems to have worked over the years.

Our daughter came home for the weekend from school and used the glass at breakfast yesterday.  I can only imagine the challenges ahead.

Worth It?

The Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw signed a seven year, $215 million contract in January.  For that money, LA got a number one starter who went 21-3 on the season with a 1.77 ERA, good enough to be a lock for the Cy Young Award in the National League.  Too bad Kershaw lost both his starts against St. Louis in the NLDS.  In fact, Kershaw has gone 1-5 in the postseason, his ERA a very embarrassing 5.12.  Unless things change fast, Kershaw will find himself wearing the label of an expensive choke.

Bryce Harper is in the fourth year of a five-year, $9.9 million deal from when he was drafted by the Nationals in 2010.  The contract expires before Harper can become a free agent, so arbitration time should become interesting.  Harper went 5 for 17 in the Nats’ four-game series loss to the Giants.  Three of those hits were homeruns and one a double.  Mike Trout, who signed a six-year $144.5 million extension with the Angels before the season started, went 1 for 12 in the Royals’ three-game sweep of LA.  What goes for Clayton Kershaw applies to Trout.

Was Harper the “hungriest” of the three young players, or were the differing performances all a coincidence?  You decide.  For me, I’m just happy in a perverse sort of way that the White Sox missed the postseason.  Why?  Because none of the Kershaw questions can be asked of Chris Sale.  I want Sale to be on a can’t-miss team come the postseason.

Of course, that may never happen.           

Long Distance

Clare is unhappy with her TV situation in Valparaiso—no Comcast for the White Sox, no Fox 1 for the playoffs.  The second may not be such a bad thing.  The broadcasters work “1” into everything to the point I expect them to break out into, “Rubber Ducky, you’re the ‘1’” before the next commercial break.

My daughter says she misses being able to watch the games at home with her father; we would both sit on the couch doing color and analysis.  Times change.  The thought’s appreciated.

The Sport of Politics, the Politics of Sports

 Illinois governor Pat Quinn made sure to be on the field for Paul Konerko Day last week.  Afterwards, he made his way to the broadcast booth for a half inning or so with Hawk Harrelson and Steve Stone.  The governor practically gushed over the potential of rookie infielder Marcus Semien.  At no time did Quinn commit the faux paux of saying “Cominskey” rather than “Comiskey.”  Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel did not attend the game.

But he was on hand the next Saturday for his Great Chicago Fire Festival to see the floating houses fail to burn up as planned.  More people went to the Cell for Konerko than to the Festival, though both events provided definite memories.  With a gubernatorial election a month off, that’s a good thing for Quinn.  With the mayoral primary in February, the mayor can only hope voters forget.

Everything Old....

Come one come all today to the Great Chicago Fire Festival.  Watch as floating houses are set ablaze in the Chicago River.  Really.

They did something similar back in the 1890s, when journalist Finley Peter Dunne cracked wise through the persona of the city’s favorite barkeeper, a.k.a. Mr.  Dooley.  If you’re going celebrate a disaster like the Fire, Mr. Dooley reasoned, “What’s th’ mather with cholera?  Why don’t we have an ipidimic day, with floats showin’ distinguished citizens in convulsions an’ a procission iv hearses?  That’ud be a pretty sight.”  Mr. Mayor, your thoughts?

But Mayor Emanuel is too busy touting his latest coup, snaring the 2015 NFL draft.  Emanuel calls it “an event that highlights our world-class city and reinvests in our neighborhoods.”  Right, rounds five through eight are going to be held smack dab in the middle of the Bungalow Belt.  And when it’s all done, the name of Al Capone will be erased from the world’s memory.  

Call me old-fashioned, but I miss how each sport used to have its own season and didn’t encroach on others.  Nobody’s draft ever got in the way of the World Series.  That’s the way it should be, provided there were a couple of women ballplayers on the field.

He Gone

After 14 seasons, 462 homeruns and 2379 strikeouts, Adam Dunn called it a career this week.  In his 2002^nd and final game, Dunn finally got to see some playoff action from the dugout, although A’s manager Bob Melvin never found the right situation to use Dunn over the course of a 12-inning loss to the Royals.  How sad.  A tree fell in the forest, but there was no one on hand to record its demise.

Missed Chances

By going to Paul Konerko’s last game Sunday, Clare missed a two-hour bus ride from Valparaiso to DeKalb, where the Crusaders played a double header.  Things could have gotten a little interesting for my daughter.

One of the games was against a school she was interested in attending early on.  Then we heard stories about the coach, nothing especially pleasant.  But I will say he always showed up for his daughters’ high school games against Morton.  In fact, he was there for Clare’s last high school home run during regionals.  She tied the game in the bottom of the seventh with a monster shot off of one of coach’s daughters.  Oh, they both play for him in college.

I doubt that home run would have helped Clare’s chances to make the team.

Insight

Most athletes avoid reporters or talk in clichés, either of which will protect them from unintended revelations a la Adrian Peterson.  Actual insight is rare and noteworthy, as Paul Konerko showed after playing in his final game Sunday.

Konerko took a farewell lap around the field, with stops to wave or shake hands.  At some point, the intensity of emotion coming from the fans struck Konerko.  “I saw people crying out there.  That’s crazy, just because I play a game.  But I get it.  It’s something you do for closure for them as well.”

A player can be generous with his time or not, stop to talk to fans or just run to his car.  “It’s something they don’t teach you in the minor leagues, about this kind of stuff.”  No, a first baseman coming in from the field sees an eight-year old girl sitting behind the dugout and tosses her a ball.  Then he signs it in the offseason.  And she remembers forever.