A Year Ago

This time last year, Clare was going to the batting cages and her hitting coach as she counted down the start of softball season. Yesterday, she was out in Lincolnshire picking through Chicago sports’ memorabilia for a fundraiser the Valparaiso baseball program will be holding next month.  Guess who volunteered to be the intern in charge of setting up the event?

My father-in-law would forever have his eldest child, my wife, be ten-years old again, so the two of them could spend Sundays together doing puzzles and whatnot.  I want my only child to be forever twenty-one (or –two), batting third in the order, up with runners in scoring position and the game on the line.

The children in question do not have a say in the matter.

Bear(s) Down

Marc Trestman, quite possibly the strangest and most delusional professional coach ever to work in Chicago, sounded like he expected to be back for a third season with the Bears after going 5-11.  “I’m putting my thoughts down,” he said fresh off the team’s fifth straight loss, this one a numbing 13-9 performance against the Vikings.  “I don’t think there is anybody in a better situation to assess it, other than myself and” Phil Emery, the general manager who made the mistake of hiring Trestman.

Why, Trestman even had a plan, “to continue to finalize my notes now that the season is over and make sure [when] that opportunity arises, I’ll be able to explain how we fix the team.”  Not to worry.  The McCaskeys have their own plan, which started with firing both Trestman and Emery, who cited a lyric from songwriter Carrie Newcomer in his exit appearance with the media:  “‘We stand breathless on the clean edge of change.’  So, it’s time to change and to move forward.  Go Bears!  Thanks for your time.”

It’s hard to tell what’s more surreal here, that an NFL G.M.. staked his job on a coach with New-Age management ideas just short of the huddle as quality circle or the amount of coverage the two firings generated.  At least one of the network stations broadcast the press conference in its 40-minute entirety, and everybody led with it on the 10 o’clock news; for once there was no video from four states over of a collapsing building, car chase or black bear wandering into an unlocked kitchen.  Nope, all we got was Chicago NFL football.

Wrigley Field could’ve collapsed and the White Sox moved out of town, and not a sports’ reporter would’ve noticed, or cared.

Time Flies

This is how I know I’m getting old—someone on Clare’s tee-ball team got engaged this week; he was a nice kid with a real woodcutter’s swing.  And then there’s the catcher from Clare’s high school team.  Hard as nails, strong arm, good at keeping pitches in the dirt from skipping away.  She’s in Thailand now with the Peace Corps.

For three years that catcher kept our star pitcher focused, something Clare will readily admit she couldn’t by her lonesome.  Fast-forward to college, and the two of them faced off against one another every spring in the CCIW, power pitcher vs. my daughter the homerun hitter.  Well, the pitcher has now joined the ranks of the recently engaged.

Did I say “old”?  “Decrepit” is more like it.    

A Little Skin in the Game

 Two day before Christmas and we’re at the batting cages.  Clare doesn’t want to stop doing what she’s spent most of a lifetime perfecting, and I don’t want to stop watching her work at it.  Unlike the day before, this time the power stays on so the injury can happen.

Clare’s dead serious, if a little off in her timing at 70 mph.  Her swing is nothing if not vicious, especially after missing a pitch.  She goes through four tokens before getting rid of the rust.  At 75 and 80 mph, it’s like old times, all Crack! and watch the ball shoot off her bat.  This is music to the young and relatively old alike.  Only when the tokens run out does Clare show me the true cost of our visit: the skin has ripped off the top of her left thumb.

“I think I need new batting gloves,” she tells Santa.

Steve McQueen and Don McMahon

 There are only so many times I can bike to Band of Brothers, which leads me to channel surfing.  Somewhere beyond the Turner Classic Movies on channel 501, Tuesday I settled into The Sand Pebbles, with Steve McQueen and Candice Bergen.  This is one of those movies that, no matter how many times I’ve seen it, the next time feels like the first.

Not that I’ve forgotten the first time, a Sunday afternoon in September of 1967.  My mother and I took the bus downtown to the Michael Todd, where an usher led us to our assigned seats.  I went instead of my father for two reasons: first, he was working at the firehouse on Archer and Sacramento that day, and second, he probably didn’t want to go, anyhow.  That left me to get lost in a love story about a beautiful missionary and a Navy seaman set against a backdrop of 1920s’ China in turmoil (I could’ve have written press releases in an earlier life, and did, for a time).  I’m a sucker for gunboats and B-17s, and one Southside baseball team.  I brought a transistor radio along to check on the White Sox score.

They beat the Indians, 3-1, behind a five-inning relief stint by Don McMahon, to move within one game of first place in the American League.  There were five games left in the season, but that was the last win for the Sox.  I should’ve known from the movie.  McQueen’s character  gets killed in the end.

Reading and Writing

How did I start on the road to getting a Ph.D.?  Basically, comics and the sports’ section.  They gave me an appreciation for simple stories told well.

The comics, or “jokes” in our house, were a riot of color and humor and adventure every Sunday.  There was Prince Valiant to go with Moon Mullins, Gasoline Alley, Terry and the Pirates and Smilin’ Jack, to say nothing of the surreal Smokey Stover, featuring the fireman with a hinged hat (I think).  If you grew up on these strips, graphic novels aren’t that big a deal.

And then we have Carl Barks.  Who?  Barks was the creator of Uncle Scrooge McDuck, Gladstone Gander and Gyro Gearloose, all of whom lived with Donald Duck in the city of Duckburg; Uncle Scrooge had his Money Bin there.  Barks wasn’t afraid to use the occasional three- and four-syllable word to advance a story, which led me to pick up the dictionary outside of school.  If the folks at Wikipedia are right, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas both claim Barks as an influence.

Of course, I didn’t spend all my time reading comics; I also saved time for the sports’ section.  We were a two-paper family, the Chicago American and Tribune; later came the Sun-Times and Daily News.  The sportswriters I remember most are David Condon and Bill Gleason, though just about anyone else from 1960-1980 employed the same style as those two: subject, verb, object, keep it lively, short and to the point.  Oh, and Harry Shear, because he used the word “Quidnunc” in his column.  It means “gossip,” noun not verb.

I don’t claim to be a good writer, but I know good writing when I read it.  And I don’t know what, if anything, encourages kids to start reading today.  But I’m willing to bet the farm the following sentence will drive the young away from the printed word, unless it appears on their iPhone screen:  “[Bears’ linebacker Christian] Jones has improved his eye discipline against play action.”

A few more years of prose like that, and sports’ journalism will be dead.  No joke.

Sugar and Spice, Contd.

 This is how Clare’s day went yesterday—workout, batting cages, date.  Taking a rest between #’s two and three, she sat in the living room while I did my Margaret Hamilton imitation on the Exercycle.

That might not seem strange until you know what was in the DVR player, not The Wizard of Oz but Band of Brothers.  It only seemed right to ride and watch on this, the 70^th anniversary of Bastogne and the Ardennes.  And Clare?  You could say she held her ground quite well.  “I can’t get over how good this is,” my daughter said after the scene where Easy Company has to endure a shelling that turns trees in splinters of shrapnel.  Together, we tried to name all the other roles we’ve seen the lead actors in.  This is a Damian Lewis household, and Scott Grimes, too.

Sugar and Spice

Tell my daughter she can’t do something, and she’ll be in your face to prove you wrong.  That’s how it was with baseball.  That’s how it is with anything connected to perceived gender roles.  The big wide world isn’t just for guys anymore.  Which isn’t to say Clare despises the domestic arts.  Far from it.

Among other talents, she has a gift for baking.  Last night, she conjured forth an army of gingerbread men from out of the oven.  To top that off, she turned some of them upside down to decorate them as reindeer, and it worked.  One second I was looking at generic gingerbread, the next second it was Rudolph with a red candy nose.  Oh, and a few of the gingerbread men sported bow ties made out of glaze.

Earlier in the day, Clare went to Hancock Fabrics to get material for a blanket.  She’s already done one with a White Sox print.  It’ll either end up in Cooperstown or the Smithsonian, I’m not sure which.   

Making Do

These really are the dog days for baseball, when indoor sports abound and the Bears implode.  In ancient times, I either waited for a trade (e.g., 1-20-65, John Romano, Tommy John and Tommie from the Indians to the White Sox for the recently acquired Rocky Colavito and Cam Carreon , or 11-29-67, Luis Aparicio and Russ Snyder from the Orioles to the Sox for Don Buford, Bruce Howard and Roger Nelson) or gutted it out to the end of January.  By then, the early baseball magazines would begin showing up at Charles Drugs on the corner of 55^th and Kedzie.  I ran, slid and slipped the four icy blocks from my house.

It’s a little easier now, thanks to baseballreference.com, where the names and numbers hardly ever stop.  I can watch for transactions in the sports’ section (or cheat by going to the MLB website), then study a player in depth.  A little baseballreference makes the time pass in a most delightful way.   

Take the Sox signing of Melky Cabrera.  I can check the splits and confirm that Cabrera has been pretty much of a Sox killer, 10 homers, 38 rbi’s and 39 runs for a .316 career batting average in 244 at-bats.  Then I see the Sox have signed catcher George Kottaras to a minor league contract with an invitation to spring trainer.  Kottaras, isn’t he the guy…?  Yes, the guy who had a cup of coffee with Cleveland last year and hit two homers in a game against the Sox.  In fact, Kottaras has done quite well for himself facing my team.  Of his six career hits against the Sox, Kottaras has managed two doubles and three home runs for a .333 lifetime average (and .944 slugging percentage!).

Stats like that can keep a fan alive in this cold, dark wintertime.

Playing with Fire

 Forgive White Sox general manager Rick Hahn if he starts channeling Rodney Dangerfield anytime soon.  Hahn just wants his team to get a little respect.

After all, the Sox have made five major player upgrades this off-season—Adam LaRoche, Zach Duke, David Robertson, Jeff Samardzija and Melky Cabrera.  The Cubs have had three, Jon Lester, Jason Hammel and Miguel Montero.  So, what’s the Tribune’s big Sunday baseball story?  Why, how Jon Lester showed major-league talent in high school.  And when I put WGN radio on in the afternoon, what was the topic of conversation?  The Cubs, even though the call-in guest wanted to talk more about the Sox.  Why, you’d think WGN and the Tribune were still in the baseball business, which they’re not.   

So, the Cubs win the battle of headlines, “A star from ‘wow’ to now” vs “Cabrera juices lineup.”  Still, the Cubs are playing with fire as they build up their expensive new free-agent signing; we did that with Adam Dunn.  If Lester works out, no one will care, outside of Sox fans like me.  If he flops a la Dunn, though, Cub fans will be holding up signs telling him to go back to Bellarmine Prep in Tacoma.  More and more, big-dollar contracts risk big-time backlash when they don’t work out.   

Right, Adam?

Forgiveness

When Clare was four or five, she took some kind of craft bauble—think five for a dollar at Michaels—from a friend.  I made her give it back, and this seems to have made an impression:  No stealing, be honest.  And that was basically it for finger-wagging lessons from Dad, outside of the time a certain someone dialed 911 at Grandma’s, and the emergency operator called back, but that’s a story for another day.

My point is that from early on Clare was aware her parents believed in doing things the right way.  Whatever failings Michele and I had, our daughter never saw us cutting corners or lying or stealing.  In this way, Clare grew up “old school,” and Catholic.

This all comes to bear with the White Sox signing outfielder Melky Cabrera to a three-year deal in the neighborhood of $42 million.  Cabrera was suspended 50 games in 2012 after testing positive for testosterone, an offense his camp made worse by trying to set up a phony website and make it appear that Cabrera had been tricked into buying the stuff.  No, the penalty by MLB doesn’t strike me as excessive even as it cost Cabrera the NL batting title, and, no, I’m not particularly happy we signed him given that transgression; neither is Clare.  But as Catholics, we believe sin is part of our nature and forgiveness an act of God which we should emulate.

So, we forgive you, Melky.  Just don’t do it again.

Giveaways

Truth be told, I think the White Sox overpaid for starter Jeff Samardzija.  Of the four players we gave up, I like Marcus Semien, Josh Phegley and Chris Bassitt, so it was as if the Sox were probing my subconscious to see who to get rid of.  Semien proved to be a surprisingly good clutch hitter while Phegley looked like he had finally figured things out at the plate the last week of the season, which brings us to Bassitt.

A righty starter, Bassitt was brought up at the end of August to face the Tigers only to get rocked; he improved markedly in his second start, pitching six innings of one-run ball against the A’s, his new team.  Even better, he talked about pitch location and knowing what the count is and the need to keep working on all his pitches.  In other words, Chris Bassitt wasn’t taking anything for granted.  He also seems to have an idea on how to treat fans.

Clare told me Bassitt was using social media to give away his gear.  He tweeted, “Dear White Sox fans, I got traded and have a lot of White Sox stuff.  I want you guys to have it.”  Winners were determined by some sort of tweeting contest I’m too old to figure out.   But I do know how to read the box scores and will be paying more attention to Oakland than usual.   

Appeal Denied

On Friday, an arbitrator ruled in favor of the NFL against Vikings’ running back Adrian Peterson.  Roger Goodell’s season-long suspension of Peterson stands, along with the suspicion that arbitrator Harold Henderson, a former NFL vice president, was anything but impartial.

No need to change the format, says the NFL in answer to complaints by the players’ association that the process is unfair, given that the commissioner has the best interests of the game at heart, or so the NYT reported.  Great White Father, meet Roger Goodell.  Commissioner Goodell, meet….    

The Old Bump-and-Grind

The Old Bump-and-Grind

The NYT ran a story yesterday about the Buffalo Jills, those young women who gyrate with poms along the sidelines at Ralph Wilson Stadium.  Several cheerleaders are suing the Bills for violation of state minimum wage laws.  According to the story, one Jill received $400 while working in excess of 800 hours.  So far, the team’s response has been along the lines of “What, we have cheerleaders?”

My father-in-law told his two young daughters when they were growing up to play rather than cheer those who did.  His granddaughter heard that same message loud and clear.  Clare couldn’t care less how hard cheerleading is or how often it leads to injury.  Basically, she wants to know where the stats are.  Do they keep any for most high kicks in a career or booty-bumps?

The Bulls and Blackhawks have cheerleaders while the Bears and White Sox don’t, although the Sox have female interns in shorts on top of the dugout at times during a game.  A friend of Clare’s from travel ball did that over the summer.  My daughter was not interested in joining her.

Clare knows it’s better to be in the dugout than on top of it.  

In the Blink of an Eye, Maybe

 To be a Chicago baseball fan is to hope, hope that this year—or next—is different, and winning replaces the all too familiar and numbing act of losing.  Such a change is so rare as to be exhilarating when experienced.

It feels that way right now with the winter meetings in San Diego.  Going in, the White Sox had already signed first baseman/dh Adam LaRoche (who as a boy used to hang around Comiskey Park when his dad was a Sox coach) and lefty reliever Zach Duke.  On top of that, at the winter meetings they’ve signed closer David Robertson with his 39 saves away from the Yankees (oh, how sweet that) and traded for starter and ex-Cub Jeff Samardzija.  I should also note that the Cubs signed starter Jon Lester to a deal for half the gold in Fort Knox.

Maybe everything has changed overnight.  The White Sox and Cubs will now dominate their respective divisions and go deep into the playoffs.  Better yet, both teams will meet in the World Series the way the Dodgers and Yankees used to.  We get to play the Yankees, crushing dreams October after October.  I am, after all, a South Sider.

Chicago has always been a football town; I think it has something to do hardscrabble roots in factories and packing houses.  Our grandfathers took to a game nearly as violent as their work was, and they passed that rooting interest along to all their white-collar descendants.  Like Mike Ditka said, we think of ourselves as a bunch of Grabowskis.  But the McCaskey family is clueless how to run their storied football team. 

They’ve hired four coaches since Ditka, each one blander than the last.  Marc Trestman and his staff stink up Soldier Field, only to say, “The only thing that people ask me here [at team headquarters] is what they can do to help.  And that comes from all areas of this building.  ‘What can we do to help you along?’”

Because no one at Halas Hall has seen fit to help move Trestman out, there could be a sea change in these parts with baseball winning hearts and minds.  And it all will have happened in the blink of an eye, or so it will seem.  

HOF Vote Fraud

Voting results by the Hall of Fame’s Golden Era Committee were released yesterday.  None of the ten candidates received the necessary twelve votes necessary for election to the Hall.

According to HOF chair Jane Forbes Clark, “It’s tough on players.  Only one percent of the 18,000 players who have played in the Major Leagues is in the Hall of Fame.  The process is meant to be tough on players.”  Really?  Then explain how Rabbit Maranville got in with his .258 career batting average or Ray Schalk with his 1345 hits and .253 average. 

The two rejected players I care about are White Sox stars Billy Pierce and Minnie Minoso.  Pierce and Whitey Ford were contemporaries.  Ford managed 236 regular season wins playing for the best organization in baseball; Pierce totaled 211 (all but 25 with the Sox).  One Hall of Famer had Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra among too many others to back him up.  Billy Pierce had the likes of Walt Dropo and Bubba Phillips.  Rule of thumb for Golden Era Committee members to use next time—if the candidate won those games despite, not because, of the players behind him, he should be in the Hall of Fame.

Yes, Pierce did have HOFers Luis Aparicio and Nellie Fox, which is to say he got help in the field and possibly won the most games ever courtesy of the stolen base and/or hit and run.  Pierce also had Minnie Minoso, the other rejected Sox candidate.  Depending which date you believe, Minoso either broke into the big leagues at the age of 25 or 28.

Go with the first, in which case Minoso played until he was 38; otherwise, until he was 41.  (Forget about the ten at-bats in 1976 and 1980.  That was a stunt by Sox owner Bill Veeck that turned Minoso into a latter-day Eddie Gaedel.)  Now consider that Minoso amassed 1963 hits, 1136 runs and 1023 rbi’s to go with a .298 batting average.  Also consider that, as a Negro Leaguer, Minoso did not reach the majors until far later than he should have.

But worry not, baseball fans.  Billy Pierce, age 87, and Minnie Minoso, age 89 or 92, should be eligible when the Golden Era Committee votes again in 2017.  What’s three years?

Clubhouse Noise

Clubhouse Noise

Clare called one day last week to ask if I’d heard about what new Twins’ manager Paul Molitor was thinking of doing.  “He wants to make rules for cell phones and music in the clubhouse.”  This is a sore subject of some standing with my daughter.

During her sophomore year at Elmhurst, Coach decided the girls were spending too much time on their phones.  There were no phones allowed at games in Florida, and no being on the phone after 10 PM.  It’s hard to judge the fallout.  While the Bluejays made the CCIW postseason tournament for the first time in fifteen years, several players threatened to quit the team.  Instead, Coach resigned at the end of the season.

Clubhouses and dugouts really can turn into a war zone.  Ban music and phones—Molitor doesn’t want an outright ban, just rules—and you’re asking for a player revolt.  Let players do what they want, and you risk ending up with Sammy Sosa.  From what I gather, Sosa pretty much ran the Cubs’ clubhouse, when he showed up, that is.  By the end of the 2004 season, he didn’t seem much interested in getting to games on time or staying around if he wasn’t playing.  Apparently, he left the clubhouse on the last game of the season after the first pitch was thrown.

That may have been the one straw too many.  Someone, probably pitcher Kerry Wood, took a bat to Sosa’s boom box.  So ended the reign of Sosa at Clark and Addison; he was traded to the Orioles in the offseason.  I mentioned all this to Clare.  If she wants to coach, there’s going to be a Sammy Sosa in her life at some point.

The Stub of the Matter

 I have a White Sox scorecard with attached ticket stub for August 6, 1944.  The Sox lost a doubleheader to the Tigers—what new there?—by scores of 10-3 and 3-1.  Somebody who spent $1.80 on that ticket for Box 69/Tier 1/Seat 4 got to see the Tigers’ Pinky Higgins have himself a very nice day with four hits, four runs scored and three runs batted in.

All of which is to say the Sox announced Friday they will no longer issue traditional tickets to season-ticket holders; people will either have to print out the ticket themselves or use a smartphone to be scanned in.  Anyone wanting tickets the old-fashioned way can do so for an extra $20.

This is the beginning of the end.

Punishments Fitting Crimes

Punishments Fitting Crimes       

Lest anyone think I’m for players getting away with everything short of murder, this week saw several disciplinary actions I’m all for.  Let’s start with Baltimore Ravens’ defensive lineman Haloti Ngata, suspended for the rest of the season after taking a performance-enhancing drug.

It’ll be interesting to see if there’s any legal action against Ngata, who tested positive for Adderall, which isn’t the same as, say, cocaine.  If he had a prescription and forgot to tell the NFL, then Ngata’s just dumb.  If he obtained the drug illegally, then he’s in trouble.  Separate judicial and NFL actions would be appropriate in any such case where players break the law and try to get away with cheating.  Now, let’s move on to the case of Falcons’ safety William Moore, fined $22,050 (an odd figure, that) for an excessive hit against Cardinals’ wide receiver Jaron Brown.  

Moore complained, “I don’t feel like that was a [justified] fine.  But I would like for us to be able to play real football.”  We should check in with Moore ten years from now or, better yet, twenty and see what he says—if he can say anything.  Either the NFL reduces the level of violence in the game or pro football gets eaten up by endless liability lawsuits from ex-players, whose ranks apparently won’t include William Moore.

Lastly, there is the matter of Washington Nationals’ outfielder Jason Werth, who was sentenced to ten days in jail for going in excess of 105 mile per hour on I-495 in July.  Thank you, prosecutors, for not offering a plea deal.  Let Werth serve his time and the commissioner leave him alone.  Dealing with Phillies’ fans will be punishment enough.

Salary Caps

Salary Caps

The NBA, NFL and NHL all have salary caps because players let themselves get bullied into it.  Time after time, rosters get blown up when teams have exceeded their salary cap.  It happened to the Blackhawks after they won the Stanley Cup in 2010, and may happen again because of a weak Canadian dollar. 

The cap is solely for the benefit of owners.  None of the above sports have what you would call ticket affordability (thank you, baseball, for no cap and a 162-game schedule).  So, fans benefit from it about as much as players do.  No, we’re supposed to believe teams need the cap in order to survive.  But why isn’t there a capital gains’ cap imposed when an NBA, NFL or NHL team gets sold? Why does Donald Sterling get to walk away with $2 billion from the sale of the Los Angeles Clippers?

Players either need to demand such a thing or strike to end salary caps.   Until then, give me baseball’s luxury tax any day.