The Quality of Scandal

 From time to time, American sports will fall prey to some form of cheating.  It can be the Black Sox or steroids, Tom Brady or Gaylord Perry, skirting NCAA rules or goosing a racehorse with a jolt of electricity.  By and large, though, American sports don’t involve influence peddling.  Chicago begged to get the NFL draft last month, yes, but the sweeteners to get the deal—access to Grant Park, downtown space blocked off, hotel rooms reserved—were penny-ante stuff compared to what goes on in the international community.

Right now, there’s a soccer scandal unfolding, and it sound a lot like the corruption charges that stick to the International Olympic Committee.  All these geezers a million years from being athletes trade in influence, they say, “You want our games, you gotta pay.”  And pay.  I’ll take a good old college basketball scandal any day.  Fat-cat poohbahs with palms in need of greasing rub me the wrong way.          

Bat Him 9th, Why Don't 'Cha?

Genius Joe “Put ‘im in the 8-hole” Maddon has yet to make out a lineup for the Cubs where the pitcher bats ninth.  No, the worst hitter on the team jumps up to eighth in order to—and we’re speaking theoretically here—give the team two leadoff hitters, a strategy that sabermetrics says will generate an extra two runs a year.  And we wouldn’t dare question the wisdom of Maddon or sabermetricians, now would we?

But, just for fun, take the case of Cubs’ pitcher Jon Lester.  Over the course of ten years, Lester has managed 0 hits in his first 59 at-bats, a major-league record.  During that stretch, Lester has recorded one walk, one rbi, five sacrifices and 35 strikeouts.  How does the number-nine hitter feel about following Lester?  Could it affect his hitting?  The numbers say No, and numbers don’t lie, just the people citing them. 

Me and my Schwinn

 Ask Clare for her least favorite memory of growing up, and it’ll probably be a tie between fielding practice and biking, both with me.  The practice I can understand: I hit ball after ball while barking, “Don’t field off your front foot!” or “Again!” again, again.  The bicycle part, though, is more of a mystery.

According to my daughter, it wasn’t the learning part; apparently, I was a pretty good teacher.  The problem occurred when we hit the bike trails.  Clare was a little young, no more than six or seven, and she could never keep up.  The worst part for her was at the end of one trail that twisted and rose as it hugged a ravine.  My partner didn’t know if she would fall into the ravine or die from exhaustion first.  My bad, and please don’t take it out on me when I’m old and need someone to make a pharmacy run.

In my defense, let me say I’ve always loved riding a bike.  I can probably remember every one I’ve had, and I’m still peddling away on the Schwinn Varsity I received as a present on my 18^th birthday in the year of our Lord, 1970.  Yesterday, I rode to the Blue Line, got off close to downtown, hit the lakefront trail and made my way up the North Shore to the Chicago Botanic Garden.  After a half-hour lunch, I was back on a trail that took me to the Northwest Side of Chicago, and from there south by city streets to beautiful Berwyn.  I started at 9:15 in the morning and got home at 3 in the afternoon.  As long as my knees hold out, I’ll be peddling.

Michele has asked me about getting a new bike; she may as well ask for a divorce.  I’d add a Schwinn Paramount if I could steal one off of somebody, but nothing else—and certainly nothing out of China—appeals to me.  I was born in Chicago to ride a bike made in Chicago.          

A Good Question

Clare and I were watching baseball highlights the other night when she asked, “Are there any bad seats at Fenway?”  Like an owner looking for a freebie stadium, I answered, “Maybe behind the posts.”  To which I could’ve added, Big Deal.

If women belong in baseball, so do load-bearing posts, in order to bring upper decks close to the action.  There are two Updikian little bandbox ballparks left, Wrigley and Fenway.  The fans are all but on top of the field there, and, if they’re still sober, they can probably hear the players thinking out loud.  Try that at any cantilevered monstrosity (and you know who you are, U.S. Cellular and…).

Before Clare was born, Michele and I took a trip to Boston.  We walked the Freedom Trail, went aboard the Constitution and saw the swan boats glide across the lagoon in the Public Garden.  We also drove out to Fenway, walked around the perimeter of the park and stood under the Green Monster.  The park was closed, except for an unblocked entrance that let us peak inside.  The green is never so green as in an old ballpark.  Not even Hawk Harrelson can diminish the grandeur of the place in those innumerable and otherwise unbearable stories about his playing days with the Red Sox.

"I was impressed by how sincere he was..." Never mind.

 Back in March, Bears’ chairman George McCaskey defended the team’s decision to sign free agent defensive end Ray McDonald, despite a number of incidents suggesting a dangerous inclination for domestic violence (though no convictions so far).  McCaskey spoke with McDonald, and “I was impressed by how sincere he was and how motivated he is.”  McCaskey also spoke with McDonald’s parents but not to anyone alleged to have been on the receiving end of McDonald’s temper.  Why not?  Because “An alleged victim I think [is] much like anybody else who has a bias in a situation [. T]here’s a certain amount of discounting what they have to say.”  Well said, for a foot in the mouth.

Bears’ defensive coordinator Vic Fangio repeated McCaskey’s performance after minicamp a few weeks ago.  Fangio, who pushed hard to get McDonald signed, said, “The [abuse] headlines, I think, looked worse than what actually happened, but they happened.”  Yes, they did, along with another incident yesterday morning that led to McDonald’s arrest in California on misdemeanor charges of domestic violence and child endangerment.  Police say McDonald assaulted his ex-fiancée while she was holding their child.  The Bears immediately cut McDonald.

I only wish McDonald had signed a guaranteed contract, so he could file a grievance.  The Bears made a dumb, offensive, ignorant, stupid, head-scratching move when they signed McDonald, and they should suffer the maximum fallout.  Fangio volunteered to be a character reference for a player he once coached.  I think it’s only fair he should join that player in the unemployment line.     

Priorities

Let me see if I’ve got this straight—Royals’ starter Yordano Ventura, a train wreck in waiting on the mound, gets a seven-game suspension for precipitating a fight with the White Sox (not to be confused with the fine he received for hitting the A’s Brett Lawrie) while Brewers’ reliever Will Smith gets eight games for having some kind of gunk on his arm.  In the world of Commissioner Bob Manfred, throwing a spitter constitutes a greater offense than hitting a batter.  Good to know.

Konerko, Contd.

A sellout crowd in excess of 38,000 fans—the three of us included—poured into the Cell on a beautiful Saturday afternoon to watch as the White Sox retired Paul Konerko’s number 14.  Clare had me out the door nearly 2-1/2 hours before game time, and she shot video throughout.  For my money, the best part of the ceremonies happened at the start, when Konerko walked in alone from center field.  Like ZZ Top says, you just can’t beat a sharp-dressed man. 

A crowd that paid anything but blue-collar prices for their tickets once again was able to imagine that they and their favorite Sox player were both somehow working class.  But what kind of lunch-pail guy can afford a Wayne Gretzky hockey fantasy camp or to play ice hockey two or three times a week in Arizona (and not for the Coyotes, which he could probably buy for a song)?  It’s more accurate to see Konerko as a power-hitting perfectionist, never satisfied with his swing or his stance, always tinkering, always soliciting advice.  Anyone who makes the majors has an inordinate amount of talent.  What counts is what they do with that talent.  More than most if not all of his contemporaries, Paul Konerko was forever honing.

All this emotion translated into absolutely nothing for the Sox in their game against the Twins.  Chris Sale struck out ten batters, again, only to give up two homers in a 4-3 loss.  Jose Abreu looked lost at the plate, striking out twice en route to a 0 for 4 day.  And manager Robin Ventura did what he does best, which as far as I can see is nothing.  Either he didn’t tell Sale and Abreu they can have their numbers retired too one day, if they will it.  Or Ventura said it in too soft a voice for anyone to hear or care.    

Let the Debates Begin

 It’s the end of May, when NCAA Division I softball reigns at home and abroad.  As soon as Clare puts a game on, I go into hitting coach mode.

This season, I seem to be seeing a lot of exaggerated batting stances, legs wide apart, front foot pointed more to third base than first; I always taught Clare to stand straightaway or front foot pointed slightly to first (which should get a right-handed batter out of the box quicker) and to stride ever so slightly into a pitch.  Clare didn’t necessarily agree, but she knew why I thought it mattered.  I just don’t see how a batter generates power with her legs planted.  There’s no significant weight shift in that kind of swing.  Think Babe Ruth, for example.

None of which affects University of Michigan junior shortstop Sierra Romero.  In 62 games this spring, Romero is batting .472 with 21 homers and 80 rbi’s.  You mean to tell me Romero couldn’t play baseball?  Granted, she stands 5’5”, but that never got in the way of Freddie Patek, also 5-5.  And maybe not short but second.  Where’s Branch Rickey when you need him?     

Apples, Oranges and Shortstops

 Right now, Marcus Semien leads the world with 16 errors and a .911 fielding average.  If only Semien had been born earlier, people wouldn’t have noticed his miscues as much.

The one go-to position for the White Sox has been shortstop, with Luke Appling and Luis Aparicio in the Hall of Fame.  With Appling, it certainly wasn’t for his defense—the man committed 55(!) errors one year and finished with a career .948 fielding average.  Aparicio, on the other hand, was known for defense, which would explain the nine Gold Gloves in an eighteen-year career.  But consider that Aparicio still managed 30 errors during one Gold-Glove season.

And, as bad as Appling was, he ended up with a career fielding average only four points worse than the league average (.948 vs. .952).  So, how come shortstops used to commit so many errors?  Small gloves and rocky infields can’t be the reason.  Balls you can’t pick up or that bounce over your shoulder aren’t errors, right?  Or were they?  My guess is that, back in the proverbial day, official scorers had Jesus standards, as in “If our Lord could have gotten to that ball, he should have, too.”  That attitude changed over time, along with the size of gloves and the playing conditions of most infields.  But that may be little consolation to Marcus Semien.

The Letter of the Law

 Clare has spent the last two weeks studying for a test that will allow her to become an NCAA Division-I, certified coach.  Basically, what this means is she can show up at a high school or travel softball game while wearing a Valpo tee shirt. 

Don’t laugh.  Two days ago, Clare was going to pick up a few dollars working the gate at a high school softball game in Elmhurst.  Then it occurred to her this might not be NCAA kosher, so she contacted the Valpo compliance officer (interesting job, that) for an opinion.  The consensus was that she could go, but only if she filled out the necessary paperwork.  Luckily, the good people at Immaculate Conception agreed to let Clare work a soccer game instead.  And a good thing Clare passed that test yesterday.

This tells you how serious my daughter is about coaching; she fully intends to evaluate talent in addition to wearing a tee shirt at travel tournaments.  Me, I wonder if the good folks at the NCAA can tell the forest from the trees, substantive rules from the picayune ones.  I just don’t see the slippery slope attached to collecting tickets for a ballgame.          

Wonder Child

In this his fourth major-league season, Bryce Harper is 22 years, seven months old.  So far this spring, Harper has managed 14 home runs and 37 rbi’s in 133 at-bats; that translates out to 63 homers and 167 rbi’s in 600 at-bats.  MLB.com thinks those numbers should fuel a serious debate over who’s the bigger wunderkind, Harper or the Angels’ Mike Trout.  I just want to know if Harper will stop acting like a jerk.

You reach an age where behavior—the operative part of character—matters.  It’s all about doing unto others.  If Bryce Harper can’t treat the people around him with respect, please keep him off my team.  Over the past two decades, the White Sox have made a number of talent-trumps-everything decisions, netting such human headaches as Albert Belle, Jose Canseco, Carl Everett and Manny Ramirez.  (Lest any Cub fans start laughing, once upon a time they signed renowned wife-beater Milton Bradley.)  I’d like to think the Sox could’ve won a World Series without Everett on the roster.

Sports is no different than art or entertainment in that very talented people can also be deeply flawed; it’s up to the audience to decide when, if ever, actions the result of personality poison the product.  Do no harm; smile a bit across social media; sign a few autographs; show a little humility—that’s all I ask.  The neat thing about Frank Thomas is that he started off a jerk, only to become a decent human being. 

That’s the total package.            

Moneyball Roots on 35th Street

 Yesterday, the White Sox swept the A’s in Oakland for the first time since 1997, or as I told my 23-year old daughter, “when you were six.”  Whatever they’re calling the Oakland Coliseum these days (it now has a dot in its name), the place has been a house of horrors for the Sox.

Last year, the A’s were buyers at the July 31 trade deadline, acquiring pitchers Jon Lester and Jeff Samardzija.  Then, after losing the gimmicky wildcard playoff game to the Royals, they went into classic Billy Beane mode, as the Oakland GM traded away four regulars and Samardzija for prospects.  The results?  The A’s are an embarrassing 13-26, worst in baseball.  (But, yes, I’d still like to get back Josh Phegley and Marcus Semien, even if he does now have 13 errors at short.)

Beane’s Moneyball strategy of drafting smart and trading players away before they become free agents has never won him a pennant, let alone a World Series.  More than anything, it reminds me of Bill Veeck’s “rent a player” scheme from the 1970s.  Faced with the impending loss of Rich Gossage and Terry Forster to free agency, Veeck traded them to the Pirates for outfielder Richie Zisk, who had a career year for the Sox in 1977 with 30 home runs and 101 rbi’s, only Zisk also took the free agent’s walk.  For added measure, Veeck traded shortstop Bucky Dent (all together now, Red Sox fans, rhymes with…) to the Yankees for outfielder Oscar Gamble, who bettered Zisk by one homer and followed him out the door at the end of the ’77 season.  The next year, Veeck shipped Brian Downing off to the Angels in exchange for Bobby Bonds.  This time there were no home runs—OK, 2—to delight the man who invented the exploding scoreboard.  Veeck got rid of Bonds before the season was even halfway over.

The moral of the story is you can trade like Bill Veeck or trade like Billy Beane, but trades alone won’t buy you championships or just drafting the right players.  As the song says, no money no funnee.  In this day and age, shoestrings are for shoes, not baseball team budgets.   

Best-laid Plans

The best-laid plans of mice and general managers (to say nothing of blogging fans) can run amiss.  White Sox Gm Rick Hahn thought—I thought—rookie second baseman Micah Johnson would energize the Sox lineup with his speed.  Instead, Johnson stole three bases while being thrown out twice.  Johnson also was expected to play an adequate second base, but he leaves with a .969 fielding average along with questions about his hands (hard) and range (not much).  If Johnson wants to make it back to the majors, he is going to have to dispel all doubts, which means burning up AAA.  Seriously, good luck, Micah.

Johnson’s replacement is Carolos Sanchez, someone who has been tearing up minor-league pitching at a .344 clip.  My preference would have been Marcus Semien, who was shipped off to Oakland in the Jeff Samardzija deal.  From an offensive perspective, Semien has been a steal with a .309 average and six homeruns.  Defensively, he’s a walking sieve with 11 errors and a .923 fielding average.

Last night, Sanchez and Semien each had a hit while ex-Sox catcher Josh Phegley homered in a 7-6 Sox win as Oakland’s Stephen Vogt was thrown out at the plate for the game’s final out.  Micah Johnson went hitless for Charlotte.

Adieu, Thibodeau?

The Bulls were eliminated 94-73 by the Cavs in game six of the Eastern Conference Semifinals, and the score wasn’t as close as the numbers suggest.  After five years at the helm, Coach Tom Thibodeau appears on his way out.

Thibodeau and Derrick Rose with two good knees might have worked, or Thibodeau without Rose at all; the two Rose-less Bulls’ teams both overachieved into the playoffs.  But this team, with a reduced Rose, laid an egg.  Cavs’ forward Kevin Love was out for the series, LeBron James was ice cold and guard Kyrie Irving—the next Rose—played all of twelve minutes, yet the Bulls still lost by 21.  Thibodeau stakes his reputation on intense practices, but to what end?  The Bulls can’t get around a screen, and they can’t set one, either.  Ditto defending against and hitting three-pointers.  As for Rose, he looked lost, and more than willing to let any of his teammates charge to the basket.  And why does Joakim Noah try to bring the ball upcourt like he’s a guard?

The Bulls have had two exceptional head coaches, Dick Motta in the ‘70s and Phil Jackson in the ‘90s.  Motta brought passion and smarts to the job (only to be done in by his paranoia); Jackson added a keen sense of irony, unheard of in professional sports.  If taskmaster Thibodeau has passion, he hides it in a Rose-like monotone, which is not the best way to project leadership.

This is a franchise in trouble, more old than young, and said to be interested in a rookie replacement for Thibodeau.  Fred Hoiberg would be advised to think long and hard before leaving the college ranks for a team in search of a madhouse, to say nothing of a personality.

The Goose that lays the Golden Pigskin

 The NFL is pure gold.  The league goes through the Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson scandals last season along with allegations (which broke just before the Super Bowl) that the Patriots cheated by using underinflated balls in the AFC championship game against the Colts.   People reacted to all this by making Super Bowl XLIX the most watched program in American TV history.

Two weeks after a draft extravaganza that brought some 200,000 fans to downtown Chicago comes the NFL report on “Deflategate”:  Patriots’ quarterback Tom Brady probably knew about the soft balls.  That likelihood will net Brady a four-game suspension at the start of the season (vs. two games initially for Rice knocking his fiancée out cold in an elevator).  Anti-Patriots’ fans are ecstatic (except for some who think New England should have been stripped of its title a la the Jackie Robinson West Little League team) while Patriots’ fans are livid.  I doubt any of this will affect pro football’s popularity. 

What’s the old saying, panem et circenses?  We do seem to love our bread and circuses (and beer).  That would make Roger Goodell the new Caesar, in power for as long as he can satisfy his praetorian guard of team owners.  I guess history really does repeat itself.     

Stuck in Lodi, aka Valpo

 There’s a Credence Clearwater Revival song with a chorus that goes, “Oh Lord, stuck in Lodi again.”  My daughter can relate.

She’s back at Valpo, trying to fashion a summer around softball that, with luck, will include honest-to-goodness D-I recruiting responsibilities.  Too bad Clare’s apartment complex has lousy cable.  No White Sox or Cubs, a blackout last night on MLB Network and no channel that shows a schedule of programs.  Is there anything on TV? someone texted her mother.    

“Tell her Chicago Fire is on at nine,” I kind of joked.  My father was a veteran of 35 years with the Chicago Fire Department, only he ne3ver ate as much smoke in a year as the characters do in half an episode.  But I like guessing where they film the exterior scenes.

And this is what our specific-sports-wired child texted back: I hate soccer.  Oops, wrong Fire. 

Big Hurt, Restauranteur

Big Hurt, Restauranteur       

We celebrated Mother’s Day a little early on Friday when Clare came in from Valpo for the weekend.  Our restaurant of choice was the Big Hurt Brewhouse here in Berwyn.  The food is still good while the service has gotten better.  That matters to me more than the possible presence of a ballplayer or two at the bar.  Clare, of course, wants to bump into Jermaine Dye one day.

Eleven years ago this summer we took an odd little vacation with St. Louis at one end and Galena Illinois at the other; Clare was twelve.  In St. Louis we visited the Gateway Arch and the Hill, the neighborhood where Yogi Berra grew up.  I wanted to eat at Stan Musial’s restaurant, but it had closed by that time, and Mike Shannon’s didn’t have the same cache, at least for me.  In Galena, we crossed over the Mississippi to drive out to the Field of Dreams, where Clare put on a hitting clinic for the corn and the ghosts.  Food isn’t everything.     

Jordan vs. Rose

If the Bulls manage to win an NBA championship this year, that would give Derrick Rose one to six for Michael Jordan.  Comparisons aren’t really fair here.

Jordan was the only guard/forward/center in the history of basketball.  He may not have played all three positions at once, but he played each of them during the course of nearly every game.  The only equivalent I can think of would be Babe Ruth, pitching and hitting his way into the Hall of Fame, but you would need to add another 150 wins to Ruth’s career total of 94.  By contrast, Rose is a very good offensive player whose lost a half of step of lightning after three knee surgeries.  But even at the top of his game, it’s no contest.  Jordan was the better player by far.  Sorry, Derrick (and Babe).

I wonder what Jordan and Rose would have been in other lives.  With Jordan, that drive and on-court leadership would have translated nicely into a military career.  We’re not talking Patton here but more along the lines of Alexander the Great or Napoleon.  That last one would be an interesting matchup, if you could find a way to put the two of them on the same battlefield or add a foot and a half to the Little Corporal.

Rose is harder to figure.  He seems normal to boring off the court, rarely showing emotion in interviews and having no discernible interest in the decadent lifestyle available to pro athletes.  The tattoos may be a disguise for a regular guy who wants nothing more than to step out of the shadow of His Airness just once.

A Change of Venue

 If I were king, or just a despot, I would make professional sports teams play in the facilities I considered fit for them.  If I were king, there’d still be a Comiskey Park and Chicago Stadium.

My ballpark was an oasis amidst the industry and smoke that surrounded it and much of the South Side; the Stock Yards were a couple of miles to the southwest.  You couldn’t hear the order of business from there, but you could sure smell it.

Not that it mattered to anyone sitting in the outfield grandstands or down the lines; you were so close to the action all unpleasant thoughts—and smells—not related to baseball lost their hold over the course of nine innings.  By my count, I went to a couple of hundred ballgames at 35^th and Shields and never once felt cheated by the presence of obstructing posts.  As for the bathroom lines, I don’t drink.  Call me Mr. Model T, the old man who would bring back the WCTU.

A packed house at Comiskey could be deafening, unlike at the Cell; either architects forgot or ignored that stretching the upper deck away with cantilever construction dissipates crowd noise.  The same holds true for the United Center.  Once upon a time, the Bulls and Hawks played at the Chicago Stadium, nicknamed The Madhouse on Madison for good reason.  The place was a triple-decked sardine can in the best sense of the term.

The Stadium was torn down for the United Center, which looms massive and ugly on the Near West Side.  Last night, the Bulls beat the Cavs 99-96 on a three-pointer by Derrick Rose at the buzzer.  So, you might say it was an exciting game.  That being the case, then why bother with cheerleaders and guys running around with oversized Bulls flags?  Can’t the team generate its own noise?  If not, blame the hangar the team plays in (along with the Hawks).  As king, I would let my subjects be happily stuffed into a Madhouse.  They deserve no less.

Old School, Right On

 White Sox V.P. and former GM Kenny Williams has never been one of my favorite people.  He was fond of trading prospects for over-the-hill players, and HE SIGNED ADAM DUNN.  But even a stopped clock gets it right twice a day, which Williams did in 2005 when he assembled a roster that brought Chicago its first World Series title since 1917.  And I do like how Williams lets his character show when least expecting to.

Several years ago at spring training he yelled at Dayan Viciedo from the stands for failing to run out a ground ball; that’s something my father would have done.  And this week Williams was walking through the White Sox clubhouse when he heard an offensive song blaring away.  How offensive?  Well, the Tribune reported on the story but couldn’t find any lyrics clean enough to quote.  Williams immediately had the music turned off and apologized to a reporter for the anti-woman lyrics.

According to the story, Williams took grief on Twitter and sports talk radio for being too old school.  Holding people to an adult standard of conduct is old fashioned?  Well, I’ll ride that dinosaur any day of the week, and pay Kenny Williams for the privilege.                        

Pick Your Poison

People choose sports and teams to follow for all sorts of reasons.  With me, baseball was a factor of time and place.  In the 1950s on the South Side of Chicago, the Go-Go White Sox were your birthright, Irish or not.  The Bukowskis were part of the “nots” who showed up at 35^th and Shields, especially when the Yankees came to town.

My dad was a fan of the football Cardinals, but they moved after the 1959 season.  He watched the Bears more to heckle George Halas than cheer on the old man’s team, and I inherited that lukewarm affection, which hasn’t grown much to this day.  The people who wear bear heads on Game Day are beyond me.

So are Blackhawk fans; I just don’t get the sport.  A group of us used to play hockey in the alley in winter, without skates; we just ran around and used our sticks to whack one another with.  I kind of warmed up to the teams of Bobby Hull and Stan Makita, but then Bill Wirtz turned into an owner only George Halas could love.  By the end of his life, Wirtz was threatening to disband the team rather than share more revenue with players.

The Bulls came into existence my freshman year of high school and something clicked, though I can’t say exactly what.  Let me put it this way—a squirrel could palm a basketball better than I can.  One of my least favorite high school memories involves “basketball tag,” a game devised by one of our gym teachers; you tried to tag an opponent while dribbling.  Yes, in fact I may have sweat real bullets avoiding said tag.  But I grew to love those Sloan/Van Lier/Boerwinkle/Love/Walker teams as much as I did any White Sox team.

My biggest influence over Clare, of course, was baseball.  Basketball I tried to steer her away from because she had too much of my personality, that of a physical center stuck in Tiny Archibald’s body.  Until college, she couldn’t have cared less about football, but along came Chris the center, and all that changed.  Now, she’s little Miss Safety Blitz, picking up more knowledge of the game in four years than I have in a lifetime.

She also likes hockey.  I think part of the reason is she’s a good ice skater, so she can imagine herself setting up Patrick Kane for a game-winning goal.  And while hockey players are considerably taller than they were a generation ago, they’re not behemoths yet.  Kane stands 5’11”, a size everyday people can relate to.  Just not me.  No, I want to be like Jimmy Butler defending against LeBron James in tonight’s Bulls-Cavs playoff game.  To each his own.   

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.