By the Numbers

My mother raised her children to be well rounded, which is as good an explanation for why Michele and I were downtown Sunday afternoon.  The idea was for us to check out Lurie Garden in Millennium Park.  I mean, Chicago’s motto is “city in a garden,” right?  But after yesterday, they to need to update that along the lines of “Look out for the triathlete zombies!”.

   Spandexed bodies with numbers on their arms lurked everywhere, lakefront and surrounding streets, all part of the Chicago Triathlon.  If it’s any consolation, these monsters don’t crave human flesh; then again, they didn’t look too worried about knocking anyone down, either.  I dealt with two of them on my bike ride the other day, when I happened to get a flat where the swimmers get out of the water.  I had one bench while these two guys getting ready for Sunday took the one next to me in order to strip off their wetsuits.  Talk about awkward.  I don’t know who came in first or what the different distances are for the different events.  I believe in doing one thing at a time, except swimming.  Unless the boat’s sinking, I’m good.

Back safe at home, I more-or-less watched the ESPN Sunday night ballgame; Jessica Mendoza did color again.  The only problem I could see was when she talked about batters dealing with different pitches.  John Kruk was also there, and for him, it’s all about the time he faced So-and-So’s split finger or slider.  Mendoza naturally wants to talk about So-and-So’s riseball, which doesn’t quite translate.  With luck, she’ll figure a way out of this.

Oh, did I mention that the all-but-$300-million Dodgers were no-hit for the second time in nine days, with the Cubs’ Jake Arrieta doing the honors last night?  Talk about lack of return on investment.      

The Rich You Will Always Have With You

 Derrick Rose now joins Patrick Kane as a Chicago athlete accused of rape.  A woman this week filed a civil suit seeking damages for an alleged incident in 2013.

The temptation here is to throw up your hands and shout, What’s wrong with athletes?  The answer is, Nothing, really.  Powerful people have always behaved badly.  What better example than the Kennedys—Joe, JFK, Bobby, Ted….And nobody did it better than the Gilded Age robber barons.  A good example of that would be millionaire Harry K. Thaw shooting architect Stanford White to death in 1906 for an old affair with a woman who would become Thaw’s wife.  Thaw was found not guilty by reason of insanity and sentenced to life in a mental institution.  He got out, thanks to his high-priced legal talent, in 1915.  A subsequent kidnapping and assault led to another incarceration, but not forever.  Thaw spent the last 23 years of his life a free man.

The moral of the story?  Be as impressed by what millionaires Paul Konerko, Frank Thomas and Derek Jeter haven’t done as for their career stats show they did. 

Plane Ghosts

Yesterday, I went biking along the lakefront and veered off to Northerly Island, which dates to the Chicago Plan of 1909.  Daniel Burnham envisioned a series of offshore islands for purposes of recreation.  Northerly, across from McCormick Place and a little south of Soldier Field, was the only one built.

From 1948 until will into the reign of Daley II, the island was home to Meigs Field, a small airport that catered to the rich and self-important (think Harrison Ford).  When Clare was three, we took her to Meigs to watch a P-51 take off.  There was also the first B-24 either of us had ever seen.  How they got so big a bomber on so short a runway is beyond me.  Daley sent bulldozers to carve X’s into the runway in March of 2003.

Clare and I also watched the planes—or jets—at Midway, which was a couple of miles west of where I grew up and parents lived.  I’d park by a fence, and the two of us would just watch the show, propeller vs. turbine.  Then 9-11 happened, and you couldn’t do that sort of thing anymore.

Someday, I’ll get my slightly older daughter back to Northerly Island.  It’s a nature preserve now, with a nice beach.  We could watch airliners pass over the lake.

No Suspension Needed

Ray McDonald, the ex-49er and not even ex-cup-of-coffee Bear, was indicted this week in California on one charge of rape.  A guilty verdict could mean a maximum prison term of eight years.  NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell needs to restrain himself from piling on.

If McDonald is found guilty, he’ll go to prison.  Problem solved.  If he’s found not guilty and a team signs him, the media should be encouraged to pounce.  Reporters could chase after McDonald, his new coach, his new owner (an interesting double entendre, that), cameras rolling, microphones poking.  Ray, how do you explain your terrible luck with women?  Coach, what’s the meaning of character for you?  Mr. Moneybags, will you be contributing to the local shelter for abused women?  How ’bout you, Ray?

No organization would want to be subjected to that kind of treatment day in and day out.  Ray McDonald is football toast.  The commissioner can spend his time on other, more pressing, matters, like the danger of concussions.

In Defense of Jeremiah Ratliff

 The NFL has suspended Bears’ defensive lineman Jeremiah Ratliff three games without pay—costing Ratliff in the neighborhood of $344,000—for violating the league’s substance abuse policy.  Ratliff has decided not to appeal the ruling.  Me, I’d be hollering to the mountaintops.

The suspension dates to a Texas DUI incident in January 2013, when Ratliff played for the Cowboys.  In April, he received a $750 fine and one year’s probation.  In other words, Ratliff is square with the law.  He’s paid his debt to society…but not Roger Goodell.

Ratliff did not come to work intoxicated or become that way during the course of a game or practice or team-sponsored event.  That being the case, what authority does the NFL have to act?  I doubt that Goodell would come down as hard on any owner or executive or member of the commissioner’s office facing DUI charges.  I also wonder if the league has any disciplinary rules regarding tax evasion.  A whole bunch of people on the field and in the front office might be in trouble then.

Again, if it doesn’t happen at work, it’s not the league’s—football or any other—business. If you don’t like the justice meted out by the courts, protest and organize for change.  Just don’t be surprised when a player someday mounts a successful challenge to this kind of suspension by arguing a violation of Fifth Amendment rights.  Double jeopardy or due process, take your pick.

A Woman in the Booth

 Clare called last night, asking, “Did you listen to the ESPN game?”  It was Cards-Diamondbacks and of very little interest to me.  My bad.  “You remember Jessica Mendoza?  She did color.”  It was the first time for a woman doing that on a national baseball broadcast.

Mendoza is a two-time softball Olympic medal winner from Stanford.  She set all sorts of records for the Cardinal (don’t blame me for the lack of an s here).  I’m pretty sure that the appeal to Clare is one hitter to another.  Male baseball fans might be a tougher sell, and Mendoza knows it.

In an interview with Allure Magazine, she said, “It should be common knowledge that women and men can talk about sports.”  She’s right, and I hope ESPN wants Mendoza for what she thinks rather than how she looks.

NOTE: An earlier version of today's blog found me not listening closely to my daughter.  I confused Mendoza with Michelle Smith, another softball Olympian, who did color for a Dodgers-Braves came on TBS during the 2012 season.  My apologies for the mistake.     

Rio's Bubbly Creek Olympics

 Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley desperately wanted to land the 2016 Summer Olympics, which would have been interesting for any number of reasons, starting with money.  Daley was in the habit of spending cash like a drunken sailor.  No, I take that back.  Daley spent money like a drunken sailor who had found a way to sell off all of a city’s parking meters, which is exactly what he did.  Where would the money have come from to pay for the Olympics?  The mayor swore that it wouldn’t cost taxpayers anything, but drunks pledge not to drink all the time.

The one thing Daley would not have done, sober or otherwise, was include Bubbly Creek as part of the Olympic venue.  The creek is in fact a branch of the Chicago River on the South Side, and its name is derived from the [insert noxious element here] that bubbles up a century or more after being dumped in the water.  Think Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle to get an idea.

Guess what?  Rio has a Bubbly Creek, too, in the form of its waterfront, the site for a number of Olympic swimming and boating competitions.  According to the Associated Press, tests show the level of disease-causing viruses in the water to be as much as 1.7 million times worse than would be considered dangerous for water lapping onto a beach in sunny southern California.

Maybe Daley should’ve based his Olympics pitch on Bubbly Creek in the first place.

The Slow Death of a Newspaper

 I learned how to read thanks in large part to the Sunday comics.  Flash Gordon, Gasoline Alley, Prince Valiant—I could follow the story in (extraordinarily artful) pictures.  It only seemed natural that the words would make everything better yet.

After comics came sports.  Without knowing, I must have absorbed the inverted pyramid and the Five W’s of journalism (guess what they are) by the time I was eleven.  There were also certain elements of style to be learned from reading sportswriters like David Condon, Bill Gleason and Jerome Holtzman.  They all wrote with an eye to facts, attitude—the air we Chicagoans breathe—and storytelling.  I can’t imagine being a writer now without first having sat on the front porch reading the afternoon Chicago American.

But if I were a kid growing up today, oh boy, would I be in trouble.  The comics are reduced to stamp-sized panels stuck on a couple of pages buried in the Sunday ads; there is no art there, or sign of Prince Valiant.  As for sports, the writers have plenty of attitude if next to no ability to express it in a coherent, engaging fashion.  And where four papers once exited, there are now two, though judging from what I saw this weekend, not for long.

The White Sox were in Seattle, so I didn’t expect a box score.  On Saturday, the Sun-Times offered even less, a full-page picture of Chris Sale with caption.  That’s all, Sox fans.  The Bears are the Bears, and the Cubs are hot.  Somebody has to suffer, and it’s us.

On Sunday, it was another picture of Sale, the box score for Friday’s and five paragraphs from the Associated Press.  Yesterday’s box score for a Sunday afternoon game made it into this morning’s paper along with a full story, again from the AP.  Apparently, the Times can’t or won’t pick up airfare, lodging and food for its Sox beat writer.

Not with a bang but a whimper….

You Get What You Pay For, Not

 This week the Dodgers picked up Phillies’ second baseman Chase Utley, which will put LA’s payroll at $298.5 million, give or take a few bucks.  The Dodgers were also no-hit Friday night in Houston by the fairly anonymous Mike Fiers.  Don Mattingly and company have a 1-1/2 game over the Giants in the National League West and right now wouldn’t qualify for the playoffs if they fall out of first.

Who do you think is rolling over in his grave harder and faster, Branch Rickey or Walter O’Malley?  Neither of those baseball titans ever bought a championship.  And if their clones were going to spend all that money, they would at least have a plan.  Right now, the Dodgers look like George Steinbrenner playing Beat the Clock. 

A bit of advice, guys:  Only losers panic, and spending all that cash is a sure sign of panic.    

One Down, One to Go

 If you want to see what’s up with America, there are two places to check.  The first is baseball, as in Jackie Robinson.  The second is the armed forces, as in President Harry Truman’s desegregation of the military, occurring fifteen months after Robinson broke the color line.

And now we have First Lt. Shaye Haver and Capt. Kristen Griest, the first women ever to make it through the Army’s Ranger School training program.  Griest answered the question of lowered standards this way:  “No woman I know wants to go to Ranger School if they change the standards, because then it degrades” what the program stands for.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say there are probably just as many women who feel the same way about playing professional baseball.  I wonder if Haver and Griest would consider trying out.  I know a few teams way short on talent right now.

Ten Years Ago

I had my Proust-madeleine moment the other day at Walgreens, where I was picking out a birthday card for my mother’s baby sister; she turns 95 next week.  And just like that it was August 2005 again.

Clare and I had spent most of the month practicing for her travel-team tryouts.  How many fathers throw sidearm b.p. to their daughters?  I did.  How many times did I hit Clare on her left side?  A lot.

I hit balls to her at third base and in the outfield, then I’d place balls between second and third and put her at short; she’d break left or right at my command, pick up a ball and throw to me at first.  On and on, day after day we practiced during one of the hottest Augusts on record.

The first tryout, for a 14u team, took up most of a Sunday morning.  When it was over, I teased Clare about how much better she looked trying to impress strangers than she did playing baseball the two years I coached teams.  When we didn’t get a call back, we found another team.   Clare put on a clinic facing the pitching machine; she also hit a coach who had been taking notes on batters while sitting alongside the machine.  Later, as we were getting ready to leave, the coach came up to us and said, “Obviously, you’re thinking college.”  Clare was just getting ready to start eighth grade.

The next day was my Auntie Franny’s 85^th birthday party; my aunt was sweet on Clare, just like with me.  We had cake, came home, and wondered what would happen next.  Then the phone calls started.  The coach from the one team apologized for not getting back to us sooner.  Did Clare want to play for him?  As soon as that call ended, the phone rang again with one of the coaches from the day before.  Do you want to play for us?  Yes.  We didn’t even know it was a 16u team.

And that was yesterday, 2005.  

Times Change

Yesterday marked the 64^th anniversary of Eddie Gaedel’s one and only at-bat as a pinch hitter for the St. Louis Browns in a MLB game.  Gaedel, who stood 3’7”, walked on four pitches from the Tigers’ Bob Cain.  This stunt was the brainchild of the Browns’ owner, Bill Veeck, who would move on to own the White Sox.

Veeck loved outlandish promotions (see Disco Demolition), the crazier the better.  But times change, along with sensibilities.  What’s acceptable to one generation strikes another as exploitation (see Eddie Gaedel).  Outside of racing sausages and Presidents, ballgames can be light on fun.  But that doesn’t mean we need to go back to little pinch hitters.  Just play good baseball and make use of the one brilliant idea Bill Veeck came up with—the exploding scoreboard.

A Tree Falls...

On Monday, the Chicago Bandits won the National Fastpitch championship with a 1-0 victory over the USSSA Pride.  I know this because I happened to catch the 52-word story in Tuesday’s Tribune.  That’s 52 more words than in the Sun-Times, and, if anyone mentioned it on the nightly sports, I missed it.

According to scholarshipstats.com, there were nearly 372,000 high school softball players in 2014 and another 31,000 in college.  Somehow, that translates into five—count them, five—pro teams.  And where did the Bandits win their title?  Why, in Hoover, Alabama, although don’t ask me why.  It would seem to make more sense to hold the games in a major media venue like New York City, Chicago or Los Angeles.  And how many fans were in attendance.  The NPF website puts it at…0, as in less than one.  Oh, and the website will soon have an online form for anyone interested in acquiring a franchise.

I’m tempted.  First, I’d build a home field that looked like a real ballpark down to the quirky dimensions and brick walls.  Next, I’d install a four-player pitching staff because it can’t hurt to borrow a few ideas from baseball.  Then, I’d put everyone in pinstripes, and they’d be wearing caps in the field, not visors.  If I had any money left over, I’d take out ads in the paper to let the world know the Chicks or Bloomer Girls or Xenas exist and are worth a look.

I just need to win the lottery to get started.

Bail and Flail

The White Sox are way too far back in the “race” to snare a wildcard spot for me to stay up and follow them on the West Coast.  I intended to be in bed last night well before the end of their game with the Angels.  The heavens had other plans, delivered in a 2-1/2 downpour.

I didn’t go downstairs to check until 10:30 PM, by which time we had a whole lot of seepage.  That meant powering up the Shop-Vac.  (Note:  When wading around a partially flooded basement, try to avoid electrocution during operation of any plug-in machine.  And try not to slip when emptying Vac-bucket in the washtub.)  That kept me busy till midnight.

There comes a point in life when your back does not want to be subjected to a round of constant, heavy-wet lifting.  But the work had to be done.  So, I put the TiVo to work, did half the basement, dried my feet and rested by watching the game; then I did the other half and caught the end.  A very smart plan, if I do say so myself.  The Sox still lost, 2-1, and they’re predicting more rain today, but I still have this sense of accomplishment.

Robin and the boys should be so lucky.

Like Old Times

Clare and I went hitting at Stella’s yesterday, and it seemed like old times.  All of the garage doors fronting the batting cages were open for the warm August breeze to come in.  Otherwise, chills might’ve run up and down my back.

Clare has been avoiding Stella’s all summer.  Valpo is where she has to be, and hitting is a part of where she was.  But, still, how do you walk away from a gift like that?  I saw it for the first time when my daughter was four, and that talent, that drive to the ball, has only gotten stronger with each passing year.  Finally, the pull to go back and do that thing that she did so well got the better of the both of us.  Thank God.

Clare was worried her timing would be all off.  She started off bunting a few pitches at 70 mph, then went to work.  My child has quick hands to go with a nice compact swing.  Yes, the ball explodes off her bat.  Ping!  Whack!  Crack!  Take your pick of sound effects to go with these new-age bats.

It happened at 80, which really isn’t 80 because the machines are a lot closer than 60 feet, 6 inches.  Clare drove a ball through the netting against one of the yellow corrugated plastic panels up by the roof; from the sound of the impact, the panel should’ve cracked, and maybe it did.  At the end of 12 tokens and 120 swings, I wrapped my arms around a pair of sweating, triumphant shoulders and said the obvious, “You have got to keep hitting.”  This music with a bat belongs to summer, this one and the next and the….

All the King's Treasure

 Some athletes complain about being forced to act like role models; others go through the motions at team-held events.  And a precious few like LeBron James step up.  King James will use his family foundation to spend just under $42 million to send 1,100 qualifying Akron public school students to the University of Akron.  Pity the poor guys who get winded serving holiday meals once a year.  Pity poor Patrick Kane.  He didn’t go to college either, but his head is in a different place than LeBron James’.  

Fathers and Sons

We spent the first part of yesterday kicking around Bridgeport, one of Chicago’s oldest neighborhoods and birthplace to Richard J. Daley as well as my father, Edwin J. Bukowski.  The initial was about the only thing those two Bridgeporters had in common.

My father was one of three boys raised by a single parent.  The good son that he was, my father left school in the seventh grade to help with the mortgage when his mother bought a bungalow on the Southwest Side.  He ended up buying it from her when he got married.  She moved back to Bridgeport, where we regularly visited her and a favorite cousin of my dad’s.

Bridgeport used to be the kind of place where people didn’t take to strangers, unless you could prove you were related to someone they knew and liked.  Many of the yards front and back are sunk five-six feet below street level.  Back in the mid-1800s, the streets were raised for better drainage, but not the surrounding lots.  Hence, the sinking.  As a kid, I found the Bridgeport landscape endlessly fascinating.

First, we went to Palmisano Park, reclaimed from an old quarry.  For all his unbalanced budgets, Richard M. Daley got it right with this gem of a park, with a gently sloping, prairie-flower covered hill rising up from the remnants of the water-filled quarry pit.  The trails look out onto the Chicago skyline from a distinct South Side vantage.

From there we went to a coffee house; maybe I should mention the neighborhood has a strong hipster presence these days.  As luck would have it, we were just a block away from where my father was born in August of 1913, in a second-story apartment over what was probably a small grocery; so, we walked over and took pictures.  Back home, Clare and I watched the White Sox fall to the Cubs.  My father never said whether or not he cared for interleague play.

And that night we again ate at Frank Thomas’s Brew House.  On the way out, I shook hands with the Big Hurt and complimented him on the food.  Really, you don’t expect ex-athletes to care that much about what goes on the menu, but the food here is quite good.  And talk about a gentleman.  Pressing the flesh with the clientele comes with the territory, and Thomas certainly does it better than Michael Jordan ever did.  The Big Hurt also refused to speak ill of the Cubs.  He said they were good and hot, sort of like the burger melt I’d just finished.  You might also like the creamed corn.  The recipe comes from Thomas’s mom.   

Civics and Blitz

You want good citizens, you need good high schools.  Driving by the Morton West football field yesterday reminded me of that simple, profound truth.

Morton probably won’t be very good in the fall; a predominantly Hispanic student body tends more toward soccer and basketball, even.  But still the Mustangs try.  They were on the field practicing, in their three-point stances or running up and down the grandstand along Harlem Avenue.  I remember how everyone always talked about Mustang Pride.

Last week, a young Mustang rang our doorbell and screwed up his courage to offer a discount card good at area stores; proceeds go to the football program.  His face turned to wonder when Michele said, “Yes, I’ll buy one.  Our daughter went to Morton and played softball.”  If only this one time, the boy saw the power of his words on another person.  A few hours later, two other Mustangs rang the bell to try their luck.  They experienced the agony of getting beat.

I know what softball did for Clare and her teammates, how it defined and gave purpose.  We were lucky that a number of teachers did as much, too; girls especially have little future as jocks-only.  In grade school, things don’t seem to count the way they do starting in the ninth grade; Santa’s gone, the ACT has taken his place.  Everything went perfectly for our daughter at Morton.  She started on varsity all four years, and she was encouraged to lead, on the field and in the classroom.  I see the boys running sprints, putting away equipment after practice, and I behold the wonder of civic engagement.  For this, I’ll gladly pay taxes.

Spreading the Word

Clare went to South Bend early in the week to run a high school softball camp.  The all-time homerun hitter spent 2-1/2 hours teaching the elements of…defense.  Go figure.

This had to be pure torture.  Clare willed herself into becoming a very good high school second baseman and an even better college right fielder, but defense was always work.  The pleasure my daughter derived from softball always involved hitting.  The girl who once sat in her bed swinging a new bat was now trying to demonstrate the value of good footwork on relays.  Again, go figure.

At the end of the session, Clare gathered everyone up to tell them about herself and, by extension, what they could expect playing softball into college.  “We’re not going to make millions of dollars in softball, so you have to be serious about your education.”  Irrespective of playing opportunities, the camp coach advised her charges to decide if they want to go big or go small, be one of twenty in a class or one of three hundred.

When she was finished, the homerun hitter drove back to Valpo, the praise of the sponsoring coach something she had to share with us.  We all want to hear that our work is “outstanding.” 

A Low Ceiling

Two summers ago, Clare bumped into one of her travel teammates; they were both interning for the Bandits.  Last year, Clare stuck with the park district while her friend moved on to the White Sox; she was one of those people who throw tee-shirts into the stands.  Clare thought it would’ve been neat to see all those Sox games, but she never got around applying for a position.  Given what I’ve said and written about the team over the years, I doubt her chances were very good.

Anyway, last week the friend wrote on Facebook that she was applying to the Bears, and Clare was really excited for her, at first.  “I thought she was going to get to use her [master’s] degree,” but No; it would be more of the tee-shirt thing, this time at Soldier Field.  That’s how professional sports wants women on the field, as unpaid or little-paid staff.  The important jobs, the ones with power and money attached, are almost all reserved for the guys.  The progress here is my daughter sees that now. 

Patrick Kane

Athletics and sex have been bumping into each another since the first Olympics, if not before.  The same holds true for athletics and coerced sex.

And now Patrick Kane finds himself in trouble with a young woman who has filed a complaint with police in suburban Buffalo that may lead to rape charges; we all went over the particulars of the case on the drive to Nappanee.  If there’s a trial, none of us wants to be on the jury.  

I also think Hamburg, New York, isn’t ancient Greece, and the sense of entitlement that comes from winning doesn’t count for as much as it used to.  However the Kane situation is resolved, athletes need to figure this out, the sooner the better.

Hunker Down

The one point Cubs’ and White Sox fans can agree on is that there is no such animal as a “Chicago baseball fan.”  That’s just a fair-weather wannabe who doesn’t know a safety squeeze from a hit-and-run but wants in on the postseason.  To bounce from North Side to South and back depending on playoff possibilities is beyond my comprehension.

I no longer hate the Cubs the way I did in my youth.  I was at a Sox game in 1969 a little before the Great Swoon, courtesy of the Miracle Mets.  The crowd at Comiskey Park was probably in the vicinity of 5,000, max.  The highlight of the night was someone burning a picture of Ron Santo.  You could say the hate runs deep.

No matter what the Cubs do this year or next, we got to the World Series first.  That’s enough.  It has to be.

Backroads

Yesterday, we picked up Clare in Valparaiso and took U.S. Route 6, aka the Grand Army of the Republic Highway, to Nappanee, Indiana.  There was an arts-and-crafts’ fair featuring Amish furniture and quilts.  Seeing buggies on the highway does give you pause.  It’s not 2015 everywhere, at least in Indiana.

A day trip on less-traveled roads is made baseball on the radio.  First, we listened to the Cubs, and I thought of all those times Ron Santo suffered behind the microphone for his team; not that I cared, mind you.  My dislike of Santo the player carried over to the broadcaster.  You can take the White Sox fan out of the South Side, but you can’t take South Side out of the White Sox fan.  Yesterday, though, I did the suffering, as the Cubs pretty much pounded the Giants to solidify their hold on the second wildcard spot.  (How I hate talking baseball as football.)

And I suffered through Ed Farmer and Darrin Jackson doing the White Sox-Royals game on the way home.  I’m not sure there are two more critical broadcasters than the Sox radio team.  Farmer and Jackson are definitely old-school; any player wearing sunglasses on top of his cap is sure to get on their bad side (and mine, too, for what it’s worth).  After falling behind, the Sox at one point had two on and two out, with Jose Abreu up; Abreu had already homered and would again.  He didn’t in this particular at-bat because Geovany Soto, the runner at second, decided to get a head start to third with a full count on Abreu.  Only Soto got picked off, which Ed and D.J. agreed was inexcusable.  I love the candor, but the play that produces it is killing me.

Did I mention we saw lots of cows and horses all day?   

Pillow Talk

Clare joked on Facebook the other day that she was learning how to snap a football, use proper footwork when blocking and hold but not hold.  In other words, her boyfriend Chris is talking work on the phone with her.

Fair is fair.  Come spring, Clare will be regaling him with stories on bunt coverage and slapping technique.  All I can say is this must be true love.      

Dumb Ideas

On Wednesday, a Victoria’s Secret model threw out the first pitch.  How to put this?  She threw like it was the first time someone put a baseball in her hand.

So, the White Sox want women to throw out the first pitch; toss tee-shirts from on top of the dugout; and work in the front office, as long as it’s in community relations.  This isn’t a 1950s’ mindset; that would be an improvement, given that the All American Girls Professional Baseball League was still in existence.  No, this is more Stepford Wives, updated for a new century.

And let’s not forget Faith Day, the upcoming Sox promotion on August 30^th.  I kid you not.  Several players and Willie Robertson from the cast of Duck Dynasty will be talking about the presence of God in their lives; here’s hoping that scheduled participants Gordon Beckham and Adam LaRoche preach better than they hit.  I’m sure Adam and Gordon will be discussing Pope Francis’ recent encyclical on the environment.  What better venue to warn against the evils of lead buckshot when hunting?        

TiVo Ball

I work at home, or try to, so watching an afternoon ballgame makes me feel more than a little guilty.  That is, until I started using TiVo the last two years.

It’s weird in a way.  I start to watch a game that could already be over.  I have no idea what will happen with the next pitch, even though the ball was thrown three hours ago.  But if I can keep the psychic queasiness in check, it all works out, like yesterday.

The White Sox scored five runs in the first against the Rays, and I could rerun Avisail Garcia’s three-run homer as often as I liked.  I was also able to power through yet another meltdown by rookie starter Carlos Rodon.  Once upon a time, Rodon would’ve been called a million-dollar bonus baby.  In truth, he’s just a rookie in over his head.  The kid needs to be sent down to learn his craft, no matter what his agent might say.  Scott Boras talks too much as it is.

I caught up to real time by the ninth inning.  In the tenth, Adam Eaton led off with a single.  With Tyler Saladino up, Eaton stole second on a play that saw the throw hit shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera on the side of his head.  (Decent throw, e6).  Down went Cabrera, with Eaton scampering to third.  That’s when Clare called to ask what’d happened.  She was listening to the game on the radio down in Valpo.

We talked as Rays’ pitcher Brad Boxberger walked the next two batters to load the bases and set up the force at home.  “That’s dumb,” I said of manager Kevin Cash’s decision to keep Boxberger in.  “The guy’s just thrown eight straight pitches for balls.  He doesn’t have a feel for strikes right now.”  Sure enough, five pitches later, Avisail Garcia had himself a walk and the White Sox a win.

It was the first time Clare and I had ever shared a win over the phone.  Ah, technology.   

Road Trip

Summer is the best time for memories, of the scoreboard message about Clare’s homeruns or the cousins’ picnic Michele and I spent huddled under the roof of a picnic shelter listening on the radio to Tom Seaver win his 300^th game.  Summer is when you remember the old ballpark, the one with all the arches and how you tried to save it from the wrecking ball.

When that failed, I set out to write a book about Comiskey Park, which had to include something on the architect.  Zachary Taylor Davis designed Comiskey and the two Wrigleys (in Chicago and Los Angeles) as well as the Wrigley compound on Catalina Island off the coast of Southern California.  But Davis built better than he was remembered, and he left behind no collection of papers.  In those last years before the advent of the Internet, I had to go digging the old-fashioned way.

Obituaries, a property transfer, some correspondence and phone calls led me to Davis’ sole surviving child, 80 years old in that last season of Comiskey Park.  David Davis lived in South Have, Michigan, where I drove up to interview him one afternoon in late July of 1990.  Davis told me he never saw a ballgame with his father.

The younger Davis had dreamed of becoming a naval architect, as evidenced by all of the ship models he built from scratch.  Then the Depression got in the way and then life.  He had been living in South Haven—where the elder Davis took his family in the summer—for decades by the time I met him.  After our interview, he turned on the television to the Cubs’ game, the sound of Harry Caray’s voice following me back to the car.  It was a long drive home.

I wrote the book, after which we set about starting a family.  Robin Ventura was a rookie third baseman that last summer of Comiskey Park.

Heads Up

Bats keep exploding at major-league games, so much so players want more netting put up to protect fans.  Blame it all on Barry Bonds.

Back in the days of Babe Ruth, players swung bats made of hickory, a durable but heavy wood.  Ruth used 40- and 46-ounces bats and was said to have used one that weighed in at 54 ounces, which was fine for the Sultan but not necessarily for the mere mortals who played the game.  By the 1950s, ash was making inroads as a replacement for hickory.

Ash allowed the length of the bat to remain the same while the weight went down; the substitution of maple for ash meant more of the same.  In each case, the new bats were easier to swing.  Now try to recall any film clips of hickory or ash bats shattering; I can’t think of one, from Ken Burns to Homerun Derby.  And Barry Bonds’ contribution?

Bonds used a maple bat with a fat head (double entendre intended) and narrow handle; balls hitting the sweet spot went very far, balls hitting other areas of the bat caused vibrations that could shatter said bat.  What to do?

First, I’d explore other types of wood.  If Bonds set the pendulum in one direction with his maple bat, someone else could get it moving the other way by going on a hot streak swinging hickory, ash or oak, even.  Special rules for maple that dictate minimum handle thickness are also worth considering.  Supposedly, there’s a transparent tape that’s been shown to keep bats from shattering after they’ve split open.  Maybe an emergency meeting of the commissioner and the players’ union is in order here. 

Until then, heads up.

Unwelcome Guests

Turn on the television, and there they are.  Go to a game, and there they are, sitting next to you.  Visiting fans following their teams are the new bane of professional sports.

The White Sox have been bad for so long that out-of-towners can probably get tickets to the Cell at under face value.  If you want a taste of New York or Boston and can’t afford the airfare, just head on down to 35^th and Shields.  The dregs of the East Coast will be there, acting like they own the place.

The first time I took Clare to Wrigley Field, I made sure she knew how to act; we were Sox fans who didn’t need to tell the world about it.  Later, when she started going to Sox-Cubs’ games with her boyfriend, I gave a little lecture on the dangers of saying something dumb.   “Nothing will happen to you,” I warned, “but they’ll take it out on Chris.”

The traveling faithful have become a staple on TV “away” broadcasts:  Look at all the fans who’ve made the trip from [place name of city here].  OK, guys, if you’re going to encourage this foolishness, remind people how to behave.  Dodgers’ and Giants’ fans can’t seem to keep themselves from bashing in heads.  We shouldn’t want that kind of behavior to spread.

If and when I make it to Fenway and my Sox are winning, I’ll use my inside voice to cheer.  Clare will, too.

Wait and See

Sports are different for me now, after having watched Clare play in high school and college.  I watch the pros, and part of me thinks, No one on the field is my kid.  But I try.

In the old days, I would’ve been miserable going to see Lyle Lovett and His Large Band at the Chicago Theatre.  Not that it would have anything to do with Mr. Lovett, a musician-songwriter as talented as he quirky.  But the concert started at 7 PM, an hour into the White Sox-Yankee game.  Did I mention how much I’ve always hated the visiting team?

But as none of the players is related to me, I sat back to enjoy 2-1/2 hours of music with Lovett leading forays into jazz, blues, country, rockabilly, gospel and ballads.  Though his stovepipe hair looked a little shorter than usual, Lovett’s voice and playing were as good as I remember.  Back in the car, I could have put on the radio or asked Michele to get the score off her phone, but I waited until we got back home, a few minutes before midnight.  Then I went downstairs to check the scoreboard on the Comcast sports’ site.  Only at that point did I become a kid again.

In sports, drama is of the essence (unless you can crush the other guy in the early innings).  Not wanting to see the entire line score, I scrowled down carefully so that just the New York part showed.  Let’s see, the score was 2-1 Sox when we parked the car.  The Yankees got one more run in the ninth.  That could only mean one thing—Sox win!  Sox win! 

Billy Pierce

White Sox pitching great Billy Pierce died yesterday at the age of 88.  Pierce has not been deemed worthy of entry into Cooperstown since his retirement in 1964.  The 211 career wins, 193 complete games and regular matchups against Whitey Ford impress HOF voters less than the accomplishments of Pedro Martinez, who was welcomed into Cooperstown last weekend; Martinez recorded eight more wins and 147 fewer complete games than Pierce.  And if Martinez made his baseball presence felt despite a 5’11” 170-pound frame, what to make of the 5’10”, 160-pound Pierce?  Only one of them depended on run support from Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz.  The other made due with the likes of Bubba Phillips and Sammy Esposito.

Pierce, like Minnie Minoso and Ernie Banks before him, could best be described as a gentleman, the kind who would thank fans for wanting his autograph.  I spoke with him once, in the green room at WGN Radio, maybe 17 years ago.  It was April, and we were there to talk about Chicago baseball in those weeks before reality could set in.

“Í like the jacket,” he said on shaking my hand; I was wearing a throwback White Sox jacket from the 1940s; Pierce was traded from the Tigers to the Sox in 1948.  We talked a little about Sox manager Al Lopez, with Pierce assuring me Lopez had nothing against playing rookies.  It was somebody else’s idea to trade away the 603 homeruns that Johnny Callison and Norm Cash would hit.

This being WGN, somebody had to represent the Cubs that evening, and it turned out to be ex-catcher Randy Hundley; he and Pierce knew one another from their time together on the Giants, where Pierce ended his career and Hundley started his before coming to the Cubs in 1966.  “I always appreciated that you let me catch you,” Hundley said.  “Veteran pitchers didn’t always want to throw to rookie catchers.”  In particular, Jack Sanford didn’t want to.

But Billy Pierce was a whole different kind of player, and human being.