Instant Karma, Derrick Rose

 On Monday, Derrick Rose—he of the $94.3 million contract—told reporters he’s looking forward to free agency two years down the road, “Just knowing my day will be coming up soon, and it’s not for me.  It’s for [son] P.J. and his future, so that’s what I’m thinking about now.”

On Tuesday, Rose demonstrated just how hard it is to play basketball with a foot in your mouth when he took an elbow to an eye socket, necessitating surgery.  Meanwhile, Rose’s legal team responded to a civil lawsuit charging him and two companions with rape, saying the accuser “consented to sexual interaction with more than one co-defendant on more than one occasion, consented to sexual interactions on the day in question and invited the defendants to her apartment and buzzed them in.”  The incident in question happened in August of 2013, when Rose’s son turned ten months old.

Also on Tuesday, Cal Ripken Jr. travelled to Chicago for a dedication ceremony.  The foundation Ripken named for his father has donated a ballfield at Marquette Park on the Southwest Side.  Ripken told a reporter for DNAinfo.com Chicago, “I always liked the influence I had on kids as a baseball player, and really it was a way to direct them into doing some good things using the platform of baseball.”  The Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation has sponsored fifty new ballfields across the U.S. over the past five years.

Derrick, you and Patrick Kane might want to consider asking one simple question to guide your personal lives:  What would Cal Ripen do?

Desperate Times

Desperate times call for desperate measures.  Last year, the Cubs and White Sox finished with identical records of 73-89.  With six games to go this season, the Cubs are 91-65 while the Sox can duplicate last year’s mark if they put their minds to it.  All we need to do is drop our last two series.  For this, I have full confidence in Robin and his staff.

If that happens, then what?  Allow me to meander a little in getting to an answer.  Right before the trade deadline at the end of July, there was all sorts of talk about the Cubs acquiring a closer.  There were at least two columnists—and you know who you are, Tribsters—and heaven knows how many sports-talk people jabbering for the Phillies’ Jonathan Papelbon, who instead went to Washington.  Thank you, Theo Epstein.  Seriously, thank you.

Papelbon tends to confuse his head with his ass and acts accordingly.  On Sunday, he grabbed Bryce Harper by the neck in an eighth-inning dugout scuffle for a couple of reasons—Harper didn’t run out a fly ball, and earlier in the week Harper had criticized Papelbon for hitting Manny Machado of the Orioles; Harper figured he’d be next.  Whatever the cause for the fight, the Nationals are a screwed-up organization, and those are precisely the kind of people you want to deal with.  Think Cincinnati trading Frank Robinson for Milt Pappas.

I talked with my assistant GM, who isn’t the biggest Bryce Harper fan; Clare was a hardnosed ballplayer, and she hasn’t mellowed much since graduating.  But the White Sox risk slipping over the edge into oblivion if they don’t do something in the face of what looks to be a long stretch of winning baseball on the North Side.  My assistant agrees that getting Harper is worth the risk that comes with his bouts of immaturity.  The Sox did something like this one time before, getting Dick Allen in a move that may have kept the team from moving.

The only problem with the Allen trade is we gave up Tommy John to get him; you don’t want to lose another potential HOFer trading for Harper.  In other words, you want to hold onto Chris Sale at all costs.  But do we have enough to interest the Nationals?  Would Jose Quintana, Avisail Garcia and Adam Eaton be enough to start a serious conversation?  Team Bukowski thinks so.  Now the actual Sox GM has to get to work.  Either Rick Hahn pulls a rabbit, aka Bryce Harper, out of his hat this winter, or he can shut off the lights at the Cell.  Believe me, no one will bother going to games next season.

Sea Change(s)

Woe onto those poor Bears’ fans who drank the Kool-Aid in August and convinced themselves that their beloved Monsters of the Midway wouldn’t stink too much this year under new coach John Fox.  But it’s hard to lie to yourself after your team gets skunked 26-zip in Seattle to start the season at 0-3.  What did Forrest Gump say again?  Oh, right, stupid is as the McCaskeys do.

In sports, there’s change and there’s change in the wake of constant losing.  Allow me to explain.  The Cubs were uneven under the 28-year ownership of Tribune Company—very good a few times, but mostly mediocre or a cut above.  Once the money stopped flowing in (think of the cash wasted on Milton Bradley), ownership signaled they wanted out.  Enter Tom Ricketts in 2010.

A good rule of thumb is a new owner is the most likely to gut things, or force a change in a team’s culture, as they like to say.  Ricketts hired Theo Epstein, got serious about renovating Wrigley Field, and now finds his team in the playoffs, or whatever the tilt between wildcard teams is.  The Houston Astros, sold most recently in 2011, have followed the same gut-the-franchise plan, to a possible playoff spot.  The next week will tell.

The Blackhawks have done like the Cubs, only without selling the team; they made use of the Grim Reaper instead.  After Bill Wirtz died in 2007, his son Rocky took over the organization and brought it out of the Middle Ages; the first of three Stanley Cups started three years later.  The thing of it is, the younger Wirtz was willing to act like Tom Ricketts while the McCaskey family insists on proving they’re one vast, bad gene pool.

And Jerry Reinsdorf?  With both the White Sox and Bulls, Reinsdorf started off like Ricketts, an owner with a plan.  Front offices and coaching staffs were realigned, old homes were jettisoned for “state-of-the-art” facilities and new talent was drafted and/or signed as free agents.  But Reinsdorf is pushing 80 and acting more like Bill Wirtz in his dotage.  I’d buy the White Sox and turn things upside down a la Ricketts, but I can never get that Powerball right.

But it could be worse.  The Sox could be owned by the McCaskeys.

Ripple Effects

This is how a game between No. 8 LSU and unranked Syracuse affected a group of people far from the Carrier Dome on a Saturday afternoon in late September; the game was carried on ESPN.  We saw plenty of shots of Clare’s boyfriend Chris, very serious, chewing gum, headset on as he worked the sideline; whatever he’s doing with the offensive line must be working because the Orange scored 24 points in a 34-24 loss.  At one point, I stopped the television—oh, what technological times we live in—for Michele to take a couple of pictures of Chris on her camera phone which she then sent to Clare, who was at a fall-ball game with Valpo.  I imagine Chris’s parents were doing something like that, too.

My father-in-law, who treated himself to an early 84^th birthday gift with two broken ribs in a fall, also watched from the couch in his family room.  “They really acquitted themselves well,” he said on the phone through the fog of pain medication.  Yes, they did, with a third-string quarterback from a few towns west of us getting his first-ever start.

And I was left to wonder why football can’t refrain from using baseball talk.  I heard the announcers say the Syracuse quarterback was going for the homerun and something about a pitch count.  No doubt, tomorrow I’ll hear about a defensive back patrolling center field.  But baseball games never feature a blitz or buttonhook.  I wonder why.

Road Rage

In the car, I think and act like a driver; on my bike, like a cyclist; and on foot, like a pedestrian.  This can lead to multiple-personality disorder, but so far so good.  The one thing the three of me can agree on is, nobody wants to share.

There are certain parts of Chicago I try to avoid driving in, not because of crime but for fear of hitting a cyclist.  Go to Bucktown or Wicker Park, and you’d think it was the Tour de France.  People on bikes zooming along Division Street cannot be bothered by traffic laws; those are for fossil-fuel fools.  If you’re not careful in these places, you’ll end up with a more or less breathing hood ornament staring back at you.

Pedestrians can be a pain, too, but I’ve been on the lookout for them since I passed my driving test back in the summer of 1970.  Since people will do stupid things, it’s up to me not to make things worse, although anyone waltzing in front of me when I have the left-hand turn arrow is tempting fate.  You never know when someone will snap.

And I’m starting to wonder how long until there’s a full-scale transportation riot in the streets of Chicago, walkers vs. peddlers vs. drivers.  I was on the Chicago Lakefront Trail yesterday and didn’t know who to go after first.  Would it be the spandex speeders who can’t be bothered with a simple “on your left” when passing and take either side of the trail when the mood strikes, or the walkers who are under the misimpression they can walk three abreast without courting disaster?  The wonder is I don’t have a stroke by the end of the trail.

I could also talk about how drivers go out of their way to make life miserable and dangerous for cyclists, but I long ago stopped daring cars to hit me on the street; in a game of chicken, it’s never good to spot the other guy a couple thousand pounds.  I try to stay on paths whenever possible, only to run into—proverbially, not literally—those mentioned above.  Rahm Emanuel seems to think he’s the mayor of San Diego, not Chicago, with his carving bike lanes out of streets; various suburbs are following his lead.  Anybody who’s driven in these parts with snow on the ground knows how hard that can be.  Now we have to cope with people/narcissists who want to bike through a snowstorm.

This is not going to end well, I fear.

All in Good Time

 Clare called earlier in the week to ask how a 30-year old gets to be named GM of a major-league baseball team, in particular one David Stearns with the Milwaukee Brewers.  Perhaps I should add that Stearns has a poli-sci degree from Harvard and that he said at his introduction the Brewers intend to be “industry leaders and employ best practices across every function of  baseball operations.”  The sausage races could be in trouble from the sounds of it.     

A little perspective may be in order here.  Branch Rickey did not become a general manager until he was 43-years old.  Everything that followed—inventing the farm system, signing Jackie Robinson and Roberto Clemente among many other players, pioneering use of pitching machines and batting helmets, and, yes, strategy based on the use of statistics—date from then.  Right now, Stearns is what Casey Stengel once said Greg Goosen had a chance of becoming in another ten years, 30.  Let’s see if new school outperforms old school.  

Yogi Berra

I was too young to see Yogi Berra play.  My first real memory of him is as manager of the 1964 Yankees.  New York came to town in the middle of August for a four-game series.  The White Sox swept their way into first place while the Yankees had a meltdown on the bus to the airport.  Phil Linz was playing Mary Had a Little Lamb on his harmonica, Berra told Linz to stop, and Mickey Mantle supposedly told Linz that Berra wanted him to play it louder.  Unfortunately for the Sox, an unexpectedly flying harmonica helped spark New York to its last Golden Age pennant, by all of one game over the White Sox.

For me, Berra belonged to the black-and-white era of pictures and film; I look at the players shown and can’t believe they were ever young, that Berra was a 21-year old rookie in 1946, barely two years removed from service at Omaha Beach on D-Day.  I can better believe that he and his wife Carmen were married for 65 years or that he refused to set foot in Yankee Stadium because George Steinbrenner couldn’t be bothered to fire him in person as manager after the Yankees got off to a 6-10 start in 1985.  I can believe that people belittled Berra for his looks and lack of education.  He made it through eighth grade, one year more than my father.

Clare likes certain of the various Yogiisms, especially on the mental aspects of the game.  At some point, I must have pointed out that Berra wasn’t even two inches taller than she is, though I probably kept his penchant for swinging at—and hitting—pitches outside the strike zone.  That was one habit I did not want my daughter picking up from a Hall of Famer.

Berra loved his family and the game of baseball.  He lent his name to a museum that does all sorts of outreach with kids in and around Montclair, New Jersey.  Patrick Kane would do well to study Berra’s life and ask himself if anyone will react the same way to his passing seventy or so years from now.

The Crux of the Problem

 When Clare called Monday, it was to discuss the White Sox and not the WNBA Chicago Sky, who would shortly bow out of the playoffs with a 100-89 loss to the Indiana Fever at Allstate Arena.  The Arena seats 17,000-plus, while a deciding playoff game drew a crowd of 2,882 fans.

I didn’t watch the game, and I don’t know any of the Sky players other than Elena Delle Donne.  At the risk of sounding like a broken record (or whatever the Itunes’/Ipod equivalent is), I would love to see what the 6’4” Delle Donne could do on a ballfield.  The thing is, she may have to start thinking of a career change if her team can’t draw better.  This was the postseason, when interest in the sport is supposed to be at its peak.

Let me put it another way:  When the White Sox swept the Tigers on Monday, they dropped Detroit into the Central Division cellar with a 69-81 record.  Still, the two games combined drew nearly 63,000 fans—to downtown Detroit, to watch two teams fighting to stay out of last place.  I may be too old and too male and too set in my ways to factor into WNBA marketing.  Alright, then, I’m not a big loss.  But my 24-year old daughter couldn’t care less about the league, and that is a problem.  I wish I had answers, but outside of everyone playing baseball, I don’t.

An Earful

Clare called yesterday, pretty much yelling into her phone, “What’s wrong with them?  It’s not like they have a bunch of bad players.”  No, Jeff Samardzija, he of the 1-8 record and 9.24 ERA—yes, you read that right, 9.24—in his last nine starts, had thrown a 1-hitter in the first game of a day-night doubleheader in Detroit.  With any batter other than the switch-hitting Victor Martinez, the left fielder would’ve been playing in more and probably caught the flare off the handle of Martinez’s.  And, if that had happened, the right-handed Samardzija would have had himself a perfect game.

It gets better, in a head-scratching sort of way.  In game two, almost-rookie Erik Johnson, he of the square jaw and jutting ears, fanned nine Tigers in six innings to up his September record this year to 3-0; Johnson was 3-2 in September of 2013 and 1-1 for all of 2014.  The 25-year old rightie is a completely different pitcher from last season.  Previously, I had never seen anyone look so uncomfortable on the mound; if a nervous hitter grips his bat into sawdust, a nervous pitcher bounces his offerings ten feet in front of the plate.  That was Erik Johnson.

The other late-season surprise has been outfielder Trayce Thompson.  I keep waiting for Thompson to fizzle out, especially after he hit into three double plays in game one, but no.  Come game two, Thompson smacks a double and a triple.  He’s batting .342 in 79 at-bats, with 14 of his 27 hits for extra bases.  I try not to get excited because, as I’ve said, Nyls Nyman happens.

My sense is that Samardzija would thrive if he were treated like the 17-year old football player he once was, as in—Go through that wall, now, because I said so.  There doesn’t seem to be much self-reflection about his performances.  The man posted a 9.24 ERA while saying again and again that he was making good pitches.  If he’s going to be immature at the age of 30, then turn back the clock to high school, when athletes don’t dare question their coaches.  Just make sure the coach doing the yelling knows what he’s screaming about.  Over on MLB Network, Harold Reynolds—somebody stick a sock in that man’s mouth—says Samardzija will get himself a $100 million contract next year because he eats up innings.  I doubt if it’ll be in Chicago.

Now, back to Clare’s phone call.  We both agreed on what was wrong, the coaching staff.  Fire them all and instill a little, no, a lot, of passion in the dugout.  Otherwise, Erik Johnson and Trayce Thompson will just be names turned to trivia.

What's in a Name?

 Team nicknames and mascots are tricky things.  Notre Dame can be the Fightin’ Irish because the fan base—ostensibly Irish and Catholic—has laid claim to a slur.  It’s not unlike who gets to use the N-word.

Then you have Syracuse, where Clare’s boyfriend Chris is now a graduate assistant for the football team.  No more Orangemen for Syracuse because it’s a name synonymous with murderous violence.  Syracuse is just The Orange now.  By the way, Notre Dame and Syracuse are scheduled to play each another in football next season.  I can only hope there aren’t a bunch of charter flights for “fans” coming in from North Ireland.

All of which brings us to the Illini and the Cleveland Indians.  I have no problem with the Fighting Illini as a description or tag line; within the context of team sports, it’s “Trojans” or “Spartans” in two words instead of one.  What I do object to is some barefooted underclassman dressed up in a generic Indian costume—Illini is not Sioux is not Cherokee—acting like he’s stepping on hot coals while dancing at midcourt or midfield.  You want to dance?  Fine, then find a tribe willing to participate.  And if it’s that important to your team’s identity, then put some skin in the game and offer a full scholarship out of your budget.

The same holds for the Cleveland Indians, who beat the White Sox two out of three this weekend (doesn’t everybody?).  I have no problem with the team name, but, oh brother, the Chief Wahoo logo that appears on a sleeve patch and has got to go.  Various tribes inhabited the Ohio River Valley into the 19^th century; they’re the people who should design anything that goes on the Indians’ uniform.  Failing that, I would love to see a group of Native American investors buy the team and rename them the Goobers.  Chief Wahoo could then give way to Willy the Hillbilly.  Yahoo, Mountain Dew.  

Headhunting

Nothing like seeing Chris Sale give up six two-out unearned runs in Cleveland to turn my attention to the Cubs and Cardinals.  Whenever the Cubs get good, they tend to have personality clashes with the Cards.  When he managed St. Louis, Tony LaRussa couldn’t stand anyone who questioned his genius or threw inside at his hitters.  Cubs’ skipper Joe Maddon is starting to sound a little like LaRussa.

In Friday’s game, Cubs’ first baseman Anthony Rizzo was hit by a pitch in the bottom of the fourth.   The next inning, Cubs’ starter Dan Haren threw a pitch that bounced off the helmet of pinch-hitter Matt Holiday. And the inning after that, Rizzo got hit again.  In his postgame news’ conference, Maddon wondered if Tony Soprano was in the dugout, ordering the hit.  Lo and behold, on Saturday three Cardinals were hit.

Who started it?  Each team will point to the other, which can go all the way back to Cain and Abel.  The idea is to throw close at batters who crowd the plate, as Rizzo does.  Hitting a batter risks injury and retaliation as well as possible motivation; hbp #3 in Saturday’s game ignited a three-run St. Louis rally in the ninth that nearly won the game.  The Cubs are the new kids on the block and want to establish themselves as tough, if not bullies.  They—and especially their manager—need to remember that Tony Soprano is in the eyes of the beholder.

Compare and Contrast

The As and White Sox split four games at home this week, which gave me a chance to compare catchers, the cast-aside Josh Phegley and the kept (why?) Tyler Flowers.  In 225 at-bats, Phegley is hitting .249 with 9 homers and 34 rbi’s.  That projects to over 70 rbi’s in 500 at-bats.  Phegley also has a .996 fielding average and has thrown out 18 of 56 would-be base stealers.  That’s 39 percent vs. the league average of 31.

In 303 at-bats, Flowers is hitting .231 with 9 homers and 38 rbi’s; in other words, he’s managed 4 more rbi’s than Phegley in 78 more at-bats.  Defensively, Flowers has a .995 fielding average while throwing out just 16 of 63 attempted base stealers, that good for a 25 percent success rate, six points below the league average.  Catching 264 fewer innings (541 to 805), Phegley has thrown out more runners—18 to 16—than Flowers.  I should also mention that Phegley is two years younger.

Yes, the As stink this year, but not because they traded for Josh Phegley.  Getting rid of Josh Donaldson, the odds-on favorite for AL MVP, is the chief cause for a likely last-place finish in the AL West.  Trading away a good young catcher is just one of many reasons why the White Sox could finish in the Central Division cellar.

My Old Man

 Poor unlettered, rich, piggish Patrick Kane, sitting there through the news conference that marked the opening of camp for the Blackhawks.  He couldn’t even read a prepared statement right, unless his subconscious self forced him into making a Freudian slip:  “I will be absolved of having done nothing wrong,” he said, without noticing how the words came out.  You could almost feel sorry for the team brass sitting at the table with him.

As I’ve said before, athletes have always misbehaved, though not all athletes.  I keep thinking of the tons of grief Roger Maris endured for having the gall to challenge Babe Ruth’s home run record but not his oversized personality.  I also keep thinking of my father, who was quiet in the way of Maris when he stood before reporters.  When my dad spoke, his words carried special meaning, if only because he used so few of them so often.  Patrick Kane?  What a mope, my old man would’ve said.   

Weather Report

If Chicago’s weather ever turns resort-like, it happens in September and October.  Hot becomes warm, and nighttime sticky feels cool with earlier sunsets; the sun visits for weeks at a time without too much rain.  If it weren’t for all the yellow-jackets on the prowl for targets to sting, you would think like Shoeless Joe Jackson that such a place could be heaven.

Baseball also feels different these last weeks of the season; the approaching end typically means the planning for next year has already begun.  Deacon Jones gets his cup of September coffee, and Luis Andujar, too.  They could’ve gone on to become stars, and, if not them, then the hopefuls brought up next September and the one after.  You know, Deacon hit .409 with Dubuque in 1956.  It was too bad about that shoulder injury.  He still looked good that time at saw him against the Orioles on a September Sunday in 1966.

With October, you know the run of good weather can’t go on indefinitely.  November will come, bringing far nastier months in its wake.  You treasure watching what few games remain on the schedule and rejoice at the extra ones the result of your team making the playoffs.  Damn’ Cub fans, so lucky.

Trayce and Nyls

Clare called Monday night to ask if I was watching the finals of American Ninja Warrior.  I told her I was taping it to watch later in the week for when I rode the exercycle (along with “They Were Expendable” with John Wayne and Robert Montgomery).  Why?  “Somebody’s going to climb Mt. Midoriyama.”  In other words, a contestant—two, actually—had survived an obstacle course in equal parts brutal and capricious to rope climb a 90-foot tall set of monkey bars.  Or is it an Erector Set on steroids? A rather odd fellow who says he lives free and may even be able to spell “libertarian” is now a million dollars richer.

We were talking on the phone as I watched White Sox right fielder Trayce Thompson roll over on his left arm trying to catch a fly ball in the top of the ninth inning in a game against the As.  “Oh, my God, it’s broken!” I said.  No, not the mountain, the wrist.  I had a long-ago flashback to White Sox phenom Nyls Nyman.  The 20-year old started his big-league career going 9 for 14, with two doubles, a triple , 4 rbi’s and five runs scored in a September 1975 call up. Then Nyman broke his wrist (I think) and was never the same again.

Clare was luckier.  She broke her arm as a nine-year old, but it didn’t affect her swing.  In fact, the day the cast came off she insisted on going to Mustang baseball practice, and, yes, she hit a home run.  Thompson may be as blessed.  X-rays were negative, and he’s listed as day-to-day with a hyperextended elbow.

Lunchtime

I had lunch with Clare’s high school coach yesterday.  Euks still insists on thinking of himself as Clare’s second father.  Anyone else my age texting my daughter I might worry about, but not Euks.

He was Clare’s first baseball coach out of t-ball, a bunch of 8- and 9-year olds playing in the fall.  Of course, Clare was the only girl on the team, but Euks treated her just like everyone else.  She threw hard, ran hard and was already swinging for the fences.  Every summer for the next five years we’d cross paths at Berwyn’s Baseball Alley, Euks always enthusiastic and encouraging.  When he became the softball coach at Morton, he let Clare play on his summer team, starting two years before she graduated from grade school.  Need I say what high school our daughter had her heart set on?

We reminisced over players and games, like the regional playoff against Riverside-Brookfield freshman year when Clare singled to start a four-run rally in the top of the seventh or the regionals’ game senior year against St. Ignatius when she homered in the bottom of the seventh to tie the game we’d go on to win; the home run, possibly still going, came off the daughter of a certain big-name local D-I coach.  Euks also loves to tell the story of the time he was at the Elmhurst-North Central game two years ago when I tossed the score book away in disgust after we lost on a walk-off  home run.  This was our time machine, fueled by soup, salad and sandwich.  There’s never enough food for as long as we’d like to visit back then.

Football Crazy

National pastime, my eye.  From Friday through Monday, it’s been an orgy of football in these parts, high school, college, the pros and whatever the Bears qualify as.  How did this come to be?

I have no good answer.  Maybe it’s the violence, or maybe it’s a way to bond with strangers over a rack of ribs a la tailgate.  Or maybe it’s the gambling.  I read that somewhere close to $100 billion will be wagered on the various levels of football this year. Or maybe Americans are just plain nuts.

Here’s one telling difference between sports (and commissioners).  Baseball wants to shorten the length of games to at least 2 hours, 45 minutes, and I doubt anyone would complain if they got it down to 2-1/2 hours.  An NFL game can run close to 3-1/2 hours, and no one but fans of The Good Wife will complain.  These are strange times, indeed.

From His Lips to God's Ears

 On Friday the president of Notre Dame, the Rev. John Jenkins, gave an interview to the NYT in which he said of the school’s athletes, “Our relationship to these young people is to educate them, to help them grow.  Not to be their agent for financial gain.”

Jenkins says that, if colleges ever start paying their players, “That’s when we leave” the world of bigtime NCAA DI football.  No, that’s when the Rev. Jenkins would want to start putting the Elmhurst College Bluejays on their schedule.  And the second he in fact moved to do that, alumni would rise up and make the Rev. John Jenkins the ex-president of Notre Dame.

Blimp Ears

Clare called yesterday from Valpo.  “Guess what I’m looking at?” she asked, with the hint of a little girl’s excitement in her voice.  “There’s a blimp so low I could hit it with a bat and softball,” and I believe she could.

This fascination with blimps dates to the Fourth of July, 1994.  We had wanted tickets for a White Sox game but couldn’t get any, so we took a chance on the Kane County Cougars.  The Cougars were all the rage back then, a minor league team a short drive from Chicago.  Minor league baseball had a real cache at the time thanks to Kevin Costner and “Bull Durham.”  But in the movie, they weren’t selling, oh, ten brands of bottled water or shoot hotdogs into the stands with an air gun.  That was our last Cougars’ game.

Not that Clare had a bad time.  I’m sure she loved the action, which nurtured the not yet three-year old into becoming the not yet four-year old hitting phenom.  And I know for a fact she loved seeing her first-ever blimp, that big oblong balloon floating overhead so effortlessly a person couldn’t help but notice.  For some reason, the attraction proved mutual. 

There always seemed to be a blimp around our house in good weather.  Part of the reason was that we live close to the Eisenhower Expressway, which serves as a big concrete arrow pointing to downtown; the blimps are usually anchored out west at DuPage County Airport.  But mostly, though, machine and child just had a thing going, so much so Clare could hear the engines before she could see anything.  Then, the blimp would appear, and Clare would shout, “Daddy, I have blimp ears!”  It had nothing to do about their size, I can assure you.

A blimp even visited the week before Clare’s tryout with the Oak Park Huskies travel team.  When I saw it, I knew Clare was in.  I just didn’t know she’d be a 13-year old making a 16u team.

Bob

My friend Bob was, in a word, different.  He was probably the tallest kid in our age group at St. Gall from the time he arrived around the fourth grade.  His parents were from downstate and advertised it with every word they spoke.  When Bob’s dad answered the phone, he said, “4-7-6, 4-4-7-2,” with a twang so thick you’d think it came with bib overalls.  Come to think of it, Bob and his dad did wear them on occasion.

Bob didn’t talk funny like that; he just looked different from anyone else with his yellow baseball cap and gray cloth jacket.  I’m pretty sure Bob was the only kid in the city of Chicago who carried an attaché case to school with him.  If someone was making fun of how he dressed or walked (with a long hop-gait that must have inspired John Cleese), Bob turned into Linus wielding his blanket, only he tossed the bag more like a bowling ball.  The boy was deadly accurate at up to twelve feet.

After graduation, Bob surprised everyone by going to a boarding school in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, just like Charles Comiskey had nearly a century before.  But nothing White Sox rubbed off on Bob; he was one of those irritating South Side Cubs’ fans, with an odd rooting interest in another National League team, which I’ll get to shortly.  In the summer, Bob found a way to go to games free by working as an Andy Frain usher.  Considering that we all lived about fifteen miles away from Wrigley Field, that meant dragging his special ushers’ outfit on multiple busses.  The boy did love his uniforms.  One game, Billy Williams hit a foul ball that whacked Bob square in the back, and down he went.  I saw it happen on television.

Like his other friends, Bob played Strat-O-Matic Baseball.  There were five of us in a league, and for reasons best known to himself, Bob stuck with the Philadelphia Phillies.  Jim Bunning, Clay Dalrymple, Bob loved them all no matter how often he lost, which was a lot.  Matt always won the pot, but that’s another story.

After high school, Bob attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison, which was an odd choice given that he also belonged to Navy ROTC.  He got to wear a uniform again, but not everybody appreciated it as much as he did.  In time, Bob became an officer on a supply ship.  I wanted him to stand up to my wedding, but he was stationed off Iran in the spring of 1980.  After his seafaring days, Bob went to law school and settled in Wisconsin, where he and his wife Julie raised four kids.  His oldest looks just like him, but really pretty.  I don’t think Bob would mind my saying that.

And so, the resurgent Cubs face the doormat Phils in a doubleheader today; it’s shades of 1969 all over again.  Bob probably would have liked to see a split.  Then, if I said anything about his Cubbies dropping a game to such a bad team, he’d ask me what the White Sox were doing.  Yes, that’s exactly what would happen.

Fathers, In-law

Shortly after we moved into our first house, my father couldn’t wait to help get it shipshape, so he broke a basement window to get in one day I wasn’t home.  When we moved into our second house, he made sure I was home to help him punch a hole through a basement wall to install a heater vent.  Berwyn bungalows don’t easily yield their bricks, especially to an 83-year hammer-wielding assailant; this was one time my dad needed my help.  That, and when he installed a basement outlet.  Again, a certain amount of brute strength was required to bend the conduit just so.  I have no idea where he came up with that crimping tool.

My father-in-law has led an interesting life, growing up in a West Side orphanage and then foster care before spending twelve months as a walking target in Korea.  One of his few memories of life before the orphanage involves Humboldt Park, where he and his twin brother used to roam.  There was a wooden track for bicycle races that caught his eye.  He asked if it was still there when we told him about the 606 Trail just north of the park.

After buying me the Schwinn for my 18^th birthday, my father enrolled it in some sort of police program should it ever be stolen (though not yet in 45 years) by etching his driver’s license identification number on one of the arms of the pedal assembly.  So, I venture forth even now with a bit of fatherly protection.  And I think of myself as a cyclist spinning around a track to the delight of a 7-year old.

Across the Fence the Orange-colored Ivy

 I was walking our dog one Saturday morning in June (or was she walking me?) when I overheard a woman shouting to, not at, her neighbor across the fence: Sale had 14 strikeouts, and he took him out!  She was referring to the night before.  Chris Sale had gone eight innings on 111 pitches, striking out the aforementioned 14 Texas Rangers while giving up just two hits and no walks.  Robin being Robin, our manager pulled his starter for closer David Robertson, who proceeded to turn a 1-0 lead into a 2-1 loss.  Nothing like a two-out base hit with runners in scoring position to get a person yelling first thing in the morning.

This reminded me of the old story about how it was possible to walk the streets of Brooklyn and be able to follow the Dodgers game, given that everyone had their radio tuned in.  I’d like to think it was like that on the South Side with the Go-Go White Sox in the 1950s, and I suspect it’s going to be that way on the North Side when the Cubs make the postseason in another month or so.  It’s going to happen, Sox fans, so get ready.

I have my own radio memory of Wrigley Field dating to the time the park was being considered for Chicago landmark status.  A reporter thought it would be fun to get my take on the idea; he apparently thought that the author of a book on Comiskey Park would hate all things Cub.  But how do you hate a ballpark designed by the same architect (Zachary Taylor Davis) who did yours and where the ivy was planted by a young Bill Veeck?  I said as much in the interview, which took place at Wrigley just after the 2000 season had ended.  Late afternoon shadows did their best to hide the flecks of orange that colored the ivy. 

Before going, I had to pick up my third grader from school.  Clare knew to let Daddy talk into the tape recorder, and I knew she could run up and down the aisles without getting into trouble.  A lot more people will see the ivy change colors this fall, but no one will appreciate it more than I did that day.  

It Seems like Yesterday

If I can remember that night 20 years ago yesterday, we were driving home from some sort of family event, and I stopped for gas.  The radio was on loud enough for me to hear while standing at the pump.  How those Orioles’ fans cheered as their Cal Ripken played in his 2,131^st consecutive game, to break Lou Gehrig’s record.  Clare, 2-1/2 months shy of four, was strapped into her child’s seat in the back.  She heard the radio, too, I’m sure.

A week or two later, we took a walk to the Avenue Drug Store on Oak Park Avenue, not far from our house.  My little girl insisted that I buy her the wiffle-ball and plastic-bat set.  She was hitting line drives at my head within the hour. 

Better Late than Never

Better Late than Never

The White Sox opened the season in April on the road with three losses to the Royals.  Yesterday afternoon, almost five months to the day later, they finished a three-game sweep of KC, again on the road.  Go figure.  The Sox have a slightly better than mathematical shot at a wildcard sport, but I refuse to jinx it by looking.

The winning pitcher was Erik Johnson.  Two years ago, Johnson had an impressive September, going 3-2 with a 3.25 ERA, good enough to secure the 23-year old righty a spot in next year’s pitching rotation.  That lasted for all of a month in 2014.  Every time he pitched, Johnson looked to be sweating bullets on the mound, which could explain the 6.46 ERA.  This season he was named the International League’s most valuable pitcher, an honor that puts him back to where he was in September 2013.

Johnson had an interesting start, giving up three runs in six innings, all the runs scoring on solo homers.  Then we have the last out in the sixth inning, when Alex Gordon’s bat shattered, with the barrel hitting Johnson in his left, non-pitching, forearm.  This had better stop, or someone will get killed.  I don’t want to hear an aluminum “ping” or a composite “thwack,” but that’s going to happen unless MLB gets serious about the science behind better wooden bats: better design, better wood grains, better understanding of why and when bats shatter.  And get started now, if not sooner, as one of my eighth-grade teachers used to say.   

Quality Time

Ah, Indiana.  According to the billboard on I-80/94, we missed the “Nudes-a-poppin’” festival, held in Roselawn; that was two months ago.  And next week is the annual Valparaiso Popcorn Festival; we’ll be missing that, too.  We just wanted to visit our daughter on a Saturday night.

Because parenting doesn’t come with a manual or a calendar, you don’t know when things will change abruptly.  One moment your kid’s sitting next to you on the couch watching the ballgame, and the next she’s at a tournament in Colorado or Florida.  She’s in the dugout but not playing, so you’re not there watching.  Like I said, it goes by in a flash.

For some reason, Valpo holds class on Labor Day, so Clare couldn’t come home for a long weekend.  With softball duties and fall ball looming, we either got in the car to see her or stared at family photos for the next month.  We drove.  Hence, our exposure to “nudes-a-poppin.’”

The White Sox pioneered the “turn-back-the-clock” promotion with old uniforms and whatnot during their last season at Comiskey Park in 1990, so it was only fitting we did our own version.  After dinner (NOTE: Valparaiso is an island of good restaurants amidst a sea of corn), we went back to Clare’s apartment and found the Sox game on WGN.  (NOTE: Satellite TV isn’t all it’s cracked up to be when you don’t get to choose the package.)  My goodness, we beat the Royals in KC for the second straight time.  Alexi Ramirez, in the middle of what used to be called a salary drive, hit a three-run homer in a 6-1 win.  The Sox have a shot at the second wildcard spot, though with lightning-strikes-twice sort of odds.

And just like that, the ballgame was over.  Clare walked us out to the car, so I could negotiate my way back to the interstate in fog.  We lived, to find ourselves a state and world away from where we had been just a few seconds ago.

Gathered 'Round the Crystal Set

 Yesterday, the Syracuse Orange—they used to be the Orangemen until certain bloody WASP connotations forced a change—opened their season against Rhode Island.  We sat gathered around Michele’s ipad to watch in the living room. Final score: Syracuse 47, Rhode Island 0.

Like Clare, her boyfriend Chris has made the jump to NCAA Division I via coaching.  Every once in a while we caught a glimpse of him on the sidelines, his head set on, his face an intense shade of red.  Chris is just a kid, really.  But now he doesn’t have the luxury of screwing up the way a kid will from time to time.

Despite the pressure that comes with the job, Chris called Clare from the locker room right after the game.  You could say it was their “Rocky” moment.    

Roger and Me

How did this happen, me being on the same side as NFL commissioner Roger Goodell?  But in the case of Goodell vs. Patriots’ quarterback Tom Brady, I am, sort of.

Yesterday, a federal judge overturned Brady’s four-game suspension for Deflategate.  Apparently, the judge didn’t think that the seriousness of the situation had been conveyed to Brady, and he found instances where evidence and a witness had been kept from the quarterback’s legal team.  Furthermore, “No NFL policy or precedent notifies players that they may be disciplined (much less suspended) for general awareness of misconduct by others,” wrote Federal District Judge Richard M. Berman.  By this, Berman means Brady may have been vaguely aware that Patriots’ equipment people had been tampering with the balls but didn’t alert anyone.  In other words, Buck Weaver would’ve been home free if only he had played football instead of third base.

My own take on the situation is that a reasonable suspicion of cheating merits investigation and punishment, if the facts warrant it.  The problem for Goodell is that the NFL has been used to getting its way for so long that it thought due process is for suckers.  But you have to respect the law if you want to live under the rule of law.

Things could get interesting for the folks who pay the commissioner’s salary and dislike taking it on the chin in court.  One thing about owners is they all hate losing.

A Stretch, But Bear with Me Here

 We stopped going to Brookfield Zoo as a family because the summers were taken up with travel softball, so, it’s been a while.  That explains some of the shock Michele and I felt yesterday, along with the $34 admission for two.  Thank heavens we saved $10 by walking in instead of driving.

Along with museums and ballgames, the zoo used to be a summer staple for kids.  No more.  A family going to see the animals had better be prepared to pay, and pay.  Oh, and don’t expect to see that many animals.  Statues of animals, yes, but not the real thing.  As God is my witness, we saw two lion statues to one lion at the lion exhibit.

In place of animals were ever so many places to spend money on food and souvenirs.  There were also signs everywhere telling us how we could save particular species along with the environment.  Message received.  So, why not just make a contribution to the World Wildlife Fund instead of walking around to find where the bears have been moved?

I’m old enough to remember when they sold marshmallows at the zoo to feed to said bears; as a kid, I also saw bears begging for sweet rolls and elephants being pelted with peanuts whether or not they put out their trunks.  It was all very amusing, but not at all good for the animals.  Even though major zoos have stopped that sort of thing, they continue to face extraordinary pressure from animal-rights’ groups challenging their very existence.  I’ve heard PETA say kids can learn about animals by watching YouTube, a sentiment seconded by one of the zoo signs we saw yesterday.  From the looks of it, PETA has won, and zoos are on their way to extinction.

How sad.  Kids won’t know to watch the video if they haven’t seen the creature up close.  Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!  We see these as children, and we come away with an appreciation of nature.  Once you start depending on a screen to show this, you run the risk of Sponge Bob getting in the way.

Already, there is a generation of Chicagoans that has never seen an elephant at the zoo.  I get the criticisms—these glorious animals need space and numbers to be truly happy as social creatures, and why would they want to deal with Chicago winters?  Fair enough, but poachers don’t feel that same concern for their prey.  It’s time to rethink how zoos work, not to close them down or turn the experience into another day at Great America, with the smell of manure added in.

The future will be a function of land and money.  With both, zoos can have the same number of species as before while giving them the space they require to thrive.  Zoos with limited funding and/or expansion possibilities need to specialize on what animals they want to show.  As for major urban areas like New York and Chicago, the elephants have to stay in order to work their magic and majesty on young imaginations.  There has to be a way to create warm spaces in January short of putting elephants in a pen.  We owe it to ourselves and the animals to try.   

So Funny It Hurts

 Clare just sent me a clip from a Saturday Night Live skit that first ran in April.  It’s a nice takeoff on “A League of Their Own.”

 Five Rockford Peaches are debating whether women can play baseball.  As soon as they decide, Yes, they can, two black women walk over and ask if they can play.  One of the Peaches explains that it’ll be a gradual process.  First, white women will play, then black men, “Then all women are allowed to play underhand with the big softball, like a child.” 

Finally, just as the Peaches are ready to accept black teammates, the Peaches’ manager announces the good news:  “The war’s over, the men are coming home, so get off the damn’ field and never come back.”  That’s pretty much what happened, and it seems to be how MLB wants to keep things, Jessica Mendoza in the broadcast booth notwithstanding.  I’m surprised the commissioner’s office didn’t go after SNL for smearing the national pastime.  Trust me, guys, the truth will set you free.

Take a Walk

Michele and I spent the afternoon back on the 606 Trail.  Compared to July, it was almost deserted.  The novelty’s worn off, some schools are back in session, and it was a good, humid, 90 degrees out.  It was like we had our very own linear sweat lodge.

Free of attack from kamikaze cyclists, I was better able to take in the surrounding neighborhoods.  They’re 20-30 years older than where I grew up, 1900 vs. 1920s’ architecture.  That means more two-flats and worker’s cottages on fairly tight lots; my parents’ bungalow (on a 30’ by 125’ lot) is a suburban estate by comparison.  But we couldn’t sell the bungalow for a third of what the houses are going for along the 606.

A mix of sun, wind and sweat makes for good time travel.  The neighborhoods we were walking through—and above—reminded me of Bridgeport, when we’d go visit my Grandma Bukowski.  Yet even Bridgeport is gentrifying.  The ghosts are made to yield to progress in the form of skyrocketing real-estate prices.  At least in Bridgeport I can see buildings that cue childhood memories.  Ex-residents who walk the 606 have that advantage, too, I’m sure.

But when you go to 35^th and Shields only to find a parking lot instead of a ballpark, the memories fade.  I can never show Clare where I walked into Comiskey Park with my father, or where the old fighter stood after games selling early editions of the Chicago American.  I walk along the 606 in my reverie only to look up and see Cub flags and joggers in Cubs’ tee-shirts.  I’m a long way from home.