The Dog Days

These are the dog days of winter for a baseball fan, from the end of the fan fests to the start of spring training.  The weather outside is frightful, the news concerns anything but the national pastime.  Last night I watched a sports’ report about a Chicago synchronized ice skating team that won a world title.  It’s enough to drive a person crazy.

To fight that, I daydream and ask myself questions like, what if the White Sox had never traded away Norm Cash or Johnny Callison or Aaron Rowand; kept minor leaguer Denny McLain over Bruce Howard; or signed Torii Hunter?  When that grows old, I go to baseball-reference.com.  The things you can learn there.

Forget the advanced metrics, and just start clicking.  That’s how I found that future Sox and Cubs’ GM Larry Himes was a 23-year old catcher with the Indianapolis Indians in 1964 and outfielder Mike Hershberger, all 5’10” and 175 pounds of him, threw out 17 baserunners for the Athletics in 1967?  Or that the Brooklyn Dodgers barely drew a million fans in 1955, the year they finally beat the Yankees in the World Series?  Or that Dodgers’ starter Carl Erskine—“Oisk” to the Brooklyn faithful—turned 89 last December?

I also check out baseball cards on eBay from time to time.  Maybe this is the year I flesh out my Topps collection for 1965.  It’s definitely worth thinking about.