A Little Down Time

 This is a tough stretch for me and my daughter.  It’s the second half of March, and she should be hitting a softball, with me sitting in the stands watching her hit a softball.  Trust me, some habits are really hard to let go of.  But Elmhurst softball goes on, even if we don’t.  On top of that, Valpo starts conference play this week, so Clare will be on the road in Youngstown Ohio facing the mighty State Penguins on Easter Saturday.  Either we color Easter eggs late Saturday night or after church Sunday, whenever Clare can drive back home.  After Easter dinner, our daughter’s basically gone the next six weeks, unless we go to see her.

That’s why it was nice she drove in for Palm Sunday; we make a great crowd for the Passion reading of the Gospel.  After all that calling for Barabbas, father and daughter spent the afternoon relaxing on the couch watching spring-training baseball.  That’s how I came across the Mets’ Curtis Granderson talking about using a hitting tee.  He didn’t like it at first, but Kevin Long, the team’s new hitting coach, talked him into it, and now Granderson loves it.

What I enjoyed was listening to Granderson, who referred to all the parts of his swing as a “dance.”  Only now, Long and the tee have convinced him, “We go dancing after the game.”  In other words, Granderson dropped all the little tics and whatnots that went into his swing.  Now, it’s: bat ready to hit, hit.  Granderson made it sound so simple, which leads me to think he has a future down the line as a hitting coach.

      The White Sox will fly around the globe in search of talent.  Curtis Granderson was born in south-suburban Blue Island and attended school at the University of Illinois-Chicago, where one of the professors on my dissertation committee had him for a student (tough teacher, gave him a B).  The Tigers took Granderson in the third round.  Twelve major-league seasons and 263 home runs later, I’d still like to know why the Sox didn’t take him in the first or second round.