More Yogi, and Melancholy

 Avisail Garcia and Tyler Saladino kept it up in a 7-2 White Sox win over the Royals last night.  Garcia went 2 for 4 with a run scored while Saladino did him one better, with his second straight 3-for-4 night, including a double and a run scored to go with two rbi’s.

This is the kind of performance that makes me want to shout, Wait’ll Next Year, only it’s September in Chicago.  Virtually no one cares about the White Sox in September.  They either have to be in the thick of the pennant race or take a back seat to the Bears.  The leaves are far from falling, but September 10^th is football season in these parts.  I hate it but have to accept that it comes with the territory.

I was looking through the tiny type in the sports pages today (new glasses really do help) and saw that on this date in 1967 Joe Horlen of the Sox no-hit the Tigers, 6-0.  Horlen was an error and hit-by-pitch short of a perfect game.  He went 19-7 with a 2.06 ERA but finished second in Cy Young Award voting to Jim Lonborg of the Red Sox.  Really, we ought to make Rodney Dangerfield a posthumous, honorary South Sider.  We just don’t get no respect.

As I recall, Horlen pitched on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.  I’d walked over the five blocks to my grandmother’s, not to visit so much as mow the lawn, which was my job.  I can still remember the stump of an apricot tree in the backyard and the garden.  All the grandchildren I suspect liked it better when Grandma grew strawberries than carrots for the simple fact it was easier for us to bend over and pick strawberries than dig up carrots with a spade.  Anyway, I’d do half the backyard, then run in and put the game on the TV, then go out and do some moret, then watch more on the TV.  I must’ve finished ahead of Horlen because I can remember watching the end of the game.  I thought for sure the Sox would win the pennant.  They finished fourth instead, three games behind the Impossible Dream Red Sox.

I just don’t do well with Septembers.