Gibber-jabber

I never let Clare make excuses for herself or talk gibber, as I call it.  She always hustled, so I never once called her on that in high school or college.  Hitting, we disagreed on and argued over.  On my end, it was all about learning from mistakes and finding the best approach that day against that pitcher.  My daughter thought she was doing that and told me when I was wrong to think otherwise.  You could call it a frank exchange of positions that went on for some time.

Thank God I had the child I did because if I were the father of James Shields or Todd Frazier, they might not have made it to the majors.  Shields started for the White Sox yesterday and escaped with three runs in five innings on eight hits and three walks.  This is how he put it to the Tribune:  “They [Giants’ hitters] battled me out there.  They had a bunch of foul-offs today, and the second inning was my bad inning [where he allowed all three runs].  I was up in the zone a little bit, and they were taking advantage of it.”  The Sun-Times story had Shields also saying, “But overall, I felt good, and I’m ready to move on.”  Not so fast, son.

If the other team has a lot of “foul-offs,” as you put it, that means your fastball was very hittable and your breaking stuff wasn’t doing anything special.  A pitcher should never talk about “my bad inning” because that makes it sound he’s in the habit of giving himself a mulligan every appearance.  And don’t be in a rush to move on unless you’ve learned something first.

As for Frazier, he’s hitting .161 without any homers or rbi’s in a spring where he’s had to battle finger and oblique injuries.  But not to worry, he tells the Trib.  “Everything is good, where I want to be.  I’m working on some stuff, so the numbers might not all be there, but the way I’m approaching spring training is to work and see what I can do going to the opposite field.”

You see, Frazier wants to improve on his .225 average from last year, but only so much.  “I’m a .250 hitter, so I’d like to be around there.  Let’s be realistic.  I’m not going to hit .315 or .320, even though I’d like to.  That means I’ll probably hit 15 home runs [vs. the 40 he hit in 2016], if that’s the case.  You have to be realistic with yourself.  Be who you are.”  And who exactly is that, young man?

Any child of mine was encouraged to demand the most of herself, to hit .300, then more [.425 one year in high school, .309 one season in college], six homeruns, then more [10 one year in high school, seven one year in college].  The idea isn’t to hit 40 homers or .315, but to do both.  Didn’t Frazier grow up wanting to be like Mike...Schmidt?  If not, why not?  Being “realistic” should never be an excuse for expecting less of yourself, as my daughter could tell you.