Home for the Holiday

Someone at work asked Clare yesterday if she was staying late, and my daughter replied, “No, it’s a second Christmas,” or what we in these parts call Home Run Derby.  Brawts on the grill followed by taters on the TV, if you will.

You would think—at least I would—that watching baseball players hit mammoth shots off of soft toss either wouldn’t be that interesting or a little depressing.  Clare stands 5’6” while Aaron Judge, last night’s Derby winner, is a good thirteen inches taller.  But Clare loved it, watching balls sail into the shadows of Marlins Park or hit against the wall of windows in far left field.  It takes one to know one, I guess.

We also discussed a number of matters involving the White Sox, in particular the strange case of Adam Engel, who probably plays a better center field than Aaron Rowand.  Engel is scary fast and muscular, yet he’s prone to grounding out to short.  Clare says he’s not getting his bat through the hitting zone.  To make her point, she jumped up off the couch and mimicked Engel’s swing.  The girl is a natural hitting coach, I swear.

At one point, Clare’s fiancé Chris teased her that the 6’7”, 280-pound Judge probably picked baseball over football because he was afraid of the contact, words spoken like the true former football player Chris is.  Clare would have none of it.  As soon as she heard that Judge has “179” on the screen of his phone to remind him every day what he batted with the Yankees last year, she had herself a new sports’ hero.  Later, I checked to see and, yup, the Sox could’ve drafted him.  Oh, well, the balls are pretty to watch as they leave the atmosphere.