The Clockmaker

Call me a deist, someone who believes God created the universe and then stepped away; the common metaphor is of a clockmaker who makes his timepiece, winds it up and then waits for it to stop ticking, whenever that millennia might be.  What better way to explain 50 inches of rain in Houston or the preseason injury to the Bears’ Cameron Meredith, who suffered a torn ACL in his left knee in a preseason game Saturday?  Sports doesn’t care anymore than nature does.  Time just keeps on ticking.

Worse yet, Meredith is one of the few Bears it’s easy to root for.  He played his high school ball literally down the street from us at St. Joseph’s (Clare beat up on St. Joe’s pitching every spring) and college at Illinois State (where my daughter considered going before settling on Elmhurst).  He was an undrafted free agent who showed just how wrong scouts can be in evaluating talent with a good rookie season last year.  He also talked about his craft the way that Paul Konerko did, without the ego.

Meredith is only 24, so he could come back from his injury.  It all depends on how much time is left.

Dollars and Sense

Last night, James Shields did his ever-diminishing impression of a major-league pitcher in a 6-4 White Sox loss to the Twins.  With runners on the corners and one out in the bottom of the first, Shields fielded a comebacker, turned around and did his best to toss the ball into center field.  Somehow, second baseman Yolmer Sanchez snared the throw to get the runner going to second, but the damage was done, one run in and one more to go in the first.

On the night, Shields yielded four earned runs on five hits and three walks (and that mental error) to put his record at 2-5 with a 5.72 ERA, but you know what?  Odds are, he’ll be back.  Want to know why?  Because he has one more year guaranteed on his contract at $21 million.

Basically, the Padres (who signed him) and Sox (who agreed to take on part of the contract) will split the cost, so, theoretically, the Sox could buy Shields out for $11 million.  This would be textbook addition-through-subtraction but that would require the front office admitting it made a big mistake trading for Shields in 2015.  Given that nobody yet has owned up to signing the Adam twins (Dunn and LaRoche), don’t expect a sudden fit of honesty on 35^th Street.

It could be worse.  The Tigers’ Miguel Cabrera cleared waivers, and the only way any team picks him up is if Detroit assumes virtually all of the $184 million (!!) left on his contract, that extends another five years.  If nothing else, baseball will punish any team that goes dumb by going long.

Take a Cold Shower

The way we dress conveys all sorts of messages—dress like a slob, get taken for a slob, if you will.  Dress for work, be taken as someone seriously on the job.  Alas, the one exception appears to be women sports’ commentators, Jessica Mendoza excepted.

Not long ago, I turned on the MLB Network to catch ex-player Eric Byrnes going ga-ga over the heels worn by his female co-host; she, on the other hand, said nothing about his shoes.  Then, over the weekend I happened on an NFL preseason broadcast; the studio co-host was wearing an off-the-shoulder number, and I don’t mean the guy.  This is gender stereotyping by décolletage, hemlines and spike heels.

I suspect that the female broadcasters were adhering to a dress code, stated or implied.  All I know is that women on sports’ broadcasts show a lot more skin than their male counterparts, who on average also look a heck of a lot older.  If I were master of the universe, or just the head of a television network, I would mandate grownup clothes for the on-air talent and make sure they had something to say.  Otherwise, bye-bye.

I mean, do we really need to watch and hear the likes of Terry Bradshaw or Howie Long?    

The "Sweet" Science

The “Sweet” Science

That circus act in a ring, aka the Saturday night fight between boxer Floyd Mayweather and mixed-martial arts’ fighter Conor McGregor, was delayed due to difficulties with pay-per-view.  P.T. Barnum never would’ve left his suckers waiting.  For those who care, the black man stopped the white man, the white man lasted into the tenth round, and both men made an obscene amount of money.  As to what it all means, who cares?

My father took me to a White Sox game, maybe 1965 or ’66.  The game ended a little after ten, and we were walking out of the park when he pointed out a newspaper vendor hawking a very late—or early—edition of the Chicago American.  “He used to be a good fighter,” said my dad, pointing to a middle-aged African-American the imprint of whose life showed all across his face.  I was left to wonder what had brought him to selling newspapers outside a ballpark on a weeknight.

Maybe twenty years later, I found myself in a sports’ memorabilia shop on Kedzie Avenue just south of 63^rd Street; it was run by a father and son.  The older man pointed out a foot-tall cardboard cutout of him in all his boxing glory.  “I forget things sometimes,” he informed me, standing way too close to someone who was a stranger.  Another minute or so in the place, and I could’ve been on the receiving end of a nine-count.

Last week, the Tribune ran a story on Gerald McClellan, a former middleweight champion from Freeport, Illinois.  McClellan suffered permanent brain damage from his 1995 fight with Nigel Benn.  He’s also blind and mostly deaf, living on a mix of disability support and charity.  His sister is his primary caregiver.

Of course, this won’t be Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor’s future, and I doubt either of them will be visiting McClellan anytime soon.     

Stupid is as Stupid Does

I don’t get this whole notion of jogging or running for health.  If a zombie or Dick Butkus is chasing me, OK, I’m running to save my life.  Otherwise, stay calm and keep a steady pace.

Maybe I act differently on my bike; you’d have to ask the people I pass by.  I admit to trying to push myself the other day on a 57-mile ride.  The first and end parts of the trail go through forest preserves, much of the rest on streets and sidewalks.  If you don’t stay focused, you’ll never finish, and some guy in a Subaru will try to run you off the road.  If this makes me sound like I’m running a marathon, so be it.

Anybody who wants to run, I say let them.  What bothers me, though, is people jogging with their dogs on a leash.  Did their animal come up to them and say:  I’d really love to do five miles with you in the heat and humidity.  And don’t worry about me not being able to cool off by sweating the way you humans do.  I’m a dog, your-ever obedient friend.

Is there anything dumber or meaner than running with a dog?  Until yesterday, I would’ve said, No, but I now stand corrected.  I saw a clown—I’m using the word in full, South-Side derision—riding his bike with his dog following on a leash.  This is wrong on so many levels.  If our pets ever do rise up and rebel against us, it will be on account of runners and cyclists who abused them. 

More of the Above, Contd. Again

It was twelve years ago this weekend, with Clare starting eighth grade and my Auntie Fran celebrating her 80^th birthday.  (The card for #92 went out on Monday.)

You could say that everyone was on pins and needles; Clare had just tried out for two travel teams, and we were waiting to hear back from them.  I had never seen my daughter perform at such an intense level before the way she did at the first tryout; Pony baseball had been a slightly more casual affair.  Among other things, we didn’t use a stopwatch to time anyone running the bases.

The day before my aunt’s birthday, Clare put on a second display at a tryout, pretty much rifling every pitch she saw from the pitching machine; at one point she hit the coach who was sitting by the machine and taking notes on each player.  At the end of the tryout, he came up to me and said, “In the fifteen years I’ve been doing this, I have never seen anyone so relaxed at the plate or with hands so fast.” Yes, I wrote it down the better to remember, that and when he said, “Obviously, you’re thinking college.”

In truth, I was thinking my aunt’s birthday party, eighth grade, high school and the possibility of the White Sox going to the World Series (they did), in no particular order.  Clare was 13 at the time.  What did I know about college softball?  I didn’t even know she’d basically tried out for a 16u team.

After the barbecue and birthday cake, we came home early that Sunday evening.  Clare got two phone calls, within minutes of each other.  One coach had changed his mind and now wanted her on his team, the other just wanted her.  Nothing was ever the same after that.

It’s a good memory folded into another.

Marking Time

Sports are and always have been a primary memory aid for me.  I can remember being seven because of the 1959 Dodgers-White Sox World Series.  In the same way, I have a distinct memory of being eleven, sitting in the backseat of the car and listening to the Bears beat the Giants for the NFL Championship.  Anything I can recall from the summer that followed is set against the backdrop of the 1964 White Sox.  Oh, what could have been.

I can recall high school and my undergraduate years; there are any number of baseball-infused memories; the Bulls of Jerry Sloan and Norm Van Lier also help.  I started Ph.D. school as the South Side Hitmen started to sputter and was deep into my dissertation the day of the Bears’ Super Bowl parade in January of 1986.  Parenthood came nearly six years later, in November 1991.  Trust me, a child helps you remember things on an altogether different level.

Clare generated sports’ memories, so everything starting to reinforce itself starting in the late 1990s, after t-ball.  Then comes grade school, high school and college, some of the memories sports-connected, some not, but all of them tied to an athlete.  I may even come to see 2017 through the lens of the “great rebuild.”

The one thing I can’t remember is the Beatles playing two shows at Comiskey Park fifty years ago this week.  I can definitely remember the second-place Sox trying to catch the Twins, and I know I was dreading the start of eighth grade, where a not-too-friendly math teacher awaited, but the Beatles?  No, not a thing.

I guess it’s because I wasn’t really into pop music then; that would only come later, towards the end of high school.  Did I mention that Walt Williams had five hits and five runs scored in a game against the Red Sox on the date of my high-school graduation, May 31, 1970?

How could I forget?

Report Card

Hey, White Sox fans, want to know if going down to Guaranteed Rate Whatever and check out your team’s rebuild is worth the bother?  Well, read on.

First off, know that there’s basically no bullpen.  The Sox used four relievers in Saturday’s 17-7 blowout loss to the Rangers, and not one of them had an ERA under 6.00; two had ERAs north of 8.00.  Maybe it’s too early in “the process” to worry about who follows the starter.

Did I say “starter”?  Well, we seem to have one in Carlos Rodon, a lefty with nasty stuff; you can only hope Rodon’s mysterious arm injury that lasted from spring training into July won’t return next year.  Right now, the Sox are half-way to duplicating the old Boston Braves’ refrain of “[Warren] Spahn and [Johnny] Sain and pray for rain.”  Rodon might do a passable imitation of Spahn (half of whose victory total would still come out to 181 games).  After that, it  looks like a lot of rain.

Reynaldo Lopez had one good start and one not-so-good during which he hurt his back to end up on the DL.  Carson Fulmer made his 2017 debut against the Twins three days ago and, shall we say, stunk up the place, as in two three-run homers in the second inning to leave with an ERA of 40.50.  Factor in eight relief appearances last year, and the career ERA goes all the way down to 11.77.  Cubs’ Rookie-of-the-Year candidate Ian Happ was available in the same draft, but we took Fulmer.  Makes you wonder, no?  Lucas Giolito, one of the pitchers from the Nationals obtained for Adam Eaton, gave up four runs in six innings in his debut Tuesday night.  Even with the three home runs Giolito coughed up to Twins’ batters, he looked light years more advanced than Fulmer.

And how about hitters for the rebuild?  Well, Matt Davidson is a legitimate power threat, if only he weren’t stuck on 22 homers.  But that’s what happens when a team lets the opposition throw at its batters without threat of retaliation.  It’s been open season on Davidson and Jose Abreu.  Davidson has been out since he was hit on the wrist the first week of August.  With luck, he’ll return next week and go back to hitting long balls.

The one real—and pleasant—surprise has been infielder-outfielder Nicky Delmonico, hitting .315 in 73 at-bats with a .425 on-base percentage.  Delmonico has six homers, 12 RBIs and 13 walks vs. 14 strikeouts.  Compare that to the much-heralded second baseman Yoan Moncada.

The centerpiece of the Chris Sale trade is hitting .192 in 99 at-bats.  Moncada has three homers and 11 RBIs with 18 walks, which is nice, and 43 strikeouts, which isn’t.  Unlike centerfielder Adam Engel, who’s now hitting a god-awful .182, Moncada hasn’t looked anywhere near as good in the field.  Tim Anderson, the other half of our double-play combination of the future, appears lost at times, with a .239 BA and 25 errors at short. A groundball up the middle is a real adventure for Moncada-Anderson.  Let it be noted, however, that Moncada’s last three hits have all been doubles and Anderson delivered his first-ever walk-off hit against the Twins last night.  I hope as well as despair. 

There you have it, an up-close and personal look at the rebuild in progress.  A show of hands of who want to pay for the price of admission to a game?

Ripple Effects

The Mets’ Curtis Granderson was traded to the universe-leading Dodgers last week, and good for him.  Granderson is one of those Chicago-area products our local teams can never seem to scout.  On top of that, he is a genuinely decent human being who’s given a ton of money to his alma mater, the University of Illinois at Chicago, where I used to teach.  I have it on good authority from a former colleague that Granderson actually made the effort to attend class and get his work in on time, as much as baseball would allow.  (Yes, he has his degree.)  Come the offseason, which won’t happen until close to November given how the Dodgers are playing, you can expect Granderson to be involved with his kids-oriented foundation along with efforts to feed the homeless.

But baseball can be a cruel business.  If someone comes to a team, someone has to go.  In this case, the Dodgers made room for Granderson by sending down outfielder Joc Pederson, the feel-good story of 2015, when the rookie came out of nowhere to hit 26 homers.  Pederson added 25 last year and 11 so far in 2017, but he has a career batting average of just .222.  So, bye-bye, Joc.

Come postseason, Los Angeles will have to decide who goes on the roster.  Right now they’re going with 13(!!!) pitchers and four outfielders.  Depending on injury or strategy or whim, Pederson finds himself on the bubble to be one of the lucky 25, which is more than you can say for ex-White Sox Trayce Thompson.  If Pederson is on the outside looking in, Thompson is behind him trying to get a glimpse of the bigtime.

After the Sox traded Thompson in a three-team deal with the Dodgers and Reds, Thompson had a decent 2016 with LA, hitting 13 homers in just 236 at-bats.  But he hit a mere .225.  This year, in limited duty he’s managed an even more anemic .116.

Thompson played a very nice center field the half-season he was on the South Side in 2015 and demonstrated a Granderson-like humility, which goes a long way with me if no one else.  Maybe, if the baseball gods are in the mood, they’ll cut Thompson some slack, and Pederson, too, so they can enjoy what Curtis Granderson has earned.   

More of the Above, Contd.

Well, I see by today’s paper that the Tigers’ Ian Kinsler was fined $10,000 for daring to speak the truth about an umpire.  Here’s hoping that the quivering mass in blue feels safe when taking the field today.

Strange, though, I couldn’t find a word about Kinsler’s fine on the MLB website.  All sorts of rah-rah stories about this and that, especially anything related to the wild card “chase,” but nothing hinting of honest-to-goodness news.  Here’s a suggestion, guys.  Instead of posting inane videos of golfer Rory McIlroy hitting a tee shot from behind the plate at Yankee Stadium and the Mariners’ “pregame locker room magic,” why not show clips of Hernandez and Joe West calling balls and strikes?

I bet that would get a lot of hits.

More of the Above

So, I guess if the choice is siding with Joe Maddon or the umpires, I go with Maddon, at least off of what happened in a game against the Reds last week.  With two runners on and nobody out in the bottom of the ninth in a tied game, the Cubs’ Ben Zobrist wanted to bunt, only the ball hit him in the leg.  Zobrist went to first, that is, until the first-base umpire ruled that he swung at the ball, negating the hit-by-pitch.  Maddon went ballistic and got tossed.

The call was terrible, and Maddon was right to put on a show.  But we mustn’t pick on the poor umpires, some of whom on Saturday wore wristbands to show solidarity with poor abused Angel Hernandez.  The umpires’ association released a statement that accused the commissioner’s office of failing to “address this [the comments made by the Tigers’ Ian Kinsler about Hernandez] and other escalating attacks on umpires.”

Oh, my gosh, emergency rooms in all the MLB cities must be full of men in blue.  And there’ll be more because Commissioner Rob Manfred and his underlings have shown “lenient treatment to abusive player behavior [that] sends the wrong message to players and managers.  It’s ‘open season’ on umpires, and that’s bad for the game.”

Open season?  I have visions of Bugs Bunny being chased by Elmer Fudd.  Joe West would make a great Fudd, don’t you think?

He's No Angel

Clare was playing in a travel tournament the spring of eighth grade.  It was a full count, at least one runner on base, when she lined a ball just foul down the first base line.  “Well, that’s that,” I thought to myself.  “She’ll swing at the next pitch no matter what.”  Only my daughter took a pitch low and outside for what should’ve been ball four only to get rung up by an umpire with a bizarro strike zone.  I said something loud enough for Blue to hear and was threatened with an ejection.  “I’m just exercising my First Amendment right,” I responded.  Who says a Ph.D. doesn’t come in handy on the weekend?

I was reminded of that long-ago incident because of something similar that happened to the Tigers’ Ian Kinsler earlier this week.  He was tossed by home-plate umpire Angel Hernandez for uttering the inflammatory words “What about that one?” after one of two low and outside pitches was called a strike on him.

Kinsler went on to tell Hernandez, “You need to re-evaluate your life, man.  Just go home right now.  Get out of the game.  Just leave the game alone.  Please.”  Basically, the problem with Hernandez is that he comes from the Joe West school of umpiring, which is no school at all.  Just make a call and dare anyone to disagree.  With advances in pitch-tracking technology, that school is begging to be closed down sooner than later.

Travel, high school and college umpires are part of the landscape; you accept them, along with the weather.  But it’s different in MLB; it’s called “big league” for a reason.  Unfortunately, a lot of umpires out there didn’t get the memo, and haven’t since the days of Ron Luciano and Ken Kaiser (and I’ll bet Jocko Conlon, too, but, believe it or not, he was before my time).  West and his ilk are like former presidential candidate Gary Hart daring reporters to catch him in the act.  Hart got caught just once, but it was enough to end his career.  With Hernandez, West et al, they get caught missing calls game after game.

Something has to give. 

What a Load

White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf deigned to do an interview with USA Today’s Bob Nightengale, who predicted Reinsdorf’s selection to Cooperstown one day.  Yeah, but only if he pays the price of admission first, if I have anything to say about it.

Reinsdorf was in fine form, peddling his crap about how, “As an owner of this team, I have an obligation to do what’s right for the fans.  The real owner of a team is the fans; the owner is a custodian.  I will be gone one day, but [the] fans will still be there.  So you’ve got to run the team [and do] what’s right for the fans and not even think about how old I am.”

What a crock.  Custodian?  I wouldn’t hire the guy as a part-time janitor, not that he’d be qualified.  Where was the custodian when he threatened to move the fans’ team to Tampa?  When did the custodian ask me if I wanted a new, publicly funded stadium, which meant tearing down a landmark in the process?  Did the custodian bother to call to ask my opinion about dealing away Chris Sale?  Damn’ right I intend to be around after he’s gone.  And I want my fair share of the sales’ price after the custodian sells the team.

Reinsdorf got one thing right in distinguishing between the Sox rebuild and those done by the Cubs and Astros.  “They had a honeymoon [as teams with new owners].  With us, we were the guys who made the team bad.  We were the ones who took us from a World Series winner to a non-contender.”

That’s right, Jerry.  And this is one part-owner who won’t let you forget.

Don't Try This at Home, Kids

 

Casey Stengel said that, without a catcher, you’d have a lot of passed balls.  It’s a whole lot worse trying to play baseball without a bullpen, believe me.

The White Sox—or Joke Sox, because nothing counts in a rebuild—have turned a four-game winning streak into a five-game losing streak.  Against the Dodgers Tuesday night, the bullpen allowed five runs to score in the bottom of the eighth after two out.  The 6-1 final score really was closer than it looked.

Then, the next night in LA, the bullpen did even better, needing just two outs in the ninth—with nobody on, mind you—for the win.  How do you say 5-4 walk-off, Dodgers?  They couldn’t get a stinking out.

And last night in Texas, more of the same.  The bullpen couldn’t keep the score tied at five, and it couldn’t keep the margin to one after the Sox had pulled to 8-7.  Jose Abreu’s homerun in the ninth would’ve tied it, but No, your White Sox lose again, 9-8.  Ha-ha-ha.

Chris Beck (5.87 ERA) and Jake Petricka (9.00 ERA) must have something on manager Rick Renteria to make him keep using them, or maybe he just doesn’t like them and shows it by by putting them into games night after night.  Oh, but think of the draft position next year.  Maybe they’ll draft another starter, given that Reynaldo Lopez, one of the stars of the future, has a 6.10 ERA in 10.1 innings after two starts.  Oh, and Lopez had to leave early last night with soreness in his right, throwing, side.

Didn't Casey say something about the best-laid plans of mice and men, too?

Practicing What You Preach

 If there’s a White Sox game on outside of work hours, my daughter is likely watching or listening.  If she needs to talk about it, she calls me, as she did Tuesday night with the Sox visiting the Dodgers.

Ex-Sox and fan-favorite Aaron Rowand was providing the color with Jason Benetti doing play-by-play.  With the late-blooming Jacob Turner batting, Benetti asked Rowand when the proverbial light went on for him in figuring out how to hit.  Bingo!  The phone rings, and Clare fairly shouts at me, “The light never went on, Aaron!”  I didn’t raise my child to lie, and she’s right.  Rowand could’ve played a good 15 years had he ever learned how to hit.

Instead, he batted with what Clare calls his “sitting on a stool” stance,” knees bent and torso leaning forward.  So standing, Rowand was then ready to try and pull every pitch he ever saw, from his first game (June 16, 2001) to his last (August 30, 2011).  With Rowand, it was either a base hit (career batting average of   .273), groundball to short or strikeout. 

What made Rowand special was his fielding.  He followed in a line of talented centerfielders—Landis, Berry, Agee and Johnson, among others.  That’s when I perked up to hear him say how impressed he is with Adam Engel.  Now, if only the light goes on for Adam in a way it never truly did for Aaron, we’ll be onto something.

Pigskin Follies

The Bears had kicker Robbie Gould for eleven seasons, during which time he became their all-time leading scorer while making not only the most field goals in team history but the most from 50-plus yards to boot (sorry, I couldn’t help myself).  Naturally, the Bears cut Gould just before the start of last season in order to save money on his contract.  See Richard Sherman, above.

I remember picking Clare up from a Sunday indoor travel ball practice one December.  I had the Bears’ game on the radio as I waited for practice to end.  It was a typical Chicago day, meaning miserable, and more so at Soldier Field, where the Bears were playing.  On to the field comes Gould, who kicks a 50-some yard field goal in conditions that would make a polar bear shiver.  The fans went wild.  Really, Gould’s nickname should’ve been “Windy City Robbie” for his ability to kick in adverse conditions.  You cut a player like that, and you better have a good replacement.  Instead, the Bears came up with the immortal Connor Barth.

Barth was so underwhelming last season the Bears opened camp trying to replace him with a 28-year old undrafted rookie.  When that didn’t work, they picked up Roberto Aguayo from Tampa.  The Bucs used a second-round pick to select Aguayo last year, so that they would cut him after one season should tell you something.

Not that the Bears would be listening.  

Belly Up

Here’s yet another reason to despise baseball rebuilds: as of this morning, none of the pitchers on the White Sox roster has a save to his credit this year.

The Sox started the season with David Roberston as their closer and other options, including Nate Jones, Tommy Kahnle and Zach Burdi.  Only Jones and Burdi are out with elbow injuries while Kahnle was traded to the Yankees last month along with Robertson.  Journeyman Tyler Clippard came over from New York and filled the closer’s role here, that is, until yesterday when he was traded to Houston.  So, we have no closers and no real reason to go out and get one.

I mean, this season isn’t about winning, right?  In that case, why bother with a catcher?  Or just get Tyler Flowers back, which would be the same thing.  Oh, but what a great and glorious future the rebuild promises. Next year, or the one after that, Yoan Moncada won’t be striking out five straight times like he did last week.  At least, I hope he won’t.

A Moment of Clarity...

…and how I achieved it today.  You can, too, by following these simple instructions.

 Start by biking to the CTA Blue Line.  Catch a train and take it to Racine.  Once up the ramp, bike Racine down to Roosevelt Road and east on Roosevelt to the Lakefront Trail.  Proceed north nine miles to end of trail, then switch over to the one that connects to Sheridan Road.  Take Sheridan north into Evanston and switch over to Central.

Take Central to Green Bay Road and Green Bay north into Wilmette, Kenilworth, Winnetka and Glencoe.  Turn left at Dundee Road and proceed west to the Chicago Botanic Garden.  Stop there for lunch, then head home by taking the North Branch of the Chicago River trail.  At trail’s end, find Nagle Avenue and proceed south to Gunnison, west on Gunnison to Oak Park Avenue, south on Oak Park until back home, or in hospital.  The entire trip should take no more than six hours.

Doing this, I was able to clear my head at some in the journey to come upon a profound truth, that only in Chicago could a 3-13 football team dominate the sports’ scene.  Who’s going to play quarterback?  Who’s going to kick?  Will the receivers be any better?  Did you see Virginia McCaskey out among the peasants?  Visitors who get a load of this have to wonder what’s wrong with us.  Jeez, it’s mid-August, and the 3-13 Bears command the sports-world’s full attention.  Turn away, people, turn away.   

Not Fit for Prime Time

Clare finds herself a de facto football widow these days.  Her fiancé Chris is out the door at 6 AM and back roughly sixteen hours later; such is the life of a college offensive line coach in season.  So, my daughter wasn’t exactly in the best of moods when she visited Saturday afternoon.  The Little League World Series only made it worse.

“Why do they broadcast this?” she wanted to know, half-daring me to defend the thought process of TV producers.  But after the scandal involving the Jackie Robinson Little League team from Chicago a few years ago, I’m done with that.  Ditto ESPN broadcasting some 14U girls’ softball travel ball championship.  Really, this is God’s way of telling us to get out of the house and enjoy the summer while we can.

Oh, I love 12-year olds playing baseball, which is what Clare did; the jump to softball didn’t happen for over another year.  There’s not greater thrill than watching your kid hit a walk-off homerun.  I was so blessed on July 2, 2004.  I have the ball and the memory.  Why can’t that be enough for Little League and ESPN?

The Future is...Coming?

The White Sox have stopped circling the drain long enough to record four straight wins, including a three-game sweep of the AL-best Astros.  I watched, and learned.

Regardless what the team is doing on the field, TV broadcasts give regular minor-league updates along with rebuild tutorials.  Why, did you know the Astros had six straight losing years, including three straight 106-plus loss seasons before it all came together?  And last night’s opponent, the Kansas City Royals, also went through nine straight losing seasons before getting it all together.  If only the guys in the booth had bothered to mention the other, earlier nine-year span of sub-.500 seasons, from 1994-2002.  But we don’t want White Sox fans thinking they’re in store for so much losing baseball, now do we?  I mean, we’re already at five straight losing seasons and, barring a miracle, six come October.

That said, General Manager Rick Hahn has cause to breathe easier this week.  Yoan Moncada, he of the Chris Sale trade, is only hitting .215 since his call up, but he also has an on-base percentage of .370; not bad.  From what I can tell, Moncada will strike out but not go fishing in the process.  You can build on that.  And he had his first-ever walk-off hit Thursday against Houston.

Last night saw the Sox debut of righty starter Reynaldo Lopez, and he, too, looked good, giving up just two runs in six innings.  The night before that, Carlos Rodon went eight innings while giving up two runs.  That’s two-fifths of a reconstructed pitching staff.  Come September, maybe we’ll see what the other minor-league pitchers can do.

As for rookie center fielder Adam Engel, he has the rest of the season to figure out how to hit.  I give Engel credit, though.  Once his average slipped below .200, he changed his stance so that he doesn’t look so stiff and mechanical at the plate.  It worked last night at least, with Engel hitting two triples in a 6-3 win over the Royals.  Maybe I should mention here that Engel is a walking—and leaping and diving—highlight reel in the field.  Hence, the time granted for him to work on his hitting.

Too bad James Shields starts tonight.  A five-game winning streak would’ve been nice.

Upon Further Review...

Shame on my hometown Chicago Tribune for quoting UCLA quarterback Josh Rosen (way way) out of context.  Rosen told Bleacher Report in a recent interview “football and school don’t go together.”

That’s the kind of thing that gets me really mad.  My daughter was a high school and college athlete with excellent grades; we expected no less of her.  Clare didn’t have to follow us into the liberal arts, but she had to be good at whatever she decided to do.  After getting a master’s degree in sports’ administration, she muscled her way into a fulltime position at Northwestern University.  Parental mission accomplished.

So, I was all ready to go after Rosen as the next Johnny Manzel until I read the entire interview, in which the junior quarterback complained about the conflict between a required class in his major—economics, not basket weaving—and spring football.  That wasn’t what I expected to hear from a possible #1 NFL draft pick.

Rosen went on to say, “Human beings don’t belong in school with our schedules.  No one in their right mind should have a football player’s schedule and go to school.  It’s not that some players shouldn’t be in school; it’s just that universities should help them more—instead of just finding ways to keep them eligible.”

In addition, Rosen thinks:  “At some point, universities have to do more to prepare players for university life and help them succeed beyond football.  There’s so much money being made in this sport.  It’s a crime not to do everything you can to help the people who are making it for those who are spending it.”

This is a 20-year old talking?  Maybe it stems from what the players at Northwestern tried to do a couple of years ago spreading West.  I hope so.

Top-secret

It’s come to this: Notre Dame has issued a set of rules restricting what can be shown and reported of its football practices.

Coach Brian Kelly doesn’t want the opposition to find out what the Fighting Irish are planning or thinking or which of them has been hurt.  The restrictions are too many and too bizarre to cite here.  Suffice it to say that a department of an institution dedicated to higher learning could pass for the Ministry of Truth a la 1984.

The scary thing is that other college football teams are trying the same out of fear they could lose an edge in the next game.  Guys, what’s new under the sun in your business, I mean, after forward pass?  The trick play by itself doesn’t win the game.  No, it’s knowing when to call the triple-cut-left.

If Kelly were a baseball manager, he wouldn’t let anyone see his starters warming up in the bullpen for fear that someone might see all their pitches.  As my friend Forrest would say, stupid is as stupid does.

Culture Clash

Cubs’ catcher Willson Contreras was named National League Player of the Week after going 10 for 22 with 5 homeruns and 13 RBIs.  When Contreras isn’t stopping to watch what he hits, he’s shouting about it.

Oh-oh, this must make me old school, or worse.  OK, I’ll cop to the first but not the second, and here’s why.  White Sox players have never been known for bat flipping and other such nonsense.  Tell you what.  Consider ex-Sox greats Jermaine Dye, Paul Konerko and Frank Thomas.  Those three accounted for 1285 home runs between them, vs. 33 so far for Contreras.  I dare anyone to point out a time that one of those three stood in the box to watch the ball clear the fence or flipped his bat to start his run around the bases.

Better yet, someone have Contreras go to YouTube and watch Konerko’s performance on September 16, 2010.  The Twins’ Carl Pavano hit Konerko in the face the bottom of the first inning.  Konerko refused to come out of the game.  Instead, he had trainer Herm Schneider stuff his nostrils to prevent bleeding. Next time up, Konerko homered.  There was no grandstanding or bat flipping, just sweet revenge.  I’d be willing to bet both Dye and Thomas would’ve done the exact same thing had it happened to either one of them.

This is how they play the game on the South Side, regardless of color, or used to in the years before the great rebuild.

No Wrigley Hawk Roost

White Sox announcer Ken “Hawk” Harrelson wants the world to know he will never step foot again into Wrigley Field to broadcast a game.  The Hawk complained over the weekend, “[Wrigley has the] Worst press box, worst booths for television.  It’s a joke.  It really is.”   That Hawk, always looking out for the little guy.

On a related subject, Harrelson is “writing” a book, in which he’ going to get the truth out to counter what three unnamed critics have said about him.  Here’s guessing that two of those targets won’t be Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf and former MLB Commissioner Bud Selig.  In all the years I’ve had the misfortune of listening to him, Hawk has never made much of an effort to speak truth to power.  Cozy up to power, yes, but not challenge it.  But there’s probably a broken-down sportswriter or ex-general manager somewhere he wants to even the score against.

I can hardly wait.

   

Bad Dad

LaVar Ball the basketball dad says he could beat Michael Jordan in a game of one-on-one, “with one hand tied behind my back,” no less.  Personally, I’d make sure Jordan was ten years in the ground before bragging like that.

Ball, the father of three potential basketball stars (or busts), can’t or won’t stop with outrageous claims.  Anyone who’s been around youth sports knows the type.  When Clare played in college, I had to listen to a father talk about how widely recruited his daughter was in high school; I soon learned to stay away.  But the saddest dad was the one who delivered his son to practice in a Chrysler Imperial.

Clare had just started sixth grade, and I was her fall-ball team coach.  I was short a player and for whatever reason was given Cy (not his real name).  The dad told me how great his kid the pitcher was, what he’d done in travel ball, blah, blah, blah.  Then Cy proceeded to knock the glove off my catcher’s hand.  And he did to another after that.  So, it wasn’t all b.s.

As I recall, Cy struck out 27 of the 29 batters he faced that October.  He was hard to catch and almost impossible to hit.  In batting practice, the only hitter who could make regular contact off him was…you guessed it, Clare.  If only that had humbled the kid.  Instead, he was content to get by on what talent he had, which diminished a little more each year.  By the end of high school, he hadn’t done anything to attract a whole bunch of interest (that, and/or his grades sucked), so it was on to junior college, where his career officially ended.  Did I mention my daughter is employed fulltime at one of the leading business schools in the country?

Too bad cautionary tales are wasted on the LaVar Balls of the world.

Show Me

I should be from Missouri, given the depth of my skepticism about the grand White Sox rebuild.  But after rooting for a team for over a half-century makes a fan cranky when the record drops to 41-67.  Really, I want this rebuild works.  If only people would stop blowing smoke at me.

On Friday, Ken “Hawk” Harrelson and Steve Stone commented on how well the Sox have been running the bases since the All-Star break.  Oh-oh, guys, that was a no-no.  Last night against the Red Sox, Alen Hanson was doubled off of first on a line drive to right field.  Talk about a rally killer, sort of like Leury Garcia getting picked off of first in the ninth inning by Red Sox closer Craig Kimbrel, who goes into a scarecrow windup that should be easy to steal off of.  Oh, well.

Did I mention starter James “Big Game (or ERA)” Shields?  He went six innings, giving up four runs (three earned) on two two-run homers.  Somehow, this translates into a “quality start.”  Talk about grading on a curve.  Speaking of Shields, did you know that in order to get him the Sox gave up a player who is now the Padres’ fourth-rated prospect and #58 in MLB’s Top 100?  If Rick Hahn wanted to get a start on his rebuild, he should’ve kept Fernando Tatis Jr.

It’s entirely possible 2017 will seem like a bad dream come this time next season.  That, or just another year of wandering in the desert of mediocrity.  The Sox last played above .500 in 2012.  By my count, that could mean another 35 years to go.  God—or Moses or Rick Hahn—help us.

North Side, South Side, Our Side

Like her father and his father before her, my daughter is a White Sox fan to the core of her being.  She proved that yesterday on a tour of Wrigley Field.

Clare’s place of employment thought it would be fun for her department to go on a morning tour.  They got to see the World Series trophy; Clare didn’t swoon.  They passed around a World Series ring; she didn’t touch it.  They saw several Silver Slugger Awards; now, those impressed her.  All of the above said, I admit that one of my favorite moments with this White Sox fan happened at Wrigley Field when she was in third grade.

A radio station had called for my reaction to proposed landmark status for Wrigley.  I’d been part of a group that had tried to save Comiskey Park, and maybe they wanted to hear sour grapes on my part; in that, they were disappointed.  Whatever I feel about the Cubs or their fans, Wrigley Field is a landmark to the kind of place baseball should be played in.

I let the interviewer know as much on a late afternoon in early October; the ivy on the walls was just beginning to change colors.  Clare was still in her school uniform, because I’d picked her up straight from St. Bernardine’s to make it to the park by 4 PM.  Now it was closer to 5, shadows growing, the bleachers bathed in the autumn orange of a setting sun.  Out of the corner of my eye, I could make out my daughter running up and down a main aisle, catching imaginary balls or touching every base after hitting a homerun, I can’t say which.

For that memory, I won’t need a tour.

How Do You Like Him Now?

White Sox fans are a mean, nasty lot.  It’s not enough for our team to win; we want the Cubs to lose, too.  If the Sox traded Jesus to the North Side, we’d probably all become Satanists.  So, how do you expect us to feel about ex-Sox starter José Quintana?

When the trade went down between both sides of town, I told a friend all those Quintana 0-2 counts that turned into walks and base hits were his problem now.  I stand before you as a prophet vindicated.  In the first inning of yesterday’s Cubs-Diamondbacks’ game, Quintana had two runners on one out, with Paul Goldschmidt up.  The count quickly went to 0-2, then 1-2, then 2-2, then full, at which point Goldschmidt cracked a three-run homer to left that nearly hit the oversized video board.  Two batters later, Brandon Drury drilled said board.

This was vintage Quintana, a glass half full or empty, depending on which stats you chose to look at.  On the one hand, he only gave up six hits in five innings, with a walk vs. six strikeouts.  Then again, he also gave up three long balls in a 103-pitch outing.  When your starter can’t make it into the sixth inning, you can expect to lean on your bullpen.  Cubs’ manager Joe Maddon did precisely that going through five relievers until he found one, Wade Davis, who could serve up back-to-back homers in the ninth to give the Diamondbacks a win.

Quintana is now 2-1 as a Cub, with a 4.13 ERA in 24 innings; I’m particularly impressed by the five long balls he’s given up.  In the meantime, outfielder Eloy Jiménez, one of the players we obtained in exchange for “Q,” went 21 for 59 with High-A Winston-Salem in his first month as a Sox farmhand, good enough to be named co-winner of the organization’s offensive player of the month award.  That makes me feel good, and a little nasty.

If It Ain't Broke...

The week before last, my wife took off her birthday, which is what each of us should do when that special day rolls around.  And you could do a lot worse than what we did, driving down to the South Side in order to explore Jackson Park.

The park was conceived back in 1871 by Frederick Law Olmsted and his partner Calvert Vaux; doing Central Park in New York proved to be good for getting design jobs elsewhere.  Chicago being Chicago, the plans weren’t followed in their entirety, but the results are stunning, nonetheless.  Why else would Barack Obama want to put his presidential library there?

Michele and I drove through the park to scout out the library site along with the golf course that some people want to upgrade so it can hold PGA tournaments.  The present course, though not designed by Olmsted and Vaux, dates to 1899 and is pretty popular.  The same goes for the adjacent nine-hole course at the South Shore Cultural Center, fronting Lake Michigan.

How did two competing courses come to be built?  The one at South Shore was private, part of a country club; Jackson Park was more for duffers.  Now, golfers get their pick, and, if they’re black or Jewish, they can play South Shore, something that wasn’t allowed when the country club operated it; the Chicago Park District acquired the property some time ago.  If I were ever to learn how to golf, it would be at Jackson Park or South Shore.

We parked the car outside the cultural center and walked around.  There was a golf class being conducted for inner-city kids on the putting green not far from a small beach that used to be off-limits to everyone but the lucky few.  Behind the beach is a nature center, all trees and prairie plants.  I dare you to take a path, go halfway in and get any sense you’re in the city of Chicago.  This must’ve been what Father Marquette and the Potawatomi saw.

The Jackson Park-PGA advocates want Tiger Woods to design a new, combined course; a tunnel is supposed to connect the two courses.  (Gosh, I wonder who’ll pay for it?)  If that happens, I doubt anybody will care what Olmsted said long ago about parks offering “a sense of enlarged freedom” to city dwellers.

After all, what did Olmsted know about birdies and eagles or greens fees?  

"Hey, Blue!"

If we can’t change the weather (for the better), can we at least do something about umpires?  Joe West and Angel Hernandez are bad enough, but now their brand of jerkiness is spreading from crew to crew.

In Friday night’s White Sox-Indians’ game, Sox starter Derek Holland threw a strike, which in itself should be a cause for celebration.  Plate umpire Bill Welke started to raise his hand for an obvious call, only to stop.  Holland imitated Welke’s gesture, which Mr. Blue didn’t take kindly to.  Welke took off his mask, took a few steps to the mound and told Holland basically to mind his own business.

Then, on Sunday, plate umpire Lance Barrett employed a classic expando-strike zone.  Barrett called out Tim Anderson on a pitch a good four inches outside.  Anderson is aggressive to a fault at the plate, and he won’t succeed until he learns plate discipline.  But that’s impossible when the strike zone all of a sudden gets bigger than the state of Texas.  My guess is that Sox hitting coach Todd Steverson could see all his work with Anderson going out the window, and let Barrett know.  It was the first time I ever saw an umpire toss the hitting coach.

Barret must be in great shape, because his right arm never got tired.  I can only hope he heard what a fan shouted out in the top of the ninth inning, loud enough to be picked on the TV:  “Hey, Blue, you’re missing a great game!”

The men in blue are also ruining one.

Best-laid Plans

White Sox general manager Rick Hahn has a rebuilding plan he must be very proud of.  Hahn has traded veteran players for a bunch of highly touted prospects.  Hahn is in no rush to promote the new talent until it’s ready.  Yoan Moncada  is the first prospect deemed Hahn-ready.  One problem, though.  The Sox GM has failed to take into account what a threat starting pitcher James Shields is to the plan, and I mean that in the most literal sense.

After giving up six runs on eight hits in six innings against the Blue Jays last night, Shields has an ERA of 6.19.  More than being bad, Shields is downright dangerous.  In the first inning, he grooved a pitch to Josh Donaldson, who hit the ball just low enough to allow centerfielder Adam Engel to think he had a play.  Engel crashed into the fence as the ball went over.  For a second, I thought the rookie had broken his jaw, but luckily not.  Engel was able to stay in the game and make at least two “plus” catches that otherwise would’ve added to Shield’s hit total.

Then came the sixth inning, where Shields yielded three singles but no runs to a very slow Blue Jays’ team.  There were two out, which probably had right fielder Willy Garcia and second baseman Moncada thinking a catch of Darwin Barney’s flare to short right field would end the inning without any damage.  Indeed, Garcia made a diving catch, only to be clocked by Moncada’s knee; both players had to be helped off the field.  As with Adam Engel, it looks as though Garcia and Moncada escaped serious injury.  Center fielder Charlie Tilson should’ve been so lucky.

Tilson came up for his major-league debut with the Sox a year ago August 2^nd.  He singled in his first at-bat only to tear his hamstring going after a ball in the gap at Comerica Park.  Shields had already given up a single and two triples in the inning, so the rookie probably wanted to show what an asset he could be.  Tilson has not appeared in a game since the injury.

It would seem that the Sox can keep pitching James Shields or bring up prospects, but they can’t do both, not safely.