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.