A Walk Together

For reasons I don’t quite understand, Clare spent her last night of single life with us yesterday.  Like countless times before, she sat in the living room, phone at her side or pressed against her face as she told her soon-to-be husband that Matt Davidson of the White Sox looked good pitching in an 11-3 blowout loss to the Rangers.  “He was strangely athletic,” observed my ever-wise progeny.

This morning, like countless ones before, she used her Ted Williams’ root beer glass, the one I bought at a memorabilia show two years and a month before her birth; it was the same show where I talked with Luke Appling for a good ten minutes.  Between the glass and Clare’s aches-and-pains routine over the years, something must’ve rubbed off from that Sunday in downstate Lewistown.

In under four hours, I will walk my daughter down the aisle of the same church where she was baptized, to be married by the same priest who baptized her; baseball families understand the value of tradition.  Then, if I don’t break down by the time of the reception, I’ll give a test that will allude to my child’s athletic prowess (and, with luck, embarrass her just a little bit.  I mean, what good is a father if he can’t embarrass his daughter at her wedding reception?) 

When everything is over, the leftover wedding put in our care to go in the freezer, I will drive home with my wife, our lives forever changed.

Extremes

We brought Clare home from the hospital the Saturday before Thanksgiving, 1991; there were snow flurries that afternoon, as I recall.  Tomorrow, for our daughter’s wedding, the weather forecast is for the mercury to reach 99 degrees, or 100.  Did I mention the church has no air conditioning?

But both extremes are perfect bookends for spring sports in the Midwest.  Clare played softball with snow on the field some times, with the threat of heat exhaustion other times.  We played a travel tournament in Toledo the summer she was fourteen in conditions not unlike what they’re promising for tomorrow.  That was the weekend I learned about $3 bottles of water and disappearing water fountains.

At least we won’t have to eat any Toledo hotdogs at the reception.

Two Days Away

So, now we’re at two days from the wedding, and my daughter is still talking baseball.  First thing this morning, she sent videos of the Cubs’ Addison Russell looking very bad at shortstop and center fielder Ian Happ trying not to get hit on the head by a homerun ball that ricocheted back onto the field at Dodger Stadium.

Then, she came over this afternoon to deliver my pocket hankie and tie for Saturday.  The White Sox are playing a day game, which gave us a chance to watch Lucas Giolito walk the bases loaded in the top of the first before getting out of it.  “I think he’s got the yips,” Clare offered, and it’s something for pitching coach Don Cooper to consider.

Clare also remembered a time when she was on the Huskies, her first travel team.  The tournament was close to one player’s house, to which we descended on during one of those two-hour breaks between games that would otherwise drive a parent nuts.  It was 2006, just one year after the Sox had won the World Series, so you would’ve thought the host family would’ve put the ballgame on, but no; their daughter was a budding soccer star, or so they said.  We got to watch the World Cup instead.

“Dad and I couldn’t believe it.”  That, and how a wedding can sneak up on you.  

Counting Down

Four days to her wedding, and my daughter is still talking baseball.  Yesterday, Clare stopped by to kill time before she had to go to the florist to pick up special vases she wanted for members of the bridal party to put their bouquets in once they get to the reception.

These are not to be confused with the place cards she and Chris designed; those have little chickens or cows or vegetables printed on the reverse to indicate what kind of meal the person named on front wants, chicken, beef or vegetarian.  In high school, Clare showed particular interest in the Marshall Plan, to the point we had to search out George Marshall’s grave at Arlington after softball nationals’ one year.  I think she has the same attention to detail Marshall did as a general and secretary of state.

Anyway, we put on the Nationals-Rays’ game and got to talking.  Clare is still steamed at something Jessica Mendoza said on Sunday, that Bryce Drew is in a slump (.219 BA to go with 19 homeruns and 46 RBIs) because his swing is off-balance.  Father and daughter both agreed Harper is chasing pitches, hence the lack of balance, because he’s in a slump.  Then, this morning, she texted me that Yolmer Sanchez of the White Sox  has some incredible stats with the bases loaded, four for six with ten RBIs.

You can’t help but be proud of a child like that.  Maybe she wants to keep the old man calm in the days leading up to the wedding so he won’t be too much of a problem on the big day.  Or maybe baseball is keeping the bride-to-be from having the jitters.  Either way, God bless Yolmer, and Clare.

Value for Value

Value for Value

Last week, Tom Verducci wrote in si.com about dumb things the Mets have done and could do yet.  Among the latter would be trading starters Noah Syndergaard and/or Jacob deGrom, a move or moves that “would plumb new depths to their foolishness.”

By way of a warning, Verducci sited the Chris Sale trade.  “Since the White Sox traded Sale, they have been the worst team in baseball (91-140, .394).  Their attendance has fallen 21%.  Their payroll has been slashed by 25%.  Their television ratings, down eight percent last year, were the worst in baseball other than those for the Athletics.”

Ah, yes, the gamble, the Hail Mary, the rebuild.  The Sox rolled the dice, sent Sale to the Red Sox and received four prospects in return; Verducci is not impressed with the top two, that being Yoan Moncada and Michael Kopech.  Of course, Verducci wrote his assessment before Moncada drove in six runs Sunday against those very same Athletics, giving him 32 on the year.  That would be second highest on the Mets, by the way.

As for Kopech, he continues to show enough to keep hoping he figures it out (at age 22).  Last night, the righty threw six innings for Charlotte, giving up 0 runs on four hits and two walks while striking out nine; Kopech now has 97 strikeouts, which puts him second in the International League.  The ERA isn’t that great at 4.66, but I’d bet a whole lot of teams out there would gladly take on this particular prospect.

The truth of the matter is the Mets are what the White Sox were, a team able to assemble at least some talent, but never enough on a consistent basis.  Syndergaard and deGrom are Sale and Jose Quintana by any other name.  And Todd Frazier is Todd Frazier regardless whether he’s playing for the Sox or the Mets (and you’ve got him for two years, Mets’ fans).  You’re damned if your team does trade for prospects, and damned if they don’t.

The way I try to keep my sanity is by making peace with the fact Sale is gone while deciding—regardless the evidence—that dumb moves by the Sox front office were more the work of Kenny Williams than Rick Hahn.  And, just for fun, I imagine the Sox signing Sale when he becomes a free agent after next year.

There may be better ways to get through a baseball season, but I doubt that’s true right now for the Mets or their fans.

Please and Thank You

Cubs’ catcher Willson Contreras apparently stumbled upon one of the lesser known unwritten rules of baseball—he forgot to say “thank you” to the home-plate ump after calling for time in the fourth inning of Saturday’s game against the Reds.

All of a sudden, umpire Greg Gibson started giving Contreras a piece of his mind, as if the men in blue had a surplus to share.  One thing led to another, and bench coach Brandon Hyde got ejected for defending Contreras, who gave his side of the story after the game.  Gibson, naturally, couldn’t be bothered to offer his, although he did provide yet another reason why umpires will be replaced by electronic sensors one day, and not a fan or player will miss them. 

Then, Not Now

I try to live in the present as much as possible, given how the past is always tugging at me.  It does no good to focus on Clare as a child or bat-swinging teen; she’ll still be six days away from her wedding.  Baseball, thankfully, is different.  MLB all but begs you to indulge in nostalgia, with Cooperstown and “turn back the clock” games.  But I prefer to do my own time travel.

For some reason, the 1940s White Sox hold a special attraction to me.  Maybe because they give way to the Go-Go teams of the 1950s, maybe because Ted Lyons came back from the war to play the good soldier in the dugout, managing some awful teams; the Sox had seven consecutive losing seasons, 1944-1950.  Whatever the motivation, I’ve been collecting photos of Comiskey Park as well as Sox players from the era, along with other stuff.

This week, I got the decal I bought off of eBay; it’s a four-inch square turned into a diamond by what’s printed on it.  On the front is “Watch the White Sox Play 1940” and on the back is the schedule, starting with that Opening Day no-hitter by Bob Feller.  I’ve already mentioned Luke Appling’s contention he was robbed of a hit in that game by an umpire. All I could find in the Tribune was mention of a ten-pitch walk Appling managed with two out in the ninth.

Next up courtesy of eBay is a sticker of a cartoon figure the Sox used in the ’40s, of a player dragging an oversized bat.  Somehow, the piece ended up in England, so I’m doing my patriotic duty by repatriating it.  Sure beats watching a team in “rebuild.”  

It's Greek to Me

I went for my father-of-the-bride haircut yesterday morning.  Ahead of me was someone who looked like my father would if he were still alive, at 104.  Very nice man, said he had nowhere to go anyhow when the barber took me first since I had an appointment.  He sat waiting with his back to the flat-screen TV that hung on the wall behind him.

The TV was turned on to the World Cup.  Because I always try to be polite (and really need a haircut that won’t embarrass my daughter on her wedding day), I asked my barber how his team did.  “Not so good,” he answered.  Nick hails from Albania, and, from what he said, they were put in a pool with the likes of Italy and Spain.  Oh, well.  “And what about your team?” he asked.

I didn’t even pretend to have one.

Oh, So Now You're Upset

Oh, So Now You’re Upset

The Tribune has a sports’ columnist who revels in snark, which is to say he displays plenty of attitude if not smarts.  Up until today, he’s lauded the White Sox for losing because, in the new math of major-league baseball, losing is winning.  Then, out of the blue, today he jumps on Reynaldo Lopez’s clown-comment from yesterday.

“Players on a bad team, one of the worst in baseball, don’t seem overly interested in calling upon [the] necessary intensity to make up for the talent shortfall at the major-league level,”writes Snark, who went on to add, “There’s nothing wrong with losing games if you’re trying, but there’s everything wrong with approaching the job in the inexplicably unprofessional manner Lopez seems to be talking about.”  No, here’s what’s wrong—teams tanking.

“Rebuild” is losing by another name.  Very few of the White Sox players on the major-league roster know if they’re there to help lay a foundation of winning or contribute to the losing, which in new-math baseball means cashing in on next year’s draft.  Manager Rick Renteria was able to pull off a relatively successful 67-95 record in 2017 by getting players to believe in two things, themselves and their role in the future.

By refusing to promote minor leaguers like Eloy Jimenez and Michael Kopech to the parent club, general manager Rick Hahn undermined Renteria with the message that, No, you guys are here to lose.  The real talent is still down on the farm.  Ladies and gentlemen, your 2018 Chicago White Sox, all 24-49 of them.

Instead of alternating between cute and upset, Snark could have, should have, for years been asking questions like why Adam Dunn and Adam LaRoche, why so few homegrown players, why all the trades that don’t help?  At some point, though that would’ve required Snark to look up the name of the Sox farm director, and that would’ve taken too much time from snarking.

Send in the Clown. Never Mind....

After giving up five runs to the Indians yesterday in a 12-0 skunking, White Sox starter Reynaldo Lopez told reporters, “Honestly, we looked like clowns [out] there, starting with me.  But I know we can do better.”  I’m not so sure.’

Lopez, despite a 2-5 record, sports a 3.59 ERA, just one of several signs that his is a talent worth watching and protecting.  But what about Yoan Moncada, he of the nine errors at second base and 102 strikeouts in 282 plate appearances?  Or reliever Bruce Rondon, who must have blackmail stuff on the coaching staff and front office?  Rondon gave up six runs, all earned, in one inning of that god-awful game, and his ERA now stands at 6.75.  It’s a good thing this is a rebuild year, and nothing counts.  Right?

Speaking of clowns (and you had to know that was coming), Sox general manager Rick Hahn has been hinting in the media this week about promoting several minor leaguers, not to the South Side, of course, but up the organizational ladder.  As he so often reminds us, Hahn is a man with a plan.

And ever so much time at his disposal.  Fans are told things will get better, if not next season than in 2020.  Too bad for all those folks who won’t be around to enjoy the fruits of the rebuild.  How nice for Hahn that he will be.  He’s top turtle in Darwin land, or so he must think.  How ironic if it turns out he isn’t.

You and You, Not You

MLB.com reported that the Mariners just signed two left-handed pitchers, 17-year old Blake Townsend of Australia and 18-year old Jing-Yu Chang of Taiwan.  According to the Seattle Times, the Mariners gave Chang a bonus of between $500,000 and $700,000.

Think about the challenges both players will face, especially Chang.  They’ll be coming to a new world, so to speak, where they’re not necessarily the most talented players on the field any more.  As they try to fit in with their new team, Townsend will probably face endless questions about kangaroos and “the barbie” while Chang learns the importance of a good interpreter.

That person will have to speak Chang’s dialect of Chinese, and it will be helpful to crucial for the interpreter to understand baseball, pitching in particular; otherwise, good luck with translating “release point” and “backdoor slider,” let alone explaining how to throw one.

The Mariners will work with their international signees for as long as they show promise.  This is what baseball does, scour the far ends of the earth in search of talent, provided, of course, that it’s male.  Etched in the glass ceiling at every MLB office are four words—No Women Players Wanted.  No translation required.    

Exits

I’ve been lucky to meet a number of athletes over the years, including Luke Appling, Bob Feller and Dick Butkus.  Appling told me how he an umpire robbed him of a hit that would have broken up Feller’s Opening Day no-hitter in 1940; Feller thought Appling’s memory was playing tricks on him; and Butkus just smiled when I asked him to autograph a picture to someone whose last name ended in –czyk with “It takes one to know one.”  Indeed, it does.

Two of my favorite encounters involved Clare as well. The summer she was five, I took her to a minor-league game where Walt Williams was managing; Williams was and is my favorite White Sox player of all time.  I have a picture of the three of us.  Then, thirteen years later, my daughter met ex-Cubs’ closer Lee Smith at a memorabilia store, where the two of them got into a good-natured argument about hitting, pitching and 12-inch softball; this went on for at least ten minutes.  When it ended, Smith autographed a ball, including the number of career saves (478) and the comment, “To Clare: you can’t hit me.”  All athletes should be so good-natured in their interactions with fans.

We also met Bill Skowron at a Sox fan convention when Clare was in college, and “Moose” advised my daughter always to take the ball up the middle and not to worry if she took “the f*****g pitcher’s head off.”  After imparting that advice, Moose showed us the World Series ring he was wearing, from 1956, I think.  A short time after that, I happened upon Minnie Minoso, and it was like the Pope had made a surprise appearance.  If Minnie was treated with reverence by the White Sox faithful, he had long ago earned that honor.  His autograph went on a baseball that includes Appling’s, Skowron’s, Billy Pierece’s and a number of other Sox heroes of mine.  Oh, and Walt Williams’, too.

As a fan, I want Butkus and Smith to go on forever in a way the others didn’t.  A reporter’s death this week after an accident on the Lakefront trail has gotten me to thinking about mortality.  Where’s a good prefix like im- when you need it most?

Here They Come Spinning Out of the Turn

 Through no fault of my own, I spent a good part of Father’s Day afternoon at Ditka’s Restaurant, the one adjacent to Arlington Racetrack.  Alas, the man-child was nowhere to be seen, though his jersey looked to be on sale in every conceivable size and color.

From the photos and memorabilia, you’d think that Mike Ditka and Gayle Sayers were best buds back in their playing days.  Who knows, maybe they were.  I just don’t remember the Kansas Comet ever needing blockers, assuming those Bears teams he was stuck on even had any who could be of use, the restauranteur included.

His food was alright, if not quite my taste, which runs more to the menu at the Czech Plaza in Berwyn.  What really surprised me was the support staff.  Mr. Ditka is a Donald Trump sort of guy, and yet so many of the restaurant employees looked to be of a background that the president would keep out if only he could build that wall of his.  Maybe Ditka the businessman thinks differently than Ditka the public figure.

There was large flat screen on the wall where I was sitting.  Ditka’s being Ditka’s, it was turned on to a sporting event, World Cup soccer.  Wait until #89 finds out. 

Keeping It Simple

 Throughout her baseball and softball career, Clare never lacked for “coaches” wanting to tinker with her swing.  They had ideas about V-loads and L-loads; hips (which sounded an awful lot like doors forever swinging open); and whatnot.  I preferred to keep it simple to the point of ridiculous:  See ball, hit ball.  Allow me a few words in my defense.

First off, I should say, “See ball in the strike zone.”  Unless you’re the second coming of Yogi Berra or Vladimir Guerrero, don’t swing at anything outside the strike zone.  As I’ve said on numerous occasions, my daughter will live to be a hundred before she forgets my rather sarcastic question asked several hundred times over the years, “And where was the ball going to go if you’d managed to hit it?”   Foul, if she was lucky.  And I’ll live to be a hundred before I stop telling Clare to lay off the high stuff, even though she actually could go up and get it.  I just thought it was a bad habit to get into.

Next, know the situation.  There are times to go for the long ball and times to move the runner along; don’t swing for the fences every at-bat.  Clare was good that way, though her notion of moving the runner along involved extra base-hits more than grounders to the right side of the infield.  Whatever works.

Along those same lines, I was impressed to read what Sox starter Dylan Covey said in the Tribune the other day about his turnaround from last season.  What it comes down to is another simple directive—throw strikes.  Or, as Covey put it, “I’m not scared to throw pitches over the plate now.  And confidence has a lot to do with it, knowing that even if I do miss my spot, the action on my pitches will make up for it.”  Covey added that he’s “attacking hitters and trying to get to two strikes as quickly as possible.”

Simple, sweet and true.

No Meal for You

For the past week or so, the White Sox have been auctioning off stuff to raise funds for their charity.  The team works very hard at projecting a generous, caring image, the business with a heart, if you will; they’re just not good corporate citizens.  Me, I’d want them off the public dime, have them pay for their own stadium and budget away the money for property tax in the same way so many of their fans do.  But I digress.

Among the auction offerings was a lunch or dinner with general manager Rick Hahn.  Clare told Michele, “I’d bid on it, but I wouldn’t have the money left to bail Dad out of jail.”  I’m shocked and disappointed that my daughter has such a low opinion of me, so close to Father’s Day, no less.  Why, I’d be a model of South Side decorum and use all of my silverware as intended.

Of course, that could change depending on Hahn’s answer to my questions, like why do you sign 30-year old players for your AAA team instead of promoting the supposed talent you’ve been collecting, and did you know what you were getting when you traded away Chris Sale, and….

Stop Me if You've Heard This One Before

 At the risk of sounding like a broken record (and dating myself in the process), let me call into question the White Sox approach to a rebuild.  You have to wonder if the fruit isn’t getting overripe or worse.

Earlier this week, 20-year old Mike Soroka of the Braves took a no-hitter into the seventh inning against the Mets; Soroka settled for 6-1/3 shutout innings in a 2-0 Atlanta win.  The 6’5” right hander notched his second career win.  Meanwhile, down on the farm, Michael Kopech struggles. Last night, Kopech lasted three innings while giving up five runs, all earned, on a mere two hits.  Oh, maybe I should add that he walked eight.

Kopech’s record now stands at 2-5 with a 5.20 ERA, which probably proves to Sox general manager Rick Hahn that his prospect needs more time in the minors.  I think the 22-year old Kopech doesn’t want to be stuck down in Charlotte anymore.  He’s right; immature; or both.  None of the possibilities reflect well on Hahn.  He could demote Kopech and bring up Dylan Cease (9-2 with a 2.86 ERA at high-A Winston-Salem) and/or Dane Dunning (5-2 with a 2.78 ERA for Double-A Birmingham), but the White Sox are adverse to moving their prospects.  Who cares if Cease is already 22 and Dunning 23?  There are ever so many t’s to cross and i’s to dot on the road to playing at Guaranteed Rate Whatever.

And, while I’m at it, let’s not forget 19-year old Juan Soto hit two homeruns for the Nationals against the Yankees Wednesday.  Meanwhile, down on the farm, 21-year old Eloy Jiminez swings away at Birmingham.  Time’s a wastin’, everywhere that is but in the White Sox front office.

Pressure

I feel sorry for the Cubs’ front office, I really do.  Theo Epstein and company break a 106-year World Series championship famine, and their reward is to be constantly reminded what they have to do now.  That championship is so 2016.

You could see as much in the sports’ pages on Wednesday.  According to the Tribune, “Shutout [against the first-place Brewers] isn’t Cubs’ deepest concern/Offense should be OK, but Epstein may seek some pitching help.” Over at the Sun-Times, it was, “Too soon to know where Cubs might need help.”  I imagine social media and talk radio are saying the same, to which I would respond: Shut up.

The trade-deadline deal is almost always stacked in favor of the seller.  You want Aroldis Chapman (or Jose Quintana)?  Well, it’s going to cost you.  Yes, Theo Epstein can say Chapman was worth the cost of Gleyber Torres, but I’d still contend the last-minute deal should be viewed as a course of last resort.

It should also be seen as an admission of failure: the front office failed to provide the manager with the right players to win; the manager failed to find the winning combination; the coaching staff failed to develop the talent at hand.  Cubs’ manager Joe Maddon is supposed to be a genius; let him prove it.  Theo Epstien is a proven genius, as evidenced by his three World Series championship.  Why not put the pressure on his manager and coaches to produce?

Last July, the Cubs traded outfielder Eloy Jimenez and pitcher Dylan Cease to the White Sox.  Jimenez is tearing up AA pitching (and probably would be tattooing MLB pitching if he weren’t playing for an organization so intent on following a plan based on slow motion).  Cease is 8-2 with a 2.97 ERA in high-A ball, and who knows what he could be doing at a higher level.  But the Cubs will never know what Cease could do for them.

The Cubs need more pitching?  See Cease.  More relief pitching?  They look to have a conveyor belt of relievers coming up from Iowa, all of whom have performed well when called upon.  That would seem to suggest new pitching coach Jim Hickey knows what he’s doing, or that Joe Maddon is in fact a genius, at least when it comes to relief pitching.  That’s winning from within.

But the second you yield to the pressure of armchair general manager to “do something,” the odds are it’ll be something dumb. 

 

"Pie Face"

The name didn’t register when I read the four-line obit in the Tribune yesterday for ex-NHL player Johnny McKenzie, but then the Sun-Times added “rough-and-tumble” to describe McKenzie, and I remembered.  That was Johnny “Pie Face” McKenzie, holy terror on the ice.

McKenzie had two stints early on in his career with the Black Hawks, the second one coinciding with my hockey infatuation of the mid-1960s.  Then, he moved on to the Rangers, and from there to Boston, where he won two Stanley Cups with the Bruins.  The nickname came from his supposed resemblance to a cartoon figure on a candy-bar wrapper in his native Canada.

McKenzie was definitely old school, apparently with post-career consequences.  Bruins’ great Phil Esposito was quoted in McKenzie’s Boston Globe obituary describing McKenzie as “one mean little SOB who would go through a wall for his teammates.”  Opponents were always welcome to go through with him.

“I like to run at somebody on my first shift,” said McKenzie according to his Globe obit, “to stir things up and plant the idea that if a squirt [in this case, one standing 5’9”] like me can go after ‘em—particularly if my target is a big star—then why not everybody?”  Like I said, old school.

No cause of death was given, though the Globe reported that McKenzie wanted his brain to go to Boston University’s Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Center, which studies the effect of repeated blows to the brains of athletes.  In hockey, at least, old school may be something best left in the past for anyone who wants to be in full control of his faculties once he’s hung up his skates. 

What a Surprise

The news was everywhere over the weekend—White Sox rookie Daniel Palka may need Tommy John surgery for a grade 2 sprain of the ulnar collateral ligament in his throwing arm.  Just kidding.  Angels’ “sensation” Shohei Ohtani is the player who could be facing surgery soon.  The only people outside of  White Sox nation—and a small one it is, more a principality, really—who know of Palka’s existence are his family and friends.  Thank you, sports-media complex.

Going into yesterday’s game against the Indians, Palka was batting .264 in 125 at-bats with 14 runs scored; 22 RBIs; six homeruns to go with eight doubles and three triples; a .298 on-base percentage; .520 slugging percentage; and some of the hardest-hit balls this season.  All in all, those figures are pretty Ohtani-like, if only anybody bothered to notice.

In 114 at-bats, Ohtani is hitting .281 with 17 runs scored; 20 RBIs; six homers to go with eight doubles and one triple; a .372 OBP; and .535 slugging percentage.  Oh, and he’s 4-1 in nine starts with a 3.10 ERA.  Therein lies the problem.  Ohtani was touted as the second coming of the two-way player a la the early Babe Ruth.  Maybe not.

Nobody seemed too concerned back in December when Ohtani signed with the Angels that he had a grade 1 UCL sprain; supposedly, a non-surgical regimen would take care of things.  When is that ever the case with somebody who throws the ball at 100 MPH, like Ohtani can?  So, now the Angels find themselves with a much-ballyhooed player who may or may not need surgery.  Whatever happens, it looks like the two-way may ultimately be reduced to one.

Coming On Fast

What did Stachel Page say?  Oh, right, “Don’t look back.  Something might be gaining on you.”  That would be my advice to Bulls’ fans in the Michael Jordan/LeBron James best-of-all-time debate.  Folks, the real question should be:  Who was on the better team, Jordan or Stephen Curry?  I wouldn’t necessarily put my money on Michael and his Jordanaires.

Bulls’ fans will probably say Curry and Golden State could never compete with those Chicago teams from the 1990s, when fouls were much honored in hardly ever being called.  Granted, a shooter like Curry could be forced off his game with a hack here and a hack there by Jordan, Dennis Rodman, et al, but consider this—could those Bulls keep up with these Warriors today?  I just don’t think so.  And another thing for all you Rodman fans to consider.  Golden State’s Draymond Green could probably do unto Rodman—and Jordan and Scottie Pippen and John Paxson—as Rodman would try to do unto others.

Jordan/Pippen/Horace Grant or Curry/Kevin Durant/Klay Thompson?  That would be a matchup for the ages.  What it might all come down to is the coaching, with the Bulls giving the Warriors a secret weapon.  That would be Steve Kerr, who came off the bench for the second three of the Bulls’ six Jordan-era championships; Kerr now has three rings as head coach of the Warriors.  How smart is Kerr?  He declined the Knicks’ coaching job when Phil Jackson offered it to him.  How smart is Jackson?  He could’ve retired as the coaching genius behind Jordan in Chicago and Kobe Bryant in LA, but he went to New York to run the Knicks.  Enough said.

Maybe Jackson could match Kerr for every X and O, but I doubt it.  If only there were a way to be proven right or wrong.  Until one comes along, we’ll have to settle for stats and anecdotes over pizza.

Of Thee I Sing

The White Sox played the Tigers at Comiskey Park, Sunday August 6, 1944.  It was a day game won by the Tigers, 10-3, the combined 13 runs on 26 hits along with two walks and seven errors taking just two hours to play out.  Both teams were missing their best players, Hank Greenberg for Detroit, Luke Appling and Ted Lyons for the Sox; they were all off to war.  The fans could watch their baseball, provided they remembered to “Buy U.S. War Bonds & Stamps,” as the scorecard urged, the image of a Revolutionary War Minuteman in the lower left-hand corner of the front.

Some 43 years later, on a crisp September morning, I bought that scorecard, along with the attached ticket stub, at a memorabilia show held in the Picnic Grounds under the left field stands at Comiskey Park.  It was a glorious fall day, where the sun rendered everything in brilliant colors until the clouds intervened.  Then it was all shadows, with a hint of the cold that was sure to follow, if not that day, then soon enough.  But the sun refused to be shut out for long, the basis, I think, of why hope springs eternal.  This may well be one of my favorite memories of the ballpark.

The scorecard appealed to me as a piece of everyday patriotism in a time of war.  There’s a couple shown on the front, and they’re eating hot dogs (“all products made under United States Government Supervision,” in case anyone asked).  The man appears to be in uniform.  So was my father most of his working life.  Chicago firemen were patriots one and all, whether or not they ventured beyond the city limits.

Baseball has been incredibly lucky not to get sucked into the controversy surrounding the national anthem and protesting NFL players.  No doubt, MLB would have gone the monster-flag-and-jets-flyover route if it would have promised the same ratings that the NFL gets; lucky for Commissioner Manfred and company, it never happened.  NFL owners now look nothing if not weak in the face of those rants on patriotism by that great non-veteran in the White House.

Maybe the echoes of Kate Smith singing “God Bless America” saved baseball from the same embarrassing fate.  Maybe baseball fans are different from football fans and don’t care if players or kneel.  Maybe the warlike nature of football elicits a kneejerk patriotism; I don’t know.  I just want whatever it is that’s bedeviling football to stay the hell away from my game.

Another of my favorite sports’ memories involves the anthem and my daughter.  I can see Clare standing at attention on the field or in the dugout, hand over heart.  If she ever took a knee, I wouldn’t have been upset.  The knee, the hand, the heart, they’re all connected.

Just For One Day

If White Sox starter Dylan Covey likes David Bowie, so much the better.  If not, Covey still outpitched Chris Sale in Fenway Park last night.

When the Sox picked Sale in the first round of the 2010 draft (13^th overall), the Brewers took Covey with the next pick; things worked out better for Sale, who was pitching on the South Side by season’s end.  Before Covey could sign, it was discovered he had diabetes, so he decided to delay his professional career another three years.  The White Sox acquired him as a rule-five player from the A’s in 2016.

Last year, Covey had a way of falling apart in the fourth or fifth inning, which could explain his 0-7 record and 7.71 ERA.  Those numbers aren’t exactly career builders at age 25, but injuries gave Covey another chance this season, and he’s been surprisingly good at 2-1 with a 2.22 ERA.  He started last night putting the first two Boston hitters on before getting out of the jam on his way to six shutout innings.  Did I mention he was going against Chris Sale, who struck out 10 in eight innings and gave up all of one run?  The right Sox won, 1-0.

Sale, class act that he’s always been, told reporters after the game, “I’m not really surprised with ‘Coop’ [Sox pitching coach Don Cooper] getting a hold of somebody like that and getting him going in the right direction.”  Tell you what, Chris.  If Cooper gets Covey to sustain his performance over the entire season, as opposed to what he accomplished with Philip Humber, I’ll join the Coop fan club.  In the meantime, yes, it was nice, and fast.  

Somehow, the James Shields’ homerun-a-thon in Minnesota Thursday clocked in at 2:14; last night’s game took ten minutes longer.  I could get used to that, especially if tempest fugit comes with a win.

Crowdsourcing

Clare called yesterday afternoon to tell me about an email from the White Sox.  It had a link to a fan survey on the players.  The idea was for fans to tell the team what they thought, what they liked, about players.  In true White Sox fashion, the link didn’t work, which only upset my daughter, who wanted to know what her benighted team was up to.  “Do they really want my opinion on Matt Davidson as a DH?” she wondered.

Or maybe the link broke because somebody in the front office realized James Shields was starting in an afternoon game against the Twins. Shields has let it be known he’s more interested in winning than in rebuilding; towards that end, he’s given up six homeruns in his last two starts, both losses.  Way to go, James.

The Red Sox had their own James Shields in the person of first baseman Hanley Ramirez.  Rather than keep an unproductive player, Boston chose to release Ramirez, even though it cost them in the neighborhood of $15 million.  That is definitely not the White Sox way.  They’ve said from spring training that Shields is a good mentor to the young pitchers; alas, a mentor gone grumpy changes nothing on the South Side.  Better to keep Shields than eat the $21 million he’s owed this year than admit a mistake.  Rright, guys?

I really hope they fix that link.

That Time of Year

From t-ball through seventh grade, Clare played baseball; June marked what would be the middle of her season.  Then, in eighth grade she made the switch to softball.  A year later, June became the month when she switched from high school ball to travel ball.  Clare always liked varsity more than travel.  Too much summertime drama, I think.

On varsity, Clare always knew where she stood; she might not have liked it, but she knew.  Coach Euks loved her bat, so she never had to worry about starting, somewhere.  It might be left field, dh or second base, but Clare could always expect to be in the lineup.  By junior year, she laid claim to second base and never let go, of that and batting third in the order.

In contrast, travel lacked rhyme and reason, in large part because Clare was never anybody’s favorite.  The first two years on the Blazers, the coaches were affiliated with schools other than Morton, so that made my daughter something of an outlier.  The third year, the coaches were just plain nuts, to the point that one of them told Clare she’d never hit in college, this after she’d hit five homeruns in one tournament.  Talk about raining on a kid’s parade.  So, yeah, she liked her time on varsity more.

Clare knew one of the baseball players at Morton; he was a year ahead.  The White Sox drafted him his senior year, but he didn’t sign; then the Angels drafted him the next year, and he did.  My daughter has a Ted-Williams like disdain for pitchers, but in this case I think she may have lived vicariously through her ex-classmate.  She went off to play in college while he went to ply his craft in the Angels’ system.

They each played their sport four more years, Clare ending up with more records.  Would she have traded places with her friend?  Oh, in a heartbeat, as long as she could’ve switched to hitting.

Comings and Goings

Sports at any level is about comings and goings.  Players make their debut, which means somebody sits or somebody leaves.  I saw as much with my daughter.

Twice in travel ball, coaches waited until just before the season started to add a player.  Nobody left, but people who would have played suddenly found themselves spending more time on the bench.  Clare was neither an instigator in that regard or a victim, but she probably did send someone else packing when she made teams at tryout.  It’s the nature of the beast.

So, another June means another MLB draft, with teams certain this pitcher or that hitter will be making his—but never her—debut soon.  I wonder how this affects players from last year’s draft, and the one before that, and so on.  Right about now, they may be hearing an unpleasant message along the lines of, “You used to be a prospect, now you’re suspect.”

With their #1 pick, the White Sox chose infielder Nick Madrigal (at 5’7”, a whopping one inch taller than Clare, and with less power from what I can tell).  What do Tim Anderson and Yuan Moncada think about that, or Yolmer Sanchez?  There are a whole bunch of middle infielders in the White Sox system, a number of them posting pretty decent numbers so far this season.  What does Mitch Roman think of his chances of making the Sox?  Maybe he should ask Jake Peter, once a Sox farmhand now toiling away in the Dodgers’ system.

An ocean of ink has been spilled extolling the joys of what may or may not be our national pastime.  As for the struggle, the doubt, the Darwinian element that comes with success and failure on the baseball diamond, that’s something that doesn’t get much notice, least of all that week in June when a new bunch of ballplayers is picked to enter the arena.

Logjam

Orson Welles used to do a commercial that ended with the tagline, “We will sell no wine before its time.”  That must be where White Sox general manager Rick Hahn got the idea of doing a rebuild in slow motion.  No prospect gets promoted until his time, which right now looks to be close to never.

Not only does Hahn refuse to move star prospect Eloy Jimenez out of AA Birmingham, he’s pretty much frozen everyone else in place, too; chalk it up to the Welles-Hahn time test.  Consider what Hahn has done at AAA Charlotte.  Rather than promote anyone from the lower affiliates, he’s gone out and signed the following: infielder Johnny Giavotello, who’ll turn 31 in July; outfielder Michael Saunders, 31; and outfielder Alex Presley, 32.  Oh, and one of his three AAA catchers is already 30 while another is a career .233 hitter in the minors.  So much for Zach Collins and/or Seby Zavala—both honest-to-goodness catching prospects facing off against one another in AA—getting a chance to show what they can do at the next level.

With the draft taking place, the Sox will have even more players to sit on.  Usually, players who do really well in rookie ball are promoted to A-ball before season’s end to get their feet wet.  If that doesn’t happen this year, thank Rick Hahn channeling his inner Orson Welles. 

Progress, or Not

The Tribune and New York Times each ran stories last Friday that gauge the status of women in sports.  Taken together, they signal how little has changed for how long.

The Trib’s story concerned the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League’s 75^th anniversary.  Yes, women have been playing baseball for a long time, and at least one of them, Shirley Burkovich of the Rockford Peaches, never wanted to stop playing.  When the league folded in 1954, “It was devastating,” Burkovich recalled.  “I thought baseball was going to be my career.  I figured I’d play forever.”  Maybelle Blair, another AAGPL veteran, hopes to live long enough to see a female general manager or umpire break into major-league baseball.  “Our eyes work the same as men, right?” offered Blair.

It’s too bad Clare wasn’t included in the story; she played baseball, too.  She’s also applied for at least one MLB front-office job; Kenny Williams must’ve misplaced her résumé.  The one area of professional sports that seems to be welcoming women more than ever is cheerleading, which happened to be the subject of the Times’ story.

It seems that there are two types of cheerleaders, those who dance and those who mingle with the fans.  Guess what?  Both are subject to crappy pay and crappy work conditions.  Put women who aren’t wearing a whole lot of clothes into a situation where they interact with young male fans who are drinking, and you’re asking for trouble in the form of harassment.  Good luck trying to fix that problem, as numerous NFL teams have promised to do.

Sorry, but cheerleading based on females in tight costumes no longer has a role in society, if it ever did.  At least in baseball, those ever-irritating “cheer teams” are integrated by gender, and the young women are dressed no more provocatively than their male counterparts; I just don’t need anyone tossing t-shirts my way.  As for the NBA, NFL and NHL, they need to move beyond the organized booty-shake to sell their product. 

Tales of Paul Bunyan

Last week in Detroit, White Sox rookie Daniel Palka skied a ball so high the right fielder—playing medium deep—lost track of it; so did the TV camera.  The ball ended up deep in the right field stands.  Something similar happened Friday night with the Brewers in town.

Milwaukee right fielder Domingo Santana, also playing medium deep, froze in the wake of Palka’s swing; Santana had no idea where the ball was.  Centerfielder Lorenzo Cain had to race over and caught Palka’s fly ball with his back to the fence.

Palka can’t catch a ball for the life of him, but he sure can hit ’em.  Along with the moon shots, he’s recorded among the hardest-hit homers of the year—and hardest-hit singles, one exiting the infield in the vicinity of 110 mph.  I wonder how Palka’s emergence will affect the well-laid rebuild plans of general manager Rick Hahn and company.   

We wouldn’t want anything to get in the way of things, now would we?

Reflections

Four weeks from today, I walk my daughter down the aisle of the same church where she was baptized, received her First Holy Communion and Confirmation and gave the eighth-grade graduation speech.  It all puts me in a reflective mood.

I try not to live in the past for fear of being trapped there, but the memories keep intruding anyhow:  the first time I pitched to Clare, our first ballgame, her first homeruns (baseball before softball).  The danger is forcing her to relive those moments with and for me; that’s just depressing and a sure way to keep her from dropping in to visit the old man.  Best to keep busy and stay focused on what lies ahead rather than behind.

If only the White Sox were worth watching.

Compare and Contrast

The Cavaliers and Warriors are facing one another for the fourth straight year in the NBA finals.  If Cleveland wins, Lebron James will be 4-5 in the finals.  That’s one mighy big if.

In last night’s opening game, the Cavs had pulled even at 107 apiece with 4.7 seconds left and guard George Hill on the line to shoot the second of two free throws.  Hill missed, but teammate J.R. Smith rebounded.  Only Smith dribbled away from the basket before finally passing the ball, too late to avoid an overtime loss.       

 Cleveland coach Tyronn Lue said Smith thought his team was ahead, and James sure had a look of disbelief on his face that Smith didn’t know where he was going.  Smith contends he was aware of the score, didn’t want to try to shoot over Kevin Durant and thought James was going to call a timeout, so he waited, in which case Smith couldn’t tell time.  As they say outside of New York, once a Knick always a Knick.

There’s a good deal of debate going on these days as to who’s the better player, James or Michael Jordan.  I recently found myself in the middle of one such argument during my niece’s college graduation party.  I look at it this way.  Put James on those Bulls’ teams, and they still go 6-0.  Put Jordan on this Cavs’ team, and he probably stuffs Smith into a basket for his play, and they still lose.

Michael always had a topnotch supporting cast and the perfect coach for that roster.  Lebron has to depend on an ex-Knick in crunch time.  Short of a time machine to prove my hypothesis, I’d call it a draw between two greats.