Happy Birthday to Me

I spent my birthday appreciating the people around me and wondering if the timeline for the White Sox rebuild might be a little off.  The rebuild has been official since the 2016 winter meetings; that’s 2-1/2 years.  But don’t forget to throw in the four years of losing baseball that went before.

You’d think in all that time the Sox would’ve come up with a lefthander relief pitcher who wouldn’t give up back-to-back homeruns to left-handed hitters, in extra innings, no less.  But the Sox appear unable to do that.  Oh, they have two good lefties in Aaron Bummer and Jace Fry, but manager Rick Renteria used them already.  So, out comes 30-year old Josh Osich, he of the career 5.21 ERA.  Boom boom, this gift’s for you, Mets, by a score of 5-2 in eleven innings.

Oh, well, it could be worse.  I could feel the way Jose Abreu looks at the plate.  No, wait, that is worse.  

Marking Time

There are two sure ways to measure your age, having a birthday and going to a ballgame.  I’m doing one today and did the other on Sunday.

I am now officially old enough to be irritated by people who can’t sit in their seats; the call of beer and food is too great, after which it’s the call of the john.  And here my father taught me you go to a ballgame to watch, not pig out.

I’m way past the point of being irritated by the scoreboard and music.  What players walk up to I wouldn’t be caught dead listening to.  Something also needs to be done about the young people on the field, not the drunks but the twenty-somethings working for the Sox.

I don’t need to see anyone waving a White Sox flag to cue my excitement at being there; ditto fighting for tee-shirts tossed or shot my way.  I don’t care who wins whatever race they have on the scoreboard, and I don’t care who wins the Sox-announcers’ mascot race.

I don’t particularly care who throws out the first pitch, and I definitely don’t care who wins what between innings.  The next time I buy a ticket for “split the pot” will be the first.

What I do care about is the home team winning.  Playing fundamentally sound baseball would be nice, too.  Only now I’m too old to hold my breath.  Six years of losing baseball and counting.  Put that on a birthday cake instead of candles.   

Sunday in the Park

The acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree, goes the saying, and my daughter loves baseball.  That’s where we were yesterday, at a ballgame on the South Side of Chicago.  It was definitely major-league, too, by the way the Twins played.

The White Sox?  Not so much.  We watched starter Dylan Covey give up five runs on fourteen pitches, two of them gopher balls.  I imagine Covey is getting lit up on social media and talk sports, so there’s no need for me to pile on.  I mean, he doesn’t want to pitch like that.  It’s just that he does.

Here’s the thing.  After the game, Sox manager Rick Renteria said, “We believe he has the stuff to pitch in the big leagues.”  I don’t.  Covey and Renteria both broached the subject of confidence, which might’ve made sense to tackle five years ago, only Covey turns 28 next month.  If he doesn’t have it by now, when will he?

The loss pushes Covey to 1-7 on the season with a 6.99 ERA.  For his career, Covey is 6-28 with a 6.28 ERA.  Not to be mean, but with those numbers Covey is basically a guy who holds down a spot until the rebuild starts churning out talented replacements.  Only in the case of the Sox, that’s not happening due to injuries to pitchers in the system along with stalled development (and/or a misreading of talent by the organization).  The cavalry will not be coming anytime soon to save the Sox starting rotation or those fans trying to hold down the fort.

Even if the talent was there, I doubt it would be put to good use.  The Twins hit eleven—that’s 11, folks—homeruns in a four-game series, of which they won three.  Not once did I see a Sox pitcher force a Minnesota batter off the plate.  My God, Nelson Cruz clubbed four homers in two games, and he looked more comfortable than my dog on the couch with a pillow under her head.

What does that approach teach young pitchers?

More Laps

Yesterday, I did more laps at the Y, not in the pool but above; they have an elevated track around the facilities.  Michele likes to walk it, and I joined.

There are three lanes—walk, jog, run.  Us old folks stick to the walk lane, not that it really matters.  I tried jogging/running back in the day, but it never took.  In my twenties, I’d already hiked thirty-plus miles in the mountains and done twenty-plus through city streets.  Walking is a great activity, at least for me.  The Forrest Gump thing, though, is another story.

Like I said already, laps are as much mental as physical.  You have to want to do them in order to do them.  The trick for me yesterday was focusing on directions.  For reasons buried deep in my subconscious, I wanted to know what direction I was going in.  Two sides of the building have windows, two don’t.  Call me the human rat working his way through a simple maze, which I did.

And, you know what?  It made the minutes pass.  The other time I went with Michele, I also worked the small punching bag, a la Rocky.  Yeah, I could’a been a contender.  

Laps

I know people like my wife and father-in-law who think swimming laps in a pool tones body and mind in the most delightful way.  Too bad I have the buoyancy of a rock.  My laps tend to come on a bicycle.

I got to the 606 pretty early on Thursday with the intention of doing eighteen 2.7-mile laps, good for fifty miles once you throw in the distance I bike getting to the trail.  The thing about laps, at least for me, is that you have to want to do them and keep doing them.  The physical depends on the mental, you could say.

It was a nice day, sunny, not too hot or windy.  I did 33 miles while breaking just once for water; figure that took at most 90 seconds.  Then I did another two laps to get close to 40 miles.  Then I took another water break followed by a nice long rest in the shade.

Long story short, I made too much like the hare instead of the tortoise.  What did Strother Martin say in “Cool Hand Luke,” a man has got to know his limitations?  I set a pace that would’ve done Michael Phelps proud, only there was no reason to.  Oh, well, at least I didn’t end up at the bottom of the pool.  Fifty miles turned to forty-five.  You live and learn.

Twenty Questions, Give or Take

Drink the White Sox Rebuild Kool-Aid, and all is well.  Take a pass, and you may want to ask some questions, like these:

Lucas Giolito gave up four homeruns, including three to Nelson Cruz, in last night’s 10-3 loss to the Twins.  Did James McCann call the pitches, or did Giolito shake him off until he got the sign he wanted?

After the first homer, why didn’t Cruz get brushed off the plate or, better yet, introduced to the ground?  After the second homer?  The third?

What did pitching coach Don Cooper have to say about Giolito’s performance?  The team ERA is currently 5.06, the 23^rd “best” in baseball.  How much pride does Cooper take in that number?

Sox manager Rick Renteria says, “Good pitching has a way of slowing things down on the offensive side.”  The team batting average is .253, tied for 13^th out of 30 MLB teams, and 6^th in the AL.  Does that mean the AL is a pitchers’ league?

Is new Sox dh AJ Reed related to anyone in the Sox front office?  If not, does he have incriminating photos of just about everyone in the organization, including owner Jerry Reinsdorf?  Is there any baseball reason for Reed to be with a big-league club?  Are the Sox a big-league club?

   The team fielding percentage is tied for 29^th place.  Does Renteria or general manager Rick Hahn consider the Sox to be a good fielding club?

Right now, the Sox are ten games under .500; a 78-84 record would look to be a major accomplishment.  That was the Twins’ record last year, when they fired manager Paul Molitor and replaced him with Rocco Baldelli, who has Minnesota leading Cleveland in the Central Division by 2-1/2 games.

Would the Sox consider making a similar change come October?   

Don't Worry, Be Happy

After dropping a 2-0 contest to the Marlins last night, the White Sox have gone 1-6 against Kansas City (39-64) and Miami (38-62), teams that could accurately be labelled as “bottom feeder.”  So, why did the Sox fare poorly?  Oh, that’s right, we’re still in rebuild mode.  Scores and records don’t count until you’re ready to contend.  Just ask Jerry and Rick.

What really bugged about last night’s broadcast—in addition to the Sox being handcuffed on two hits by the immortal Zac Gallen, who picked up his first major-league win, wouldn’t you know—was the mix of baseball and fundraising for White Sox charities; fans were encouraged every half inning until 9 PM to bid on some goodie (golf with Hawk and Wimpie, anyone?).  The organization can’t field a winning baseball team, and I’m supposed to trust them spending my money for charity?  No thanks.

At least I didn’t see any of those irritating “authentic fans” commercials that both the Sox and Cubs like to run.  My friends, an authentic fan on the South Side is anyone who can put up with the crap that passes for progress in a rebuild without switching allegiance to another team, or sport.  

Futility

The mark of a good cheat is not getting caught, which is to say DePaul University, my alma mater isn’t good at cheating.  The NCAA has hit the men’s basketball program with a series of penalties for its handling of a recruit several years ago.  The player in question lasted all of one season before transferring to another school.

Unlike Loyola, DePaul is a school that abandoned its Chicago campus in 1980 to play in a barn—no, make that a hangar—in the suburbs, only to move back to the city two years ago.  Note that I didn’t say the team moved back on campus.  No, they moved seven miles away as the crow flies, and birds can get to Wintrust Arena on the South Side a whole lot faster than DePaul students and other fans.  You wouldn’t be alone in thinking the athletic department is in need of new leadership.

I attended DePaul in what seems to be a lifetime ago; spring of freshman year coincided with Terry Forster’s rookie season with the White Sox.  Lucky for me I wasn’t a jock.  At least I came out of the place with a degree.

More Second Chances

I must really hate the Cubs—and I do—to forget to mention infielder Robel Garcia as yet another example of someone who’s clawed his way to the major leagues, from Italy, of all places.

Signed as a 17-year old from the Dominican Republic, Garcia spent four years in the Indians’ system before moving on to the Italian national team, how or why I couldn’t say.  After another four seasons there, the 26-year old caught the attention of a Cubs’ scout, and the rest is history, as they say.  The switch-hitting Garcia is batting .286 since his early July call-up with 4 homeruns and 10 RBIs, all this in a mere 35 at-bats.  Garcia homered into McCovey Cove at Oracle Park last night while Mike Yastrzemski went two for four with an RBI in a Giants’ late-inning, come-from-behind 5-4 win.

Garcia plays second base, just like ex-White Sox Tyler Saladino, now of the Brewers.  Things haven’t gone too well for Saladino this year; he’s batting a mere .130, but the last two games sure have been nice.  Saladino has hit a grand slam in each game, and that always leaves a good impression.

Grinders rule.

Unexpected but Appreciated

Baseball as launch angle verges on unwatchable.  If it weren’t for the feel-good stories, I don’t know if I’d bother.

Which is why  I so enjoy the story of Mike Yastrzemski.  The grandson of that Yastrzemski, this one was drafted by the Orioles in 2013 and languished in their system for six years before being dealt to the Giants.  Since his call up in late May, the 5’11” Yastrzemski has hit .259 with nine homeruns, including a walk-off against the Mets yesterday.  You gotta love it.   

The same goes for 25-year old Mike Brosseau of the Rays.  Also 5’11”, the undrafted Brosseau was called up in late June for what should’ve been a cup of coffee, only guess what?  The pride of Oakland University a little outside of Detroit can hit, to the tune of four homers to go with eleven RBIs and a .309 BA in just 55 at-bats.  You gotta love it.

And did I mention Adam Engel?  My favorite center fielder is back from the dead.  Called up for the weekend series in Tampa, Engel responded with six hits in three games, to push his batting average to a respectable .270.  If this keeps up, there may be hope for Daniel Palka.  

The Men in Blue

The Men in Blue

Two quick notes on home plate umpires—they’re easily duped and terribly confused.  Allow me to explain.

Thanks to gibbermetrics, the stolen base has been thrown into disrepute, leaving catchers the sole job of catching the ball, which has led to the nefarious art of framing.  He who takes a borderline pitch and sneaks it back into the strike zone, thus “framing” the pitch, for a strike call is anointed a good-to-great catcher.  Of course, if the umps were paying attention to all this subtle movement by catchers, they’d wise up to what was going on.

But for whatever reasons, they don’t.  Instead, umps constantly fall for the frame up, if you will.  It’s going to reach the point soon where catchers will get away with framing passed balls and wild pitches along with “ghost” pitches that pitchers pretend to throw, all motion no pitch but a strike call, nonetheless.  If I exaggerate, it’s not by much.

Then we have all those home plate umps who get confused while calling out a batter on strikes and think they should act like a Rockette or NFL kicker.  Guys, it’s baseball not a chorus line or a field-goal try from the thirty-yard line.  Call the batter out while not making a fool out of yourselves.  Please, for your own sakes as well as that of the national pastime.

Loyalties

The late Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens grew up in the South Side neighborhood of Hyde Park, home to a certain prominent university.  Walk down 53^rd Street or Woodlawn Avenue, and you’re just as likely to pass a White Sox fan as a Nobel Prize winner and in the case of Barack Obama, both.

But not Stevens.  He said he became a Cubs’ fan in the 1920s because they were good and the Sox weren’t.  I’ll forgive Stevens his disloyalty to place on account of his never forsaking the North Siders once they turned bad.  I wonder, though, if Stevens ever bumped into another Hyde Parker by the name of Robert Merriam, who was 2-1/2 years older.

Robert was the son of Charles Merriam, and like his father, he would grow up to be a Chicago alderman and (unsuccessful) Republican candidate for mayor.  Doing research on Chicago politics, I ran across a letter the son wrote to his father in 1927.  The eight-year old reported that the Sox looked to be pretty good, and he was right.  They would go a season-high fourteen games over .500 by early June before fading to a 70-83 record.

Stevens eventually learned that being a fan entailed following a team through both good seasons and bad.  I imagine Robert Merriam and countless other Hyde Parkers knew that, too.  

Induction

It’s induction weekend in Cooperstown, and I’m as happy as Chris Russo and Jay Jaffe must be miserable.  Why?  Because Harold Baines is going into the Hall of Fame.

Russo is a radio “personality” in the same way Dr. Mengele was a physician.  Along the way, he’s earned the nickname of Mad Dog, which every right-thinking canine should take offense at.  According to a story in today’s Tribune, Tony LaRussa, a big Baines’ backer, wanted to change that to “Clueless” for his anti-Baines’ intransigence.  Amen to that, Tony.

The story also noted that Jaffe found Baines’ selection by the HOF’s Today’s Game Era committee to be “unsettling” for the simple fact that Baines fared poorly in a measurement Jaffe invented.  That would be JAWS, the Jaffe WAR Score System, which averages a player’s WAR—wins above replacement—from his seven-year peak WAR (not be confused with best seven consecutive years of WAR, which probably is confusing to everyone not named Jay Jaffe).  Why seven years, instead of nine, or eight or five?  That’s the thing about oracles.  They never have to explain themselves clearly.

Anyway, the laconic Baines will stand before a podium and address the assembled crowd, oh, for five minutes if he’s feeling talkative.  How nice to know it’ll seem like an eternity in hell for the likes of Mad Dog and sabergibber.

Start Making Sense

I read a comment in today’s The Athletic by White Sox general manager Rick Hahn that made me wonder if the two of us spoke the same language.  Hahn said, “The whole season is really about evaluation.”  If I were in Hahn’s shoes and said that, people would be right to call me a liar. 

Why?  Because nothing the Sox are doing right now suggests anything close to honest evaluation.  If it did, heads would be rolling and job openings posted.  The Sox went into the All-Star break on a high, beating the Cubs to move within two games of .500.  Seven games into the second half, and they’re suddenly nine under.  What happened?

Well, manager Rick Renteria did a mighty poor job of keeping the momentum going, and that part of the coaching staff responsible for pitching decisions—hint, hint, Don Cooper—messed up in deciding Dylan Covey was ready to return to the rotation, or pitch at the major-league level, for that matter.  The three games against the As were three losses that exposed the modest level of talent both on the Sox roster and in the minor leagues.

And the four losses against the here-to-fore awful Royals?  Well, that’s where the evaluating should start in earnest.  In four games, the Sox were outscored 29-12.  Ivan Nova lost last night to put his record at 4-9 with a 5.86 ERA.  Let’s evaluate those numbers and that signing, Rick.  While you’re at it, explain why Ross Detwiler is on the roster.  Nothing says “stink” like a 7.02 ERA, and yet there Detwiler is in the starting rotation.

I won’t hold my breath for an explanation, either from Hahn or Sox/Pravda.  The team website was too busy reporting on the excitement in Wednesday’s 7-5 loss that was generated by homeruns from “newcomers” Ryan Goins and AJ Reed, only Goins is 31 and Reed a rather doughy 26. 

Both Goins and Reed are recent additions.  After evaluating talent in Charlotte, Hahn couldn’t find anybody else?  Danny Mendick hasn’t stopped hitting since spring training, and he didn’t deserve a promotion?  Daniel Palka hasn’t said a word about being sent down, twice, and he doesn’t deserve another look?  Palka hit 27 homers last year and is hitting .275 for Charlotte with 16 homers and 44 RBIs. With his homer last night, Reed has four in his four-year career to go with a .166 BA.  How does that compare to Palka?  Oh, and Reed was hitting .224 in Triple-A with 12 homers and 35 RBIs.  Can you explain your evaluation process, Rick?

On the first play in the bottom of the first of a 11-0 loss Tuesday, left fielder Eloy Jimenez collided with center fielder Charlie Tilson, bruising the ulnar nerve in his right elbow; Jimenez is now on the 10-day IL.  To any neutral observer, Jimenez is not an outfielder, and I doubt he’d be any better—or safer—playing first base.  Already this season, Jimenez has crashed into a fence and collided with a teammate, and yet Hahn says the future of his prized rookie is in left field.

All I can say is that’s a conclusion based on some mighty strange evaluating.      

Warring Numbers

The Sun-Times runs an occasional sports’ column by an acolyte of analytics.  Yesterday, he considered the HOF worthiness of Lou Whitaker, Bobby Grich, Dwight Evans and Kenny Lofton.  So far, so good.  Then he had to start talking gibbermetrics.  WAR, or wins above replacement, I get but don’t believe in.  As for bWAR and OPS+, give me a break.

I bet you didn’t know there’s a bWAR not to be confused with WARP, rWAR or fWAR.  In other words, different publications use different formulas to calculate wins above replacement; “bWAR” indicates the writer is using the version favored by baseballreference.com.  And here I thought analytics was supposed to provide clarity in judging performance.  These clowns can’t even agree on what formula to use in confusing the rest of us.

As for OPS, that’s on-base percentage plus slugging percentage.  OBP has been around a long time, informally since the start of the game.  A hundred years ago, one fan probably said to another, “Jones is hitting .325 but doesn’t get any walks.  Smith is batting .299 with close to a hundred walks.  I like him better.”  So, OBP is that conversation quantified, which I can live with.

Slugging percentage is based on values given hits divided by at-bats: one times the # of singles for a player in a season plus two times the doubles plus three times the triples plus four times the homeruns divided, as I mentioned, by at-bats. All this basically tells you is that your cleanup hitter should have a higher slugging percentage than your leadoff hitter; if it’s reversed, your team might be in trouble.  What does adding OBP with slugging percentage give you, beyond a number?  Damned if I know.  In case you’re wondering, OPS+ takes into account how ballparks and leagues can affect a player’s OPS (I think).  Easy-peasy, right?

Different groups champion different measures, to which I say, go for it, guys.  But I wonder what all this purported measuring of baseball performance has accomplished.  Analytics says that stolen bases and sacrifice bunts are overrated if not bad because they can produce outs while launch angle and exit velocity are cool.  Let’s say they are.  Then where are all the number crunchers in the stands or in front of the TVs?  Attendance and ratings are down, from what I gather, unless the crunchers are glued to other platform, turning plays into algorithms.\

In which case, heaven help us all.  

The Truth and Nothing But

Well, the great Zack Collins’ experiment has come to an end, at least for now.  The tenth player picked in the 2016 MLB draft batted a pitiable .077 (2 for 26) for the White Sox with 14 strikeouts vs. 5 walks.  But take heart, Sox fans.  All is not lost.  So says manager Rick Renteria.

Quoted in Pravda, aka the Sox MLB website, Renteria said, “I’m not looking at the numbers,” which is smart because they’re bad enough to make a person ask what the organization ever saw in Collins.  Renteria added he was “looking more at the total package [?] in terms of the things that he’s gained by being here.  He knows that there are going to be other moments in time [??], and we’ll continue to give him opportunities to do what he’s doing [???].  He’s taking them in with an open mind [????], and he’s been very honest with himself and the coaching staff.”         

Oh, really?  Collins told Pravda, “Me getting in there every fifth or fourth day or whatever it is [I’ve run out of question marks], it’s tough for me.  I’ve never really done that in my career.  On top of that, it’s the big leagues and a little bit different” than being one of the anointed in Triple A.

In case you were wondering, Collins has never hit better than .258 in the minors, and that was three years ago at high-A Winston-Salem.  This is a core player in the Sox rebuild?  If so, Rick Hahn and company may want to alert fans there’s going to be some extra losing ahead.

#53 and Counting

Today, the Tribune devoted three-quarters of the back page in sports to the fifty-third best Bear of all-time, linebacker Otis Wilson.  Only 47 days to go before all 100 top monsters of the midway are profiled.  I wonder if this is any kind of lead-up to the season opener.

As a White Sox fan, I perish the thought, but have to ask:  If the Cubs were to go deep in the playoffs, would the Trib cut back on its Bears’ coverage?  They’re pretty much bare-bones with the Sox already, not even bothering to send the beat reporter on road trips; come October 1^st, the Sox will pretty much disappear from page and pixel.  And what if the Bulls started the season hot, too?

Where, oh where, would the world’s greatest newspaper find the space?  One last thing: suppose the above happened and the Bears opened the season losing four straight.  Would that mean reduced coverage?

What do you think?

Rebuild Rebuild

Nothing like testing the ol’ rebuild with a series against the A’s.  Now, there’s a team that knows how to rebuild from scratch and on demand.  Two games under .500 for us suddenly becomes four games under in the proverbial blink of an eye.

Dylan Covey came off the IL yesterday to pitch one-third of an inning while giving up six runs, all earned; for all you kids keeping stats out there, that comes out to an ERA of 81 for the game.  Good thing that nothing counts in a rebuild, not Covey pitching like that or catching prospect Zach Collins going 2 for 26 with 14 strikeouts (and Collins was touted for having a good eye) or reliever Kelvin Herrera raising his ERA on the season to 7.84.  Herrera, pitching coach Don Cooper and manager Rick Renteria must all be aiming at the 81.

The one tolerable thing about another season of losing is my daughter; I raised a knowledgeable baseball fan.  She stayed for dinner after hitting on Thursday and filled me in on the Charlotte lineup.  “This is what my life has come to, checking on the Triple-A games,” she said, looking up from her phone.  And yesterday she texted if I knew anything about waiver claim AJ Reed, who in essence took the place of Daniel Palka on the roster.

I called Clare back, and we talked baseball for a good ten minutes.  Rebuilds don’t affect everything.    

An Unpleasant Stroll

Can you remember what you were doing forty years ago yesterday?  I can.  I was in the kitchen washing dinner dishes with the White Sox game on the TV.  It didn’t take long for me to see something was strange.

I couldn’t get over all the people at Comiskey Park for a twilight doubleheader on a week night, not for a team 40-46, even if they were playing the up-and-coming Tigers (Trammell, Whitaker, Morris et al).  And there was something about these “fans”: they were on the grubby side.  They also didn’t seem much interested in staying in their seats or off the foul pole.

Mike Veeck or his father Bill—the latter always took the blame—had come up with the promotion idea of “Disco Demolition Night” in conjunction with a disc jockey of no small ego or great  intelligence (or courage.  In all the years since, he’s denied any responsibility for what happened.).  The more I watched the game, the more it seemed clear that the planned demolition between games was going to blow up in more ways than one.

The DJ took the field, spoke whatever stupid words popped into his head and then presided over the explosion of a pile of disco records.  One “boom!” was all it took, and Comiskey Park gave way to bedlam.  People poured onto the field and offered a textbook illustration for what anarchy looks like in action.  After about a half-hour of this, the police came to put an end to all the running amuck.

The event seemed to be a catalyst to Bill Veeck selling the team to a group of investors led by Jerry Reinsdorf, so there’s that, along with a growing belief this was a violent protest aimed directly at the LGBTQ community.  Yes and no.  I’m pretty sure the non-baseball fans present for DDN regarded disco as “fag” music, but that needs to defined.  The f-slur could be applied to anything such people found objectionable.  But did they really feel that threatened by gays and lesbians?

Depending how I dressed, I could’ve have passed in both disco and anti-disco circles; my preferred mode of dress at the time would have been “baseball casual.”  As for the anger expressed that night, I think a lot, possibly most, of it was class-directed.  Blue-collar whites often heard the word “disco” and thought Studio 54.  Straight college graduates getting ahead in life—while enjoying a new kind of music—were a major irritant to the dirty blue-jeans crowd.

But, all in all, an event that never needs to be repeated. 

Start Me Up

Clare stopped by yesterday to do something she hasn’t tried in close to eleven months—hit a ball.  Surgery on the labrum in her right shoulder was last August, and formal physical therapy ended in February.  It was time to see if anything had changed.

I’m happy to report that all the old sounds were there at Stella’s waiting for us: whir of the conveyor belt carrying baseballs to the pitching machines; “whack!” of non-wood bat on ball; “clang!” of ball hitting roof metal-support post; “crack!” of ball hitting wood canopy over the machines.  Best of all, there wasn’t a “whoosh!” from a swing and a miss in nine tokens.

Oh, the girl showed rust, especially when she tried to bunt; that was my idea, for her to follow the ball up close before trying a full swing.  But Clare laid down enough bunts in 70 and 75 mph to start swinging away. Whack!  Crack!  Clang!

I spotted what looked to be a father with his five-year old daughter; he kept watching Clare make contact.  “She hasn’t done this in close to a year,” I wanted to tell him, but that seemed too much like boasting.

It was enough just to have someone watching the onetime prodigy back to doing her thing in the cages. 

All-Star Memories

Well, mine are probably better than the Mets’ Jeff McNeil.  According to a wire service story in today’s Tribune, the scoreboard at Progressive Field showed the wrong photo—that of Mets’ teammate Jacob deGrom—when McNeil hit in the eighth inning.  The “all-star” scoreboard—gosh, I wonder if anybody paid for naming rights—also messed up the names of David Dahl and Wellington Castillo while identifying Cody Bellinger and Ketel Marte with the wrong team (Braves, as opposed to the Dodgers and Diamondbacks, respectively).  Good thing only National Leaguers were affected, or I might be upset.

While we’re at it, a shout-out to MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred for ignoring all evidence to the contrary to argue the balls are juiced and his predecessor Bud Selig for setting the record straight on Jerry Reinsdorf.  The White Sox owner did not pull Selig’s strings, as has been alleged in some quarters.  Thanks, Bud.  But you judge people by the company they keep.

Two quick All-Star memories of my own, if you please.  Back when they had two such games a season, the second fell on my tenth birthday in 1962, at Wrigley Field as luck would have it.  Did we go?  No.  For some reason, my mother had my one sister drive out to what was then God’s country to visit a church and cemetery dating to the mid-19^th century.  Naturally, we had the ball game on, and I could hear the cheers for Ernie Banks—or Louie Aparicio, I’m not sure which—when he batted as we drove onto the grounds.

Fast-forward twenty-one years, when the All-Star game was celebrating its fiftieth anniversary, yes, at Comiskey Park.  Michele and I tried but couldn’t get tickets.  Our consolation prize was tickets to the old-timers’ game the day before.  Smoky Burgess lined a double in the right-field gap.  I don’t recall anyone misspelling his name.

Good News, Bad News

Good News, Bad News

On the plus side, I won a pizza on the All-Star Game, with the AL over the NL by a score of 4-3.  Too bad the game was so hard to stomach.

The action itself was OK, especially given that the White Sox All-Stars outperformed their Cub counterparts.  Lucas Giolito got the walk out of his system first thing off before retiring the next three batters in his one inning of  work while James McCann hit a single that set up a run and made a nice catch of a popup to end the eighth inning with the tying and go-ahead runs in scoring position.  I won’t mention Jose Abreu’s double play but will mention the combined 0 for 5 by the Cubs’ Javy Baez, Kris Bryant and Willson Contreras.

If Joe Buck and Fox Sports didn’t exist, what a wonderful world it would be.  I can only listen to Buck with the sound off.  And my thanks to the people at Fox who thought it would be a good idea to equip the first and third base coaches with cameras atop their helmets; it was like watching video shot on a roller-coaster ride.  If that’s what the coaches see, maybe baseball doesn’t need them anymore.

Them, or Fox. 

Nothing Personal

White Sox top prospect Luis Robert has been promoted to Triple-A Charlotte, and that’s a good thing, except where it’s not.

The 21-year old center fielder is on a tear, hitting a combined .349 in high-A and Double-A, with 16 homerun and 53 RBIs.  What’s not to like about a player with 29 stolen bases and a .401 OBP?  Too bad it likely means the end for one or both of my favorite Sox players the last two seasons.

Adam Engel, demoted to Triple-A around six weeks ago, will have to yield his spot in center; he’ll either be made to play the corners or moved.  Daniel Palka, fresh off a 0-for-10 second chance with the big club, will either share time with Engel or be moved.  This is when sports stops being fun.

It’s at a point where both players would be better off with other organizations.  The problem with Engel is he can’t hit major-league pitching, as evidenced by his career .207 BA over three seasons.  Something else is going on with Palka, who is a godawful 1 for 45 on the season after hitting 27 homeruns as a rookie last year.

Young Daniel may be his own worst enemy, not a jerk but as my daughter calls him a “goof ball,” if in the best sense of the term.  He put up great numbers in the minors for the Diamondbacks and Twins, yet never got a chance with them.  He hit those 27 homers last year with the Sox, yet gets sent to the minors twice.  All I can see is that Palka has a droll sense of humor that may rub important people the wrong way.  It also doesn’t help to go 1 for 45.

Lucky for Palka he’s a left-handed hitter with power.  His role model should be Matt Stairs, whose career didn’t take off until he was 28.  Stairs managed to play 19 seasons, during which he hit 265 homers.  That be you, Daniel, should you put your mind to it.

Fight Location to be Determined

Well, it’s certainly nice to see the New York Times agreed with me on Sunday that other women’s soccer teams consider their U.S. opponents to be “Ugly Americans,” not that it kept the U.S. from winning its fourth World Cup yesterday.  Megan Rapinoe notched her sixth goal of the tournament in a 2-1 victory over the Netherlands.  The post-season is when things should get really interesting.

Rapinoe doesn’t like Donald Trump, and our president detests anyone who dares not to like him.  Rapinoe has already said she wouldn’t go to the White House, and that got Trump a-tweeting.  Once he figures out how to maximize his advantage against her, a torrent of early morning tweets will follow.  You can count on it.

Trump’s base most likely couldn’t care less about soccer, so he’ll be tempted to blast away at the sport and its players.  It’s independent voters who will give the president pause.  I’m guessing toss-up Congressional districts have plenty of soccer fans, especially women, and Trump will need their votes; ditto GOP representative and senators.  That means Trump will be pressured to play nice.  Only he doesn’t play nice.

Probably it’ll just take one crack from Rapinoe to set him off.  Then we’ll have ourselves a cage match on social media.  I can’t wait.

Out of Sync

I have this picture of the All-Star Game, with demigods hitting walk-off homeruns in extra innings.  How black-and-white of me.  MLB.com ran a story today with this headline so appropriate for 2019:  Win $250K in the HR Derby Bracket Challenge.  Over and under, anyone?

Once upon a time, baseball ran from gambling the way cartoon elephants did from a mouse, only it was very real for the eight members of the White Sox banned for life by Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis.  Oh, what Buck Weaver or Shoeless Joe Jackson could’ve done with that kind of money.  Truly, it’s a curse to be born too early.

Civil War

White Sox fans really do hate Cubs’ fans; whether or not those folks return the favor is immaterial.  I wonder if it was ever this way in New York or Philadelphia.  Clare is going to the Sox-Cubs’ game tomorrow, and I’m crossing my fingers she won’t pick a fight with some loudmouthed Cubs’ fan.

The two teams have found ways to play one another since forever, probably starting with the 1906 World Series, won by the good guys four games to two.  I have in front of me a scorecard courtesy of the old Chicago Herald-American of a Sox-Cubs’ exhibition game, played sometime between the late 1930s and ’40s; again, the good guys won by a score of 4-1 with Ted Lyons pitching.  And today’s Sun-Times noted the exhibition game of August 18, 1969, won, unfortunately, by the bad guys, 2-0.  But the Cubs went in the tank soon after, so there’s that.

I remember the game because we were coming home from our family vacation in Colorado.  My father drove the Dodge to the top of Pike’s Peak, and we lived to tell the tale.  It was after dinner somewhere when we heard the news that Sox rookie Carlos May lost the top half of his right thumb in a training accident with the Marines, something about a mortar mishap.  I was days away from starting senior year of high school.  St. Laurence was a world away from the Rocky Mountains, just as I am today from 1969.

Giolito against Lester.  Go Sox!

Seeing is Believing

Reynaldo Lopez, he of the 4-8 record and 6.34 ERA, vowed to do better the second half of the season, this after giving up seven runs on nine hits in a 11-5 loss to the Tigers yesterday afternoon.  I’m not holding my breath.

What Lopez did not say, what two beat reporters did not mention as well as the Sox TV team, is that our talented, befuddled righty won’t pitch inside to left-handed hitters, of whom Detroit started five; they generated six hits.  It seems pretty clear, to me at least, that Lopez reverts to his fastball as soon as he runs into trouble with his secondary pitches, only he can’t throw his fastball for strikes on a consistent basis; there are way too many 97-mph pitches out of the zone.  Come the fifth or sixth inning, the fastball is down a few mph and very hittable, especially when it’s left on the outside half of the plate to lefties.  Oh, and his in his last start I think, Lopez didn’t leave the mound to cover home on a wild pitch with a runner on third.

The White Sox keep flirting with .500, but general manager Rick Hahn is adamant he won’t make decisions based on a longshot chance at a wildcard spot.  Fine.  That being the case, give Lopez one more start to prove himself.  If he can’t, send him to Charlotte to figure things out.  After all, what’s a rebuild for, if not to see who to keep come the renaissance?       

Don't Look Back

Didn’t Satchel Paige say something about not looking back because somebody could be gaining on you?  This would seem to be the case with Jose Abreu.

The White Sox first baseman hit his 20^th homerun of the season last night, a three-run walk-off in the 12^th inning to give the Sox a doubleheader sweep of the Tigers.  Named to his third All-Star team last week, the 32-year old Abreu is hitting .272 with 63 RBIs.  After the game, he reiterated his desire to stay with the team past its perpetual rebuild phase.

But here’s the thing—the Sox keep drafting first basemen.  In 2017 they took Gavin Sheet is in the second round.  Sheets is doing nicely in Double A but apparently not well enough to keep Rick Hahn and company from selecting Andrew Vaughn with the third pick in the MLB draft last month.  What’s the rush, exactly?  As ever, Hahn isn’t saying.

All a fan can do, all a player can do, is take the game at hand and not worry about the ones after today. 

Grumpy Old Man

I must be on the wrong side of history.  Colin Kaepernick feels one way, I feel another.  The U.S. women’s soccer team acts one way, and I want it to act another.

Nike was all ready to launch a Fourth of July shoe featuring an American flag as designed by Betsy Ross.  Kaepernick, an advisor to Nike, protested on the grounds that the symbol has been coopted by the alt-right; Nike then dropped plans to introduce the shoe.  It seems to me the alt-right will coopt every patriotic symbol it can grab hold of if we let them.  Better to pry the symbol out of their hands than cede it to them, or so says the grumpy old man.

And then we have the women’s soccer team, one game away from the World’s Cup.  Yesterday, the U.S. beat Britain, 2-1, with forward Alex Morgan celebrating her goal by pretending to drink a sport of tea—get it, they’re playing Britain?—and, yes, with pinkie finger extended.  Again, it could just be me, but a team that has no love for Donald Trump may be coming off to the rest of the world as Trump 2.0 for its antics.   

Passings Not

Wow, the Mets are in a bad way.  They commemorate the 50^th anniversary of the Amazin’ Mets only to look dumb in the process.  It’s never a good thing to identify former players as dead when they’re not.

 

Yet that’s exactly what the New Yorkers did with pitcher Jesse Hudson and outfielder Jim Gosger.  Granted, neither Hudson nor Gosger made the postseason in ’69 so they may not be part of the collective memory the way Tommie Agee and Ed Kranepool are, but still, all you had to do was go to baseballreference.com and check; most likely, some intern couldn’t get properly motivated when given the job.  Gosger in particular was upset to find out he was listed among the Mets’ dead.

I feel a connection here because I “managed” Gosger back in eighth grade; he was on the 1965 Red Sox, one of my Strat-o-Matic teams.  Good field, decent hitting and speed, with what we call nice column coverage, if I remember correctly.  Anyway, the now 76-year old Gosger says he follows the Red Sox, Mets and his home-state Tigers; the ten-year major-league veteran is a lifelong resident of Port Huron, Michigan.  That’s the other reason I remember him.  Port Huron is where the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) wrote their famous statement, beginning with “We are people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit.”

Gosger’s biggest regret as a ballplayer is not receiving a World Series’ ring from 1969.  That shouldn’t be too hard for the Mets to do, that is, if they can be bothered to get it right.

Tower of Babel

All good things come to those who wait, I guess.  White Sox general manager Rick Hahn must have decided enough was enough with pitching prospect Dylan Cease.  The boxes have been checked, the Triple-A challenges met, so up Cease comes to the Sox; he’s set to make his major-league debut Wednesday against the Tigers at home.  The question for me is, did Hahn wait too long to act?

 

By the end of May, Cease looked ready; by the end of June, he looked gassed, with a 8.31 ERA for the month to go with 14 strikeouts and12 walks in 17.1 innings.  What happened from one month to the next?  Hahn really didn’t say, unless it was hidden somewhere in the patter of his gibber.

 

“We’ve said all along Dylan Cease was going to get to Chicago based on what Dylan Cease is doing, not based upon what other players are doing,” said the oracle of 35^th Street to reporters on Friday (and reported in today’s Tribune).  “Based upon what Dylan Cease has been doing, we’re getting awful close to that time.”  If you say so, Rick.

 

The good news is the Sox, finally, will have three young pitchers—Giolito, Lopez, Cease—in the rotation.  It should be four, but Michael Kopech is recovering from Tommy John surgery.  I’ll take what I can get, while also asking that top prospects Louis Robert and Nick Madrigal receive September call-ups so fans can get a look at them and the two of them can get their feet wet. 

What do you say, oh oracle?