Not So Funny

I keep thinking of this old W.C. Fields’ joke—first prize for some contest is a week in Philadelphia and second prize, two weeks.  Now, we can add a third prize, watching the World Series.

The Nationals and Astros went seven interminable games before Washington came out on top; talk about pyrrhic wins for a sport.  By my calculations, the games averaged 3:45, or thirteen minutes longer than Super Bowl LIII.  The shortest Series’ game clocked in at 3:19 while the two longest went 4:01 and 4:03, respectively.  Oh, and those two games featured both teams using a combined nine and ten pitchers, respectively.  Wait, there’s more.

On Monday, the Associated Press reported that the commercial break between innings went 2:55, or just a tad under three minutes.  Now, multiply that seventeen times to get 49.58 minutes in ads.  (You don’t multiply by eighteen because, when the games end, they didn’t cut to commercial right away.)  So, what’s killing baseball?  That’s easy.  A style of play that consists of walks and strikeouts in pursuit of homeruns coupled with never-ending ads.  That 49-plus minute figure doesn’t even include those irritating “quickies” that ran during mound visits or any other short stoppage of play.  Anyone care to join me in being sick of A-Rod ordering his coffee on the run?

A sportswriter in today’s Tribune thinks baseball needs to market its star players better; I don’t.  A player’s a player, regardless the sport.  Does the NFL really market Tom Brady or the NBA LeBron James?  I’d argue both sports market the winning those players represent.  Fans wanted to be like Michael Jordan because he won championships, first and foremost.  Great seasons minus a championship ring equals Ernie Banks or Jerry Sloan.

Also consider that baseball has always appealed to our better angels.  Why does that matter?  Because Americans are pretty much a smash-mouth lot; we like to give better than we get.  That’s the appeal of football, in a nutshell.  Dick Butkus, the Purple People Eaters of Minnesota and NFL Films led the way, and baseball has been in decline ever since.

In baseball, on-field injuries other than hit-by-pitch are the exception, not the rule; in football, injuries happen all the time, game in game out.  Football fans are not above booing injured players, and some players argue for the right to play a brand of football that can seriously injure opponents.  Baseball fans debate the morality of the brush-back pitch.

The sport that doesn’t appeal to our baser instincts will always have a tougher time of it.  Loading up roster with pitching staffs; chasing after homeruns and the power-arms to stop them; going with openers and late-inning match ups; and paying for all of it with an endless stream of commercials will only hasten baseball’s demise as a major sport.  Either the game finds a way to beat the clock, or time runs out on the game of baseball.

A Pox on Both Your Houses

Parents of high school and college athletes who play spring sports often fantasize about what it would be like to play in the fall instead; sit through a March doubleheader to understand the appeal of September and October.  But thank God this never happened to us and Clare.  Autumn sports get thrown under the bus during a teachers’ strike.  At least they have been in Chicago.

So far, public high school athletes who participate in golf, soccer, tennis and cross-country have not only seen their regular seasons go down the drain but the playoffs, too.  Although several football teams still have a chance to qualify for the postseason, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

At some point during the cold peace between strikes, the Chicago Teachers Union and the Chicago Public Schools could have come up with an arrangement whereby sports would still be played regardless the labor situation.  If it’s all about the kids, as both sides insist, they’d find a way to do just that.  But the only contest the CTU and CPS are interested in is a big game of chicken.

If only the strike had started a little later or lasts a few weeks more, then you’d see just how chicken both sides are.  The fact of the matter is none of the affected sports has a major following on a par with basketball.  Jeopardize the basketball season, and the parents of student athletes would demand a quick resolution to the strike.  At the risk of appearing to pick sides, I suspect the strike date was set with an awareness of the sports’ calendar.

It’ll truly be about the kids as soon as CPS schools have to bow out of those holiday basketball tournaments.  Want to bet that doesn’t happen?

Coach Chicken Little

Coach Chicken Little

Bears’ coach Matt Nagy was back at it yesterday, coming up with yet another disaster scenario if he’d gone off and run another play or two with 43 seconds left in the game, the ball on the Chargers’ 21 and one timeout remaining.  Nagy told a reporter to “check out the stat if there’s any holds when you call a run play and see what happens if there’s a hold.”  For that matter, check and see how many people die after getting out of bed in the morning.

But Nagy was on some sort of roll and pointed to Sunday’s Colts-Broncos’ game.  Down a point with 1:29 left in the fourth quarter and the ball on Denver’s 34, Indianapolis ran three plays resulting in a one-yard gain.  The horror!  Oh, wait.  Colts’ coach Frank Reich knew he had future HOFer Adam Vinatieri in reserve even if the play-calling didn’t get him any closer to the end zone.  Lo and behold, Vinatieri kicked a 51-yard field goal to win the game.  It’s nice when the coaching staff and front office can get the right player for just that sort of thing.

“I would do it again a thousand times,” said the coach formerly fond of gadget plays but now seemingly afraid the sky is falling down on him.  If the McCaskeys and GM Ryan Pace have their way, I’m sure that means one down, nine hundred and ninety-nine to go.  Oh, my.

Clueless (Not the Movie)

Your team is down by a point, the ball is on the opponent’s 21-yard line.  You have 43 seconds left on the clock, with one timeout remaining.  So, what would you do?

We all know how a team like the Packers would respond, but we’re talking the Chicago Bears here, specifically, Bears-Chargers Sunday afternoon on a beautiful Sunday afternoon at Soldier Field.  Rather than try to gain more yards to make for a shorter, easier kick (as opposed to the 41-yard shank kicker Eddie Pineiro delivered), Bears’ coach Matt Nagy decided to let the clock run down instead.  Why, exactly?

To hear Nagy explain is to scratch your head.  Why not run, Nagy was asked after the game.  “I had zero thought of running the ball,” he responded.  “I’m not taking the chance of fumbling the football.  They [the Chargers] know you’re running the football, so you lose three or four yards.  So that wasn’t even in our process as coaches to think about that.”

Alright, then, why not pass?  “Throw the football?” asked Coach Gadget, sounding shocked or amused or whatever.  “Throw the football right then and there?  What happens if you take a sack or there’s a fumble?”  In summary, Coach G. reiterated, “I’ll just be real clear.  Zero thought of throwing the football.  Zero thought of running the football.  You understand me?”

Yes, Coach, you depended on your hand-picked kicker, the one you spent a whole summer deciding on, to win the game, and he didn’t.  You were paralyzed by fear of failure, only to fail when you did act.  Is that how they do things up in Green Bay?

I don’t think so.  

Mum's the Word

The Bears’ Khalil Mack and Roquan Smith were supposed to address the media Friday, which is to say they didn’t.  This is pretty much par for the course up at Halas Hall.  Other teams, not so much.

I open the Tribune sports’ section yesterday, and Blackhawks’ coach Jeremy Colliton is questioning his team’s work ethic, a sure way to get his players’ attention to say nothing of making it hard for them to hide from the media asking if they agree.  With the Bulls, “can this guy be for real?” coach Jim Boylan is forever touching on the subject of accountability.  With the Bears, coach Matt Nagy wants everyone to pull together, as if his Monsters were a bunch of easily disheartened middle schoolers in need of constant encouragement.

The Saturday Tribune also had a comment by Mack from back in December on why he doesn’t like talking in public.  “If you get caught up in people saying you’re good and people saying this or that, good or bad, it can kind of wear on you,” Mack said.  “Or it’ll make you feel like you’re better than what you are.”

In that case I have to wonder how Mack came to the conclusion he was better than what the Raiders were willing to offer him in a contract extension.  Did someone tell him he was that good, or did he come to that conclusion on his own?  If only our star linebacker could come down from Mt. Khalil to tell us.

As for Smith, he simply plays in a fog while teammates and coaches cover for him.  Does he have an injury?  Is his poor play related to that mysterious “personal issue” that no one, least of all Smith, dares talk about?  Mum’s the word.

Run, George, Run

Houston center fielder George Springer felt so bad after the Astros’ 5-4 loss to the Nationals in game one of the World Series that, according to an AP story, he called manager A.J. Hinch before he went to bed.  How sweet, and unnecessary had Springer only thought to run the second he hit a ball fair in the home half of the eighth inning.

The Astros were down by two with a runner on second when Springer hit a line drive to deep right-center field.  Thinking it might be leaving the premises, Springer stopped just a second to behold the fruits of his swing.  Oops.  The ball stayed in the park for what could have been a triple.  The fly ball Jose Altuve then hit would have scored the tying run, only Springer was at second base.

Springer told reporters after the game, “If I had gone to third, I’m out.  I’m out for sure.”  The Astros’ center fielder said he didn’t “want to necessarily run as fast as I can because, for some reason if [runner Kyle Tucker] tags or whatever the case and I run by him, it’s not good.”  Neither was Springer’s reasoning, unless he happened to be wearing rockets on his cleats that could’ve jetted him past Tucker.  If he addressed being slow out of the box, I didn’t hear his explanation.   

But, hey, maybe I should stop complaining about players who stand at the plate to admire their non-homer homeruns; the more times there are consequences like there were Tuesday night, the sooner players will stop doing it.  In that case, we could all chalk it up to the “Springer Effect.”  

No "If's" About It

 

No “If’s” About It

My, my.  Brandon Taubman thought he could get away with the standard neo-apology, including the line “I am sorry if anyone was offended by my actions.”  Well, enough people were offended that the Astros felt compelled yesterday to fire Taubman and apologize for the mess the entire front office had made of things.

Here’s a thought:  Why not offer Taubman’s job to any of the women reporters he was shouting at?  I mean, there’s precedent for this sort of thing.  William Wrigley hired Chicago sportswriter William Veeck Sr. to work for the Cubs, and Veeck soon was running the team—and running it damn’ well—without any formal baseball experience.  Taubman came from the accounting firm of Ernst and Young, where he was a derivative valuation expert.  Some baseball connection, that.

So, here’s a chance for baseball to right a wrong big time and with a healthy dose of poetic justice.  All it takes is a little effort from the Astros.  Just don’t hold your breath.

The More Things Change....

I wonder what, if any, role David Ross’s dancing partner will have now that Ross has been named the new manager of the Cubs.  Maybe Lindsay Arnold could take over as bench coach.  Just kidding.  Major-league baseball doesn’t have female bench coaches or female coaches of any kind.

Eight managers have been let go so far this offseason.  That will mean plenty of coaching changes, just not any that involve women.  Sorry, Clare.  My daughter would make a good hitting coach, trust me.  She’d also be interesting in the dugout, very old school, with a tendency to hard ass.  God forbid anyone pimped a homerun in her presence.  But those thirty MLB dugouts are safe.  No one remotely like my daughter will be sitting in them anytime soon.

There are a few female numbers-crunchers in MLB front offices, but not many and not at all comfortable given the recent behavior of Astros’ assistant general manager Brandon Taubman.  “Thank God we got [closer Roberto] Osuna!  I’m so f***ing glad we got Osuna!” Taubman shouted six or so times in the presence of three female reporters during the Astros’ post-game celebration following Jose Altuve’s walk-off homerun to win the ALCS.

 Strange that a club official would celebrate a pitcher who had allowed the Yankees to tie the game in the top of the ninth.  Maybe it had something to do with the fact that the Astros got media and fan grief in 2018 for acquiring Osuna, who’d already been hit with a 75-game suspension for violating MLB’s domestic violence rules.  Oh, and Taubman was shouting in the presence of a reporter who has often tweeted on the subject of domestic violence.  What a coincidence.

Nothing is going to change until and unless a woman or group thereof purchases a controlling interest in a MLB team.  Calling Oprah Winfrey.  Calling MacKenzie Bezos….

Post-honeymoon

Bears’ fans are a gullible lot, by and large.  Tell them their team is good, and they’ll hear the word “great,” along with the phrase “one of the greatest of all time.”  Tell them their team is great, and Soldier Field turns to bedlam.  The Chicago media spent months telling fans how great their team was, even though it wasn’t.

This dance has been going on for as long as I can remember; that willingness to drink McCaskey Kool Aid has always struck me as an odd initiation rite, and one I’d just as soon take a pass on.  What’s different this time is fans have put down the Kool Aid not even midway through the season and gone so far as to ask who poured such crap in the first place.  The media, not wanting to end up on the work end of a pitchfork, is passing blame onto the Bears’ front office and coaching staff.  And that’s where we stand six games into the season.

In all the ways that count in McCaskey World, Lovie Smith was the ideal Bears’ coach, given his love of defense and unfamiliarity with the forward pass.  To borrow a lyric from the Talking Heads, with Smith it was all “Run, run, run, run, run, run, run away” to a first down or a punt, it didn’t matter which, because Coach figured that at some point his defense would score a touchdown or set up a field goal for a kicker with the last name of Gould.

But after nine years of Lovie Smith rope-a-doping critics who wanted him to open up his offense, the McCaskeys decided on a change, lest the villagers rise up in revolt.  Only the Kool Aid mix known as Marc Trestman didn’t work, and neither did the one labelled John Fox.  The mix called Matt Nagy tasted good for a season, so much so the Chicago media went into overdrive pedaling the 2019 vintage.  That was a mistake.

Now we have a situation where Nagy runs the ball seven times total in a game and declares, “I’m not an idiot” as to why that strategy is doomed to fail.  If I’ve learned anything in life, it’s to take any such declarations with a grain of salt, or two.

Little Big Man

When Jose Altuve connected off of Aroldis Chapman Saturday night, you just knew it was gone.  So did Altuve, who paused a fraction of a second to watch the path of the ball before breaking into a semi-sprint around the bases.

But it was just a fraction of a second.  Altuve didn’t channel Tim Anderson or Javy Baez or Willaon Contreras, and why would he?  All those worthies are sitting in front of the television at home, their seasons over long ago.  So much bat flipping and standing at the plate to admire a drive, so little payoff. 

In yesterday’s The Athletic, Ken Rosenthal wrote that Altuve “epitomizes all that is good about the game, performing with boundless, infectious energy, displaying an endearing combination of humility and humanity, [and] proving smaller players can succeed.”  Only a fool would need to see proof of the last.

Between the lines, Rosenthal is saying Altuve is old-school in all the right ways.  By way of comparison, think Pete Rose, a busher in the classic sense of the word if there ever was one.  I don’t like Rosenthal’s taste in neckwear, but he’s spot-on about a compact player epitomizing all that baseball should want to be.

Bear(s) Down

What’s the old saying, a fish rots from the head?  That as much as anything explains your 2019 Chicago Bears.  The only question is identifying said head.

If it’s the McCaskeys, enough said.  This is a family perfectly content to peddle lore.  Remember Halas; remember Sayers; remember Butkus.  Just don’t remember yesterday’s 36-25 loss to the injury-depleted Saints.  I figure if the Monsters lose to the Chargers next Sunday, you can count on seeing stories about the great charity work the McCaskey family does locally.

But if the head belongs to general manager Ryan Pace, you owe it to yourself to make a list of things he’s done wrong.  This is the man who hired John Fox as head coach and traded up to acquire quarterback Mitch Trubisky.  This is the man who “fixed” the ground game by trading away Jordan Howard and trading up to draft David Montgomery.  Jordan has rushed for 347 yards and 4.5 yards per carry with his new team, the Eagles.  Montgomery has rushed for 231 yards and 3.3 yards per carry as Jordan’s replacement.  The entire team has rushed for 420 yards.

Pace is also the man who replaced Fox with Matt Nagy, Coach Happy Talk, and who traded for linebacker Khalil Mack, a purported combination of Dick Butkus, Mike Singletary and Brian Urlacher, only better.  But he isn’t, and he doesn’t like to talk to reporters after losses.  That could mean Mack is done talking for the rest of the season.

Every other general manager or head of operations of a pro sports’ team in Chicago faces the music on a regular basis, but not Ryan Pace, who appears to have gone into witness protection.  Theo Epstein regularly endures the third degree from Chicago media; ditto Rick Hahn and John Paxson and Stan Bowman.  Either Pace puts on his big boy pants and does likewise, or he should step down.

Wait, maybe he has but forgot to tell anyone on the way out.

Mighty Mite, and Mighty Long

Well, the Astros sent the Yankees packing last night by a score of 6-4, with a two-out, two-run homerun by Jose Altuve off of Aroldis Chapman on 84-mph changeup/slider.  I want to know, who called it?  Did Chapman shake off his catcher until he got the signal he wanted; did catcher Gary Sanchez make that call on his own or take his cue from the bench?  Or maybe Chapman wanted to get beat with his second- or third-best pitch. 

Whatever the answer, it’s always nice to see the winning hit produced by a player who stands all of 5’6”.  That’s how tall my daughter stands, and just one of the reasons I think a woman like her could produce in equal measure in those same circumstances, that is, if that female player had hands as quick as Clare.  Yes, she’s Altuve-fast.

But, why oh why did the game so slow, a snail’s pace of four hours and nine minutes?  Both teams used seven pitchers because both managers went monkey-see, monkey-do with their bullpens.  If anyone wants to argue seven pitchers worked for the Astros, then someone can turn around and say it was an unlucky seven for the Yankees.  Just don’t tell me they should’ve gone with eight or more.

And don’t tell me four-plus hours works for a nine-inning ballgame. Super Bowl LIII went a mere 3:32, for heaven’s sake.  FOX isn’t content with destroying our political system.  It has to bring down the national pastime, too.  If World Series games between relatively small-market Houston and Washington go more than four hours, the ratings will tank.  Mark my words.

Piled Higer and Deeper

I’m starting to doubt the HOF bona fides of Cubs’ president Theo Epstein after his latest move, which was to name directors of hitting and pitching, respectively.  And who’s going to be put in charge of looking out the window, may I ask?

This bit of news, announced Thursday, included the revelation that the new hitting director had initially been hired by the North Siders to be a “biokinematic hitting consultant.”   According to an online plug I found for this New Age approach, the new hitting director says there’s been a century-long “bias” in teaching hitting based on aesthetics as much as anything.  Now, technology “allows us to put some objective numbers to something that’s been taught subjectively for a really long time.”  So much for the see ball/hit ball approach I used with Clare.  

If I’d been allowed to ask some questions of Epstein, I’d have started with what did the Cubs learn from biokinematics?  Who stinks, who shines, who needs to change and how?  Then I’d move on to address matters of organizational flow charts.

Will the respective directors have input on who gets hired as pitching coach and hitting coach throughout the minor leagues?  What about the major leagues?  What, exactly, will the new hitting and pitching philosophy/approaches be?  Will the next Cubs’ manager have any input on that, or will he have to go with the organizational flow?  Other businesses try to improve by streamlining bureaucracy while Cubs seem to be adding to theirs.  Why the difference?

Good thing I don’t have press credentials.

A Sound So Sweet

Is there any sound sweeter in all of sports than Yankees’ fans booing their hometown heroes?  I think not.  Oh, and do the Bronx faithful have plenty to boo.

Their team is down 3-1 in the ALCS to the visitors from Houston.  No matter how much the fans bang their arms against the outfield padding or bait the Astros’ players or throw stuff at them (as it appears they’ve been doing a lot of those last two), the Bombers keep coming up short, as they did last night, 8-3.  For this Yankees’ hater, that’s a good, no, wonderful, thing, if only it didn’t come at such a high cost to our erstwhile national pastime.

The game took four hours and nineteen minutes to play, what with the parade of thirteen pitchers used by both sides.  Houston starter Zack Greinke went all of 4.1 innings while his New York counterpart Masahiro Tanaka went five-plus.  The Fox Sports One announcers may sound excited and the sprinkling of Astros’ fans, too, but we’re talking a baseball playoff game entering into the time realm of the Super Bowl, without any entertaining commercials. 

You’re whistling past a mighty grumpy graveyard, Commissioner Manfred.

He Said What?

Lakers’ forward and future HOFer LeBron James weighed in this week on the Daryl Morey controversy.  Speaking to reporters on Monday, James found considerable fault with Morey for tweeting “Fight for freedom, stand for Hong Kong.”

As reported by Scott Cacciola in the New York Times, James said, “I believe he [Morey] wasn’t educated on the situation, and [yet] he spoke.  So many people could have been harmed, not only financially but physically, emotionally, spiritually.”  Wait, he gets better, or worse, depending on your perspective.

James expressed his support for freedom of speech while adding that “at times there are ramifications for the negative [stuff] that can happen when you’re not thinking about others and you’re thinking about yourself.”  Nope, he’s not done yet.

The fifteen-time All Star also offered that Morey “was misinformed or not really educated on the situation.  And if he was, then so be it.”  Huh?  If Morey knew what he was talking about (or advocating), then never mind?  It’s the big man who needs to be better informed here.

Notice how James put financial harm first; talk about a Freudian slip.  It would appear that LeBron James is not about ready to let social justice get in the way of business, his in particular.  What’s good for China must be good for James and his pocketbook; what’s good for Hong Kong, maybe not so much.  Heaven forbid anything imperils a shoe deal or product endorsement.

Up until now, James had done a masterful job at crafting the image of athlete-activist.  But you have to wonder how his comments will play in the Akron, Ohio, elementary school his foundation has funded.  Then again, maybe the kids are being taught with a Beijing-approved curriculum, where everyone lines up, shuts up and learns what they’re told to learn. 

I hear that plays well in Beijing. 

Paging Mr. Boras

Back in March, agent Scott Boras told Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated that, because Bryce Harper wanted to spend the rest of his career with one team, Harper wouldn’t have any opt-outs as part of his contract.  Or as Boras put it, “Bryce Harper wanted to play on a winning team now and one that has the revenues to sustain it.  He got all those things.”  Oh, really?

The player Boras has called “iconic” hit a so-so .260 for his forever team, which finished at .500 and well out of the playoffs.  Harper’s 114 RBIs were the twelfth most in baseball, eighth best in the NL.  You could say there are icons and icons.  There’s also Harper’s ex-Nationals’ teammate Anthony Rendon, who led all of baseball with 126 RBIs.  Would Rendon have had more with Harper in the lineup?  Would the Nationals be going to the World Series for the first time in their history with Harper still on the team?

The Phillies are reportedly interested in Dusty Baker and Buck Showalter among other candidates to succeed Gabe Kapler as manager.  I wonder if it’s too late for Boras to negotiate an opt-out clause for his client?

Delusional

The Astros topped the Yankees 3-2 in eleven innings Sunday night on a walk-off homerun by Carlos Correa, and I bet Commissioner Manfred got all caught up in all the Minute Maid Park excitement.  That would be a mistake.  The commissioner needs to focus on the time of game, 4:49.  Talk about agony.

The Yankees, who are carrying 13 pitchers for the ALCS, used nine.  Holy Tampa Bay Rays!  Look, it’s Yankees’ skipper Aaron Boone popping out of the dugout to change pitchers, again and again and…I went to bed at 10:40 PM Central Time; nobody on either team will care if I go through the next day a zombie for lack of sleep.  But forget the old-man demographic.  How many middle-schoolers stayed up to see Correa connect off of J.A. Happ?  High-schoolers?  Millennials?

Yes, Minute Maid Park was packed and electric, just like Yankee Stadium will be Tuesday.  So what?  Let’s see how the rest of America reacts.  My guess is that most people in their right minds will find other things to do rather than spend just under five hours to watch two teams score a total of five runs while striking out a combined 26 times.  Let’s take a peak at the ratings, shall we? 

If something doesn’t change, and soon, baseball make soccer look exciting.  Goaalll…

Good Riddance

The Tampa Bay Rays are the little team that could, a small-to-miniscule market club with the moxie to outplay a monster-revenue franchise like the Red Sox and move into the postseason.  Thank heavens the Astros disposed of them.

Why?  Because the Rays play a brand of baseball that’s poison and sure to kill the golden goose known as major league baseball.  I’m not talking about payroll.  If the Rays can find talent cheap, God bless them, and who needs Scott Boras?  No, the problem lies in the idea of openers instead of conventional starters.  Going one to three innings with your first pitcher and then using three or more afterwards is a recipe for disaster, if also the cure for insomnia.

The Rays can argue the strategy works, or at least that it did this season to the tune of a 96-66 record.  But at what cost in terms of watchability?  In their ALDS game-five 6-1 loss to Houston, the Rays used nine, count ’em, nine pitchers.  Tyler Glasnow “started” for the Rays and went 2.2 innings, after which fans and viewers were subjected to the relievers’ onslaught.  Of the eight pitchers who followed Glasnow, five threw under an inning, and six entered the game during an inning.  Somehow, the game only took 3:12 to play.

It felt twice as long.  Rays’ manager Kevin Cash made a nuisance of himself walking to the mound to change pitchers.  That the Rays in the fielder didn’t rise up in revolt over having to stand there like statues is beyond me.  I also question the overall effectiveness of the strategy.  Yes, it was good for 96 victories this year.  Now, what about next?

Human beings and the games they play depend on a rhythm; disrupt it, and everything changes for the worse.  All those Tampa pitchers accomplished what, exactly, other than to show how good Houston’s Gerrit Cole looked going eight innings while giving up just two hits?  Maybe Cole is the proof of disruption—the Rays couldn’t get into a rhythm hitting because they were forced to wait so long and so often for new pitchers to come into the game.

There’s talk of how the use of openers could lower pitchers’ salaries.  After all, Cole will be a free agent at season’s end, and he’ll be looking for one big contract; think David Price at $217 million and then some.  If that’s in fact what motivates more teams to adopt the idea, it’ll be a case of penny-wise, pound-foolish.  Me, I just don’t trust relievers.

Even though they total far fewer innings than starters, relievers tend to be inconsistent, good one season bad the next.  Mariano Rivera doesn’t count—he was a closer, not a Rays-style reliever.  I also think relievers who do tend to be good more often than not will eventually figure they should get paid more for their services.  Then, you’ll see Mr. Boras representing guys who come in for the third and fourth innings.  In the end, high-priced bullpens will replace high-priced rotations.

There’s something else other than money to consider.  Baseball has always been a game steeped in mythic personalities.  For pitchers, that would include Dizzy Dean, Stachel Paige, Bob Gibson and Sal Maglie among a whole bunch of others.  Can anyone out there name me one or two of the relievers who came in after Tyler Glasnow?  If you can’t, then don’t expect people to care for long about a game with interchangeable parts and players.

Dollars and Sense

On Thursday, James Fegan did a piece in The Athletic about the White Sox and arbitration-eligible players.  Fegan all but did Rick Hahn’s work for him by arguing a possible $6.2 million for super-utility infielder Yolmer Sanchez would lead the Sox to non-tender the six-year veteran in favor of Leury Garcia and Danny Mendick.  Sorry, but from where I’m standing the numbers don’t add up.

Consider that Sanchez won’t turn 28 until the end of next June.  In the three years before he turned 28, jack-of-all-trades Ben Zobrist had seasons of 18, 9 and 30 RBIs before things started to click.  Things have always clicked for Sanchez with his glove, and he has shown an ability to hit in the clutch.  Compared to Zobrist before the age of 28, Yolmer has had seasons of 59, 55 and 43 RBIs.  You have to wonder what a good hitting coach could do here.

Compared to Leury, Sanchez is the superior infielder.  (There’s a chance Yolmer could get a Gold Glove this season for his work at second base).  Granted, Sanchez doesn’t play the outfield, but Garcia’s seven errors out there indicate he wouldn’t be much worse.  Also worth considering is Yolmer’s standing in the clubhouse and with fans.

To me, the best solution would be to keep Sanchez and Mendick, who also can play both the infield and outfield.  If the Sox let Yolmer go, they risk him turning into the second coming of Ben Zobrist with another team; I’ll take that gamble with Garcia.  Other fans may want to see the Sox spend big on free agent right fielders and DHs, not me.  Both those positions can be filled in-house.

It makes far more sense to spend the money necessary to keep Yolmer here.  I can just see him pouring Gatorade all over himself after his team wins the World Series.  The White Sox should be that team.

Ghosts in the Ivy, Even

I made it to the 606 Trail Wednesday and did a diligent 46 miles on the Schwinn.  The trail never lacks for entertainment.

Early on, I kept passing a guy with a boom box on his bike.  Ordinarily, I’d expect to hear a heap of s- and f- words made to rhyme.  Only my fellow biker happened to be playing some vintage War.  I was “Slippin into Darkness” on a sun-drenched autumn morning.

Mr. Backwards Man also put in an appearance.  This fellow runs the trail backwards, for an hour straight or more at a time.  How he doesn’t go crazy or get hurt is beyond me.  Mr. Backwards must be a person of strong faith, in God and/or his fellow human beings.  I should stop him someday and quote him a little Satchel Paige about never looking back to see someone gaining on him.  Is it even possible to look back while running backwards?

As for the biker who gave me a crisp military salute, who knows?  There are days I look to be military issue.  Or maybe this was a dis deeply rooted in his past.  Either way, it all happened too fast, with each of us pedaling in opposite directions, for me to salute back.

None of the trees on the trail had started changing color yet, but I did see some ivy turning shades of orange and red.  It reminded me of the time when Clare was in third grade and I picked her up from school to come with to Wrigley Field; a radio reporter wanted to interview me, author of a book on Comiskey Park, for my thoughts on the city declaring Wrigley Field a landmark.  He might have been hoping I’d go extreme South Side with a mic in my face, hate the Cubs hate their park, that sort of thing.  If so, I must have been a major disappointment.  For me, the place has always been separate from the players and fans.

The interview took place in the lower deck, just above one of those side-to-side aisles that don’t exist in new stadiums.  Clare ran up and down the aisle as I spoke on the importance of preservation, regardless what side of Chicago you come from.  The ivy looked as if Jack Frost had run his paintbrushes from one end of the outfield to the other.  Adding yet more color were the pink and purple of a late autumn afternoon sunset.          

It was the closest Clare ever got to playing on a major-league field.  Maybe her daughter will get there.

Foot in Mouth

The White Sox hired Frank Menechino as their new hitting coach this week.  Here’s hoping Menechino coaches better than he speaks, or thinks in some regards.

Yesterday, Menechino spoke with reporters on a conference call during which he placed one foot squarely in his mouth.  According to today’s Sun-Times, Menechino listed among his hard-knock bona fides this gem:  “I was drafted by the White Sox [in 1993] after a girl.”  Menechino went in the 45^th round.  The Sox selected then general-manager Ron Schueler’s daughter Carey, a college volleyball player, in the 43^rd.

Poor Menechino, to have to shoulder such a humiliation.  I bet he won’t be picking a woman to be his assistant hitting coach.  

What He Really Said

White Sox fans are in an uproar over comments Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf purportedly made some twenty years ago to David Samson, then starting out with the Marlins’ front office.  If Samson is to be believed, Reinsdorf advised him to set his sights on finishing second “every single year because your fans can say, ‘Wow, we’ve got a shot, we’re in it.’  But there’s always the carrot left.  There’s always one more step left to take.” Fans would always be excited about the upcoming season, one after another after another.

Reinsdorf said through a spokesperson he can’t remember saying any such thing, nor is it a reflection of his “philosophy for how to run a major-league baseball team.”  I believe Reinsdorf for a couple of reasons.  Start with Connie Mack, who once said, “It is more profitable for me to have a team that is in contention for most of the season, but finishes fourth.  A team like that will draw well enough during the first part of the season to show a profit for the year, and you don’t have to give the players raises when they don’t win.”  Either Reinsdorf was channeling Connie Mack, or Samson was.  My money’s on Samson.

Secondly, Reinsdorf has always wanted to win, especially if he can do it on his own terms.  In his prime as an owner, Reinsdorf wanted to bring a hard salary cap to baseball.  A built-in brake on salaries would have further increased franchise value.  What Samson fails to understand about Reinsdorf is that the Sox owner is all about coming out ahead.  That’s how he plays the game.  Anything about finishing second was just a little misdirection aimed at a likely loser, assuming, of course, that Reinsdorf said anything at all.

Shut Up and Play

Last week Daryl Morey, GM of the NBA Houston Rockets, tweeted his support of the pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong.  That didn’t go over very well in some places.  Various Chinese businesses cut their ties to the team, and the NBA apologized profusely, in Mandarin, no less.  (The NBA subsequently tried to walk back the apology without offending anyone.)  A chastened Morey then deleted his tweet and offered his own apology.   

As you might expect, a whole lot of people are upset with these apologies, which Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post finds kind of funny, or sad, depending on your perspective.  In a column the Tribune ran yesterday, Jenkins noted all the American businesses that have made a habit out of looking the other way when it comes to Chinese behavior.  If you don’t like how the NBA is acting, wrote Jenkins, “Then you [should also] have a problem with hundreds of U.S. companies.”

There’s also an element of “people who live in glass houses” to apply here.  A country that gets bent out of shape when a handful of NFL players kneel during the National Anthem shouldn’t be all that surprised, or upset, when someone else does likewise.  After all, imitation is the highest form of flattery.

Hardly Worth the Effort

Oh, those big, bad Minnesota Twins, the team that beat the White Sox thirteen times in nineteen meetings this season on the way to clubbing a major-league record 307 homeruns.  Well, they just got skunked by the Yankees in ALDS, three games to zip.  It hardly seems worth the effort.

That’s the problem with professional sports today—everything is geared to the postseason.  If you don’t make it, you suck.  And, if you don’t go deep in the playoffs, ditto.  This year’s big losers in the postseason will be the Brewers and A’s for losing the “play-in” game and the aforementioned Twins, for stinking up the joint and getting outscored 23-7 in the process.

Career and single-season records have always been the saving grace of baseball.  Hank Aaron and Pete Rose chased after the ghosts of Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb, respectively, to the delight of fans; nobody cared if Aaron or Rose was going to play come October; what mattered was setting new records.  And, periodically, someone used to come along along to have a season like Steve Carlton in 1972, when the lefty recorded 27 of his team’s 59 wins.  Or someone like Tony Gwynn or Ichiro Suzuki comes along, to challenge the .400 mark season after season.  Postseason hopes never overshadowed regular-season performance.

Now, though, the emphasis is on getting there, gutting the team today to make the postseason tomorrow.  Well, the Twins did a quick-gut job and it worked splendidly, until October rolled around.  How are fans supposed to feel other than let down?  What does the front office do to keep faith with the disappointed multitudes?  Would anyone even notice the second coming of Rod Carew—or Kirby Puckett—if it wasn’t crowned with postseason glory?

Everybody wants to make the postseason, nobody wants to lose there and have their season deemed a failure.  What an odd place for fans, teams and sports to find themselves in. 

Silence of the Lambs

Bears’ middle linebacker Khalil Mack is often identified as a team leader, only he isn’t.  Team leaders own up to a disaster like yesterday’s 24-21 loss to the Raiders in London.

Mack played OK against his former team, which in turn played great against Mack’s current team.  Oakland’s ground game gained a net 169 yards against a supposedly impervious running defense, while the Bears’ running game was notable in its absence, a measly 42 yards.  Suddenly, Jordan Howard (13 rushes totaling 62 yards for the Eagles yesterday) doesn’t look so bad at the same time GM Ryan Pace’s pick of rookie David Montgomery as Howard’s replacement doesn’t look all that smart.

But back to Mack, who had nothing to say after the loss.  Explanations were left to fellow linebacker Danny Trevathan and safety Eddie Jackson, among others.  Sorry, that won’t cut it.  The defense didn’t show up the entire first half, as evidenced by a 17-0 halftime score, and the Bears’ best defensive player, if not their best player period, has no comment?

Here’s one area Mack needs to work on.  If he can’t own up to mediocre play, he’ll never truly own the middle of the field, or the locker room.

Swing, Batter

Swing, Batter

They ought to install seatbelts in the stands for parents who attend alumni softball games.  It would help with the whiplash caused by jumping from memory to memory.

I’m sitting in the bleachers on a Sunday afternoon the way we did for four years when Clare played her home games at Elmhurst.  The field looked the same as it always did, and, according to my daughter, it was doing the same as usual after a week of heavy rain.  “Right field is a swamp,” reported the onetime right fielder (2011-2014) for the Elmhurst Bluejays.

The only thing off was the weather, way too warm and sunny.  So, that made me think of Florida instead of northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin in spring.  No, check that.  Everyone around me was off, too.  Or was it me?

Even though I was sitting with alumni parents, I had no idea who they were; it had to be mutual, I’m sure.  Clare knew three of her alumni teammates, all of them freshmen her senior year.  Which means even those players are more than two years graduated.  As for players from seven or ten years ago, they were ghosts, left to wander along the foul lines.

I felt the same anxiety I always did when Clare stepped into the batter’s box, along with the same irritation at the umps when blue at first base called Clare out on a bang-bang play.  No homeruns, but a walk and a nice play in the outfield.  The current players won, sure of their superiority over ex-players, unaware of what will happen to them come graduation.

They might come to a few alumni games, probably without their parents in tow.  Only a few dads will keep on coming, to bear witness to what their daughters did and how they filled up so many springs and summers in an ever-receding past.  

Up Close and Personal

Up Close and Personal

The thing about NCAA D-III sports is everything gets experienced up front and personal, even the tailgating.

We did some of that today at Elmhurst, for homecoming.  My son-in-law is the defensive line coach for the Bluejays, he went to Elmhurst and his wife went to Elmhurst.  With those connections, I couldn’t get out of today’s game with anything less than a doctor’s pass, and, trust me, my wife wouldn’t drive me to urgent care no matter how much I begged.

So, it was an hour in the parking lot snacking on Fritos, Michele’s pumpkin squares and pumpkin donuts from the Oak Park Bakery; I refused to share anything with the yellow jackets.  When the time came, Michele and Clare led me away from the food to my seat on the home side of the field.

I learned long ago at Clare’s high school softball games to pay attention.  When there isn’t any instant replay, a missed play stays missed for all eternity.  In a way, that’s a good thing, because you learn to pay attention and really follow the action.  I cheated a little when Clare played college softball by taping her at-bats in senior year.  I remember what I taped what I wanted to remember.

Elmhurst lost to Carthage, 38-14.  I could pretty much tell who the parents of Bluejays’ players were; when it’s your kid on the field, you act different and probably sound different, too.  Parents of players display an intensity other spectators just don’t have.

A lot of the students wore Converse All-Stars, Chuck Taylors; I do, too.  Of course, one of the reasons I used to was because the shoes were made in the USA.  Now, you have a pick of China, India or Vietnam.  I prefer the old days.

All in all, it was a pleasant afternoon, not too cold and sunny at the start.  The only problem was the undead; they shuffled up and down the aisles, or across.  What is it about sporting events that makes people want to get out of their seats every few minutes?  The only difference between these zombies and the ones on AMC is junk food seems to satisfy them.  But as soon as these pests start turning on fans in the stands, I’m out of there.

Nothing Burger

I wonder how baseball fans in Milwaukee and Oakland feel right about now, after their respective teams have lost that “play-in” game baseball has touted as a remedy to declining interest.  Six months of hype, buildup and excitement leading to a one-and-out postseason.  No letdown for those folks, I’m sure.  What matters is that it’s good for baseball, right?

Let me be slightly less facetious in suggesting that today’s slate of four playoff games is neat, or would be if it didn’t come off feeling like any other NFL Sunday.  What would really set baseball off from its gridiron nemesis would be games with limited interruptions or, better yet, none at all.  This time I’m serious, guys.