Searching for Clues

For reasons best known to itself, on Friday the mysterious voice on the phone that pretends to know directions routed me past the Elmhurst College softball field.  It was the day after Halloween, snow in spots on the ground, so cold not even an action-starved parent shivered in the bleachers waiting for a hint of action.  That field is all but dead to me now.

Coach P is gone, retired after last season.  His replacement looks capable enough, but I doubt he wants the father of an ex-player hanging around.  Parents of current players he has to deal with.  Graduates, though, should take their fathers away with them.  And, truth be told, I don’t much care to watch softball games my daughter doesn’t play in.

Sports is different for me now from when I started off with a four-year old hitting prodigy.  Pro football I follow to pass the time on a Sunday afternoon; pro basketball I like as soon starting with one minute left in the third quarter and not a second before.  College sports on TV don’t interest me, though the hypocrisy of the NCAA will at least be lessened if this movement to pay athletes for the use of their image picks up steam.

That leaves baseball, which now rivals paint drying for fan interest.  I’m rooted in a version of the sport best summarized by a name rooted in an ever more distant past:  Go-Go White Sox!  Too bad the bunt, hit-and-run and stolen base are all analytically passé.  But old dogs and fans of a certain age are old to break of their habits.  It’s a month to the winter meetings, and there’ll be plenty of rumors involving the White Sox.  After that, SoxFest and after that, spring training.

And in front of me on the wall, pictures, baseball cards and pennants, all part of my mini-Cooperstown.  I’m drawn more than ever to those Sox teams managed by Chuck Tanner, which may be why I just picked up on eBay a great color photo of Walt Williams taking a swing in an otherwise empty Comiskey Park.  That will be added to the wall before long.  Going forward, I seem forever drawn to the past.