If Only That Were True

Knuckleballer Phil Niekro died last week at the age of 81. If it seems like Niekro pitched forever, that’s because he more or less did, holding down a roster spot in the major leagues for 24 seasons. In fact, I’m a little surprised he retired so young, at the age of 48. Fellow knuckleball artist Hoyt Wilhelm pitched to within two weeks of his 50th birthday. Anyway, MLB.com posted the speech Niekro gave at his HOF induction in 1997. In it, Niekro contended that no owner or player owns the game of baseball. “This game is owned and belongs to you, the fan. Cherish it and take care of it.” A beautiful sentiment, if only it were true. The current situation in Chicago proves otherwise. For openers, the Cubs traded starter Yu Darvish to the Padres this week in what amounts to a salary dump. New team president Jed Hoyer would have you believe otherwise, but the four prospects (along with starter Zach Davies) the North Siders received in return for Darvish and catcher Victor Caratini have little going for them outside of their Greg Goossen-like youth; one of them is seventeen, two are eighteen and the fourth is all of twenty. It’s worth noting here that three of the these new Cubs have yet to play a single game in the minor leagues, even. I keep hearing that the deal was “high risk, high reward.” Sure, if that makes you feel better. But what do you call nontendering outfielder Kyle Schwarber? It’s like Hoyer included Schwarber as a throw-in because the North Siders sure don’t have anything to show for his departure. What did Branch Rickey say about trading a player a year too soon rather than a year too late? That’s Schwarber, who hit 38 homeruns to go with 92 RBIs in 2019 before slumping to 11 and 24, respectively, in 2020, along with a .188 BA. Darvish falls into the “year too soon” category. It’s the return that makes you scratch your head. It doesn’t really matter to me that Hoyer is said to be shopping catcher Willson Contreras or that the return on possible trades for soon-to-be free agents Javy Baez, Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo doesn’t promise to be all that much. My team has its own problems, well, one problem, actually. You know, hiring Tony LaRussa. And that’s the thing of it. Phil Niekro should be right, only he’s not, never was and in all likelihood never will be. Owners own the game of baseball. The Ricketts family gets to cry poor all the way to the bank while Jerry Reinsdorf gets to indulge in his geriatric fantasies. Fans are left to do what they’ve always been told to, shut up and pay up. They can go on talk radio to complain or listen to the likes of Chris Russo, but that won’t change a thing. Phil Niekro probably sees that clearly right now.

Fever, Tsunami, Tomato...

There are any number of ways to gauge the extent of Bears’ fever in these parts. Me, I go with the equivalent of taking my temperature with an old, oral thermometer; drop it, and it breaks, with beads of mercury everywhere. But you just can’t teach a dinosaur new tricks. I’m sure you could check social media, but I tend to shy away from that stuff, and the next podcast I listen to will be the first; if I need to listen to someone drone on about sports, there’s a friend I can call, or I can just talk to myself in the shower. Push comes to shove, I’m a dead-tree kind of guy. You’ll miss print when it’s gone, believe me. So, just for fun, I checked to see where the Sun-Times put the Bulls-Warriors’ story in the Monday paper. It wasn’t on the back page; that had a Bears’ picture. And it wasn’t on the next page or the next or the next. Everything was either Bears or ads for nine full pages. Like I said, any Chicago team sharing the calendar with the Munsters can expect this kind of treatment if they’re not playing well, and even winning is no guarantee of coverage. Come the draft in April (let’s dare assume a return to normal times), and it’s a zero-sum game; expanded coverage has to come from somewhere. Bad basketball or hockey season, and that’s where it’ll come from. Bulls and Hawks fighting for the playoffs, then space—and time—gets taken from the Cubs and White Sox. Afterall, it’s April, and those guys have at least five more months to get noticed. Actually, it’s not even that long. Barring COVID (and by all means keep a good thought), there’s rookie camp and voluntary workouts in May followed by minicamp in June and training camp in late July. Play .500 baseball in Chicago, and you all but guarantee getting buried deep inside the sports’ section whenever the Bears show their collective faces. But, hey, if things play out on Sunday, we could jump up to the sixth seed. Just sayin’.

It's Early, But--

The last time I judged a team based on so small a sample size of games, I went after the White Sox after Lucas Giolito gave up a homerun on the first pitch of the 2020 season; patience is definitely a virtue. So, I waited three games before saying anything about the winless Bulls. They were 0-2 going into Sunday night’s matchup against the visiting Warriors. Not only is Golden State playing without Klay Thompson, starting center Marquese Chriss suffered a broken leg during practice, in Chicago, on Saturday. The Warriors would’ve seemed to be a beatable team, then. But no. In their first two games of the season, the Bulls lost by 20 and 19 points, respectively, and both games were garbage-time close. Against Golden State, the Bulls were ahead by two with five seconds left. Not a problem. Warriors’ guard Damion Lee drained a three-pointer for the win. Now, here's the bad news for just about everyone on the roster. With the exception of current first-rounder Patrick Williams and two other players, this team remains the work of the old regime. Only John Paxson’s gone and Gar Forman and Jim Boylen, too. How long do you think the new front office will keep Lauri Markkanen, Zach LaVine and company? LaVine had 33 points last night, to go with seven turnovers. Yikes. My guess is that players will start getting dumped a week or so before the trade deadline as the Bulls tank in order to get a nice pick in the next draft. This is the joy of a rebuild, which owner Jerry Reinsdorf should be used to after how long his Sox took finding their way back to respectability. Reinsdorf is learning, yet again, that it’s not a good idea to be irrelevant in a Bears’ town. If the Munsters have so much as a pulse, you have to respond with a fifteen-game win streak, not a fifteen-game win total on the season. And that’s assuming they even get off the schneid.

Madness and Methods

This must be why the Bears cycle through all those mediocre quarterbacks year after year—at some point, they’re bound to face one, like yesterday. It’s tough to lose to the Jacksonville Jaguars under any circumstances, even more so with ex-Bear Mike Glennon at the helm. So, Munsters 41 Jaguars 17. Too bad that strategy won’t work on Sunday, when the Packers come to town looking to clinch a first-round bye. Khalil Mack and the rest of the defense is going to have to show up; the guys might consider actually putting pressure on Aaron Rodgers, for a change, for once. And Mitch Trubisky might want to stop throwing endzone interceptions. He’s done that twice now in two weeks. Let me suggest a New Year’s resolution, Mitch…. But this is all I could ask for, to have something meaningful to watch on a Sunday afternoon in January. A win for the home team might not qualify as a Christmas miracle, but I’d take it all the same. That would mean another January Sunday with reason to watch a game on TV. Go, Bears.

They Got the Fever

You have to hand it to the Bidwells, aka the Arizona Cardinals. All they had to do yesterday was beat the injury-riddled 49ers, who were starting their third-string quarterback. But no, San Francisco beat the long-ago South Side team, 20-12. So, now the McCaskeys, the Munsters, the Stooge among Stooges, control their own destiny in trying to make the postseason. You’d think we were at the end of January with the Super Bowl a week off, instead of December. I actually caught a sportscaster shouting and what looked to me to be jumping for joy as he updated the playoff situation for our local heroes. The Sunday sports today had one Bears’ story after another, if only for the critics to explain why they’d written this team off and whether qualifying for the playoffs is reason enough for GM Ryan Pace and Coach Visor to keep their jobs. I’m one of the critics; I think both the general manager and head coach should go, and will go in the not too distant future. But I wish Team Nagy well. Just one playoff game puts us well into January; two playoff games and you can see February on the horizon, which would be heavenly. Here’s the problem. Assuming the Bears beat the woeful Jaguars, next week they face the Packers, who need a win to secure a first=round bye. Then, if our heroes make the playoffs, and I think they go up against the likes of the Saints. Fingers crossed, and everything else.

A Bad Christmas Tale

Bad news gets released, or buried, on a holiday. Take Peter Gammons’ Christmas-Eve piece on Tony LaRussa (please!) in today’s The Athletic. Twenty-five paragraphs, starting with the tale of how Gammons caught popups for then-new Sox coach LaRussa “at old Comiskey Park.” It’s always “old Comiskey Park” for people who don’t understand what “old” means. Gammons devotes one paragraph, barely eight lines, to LaRussa’s recent DUI trouble and ends it with, “He also underwent counseling.” He notes the “racial issues raised” after LaRussa’s hiring by the Sox given the criticism LaRussa leveled at NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick back in 2016. And you know what? “One of the smartest baseball persons on the planet [along with Peter Gammons and Tony LaRussa, no doubt]0 Eduardo Perez, responded emphatically on MLB Radio, ‘I played for Tony LaRussa, and I know he is absolutely not a racist, but he is also the best manager I ever played for. Period.’” Well, certainly settles it, then. But here’s the line that really gave me pause: “LaRussa and [Bill] Belichick, 68, have a long-standing relationship.” Do they, now? Thanks for letting me know, Peter, because that explains a whole lot. I can’t wait to see what Gammons has saved up for New Year’s Eve. Shagging flies with Dave Kingman, maybe, or the forever misunderstood Barry Bonds?

Baseball Time Travel

On top of my eBay watch list Tuesday was an old wire photo dated July 23, 1937. It shows White Sox shortstop Luke Appling scoring ahead of the tag by Yankees’ catcher Bill Dickey in a 9-6 Sox win. And off I went on a visit to baseball-reference.com. The Yankees were in town for a four-game series that weekend. The Sox took three out of four, including two walk-offs. Whatever New York thought of Chicago, Sox fans always showed up to see their heroes battle the bullies from the Bronx. The game on the 23rd drew 42,000, with another 22,000 for the Saturday game and 50,000 for the Sunday doubleheader. Those three wins pulled the Sox to within five of the Yankees, but it was not to be. The 88 wins that yearwere nice for a team that hit all of 67 homeruns on the season, but the bullies proved sixteen games better in winning themselves yet another pennant. It’s possible my dad was in the crowd that Sunday, assuming he didn’t pull a shift at the Ford plant on Torrance Avenue. Ed Bukowski would have seen the likes of DiMaggio, Crosetti, Dickey and Gehrig, though I doubt he cared much; he was too good a Sox fan to cheer, however faintly, for any bully, even the HOFers. No, it would have been “Yea!” Luke and… Jackie Hayes, the second baseman forced to retire because of eye problems that eventually left him blind; infielder Tony Piet, who, when he retired, opened up a Pontiac dealership on south Western Avenue; pitcher Monty Stratton, who went all nine innings to win the second game of the twin bill, 7-6. Stratton, hailed as a future ace after winning thirty games in 1937 and ’38, only to his right leg in a postseason hunting accident. And then there was first baseman Zeke Bonura, the pride of New Orleans. Bonura didn’t make the big leagues until the age of 25, but could he hit, with a career .307 BA and 704 RBIs in just seven seasons. Bonura’s name kept popping up during broadcasts this summer, with stats that usually put him just ahead of Luis Robert for hitting by Sox rookies, all-time. From 1937 to 2020 and back again. In these COVID times, it’s nice to get a chance to travel like that.

Anyone But Them

Clare called with news yesterday that the White Sox were going to sign Yoelqui Cespedes, 23-year old half-brother of Yeonis, for $2 million. “Do you care one way or the other?” my daughter inquired. To which I answered, “As long as they didn’t spend that money on developing female talent.” We wouldn’t want that, now would we? The Sox are intrigued by a player who stands 5’9” and weighs 205 pounds. The team website said, “The outfielder has added at least 15 pounds of muscle while improving his bat speed and power since he defected” from Cuba in 2019. Rich Hahn and company must read all of the above differently than I do. Start with size. Cespedes has a compact frame, so why is he adding so much muscle? That’s an invitation to oblique and other injuries from hard swings. He’s improved his bat speed? Oh, really? And just how did he accomplish that? In all my time with Clare in baseball and softball, I never once saw anyone increase bat speed outside of choking up or going to a much lighter bat. I doubt Cespedes has done either. So, what’s the secret behind the faster bat? It can’t be muscle alone, because baseball is littered with Incredible Hulks who couldn’t hit their weight. Oh, and he’s 23 already, by which time players drafted out of college have two or three years in the minors already. When will Cespedes be ready, in a year, two at the outside? Ever? I read that the Sox had been scouting Cespedes for years, and I wonder, they couldn’t have focused that kind of attention on female players? The couldn’t have encouraged a few college graduates to try and modify their windmill windup into a submarine approach? They couldn’t have found a power hitter or two who wanted a chance to hit off a minor league pitcher? No? Of course not. In baseball, it’s all about the same old same old. That grows old after awhile.

If You Say So, Tony

Yesterday in Arizona, new-old White Sox manager Tony LaRussa pled guilty to reckless driving, a plea bargain that allowed him to escape a more serious DUI charge. LaRussa addressed the media afterwards. He said a conference call, “I feel a deep remorse and regret over what I did,” without explaining the difference between those two emotions. He also claimed, “I know I don’t have a drinking problem, just like I know I made a serious mistake in February. And where I am right now is to prove that I don’t have a drinking problem every day off the field that I’m going to handle it.” That’s good, because whether or not he knows it, LaRussa has placed a life-sized bullseye on his back for TMZ and anyone else keen on trashing a public figure. Whenever LaRussa goes out to eat, the cameras will be out to record him getting up from the table; walking to the men’s room; heading for the parking lot. If he stumbles, we’ll see it; if he weaves, we’ll know. If he does either or both and then steps behind the wheel, bye-bye, Tony. The White Sox released a statement that said in part, “Tony knows there is no safety net below him. There cannot be a strike three.” Just in case, the front office should have a list of possible successors on hand.

The Fever

Nothing like two wins in a row to start spreading Bears’ playoff fever. Never mind the six straight losses previous; the fact those two wins came against a bad Houston team and an overrated Minnesota outfit; or the near impossibility of having to beat Green Bay up there in the final game of the season to have a chance to keep playing. The Bears are back, baby, and most everyone in the Chicago media says so, never mind the eye winks. Why? Well, Mitch Trubisky suddenly looks like an NFL-competent quarterback, though that endzone interception late in the fourth quarter sure revived doubts, didn’t it? There’s also a reshuffled offensive line that actually seems to be working. (Sorry, guys, I don’t know who you all are, but I do remember Jim Cadile and Bob Wetoska from the ’67 squad.) Holy Ryan Pace. Can this team play past January 3rd? This is where it gets to be deliciously ironic. The Bears need Trubisky to keep performing; the better he does, the further they go, and the greater the pressure to sign him for 2021 and maybe beyond. The Munsters also need kicker Cairo Santos to keep doing his Robbie Gould imitation. Santos is at 22 straight field goals, the second-longest string in team history, behind Gould’s 26 in a row. The new Santos, same as the old Gould. You gotta love it. And this—guess who Coach Visor and company are chasing for the last playoff sport? Why none other than the Arizona—nee Chicago, nee St. Louis—Cardinals, led by that baseball turncoat, quarterback Kyler Murray. The Bidwells against the McCaskeys, less the Hatfields and McCoys than Curley and Moe. May the best Stooge win.

You, Not You

What a coincidence. When it moved Wednesday to incorporate the records of Negro Leaguers into the MLB database, baseball chose the period 1920-48. Anything beyond, and baseball would have broken a glass ceiling, however retroactively. Infielders Toni Stone and Connie Morgan along with pitcher Mamie “Peanut” Johnson played in the Negro Leagues, post-1948, wouldn’t you know. I guess the good news is that none of their male teammates from that time will be having their stats counted, either. The national pastime, always a step behind, or two or three.

My Bad

How did I miss this? I was reading today’s Trib sports’ section when I ran across something White Sox and Bulls’ owner Jerry Reinsdorf said in response to ESPN’s “The Last Dance.” Reinsdorf conveyed to sportswriter K.C. Johnson in a May phone conversation his displeasure with Michael Jordan. You see, Jordan said in the documentary that the Bulls should’ve tried for a seventh title, and that upset The Chairman. “I was not pleased,” he related to Johnson. “How’s that? He knew better. Michael and I had some private conversations at the time that I won’t go into detail on ever. But there’s no question in my mind that Michael’s feeling at the time was we could not put together a championship team the next year.” Notice how Reinsdorf has information he won’t divulge, sort of like that engineering report on Comiskey Park. In the minds of the super-rich, something said by them is, ipso facto, true. Facts are not important, or details. The mighty have spoken. This is what makes it hard, for me at least, to root for either Reinsdorf team; he treats fans as little more than peasants. Give them a little cake, expect a world of obedience in return. Yes, m’lord, hiring Tony LaRussa is a great idea, and Jim Boylen…

Loud and Clear

White Sox hitting coach Frank Menechino would be better served keeping his mouth shut about how he coaches. Menechino was quoted in today’s Tribune and comes off, well, judge for yourself. Menechino said that with former assistant Scott Coolbaugh, “I cursed [him], screamed at him, called him every name in the book.” Now, with new assistant Howie Clark, Menechino says, “Howie’s a great guy. Howie’s going to fit right in. Howie can take me yelling and screaming, so it’s perfect.” Ha-ha. Maybe now we know why Coolbaugh joined the Tigers as their hitting coach. If Menechino is yelling at his assistant coach, what is he doing with and to players? Assuming that he treats them with the utmost respect, how does he come off dumping on the guy he tells to feed the pitching machine? One of the great lessons my daughter taught me is that yelling will get you nowhere with a young player. Maybe a little smart-ass—as in, “If you’d actually managed to hit that slider, where would it have gone? No, really, where, back to the pitcher?”—but not yelling and screaming. By the way, Clare quotes this line to me on a regular basis, and it’ll be one of the last things she says to me before I go to the big ballpark in the sky. All of which makes me wonder how Menechino would handle having a woman as an assistant coach. Lucky for him my daughter is ensconced in university administration. Her daddy didn’t raise his kid to take crap from a blowhard, not that she ever did or would. Get your act together, Frank. It’s a new day.

Two Birds

Let’s see, now. The University of Illinois has just fired football coach Lovie Smith while the Bears may do the same with Matt Nagy. Maybe the two should trade jobs. I mean, Captain Visor spouts the kind of rah-rah gibber that the college game thrives on. Consider this gem from today’s Sun-Times: “The guys are playing with confidence [as shown by their 1-6 record over the past seven games], and I do believe that’s real for Mitchell right now, and I like where he’s at.” This is just what the Illini need after a 45-0 loss to Ohio State or Michigan. Conversely, Smith is the coach the Munsters have tried yet failed to replicate three times and counting. They can’t do it because no one has better credentials for the job than Lovie Smith. The Bears hate quarterbacks; so does Smith. They love defense, as does Smith. There’s an unwritten team rule that two-minute drills are to be stopped, not continue on to a score with time running out in the half; Smith probably authored the rule. And Smith treats the media with just the right amount of contempt to bring a collective smile to the McCaskey clan. Lovie for Matt, the beard for the visor. It’s the perfect trade, at least in Bizarro World.

The Slightest Glimmer

The only thing worse than having COVID (and dying) is passing it along to your spouse. The silver lining so far is that Michele’s case has been “mild” to my “moderate.” In other words, the symptoms haven’t been so severe that she’s threatening to kill me, which would require her having the energy to get off the couch. And I don’t see that happening anytime soon. That being the case, we ordered out for dinner last night (don’t worry, I’m no longer contagious), a place in Oak Park, good hamburger, Goldilocks’ perfect size. I parked across from a storefront which has turned into a kind of pop-up field house for a local travel softball team. They looked to be 14u. There were five girls, all in a line, doing a pitching drill with their coach (seated on an upturned plastic bucket, of course). Throw a pitch, go to the back of the line. Repeat. There, on a cold Sunday night in December, COVID all around, I felt sudden surge of hope, however fleeting. If those kids and their coach saw fit to practice, with the support of everyone’s parents, maybe things will go back to normal. I mean, assuming the Bears breaking their six-game losing streak isn’t a sign of end times, that is.

Two Wrongs

It looks like James McCann is soon to be an ex-White Sox. Reports are the catcher is set to sign a four-year, $40 million deal with the Mets, to which all I can say is, Damn’. The Sox struck gold with McCann in 2019, when they signed him for two years. He immediately established a rapport with Lucas Giolito and other White Sox pitchers while putting up eye-opening offensive numbers (.273 BA, 18 homeruns, 60 RBIs) So, what does Sox GM Rick Hahn go out and do? He signs Yasmani “Passed Balls” Grandal to a four-year deal. How Grandal rates over McCann is beyond me, if not certain advanced metrics. But the Mets? Why would McCann go there, of all places? He’s a Southern California boy by way of the University of Arkansas, all “yes, sir” “no, sir” during interviews and thoughtful throughout. Those are qualities likely to fly over the heads of member of the Chris Russo crowd. Oh, well. All you can do is wish the guy well and hope Grandal can knock the next breaking ball down before it rolls all the way to the backstop.

Eddie Robinson, Phil Linz

I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me, but baseball can go all time machine without notice or warning. Like yesterday, when I saw on MLB.com that Eddie Robinson was four days short of his hundredth birthday. A power-hitting first baseman, Robinson was traded to the White Sox at the age of 29 in 1950. And, No, I have no recollection of the man playing on the South Side, 1950-52. But I’ve used him in Strat-O-Matic, and I do remember he was there cheering on the Indians, his first team, against the Cubs in the 2016 World Series; Robinson played on the last Cleveland Series winner back in 1948. So, happy birthday, Mr. Robinson. If memory serves, you and Gus Zernial shared the team homerun record at 29, until Bill Melton came along and broke it in 1970. Melton I remember and Phil Linz, too. A utility player mostly with the Yankees, Linz died Wednesday at the age of 81. Lucky for Linz the cause of death didn’t involve a harmonica. It nearly did in August of 1964. The Yankees had just dropped four in a row to the Sox at Comiskey Park to drop them to second place against the hitless wonders; at one point in the season, the Sox had dropped ten in a row to New York, so this was a pretty big thing. For reasons best known to himself, Linz decided to start playing a harmonica on the team bus on the way to O’Hare. Manager Yogi Berra didn’t like it and told Linz to stop, only Linz was all the way in the way and couldn’t hear. “What did he say?” Linz asked Mickey Mantle, who answered, “Play it louder.” Accounts vary as to what happened next, either Berra knocked the harmonica out of Linz’s hands or Linz tossed it to his charging manager. Whichever, the incident somehow broke the tension and may even have helped the Yankees win the pennant against the Sox by all of a game. That, I remember, and Dick Allen…

Sell, Please

The problem with Chicago sports is that owners own too long. The Wirtz family bought the Blackhawks in 1966 while Jerry Reinsdorf snagged the White Sox in 1981 and the Bulls four years later. Oh, and the McCaskey/Halas clan has controlled the Bears since right after The Flood. As long as there’s been an NFL, there’s been a Halas or descendant thereof to muck things up. Bill Wirtz nearly ran the Hawks into the ground. Bobby Hull? Bye-bye. Phil Esposito? Gone. Contraction in the NHL up to and including his franchise? Sounded good to Dollar Bill. Only Death stopped Wirtz from acting on such folly. Reinsdorf has screwed up not one but two franchises. The Bulls have yet to recover from their dismantling at the end of the Michael Jordan Era. Reinsdorf is the owner who picked Jerry Krause over Jordan and Phil Jackson. Enough said, only there’s more. Think the 1994 MLB strike and the “White Flag” trade three years after that. How many World Series does Reinsdorf owe Sox fans, given those two colossal bonehead moves? I’d start with five, minimum. As for the Cubs, they’re the exception that proves the rule. The Ricketts family bought the club in 2009 and turned the world upside down with a World Series championship seven years later. Alas, the family now seems headed in the direction of destructive idiosyncrasies a la Halas/McCaskey, Reindsorf and Wirtz. God, we deserve better.

My Precious

More than anyone, White Sox fans should balk at trading away prospects for veterans. I know I don’t like it. After winning the AL pennant in 1959, Sox owner Bill Veeck thought what he needed to repeat was more power, this despite his team playing in beautiful, cavernous Comiskey Park. So, he traded away five young players—catcher Earl Battey; outfielder Johnny Callison; first baseman Norm Cash; first baseman Don Mincher; and catcher John Romano. And what did they get in return? Two years of Minnie Minoso and Roy Sievers along with one season of Gene Freese. Three of those players—Callison, Cash and Mincher—were good for 795 homeruns between them while Battey and Romano totaled another 182 homers after being traded away. The thing of it is the Sox didn’t strip all the talent from their farm system, just most of the hitting. Combine the above with the likes of Gary Peters and Joel Horlen, and you’ve got a team that could have sent the Yankees into decline years before it happened. Then we have the Sox trading off all that young talent from the 1970s. Goodbye, Bucky Dent; Brian Downing; Terry Forster; and Goose Gossage. Hello, mediocrity. And let’s not forget the miscellaneous trades down through the years: Doug Drabek for Roy Smalley; Bob Wickman and others for Steve Sax; Chris Devenski and others for Brett Myers. So, excuse me for not jumping up and down yesterday over the Sox trading Dane Dunning and a prospect for Lance Lynn. That’s a soon-to-be 26-year old for a starter who turns 34 in May and will be in his walk-year. GM Rick Hahn better hope Dunning has already hit his ceiling. Because, if not… On the other hand, I don’t have any problem with the Sox signing Adam Eaton to a one-year deal with a club option. Eaton rubs a lot of people the wrong way, which I think comes with the territory of being small player; Eaton stands 5’9”. Yes, he called 14-year old Drake LaRoche a clubhouse leader, but we all say dumb things. In a way, the Sox just got younger, with Lynn and Eaton in place of Gio Gonzalez and Edwin Encarnacion. So, that’s a plus. As far as trading away young talent, all I can do is cross my fingers and hope.

Dick Allen

Former White Sox first baseman Dick Allen died yesterday at the age of 78. Despite playing just three seasons, 1972-74, on the South Side, Allen seems to have left an oversized impression among Sox fans. Every obituary I read mentioned a particular homerun—“chili dog” walkoff against Sparky Lyle, 21st inning walkoff against…Ed Farmer! Part of the Allen charisma is that his homers always seemed to count (looking at you, Ron Kittle). The obits also mentioned that Allen swung a 40-ounce bat. That by itself is impressive, more so when you consider he was just 5’11”. Allen was a sort of big “toy cannon,” one inch taller than Jim Wynn and even stronger. For me, memories of Dick Allen have a certain “almost” quality to them. To think about these Sox teams is to remember they included the likes of Bucky Dent; Brian Downing; Terry Forster; Goose Gossage; and George Orta. That’s a lot of young talent, folks. Throw in Allen along with Bill Melton and Carlos May, and you wonder why the Sox weren’t a team on the rise. Part of the reason, I think, is that they were doing everything on a shoestring budget. This was the dawn of free agency, and the Sox wanted no part of it. They neither signed big-ticket agents nor protected homegrown talent. All those youngster were either traded away before they walked or allowed to test free agency. Maybe things would’ve been different had Allen stayed around, but he was gone after three years. One of the stories mentioned a feud with Ron Santo, who ended his career exiled on the South Side, only that doesn’t make sense. Santo obviously was running on empty and should’ve been the one to leave, not Allen. That’s how it goes for the White Sox, flashes of promise that occasionally break up the stretches of gray mediocrity. Dick Allen was a flash unto himself.

Man the Lifeboats

Well, Captain Matt “Freaking” Nagy of the good ship da Bears really rallied the troops yesterday, now didn’t he? Six days after calling for every “freaking” coach and player to wake up and six days after calling out his defense, Nagy found what that was worth, a 34-40 upset loss to the now not-so-lowly Lions, who have a 5-7 identical to the Munsters. Hey, Coach, a six-game losing streak sure is character-revealing, don't you think? One of the many problems Nagy has, in my humble opinion, is he can’t keep his mouth shut. It’s all blah-blah-culture and blah-blah-great-practice, with a healthy dose of Captain Obvious (see the full “Freaking” remark he made). On the opposite end of the scale you have the Sphynx, aka linebacker Khalil Mack, who got shut out in the stats’ department against a supposedly inferior Detroit offensive line. Productive or not, Mack will still make $90 million guaranteed. So, you’ve got one guy who won’t shut up (or, conversely, say anything that verges on intelligent) and another guy who takes the money while putting in questionable effort and not saying a peep. What do they have in common? Why, Bears’ GM Ryan Pace, of course. No Pace, then no Nagy (still rockin’ that visor, BTW), no Mack. No Pace, now there’s an idea. A brickbat here to the Chicago media, which has finally gotten wise to the fact that the McCaskeys are the Chicago football version of the Bourbons—they’ve forgotten little because they’ve learned little. That said, everyone played along with Mack’s decision not to address the media; something about how it affects his karma. Sorry, you make the big bucks, it comes with responsibilities. And you’d be doing everyone a solid by getting Nagy away from the mic.

Huh?

My days go a lot better than my nights with COVID. For example, this morning I woke up drenched in sweat, and that constitutes a good night. What qualifies as bad? Eight hours of chills. So, there was a good deal of mental fog that hadn’t cleared yet when Clare called me yesterday morning with the news that Len Kasper was going to be the new radio voice of the White Sox. “Who’s Len Kasper, again?” Oh, OK, the TV voice of the Cubs the past sixteen years. Got it. This is a coup for the Sox, and it would seem to be a slap at the Cubs. Kasper said it’s been his dream to do baseball on the radio since he was a twelve-year old listening to Ernie Harwell back in Michigan. If you say so. To walk away from TV takes some guts, so hats off to Kasper for doing it. But I have to wonder if this isn’t also a reflection on the Cubs’ unsettled situation. Unless new team president Jed Hoyer has some rabbits up his sleeve, the North Siders look like they could be going into long-term decline. Not a lot of fun broadcasting games when your team keeps getting its butt kicked in. Ask anybody with the Sox. I also wonder if Kasper isn’t making like Theo Epstein. They’re both this side of fifty (though Kasper will shortly hit the magic mark), and they both seem increasingly out of step with an organization that has “Ricketts” stamped all over it. And, by that I mean it’s as if Donald Trump had bought himself a ballclub. Whatever the reason, Kasper takes over as the permanent replacement for Ed Farmer. I wish him well and hope he’ll have plenty of opportunities for great games to call in the years ahead.

Failing Grade

The White Sox drafted pitcher Carlos Rodon with the third pick in the 2014 draft, one selection ahead of the Cubs, who took “catcher” Kyle Schwarber. Yesterday, their respective teams non-tendered the duo. The Sox could’ve chosen Aaron Nola or Trea Turner instead; Rodon constitutes a variation on Mitch Trubisky. The Cubs could’ve drafted Nola or Turner; Schwarber constitutes a selection that worked, but not enough. The 121 homeruns are nice, the .230 BA and 591 strikeouts not so much. Let me add here that the Cubs also nontendered Albert Almora, the sixth player taken in 2012, and one ahead of Max Fried. Rodon, Schwarber and Almora all stand out as failures by our Chicago teams to develop talent; ditto Carson Fulmer, taken as the eighth player in the 2015 draft by the Sox and let go, mercifully, during the 2020 season. Schwarber and Almora could still pan out, which will reflect badly on the Cubs. Rodon and Fulmer most likely are busts, which will reflect badly on the Sox. All the new-tch gizmos couldn’t fix these four. Maybe the people using the tech didn’t know what they were doing.

The End of the World as We Know It

According to news reports, something called an esports arena is going to be built south of downtown in the not too distant future. And what is an esports arena, you may well ask? It’s a place where people can watch other people play video games. My simple mind boggles at the thought of it. I don’t play video games, I don’t care about people who do, although hats off for those who can make a living off of it. We were definitely blessed to have a child who preferred play in the real world. It's only a matter of time until life becomes that episode of Star Trek where the higher life forms have forsaken their bodies to live in jars. I can’t wait.

Not to Kick a Guy When He's Down, But---

Captain Happy Talk, aka Matt Nagy of the Bears, must’ve come into possession of a rare moment of clarity yesterday. The usual positive gibber yielded to something with a little more edge. Nagy told reporters, “Every freaking coach on the staff, ever player, better wake up and start understanding where we’re at.” Where you guys are at, Coach, is circling the drain. Shouldn’t you have gotten this ticked as soon as the losing streak reached two games, let alone five? I also read a comment by Nagy that instead of players taking ten from the jugs’ machine, they should take twenty. And that will do what, exactly, make receivers wish quarterback Mitch Trubisky were a jugs’ machine? Speaking of Trubisky, he said, “Everything was happening so fast on the field” when his fumble was run back for a Greenbay touchdown. This is the same guy who said he was blindsided by his benching and now says he has to do a better job of protecting the ball. And all this time I thought it was a good idea to throw into double- and triple-coverage. Nagy and Trubisky are both way in over their heads and may be, should be, gone by season’s end. But give them this, they show up to take their lumps from the media. But Dr. Frankenstein, aka GM Ryan Pace, is nowhere to be seen. Somebody should get him a copy of Profiles in Courage for Christmas. He can read it while job hunting,

Abandon Ship

Maybe I missed one or two, but I’m pretty sure NBC made use of just about every Bears’ cliché there is during its broadcast last night of the Munsters’ visit to Greenbay—images of George Halas and Vince Lombardi, Gale Sayers and Dick Butkus, Sid Luckman, my god, Sid Luckman. For extra measure, the cameras showed the matriarch of the McCaskey clueless, principal owner Virginia McCaskey. For reasons best known to herself, Madame drove up for the game. Did I mention the sideline reporter citing Matt Nagy on how this was the best quarterback Mitch Trubisky has ever looked in practice? Yeah, apparently that was important. Then came the iceberg known as Aaron Rodgers. The final score was 41-25, Greenbay, and it pretty much could’ve been whatever the home team felt like making it. Akiem Hicks didn’t play, again, which at least cuts down on the number of stupid penalties per game. Khalil Mack did play, though you’d never know it from the way the Packers o-line kept him away from Rodgers. And, of course, Trubisky played, which you could tell from the two interceptions and the fumble run back for a touchdown. After the game, Coach Happy Talk said something along the lines of “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Yeah, and turnovers are never a good idea, either. The consensus seems to be that general manager Ryan Pace will be on his way out, so that’s a silver lining for sure. Bear down…

On Further Review

Maybe it’s the COVID, but I seem to be liking Ken Burns less and less these days. Actually. It goes back to his criticism of the Michael Jordan documentary, which sounded an awful lot like sour grapes. How dare another documentary get crazy reviews. So, it was in this slightly fevered (99.8 to 100.8 on any given night over the past eight days) state of mind I watched two episodes of Burns’ “Baseball” opus that ran on the MLB Network yesterday. The first thing that bothered me was his treatment of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League; Burns made it seem that the league was about baseball from the start. It wasn’t. For openers, it actually started off as the All-American Girls Professional Softball League in 1943. The name changed before the season finished, but that doesn’t mean the players then switched over to baseball, too. Rather, the AAGPBL was a hybrid operation that steadily moved in the direction of baseball. It got there right around the time of the league’s last season in 1954. So, why did Burns skip over the evolutionary nature of the league? Maybe he didn’t want it to get in they way of his narrative. Then there’s the Seventh Inning, The Capital of Baseball, aka all teams New York in the 1950s. I once got into a pretty nasty fight with author Roger Kahn on this very subject; I dared venture the opinion that baseball was played west of the Hudson, too. Khan was not amused. So, I admit to having a certain chip on my shoulder concerning the subject. Still. Burns lets his interview subjects wax poetic on the glories of Ebbets Field and Yankee Stadium. In fact, he does such a good job invoking a sense of place that you can’t help but wonder why both facilities were discarded with so little regret. I mean, I would’ve expected Billy Crystal to chain himself outside the real Yankee Stadium before its “renovation” in the 1970s. But for all his interest in the game and the players, Burns displays a tin ear for the places where baseball has been played. He spends a lot of time on Willie Mays’s catch in the 1954 World Series without stopping to note it was only possible because center field in the Polo Grounds was 483-feet deep. Now, going back to Burns’ criticism of “The Last Dance” compromising its objectivity by allowing Jordan’s production company to be involved. OK, if that’s bad, what about letting “Baseball” run on the MLB Network? That raises a number of questions about conflicts, at least in my COVID-addled mind.

The Times that Try

My very special Thanksgiving Day treat yesterday was to find out I tested positive for COVID-19. My symptoms started five days ago, so all I have to do is avoid the emergency room for another nine days. So far, so good. The dog can’t figure out why all of a sudden I’m not taking her for her walk or why Michele and I are sleeping in separate beds, although she doesn’t mind jumping up into Michele’s bed. I only venture out to clean the yard. If I cared about college football, this would be a great weekend to sit in front of the TV. I guess I care enough to at least tune in to the Northwestern game. As for everyone else, I don’t want to see Ohio State break a hundred points against Illinois. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, even Lovie Smith. Of course, the one thing that could really send me into collapse would be Matt Nagy. Just a little over forty-eight hours to game time, and Coach won’t commit to a starting quarterback against Greenbay. Big-boy pants, Matt. Right now, I’m wearing them, and you should be, too.

Matt, Make It Stop, I’m Begging You

Bears’ head coach Matt Nagy is the most prolific spouter of cliches and gibberish I can ever recall in Chicago sports. The Department of Defense and the CIA should ask Nagy to record some of his “observations” so that they could be used to break down resistance of spies and terrorists. Nagy-talk is waterboarding without the wet. In today’s Tribune, the Bears’ third-year coach—and it sure feels longer than that, doesn’t it?—offered, “I just feel like we have a good pulse on knowing that, big picture, the struggle to run the football is where a lot of this stuff starts.” And let’s not overlook this gem: “At the same point in time [what, not a point in the universe?], I’d say with the passing game, whether it’s pass protection, whether it’s routes and details of the routes [double “Huh?” here], it’s really all of that coming together at the same time [triple “Huh?”].” Mere mortals might be exhausted after expressing such profound inanities, but not Coach. He was possessed of enough strength and gibber to say, “When the quarterback is playing really, really well, it makes it easier for everybody, and when everybody else is playing really, really well, it makes it really good for the quarterback.” Gosh, really? This is the coach team general manager Ryan Pace hired because this is how Pace talks, or would like to. God, take pity on your Bears’ fans. Their front office and ownership know not what they do, or say. Really, really.

Field of Dreams, 2.0

Clare called yesterday to tell me the “Field of Dreams” game has been rescheduled for next August. The Yankees and White Sox will go at it in the cornfields. The game will be sponsored by GEICO Insurance, so get ready for a moronic commercial or two or… On-line betting sites advertise all the time nowadays. What better venue for them than what promises to be a heavily promoted cob-knockdown in Dyersville? Maybe Ray Liotta can reprise his Shoeless Joe Jackson role from the movie. Maybe MLB will acknowledge the hypocrisy of allowing betting on games while maintaining a ban on the members of the Black Sox. Liotta, maybe, MLB admitting it was wrong, doubtful. That said, I will be entering any and all contests for tickets and, better yet, accommodations. What’s a few flies and mosquitos when you can see Eloy try to navigate left field with the cornstalks beckoning?

Ah, Youth

The Bulls drafted forward Patrick Williams last week, or should I say the Baby Bulls drafted Williams? Because the 6’8” product out of Florida State is all of 19. The odds are he’ll join 20-year old guard Coby White and 21-year old Wendell Carter as starters. Lauri Markkanen would be the old man here, at 23. New head coach Billy Donovan had better like dealing with kids. Youth is not served like this in other sports. The White Sox drafted two high school pitchers in the early rounds in 2019, but neither of them has made it to the South Side yet. My God, even Mitch Trubisky was a 23-year old rookie for the Bears. But NBA teams consistently tap teenagers; give them big contracts; and put them in the starting lineup. This is asking for trouble. Allow me two Chicago examples. Jabari Parker was 19 when the Bucks made him the second pick in the 2014 draft. After four seasons in Milwaukee, Parker has played for four teams, the Bulls included, the last two years. A twenty-year old Jahlil Okafor was the third overall pick in the 2015. To say he wore out his welcome in Philadelphia after two-plus seasons would be an understatement. Okafor is now on team number four in his career. The thing is, Parker and Okafor were both considered great kids in high school, and I never read anything about them being a problem in college. But they’ve struggled in the NBA. I can’t help but feel the problem is the one-and-done approach that allows NBA teams to pluck young talent out of the college ranks. Caveat emptor. I’d argue there aren’t that many Kevin Garnets ready to step onto an NBA court at the age of nineteen. But there are way too many nineteen-year olds who think they are.

That Which Can't Be Asked

The Athletic, like virtually all other news outlets (sports or otherwise), covered the recent hiring of Kim Ng as general manager of the Marlins. And, like virtually everyone else, The Atlantic ran stories on how important it was. So far, so good. Then, on Thursday I read another story, “The White Sox international scouting operations isn’t missing a beat.” As ever, MLB teams will spare no expense unearthing talent, provided the player is male. How come, in all the stories on Ng, no one seems to have asked her if she intends to devote team resources to scouting and developing female ballplayers? Either that question is too hard to ask, or the answer risks telling us more than we want to know about the national pastime.

"Supernatural"

Yesterday, we celebrated Clare’s birthday; she’s 29, but I won’t tell anyone. At dinner, she used her Ted Williams’ glass that I’d bought two years before she was born. Michele and I were in downstate Lewisburg, Illinois, at memorabilia show featuring Luke Appling. I got to talk to Old Aches and Pains for a good ten minutes on what had to be a disappointingly slow day for the promoter. I bought the glass after our Appling encounter. The aches and pains my daughter learned all by herself playing baseball and softball. Clare may act like Appling, sound like him even complaining about a sore this and that, but she looks better than Appling ever did, even in that photo of him as a player that he signed for me. Of course, I’m partial in this regard. Speaking of milestones, I also biked to the last two episodes of “Supernatural” before Clare and Chris came over for dinner. I’ve been following the Winchester brothers since Clare was in eighth grade. In a way, all three of them have been on the same adventure, at least in my mind. Poor Clare, she had this terrible habit of falling asleep on the couch, only to wake up to something on TV that frightened the bejesus out of her. Early on, it was “The X-Files” and “Millennium,” then “Fringe” and “Twelve Monkeys.” But probably my favorite was “Supernatural.” I once drove a 1967 Impala like the Winchesters did on the show, though mine was a convertible, and I saw all sorts of monsters like they did, though mostly in the form of coaches and umps. The show was always good for an inside joke or two, like the episode where the Winchesters interviewed someone named “Brock Buckner.” Well, all good things come to an end, though I’ll probably sample favorite episodes from time to time. If you ever saw Jensen Ackles lip-synch “Eye of the Tiger” while playing air-guitar on his leg (and sitting on the roof of the Impala), you’ll know why. The weird thing here, to an outsider or psychiatrist, is how “Supernatural” and the other shows remind me of my one and only child. I guess I’m lucky that way.

Landmark, Relic

The Cubs announced yesterday that Wrigley Field is officially a National Historic Landmark. The Ricketts’ family has spent upwards of a billion dollars—much of it coming from you, Cubs’ fans—renovating the ballpark, and the designation could allow the team to recoup somewhere in the neighborhood of $100-$125 million in tax credits. Talk about a stopped clock getting something right. The story I read in today’s Tribune mentioned such iconic features as the scoreboard, ivy and marquee (sans Network). I mention this because, back in the late 1980s, I attended a public meeting on the fate of Comiskey Park where some shill for the White Sox asked, what part of the ballpark should be preserved? This fellow had a mindset which basically held that the park Babe Ruth visited as a member of the Yankees had to be exactly the way it was back in the 1920s. No exploding scoreboard, no Picnic Area, no change in dimensions. If the Ricketts all felt the same way, Wrigley Field would’ve been razed for yet another mall park. Baseball fans everywhere should thank their lucky stars that it wasn’t. Meanwhile, Sox fans can always console themselves that, if they don’t have a landmark ballpark, at least they’ll have a Hall of Fame relic managing in the dugout.

That's Entertainment

Over the summer, I got into an email discussion with a Chicago sportswriter who was upset with the fan noise being pumped into empty ballparks. This gentleman on occasion has referred to sports as a form of entertainment. “What’s the big deal?” I asked. If sports is just entertainment, artificial crowd noise is just another special effect that goes into the work. The same with steroids. Robinson Cano of the Mets was hit with a 162-game suspension by Commissioner Rob Manfred after testing positive for steroids; it’s the second time Cano has been caught in the past three years. That’ll make the claim of ignorance a really tough sell, I’m sure. But what does it matter, if it’s all just entertainment? By that standard, Cano was simply getting into character as a baseball, the way Robert DeNiro did playing the boxer Jake LaMotta, thin at the start of the film, fat at the end. Did anyone give DeNiro grief for his fluctuating weight or how he accomplished it? I don’t recall any criticism. So, we face a choice as sports’ fans: Do we want to watch an athletic contest or a Hollywood product (sit-com, tragedy or farce when talking about Chicago teams)? I say contest, which means Cano broke the rules and should be punished. On a related note, the timing of the announcement was interesting, coming just two days after the release of 2021 ballot for the Hall of Fame. What a nice message, conscious or subliminal, to send voters: Cano got punished, why not Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens? I second that emotion.

He Gone

To no one’s surprise really, Theo Epstein stepped down yesterday as team president of baseball operations for the Cubs. And I have to wonder if Donald Trump didn’t play a role in Epstein moving up his expected departure by a year. Epstein leans to the left politically while several members of the team-owning Ricketts family don’t lean so much as lurch to the right. That could wear on a person after a while. Epstein may have stepped away early for his sanity’s sake. Then, too, it’s in his nature or in the nature of the kind of baseball person he is. Consider that Branch Rickey went from Brooklyn to Pittsburgh to St. Louis, and Andy MacPhail—the Theo Epstein before Theo Epstein—directed teams in Minnesota, Chicago, Baltimore and now Philadelphia. MacPhail preceded Epstein by five years and one regime in Chicago, and Epstein is a rumored possibility to replaced MacPhail in Philadelphia. Talk about full circle. The one job I’m betting Theo Epstein won’t be offered is that of baseball commissioner; he doesn’t hate and/or fear players enough to satisfy the owners. The job of commissioner is to protect the value of baseball franchises for the people who own them, that and nothing more. Epstein isn’t moved by money, but he is smart and independent. To owners, that’s three strikes and Theo’s out (of the running).

Tool and Fool, Repeat

How bad were the Bears last night against the visiting Vikings? They managed zero first downs in the third quarter to go with a negative two yards of offense. Yes,, the Munsters lost for the fourth straight time, 19-13, to move their record to 5-5 on the season. All I can say is, Look out below! Because 8-8 looks to be impossible, 7-9 a real stretch and 6-10 is knocking on the door. Head coach Matt Nagy, formerly Inspector Gadget, is currently failing in his role as Captain Positive. Matt, if it quacks like a -2-yard duck, it’s a -2-yard duck. Don’t insult everyone’s intelligence pretending otherwise. Nagy tried to get out of the way by having the offensive coordinator call the plays for a change; the Munsters responded by gaining 149 yards on the night. Quarterback Nick Foles was carted off the field with seconds left in the game, courtesy of his non-functioning offensive line. Offensive, indeed. As ever, general manager Ryan Pace reprised his role as the Invisible Man. How ill anyone find Pace when it comes time to tell him he’s fired? Where to go from here? Put up a “For Sale” sign on the franchise, and hope for the best. But we’re talking about the McCaskeys, so that’s not likely. Mayor Richard M. Daley once talked about getting a second NFL franchise for the city. Now, that’s an idea worth revisiting.

Paul Hornung

It’s not good to be an old Green Bay Packer. Paul Hornung is the fourth Lombardi-era Packer to die this year, joining former teammates Willie Wood and Willie Davis along with Herb Adderley. Hornung died Friday at the age of 84 from dementia. I was too young and not that interested in football to know much about the “Golden Boy” from Notre Dame, Heisman winner and, almost by definition, Bears-killer. According to the Washington Post, Hornung scored five touchdowns the same day in December 1965 that Gayle Sayers scored six. Sayers died in September, again with dementia a likely contributing factor. Apparently, I’m the only person who remembers Hornung’s time in Chicago as a sportscaster, for Ch. 2, I think. He wasn’t particularly good and definitely didn’t show any great interest in working to get better. Many years later, I caught Hawk Harrelson trying to do sports on the 10 O’clock news, and it sounded like the second coming of Hornung. Yes, I’m being a little petty here. Hornung and Harrelson were both ex-jocks trying to do the best they could with what they had. Life can get tough even for the best of athletes once they step off the field. And it certainly doesn’t help when someone has trauma suffered from his playing days (Hornung was part of a lawsuit alleging helmet manufacturer Riddel with liability for his condition) with them. The Hawk, as ever, was lucky. He played a sport that let him become something more. Hornung had to deal with a condition that kept chipping away at him, year after year.

Finally

So, my now-adult child, whom we brought home for the first time twenty-nine years ago next Friday, spent four to five hours yesterday venturing between the Cloud and the new computer bringing back all my files, which makes me feel a little like Golum from “Lord of the Rings.” Now, I have my precious, times a couple of thousand. The smart-aleck kid also decided to give me a new screen-saver picture, of her hitting a three-run homer against Aurora University sophomore year; she had two that day, as I recall. The neat part is she’s just made contact, and you can see the ball starting its flight path over the fence. Wow, and she can work with computers, too. Her reward was to go hitting with the old man. We talked a little about Kim Ng and the sacrifices necessary to follow in her footsteps; for openers, you embrace the life of a nomad. Who wants that? Then we pulled into the parking lot at Stella’s, and it was time to hit. For someone who hadn’t picked up a bat in a couple of months or more, the Bambina did pretty good, getting off a few Aurora-like shots against only one swinging strike in 120 pitches. I had to wear a mask, the batter didn’t. Some people around us wore masks, others didn’t. Maybe COVID doesn’t like pitching machines. Clare dropped me off a little before five, November dusk on a gray Saturday. But I had my precious, all of them, and I can only give thanks at my good fortune.

Shattered Glass

When Clare was a toddler scooting around the kitchen, Kim Ng was a twenty-something working for the White Sox in positions up to and including assistant director of baseball operations. So, it was entirely fitting that my daughter should be the one to inform me yesterday that the now 51-year old Ng had been hired by the Marlins as their new general manager. Ng is the first female GM of any of the Big-Four pro sports in the U.S.—MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL. Cool. The one irony of the hiring that I see is that the old-boys’ network may have had a little to do with it. The Marlins’ CEO is Derek Jeter, who knew Ng from her time with the Yankees as an assistant GM. Well, I’m a big believer in the dialectic. Mix A with B, or in this case DJ with Ng, and you may end up with something totally unexpected. Ng said all the expected things about bringing “championship baseball to Miami.” What I want to know is this: Will she work to bring women into the dugout and onto the field? We’ll see.

Glimpses

The weather this week has been pretty incredible, even by Chicago standards, a string of 70-degree days followed by all-too-generous servings of the cold we associate with this time of year. I liked the warm part better. On Tuesday, I took the Schwinn out and made my way to the lakefront. The 23 miles with the wind—or gale—at my back were great, the 23 miles with the wind in my face, not so much. There were times I felt like Benny Hill on his bicycle, peddling without moving an inch. But at least I didn’t keel over. It gets dark early now (thank you, America’s farmers), and by five it’s already past dusk. That said, I could hear the ping-ping-ping of the kid three houses down, hitting off a tee. He looks to be in eighth grade, or maybe freshman year high school. I hope he gets a chance to play come spring. Between COVID and Governor Pritzker, you just don’t know. My daughter won’t be playing, for reasons totally beyond her control, although that hasn’t stopped her from calling about the White Sox, a team that seems to be making all sorts of news these days. Clare isn’t a fan of Tony LaRussa, but she does like Jose Abreu, your 2020 AL MVP. “I’ve got an autographed picture of him,” she informed me last night of a promotion she won for world’s best tweet, or something. Clare wanted to go hitting Saturday, just as soon as she’d transferred all the files off my old computer onto the new one. Oops. Apparently, I’m working on a machine so ancient the transfer can’t be done with a zip drive. So, stuff had to be sent to the Cloud, and that meant walking it up, one file at a time. Long story short, we didn’t have time to go hitting, The dear one is supposed to come over again tomorrow to get my stuff out of the Cloud and into the new pc. If it’s not too cold, too dark or too late, we might go hitting. Fingers crossed.

He Said What?

Back in July of 1986, White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf told the Tribune’s Sam Smith “ownership of a ballclub is at least a semi-public trust.” If only Smith would go back and ask Reinsdorf why he used a qualifier. Last year, in an interview on team philanthropy, Reinsdorf spoke of “our obligation to be responsible stewards to those who support us.” This begs for a follow-up question or two: Does the obligation extend to running the team, and, if so, does hiring Tony LaRussa qualify? How? I think LaRussa has a serious drinking problem that needs to be addressed. Maybe the responsible thing to do here is for Reinsdorf to pay for rehab.

Not in His Footsteps

No one is likely to confuse the Rev. John Jenkins with Theodore Hesburgh. Jenkins may be the president of the University of Notre Dame, as Hesburgh was, but he’s no Hesburgh. That would require leadership. The most charitable thing that could be said about Father Jenkins is that COVID-19 has him spooked. Jenkins rushed the opening of the school back in August and got caught not wearing a mask. Then, he went to the White House for the introduction of Notre Dame professor Amy Coney Barret as President Donald Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court. Again, no mask, and this time Jenkins tested positive for the virus. But wait, there’s more. Because football rules over everything and everyone in and around South Bend, some 11,000 fans were on hand to watch Notre Dame beat Clemson 47-40 in double overtime. People stormed the field as soon as the game ended. Later, there were parties. Who knew? Now, the university is doing damage control, basically requiring the entire student body to take COVID tests before taking off for Thanksgiving break. That’s called closing the barn door after the horse has gotten out. I doubt Father Hesburgh would’ve been so careless.

Waiting for Comment

Well, here’s another reason not to feel all warm and fuzzy about the White Sox hiring Tony LaRussa to be their next manager—LaRussa has a DUI case pending in Arizona. A Sox official said, Yes, they knew about it but couldn’t say anything more given that the proceedings are ongoing. What he might have commented on is why the Sox and their new-old hire didn’t feel a need to get ahead of this when LaRussa was brought back last month. That would’ve been the smart thing to do, and Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf is supposed to be the smartest guy in the room. Oh, wait. Reinsdorf was nowhere to be seen on the day of the hiring. As for the man of the hour, LaRussa was contacted and seized the issue right by its horns (not). When ESPN phoned him on Monday, LaRussa responded with, “I have nothing to say,” after which he hung up. Allow me, then, to say a few things in his stead. For openers, this is the second time LaRussa has been charged with DUI, the first time during spring training in Florida in 2007. The then-Cardinals’ manager pleaded guilty and said, “I accept full responsibility for my conduct and assure everyone that I have learned a very valuable lesson,” which must have been that it pays to have a billionaire baseball owner for a friend. I can’t help but think there’s a pattern here. If LaRussa drives and drinks, does he drink at work, if not in the dugout then up in a suite, the kind a special assistant might find himself in for the Red Sox or Diamondbacks? I’m also curious if alcohol affects LaRussa’s behavior. Is he a mean drunk or just a boor of a drunk? Does he get all gushy and sentimental or stare down at his drink brooding? Do the White Sox know what kind of drinker LaRussa is? They should.

Tool and Fool, Review

The Bears lost to the Titans yesterday by a score of 24-17, or was it 240-7? All you need to know about the game is that Tennessee spotted the visitors two touchdowns in the fourth quarter and still walked away with the win. Here’s my favorite play(s) of the game, third quarter, fourth and one at the Tennessee 31. The Bears decide to go for it, only they get called for two, that’s right, two, false-start penalties. Call in the clowns, or Bears’ punter Patrick O’Donnell, whoever can find his way onto the field without incurring a yellow flag. Honorable mention for favorite play—an eleven-yard run on a fake punt. That was the longest run all day for the Munsters. Coach Matt Nagy still seems confused when and how to use timeouts, but cut him some slack. Nagy’s boss, GM Ryan Pace, stuck him with a mediocre offensive line, now made infinitely worse by multiple injuries and a COVID-19 positive test. Speaking of Pace, funny how he’s made like Elvis and left the room, the planet, this plane of existence…

My Hitless Wonders

Jose Abreu, Tim Anderson and Eloy Jimenez all snagged themselves Silver Slugger Awards yesterday, to which I say: Congrats, now do it again (and again). Naturally, the news got me reminiscing about White Sox teams from long ago. The Sox were “Hitless Wonders” almost from the start; the label dates to the 1906 team (with a league-worst team batting average of .230) that shocked the heavily-favored Cubs four games to two in Chicago’s only crosstown World Series. With the construction of Comiskey Park four years later, friendly pitching dimensions made “hitless wonders” and “White Sox” more or less synonymous, at least for lazy sportswriters, and, Yes, I realize that may be redundant. It would be more accurate to call Sox teams “homerless” wonders courtesy of the home park. Consider that dead centerfield could be as much as 440 feet from home plate. I was too young to make sense of baseball in the 1950s, the era of the Go-Go White Sox, but I do know those teams have been labelled, unfairly, as “hitless wonders.” In fact, from 1951-59, Sox teams twice led the league in batting while finishing one point off another time. That compares to a league-leading team ERA of one time (1959, of course). Did they ever lead the league in homeruns in the ’50s? Don’t be silly; that was the Yankees’ domain. How many times during the decade did they lead the league in stolen bases? Every year, ’51-59. Bill Veeck traded away a ton of hitting talent after 1959: Earl Battey; Norm Cash; Johnny Callison; Don Mincher; John Romano. That helps explain the batting averages of teams I do remember: 1964 (.247); 1965 (.246); 1966 (.231!) and 1967 (.225!!). Like the saying goes, You can’t steal first base. Me, I’d just like to take those Silver Sluggers and put them on the ’64 team that finished all of one game behind the pennant-winning Yankees or the ’67 squad that nearly snuck in ahead of Hawk Harrelson’s Red Sox. Now, that would’ve been sweet.

BFFs

Well, Bob Nightengale of USA Today sure is bent out of shape. He can’t understand why White Sox fans are “livid that they [the Sox] had the audacity of hiring a 76-year old manager who’s in the Hall of Fame, winning the third-most games in history, instead of hiring a manager [ex-Astros’ manager AJ Hinch] who cheated his way to a World Series ring.” Pay attention, Bob, and I’ll explain the difference. Hinch is on record apologizing for his role in the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal. New-old manager Tony LaRussa has had thirty years to talk about steroids’ use on those Athletics’ teams he managed, and not a peep. I’d rather a guy who says he’s sorry to a guy who won’t admit to wrongdoing. If I were Jerry Reinsdorf (perish the thought), I would’ve skipped over both Hinch and LaRussa for ex-Sox catcher Sandy Alomar. Maybe you’d like to devote a column to that someday.

Compare and Contrast

Luis Robert was awarded a Gold Glove last night for his defense in center field. Robert was the first Sox rookie to win one since…Tommie Agee in 1966. Holy Memory, Batman. Remembering stuff in some detail is one of the few benefits of getting older. I remember Agee, who definitely was what would now be called a five-tool player. He came to the Sox in January of 1965 with Tommie John (and John Romano) in a three-way trade with the Indians and A’s. John made an immediate splash that season, going 14-7 with a 3.09 ERA, while Agee suffered a broken hand in spring training and had to wait a year to debut on the South Side. Fans weren’t disappointed. The right-handed hitting Agee batted .273 with 22 homeruns; 86 RBIs; 98 runs scored; and 44 stolen bases. We’re talking Rookie of the Year plus a Gold Glove. Too bad 1967 followed ’66. In his second and final year on the South Side, Agee hit .234 with 14 homers; 52 RBIs; 73 runs; and 28 stolen bases. The Sox, figuring Agee was more of a one-year wonder than a building block, shipped him off to the Mets for Tommie Davis. The best-laid plans of mice and men and Sox GM Ed Short… Agee did even worse his first year in New York before turning it around in that unbelievable season of 1969. He had three very nice years, ’69-’71, followed by two blah years, after which he was out of baseball by the age of 30. Yes, I remember all of that. So, when it comes to Robert, I want him to use the tools he was given and make me forget about comparisons to Tommie Agee.

Silly, Stupid Season

COVID-19 or no COVID-19, baseball’s silly season is here. Visit MLB.com, and writers are in a frenzy spending other people’s money while playing the always-fun game of General Manager. Then I look at The Athletic, which likes to play mean cop to MLB.com’s dumb cop. There was a story yesterday, “The Pressure Index 2.0: Ranking every MLB team’s chances to improve this winter,” by Marc Carig and Andy McCullpugh. It appears the Phillies really, really have to get a move-on. You see, they “spent stupid money to sign Bryce Harper,” but they missed the playoffs. If ownership and the front office doesn’t get its act together, “signing Harper won’t go down as just spending stupid money. It will go down as just plain stupid.” Ouch. But that’s how it is with sportswriters today. They always want somebody to do something, and then rip them when things don’t work out. Funny, but I couldn’t find anyone who thought signing Harper for megabucks in 2018 was stupid or questioned bringing in Joe Girardi this year to manage. Those were consensus great moves, except that the Phils finished 28-32 this season. They were actually better the year before under Gabe Kapler at 81-81. What’s stupid here is declaring someone a superstar when he isn’t and talking gibberish when his teams don’t perform. Like I said, it’s silly season.

Rhyme Time

Bears’ head coach Matt Nagy is a tool and GM Ryan Pace is a fool for hiring him. If only something rhymed with “McCaskey.” The Bears dropped to 5-3 after their 26-23 loss in overtime to the Saints at a (thankfully, mercifully) empty Soldier Field yesterday afternoon. The NFL should take pity on this legacy franchise and award it points for being so willing to spot the other team an entire quarter. The Bears’ offense doesn’t show up for the third quarter, allowing the opposition as many points as it can score on the defense. And, you know what, I think it’s time we attach the “o” word to middle linebacker Khalil Mack, as in “overrated.” If Mack is carrying this defense, then it must stink beyond belief. Blame that on the general manager. As for Inspector Gadget, he’s totally out of his depth trying to find ways to blast, not holes, but canyons for his mediocre-at-best running backs to stumble through. But Gadget didn’t draft those running backs any more than he built an offensive line that all falls down a second or two after the snap. That, too, falls on Pace. Nagy reminds me of ex-coach Dave Wannstedt, always positive to a fault, until he burned out. Say what you will about Wannstedt, but he never pretended he could rock a visor. Somebody should tell Nagy. And, while they’re at it, somebody should inform the scions of the Halas legacy 5-11 isn’t that hard to imagine come January 3rd. Happy New Year.

Calming Down A Bit

The tweet storm known as Clare seems to have calmed down since the announcement Thursday of Tony La Russa’s hiring as manager of the White Sox. But she did call twice yesterday to inform me of team transactions. GM Rick Hahn cut his losses by declining to pick up the options on non-hitting dh Edwin Encarnacion (.157 BA) and non-pitching swingman on the pitching staff Gio Gonzalez (4.83 ERA). Encarnacion and Gonzalez join reliever Steve Cishek as 2019-offseason moves that didn’t pan out. The good news is first-base prospect Andrew Vaughn looks to be first in line for the dh job. The Sox also lost infielder Yolmer Sanchez, again; the Orioles claimed Sanchez off of waivers. Well, it’s good to be wanted, and, maybe if Yolmer puts his mind to it, he can hit almost as good as he fields. Fingers crossed. As for the LaRussa hiring, if there’s anyone in favor of it outside of a few good-puppy sportswriters, I haven’t much evidence of it. The good news is that, when the going gets tough, Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf has a tendency to disappear. Though on Halloween, you’d think he’d want to move around freely with all the other ghouls and goblins.

It's Good to be the Boss

It’s good to be the boss, like White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf. If Reinsdorf decides to hire old pal Tony LaRussa as manager after GM Rich Hahn talks about fresh approaches, managers with recent championship experience, etc., too bad for Hahn. He can hang in the wind, mumble “Never mind” or exit stage right, whichever he wants. All that really matters is, The boss has spoken. My daughter is pretty much an exhausted mess in the wake of yesterday’s LaRussa announcement, tweeting among other things Ted Williams’ head for bench coach and apologizing in advance for all the terrible things she was going to tweet out about the hiring. I’ve tried to get Clare to see the silver lining, that either the two of us (and one hell of a lot of other Sox fans) don’t know baseball or Reinsdorf has made a colossal blunder, and it won’t take long to see which. Such a hothead I’ve raised. She doubts the 76-year old LaRussa will be able to relate to players fifty years younger, especially if they’re given to bat flipping and other emotional displays or have an opinion on politics; LaRussa is on record of disapproving of Colin Kaepernick kneeling for the national anthem. Me, I want him to come clean about steroids. He never saw Mark McGwire or Jose Canseco shooting up in Oakland? He never heard about it? If so, LaRussa’s sight and hearing left him long before he reached retirement age.

COVID Follies

The Dodgers lifted third baseman Justin Turner during game six of the World Series Tuesday night when Turner’s latest COVID-19 test came back positive. But that didn’t keep Turner from celebrating—sans mask—with his teammates on the field after Los Angeles clinched the Series with a 3-1 win over the Rays. Dodgers’ manager Dave Roberts, a cancer survivor, was celebrating, too. In fact, the two of them were shown sitting next to one another, not a mask between them. COVID, by the way, is known to go after people with weakened immune systems, which can result from cancer treatments. Turner’s actions were ignorant, disgraceful and dangerous. Team president Andrew Friedman’s defense of Turner is just ignorant and disgraceful. Endangering teammates; enabling anyone to endanger teammates; and rationalizing such behavior are actions that need to be punished, and punished severely. Stupid is as stupid does, and allows. Where I live, the Illinois High School Authority has voted to ignore Governor J.B. Pritzker’s ruling that postpones winter sports, in particular basketball. I’m inclined to go with the IHSA, provided teams and conferences can come up with the money necessary to conduct regular testing of teams, coaches and other personnel, that plus a ban on fans in the stands. Anything less, and it becomes the Justin Turner Show, part II.

Facts and Figures, Game Six

Connect the following dots, if you dare: The Rays and Dodgers combined for ten hits last night in LA’s 3-1 win in game six of the World Series; the teams used 12 pitchers between them. That’s right, there were more pitchers than hits. And, according to Paul Sullivan in today’s Tribune, this was the least-watched Series through five games. Rays’ manager Kevin Cash pulled starter Blake Snell after 5.1 innings, despite Snell having yielded just two hits and no walks with nine strikeouts; Snell was pitching on five days’ rest, by the way. A 1-0 lead quickly turned into a 2-1 deficit and, eventually, a 3-1 defeat, with the Series going to the Dodgers. It doesn’t matter whether or not analytics led Cash to lift Snell; analytics dictated the 12 pitchers. There could be no repeat of game seven of the 1991 Series, when 36-year old Jack Morris pitched a 10-inning complete game shutout for the Twins over the Braves; working on just three days’ rest, Morris yielded seven hits and two walks on 126 pitches. Last night, Snell was gone after 73 pitches. The game took 3:28 to play, while Morris and the Twins finished up in 3:23. Long games, lots of pitchers (and strikeouts, another 27 yesterday vs. two homeruns) and low, low TV ratings—that’s where analytics has taken the national pastime. Maybe the powers that be are hoping that, once baseball gets declared a disaster, people will tune in the way bad accidents draw a crowd. Some silver lining, that.

Riddle Me This, Bears' Fans

How often does a 24-10 loss feel more like 240-10? Are the Bears what the ‘’62 Mets would look like as a football team? If Matt Nagy is such a good coach, why does he keep making Rick Renteria look like a genius? How much would the Rams be willing to bribe the NFL to schedule a game against the Bears every season? How much to put them in the same conference? Why do the Bears bother with an offensive line? They could save on the salaries with a long snapper hiking the ball to the “quarterback.” Or they could just punt on first down. Why do the Bears bother with a running game? If penalties reflect coaching, why was Akiem Hicks still in the game after picking up his fourth penalty in the third quarter? Hicks looked like a cartoon character diving into that pile of players at the goal line. Why did the Bears draft tight end Cole Kmet? I mean, he looks to be good, when he gets a chance. Wasn’t there a Mitch Trubisky-type player available? Was the fan noise intended to drown out laughter coming from the Rams’ sideline at Nagy’s play calling? If there were no fans in the stands, why did the wrap-around video board keep showing cheerleaders? With its ability to generate electronic messages, was the roof of SoFi Stadium sending out “Ha-ha” and “Bears Suck” for alien passersby to see?

Facts and Figures, Game Five

The Dodgers beat the Rays last night by a score of 4-2. Outside of an attempted steal of home by Tampa’s Manuel Margot in the fourth inning, the game was about as interesting as the lead sentence. The two teams combined for 13 hits, nine walks and 18 strikeouts; all that swinging yielded two homeruns, both by Los Angeles. Nine pitchers came and went. If you’re a Dodgers’ fan, the 3:30 it took to win the game might not seem so long. To those of us who don’t necessarily love LA, it dragged, and then some Today’s trip in the time machine isn’t to all that long ago, game five of the 1991 World Series between the Twins and Braves, Atlanta winning by a score of 14-5. Those two teams combined for 24 hits, nine walks and a mere ten strikeouts; oddly enough, all three homers were hit by the losing team. This game also featured nine pitchers, who did their work a good deal faster than their counterparts in 2020. The game clocked in at 2:59. Depending on how much God wants to punish baseball fans, the Series could go to the Dodgers tomorrow night in six games. Or the game could go into extra innings, a taste of an eternity in hell. Or the Rays could win and force a game seven.

Facts and Figures, Game Four

Ask me to rate last night’s 8-7 win by the Rays over the Dodgers, and I’d give it somewhere between a B and a B+. The last play, with the Rays scoring two runs— Randy Arozarena scoring the winning run from first base despite doing a literal cartwheel between third and home—was definitely exciting if not exactly textbook baseball. I mean, center fielder Chris Taylor booted Brett Phillips’ two-out single to get Arozarena started, and catcher Will Smith dropped a relay throw that would’ve had Arozarena out at the plate by, oh, two to three miles at least. But, yes, it was exciting. You know what comes next, the totals. Both teams combined for 25 his, nine walks and 20 strikeouts, 14 by the Rays; those 20 k’s came at the cost of six homers. Both teams used 13 pitchers, with the real question being, why did LA manager Dave Roberts go with Kenley Jansen to close it? I suspect Roberts chose loyalty over performance. All sorts of numbers indicate Jansen’s days as a shutdown closer are done. And, now you know what comes next, a trip in the old time machine, this time to game six of the 1977 World Series between the Yankees and Dodgers, won by New York, 8-4; this was the game where Reggie Jackson hit his three homeruns. The game featured 17 hits, four walks and 11 strikeouts to go with a combined five homers. The Dodgers used four pitchers while the Yankees let Mike Torrez go the distance. Back in the day, giving up four runs, two earned, was not a mark of dishonor. Allow me two final figures, relating to time of game. Last night’s game took 4:10, the game 43 years ago 2:18. Do with that what you will.

Facts and Figures, Game Three

Well, the Rays wandered back into the headlights last night, losing to the Dodgers, 6-2. The game wasn’t as close as the score might indicate. The teams combined for 14 hits, four walks and 24 strikeouts, 13 by the more-or-less hapless Tampa hitters; the teams used nine pitchers between them. Strikeouts are the cost of trying to hit homeruns in today’s game. Are 24 strikeouts worth the three homeruns hit last night? You decide. By the way, the game took 3:14 to play. Funny, but it seemed longer. Today’s jaunt in the time machine takes us to game one of the 1988 World Series between the Dodgers and A’s. Los Angeles won 5-4, on Kirk Gibson’s two-run walkoff in the ninth inning off Dennis Eckersley. The game featured 14 total hits, nine walks and 15 strikeouts balanced out by three homers. Six pitchers were used in a game that went 3:04. I dare any good baseball fan a month from now to remember anything remotely like the Gibson homer from this Series. I mean, other than the time the games took to play.

Facts and Figures, Game Two

Well, the Rays stepped out of the headlights last night to top the Dodgers, 6-4, and even the Series at a game apiece. There were a combined fourteen hits in the game along with eight walks and 22 strikeouts, fifteen by the Dodgers. But, hey, all those punchouts generated five homeruns. Both teams used a total of twelve pitchers in a contest that took 3:40 to play. Now, let’s jump in the time machine and set the controls to October 21, 1975, for game six of the World Series between the Reds and Red Sox, ending with Carlton Fisk’s walkoff in the bottom of the twelfth inning for a 7-6 Sox win. Both teams combined for 24 hits to go with nine walks and fourteen strikeouts, seven per team. A total of twelve pitchers were used, only four by Boston. The game took 4:01 to play. In other words, a game featuring eleven more baserunners and two-plus more innings took just 21 minutes more to play. I wonder if anyone outside Los Angeles or Tampa will remember last night’s game two the way they do that game six from 45 years ago.

Facts and FIgures, World Series, Game One

The Dodgers beat the Rays in game one of the Series last night by a score of 8-3. One team looked ready to play, the other looked like it was caught in the headlights. The game featured a combined sixteen hits and eight walks. There were three homeruns to balance out the 21 total strikeouts. Tampa used four pitchers to five for the Dodgers, though that stat is a little misleading given that Clayton Kershaw held the Rays to one run on two hits through six innings. Manager Dave Roberts must’ve felt a need to use his pen. The game took 3:24 to play. Just for fun, let’s go back to the 1960 Series between the Pirates and Yankees. New York won game three, 10-0. There were sixteen total hits, five walks and ten strikeouts. The Yankees hit two balls out of the park in a game that took 2:41 to play. Whitey Ford went the distance for the pinstripes while the Bucs went through six pitchers. Maybe Pittsburgh manager Danny Murtaugh should be credited with the invention of “bullpenning.” Game six went to the Yankees, 12-0. There were a combined 24 hits, three walks and nine strikeouts. No one hit a homer for the Yankees while the Pirates again went through six pitchers. The game went 2:38. Such was baseball in the time before launch angles and power arms out of the pen.

Matt Nagy/Jerry Manuel

Bears’ general manager Ryan Pace is Kenny Williams come to football. Just like the former White Sox GM did, Pace makes a series of moves in the offseason, mixes the new players in with the holdovers and hopes for the best. Sometimes, it works, most of the time it doesn’t. This looks to be one of the seasons it will. Think White Sox, 2000. In which case, Pace’s head coach is the White Sox manager from twenty years ago. Matt Nagy, meet Jerry Manuel. Bears’ fans, prepare for disappointment. Manuel got his team into the postseason that year, only to be swept by the Mariners. If Manuel couldn’t win with Paul Konerko, Carlos Lee, Maglio Ordonez, Frank Thomas and Jose Valentin, you think Nagy is going to do better with Nick Foles, Khalil Mack and David Montgomery? I doubt it. I’ll say this for Foles: He gets too much of the blame. Critics need to stop focusing on Foles’ anemic yardage gain per pass and realize those are the plays the head coach calls. Nothing over the middle or deep? Blame Nagy, who appears to be channeling his inner George Halas. Of course, Halas knew a running back when he saw one, and that looks to be a talent lacking in Nagy. How does a team get the ball at the two-minute warning at the end of the first half and not have any timeouts left? Ask Mike Nagy. Why would the team without a running game call a run with two minutes left and no timeouts? Ask Mike Nagy. And how often can a team expect a journeyman kicker to bail it out with a 55-yard field goal to close out the half? Ask Mike Nagy. And, while you’re at it, ask Nagy why he stopped using tight end Cole Kmet after Kmet caught his first career touchdown early in the game and followed that up with another nice catch. Correct me if I’m wrong, but after that Kmet pretty much disappeared. How ’bout it, Coach? Unlike Mitch Trubisky, Foles looks like he can read defenses and find his receivers, at least on occasion. But to win consistently and go deep in the playoffs, look to Jerry Manuel. Either Nagy gets better, or the Bears go splat.

Time Has Come Today

I can’t wait for the World Series to start on Tuesday. No, what I should say is I better expect to wait and watch as every game that drags on interminably. The Rays-Astros’ ALCS went seven games and averaged 3:33 in length, with three games clocking in at 3:50 or more. The Braves-Dodgers’ NLCS was worse, or longer, going seven games and averaging a mind-numbing 3:45, with two games breaking the 4:12 mark. Now, for some perspective. The Yankees-Pirates World Series also went seven games, averaging 2:40 a game. The Dodgers’ 15-3 win took 4:15 to play vs. 3:14 for the Yankees’ 16-3 victory in game two. Not one game in either championship series clocked in at under three hours while three of the World Series’ contests managed to finish in 2:32 or under and five in 2:38 or under. The Pirates 10-9 game-seven win, one of the greatest games in baseball history, took all of 2:36 to play. Television and mound visits are killing baseball. I watch one after another infield convention on the mound, everyone talking behind their gloves, and wonder what kind of bizarre ritual I’ve stumbled onto. Worse yet, the commercials are spilling over into the actual game. Baseball is playing with fire, a minute at a time. Once the game reaches a certain time threshold, it’ll be destroyed in a flash. How sad.

Worst Nightmare

The Tampa Bay Rays must be Commissioner Rob Manfred’s worst nightmare come to life. First, the Rays knock off the Yankees, a team pretty much touted in the media all season as the second coming of the Bronx Bombers or Murderers’ Row, take your pick. Then, last night they finish off the Astros to punch their ticket to the World Series. Poor Josh Reddick, haters like me win. Poor Dusty Baker, unable yet again to win when it counts, for all the world to see, yet again. As for the Rays, they’re what happens when you mix analytics with moneyball and competence. Tampa is the smallest of small markets. No household names here. Instead, you get the likes of Austin Meadows, Kevin Kiermaier and Hunter Renfroe. Rookie Randy Arozarena has been on fire this postseason with seven homeruns, and he may be the real deal. Blake Snell won the Cy Young in 2018, and he definitely can dominate hitters over stretches. What are the odds for either of them to stay in Tampa for long? The Rays find talent, develop talent and then trade proven trade talent for young talent in what sure looks like a perpetual cycle. They also implement analytics, especially in the form of employing openers more than starters. And this season they’ve made the idea of closer-by-committee work, with twelve pitchers sharing the team’s twenty-three saves. I think openers and multiple closers are bad ideas, but right now the Rays are demonstrating otherwise. If the Braves hold on to beat the Dodgers, this World Series will be a contest between a modest market and a small-to-tiny market. And, if the Rays win their first-ever World Series, MLB will trumpet the success of the little team that could. Meanwhile, the commissioner and all the broadcasters will pray it never happens again. Mike Brosseau?

No, No, No La Russa

Reports are that the White Sox intend to interview 76-year old Tony La Russa for the manager’s job made vacant this week by “mutual” agreement between the Sox and Rick Renteria to part ways, “mutual” as in “don’t let the door hit you on the way out.” “Tony La Russa,” as in “April Fool’s”? Team owner Jerry Reinsdorf says firing La Russa was his biggest mistake, not to be confused with firing Roland Hemond and replacing him with Hawk Harrelson as general manager; siding with Kenny Williams over Ozzie Guillen; letting Mark Buehrle walk; or tearing down Comiskey Park for a ball mall. Truly, the man has a lot to atone for, baseball-wise. But bringing back La Russa, let go by Harrelson in 1986, won’t undo the past or sit well with Sox fans. La Russa never much impressed the fan base, and his professed ignorance of PED use by Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco when he managed the A’s boggles the mind. At least A.J. Hinch apologized for his role in the Astros’ cheating scandal. Here’s what Reinsdorf should do first—rehire Hemond (bye-bye, Rick Hahn) and rebuild Comiskey Park. Once he’s accomplished that, he can hire whomever he wants to manage, even someone with the worst dye-job I’ve ever seen.

Karma

Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman couldn’t find the right words to apologize last offseason for the Astros’ sign-cheating scandal. Now, Altuve can’t find his glove in the ALCS, and Bregman can’t buy a hit. So sad. Dusty Baker is the perfect manager for a team like the Astros. Nothing is ever Dusty’s fault, not back taxes or Barry Bonds’ or the Cubs’ collapse against the Marlins in the 2003 NLCS. Houston makes the fifth team Baker has graced with his presence. Never a World Series winner, though. But, hey, his Astros are only down to the Rays, three games to none. Karma, anyone?

Out the Door

Our daughter had a Claude Monet book and video growing up, and the Art Institute has a new show, “Monet and Chicago,” so we all went to see it yesterday. That’s how I heard about Rick Renteria jumping/being pushed. It was announced by a soon-to-be 29-year old jumping up and down outside the garage door. Then, as we were all back in the car for the drive back home, came the update, pitching coach Don Cooper jumped or got pushed out, too. Clare judged it to be one of her best days ever. This is how I know I’m getting old, when I feel bad for someone like Renteria. Cooper? Not so much. He had all the warmth and personality of a wolverine, or badger, take your pick, and either one of those creatures would probably be better at relating to Millennial pitchers than Cooper. But Renteria was sincere to a fault, and he never tried to B.S. the media. Trying to win a playoff game with nine pitchers or thinking Carlos Rodon is ever the answer to any question that isn’t “Who do we DFA next?”, well, that’s a different story. I don’t particularly want A.J. Hinch or Alex Cora, both rumored possibilities, because they’re tainted by the Astros’ sign-cheating scandal. Roberto Alomar Jr. would probably get my vote, and, yes, Ozzie Guillen, if I could get him to sign a good-conduct pledge. The Sox have already announced Guillen won’t be a candidate. Here’s the thing to consider about Renteria—how much were Edwin Encarnacion and Nomar Mazara his fault? Yes, Encarnacion should’ve been benched well before the playoffs, but what’s to say Renteria didn’t try? The manager didn’t go out and get those two players. A general manager by the name of Rick Hahn did. If Hahn’s next pick to sit in the dugout doesn’t pan out, he should be joining Renteria in the unemployment line.

Not My Problem, ButThen Again....

Cubs’ Nation is in the dumps right now. The North Siders lost to the Marlins in the wildcard, and Florida went on to get swept by the Braves in the NLDS. The Marlins were shut out twice by the Braves, the Cubs scored one run in two games against Florida. The Cubs went 9 for 62 against Miami pitching, with five walks and sixteen strikeouts. Javy Baez, Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo combined to go 1 for 24 with eight strikeouts. And let’s not forget Kyle Schwarber, who went 0 for 4 with a strikeout. (It should be noted that Schwarber did get three walks.) This was the core (including Willson Contreras and the now-departed Addison Russell) Theo Epstein assembled back in 2015. So young and full of promise then, so close to being shipped out of town now. What happened? Not my problem, not my worry. Then again, it is. I think Tim Anderson is an overall better player than Baez based on the fact that Anderson’s numbers have gone up (in all the right ways) the last two seasons while Baez’s offensive stats have stagnated, which makes you wonder how long until his defense starts to suffer. OK, so that one for our core. But what about Yoan Moncada? Will he bounce back from COVID and whatever else caused him to hit .225 after his breakout season in 2019? Moncada has had one really good season vs. three mediocre ones. If your rich uncle would be willing to take on Bryant’s contract, would you be tempted to trade Moncada for Bryant? I would. I think Eloy Jimenez has the most tools of any hitter in Chicago. Provided he stays focused (and healthy and avoids walls), I think Jimenez will be a humongous force in the lineup. Luis Robert? I hope so, but he could just as easily turn into Jorge Soler, here today and gone to KC tomorrow. Nick Madrigal? Dylan Cease? They could turn out to be very good, or not. I worry that Madrigal won’t have any magic dust left for another season of bloops and seeing-eye singles. If Cease can’t find the strike zone sometime soon, Cub fans may end up happy he went to the South Side. My point is, you don’t what will happen until it does. I want to think our core is better than their core, but I have no way of knowing. The Cubs squeezed one World Series championship out of their young guys, courtesy of Joe Maddon. Right now, that’s one more than us. Oh, well. Spring training will come soon enough, COVID willing and all things notwithstanding.

Whitey Ford

I was too young to acquire a real sense of Whitey Ford or to have seen him match up against Billy Pierce and the White Sox. Instead, he was one of those players I used my first year of Strat-O-Matic. And, truth be told, while I liked him for his 16-13 record in 1965, I liked the hitting of fellow Yankees Ray Barker and Hector Lopez even more. But Ford did have an impact on me as a White Sox fan in April of 1967. On the 19th, the 38-year old lefthander pitched his last career shutout against the Sox, winning 3-0 before all of 3,040 fans at Comiskey Park. Then, on the 25th, he went all nine innings again, beating the Sox 11-2 at Yankee Stadium. Ford also collected two hits that day. Those were the last shutout, complete games and victories Ford recorded; he retired before the end of May. For his career, Ford went 39-21 against the Sox with a 2.17 ERA. Those were the most wins against any opponent and the best ERA. The 1967 White Sox collapsed the final week of the season, to finish three games out of first place. Two wins against a sore-armed, near 40-year old pitcher at the end of his career would’ve put them within one game of first place. Who knows, two wins against the hated Yankees might’ve made all the difference in the world. It was not to be. If you’re a Sox fan, life is rarely fair, and Whitey Ford is all the proof you need.

Be Like Mike

For me, the less bat-flipping and standing at the plate after hitting a (possible) homerun the better. This attitude could be the product of race and/or age and/or upbringing. After all, I was raised by the children of immigrants. Given how he acted last night, maybe Mike Brosseau of the Rays was, too. In the tenth pitch of what had to be a grueling at-bat against Yankee closer Aroldis Chapman in the bottom of the eighth inning, Brosseau—the pride of Munster, Indiana and Oakland University—lined a 100-mph fastball over the wall in left field at Petco Park. Unlike many, many players the past few seasons, Brosseau didn’t stand there and admire his handiwork, and he had cause. Last month, Chapman buzzed his head with a 101-mph pitch. And Brosseau didn’t flip his bat. No, he threw it and started running. The celebrating came later. The homer broke a 1-1 tie and sent the Rays to the ALCS against the Astros. I like Tim Anderson of the White Sox a whole lot. More than anything, Anderson shows dedication to his craft and leadership qualities. I don’t like the bat flipping and standing at home plate after a homerun; it gets in the way of the more important stuff. Brosseau and the Rays are going somewhere Anderson and the Sox aren’t. There may be a lesson in that somewhere.

One More Time

All four teams that won their divisional round games yesterday struck out less than their opponents and three of the teams used fewer pitchers. I’d like to say this is a positive trend, but I’m sure teams will still maximize the number of pitchers on their rosters for the next round. The surprise from yesterday is that two of the games, both in the NL, featured a total of zero homeruns. I honestly didn’t think that was possible. Over in the AL, both winning teams outhomered their opponents. How depressing, given how much I dislike both the Yankees and Astros. What a championship series that would be, sort of like choosing between a punch to the jaw or one to the stomach. Go, Rays.