A Slip of the Tongue

Mike Rizzo and I have a lot in common, outside of him being general manager of the Washington Nationals and me just being a sports’ gadfly.  We both grew up in the city, went to Chicago-area all-boys’ Catholic high schools and love the game of baseball.  OK, my not playing in the minors would count as another difference.

The Sun-Times did a nice profile of Rizzo on Saturday.  As I’ve said, hats off to the Times for doing sports, from preps to pros, right at least one day a week.  The story notes how the Nationals’ winning the World Series last October over the analytics-driven Astros qualifies in some quarters as a victory for “old school” baseball.  Rizzo thinks of his front office as more of a hybrid.  He told the Times, “You walk past the desk and cubicles of some of the smartest young men I’ve ever been around,” those being the Nationals’ “Ivy League-born and ‘bred” numbers’ crunchers.  “We marry that to some of the orneriest, grinder baseball lifers that there are.”

Notice how Rizzo said “young men.”  I doubt that was a slip of the tongue, just as I doubt any of his ornery lifers are female.  New or old, in some fundamental ways, baseball doesn’t change at all.  Too bad.