Unwanted Reminders

The reminders keep coming, whether or not I want them, which I don’t.  If only they’d oblige.

The first has attached itself to the lakefront trail; I keep thinking about when I can get back on.  The trail is an extraordinary, 36-mile blend of nature and the built environment.  Lately, nature has been having its way due to the high water levels of Lake Michigan.  Parts of the trail have been damaged by storms, but I’m more than happy to walk my bike over affected areas.

 

But, if and when the all-clear comes, I won’t be able to bike the trail without memory of something else.  A nursing home I pass by all the time has been hit hard by COVID-19, with ten residents dead so far.  People who may have watched me ride by are gone, and I never knew to give them a second’s thought, a wave even.

 

Former White Sox pitcher Bart Johnson is different.  I’ve thought (and written) about Johnson from time to time, and now he, too, is dead, passing away at the age of 70.  I will forever be 18 to Johnson’s 21, when he went 12-10 for the Sox.  Johnson appeared in 53 games as a starter/reliever, a role that basically has ceased to exist in baseball.  Maybe 178 innings was too much for a pitcher so young, or maybe the desire to earn Harry Caray’s praise made him overthrow, or both.  What could’ve been a very good career lasted eight seasons and totaled 43 wins against 51 losses.

 

Johnson endured two seasons of what I imagine were injuries and what I distinctly recall as Caray’s constant criticism.  He bounced back in 1974 to go 10-4 with a 2.74 ERA as a starter only.  I saw him pitch once that year, a complete-game, five-hit 3-0 shutout of the Indians.  I sat in the upper deck behind home plate, not far from Harry Caray in the radio booth.  Harry was probably at his two-faced best that day.

 

Johnson went on to scout for the Sox for seventeen years, 1980-97.  Outside of the single season spent in the minors with Oakland at the end of his career, Johnson spent 28 years with the Sox from the age of 18.  Johnson died three days ago, but so far the Sox website has been too busy with bracket play (?) to notice.

 

I almost envy them their ignorance.