A Somewhat Pleasant Distraction

The White Sox have released a preliminary list of players who’ll either be on the major-league roster or part of the taxi squad.  So far, it’s not good news for outfielder Daniel Palka.

 

According to Clare, Palka has changed his Twitter status and is no longer mentioning any connection to the Sox.  Either Daniel knows something, or he’s ticked, which I can understand.  Players hate nothing so much as rejection, and right now Palka has to be wondering if he’ll be moving on to organization number four.  Remember Matt Stairs, Daniel, Matt Stairs.

 

If there’s any good news in this, it’s that I have something to think about instead of the latest controversy coming out of the White House.  Fingers crossed, for Daniel Palka and all American military personnel in Afghanistan.    

Learning History

Michele had last week off; Clare has this week.  She called today to set up a date to go hitting and to complain about the ignorance of people clueless about the Negro Leagues.  “I mean, how many times did we go to the [Negro Leagues] Museum?”  At least once by my count.

 

But certain ears may have been burning from a comment someone made yesterday concerning the time my then 18-year old had an encounter with former Cubs’ great and recent HOF inductee Lee Smith.  How could she not know who Smith was, this person wondered.  I answered by noting Clare grew up little interested in the baseball that transpired north of Madison Street in Chicago.

 

This got me thinking as to how fans become knowledgeable about baseball history.  I think it takes time, and, in Clare’s defense, she knew about Frank Thomas and Robin Ventura from the time she could talk.  This strikes me as perfectly natural.  Young fans know about the team in front of them.  For Clare, the White Sox of Thomas and Ventura, for me the Sox of Gary Peters and Floyd Robinson.

 

At some point, youngsters hear from older fans about players traded away or retired, and so those individuals get added to the data base, which expands with each season.  Any serious 40-year old baseball fan should have thirty years’ worth of player memories to draw on.  Anything more than that, I think, is the result of special circumstance.

 

Maybe it’s a trip to Cooperstown; we visited when Clare was ten.  Maybe it’s a book, which is what happened to me.  It was the Sox 1966 yearbook, which that year included a pictorial history of the team.  This is how I first learned about Ed Walsh; Happy Felsch and the Black Sox; Ted Lyons and Luke Appling.  With that, I turned into a sponge for White Sox, as distinct from Cubs’, history.

 

The irony here is that my daughter understands the intricacies of the game far better than I do, hitting most of all.  Watching a game with her is like sitting next to a hitting coach.  It’s all load and weight and hips.  Me, I just want the guy to hit the ball.  The same goes for hitting the cutoff man or running the bases.  The girl knows the right way to do things.

 

Between us, I’d say we’re the perfect fan.  We got the game on the field covered, along with the games from long ago.  I couldn’t ask for a better partner, one who knew to call and ask who exactly Lee Smith was before getting his autograph.

Searching for Clues

I participate in what you might call the new normal, which today included going to church and the mall while wearing a mask, of course.

 

Oak Brook is one of the more upscale malls in and around Chicago; if you can’t find it there, you won’t find it anywhere.  Once upon a time, when the White Sox built their own mall to replace Comiskey Park, they opened a store in Oak Brook.  They probably were as interested in buying as selling.

 

What they wanted was the people who shopped at Oak Brook to become Sox fans; call it mall reciprocity, if you will.  We went to the Sox store a few times; Clare may or may not have been old enough to walk when we did.  The place has been gone for a good ten to fifteen years now.

 

I see that the season’s opener will be Yankees-Nationals, with Gerrit Cole facing off against Matt Scherzer.  I wonder why they aren’t going with Orioles-Marlins.  What we have here, my friends, is baseball desperately trying to make itself relevant again.

 

With the White Sox and every other team that opted for a new stadium since 1990, that meant going upscale, hiding the mall with old-timey trappings a la Camden Yards, or in the case of what went up at 35^th and Shields, not hiding the mall at all.  The results of the upscale strategy aren’t quite what owners would like.  Is it ever for these guys?  So, now we’re going to go real old school with a matchup worthy of Koufax-Marichal or Jenkins-Gibson.  Good luck with that.

 

I bet it’s killing all the bean counters that there won’t be any fans allowed into Nationals Park for the opener.  Truly, there’s nothing sadder than an empty mall.  

Oblivious

Some days, I think it’s the end of the world as we know it, other times, the beginning of a brave new world that may or may not have a place for me.  Most of the time, I’m floating somewhere in between.

 

What fascinates me is the obliviousness of young athletes to this state of affairs, like that kid down the block who keeps hitting off a tee in his backyard.  I also run across numerous videos that softball players tweet of themselves, usually hitting a homerun.  Hey, guys, don’t you know there’s a pandemic going on?

 

That’s the thing—they don’t, not really.  And why should they?  Other people are getting sick, and they have a gift, or a calling or a quest.  If adolescent athletes are oblivious to the dangers around them, I’m betting there are a whole bunch of young ballet dancers, classical musicians and opera singers practicing away while they exist in the very same kind of bubble.  They just don’t live down the block from me, and I don’t see their tweets.

 

Let them play and dance and sing, so long as they maintain a proper distance from the next person and don’t crowd into a bar or basement when they’re done.  When this is all over, we’ll be in need of those talents being honed.

With Friends Like These...

As recently as last week, baseball owners made it sound like conditions weren’t right to play the game, Now, all of a sudden, teams are clamoring to get fans back into the stands.

 

I imagine every city has someone like the Cubs’ Crane Kenney, team president of business operations.  Kenney was all over Chicago sports yesterday and today for saying on the radio that the Cubs were “very hopeful” they could safely get 8,000 fans into Wrigley Field for a ballgame.  Kenney came up with that number based on the 20 percent cap on seating capacity for outdoor sporting events included in Illinois’ stage-four COVID-19 reopening plan.

 

Again, these guys were willing to blow up the season last week and now they’re working with medical experts to find a way to “safely bring some portion of our fan base” back to games?  What gives?  Curious minds want to know.

 

At 20 percent, Wrigley Field is going to look like it did back in the early ’60s, when bad teams drove attendance ever downward.  Even if every person let in was a veteran of the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, they wouldn’t be able to generate the concession sales anywhere near what the Cubs expect on a per-game basis in normal times.  So, again, what gives?

 

Optics is my guess.  No fans in the stands will look weird to all those fans watching from the couch.  A sprinkling of faces would add a touch of normality to things.  And this isn’t just for the Cubs and baseball.  You think the NFL isn’t concerned bigtime with the optics of how 90,000 empty seats will look on a Sunday afternoon in November?  Or, perish the thought, in February for Super Bowl LV in Tampa Bay?

 

Would I go to a game and be a prop for the show?  For the Cubs, you’d have to pay me.  But for the White Sox, probably.  Why?  For my sanity is why.

 

I’ve reached that point in life where I don’t want to burn through days, weeks or seasons.  If I turn my back on this baseball season, there’s no te;;ing how many more I have left.  So, I could go to a game, mumbling as South Siders always do, about powers that be and who’s batting leadoff.       

The Marathon Turns into a Sprint

 Well, we’re going to have baseball, of a sort, this summer after all.  Sixty games is better than none.  Maybe.  I mean, they’re still going to start extra half-inning with a runner at second base.  That, my friends, is stupid.

 

And this all assumes COVID-19 stays away.  Right now, it’s burning through Florida, Texas, Arizona and California.  Last time I checked, there’s a whole lot of baseball teams in those states.  I guess that’s what the taxi squad is for.  Can anyone tell me if it’s three taxi squad players plus thirty extra players just hanging around, or vice versa?  And how many asterisks will be used for single-season records?  Just wondering.

 

I’m not going to sit here and say I won’t watch a game, because I know I will.  The thought of going straight into autumn without any baseball depresses me no end, unless of course, there’s no football to go with no baseball.  Come to think of it, that would sort of depress me, too.

 

Good news, though.  No tie games except for whatever they’re calling the resumption of spring training.  July training?  Baseball camp?  Gettin’ ready for end times…

Take a Walk

My wife and daughter will tell you how on occasion I’ve reenacted the Bataan Death March with them, except they always manage to live through it.  I do like to walk, and today I took Michele for a stroll along the recently reopened lakefront trail.  We did six miles.

 

The weather pretty much cooperated, with a temperature in the upper 70s and a nice breeze.  We started off wearing our masks, per Mayor Lightfoot’s request, and that put us in a definite minority of walkers, runners and bikers out on the path.  After a mile or so, we lowered the masks to under our chins; that way, we could put them back up if we came on a crowd of people.  But try working up a sweat while wearing a mask.  Believe me, it’s not easy.

 

I’d like to bike the lakefront, only there aren’t any restrooms open yet.  Do you know what’s worse than exercising with a mask on?  Answer:  biking forty miles without taking a bathroom break.  I also wanted to go to the beach this summer.  Good luck with that.  The beaches remain close, and from what I saw today, nobody was tempted to sneak a towel onto the sand at Foster Avenue.  Oh, well.

 

In times like these, it’s best to focus on what you can do as opposed to what you can’t.  Put one foot in front of the other.  After a while, it all adds up, into what I can’t say exactly.  But just getting a chance to walk the lakefront makes life a whole lot more pleasant than it was just the day before.  Of that, I’m sure.

 

 

Late Night

Clare called last night.  Once upon a time, I would’ve been watching a ballgame on TV.  Now, I spend pretty much every night reading.  I guess that’s a good thing.

 

First, we talked baseball.  It seems that the owners in the guise of Commissioner Rob “The Undertaker” Manfred have invoked their authority per the March agreement with players to declare, Play Ball, per their rules.  From what I can tell, many if not all of the concessions offered players during subsequent negotiations are off the table.  No word yet on games ending in ties, so, fingers crossed.

 

I can’t wait for Bill DeWitt or some other owner tell me how this all benefits fans.  Do tell.  Maybe sixty games should be the new standard.  That way, they could raise ticket prices to more than double, and on beer, too.  All I know is the only person making sense on either side is Trevor Bauer.  Really, end times.

 

After commiserating on the sorry state of baseball, we discussed The Titan Games, which featured a transgender contestant.  I almost wished that fact hadn’t been mentioned because the transition was such that you never would’ve thought otherwise.  I’ll take last night’s episode as evidence of social progress, unlike anything coming out of what used to be the national pastime.

Father's Day

My Father’s Day started with a dream about softball, sort of.  Clare’s first travel coach talked to me maybe three or four times total, one of them being to ask me to drive a player home, which I did all of once.  Yet that formed the basis of my dream, along with our dog and a missing tooth.  Go figure.

 

Clare and Chris came over in the afternoon; by this time I’d already seen the replay of a White Sox-Cardinals’ game from 2006, a 20-6 rout of the Cardinals.  You could tell Tony LaRussa was on the premises from all the hit batters courtesy of St. Louis pitchers.  Nice score, mixed memories.

 

A year removed from the World Series, the Sox would go a disappointing 90-72, not good enough to qualify for the postseason.  Did I say disappointing?  The next year, they slipped to 72-90.  But they played a game from that season, too, the one where Jim Thome hit his 500^th career homerun, a walk-off against the Angels.  “He didn’t even finish his swing,” marveled my daughter, who once disliked Thome because we traded Aaron Rowand to get him.  Clare now thinks of the big guy pretty much as I do, as an always-humble, left-handed Paul Bunyan.  Too bad we couldn’t have drafted Thome back in 1989.

 

The Indians got around to it in the 13^th round.  Thome attended Illinois Central College in East Peoria, a place Sox scouts apparently were unable to find.  Speaking of draft picks, in that Cardinals’ game, the 2006 first-rounder for the Sox had a few minutes on camera.  I had no recollection of him, probably because he amassed a 4.64 career ERA in the minors.  And, no, he didn’t turn things around in the majors, for the simple fact he never got there.

 

After dinner, we watched a repeat of The Titan Games hosted by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.  Basically, the fastest strong person wins.  The neat thing is they had Jessie Graff on from American Ninja Warrior.  If you need someone to jump twelve feet between buildings or scale a sheer wall, Graff is the person you want.  But, if you want someone to lug a sledgehammer attached to a 200-pound boulder (this after doing a lot of lifting and cranking and obstacle-course maneuvering), you want the contestant who’s probably a good forty pounds heavier.

 

The night ended with tentative plans to go hitting and getting a game of catch in sometime soon.

   

A Seat at the Table

How does stuff get decided in baseball?  Basically, owners and players argue respective sides.  Proposals are extended, then countered.  At some point, agreement is reached.  Fan input never enters into the process.  On this, baseball management and labor are in perpetual agreement.

 

That ugly, if always unstated, truth was on full display this week with reports on the back-and-forth in the latest negotiations.  The dh for the NL already has been approved and at least one year’s worth of having extra-inning games start with a runner at second.  Still up for debate is player re-entry and games ending in a tie.  Anybody ask you for your opinion?  I didn’t think so.

 

Personally, I love the dh, not that anyone asked me about adopting it in 1973.  Nor have I been asked about public funding for ballparks or scheduling doubleheaders or the starting times of games.  Oh, but I get to vote for the All-Star teams.  That counts, not.

 

Baseball’s idea of fan inclusion is the focus group, which is to power-sharing what voting for All-Star teams is.  We fill the stands, we mostly pay for the construction of those stands, we deserve a seat at the table.  Now.

Don't Bother

According to wire stories I read today, owners and players are negotiating to give us “baseball” instead of baseball.  And I’m not talking about the DH in the National League.

 

Both sides have agreed to start extra-inning games with a runner on second base.  Apparently, players also want a rule change to allow player re-entry, and at least one side has proposed that games can end in a tie.  What is this, travel ball with 14-player rosters?

 

I wonder when fans were supposed to find out.  Would Commissioner Rob Manfred and Players’ Association President Tony appear together to announce the changes or flip a coin to see who gets the honor?  Both sides can’t agree on a season of baseball in trying times, so they want to give us “baseball” in its place.

 

That’s OK, don’t bother.

And This and That

Cardinals’ owner Bill DeWitt Jr. was trying out a new comedy bit this week, or that’s how it may have sounded to listeners on St. Louis radio.  DeWitt offered that, “The [baseball] industry isn’t very profitable to be quite honest.  And I think they [the players] understand that.  But they think owners are hiding profits and this and that, and there’s been a little bit of distrust there.”  Gosh, ya think?

 

This has to be a joke, or else De Witt is trying to blow smoke in a whole bunch of places.  He’s owned the Cardinals since 1995.  Why hasn’t he tried to get out of the game—excuse me, the business—if it’s not making money?  Didn’t he learn from his father, who owned both the Browns and the Reds?

 

Come to think of it, why is son Bill DeWitt III team president?  That’s just going to screw the kid up and make him think baseball is profitable or, in the case of the Cardinals, an excuse to print money.  Interesting, though, that any salary paid to a DeWitt can be taken off on taxes and affect the purported profitability of the franchise.  DeWitt bought the team for $150 million, in case you’re wondering.  It’s now worth a reported $2.1 billion.

 

I never thought I’d be in the same corner with millionaire ballplayers.  But a person like Bill DeWitt Jr. leaves me no choice.

A Picture's Worth

A Picture’s Worth

 

Three or four times a week I check eBay for photos of Comiskey Park.  Every so often, I get lucky and come across snapshots from before I was born even.  Tuesday may be the first time I ever saw a picture that made me mad.

 

It’s a news photo from June 1990 and, technically, not of Comiskey Park; bear with me here.  Robin Ventura and Carlton Fisk are modeling their 1917 replica uniforms for the first-ever “Turn Back the Clock” game, played July 11^th.  I was at that game, but they didn’t turn the clock all the way back—both the White Sox and Brewers used their black players.  We can’t have the past teach us any lessons, now could we?

 Let’s say get back to Ventura and Fisk.  They’re standing in the middle of Comiskey Park II/U.S. Cellular Field/Guaranteed Rate Whatever, still under construction.  The team had no further use of the park from 1917 but still wanted to play dress-up.  Two ballplayers standing in the middle of a concrete bowl—they’re right about a picture being worth a thousand

Turn Right at the Stop Sign

Monday being Monday, I was off to Menards to order replacement basement storm windows.  This required beating back the ghost of my father, whose voice I kept hearing ask me, “Did you measure right?  You know, you get it wrong, and you can’t take them back.”  Yes, Dad, I measured right, or at least twice.

 

After I placed the order, I turned right out of the parking lot instead of left.  About three-quarters of a mile down the road was Clare’s practice field for three years of travel softball.  Let me tell you, it’s a weird place, and not just for the cicadas that showed up in droves that first summer.  The field is in a park located next to a working quarry.  The earth literally shakes from time to time from dynamite going off in the quarry.  That’ll affect a player’s timing, trust me.

 

I have mostly good memories of the place, or two years out of three.  The coaches the first two years were thoroughly decent human beings.  Harry was a little crazy, looking like a whirligig as he tried to position his players from the bench, and he did all the drills in double time, it seemed.  Coach Mike kept Harry from having a heart attack, and they both liked Clare.  The third year’s not worth remembering.

 

We had our own tournament at the park, which required parents volunteering for various duties; I was part of the grounds crew.  The first year I made the mistake of wearing a Sox hat while dragging the infield, and the umpire started in on me about how 2005 was getting to be a long time ago.  This would’ve been 2007, and the ump was a Cubs’ fan, which means he had another nine years to go before his team won its first World Series in  108 years.  Just another reason to dislike umpires.

 

It was a beautiful day, 75 degrees, no humidity with plenty of sun; if the devil were to show up in these parts in January—or February or March or April or May—and promise a day like this, he’d have himself a whole lot of souls to take back to hell, maybe mine included.  And yet there wasn’t a person to be seen anywhere in the park.  Strange times.

 

I turned around and headed back home.  The windows should be ready in three weeks, said the man in the mask at the counter.    

Kneel, Don't Kneel

This is rich.  Donald Trump, he who would have us bow or kneel or genuflect in the presence of his greatness, insists on the right kind of kneeling (see above).  Kneeling in protest, on the other hand, is bad to the point of treasonous.

 

I don’t especially think symbolic protests by athletes accomplishes much.  When they start putting their money where their mouths are, then I take notice.  Curtis Granderson says something, and he’s already backed it up with years of working for social change.

 

That said, I don’t go much for this “shut up and play” attitude of the president and his pals.  If players are just supposed to play and nothing else, then doesn’t the reverse side of that coin be for fans to cheer and nothing else?  Unfortunately, logic doesn’t appear to be Donald Trump’s strong suit.

 

But it is gratifying to see that the adage of “what goes around comes around” really does qualify as one of life’s great truths.  The NFL has been wrapping itself in the flag and “shut up” patriotism for as long as I can remember.  Recent events have rendered that approach irrelevant to the point it threatens to cost the league money as fans turn away (if only they’d shut up and cheer).

 

How interesting that NFL owners have become as mute as their MLB counterparts, if for different reasons.  Instead of talking at the risk of saying something stupid, the owners have elected to have their respective commissioners do it for them.  So, Rob Manfred irritates most every baseball player and a whole lot of fans when he talks, which is a bad thing.  Roger Goodell talks and irritates Donald Trump.

 

I’d call that a good thing.

No, They Didn't

To all those sportswriters reacting to yesterday’s Mark McGwire/Sammy Sosa “Long Gone Summer” documentary on ESPN—if you say, “They cheated,” that means you all see sports as something more than entertainment, yes?

 

Because, if baseball is just entertainment, there have to be a whole bunch of actors out there who used PEDs to bulk up to help their careers.  How would that be different?  You can’t have it both ways, guys, you can’t say it’s entertainment and then complain when the entertainers do something to better fit the part.

 

And can we stop saying the 1998 homerun chase “saved” baseball?  How do you know that for sure?  It’d be more accurate to say that McGwire and Sosa pointed the way to a particular style of play.  Call them the grand-daddies of launch angle, if you want, just don’t call them saviors.

 

Think about it.  There’s a straight line from 1998 to where baseball is today.  The only difference is that hitters can’t use chemically-produced muscle to achieve the launch angle, exit velocity and stats the analytics’ crowd so loves.  That stuff is killing baseball, but I was the kind of fan who never thought much of McGwire and Sosa back in the day.  What do I know?

 

 

Can't Help Myself

For someone always warning about the dangers of getting stuck in the past, I sure do like walking to the edge and sticking a toe in.  I did it again yesterday picking up Chinese takeout.

 

“As You Like It” is a two-bounce foul ball away from the baseball field at Morton West, on Harlem Avenue.  Ask Clare how she became a baseball fan, and she’ll point to watching Frank Thomas on TV.  I think watching the Mustangs play had something to do with it, too.

 

We’d sit in the stands to catch a few innings before going to pick up Michele from the train.  God, how that girl loved to chase after foul balls that didn’t land in traffic on Harlem.  (The school got around to installing netting a few years ago.)  Happiness for an eight-year old was winning the race to the ball and tossing it back to the ump.  Well, that and having her father pitch endless BP.

 

The field yesterday stood empty in the early evening sun of a cloud-free Saturday; the outfield flags were all pointing in the direction of home plate courtesy of a stiff breeze out of the northeast.  It was just the kind of breeze that chased after me in softball.  If I had the car windows down more, maybe I would’ve heard the echo of cheers from those games long ago.  I’d like to think so.

 

Clare graduated Morton ten Junes ago, around the same time her onetime classmate Ryan was drafted by the Angels; he was a year ahead of her in class.  Ryan used control more than power to get noticed, and he made it as far as high A.  I could imagine him on that mound, pitching and hoping.  Baseball comes wrapped up in hopes, along with dreams.

 

Ballgames generate memories; ballfields hold them.  You just have to look and listen.

Kneel Before Me, I Say

Kneel Before Me, I Say

 

If MLB players shot themselves in their collective foot, owners would one-up them taking aim where their own collective sun doesn’t shine.  Owners wouldn’t blow their brains out, though, because they don’t have any.

 

That fact went on display this week with the owner’s latest proposal, a 72-game season at 70-80 percent of the earlier agreed-to prorated salaries, depending on whether baseball makes it to a postseason.  The owners just have to win.  Owners just gotta own.

 

According to Bob Nightengale in USA Today, baseball is in line to receive $787 million in postseason broadcast revenue.  Sorry.  Nope.  It won’t fly.  Owners can’t cry poverty with that kind of payday in store.  If any or all of them run through their cut, that’s just too bad.  There’s money enough to keep the system afloat.  The only problem is it has to be shared.

And owners gotta own.

He's Back

I intend to take a pass on Sunday’s ESPN documentary on the 1998 Sammy Sosa-Mark McGwire homerun race.  The way I see it, don’t cover a lie unless you intend to call it a lie.

 

So far, I’ve read three Chicago sportswriters who have no intention of doing that; two of them were beat writers who covered Sosa.  God forbid they address the reasons they never called out Sosa—or McGwire or any other suddenly enhanced ballplayer—for PEDs’ use.  I guess they were too busy chronicling how the Doping Duo were in the process of saving the game.

 

And then there’s Jon Greenberg in yesterday’s The Athletic.  “I don’t need him [Sosa] to admit anything,” wrote Greenberg.  “Nor should anyone else.  We saw what we saw.  We know what we know.”  But only some of us were in a position to report on an ongoing scandal.

 

And, you know what, guys?  I wasn’t in that position.

Perchance, to Draft

Clare called me last night to ask, “Why should I care about a draft if they’re not going to play baseball?”  The answer, my dear, is that they will play baseball.  It might be a spite-filled 50 games, but it will be baseball nonetheless.

 

Sad to say, I actually watched the draft—hey, we’re as exciting as the NFL or NBA (no, you’re not)—long enough to see the White Sox pick lefthander Garrett Crochet out of Tennessee and hear the comparisons to Chris Sale—lanky, great fastball and slider, hard-to-pick-up delivery.  We’ll see.  Personally, I’d be a little worried that he pitched all of 3.1 innings this spring because of shoulder soreness.  So, fingers crossed.

As for Mt. Carmel shortstop Ed Howard, the other Chicago team thought enough of Howard to make him their first-round pick.  Cool, though not-cool if you wanted him on the Sox, though OK once you realize the Sox have Tim Anderson at short.  It’s just nice that, for once, local baseball talent got scouted and drafted by a local team.

Of course, the question now is, what will the draft picks do after they sign?  They won’t be assigned to a rookie-league team or the low minors as in years past.  And the Sox #1 pick won’t get interviewed by Ed Farmer up in the radio booth.  I actually remember Farmer talking to Sale—and Carlos Rodon and Zach Burdi, a fellow South Sider.  The not-yet rookie talking with the long-ago player.  It was baseball as I love it.  But Farmer’s gone, and the game is lessened by his absence.    

 

Just a Series and a Game

I just read a rumor that, if baseball happens this year, the All-Star Game and Homerun Derby could take place after the World Series.  This would all be part of an 89-game season, give or take, basically half a season in ordinary times.  Why not reflect that by cutting the name in half to a simple “Series”?

 

And nothing like turning the All-Star Game into a variation on the Pro Bowl.  The one thing Bud Selig ever did as baseball commissioner that made sense was have home-field advantage determined by the outcome of the All-Star game.  This made the game count for something.  But, hey, it’s just entertainment, so no more meaning attached to the All-Star Game.

 

Who knows, maybe it never had any beyond the desire of individual players to stand out.  I keep thinking of Ted Williams, and I’m too young to remember him play.  Williams played in sixteen All-Star contests, batting .304 with a .439 OBP.  Teddy Ballgame cared, Teddy Ballgame always came to play.

 

And what night of the week in late, late October would they play the mid-summer classic?  It couldn’t be Sunday, Monday or Thursday, not with the NFL around, and not Saturday night because college football has claimed that.

 

That leaves Tuesday, Wednesday or Friday.  Who’s going to watch on date night?  I go with Wednesday.  They could hype it as the big Hump-day Game.  Yeah, that has a ring to it.

Say What Again?

The owners, who seem to believe end times will arrive at 12:00 AM on November 1^st, have come back with another proposal.  Now, they’re willing to play 76 games while subjecting players to a pay scale reminiscent of college tuition.

 

I say that as a parent who never understood what his child’s tuition was going in as a freshman or coming out with a degree.  We have a system where there’s tuition A for him, B for her and C for students from overseas.  Don’t worry, you’ll go through the rest of the alphabet soon enough, along with your savings.

 

You couldn’t make a system more confusing if you tried.  Yet this is what the owners propose for players.  The game’s economic structure is so fragile owners can’t afford to prorate salaries without further reductions.  Oh, but they’ll do something they have never agreed to before and drop the compensation requirement for teams losing free agents.  Not only that, they’ll expand the number of playoff teams, all the way to sixteen.  But players have only 48 hours to decide.

 

The tuition-paying parent in me says something’s fishy here.  Would the owners actually give up free-agent compensation out of a sense of fairness, or are they doing it as a loss leader?  And that deadline.  If that isn’t undue pressure, what is?

 

Last month, the Rays’ Blake Snell came off as a greedy SOB looking out for #1.  In comparison to how the owners are acting, Snell was a paragon of virtue.

 

Adios, national pastime.

Piled in a Corner

I’m trying to clean out the garage, which is a lot like Sisyphus trying to make it to the top of the hill with his boulder.  Stuff keeps getting discovered, and some of it even gets thrown out.

 

Among today’s discoveries is my collection of baseball bats, in far northwest corner; they were behind a plastic garbage can full of drop cloths.  (Another discovery.)  My guess is they date back as far as thirty years, more so if you include the John Roseboro Little League model.  That was a gift from out of our next-door neighbor’s garage.  Bill saw how Clare liked to hit, and he gave us two or three bats.  Lucky guy, he got to clear stuff out of his garage in the process.

 

The bats that I decided to keep all still have the signatures on them: Roseboro; Roberto Clemente; David Justice (youth); Jackie Robinson; Carl Yastrzemski.  The Justice bat I bought for Clare; I always wanted her to know what swinging a wood bat felt like.  I don’t have a particular memory of this, but I’m pretty sure we used it when I’d take her to the schoolyard for our own version of fast-pitch.  Clare would stand there next to the “box,” or strike zone, and I’d fire away.  This way she could swing up to four times in a minute, depending on contact.

 

I threw out one of the bats from neighbor Bill and one from Clare’s senior year of high school.  The good news there is it didn’t belong to Clare; she just broke it at the batting cages.  It was a demo belonging to the proprietors, who complimented my daughter for accomplishing something that hardly ever happened; they gave it to her in recognition of her feat.  After ten years, I decided it was time to toss.

 

My daughter has informed me the batting cages are open again.  “Maybe we can go.”  I’d like that.  But the next bat she breaks, she takes home with her.

More and More Interesting

So, NFL Commissioner Goodell posts a YouTube video Friday in which he states, “We, the NFL, admit that we were wrong for not listening to NFL players earlier and encourage all to speak out and peacefully protest.  We, the NFL, believe Black Lives Matter.”  Oh, to know how that came about.

 

Notice Goodell used the first-person plural.  Depending how he defined “we,” the commissioner is either including owners or interns down the hall in his mea culpa.  I wouldn’t put #2 past him, but, for argument’s sake, lets it’s all about #1.  OK, then, let’s get those cameras on Jerry Jones, Robert Kraft and all those other NFL owners who’ve contributed to Donald Trump over the years.  Have they undergone a true change of heart, or did they do some number crunching, or both?

 

If Goodell and the owners are responding without considering what the respective fan bases think, I’m truly blown away.  If this response is in fact made after assessing what fans think, I’m still blown away.  I’ve always wondered about the extent of any fan-base intersection in Chicago between football and baseball, especially the White Sox.  Being a White Sox fan implies an acceptance of diversity; that comes with the address of the ballpark.  Plus, there’s history: Minoso, Aparicio, Guillen, Abreu…Conversations at 35^th and Shields rarely include the phrase “you people.”

 

The crowd at Bears’ games strikes me as less diverse.  If that’s the case, the McCaskeys have joined Goodell in nothing less than a leap of faith; Bears’ fans have changed; or I’ve misjudged them.  Whichever it is, President Trump won’t be able to play the NFL card the way did four years ago when Colin Kaepernick starting taking a knee in protest of racial injustice.  Now, showing an oversized American flag before a game or at halftime will come in a entirely different context.

 

That’s for sure.

If the Shoe Fits

According to today’s paper, between them Nike and Michael Jordan will be spending some $140 million in the cause of social justice and the fight against racial inequality.  I guess.

 

My skepticism is based on a couple of reasons.  Nike earns about $40 billion a year and employs roughly 77,000 people, with about 32,000 in the U.S.  Now, I’m pretty willing to bet that little to nothing of what Nike sells is made in the U.S., hence those other 45,000 employees.

 

Now, bear with me here.  Black American is underserved by financial institutions.  Couldn’t that $140 million—and given Nike’s profits, why not double or triple that figure?—help capitalize a black-operated bank, one focused on providing financing to minority communities?  If that’s not possible, I thank Michael Jordan and Nike for their contribution, but I still have a few questions about Nike’s business model.

 

Visit their website, and they’re all about responsible sourcing.  Sweatshops are not welcome to do business with Nike, or so the website says.  But I wonder.  If the company is so concerned with working conditions, why does it have production facilities half a world away?  Wouldn’t it be a whole lot easier to check on factories in Beaverton, Oregon, and thereabouts?

 

If Nike is concerned about workers’ rights (and it says it is), how does it expect those rights to be respected in a place like Cambodia.  Given how hard it is for unions to organize in the U.S., is it any easier in Cambodia?  Or is Nike saying unions aren’t necessary to protect workers’ interests?  In that case, no NLRB is better than one staffed with appointments by a conservative White House?

 

And if Nike is so committed an employer, how come I couldn’t find an average wage for its overseas’ workers?  Or a graph showing what percentage labor costs contribute to a pair of Nike shoes, pick your line?  Why is Nike so afraid of stating the obvious, that it wants the dollars of American consumers without the responsibility of having to employ a larger American workforce?

 

I truly hope that $140 million change things for the better.  I truly believe that athletic products made for Americans by Americans—regardless of race, gender, creed or orientation—would go a long ways accomplishing that.  

For the Fans

Major league baseball, the sport that planned to start the season in March and allow night games in Chicago as early as April 10^th, is all of a sudden worried about people’s health.  Owners have rejected the players’ proposal for a 114-game season in part because it could coincide with a second wave of COVID-19.

 

The commissioner’s office has an infectious disease consultant advising them against too long a season.  Gosh, I wonder if MLB will try to stop the NFL from playing, I mean, on health grounds?  Deputy Commissioner Dan Halem is also worried about the weather.

 

Halem is quoted in a Wednesday AP story telling the players’ association their 114-game proposal “ignores the realities of the weather in many parts of the country during the second half of October.  If we schedule a full slate of games in late October, we’ll be plagued by cancellations.”

 

And yet none of that worry goes into drawing up a schedule for the regular season.  Indians’ fans were supposed to sit out at 6:10 PM on March 30^th to see their team play the White Sox.  Sox fans, in turn, were expected to sit out in the dreck of early April (the 10^th to be exact) for the first 7:10 night game of the season.  And, until now, MLB has never had a problem with late October playoff baseball played at night.  Schedule it and they will come, apparently.

 

Did I mention the owners also are concerned that a second wave of the coronavirus could affect an anticipated $787 million in postseason broadcast revenues?  Cough, cough.    

A Wednesday in October

Clare texted last night that game four of the 2005 World Series was being replayed.  “It’s the eighth innings,” read the message from daughter to mother, which was then relayed to me.  So, I watched.

 

These “classic” replays can’t help but be bittersweet because we know what happens next: Aaron Rowand gets traded in the offseason; Bobby Jenks falls victim to injury and demons; Ozzie Guillen turns into Mike Ditka; 2005 turns into 2006 and beyond.  All that celebrating with the future waiting to happen.

 

But I watched in order to remember how good it felt to have my team win, just this one time.  And then I remembered how important it was to Clare.  My little hitting prodigy had made a 16u travel team even though she was just thirteen at the time.  Oh, and the coach was a jerk in a crew cut who accepted asthma attacks—not his—as part of the price of success.  The White Sox winning made such suffering a little more bearable.

 

And then I went back to reading. 

Rickettts' Jibber-jabber

Ah, the Ricketts family, so many working mouths, so few available feet to stick in.

 

The latest Ricketts unable to keep his trap shut is Nebraska governor Pete, who, in a Monday meeting with black community leaders to discuss a shooting in Omaha, started things off with the words “The problem I have with you people.”  But wait, there’s more.

 

Ricketts later tried to take it back by calling a black radio host to say “charge it to my head, not my heart.”  In other words, don’t take offense because I’m stupid.  But wait, there’s more.

Brother—and Cubs’ chairman—Tom came to Pete’s defense, calling him “a very respectful person, and if he offended anyone, I’m sure he did not mean to.”  Why the qualifier, Tom?  Your brother offended a whole bunch of people.  It sort of makes me wonder if the Wrigley Field marquee message of “End Racism” comes from the head, the heart or someplace else.

 

It’s a good thing the Ricketts bought the traditionally WASP Chicago baseball team.  They certainly wouldn’t make it on the South Side.  Say what you will about Jerry Reinsdorf—and I’ve said quite a lot—he’s been a decent neighbor to black communities surrounding Guaranteed Rate Whatever, just like the Comiskeys were back in the day, as were the Allyn brothers and Bill Veeck later.  Each one of those Sox owners may have been comfortable in the company of old man and bigot Joe Ricketts (though I doubt it, at least for Veeck and Reinsdorf), but Sox owners at least knew how to keep their opinions to themselves.

 

Black fans were attending ballgames at Comiskey Park as early as 1917; you might even find the letter online from a black fan to people in the South on just how exciting it was to be able to go to a game.  (I’m not saying fans couldn’t go see the Cubs, but it was a daunting bunch of streetcar rides from Bronzeville to Wrigley.)  Charles Comiskey also had an interesting relationship with the Negro Leagues.

 

The Sox left their home at South Side Park in 1910; their place was taken by the Chicago American Giants, who played there through 1940; my father once told me he climbed a telephone pole to watch the Giants play.  When the park burned down in 1940, the team moved to Comiskey Park.

Did I mention that the Negro Leagues’ All-Star Games were played at 35^th and Shields or that Joe Louis beat Jim Braddock there in 1937 to win the heavyweight title?  To me, this is all fascinating history.  To the Ricketts, I wonder if it’s history that got them looking to buy a team in a more, shall we say, amenable location.  Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.      

   

 

 

Joke of the Day

Oh, this is rich.  NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell issued a statement Saturday on the country’s racial unrest, and the commissioner all but raised a clench fist in solidarity with protestors.  Why, their “reaction to these incidents reflect the pain, anger and frustration that so many of us feel.”  “Us”?  Roger Goodell and the NFL us?

 

Goodell goes on to say, “There remains much more to do as a country and as a league.  These tragedies inform the NFL’s commitment [???!!!] and ongoing efforts.  There remains an urgent need for action…We embrace that responsibility and are committed to continuing the important work to address these systemic issues together with our players, clubs and partners.”  You coulda fooled me.

 

For openers, how about some signatures on the statement?  I can think of two in particular, Jerry Jones of the Cowboys and Robert Kraft of the Patriots.  Get those friends of Trump to sign on the dotted line, and I’ll be impressed as to intent.

 

An apology to ex-NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick also would’ve added some substance to Goodell’s words.  Kaepernick effectively ended his career four years ago by trying to publicize issues that Goodell is only touching upon now.  Admissions of error and responsibility would go a long way in demonstrating serious intent, Commissioner.  Are you ready to make those?  I don't think so. 

Now prove me wrong.

More, Not Less

The MLB players’ association has come back with a counter-proposal that calls for a 114-game season running from July through October while offering salary relief in the form of deferred payments.  According to one analyst, the owners are not impressed.

 

And why would they be?  As a group, these are people who want to play as few games as possible while maximizing their revenue streams.  The more I watch them, the more I long for the likes of anyone named Comiskey, Veeck or Wrigley.  These greatly flawed individuals or families at least treated their ball clubs as a public trust, not an investment for creating generational wealth.

 

Commissioner Manfred should get on a conference call and ask a simple question to the owners:  How many times has a fan come up to you and said, “You’re the reason I came to the game today”?  If they’re inclined to tell the truth, the answer will be, “Zero.”

 

One last thing:  The longer baseball waits, the sooner football will pounce.