A Whole Lotta Stuff

Yesterday was something of an emotional rollercoaster for yours truly, starting with the obituary for former Illinois governor James Thompson.  He saved the White Sox for Chicago, or at least that’s what it said in both papers.

 

What Thompson did was stop the clock on the floor of the Illinois General Assembly at 11:59 PM of the last day of the legislative session, until he could round up the votes for White Sox welfare, aka a publicly-funded stadium.  How ironic that someone with a stated fondness for Prairie architecture and someone who poured public funds into the renovation of a state-owned Frank Lloyd Wright (Dana-Thomas) house could turn around so quickly and easily to allow for the construction of a ball mall.

 

Going over that “pleasant” history took place in the morning.  Then, Clare called in the afternoon, when I was peddling away on the exercycle.  “Did you see?” she asked, with a note in her voice that hinted I would do well to speed up the recording of the game I was watching.  That child of mine was right.  Seeing your team go back to back to back to back is definitely fun.  That the first three homers came from Cuban-born players—Moncada, Grandal, Abreu—was also a first in MLB history.  Eloy, from the Dominican Republic, added on in that effervescent way of his.

 

And with MLB yesterday honoring the Negro Leagues, those first three homeruns were a perfect tie-in.  You see, Cuban-born Minnie Minoso played in the Negro Leagues before he found a home on the South Side, so you had Minoso, the Negro Leagues and the three homers all coming together perfectly.  Just not for me.

 

If Jom Thompson had been anything close to the visionary the obits suggested he was, he would have made Jerry Reinsdorf renovate his ballpark, the one that was home to the Negro-League Chicago American Giants and the site of the annual Negro Leagues’ All-Star games.  Instead, Thompson urged Reinsdorf, whom he knew from law school, to threaten to move so legislators would know he was serious.  Friends, that ain’t leadership to me.

 

But the homeruns were nice.