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.