Next Time, from the Couch

Next Time, from the Couch Clare dropped off baby Leo with Grandma, so Grandpa and his daughter could go to the White Sox-Angels’ game. Outside of the company and a whiff of grilled hot dogs and brats for sale on the concourse, it wasn’t worth the effort. There’s an old saying that Chicago has two seasons, winter and construction. If only that were a cliché. It’s not so much construction as constriction. Why have two-lane thoroughfares when you can reduce them to one, solitary, crawling lane? That happened to us twice on the way to Guaranteed Rate Whatever and once more on the way home. As ever, Sox manager Tony La Russa felt the need to rest his players, so no Yoan Moncada or Yasmani Grandal. You see, La Russa doesn’t believe that home-field advantage is crucial to a team’s success, or as our HOF guru offered in today’s Sun-Times, “It’s relevant, but it’s not—what’s the word?—determinative.” Did I say “guru”? I meant “oracle,” and one who ignores that if his team loses home-field advantage to the Astros, they would have to play an extra game in Houston, where they dropped four straight in June. But what do I know? My daughter, though, has questions, like why doesn’t Cesar Hernandez change his approach at the plate? “Obviously, what he’s doing isn’t working, so why doesn’t he slap or bunt?” Out of the mouths of young mothers…. My child also noticed that Hernandez was nowhere to be seen in the fourth inning when Tim Anderson wanted to flip him the ball for a force at second; instead of a possible double play, Anderson threw late to first base for an error it what would become a five-run inning for the Angels. Not that La Russa said anything about Hernandez’s disappearing act, God forbid. Or Reynaldo Lopez’s pitching. Nothing like giving up two-run homers to a player not even hitting .190 and another to a 28-year old rookie now hitting .220 on the season. Lopez must be resting up for the postseason, too. I may have reached that point in life where I’m too old and cranky to be allowed out in public. I don’t understand why people go to a ballgame if they’re not going to sit and watch. Why eat the overpriced food and guzzle the overpriced beer and buy the overpriced merchandise? Who has all this money to waste? I have a grandson and an idea what to get him when the time comes.