Of Wet Blankets and A-Rod

The White Sox found a wet blanket to throw over fans on Monday with the announcement that team-controlled parking lots will be hiking rates from $30—a $10 jump from 2019, by the way—to $45 for as long as the Sox play at home this postseason. And, if fans don’t like it, they can eat cake. That was pretty much the message Sox spokesperson Scott Reifert offered up in yesterday’s Sun-Times. “The free market will set a much higher rate than this,” Reifert said in a spot-on imitation of Marie Antoinette, if not exactly Milton Friedman. Here’s the thing, Scott. The Sox set the base price, regardless. Keep the fee at $30, and private lot owners will feel the squeeze. Raise the price 50 percent, and you give the green light for the other guys to do likewise. Oh, well, it could be worse. I could be a Yankees’ fan, perish the thought. Giancarlo Stanton hit a ball high off the Green Monster, and I do mean high, at Fenway in the first inning of last night’s 6-2 Red Sox win, and he forgot to run he was admiring his feat so; it should’ve been a double, my friend. And then Gerrit Cole, the $324 million man, couldn’t make it through three innings and said after the game, “I’m sick to my stomach,” over his performance. Cry me a river, Gerrit, the Hudson, if you like. And then, if my ears didn’t deceive me, Alex Rodriguez on the ESPN broadcast anointed Cole as the AL Cy Young Award winner, for 2022, his “sophomore” season, only this was Cole’s second season pitching in the Bronx. New York, New York, if you can’t make it there, you can’t make it anywhere. Especially when you’ve got friends in all the right places.