Freudian Slip?

Well, this is just what I wanted to hear. New White Sox manager Pedro Grifol has finished picking his coaching staff. Daryl Boston at first base doesn’t count. Boston knows where the organizational skeletons are buried and/or is such a good pal of team v.p. Kenny Williams that he has a job for life. Comiskey Park should’ve had Boston’s clout. What struck me was Grifol referring to the hitting-coach situation as “almost probably a two-and-a-half-headed monster.” By that he means new hitting coach Jose Castro plus assistant hitting coach Chris Johnson plus major-league field coordinator Mike Tosar, who Grifol thinks knows something about hitting. Only Johnson made it to the majors, hitting .275 with 773 hits and 339 RBIs over an eight-year career. How exactly does a 2-1/2 headed monster work? I have my doubts, though Castro was an assistant hitting coach the past eight seasons in Atlanta, and the Braves seem to know how to hit. Maybe he’ll prove to be the exception to the Bukowski Rule that you don’t hire minor leaguers to coach major leaguers to hit or pitch. I hope so.

Now What?

I just finished reading Keith Law in The Athletic If I understand Law correctly, he dislikes Astros’ owner Jim Crane, along with Jose Abreu; Andrew Vaughn; Gavin Sheets; and the White Sox. Really, if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. The Astros’ signing of Abreu to a three-year deal seems to have set Law off. If he were a Sox fan, I’d get it, but I have a sneaking suspicion Law couldn’t find 35th and Shields with GPS or Google Maps, even if you paid him. Leave the outrage to the fans involved, Keith. That said, Sox fans may be wondering what’s next. They probably see the logic of letting go of the soon-to-be thirty-six year-old Abreu. If this clears the way for Vaughn and/or Sheets, there shouldn’t be too many complaints. Both players are pretty popular, and fans want to see them do well. Ditto Jake Burger. How many of these three will be on the team after winter meetings next week? We’ll see. The problem is that Sox management has a tendency to do dumb stuff. Pull the plug on the 1994 season when the team is in first place in its division? Make up for that by signing Albert Belle. Let Mark Buehrle walk? Pivot to John Danks and Jake Peavy. Oops. Sign Adam Dunn. Trade for James Shields. Maybe the Sox did light the fire. So, now we wait for what’s next. Why do I feel like Santa put me on his naughty list through no fault of my own?

Same Old Same Old

Reports are the White Sox are about to sign righthander Mike Clevinger to a one-year deal worth somewhere between $8-$12 million. Order your World Series tickets now, folks. Or not. The Sox don’t look to be interested in getting the band back together by signing ex-Sox lefty Carlos Rodon. No, that would mean dealing with agent Scott Boras, and Jerry Reinsdorf can’t bring himself to do that. Better to shop in the bargain basement. If Clevinger has a comeback season after going 7-7 with a 4.33 ERA for San Diego this season, great. If he’s a bust, no big bucks lost, so, great again. This is how the Kansas Citys of the world operate, and the Sox just signed a Royals’ coach to be their next manager. Not necessarily a blueprint for success, but how the Sox do business way too often.

Strategy

I’ve taken to collecting White Sox team autographed baseballs. In fact, I’m toying with the idea of constructing a family tree, with marriages or births marked with a team ball from that particular year. God and lottery willing—1939 will be the starting date—I might just be able to pull this off. I also want a run of balls, 1960-1980, teams from after Comiskey ownership and before Jerry Reinsdorf. This period marks the time from when I first became aware of the game to the peak of my fandom. Marriage and parenthood helped temper things. Anyway, I just got a ball on eBay from 1970, and I’m ecstatic. It’s hard to explain why, exactly. I mean, this is a team that went 56-106, with the third-worst winning percentage (.346) in franchise history. Not worst, mind you, but third-worst. This gives you an idea what it means to be a Sox fan. And, still, I loved this team, enough to want the autograph of someone like Bobby Knoop more than fifty years after the fact. I recently got outbid for a ball from 1991, the year of Clare’s birth, so I went into serious bidding mode. What, exactly, was the most I was willing to spend? An almost surefire way to win an eBay auction is to bet a huge amount on an item. That way, if someone comes in at literally the last second, you won’t get underbid. I’ve never spent more than $500 for an item, and there’ve been plenty of times when I’ve lost out at the last second, like on that 1991 ball. If I’d bid $1000 for something that wasn’t going to sell for close to that, what could possibly go wrong? Going up against someone with the same strategy, that’s what, but only a dollar cheaper. Somebody bids $999 for an item worth $200 and I bid a dollar more, you have yourself one happy seller and one severely burned buyer. No, thank you. So, I set an absolute top price I’d pay, waited for ten seconds left in the auction and bid it. Up until the last minute, only five people had bid on the baseball. I was one of three bidders in the last twenty-eight seconds. Two people guessed low, I won high. Let me note here that my high bid isn’t what shows; the winning price was merely a dollar over what the other guy bid, which was way below as high as I was willing to go. But second place comes away thinking, “I was outbid by a measly buck.” Better them than me. Buddy Bradford and Jerry Janeski, come to Poppa.

Thanksgiving

We used to go to my in-laws for Thanksgiving, then they started coming to us. As of yesterday, we started going to Clare’s. You go with the changes, or get left behind by them. My daughter was pretty much a whirling dervish, so I tried not to get in the way. Her son, on the other hand, insisted on his right to get in everyone’s way, which made for pint-sized chaos this room and that. It wasn’t until dinner and dessert had been served that I asked, “Did you hear about the girl who made the baseball team at Brown?” “Yeah. I just don’t know what to think about it yet.” Olivia Pichardo made the team as a fall walk-on to become the first female baseball player on a Division-I team. I can’t find many stats on her. The hitting and pitching clips I saw are the kind players send to college coaches, which is understandable. But it helps to see the outs and bad pitches to get a full picture of the talent. At one point, Clare and Pichardo were both thirteen-year olds with a choice to make, softball or baseball. Clare chose one, Pichardo the other. Eighteen years ago, there were fewer opportunities for girls in baseball. That now seems to have changed. The child I coached has aged out and finds herself involved in new activities, like getting her fifteen-month old son to throw a ball straight. If Leo picks up a bat, I’m sure his mother will be showing him what to do with it. And, if everything lines up just so, my grandson could know how to hit the ball because the girl I taught taught him.

Silly Season

Forget about Thanksgiving and Christmas, “the holidays,” if you will. Between now and the end of the winter meetings early next month, we’re officially in the silly season of baseball. Allow me these examples: free-agent shortstop Xander Bogaerts to the White Sox (mlb.com); the White Sox signing infielder Jean Segura (ditto); the Sox trading Liam Hendriks, Gavin Sheets, minor-leaguer Yoelqui Cespedes and $10 million to the Blue Jays for catcher Alejandro Kirk (The Athletic). Where do I even start? How about the Sox would never pay what Bogaerts wants? How about all the heavy lifting needed to switch Tim Anderson to second base? How about asking what makes Segura so special? How about respectfully wondering about Kirk’s weight (265 pounds on a 5’8” frame) and arm (a career caught-stealing rate of twenty-two percent)? But, like I said, this is the silly season, so silly in fact that the sage considering the Kirk-to-the-Sox deal thought Toronto wouldn’t be getting enough in return. Happy, silly, holidays, everyone.

Motivation

On Friday, Bulls’ coach Billy Donovan pulled star guard Zach LaVine with 3:43 left in the fourth quarter against the visiting Magic. Why? LaVine shooting 1-for-14 on the night may have had something to do with it. The Bulls being the Bulls, they went on to lose 108-107 on a three-pointer by Jalen Suggs with 4.1 seconds left. Too bad Donovan didn’t sit center Nikola Vucevic while he was at it. That way, Vucevic wouldn’t have been around to miss two free throws ahead of Suggs’ game-winning shot. Vucevic does what he’s supposed to, his team wins and maybe LaVine wouldn’t be so upset. After the game, he made it clear to reporters he wanted to be out there. Last night, against the Eastern-Conference leading Celtics, who were on a nine-game winning streak, he was. LaVine scored twenty-two points with five rebounds and five assists in a Bulls’ 121-107 victory. Advantage…? You tell me. Donovan wants his best players to produce. Game in and game out, he can depend on forward DeMar DdRozan, Vucevic and LaVine not so much. How better to motivate a player than by sending a message? By my count, a certain center needs one, too.

Justin Fields, The Natural

Pardon me for mixing my sports, but Bears’ second-year quarterback Justin Fields keeps reminding me of Robert Redford/Roy Hobbs in “The Natural.” The kid on the football field is like the old guy in the movie in that they both possess a ton of talent. What gets me is all the forces arrayed against Fields’ success, just like in the movie. Yesterday in Atlanta, Bears’ offensive coordinator Luke Getsy and head coach Matt Eberflus both did spot-on imitations of Harriet Bird. Or was it Max Mercy, or the Judge, or Gus Sands (somebody explain to me again why Darren McGavin went uncredited for what has to be the best role of his life)? Any or all of them desperately want Hobbs out of commission, if not dead. Getsy and Eberflus would be different how, exactly? They are literally running their young star into the ground. Preparing for the Falcons’ game, Fields said his legs were feeling heavy. No matter. He ran the ball eighteen times, one more than running back David Montgomery. Was calling a run with 1:38 left in the game and the Munsters down by three just dumb, or were Getsy and Eberflus doing their best Gus Sands? I can see one or more of the McCaskey clan conniving a la The Judge (thank you, Robert Prosky, for personifying oleaginous evil, happiest in dark places). They don’t want Fields dead. No, they just want to monetize him for the benefit of the family fortune, holy be the name of Halas. The Judge knew enough baseball to understand talent along with its limits. If only the McCaskeys were near as smart. They and their coaching staff seem to think they can run their best player again and again, game after game, without consequences. But life ain’t Hollywood. There’ll be no happy endings here if the Munsters don’t figure out—and fast—the best way to use Justin Fields.

Dollars and Sense

Clare called last night to say, “I have bad news for you.” And what, pray tell, would that be? “The White Sox non-tendered Adam Engel and Danny Mendick.” Clare is at that point in her life where she’s the same age as certain players. That would include Engel (she’s three weeks older) and Mendick, sort of (two years and two months older). For me, it was Brian Downing and Jim Morrison. Maybe it’s a family thing. General manager Rick Hahn released a statement in which he reiterated how “a lot of consideration and analysis” goes into the decision to forego the arbitration process with a player. But, hey, they could come back because Hahn plans to “stay in contact with all three players [also non-tendered was outfielder Mark Payton] and evaluate their ongoing fit with our club as we move forward through this offseason.” Spoken like a true flannel mouth. I root for the underdog. As a White Sox fan, how could I not? Engel came out of nowhere in 2017 to make a name for himself with his glove. If only he were half as talented with his bat. Do the Sox need a lifetime .224 hitter as a fourth or fifth outfielder? No, but it’s a bad look to cut ties with a player who, for six years, has hustled and delighted fans by stealing homeruns from the opposition. Last time I checked, Engel was the one who took the blame for running into that outfield triple play against the Twins in July. Nice way to reward a team player. Ditto Mendick, who embodies the grinder ethic that those of us on the South Side adhere to. Last time I checked, Mendick tore his ACL trying to make a great catch and keep Lucas Giolito in a game. Nice way to reward effort, especially when Hahn mentioned Mendick as part of the mix at second base for next season. Here’s a thought. Maybe if Hahn didn’t throw money after the likes of Dallas Keuchel and Yasmani Grandal, there’d be something left over for players who deserve better. Waste not, want not, Rick.

Reading Between the Lines

Wow. A White Sox story in today’s Tribune, which just happens to draw on the same material as the pice on the team website. Long story short, Royals’ catcher Salvador Perez pretty much loves new Sox manager Pedro Grifol. In the Trib story, Perez mentioned Grifol’s ability to “communicate” while pitcher Dylan Cease said Grifol told him “we were going to be having a lot of communication and building relationships.” Hmm. What about twice ex-manager Tony La Russa? Did he communicate and build relationships with his players? Or did he expect his players to know all the unwritten rules of baseball and intuit their roles based on his facial expressions? I go with door no. 2.

Apples and Oranges, or Not

Dylan Cease of the White Sox finished second in AL Cy Young voting, with Justin Verlander picking up his third award. Good for Cease. Maybe someday he’ll put up stats equal to the Sox pitchers of my youth. On the other hand, he may already have done that, if you believe baseball-reference.com. Cease went 14-8 with a 2.20 ERA; 227 strikeouts vs.78 walks; and a WHIP of 1.109 in 184 innings on the season. Plug those numbers into the magic algorithm, and he comes out with a WAR of 6.4, tops for qualifying starters in the American League. Still, I wonder. Gary Peters went 20-8 with a 2.50 ERA in 273.2 innings for the ’64 Sox, yet the magic algorithm gives him a mere 4.2 WAR. Joel Horlen went 19-7 with a 2.06 ERA in 258 innings for the Hitless Wonders of 1967, one of those wins being a no-hitter against the Tigers. But Horlen merits only a 5.5 WAR. Who was the better pitcher? You tell me. I’ll use WAR to hope Cease can top what Wilbur Wood accomplished in 1971—a won-loss record of 22-13 with a 1.91 ERA in 334 (!) innings. That all comes out to an 11.8 WAR. Hit that mark, Dylan, and the Sox are the going to the World Series.

All Over the Place

First, my daughter called yesterday to say she’d scored Taylor Swift tickets at Soldier Field next June, not to be confused with her scoring a seat in the audience to see Michelle Obama on the Today Show in NYC. Unfortunately, Daddy called dibs on the family jet for Monday, and Clare will have to wait until next month to see the former First Lady, when she comes to the Chicago Theater on her book tour. But I mustn’t be too much the ogre-dad. Clare called a second time—when I was on the phone talking with someone about the upcoming Rule 5 draft—to tell me that ex-White Sox reliever Bobby Jenks was named manager of the year in the Pioneer League. Good for Bobby. There were actually two Rule-5 draft stories in the Trib today, one for each Chicago team. As a baseball fan, I feel blessed. After reading those, I drove out to Half Price Books, the best and worst of places at the same time. I doubt if I got pennies on the dollar for two boxes full of books. The Progressive historian Charles Beard must be worth a lot less than I figured. But I nearly made enough to pay for the Mickey Mantle biography and the account of Jackie Robinson’s 1947 season. I actually know one of the authors. Won’t he be happy to find out his one book is selling, no royalties accrued?

A Sunday in November

I TIVO’d through the Bears’ game yesterday while riding the exercycle. Say this about Justin Fields—he keeps things interesting, as in 147 yards rushing with two touchdowns and another two touchdowns to tight end Cole Kmet. Maybe next time the Munsters won’t lose to Detroit. When you go up by two touchdowns in the third quarter, you’re not supposed to lose, 31-30. Later, we drove to my mother-in-law’s to celebrate her ninety-first birthday; the stories she could tell, though none of them unrelated to her husband involve football. My father-in-law played high school football before playing infantryman on the icy-cold hills of the Korean peninsula. The stories he could tell about either. I was able to handle Ed O’Bradovich and Dan Hampton on the radio for about ten minutes before I had to turn them off. O’Bradovich never changes; he basically wants to shoot anyone not named Ditka. Hampton, at least, thinks Fields is a keeper. Danimal was particularly impressed that, an hour after the game, Fields still hadn’t gotten out of his uniform, he was so upset at losing. Hampton also thinks the best defense is a ball-control offense. Score points while taking your time doing it. How O’Bradovich keeps from having a stroke is beyond me. It’s only a game, Ed. Let me introduce you to a woman who has seen it all in her ninety-one years. She knows what matters in life. What happens on a Sunday afternoon at Soldier Field might not qualify.

Embers in a Hot Stove

I’m a baseball fan, mostly. I don’t expect much from the papers this time of year. If they maintain even a flicker of interest in the hot-stove league, I’m happy. The Sunday Tribune sports made me anything but. It’s not like I’m asking for a page-one story on the Arizona Fall League, but devoting virtually all of page one and four full inside pages to Jon Scheyer defies logic, unless the point is to maximize profit for Trib corporate parent Alden Global Capital. Colonel McCormick spins in his grave. Who is Jon Scheyer? The 35-year old successor to Coach Mike Krzyzewski at Duke by way of Glenbrook North High School. Odds are Scheyer will have no more to do with the Chicago area than Coach K, the pride of St. Helen’s Grade School in Ukrainian Village, did once he established himself at Duke. Unless the Duke basketball program intends to relocate here. Otherwise, a whole lot of trees died for the Tribune sports’ department to save a few bucks by focusing limited resources on one big, blah story. My hot stove grows cold in the process.

Wages

Clare called me yesterday afternoon. “It sounds like you’re in a tunnel,” I said. “I’m on the bus,” she explained. Those days she’s not working from home, my daughter either has to drive or take the train, plus a bus back and forth to the Gold Coast through lower Wacker Drive. See the action movie of choice to get an idea as to what the route is like. She wanted to talk about the Astros parting ways with James Click, their general manager. “Has this ever happened before?” she wanted to know of a team dumping its GM after winning a World Series. The answer is, Yes, at least once, with the Yankees last doing it in 1947, when they axed Larry MacPhail for George Weiss. This is the kind of stuff a father is expected to know. It looks like Clare is drawing on baseball in the same I have on occasion. Thinking baseball will help her get through a twelve-hour day at work today. “These are the wages of family,” I advised, noting that her job makes possible husband, child and home. Baseball is the sugar that makes the medicine go down in a palatable, if not entirely delightful, way. In the fall of 1980, I was six-months married and between careers, out of journalism and into graduate school. Michele was finishing her master’s and unsure of what she should do next. This gives you an idea as to how much times have changed—neither of us had a job, but we weren’t worried (yet) about making the rent. We even had money to go to two ballgames. I remember that the White Sox beat the Mariners in early September and they played the A’s at the beginning of October. I can still recall Mike Davis, a rookie outfielder for Oakland who looked like a god. I was certain he was destined for greatness, more than the 778 hits he amassed over a ten-year career. I remember other games, at the ballpark or elsewhere. I remember catching the last inning of Mark Buehrle’s perfect game in 2009 in a Maryland hotel room, my daughter woozy from a bad baserunning accident at first base; for a second, we thought she might’ve broken a vertebra. Dewayne Wise makes the catch! Six months later, we watched a replay of that game on the day we buried my sister Betty, who instilled a love of country-and-western in her niece. Dewayne Wise makes the catch! Something like that could be echoing through Clare’s mind at the end of a long Saturday. I hope so.

The Fickle and the Level-headed

A month ago, Bears’ quarterback Justin Fields couldn’t show his face for fear of being booed off the streets, let alone the playing field. Now, after a string of solid performances, everybody wants to be his friend and advocate. Just turn on the TV; pick up a paper; or hit the appropriate site to see what I mean. So, don’t blame Fields if he’s a little tentative around the media. The ting of it is, he really hasn’t been. When he stinks, he says he stinks, and, when the talking heads on ESPN speak their Valentines, which they did this week, he appears unphased. All twenty-three-year olds should act as mature. One thing, though. Fields can’t afford to have a bad game Sunday against the visiting Lions. In his line of work, Valentines can turn into brickbats as quick as it takes to throw a pick-six.

Herd Mentality

The Cubs have a new hitting coach, again. Greg Brown is out, Dustin Kelly is in. Haven’t heard of either? Don’t worry, you’re not supposed to. The days of the successful ex-MLB player as hitting coach are mostly over. Consider that before Kelly and Brown, there was Anthony Iapoce. Before those three, Chili Davis, the kind of coach I’d hire. Why? Because he had 2380 hits during a nineteen-year career that saw him go to three World Series, that’s why. Assuming, of course, that he could explain the philosophy that allowed him to amass those stats. Kelly will be joined by four assistants. Funny, the last time I checked, there was only one hitter at a time in the batter’s box. According to the story in today’s Tribune, there’ll be a coach responsible for “game planning” along with another taking care of “data development and process.” Team president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer thinks it’s important to “have experts in different areas and not feel like they have to be the final arbiter or the best coach, the best game planner or the best mental guy. That’s really important in becoming more collaborative.” Screw collaboration. Players and teams should want the best coaches in place, period. What the Cubs (and probably the White Sox, as soon as they hire a new hitting coach) are doing is following the trend in baseball to specialization. The hitting specialist will be no different than a medical specialist in that neither had to play baseball to get their job. The only possible silver lining here is that, if playing experience is not necessary for coaching, then women will have a real shot at becoming head and/or assistant hitting coaches. Women who didn’t play baseball telling guys how to hit a baseball, and guys listening? I won’t hold my breath. Neither would Bill Robinson or Chili Davis, I’m sure.

Election Night

This is how election night went at our house, Michele in the living room watching results on CNN, me in the kitchen doing Strat-O-Matic team rosters. Extra bench player or reliever? Clare called right around the time I started work on the 2018 Mariners’ pitching rotation. “Carlos Rodon declined his option with the Giants. What would you do?” Try to sign him, but not for six years. “I thought you’d say that. And did you hear about A.J. Pollock?” Do tell. “He turned down his option for next year,” and I all but shouted, Hurray! Pollock disappointed in his only season on the South Side, hitting .245 with fourteen homeruns and fifty-six RBIs. On top of that, he turns thirty-five in under a month, which suggests he’s running out of gas. Pollock gets a $5 million buyout in exchange for passing on a $13 million salary next year. Good luck trying to top that. Of course, it’s entirely possible Pollock didn’t like the atmosphere in the clubhouse and doubted it would improve much next season. In which case, I can’t say that I blame him. Whatever the reason for his departure, this really is addition through subtraction. The leading candidate to take over for Pollock in the outfield is twenty-four year old rookie Oscar Colas, who bats lefthanded. It looks like Eloy Jimenez will primarily DH while Andrew Vaughn will play first in place of free-agent Jose Abreu, who does not look to be coming back. That in turn opens up another spot in the outfield, for Gavin Sheets or someone else. All this good news comes with a qualifier, however. Rick Hahn traded two young players—reliever Codi Heuer and infielder Nick Madrigal—to the Cubs at the 2021 trade deadline in exchange for closer Craig Kimbrell, who couldn’t dislodge Liam Hendriks as closer and certainly couldn’t transition into a setup role. Hahn then traded Kimbrell to the Dodgers for Pollock at the start of this past season. That leaves us with bupkis. Way to go, Rick.

Not Enough

The NBA thinks voting is so important there are no games scheduled today. The message is, clearly, Get out and vote. The message with Nets’ star Kyrie Irving? There doesn’t seem to be one. Irving, who sort of questions the shape of planet Earth and the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccination, also questions how anyone could think he was an antisemite. In Irving’s flat-earth take on reality, it’s OK to tweet a link to an antisemitic “documentary,” as he did last month. Called out for his action, he sort of apologized, along the lines of “if anyone was offended,” which he can’t see how they would be. Irving released a statement last week stating, “"I am deeply sorry to have caused you pain, and I apologize. I initially reacted out of emotion to being unjustly labeled Anti-Semitic, instead of focusing on the healing process of my Jewish Brothers and Sisters that were hurt from the hateful remarks made in the documentary." Talk about heartfelt. The Nets have suspended Irving while the NBA dithers. According to a story in Sunday’s NYT, LeBron James said that he loves Irving but also believes “what Kyrie did caused some harm to a lot of people.” Ya think? As tepid as James’s remarks were, they were better than those of Irving’s teammate Kevin Durant, who initially told reporters, “I felt like we could have just kept playing basketball and kept quiet as an organization. I just don’t like none of it.” The mind boggles. I watched some of the Bulls-Nets game on Thursday and caught Reggie Miller go after the players for their refusal to speak up and criticize Irving. Miller gets it, as do Charles Barkley, Shaquill O’Neal and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Then again, they all probably believe the Earth is round, too.

That's Entertainment

Entertaining: When was the last time you associated that word with the Bears, in a positive way? Well, the Munsters—quarterback Justin Fields most of all—were downright entertaining in yesterday’s 35-32 loss to the visiting Dolphins. In a regular season game, no NFL quarterback has run more than the 178 yards Fields gained against the Miami defense. He also threw for three touchdowns, two to tight end Cole Kmet. That got me to thinking of a game at Soldier Field on another Sunday afternoon in November a very, very long time ago, when Bobby Douglass connected with Jim Seymour for two touchdowns against the Bills. The Bears scored thirty-one points that game, but won. They could have yesterday, too, if the refs were consistent with their pass-interference calls. Instead, they turned into soup Nazis, giving the call to the Dolphins but not the home team late in the fourth quarter. Bad teams don’t usually get the call. Next week, the Lions come to town. If Fields plays like he did against Miami, the Bears will be the good team. For a change.

Nope

With the Astros beating the Phillies 4-1 last night to clinch the World Series, some people are wondering if this title is clean or it will lead to forgiveness or redemption. Speaking for myself, I can answer a hearty No! on all counts. The 2017 Astros cheated without consequences. If MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred didn’t know what was going on at the time, he should’ve stripped the team of its title once he found out. Instead, Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman were allowed to spout gibber that was supposed to pass for an admission of guilt. I’m still waiting for those two to come clean. Ditto Dusty Baker, who finally gets himself a fancy Series’ ring after twenty-five years of trying. Baker wasn’t involved in the 2017 fiasco. No, his claim to notoriety stems from managing Barry Bonds for ten years in San Francisco. PEDs? What PEDs? Dude, do you mean Pez? Can’t wait for the induction speech at Cooperstown.

Reading the Tea Leaves

Clare texted me a video of new White Sox manager Pedro Grifol Facetiming Eloy Jimenez. The conversation was conducted in Spanish, and I’m pretty sure Eloy dropped a few “Sirs” on his part. Talk about an astute move by the Sox. During the two years in his return as manager, Tony La Russa was never recorded speaking to anybody in Spanish, yet here was Grifol on day one doing that with Jimenez, who’s going to have to live up to his potential for the Sox to contend next year. If thjs was just marketing, it was pretty effective. If it was intended to show that team and manager are serious about reaching their players, how sad nobody felt that way the previous two seasons. Yesterday, Grifol was filmed picking up the tab at a local hot dog stand and visiting a grade school, which I assume was also in the neighborhood of 35th and Shields. South Siders take their cuisine pretty seriously, so this was another astute move by the marketing department—look, the new skipper wants a dog with fries (and was probably instructed NOT to ask for ketchup on the dog). I can’t imagine La Russa sharing a hot dog with fans or visiting a school; it wasn’t his style, and, as he pointed out on at least one occasion, he was a HOFer, which conferred special status, or so he hoped. So, the Sox have rediscovered their marketing legs. Have they also found a good manager? Time will tell.

At What Cost?

The White Sox introduced their new manager yesterday, and Pedro Grifol alluded to all the things that have been missing the past two years—playing with passion and energy; being fundamentally sound; and being held accountable. No doubt, White Sox fans—“long suffering” comes with the territory, making that modifier totally unnecessary—couldn’t believe their ears. Here's the thing—every promise Grifol made constituted a rebuke of Tony La Russa and, by extension, the man who hired La Russa. That would be Jerry Reinsdorf, who is not known to be fond of criticism. So, if Grifol was able to say what he did at the news conference yesterday, what did it cost him? How much of his soul or self-respect did he hand over to the team owner? Because, if you want to manage this team, it comes at a cost.

Then and Now

I was too young to know or care about baseball’s first World Series no-hitter, Don Larsen’s perfect game against the Dodgers in 1956. Now, I’m probably too old to care about the second, which happened last night in Philadelphia. The Astros’ Cristian Javier and three relievers shut down the Phillies on no hits and three walks in a 5-0 win. All of Houston’s runs came in the fifth, while I was driving home from a visit with Michele’s mom. We went out to eat, but the restaurant didn’t even bother to put the game on its multiple TVs. I still think Jessica Mendoza would make a good play-by-play announcer. We got home, changed and watched the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions; I didn’t put the game back on until two out in the bottom of the ninth. It was pretty close to 10:30, when people my age are thinking of going to bed. If there were any middle-school baseball fans who watched, I’ll bet they’re dragging today. Don Larsen needed 2:06 to achieve perfection against a lineup that included five future HOFers. Javier et al took 3:25 to complete Fall Classic no-hitter no. 2. I wonder if they faced anyone bound for Cooperstown.

Reasons Why

In spite of Jerry Reinsdorf, I really do want the White Sox to win, and win consistently; it makes my daughter happy, and it could rub off on her son. That said, I have reasons to question the apparent hiring of Pedro Grifol to take Tony La Russa’s place in the dugout. The positive spin on Grifol is that he’s one of those highly regarded baseball people we so often hear about. But, like I said yesterday, if he’s so highly regarded, why didn’t the Royals hire him to replace Mike Matheny? Instead, he comes to the Sox as a first-time manager at the age of fifty-two. In my opinion, the best two managers to work in this town since, oh, say, 1970, were Chuck Tanner and Ozzie Guillen. They both started their managerial careers on the South Side, Tanner at age forty-one and Guillen age forty. If Grifol is as good as those two, what took him so long to get a managing job? Grifol spent two years as one of the Royals’ hitting coaches. What exactly does a career .226 hitter in nine minor-league seasons tell major-league ballplayers? Sorry, but in my book hitting and pitching coaches need career stats to back up their ideas. Anything else is…Walt Hriniak and Don Cooper. Here’s hoping the next Sox hitting coach had a big-league career of some note. I’m also supposed to be impressed that Grifol was a catching coach and Salvador Perez swears by him. That’s nice, but how do we measure Grifol’s influence on him? It’s not as if Perez came out of nowhere and all of a sudden blossomed because of this one coach. I will admit to being impressed by one stat attached to the new Sox skipper—he had a career forty-four percent caught-stealing rate. Perez is at thirty-six percent, so maybe that reflects Grifol’s influence. Lord knows Yasmani Grandal could use some pointers in how to get the ball to second base ahead of the next Ice Age. We’ll see.

Please, No

This is what at least some White Sox fans are reduced to—hoping that the latest rumor for next Sox manager gets tossed with all the other rumors. I mean, Pedro Grifol, Royals’ bench coach for the past three seasons? If he’s so good, why didn’t Kansas City hire him after firing Mike Matheny? Bob Nightengale of USA Today tweeted that Grifol “blew away” his interviewer(s) and was the “consensus choice among Jerry Reinsdorf, Ken Williams and Rick Hahn.” In other words, Shemp blew away the Three Stooges. Good to know.