Ace(d)

Well, this is certainly a game the White Sox would’ve lost last season. Dylan Cease retires nineteen Astros in a row, only to leave with two runners on and one out in the bottom of the seventh inning of a scoreless tie How do you say “disaster”? Why, Aaron Bummer of course. Bummer walked Kyle Tucker (so much for the lefty-lefty strategy) to load the bases, then struck out Yainer Diaz (so much for the righty-lefty advantage), only Bummer uncorked a wild pitch to the next batter, Jake Meyers. Sox should lose, 1-0. But, wait, Yasmani Grandal, who failed to corral said pitch, hits a two-out tying home run. Then, Andrew Vaughn, who struck out with the bases loaded in the seventh, hits a two-run double in the top of the ninth. (I was on the phone with Clare discussing her car problems, my TIVO two minutes behind the actual game. When I heard my daughter and son-in-law cheer, I figured Vaughn must’ve done something good.) But the 2022 Sox still would’ve lost it in the bottom of the inning. With Reynaldo Lopez closing in place of the convalescing Liam Hendriks, Yordan Alvarez hit a one-out homerun that may never come down. Who should be up next? Why, our old friend Jose Abreu, who battled Lopez through a ten-pitch at-bat that included a dropped foul pop by Vaughn. Cue the game-tying homer. Nope, Abreu grounded out. Then Kyle Tucker walked. Cue walk-off homer. Nope, again. Diaz struck out to end the game, Sox winning 3-2. Did I mention Cease needed all of eighty-six pitches to get to one out in the seventh? The big question here is, were Lucas Giolito and Michael Kopech watching? We’ll find out soon enough.

Last Mag Standing

Being old school to the core, I visited my local newsstand yesterday to pick this year’s supply of baseball magazines. I got one for my troubles. No more Street and Smith, no more Athlon. Lindy’s it was. “The Baseball Preview for Smart Fans” may as well call itself “The Only Preview Around.” I checked online to find that Athlon merged with Sports Illustrated last fall. The newsstand guy said SI was supposed to come out with a preview, “But I never got it.” You take what you can get and hope there’s around come next year. I was pleasantly surprised Lindy’s predicted the White Sox would take a wildcard spot. As for organizational direction, the arrow was pointing neutral. But, hey, that’s better than the downward arrow they assigned the Cubs. The Cubs are projected to finish fourth—behind the Pirates, which is saying something—in the NL Central. I know at least one Cubs’ fan who won’t like reading his team has “reverted to [being] lovable losers” or the question posed to “Dansby Swanson: What were you thinking?” Ouch. Play ball!

What I Say

Yesterday, Michael Kopech faced a Cubs’ lineup even more minor-leaguish than the one the Giants threw at him in his last start. No matter, Kopech squandered a three-run lead, giving the White Sox an 8-5 loss in their final Cactus League game. Kopech went 4.1 innings, giving up five runs on five hits and three walks to go with seven strikeouts. Wow, seven punchouts against a bunch of minor leaguers (and Nick Madrigal). Be still, my beating heart, and let’s not forget those five runs. Today’s Sun-Times quotes Kopech saying there were “positive takeaways” from his performance, and he said he’s going into the season “with a clean slate and more of an intentional focus,” whatever that is. All I know is what I saw, pitches in the range of 92-94 mph (per the Times’ estimate), this from someone who once threw a ball 110 mph. Kopech is supposed to start the home opener next week against the Giants, and they won’t be going with scrubs. Major-league hitters will lay off Kopech’s breaking balls out of the strike zone and hammer his flat fastball. You heard it here first. As for the Sox outperforming their PECOTA prediction of 79.9 wins on the season, that all depends on their fourth and fifth starters, Kopech and Mike Clevinger. What could possibly go wrong?

Interesting

I’m pretty sure Clare was looking for an excuse not to clean the tile grout in her downstairs bathroom, but, whatever the reason, she called Sunday to pass along news that the White Sox were cutting ties with Leury Garcia. Interesting. Because, if in fact this comes to pass, it would indicate a welcome sign of baseball smarts on the part of GM Rick Hahn and the front office. Something’s not right with Garcia physically, and I can’t help shake the suspicion there were also problems in the clubhouse. Along those lines, Hanser Alberto looks like he’s going to take Garcia’s place (.439 sporing BA with six RBIs vs. .222 and two for Garcia), and I keep hearing what a strong clubhouse presence he brings. It also appears Romy Gonzalez has made the team; his three-run homer—his fifth of the spring—in the ninth inning against the Cubs yesterday certainly didn’t hurt. New manager Pedro Grifol projects positivity along with a willingness to experiment. With Tony La Russa, it was all about loyalty. With Grifol, it looks to be more about buying into the program, and producing. Hence, Alberto and Gonzalez. If La Russa had a plan, he kept it to himself.

Cliches and Metaphors

What a rollercoaster ride these Bulls are. Blown out at home against the 76ers, then on the road for two wins in Portland and L.A., as in the Lakers. Whee! They may not know it, but LeBron James and Anthony Davis are doing very good Mickey Mantle/Whitey Ford imitations, circa 1965. These Lakers look out of gas and short on talent. The Bulls won in a Sunday matinee at the Staples Center by a score of 118-108. Credit the refs with keeping the score that close. The visitors shot thirteen free throws to the Lakers’ twenty-eight, and, if that wasn’t help enough, center Nikola Vucevic got tossed for swearing—in Serbian, no less—at the end of the first half after being called for a foul on James. Enter Andre Drummond, who dominated to the tune of twelve points and eight rebounds. Ex-Laker Patrick Beverly also had a nice game, with ten points and five assists. Speaking to reporters afterwards, Beverly—or Pat Bev, as he’s sometimes called—compared himself to a piece of flatware. That was a first for me. “If I’m a spoon, [then Bulls’ coach] Billy [Donovan] is using me as a spoon,” he said. “[With] The Lakers, you know, I was a spoon, and they were using me as a fork.” [quoted in today’s Sun-Times] And you should never confuse the two either at the table or on the court, apparently. The Bulls stay in town to play the Clippers tonight. What happens when you put a spoon on a rollercoaster? I guess we’ll find out.

Sad

The Sun-Times and Tribune both had baseball pull-out sections in today’s Sunday paper. Check that. The Sun-Times did a pull-out section while the Trib cut and pasted stuff off the wires and/or internet. Everything in the Times was produced locally. Nothing in the Trib was produced locally, save for Paul Sullivan’s season predictions. If it weren’t for the AP, the Trib would be lost, and we’re not just talking sports. The Times, meanwhile, is probably saving its predictions for Opening Day on Thursday. Instead, it offered a lot of features on the likes of Andrew Benintendi and Dansby Swanson. I learned that Benintendi’s father loves him and Swanson is married to pro soccer player Mallory Swanson. Nothing on Benintendi’s COVID views, though. I was hoping he might share a few research tips. One paper tries, the other pretends, and yet I subscribe to both. Talk about dumb.

This is What I Mean

Not to beat up on Michael Kopech, but he’s gotten worse with each start this spring. Dylan Cease, on the other hand, has gone in the opposite direction since giving up eleven runs to the Royals a few starts ago. In a textbook application of “that was then, this is now,” Cease went six shoutout innings against the A’s, yielding but four hits, though I could’ve done without the three walks. The point is, Cease said he wasn’t worried about getting shelled, which was the talk. Every start since has constituted an impressive walk. The Sox hammered Oakland, 12-0, a pretty good indication of what A’s fans can expect come Opening Day. Most impressive, at least to me, was Romy Gonzalez hitting another homerun, his fourth, and Seby Zavala driving in two runs. Zavala’s nine RBIs this spring is tied with Jake Burger for the team lead. This is where things get interesting, as they always do at the end of spring training. What to do with Burger and Gonzalez? The answer would be pretty simple had GM Rick Hahn not signed Leury Garcia to a three-year extension in the winter of 2021. Garcia played hurt most of last year and looks hurt still, judging by his relative lack of playing time and .219 BA. Do you go with the productive players or play the contract? I know what I would do. Zavala has been a revelation since being dropped from the forty-man roster last spring. He hit his way back to the big leagues and established himself as a plus backup catcher to Yasmani Grandal, now in his last year of a four-year contract. So far this spring, Grandal is batting .233 to Zavala’s .289. Grandal’s hitting has been in steady decline the last two years; ditto his defense. Will Sox manager Pedro Grifol play Zavala more behind the plate while putting Grandal at first base or DH? I know what I would do.

It Better Be

Yesterday against the Giants, White Sox starter Michael Kopech faced a lineup featuring Brandon Crawford; Bryce Johnson (eighteen major-league at-bats); and seven minor leaguers. Things did not go well for the twenty-six year-old righthander. Kopech walked the first two batters on eight pitches before getting out of the first innings, then gave up two hits to start the second before wiggling out of trouble. He put two runners on in the third and came within a pitch of escaping yet again, only to give up a three-run homerun to one of the minor leaguers. Alas, there’s more. Our projected third or fourth starter in the rotation, as well as rebuild foundation piece, gave up another two runs in the fourth before departing. Kopech went three-plus innings, giving up five runs on seven hits and four walks vs. three strikeouts. Crawford went hitless on the day, by the way. At least two sympathetic reporters pointed out that Kopech was battling a sinus condition. I hope that’s the culprit here. Because we’re talking about someone who’s no longer a wunderkind, not when he’s coming up on his twenty-seventh birthday next month. I’m starting to think Sox fans might be better off waiting for Godot to arrive. Of course, a breakout season proves me wrong.

This Dog Won't Hunt...

But my dog will. Twice she’s brought in live sparrows, necessitating the most delicate of mouth-extraction procedures. Satan can’t help herself. It’s in her DNA. The Bulls can’t help themselves, either, for the opposite reason—team DNA won’t allow it. The roster is just a bunch of guys, as often to play poorly as well. One game, they’ll beat the 76ers in double overtime, the next they’ll get blown out at home by the same team. Momentum? If there was any from Monday’s game in Philadelphia, it didn’t catch the flight home for last night’s contest. How else to explain letting the visitors jump to a 17-0 lead in the first quarter? The Big Three—DeMar DeRozan, Nikola Vucevic and Zach LaVine—who played so well Monday combined for twenty-eight points last night, LaVine leading the way with sixteen. His five turnovers were a perfect complement to 6-for-15 shooting. The 116-91 rout happened with 76ers’ star Joel Embiid not playing the second half and James Harden not playing at all. Go figure. I certainly can’t.

Storylines

Look hard enough, and you can find all sorts of fun storylines in the spring-training box scores. Take yesterday’s White Sox-Brewers’ game. The Sox started Jake Burger at third base, not that they want or expect him to supplant Yoan Moncada. In my heart of hearts, I suspect Rick Hahn wishes Burger would play himself off the team. Only the one-time first-round pick is doing just the opposite. Burger went 1-for-3 with a double and two RBIs. He’s driven in nine runs so far this spring, which I think leads the team. Romy Gonzalez started, too, and he homered on the first pitch of the game. For some reason, Leury Garcia hasn’t played much this spring, which might lead one to wonder if the Sox would actually eat the last two years of his contract. They might think along those lines if Gonzalez keeps hitting. Lest I forget, Gavin Sheets also homered yesterday. The more that happens, the more likely Sheets will stick around as a left-hand bat with pop, speaking of which we have one Daniel Palka. He’s back, with the Sox, but of a different color, maybe. Palka earned an invite with the Red Sox in Florida and so far, so good. The big man is hitting .278 with seven RBIs. How weird but fun it would be to see him in that other Sox uniform come April. Some guys have great springs, and nothing happens, or they make the team only to play sparingly and get released after a few weeks. That could happen to Palka. Because they’re younger, Burger, Gonzalez and Sheets have minor-league options, though I suspect the Sox might try to trade Burger and/or Sheets because of their power potential. May everyone mentioned here make their respective teams and have solid seasons. In what seems half a lifetime ago, I followed a rookie who made the Sox after a great spring. That was John Cangelosi in 1986. Tony La Russa was the manager who took a chance on a 5’8” speedster. That may have been the last smart move La Russa made on the South Side.

Better Late or Too Late?

James Harden, now of the 76ers, has made a career out of fooling refs into calling fouls on defenders he flops into. It happened again last night, this time to the Bulls’ Patrick Beverly. But the last laugh came at Harden’s expense with the clock running down in double overtime. Harden drove to the basket for what would have been a game-tying layup, only to be rejected by Derrick Jones Jr.; amazingly, Jones had just come in off the bench. Of course, Harden whined that Jones had fouled him, but that didn’t stop the Bulls from pulling off their third straight win, 109-105. Not only that, the visitors beat Joel Embiid for the first time ever. Previously, the 76ers were 12-0 against the Bulls when their star center played. I should also mention here Philadelphia came in with an eight-game winning streak. There are teams where the sum is greater than the parts, or the parts greater than the sum. The Bulls fall into a category all their own, just parts. On offense, the only person moving, maybe, is the person with the ball; everyone else is frozen in place, miles from the basket. On defense, well, some days Zach LaVine and company play it, other days they don’t. Last night, they did. This is a home-and-home series against Philadelphia, with tomorrow night’s game at the United Center. Beat the 76ers twice in a row with Embiid in the lineup, and the parts might finally be adding up to something.

March

Live long enough, and every month comes with its own set of memories, even March. My wedding anniversary is Wednesday. How long have I been married to the lovely Gina Lollobrigida, as I once called my wife during a function at Clare’s grade school (I was board president at the time)? So long that multiple members of the bridal party are no longer on this Earth. But I still thank the heavens for getting and being married to the same person all these decades. Just as I’m thankful for my daughter’s athletic career, rooted as it was in March. This week is also the opening of the high school softball season, and how I remember March 20, 2008, the opening day of Clare’s sophomore season. I looked like the Michelin Man dressed in layers, and Clare went 2-for-three against an OPRF pitcher bound for D-1. Ten years ago this time we were in Florida for Clare’s junior year at Elmhurst. Minutes after her first home run of the season, she found out her cousin died, and back to Chicago we went for the funeral. That’s a sad memory, to be balanced by one from April of the same year, when my child hit a walk-off two-run homer to beat Milliken. Some things you don’t forget.

What a Joke

I just watched a “documentary” about the Bears’ stadium situation, done by NBC-5 Chicago. What a joke, and it’s not even April Fool’s. Start with the title—Bear Down and Out: Chicago’s Team Moves to the Suburbs. Sorry, unless you do actual polling on the subject, you can’t call the Munsters “Chicago’s team.” Not if you’re making a documentary. Which is to say, they weren’t, at least not by any rigorous standards of journalism. For example, a talking head said that at the beginning of the NFL, all the teams played in municipally owned stadiums. I checked on the Bears and Cardinals and didn’t find supporting evidence. Never mind Wrigley Field and Comiskey Park. I’m willing to bet the bank that Staley Field and Normal Field weren’t owned by public bodies in Decatur or Chicago, respectively. Sloppy journalism makes for questionable conclusions. Another problem is one of their talking heads, a sports’ consultant who basically is a new-stadium shill, which anyone checking on the internet would’ve known. But he was presented as some sort of disinterested sage. Again, sloppy journalism making for questionable conclusions. The whole thrust of the “documentary” was that the Bears didn’t start off wanting to leave; the big, bad park district with support from city hall forced them to. Oh, please. The Bears want to put up Munster Land, which is why they bought 326 acres in Arlington Heights. Where is that kind of open land in the city? The talking heads tsk-tsk without identifying said space. But everyone agreed on how neat a Bears’ version of SoFi Stadium will be in Arlington Heights. Not a word on new ticket prices or potential traffic headaches (sorry, been out there, seen the roads, and think it’s going to be a disaster). And just a passing reference to another round of personal seat licenses to shear the sheep, er, fans. So much for the notion of journalists digging into a story. No, what you got here was a commercial extolling a planned move. I hope the McCaskeys sent thank-you cards to everyone involved.

This Could Get Interesting

Eloy Jimenez was away so long playing for the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic that I’d forgotten what he looked like. After seeing him back in Arizona yesterday, I remember—the guy looks fit. White Sox manager Pedro Grifol offered Eloy a day off, which he refused. The bat certainly looked good, as evidenced by a double his first time up, but the real question is the glove. How often will Jimenez play the field, and where? This is apples to oranges, I know, but it’s the best I’ve got, so it’ll have to do: Eloy looked fluid running the bases, which is not something I would ordinarily say of him. My hope would be that he approaches getting to a flyball the same way he did getting to second base, quickly and in one piece. The proof will be in the playing. If Eloy plays his way into the outfield on a regular basis, that could be a first. I can’t recall anyone else who’s gone from liability to asset with the glove after four years in the big leagues. I’ll be more than happy to put Jimenez at the top of my list. Just color me skeptical until it happens.

Hope Springs Eternal

Because I try to be a good father (and grandfather), I called Clare this morning to tell her the White Sox were on TV at three. OK, I also called to ask her to find a car-price app for me. Father and daughter will both probably be hitting the mute button, depending on who’s calling the game. If it’s Jason Benetti and Steve Stone, silence is golden. It’s like being back in first-period lunch junior year at St. Laurence. Who’s the biggest smart-ass Viking at the table? Been there, done that, don’t need a reboot, thank you very much. Put Benetti with Len Kasper, a professional down to his toes, or Chuck Swirsky, ditto with a dash more local color, or Tom Paciorek, who comes with lots of color and more than a dash of insight. But Stone is still stuck in junior year, and he drags Benetti to the lunch table with him each and every broadcast. Pull the plug on the juvenile twins, please.

Slip-sliding Away

Stopped-clock Arturas Karnisovas appears to have gotten it right on guard Patrick Beverly, who’s given the Bulls some defensive backbone since his signing late last month. Only it’s too little too late. What’s ailing the Bulls is foundational. Last night against the visiting Sacramento Kings, they needed all hands on deck, especially with Alex Caruso—he and Beverly play a nice, old-school game of defense when they’re together—sidelined due to illness. Instead, they get Zach LaVine shooting 7-of-22 and Nikola Vucevic 8-of-22. Bulls lose a heartbreaker, 117-114, on a last-second three-pointer by De’Aaron Fox. It could just be me, but center Andre Drummond seems to be coming off the bench a lot for meaningful minutes the last few games. Drummond steps onto the floor, and the team defense improves immediately. The man fills up the paint to block shots and grab rebounds. He also knows how to set a screen. Vucevic, not so much. It’s actually painful to watch him—or any other Bull, for that matter—try. You’d almost think the front office made it their mission to find players who stand around and do nothing without the ball. That’s one way to describe a 31-37 team.

Do The Limbo

The next time anyone mentions what great philanthropists the McCaskeys are, consider that they’re saddling Chicago with a $631-million bill, of which they’ll contribute maybe $84 million. These and other figures appeared in a story in yesterday’s Tribune about the costs of renovating Soldier Field back in 2003. The Bears were the driving force for a rebuilt stadium, unless you think Bruce Springsteen and the Grateful Dead have that kind of clout. What the Bears wanted, the Chicago Park District, under the de facto control of Mayor Richard M. Daley, granted by issuing bonds responsible for the current debt figure. At the time, nobody thought the team would walk away from Soldier Field after so much money was spent on it. But that’s exactly what the Bears intend to do. And it was made possible from the start. The Bears’ lease with the Park District calls for the team to pay a slap-on-the-wrist penalty instead of the remaining debt on the stadium. The team released a statement to the Tribune that, “Paying off the bond debt is not the Bears’ responsibility and has never been contingent upon the team’s home games at Soldier Field.” But it should have been. In true Bears’ fashion, the statement also includes a whiny complaint about paying “one of the highest annual rents for an NFL team,” which they put at $118 million since 2003. Pardon me if my math is off, but that comes out to under $6 million a year. If that’s too much rent for the Munsters, what happens if and when they move to Arlington Heights? That’ll mean no rent, but property taxes, over which they want to have the power to negotiate with neighboring communities. How low will they go? As low as the philanthropic McCaskeys can get away with.

I Win

My friend Mr. Cub called yesterday to pass along the news of Joe Pepitone’s death at the age of 82. “How much you want to bet he gets a nice obit in the papers tomorrow?” and I did not mean the New York Times. Mr. Cub had forgotten that Pepitone spent two full seasons and parts of two others playing on the North Side of town. Sure enough, today’s Sun-Times ran said obit, courtesy of the AP, which took up most of a page. The only local angle, probably added after someone at the S-T went through the clipping file on Pepitone, was that he once owned a bar on Division Street. The NYT obit offered more on Pepitone’s time on the North Side. If Pepitone was telling the truth, the Bleacher Bums showered him with joints and cocaine when he played the outfield at Wrigley. Pepitone told Rolling Stone in a 2015 interview that he would then hide his stash(es) in the ivy and retrieve his drugs after the game. Yup, that’s the guy a Chicago newspaper decided to remember rather than Dave Nicholson, Joe Horlen, Gary Peters….

Bears' Scat Sunday

It only seems like End Times, with the Bears trading the first selection in the NFL draft to the Carolina Panthers for a bunch of picks and wide receiver D.J. Moore. One sports-talk radio station reportedly preempted regular programming to devote something like five hours to the move. Wait, there’s more. Over at the Tribune, the Munsters seeped into baseball coverage. Cubs’ beat writer Meghan Montemurro did a story Sunday on Mike Tauchman and Ryan Borucki, two area non-roster players trying to make the team. For reasons beyond me, Montemurro devoted seven paragraphs of her story on the Bears, five on what Tauchman and Borucki think of the team. The mind boggles. Did the baseball beat writer bring up the subject of football? Did both players do it on their own? Did the editor—assuming one actually exists—go over the copy and think that Bears’ talk added something to a baseball story? Do Cubs’ fans care what football team two non-roster invitees root for? Again, only in Chicago.

Forcing the Issue

Whether or not he knew it (and I bet he did), Jake Burger entered spring training a dead man walking. Injury, circumstance and time have rendered the White Sox first-round draft pick in 2017 a player without a position. Burger would be entitled to wonder why the Sox drafted him in the first place, since they already had Yoan Moncada at third base and Jose Abreu at first, but the soon-to-be twenty-seven year old has never complained, not about that or the three years lost to injury and the COVID pandemic. That’s the thing about Burger, he keeps plowing through adversity. Finally, he got a chance last season due to other people getting hurt and responded with eight homeruns and twenty-six RBIs in just 168 at-bats. We’re talking thirty-plus homer power here. But where do you put it? Not at third, where Moncada reigns (and twenty-one year old Bryan Ramos looks ready to take away), or first, which now belongs to Andrew Vaughn with Abreu gone to Houston. And not the outfield, with Andrew Benintendi signed to play left and rookie Oscar Colas looking like he’ll be starting in right. And not DH, where Eloy Jimenez is slotted, despite his protests about playing left or right. And how has Burger responded to a flow chart that has no place for him to go? By hitting four homers already this spring. No one on the Sox has more, not that you’d know from reading today’s story on the team website, which was all about Colas hitting his first. As much as it pains me to say, Burger would be a perfect fit on the North Side, where the Cubs are trying to pass off Nick Madrigal as a major-league third baseman. The Cubs have plenty of pitching while the Sox have Jake Diekman, which isn’t quite the same. GM Rick Hahn should do right by Burger and find a deal that works for both teams.

Speaking Ill

Tampa Rays’ radio voice Dave Wills died Sunday at the age of 58. He’d been doing Rays’ games for eighteen years. A native of south suburban Oak Lawn, Wills was a diehard White Sox fan who spent eleven years doing pre- and post-game radio shows for Sox games before doing Rays’ games starting in 2005. I have absolutely no memory of him. Chicago media more than made up for that, with numerous stories on Wills. The shortest one would’ve been greater than what was written on the recent deaths of Sox players Joe Horlen, Gary Peters and Dave Nicholson combined. Not to speak ill of the dead, but I’m curious. What would broadcasters broadcast if there were no athletes to broadcast?

A Stopped Clock

I wanted the White Sox to go after Carlos Rodon, sort of. To say that pitcher and team had a connection if not a history would be an understatement. Maybe some of both scared off GM Rick Hahn. I don’t want to give too much credit to Hahn, who is the embodiment of the stopped clock at work, if ever there was one. Hahn mostly gets it wrong, though he can be right, oh, twice a day. Consider Rodon. Today, I read Steve Greenberg’s column in the Sun-Times, in which Rodon says he took the White Sox nontendering him after the 2020 season “as a slap in the face.” Never mind that he came back to sign a one-year deal with the team for 2021, when he threw his no-hitter. What matters to Rodon is that over the last two seasons, going a combined 27-13with a 2.67 ERA for the Sox and Giants, he was able to “just shut up a lot of people, and it felt good.” Greenberg mentioned in passing that Rodon is going to start the season for the Yankees—his new team after he signed a six-year, $162 million deal in the offseason—on the IL. Yankees’ GM Brian Cashman is calling it a “mild strain” in Rodon’s left forearm. Rodon was quoted on the Yankees’ website saying that, if it were the postseason, “I’m taking the ball.” Maybe. Or he could be injured or left off the roster because of recurring injuries. Keep in mind that when he went 13-5 for the Sox in 2021, Rodon missed starts in the second half and ended up pitching only 132.2 innings. Last season for the Giants, he threw a career-high 178 innings. And now an elbow stain that lands him on the IL? Hmm. When the Sox needed him most in game three of the 2021 ALCS against Houston, Rodon couldn’t make it out of the third inning. This all makes me wonder if Rodon isn’t the pitching version of Nick Madrigal, a perfect player over the course of a college season but prone to injury once he turns pro. Parting ways with Madrigal and Rodon—that may be Rick Hahn the stopped clock getting it right. After getting wrong in the first place, of course.

Silver Lining

Typical March in Chicago. I have a new/old bike ready to go, but the weather absolutely refuses to cooperate. It’ll either rain or snow or do both tonight, and for the next seven days the temperature isn’t expected to crack forty degrees. I wonder what the over-and-under is. On top of that, Dylan Cease got rocked last night in his start against the Royals. He retired one batter in the first inning while giving up five runs, including a bases-loaded walk before a grand slam, then came back in the second to cough up six more runs against one out. Afterwards, Cease said he felt fine, and, as we all know, health is what counts in life. Come the regular season, none of this subbing in and out. No, Cease would be charged with five runs before his manager probably pulled the plug on his start. That 37.13 ERA is merely a product of the thin air that rules in the Cactus League. At least that’s what I’m telling myself.

Old News

The things you learn by reading the sports’ section. It seems that, last season, the White Sox weren’t one big happy family after all. And new manager Pedro Grifol has a thing about details and accountability. But why are these stories only appearing now? Where were the beat writers last year? Why is GM Rick Hahn allowed to walk from point A to point B without being showered questions about the Tony La Russa hiring, to say nothing of the thought process behind signing Mike Clevinger? I thought journalism was all about breaking stories as they happen. History I have by the bookshelf.

Waiting on a Color

The summer I graduated high school I had my eye on a car for sale at the Standard on 54th and Kedzie. It was a fastback, 1950-52, Chevy or Pontiac, the color a deep maroon. I tried to talk my father in letting me buy it. “Where would you get the parts to fix it?” he asked, very sensibly. And so I never bought my maroon fastback, instead settling on a Schwinn Varsity in campus green. Fewer parts to worry about, you might say. But now I have a 1972 Schwinn Sports Tourer in opaque green. One of the Lone Gunmen at my Schwinn dealer called it “the real deal,” down to the original tires (now replaced). Not a speck of rust anywhere, just some scratches in need of paint. Only, where do you find fifty-one year old paint? Another of the Gunmen suggested nail polish, so I hit CVS, Target and Walgreens. Let’s just say I didn’t feel comfortable checking colors. Then it was online to see if anyone sells vintage Schwinn paint. Somebody does, sort of, a formulation of the classic stuff, or so they say. I’m waiting on a bottle of touchup now. If that doesn’t work, then it’s off on a twenty-mile ride to a hobby shop that advertises over 5000 paint colors. All I want to do is trick the eye of passersby on the bike trail, but, if I can get a perfect match, that’s OK, too. Too bad Schwinn didn’t do maroon that year.

How Nice

Major League Baseball has decided not to punish White Sox pitcher Mike Clevinger over domestic abuse allegations made by the mother of one his children. Instead, Clevinger has agreed to be evaluated per the collective bargaining agreement and to follow any recommendations made. Whoopee. Consider what all this means. Clevinger is either lucky to have escaped punishment or unlucky to have been accused in the first place or, at the very least, guilty of bad judgment when it comes to picking a mate. I’m going with a combination of #’s one and three. Because, if he’s as innocent/pure as the driven snow, that must be one crazy, spiteful mother of his baby girl. Imagine, to bruise yourself and then post pictures along with the accusation that Clevinger did it. It also means she’s one heck of an actor, tricking Clevinger into thinking he’d met someone normal, even loving, only to turn around and try to wreck his career with these allegations. Yeah, real unlucky. Poor guy, he just can’t seem to catch a break. The then-Indians trade him in 2020, in part for failing to adhere to COVID protocols; the Padres don’t want to keep them (and they’re a team that looks ready and willing to sign anyone with a pulse); and this. Oh, well, now Clevinger can get back to doing the one thing he knows how to do, throw a ball. If he has a comeback year, then he’ll walk. The Sox are cheap that way, especially with pitchers. If he stinks, then the Sox will be stuck with a bad bargain. I won’t hold my breath for Clevinger to conduct a no-holds-barred press conference with the Chicago media. I mean, this a guy threatening to sue a sports-talk radio station for daring to interview the mother. A little more of that and Clevinger could make the Albert Belle signing look good. And I thought being Catholic was hard.

March Madness

Don’t tell my daughter, but she was a pretty good athlete. Somebody saw her swimming at the Y in second or third grade and tried to recruit her for a swim team. One summer, I took her to a tennis camp at the high school she would attend in another three years. The tennis coach wanted her on his team. But I think she made the right decision with baseball/softball. The swinging and the hitting have led to some pretty long drives in another sport she dabbles in, golf. About the only game I didn’t encourage Clare to play was basketball; too much temper to go into so compact a body. She would’ve fouled out in the first five minutes of every game or been kicked out for fighting. I thought of that last night watching local sports on the TV. It’s playoff time in girls’ high school basketball, and yesterday was the championship games. God bless WGN and NBC-5 for showing highlights; ditto the Sun-Times for its stories in today’s paper. And the Tribune? Couldn’t be bothered. No, instead the Trib devoted three full pages—broadsheets, no less—to the future of Bears’ quarterback Justin Fields. Wait, there’s more. As of 10 AM today, the paper’s website had not a word on any of the games, so, don’t tell me I’m too focused on legacy media. I’m pretty sure local papers will cover the games, but it’s not the same. To make the Chicago papers means something, or used to. Clare got her name in the game summaries back in the day, and she was named a top-100 player by the Sun-Times at the start of her senior year. Nobody can take that away from her. I only wish high school athletes today had the same opportunity for recognition.

Déjà vu All Over Again

Late in the fourth quarter of Wednesday’s 117-115 win over the Pistons, new Bulls’ guard Patrick Beverly called out center Nikola Vucevic for not helping Beverly guard Jaden Ivey, who scored on a layup. TV cameras caught Beverly and Vucevic exchanging words. Same old same old with the Bulls. They bring in a veteran known for his defense in the hope that that talent will somehow rub off on his new team. Didn’t work with Rajon Rondo, it won’t work with Beverly. Vucevic is an offense-first and, for the most part, offense-only player; rebounds, assists and screens are pretty much a happy accident. If ever a guy could have both hard hands and a soft touch, it’s Vucevic. Basically, Beverly is seeing this up close and personal for the first time; welcome to the club, Patrick. The old front office thought Rondo would fix things; the new front office has the same idea with Beverly. Maybe if they’d both been brought in as rookies, it could’ve worked. But Rondo was already thirty when he signed with the Bulls back in 2016, and Beverly is thirty-four, neither an age to try miracle-working. Obviously, the folks on Madison Street feel differently.

A Real Pain

If you believe The Athletic, the Cubs are perhaps the wonkiest team in baseball, employing all sorts of gizmos to unleash player talent. One problem for the North Siders, though, appears to be the ability to keep track of its players in the offseason. Outfielder Seiya Suzuki arrived in camp with a reported twenty pounds of extra muscle on a 5’11” frame. Guess who proceeded to suffer a moderate strain to his left oblique before he could even bat in a Cactus League game? Guys, no phone? Did you lose Suzuki’s number? Did you have any idea what he was up to in the offseason? Before I say something along the lines of “typical Cubs’ stuff,” Lucas Giolito of the White Sox pulled his own Suzuki last spring training, arriving to camp thirty-five pounds of muscle heavier. Giolito avoided injury until his Opening Day start in Detroit, when he went down with an abdominal injury to his left side. That plus COVID translated into an 11-9 record and 4.90 ERA. The good news is Giolito lost all that weight. The question is why did the Sox let him gain it in the first place, assuming they even knew that was his intention? Not exactly what you’d call good communication between the front office and one of its star players. Did I mention Yoan Moncada’s right oblique injury from last year? I’m tempted to say there are about six hundred major-league ballplayers who train as if they were models for Speedo swimwear. They’re ballplayers, who have to do in August what feels so easy in May. Twenty-somethings will always do dumb stuff. What are Jed Hoyer’s and Rick Hahn’s excuse?

Mortality

It was a Friday, June 15th, 1962. The day before, my father came home from work at Wesco Spring with news we were going to the White Sox game the next day. This would be my first game ever. In my house, you dressed to make a good impression, so, Friday afternoon my mother made sure I polished my shoes. She also insisted I take along a jacket because, “The ballpark is close to the lake,” and she didn’t want me to catch a chill in case the wind blew from the east. This was a work outing for my dad, everyone going to the old Hickory Pit, in Bridgeport. I remember having cannoli for dessert. I don’t remember any other kids being there. I also remember walking into the ballpark’s main entrance on 35th Street; from the concourse, I could see the field at the end of a short stairway, just a few steps leading to the lower deck. Never in my life had I seen anything so rich a color green as that field was. The arches that framed every inch of the ballpark registered a little later, probably by the time we got to our seats between home and third base in the upper deck. If I’m not mistaken, this was in the loge section. My dad took one look at the starting pitcher and declared, “Well, we’re gonna lose.” Indeed, Early Wynn was having a tough go of it; he would finish 7-15 on the season, his twenty-second and next to last. Wynn couldn’t hold a 4-1, but it didn’t matter. The Sox scored two in the bottom of the ninth on a walk-off triple by Floyd Robinson for a 7-6 win over the Angels. I went home a very happy nine-year old. I can’t say I remember the triple, unlike the homerun Charley Smith hit for Sox in the second. I also distinctly recall the first major-league baseball player I ever laid eyes on, the Angels’ leadoff man, Albie Pearson. And that made all the difference. Pearson stood a mere 5’5”. In a couple of years, I’d be that tall, if not taller. The fact that someone grade-school sized could play in the majors showed me baseball was everyone’s game, as long as they were men. When the time came, I told Clare about Pearson. She was his size, playing baseball just like he did. According to baseball-reference.com, Pearson died on February 22nd, at the age of 88. Someone else who played that day in 1962 died three days after Pearson. That would be Dave Nicholson, then with the Orioles, to be traded to the Sox in 1963 along with Hoyt Wilhelm, Ron Hansen and Pete Ward in the deal that sent Luis Aparicio and Al Smith to Baltimore. I rooted for Nicholson, who was sixty years ahead of his time. The man could hit a ball the proverbial mile (and in one instance, over the roof of Comiskey Park) while piling up a ton of strikeouts. Too little contact put Nicholson in Al Lopez’s doghouse, from which there was no escaping. Nicholson was 83. I can still name most of the White Sox roster from 1963 and 1964, only now it reminds me of people gone: Nicholson; Gary Peters in January; Joe Horlen last September; and Ward two years ago this month. Time flies, or we do.

Colors

The Bears go into the offseason with the most cap space of any team ($98 million), along with the first pick in the draft. I can repeat how neither development has anything to do with a new stadium until I’m blue in the face, not that the Chicago media would notice or care. NBC Sports Chicago is doing a documentary on the stadium situation that Richard Roeper in today’s Sun-Times refers to as “insightful and journalistically sound.” I’m not so sure. At one point, Solider Field gets compared to SoFi Stadium, which Roeper says is like comparing “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” to “Avatar: The Way of Water.” “Bears’ fans might now know what they’re missing—but they’re missing a LOT.” Little or none of which affects the product on the field. SoFi didn’t help the Rams make the playoffs in 2022, though I’m sure it proved a moneymaker for Rams’ owner Stan Kroenke. Bear with me again. The crappy team in the crappy stadium is going to rebound nicely, if the general manager knows what he’s doing. The Rams, on the other hand, don’t even have a pick in the first of the draft come April. As for cap space, it’s in the neighborhood of $14.2 million, not a lot if they want to sign high-impact free agents. But like I say until I’m blue in the face, new stadiums in the NFL have next to no affect on the quality of the product.