Waste of Time?

I see in the Sun-Times today that White Sox GM Chris Getz hired a director of hitting. Both the position and its initial occupant are mysteries to me. Getz went on to say, “We’ve tasked our analysts to be more specialized, and we’re beginning to build some really cool stuff that’s going to help create competitive advantages in a lot of areas.” Oh, boy. Kids and their gizmos. The thing I like about Will Venable, Getz’s new hire for manager, is that he was a nine-year MLB veteran. A successful manager doesn’t have to have played in the big leagues, but it helps. For every Joe Maddon and Earl Weaver, there seem to be a whole lot more Mickey-Mouse types. I don’t want to see an organizational approach to hitting based on tech alone. For the umpteenth time, let me offer the best approach to hitting, as articulated by hitting coach extraordinaire—and sixteen-year MLB vet—Bill Robinson: “A good hitting instructor is able to mold his teachings to the individual. If a guy stands on his head, you perfect that.” Anything else is a waste of time.

He Gone Soon

The NFL has created this 24/7/365 behemoth that keeps football on every fan’s mind, which is a great thing for any team .500 or above. But it gets dicey when a team stinks. All the NFL hype-cycle does then is to remind people just how bad their team is, and the Bears are stinky bad. They showed it again yesterday with a 29-9 loss to the Cardinals. The Munsters have no offensive line and, basically, haven’t had one for the past five seasons. Stick a rookie quarterback like Caleb Williams behind a bunch of doormen who make way for the opponent’s pass rush, and you’ve got trouble. The Chicago media keeps reminding people 24/7 that Williams has been regressing the past two weeks and losses. Not so head coach Matt “Mickey” Eberflus; there’s no there there, no demonstration of talent from which to recede. Mickey’s record in two-plus seasons is a woeful 14-28, and a pathetically woeful 3-18 on the road. Veterans went public last week with doubts about coaching decisions made in the 18-15 “Hail Mary” debacle against the Commanders while 24/7 coverage stoked speculation over how or if Eberflus would discipline Tyrique Stevenson for being out of position on the Hail Mary. The answer to that question is Mickey held out Stevenson for the first two defensive series and then brought him in. The Munsters are all about pride in legacy—Halas, Ditka, Butkus, etc. The slap on the wrist is not going to play well in Soldier Field come Sunday when the Bears face the Patriots. If Eberflus and co. can’t beat a 2-7 team, it’s going to get really ugly. And it may get ugly because of another bonehead decision by the coach, to keep his quarterback in for the entire game even when he was down by twenty points late in the game. With the clock winding down and Williams scrambling to avoid a seventh sack, an Arizona defender landed on his ankle. After the game, Coach Mickey said he had Williams in to work on the two-minute drill. Right. Thanks to the NFL creation of an all-football, all-the-time environment, Bears’ fans will be reminded again and again just how bad their head coach is. He gone soon.

Stupid Is...

Has anyone seen a Bulls’ or Blackhawks’ game recently? Odds are, No, unless you’ve got the right streaming service or, get this, an antenna to pick up the TV signal. Welcome to Jerry Reinsdorf’s latest genius idea, the Chicago Sports Network. Just try finding it. Reinsdorf walked away from NBC Spors Chicago, taking not only the Sad Sox and Bulls with him, but getting Danny Wirtz to follow along with the Blackhawks. Only the greatest mind ever in all Chicago sports didn’t bother securing a carrying agreement with Comcast, with its 4.7 million Chicago-area subscribers. Oops. So, no facetime via Comcast with new Sox manager Will Venable to go with no games for Blackhawks’ and Bulls’ fans. I can’t speak about the Hawks, but at least the 3-3 Bulls look interesting—in the box scores, that is—with a run-and-gun offense made possible by the team moving on from DeMar DeRozan and Alex Caruso. Rumor has it that any agreement between Reinsdorf’s Folly and Comcast will involve putting the sports’ channel in a more expensive package. No, thanks. If and when it comes time to watch baseball come spring, I’ll go buy an antenna. Thanks, Jerry.

Tiny, Baby Steps

The White Sox hired a new manager yesterday in the person of Will Venable, a nine-year major league veteran and Princeton graduate with a degree in anthropology. I’m guessing Mickey Mouse didn’t do his senior thesis comparing baseball in the U.S. and Japan. Right now, the only certain positive here is that the odds are Venable won’t be Mouse 2.0. What will he be? We’re about to find out. I’m guessing GM Chris Getz wants to keep pitching coach Ethan Katz. We’ll get a better sense of who Venable is and wants to be when the rest of the coaching staff is announced.