Fool Me Once...

The summer before he bought the White Sox in 1981, Jerry Reinsdorf talked about team ownership as a responsibility: “I’ve always looked at the ownership of a baseball franchise as a public trust, maybe even a charitable thing. I’m serious about that. I never did forgive Walter O’Malley for moving the Dodgers from Brooklyn to Los Angeles.” [quote in Tribune story 1/29/2021, “Recalling Jerry Reinsdorf’s come-from-behind victory 40 years ago for control of the Chicago White Sox: ‘I’ve never celebrated anniversaries of this sort,’” Phil Rosenthal]. Wait, there’s more. In 1990, following a 32-day lockout that pushed back spring training, Reinsdorf told Bob Verdi of the Tribune, “Baseball is more a religion in this country than it is a form of entertainment, and it should stay that way.” [4/8/1990] Oh, what a paragon of public virtue and stewardship and whatever. Or not. Now, Justin Ishbia, the billionaire and eventual new owner of the team, comes out and says something similar, eerily so, this after meeting with the Pope on Wednesday in Rome, no less. Call me skeptical after reading his remarks in yesterday’s Tribune. Ishbia doesn’t think of himself as an owner. “The word I use is ‘steward.’ This team belongs to the city of Chicago, and I’m a temporary steward. Jerry today is the steward. Hopefully, one day I will hopefully [sic] have the good fortune of being the next steward of this franchise.” In addition, Ishbia invited the Pope to throw out the first pitch on Opening Day, once the Sox have themselves a new stadium. The steward-in-waiting was not quoted saying who’d be paying for the new digs. Speaking for His Holiness, I want to know.

It Doesn't Add Up

Add it all up, and the Bulls should’ve suffered a crushing defeat in Portland last night. When Josh Giddey and Kevin Huerter, the starting backcourt, combine for eleven points and a 21-point, fourth-quarter lead turns into a four-point deficit with sixteen seconds left in the game, you should lose. But the Bulls didn’t. Instead, Coby White hit a three-pointer with nine seconds left to draw his team to 120-119. Then, Jerami Grant made only one of two free throws with eight seconds to go. After a timeout, the Bulls inbounded; White passed the ball to Nikola Vucevic in the corner; and Vucevic nailed the three-pointer as time expired. Bulls 122 Blazers 121. After the game, K.C. Johnson lobbed Vucevic a question about his team’s resiliency, and, give the big man credit, he didn’t bite. No, he said getting the win was nice, but he and his teammates had to find a way to close things out so heroics wouldn’t be necessary every night. Amen to that, Nikola. Still, I’ll take an 8-6 record with the roster close to reaching full strength with the expected returns of Zach Collins and Tre Jones. With those two healthy, the upcoming Christmas season could be merry, indeed.

Tap the Brakes

In 2023, the 61-101 White Sox employed Yasmani Grandal (.234 BA and 33 RBIs in 363 at-bats); Seby Zavala (.155 and sixteen RBIs in 161 at-bats); and Korey Lee (.077 and three RBIs in 65 at-bats) behind the plate. Wait, there’s more, or less, depending how you look at things. In 2024, the 41-121 Sox used Lee (.210 and 37 RBIs in 377 at-bats); Martin Maldonado (.119 and eleven RBIs in 135 at-bats); and Chuckie Robinson (.129 with zero RBIs in 70 at-bats) to do the catching. Then, mercifully, things got better. Last season, rookies Kyle Teel (.273 with 35 RBIs in 253 at-bats) and Edgar Quero (.268 with 36 RBIs in 365 at-bats) did the bulk of the catching after the great Matt Thaiss experiment (.212 with eight RBIs in 85 at-bats) came to an end in late May. And now there are rumors Teel or Quero could be traded. What’s the rush? Once upon a time, the Sox had two young catchers in Earl Battey and Johnny Romano, only for Bill Veeck to trade both of them away so they could make nine All-Star teams between them elsewhere. Veeck thought it was a good idea to go with 35-year old Sherm Lollar as his primary catcher. Trade Teel or Quero too soon, and you risk a repeat of that kind of mistake. Figure out what you’re going to do at first and third base, first. Do Miguel Vargas and Lenyn Sosa stay or do they go, or do you keep one? For the first time in a long time, catching on the South Side is just fine. Hands off, I’d say.

Streakin'

The Bulls came this close in Utah to breaking their four-game losing streak, only to fall 150-147 in overtime to the Jazz Sunday night. With a game in less than 24 hours against the Nuggets in mile-high Denver, our tired heroes looked well on their way to their sixth consecutive loss, to slip below .500 on the season. But, No, they found a way to “contain” Nikola Jokic and hold on for a 130-127 win. Mercy. You don’t really contain a player who manages a triple-double with 36 points, eighteen rebounds and thirteen assists; you just try to minimize the damage. Billy Donovan did that by putting Jalen Smith on Jokic. The big guy had to earn his stats, as reflected by the Denver bench, which managed all of nine points. The Bulls’ second unit, led by Ayo Dosunmu with 21 points, put up 66 points!! The worry here is that increased playing time for Smith, with sixteen points and eight rebounds, could be interrupted by injury. Smith hurt his right shoulder midway late in the third quarter and was seen with an ice pack wrapped around it by game’s end. Fingers crossed there. Because the venerable, 35-year old Nikola Vucevic is suddenly looking, and playing, his age. Vucevic managed 29 minutes last night, going 3-for-13 from the floor. Granted, his three-pointer with 33 seconds left gave the Bulls a four-point lead, but Time waits for no one, and it won’t wait for Vucevic. Zach Collins, Smith and Vucevic could make for a nice, three-headed monster at center. If people can just stay healthy.

It's Personal

It’s not so much that I’m a Bears’ fan as it is the Bears are a way for me to get back at people. At least give me points for honesty. Bears beat the Raiders, Yea, big deal. White Sox beat the Diamondbacks, and I’m on top of the world. Ah, but the Bears beat the Vikings or Packers, oh, I’m a happy camper, indeed. Why? Because of certain people I know. For them, the Purple or the cheesy Green must always triumph, an attitude that grates after a while. There are certain other character flaws these people possess that I won’t go into detail here, but, trust me, those exist. Their team losing is my way of pointing out those flaws while keeping my mouth absolutely shut. So, yesterday, those Vikings’ fans I know must’ve been all agog as their team scored the go-ahead touchdown with 50 seconds left in the game. Too bad the Purple special-teams’ guys whiffed on bringing down the Bears’ Devin Duvernay before he ran the ensuing kickoff back 56 yards. Three subsequent running plays netted a few more yards before Cairo Santos booted a 48-yard field goal as time expired. Bears 19 Vikings 17. I still say this is a team more lucky than good. Five times in the last seven games, they’ve scored the winning points with less than two minutes left in the game. Maybe if they’re lucky enough long enough, they’ll starting getting good enough. Until then, better to be lucky than the opposite, which is how you lose.

Crushing Bookends

Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge are your NL and AL MVPs, respectively. Nellie Fox need not apply, or Jose Altuve. Or Andrew McCutcheon or Mookie Betts. Or Dustin Pedroia. Players under 6’ tall can and do win the MVP, just not often. Betts (5’10”) was the last to do that, in 2018 for the Red Sox (and they traded him why, again?). Basically, though, MVP voters dig the long ball, and, odds are, the taller/bigger you are, the better your chance of being named MVP. Even small guys have to muscle up. Altuve (5’6”) hit 24 homers during his MVP year for the Astros in 2017 while Pedroia managed seventeen when he won the honors for the Red Sox in 2008. Now, take a step back in the time machine to look at two other short guys who won the award. Nellie Fox (5’10”) won MVP honors for the White Sox in 1959, with all of two longballs. A year later, Dick Groat (5’11”) of the Pirates had himself an MVP season with, yup, two homeruns. Judge hit 53 this season, in case you’re wondering, and Ohtani 55. Long story short, the baseball played by the likes of Fox and Groat has fallen into disfavor, abandoned in the name of launch angle and exit velo. There’s a lot of baseball talent residing in players south of 6’. Good luck in having teams notice. Which will make the chances of a woman breaking the grass ceiling that much harder.

Fleas

First, the NBA was hit with a betting scandal, and now it’s baseball’s turn—again—with Guardians’ pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz under federal indictment they were part of a betting scheme centering around what pitches they threw and where, as in fast or slow or out of the strike zone. Somewhere, the Black Sox are having a good laugh. All pro sports in the U.S. happily went to bed with legal betting, only to wake up scratching from fleas. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred thinks limiting “prop bets,” that center on game minutiae, e.g., whether or not a ball rolled out to the mound between innings stays there, a batter getting a hit, a pitcher throwing a ball, that sort of thing. Manfred thinks that getting sports’ books to set a $200 maximum on these types of bets will somehow fix the problem. Yeah, right. Not that anybody would use a “legacy” bookie or one of those folks would try to influence the outcome of a game—or prop—because, well, the Commissioner thinks that would be bad for baseball. With Clase in particular, it would seem that the Guardians should’ve known something was up. I mean, how exactly did the parties involved figure out to place their bets? According to The Athletic, Clase used his phone to message and speak with conspirators. If true, then where was the coaching staff? The Athletic noted that MLB prohibits players from using their phones during a game. So, everyone thought Clase was a cool cat shooting the breeze before an appearance and let things slide? I won’t hold my breath until the Guardians are hit with a hefty fine.

Nothing to See Here

Last night in Detroit, the Bulls were down two starters, Coby White and Josh Giddey, only the Pistons were down four. The math says Chicago should’ve won, right? Pistons 124 Bulls 113. Center Nikola Vucevic (six points and six rebounds) got eaten up by his Detroit counterpart Paul Reed (28 points and thirteen rebounds). Bulls’ backup center Jalen Smith played thirteen minutes to Vucevic’s 25 and still outscored him, nine to six. Forward-center Zach Collins is expected to be ready to play soon after suffering a broken wrist in the preseason. As soon as Collins returns, it’s time for a change. Vucevic is 35, Smith 25 and Collins 27. If the Bulls want to do anything this season, they need to transition away from the skating tree toward the two youngish centers. That, or be ready to absorb more beatings like last night.

Looking Ahead

The calendar says November, but I’m thinking next March already. Thank you, Sam Antonacci. The onetime D-II player has done nothing but hit since the White Sox selected him in the fifth round of the 2024 draft, starting with a .333 BA in 81 at-bats in A ball. This year, the 22-year old hit .279 in high-A Winston-Salem and, better yet, .292 for AA Birmingham, with 25 RBIs and 27 runs scored. Antonacci also stole 48 bases between both levels. Did I mention the Arizona Fall League? The Sox eleventh-ranked prospect hit .379 with thirteen RBIs and 20 runs in just seventeen games. More of this come spring, please. Because then, things could get interesting. A lefthanded hitter, Antonacci can play second and third and has also appeared at short. If he puts up comparable numbers in the spring, he could set in motion a series of moves—Colson Montgomery to third base or center field, which would signal a trade of Luis Robert Jr., and Miguel Vargas to switch from third to first, which could mean a trade of Lenyn Sosa, or even Chase Meidroth. I don’t need sportswriters to stoke my own hot stove.

Good News, Bad News

This is how deep the Bulls are at guard—last night, the second-string backcourt totaled 43 points and twelve assists. Oh, and they still lost. Tre Jones and Kevin Huerter played in place of Coby White—yet to play this season due to a calf injury—and Josh Giddey, who sprained his right ankle Sunday against the Cavs. In their place, Jones/Huerter helped build a 114-111 lead over the visiting Spurs with just over a minute left in the game. Enter three-point giant Victor Wembanyama. Over the next 33 seconds, that incredibly long drink of water (7’4”) sank two three-pointers and down went the Bulls 121-117. It was a game they could’ve won, even shorthanded had everyone done their job. Instead, Nikola Vucevic reverted to his 35-year old self, managing a sad eleven points while trying to guard Wembanyama; backup center Jalen Smith played 21 minutes to Vucevic’s 28 while managing the same number of points (eleven) and four more rebounds (twelve to four). Wembanyama poured in 38 points with six three-pointers out of nine attempted. The less said about the play of Isaac Okoro and Patrick Williams, the better. Let’s go with the glass half-full here. White is due back any game now, and Giddey’s injury looks to be minor. Next up is the Pistons tomorrow. In a lot of ways, it qualifies as the most important game of the young seasons for this young team.

More Lucky Than Good

For the best part of three quarters yesterday, Giants’ rookie quaterback Jaxson Dart had the Soldier Field faithful on edge. A raw, damp Sunday—Bears’ weather, or so we like to think—had no discernible effect on the 22-year old, who ran for two touchdowns and looked well on his way to handing the 5-3 Bears their fourth loss of the season, this one to a 2-7 team. Then Dart fumbled away the ball with just over five minutes left in the third quarter. If he didn’t suffer a concussion a few plays before that, he did then, and in came Russell Wilson to replace him. The Bears’ defense looked clueless against Dart, who threw for 242 yards and rushed for another 66. Those stats were food for a 17-7 lead, which eventually grew to 20-7 under Wilson before momentum shifted. Credit the Bears for waking up or blame Wilson for trying to play well beyond his expiration date. Either way, the Munsters scored two touchdown with under four minutes remaining to win, 24-20. And to think ex-GM Ryan Pace was hot for Wilson back in 2021. Bears’ second-year quarterback Caleb Williams threw for one touchdown and scored another to fuel the comeback. What struck me, though, was Williams’ inability to do much against one of the worst defenses in the league. In Williams’ defense, sort of, Dart kept him off the field for long stretches as he frustrated Bears’ defenders. Watch me run, guys. So, everything fell into place and the home team didn’t suffer an embarrassing upset. Yay. And Williams may have been better than his 20 completions and 220 yards gained suggest. For a change of pace, Bears’ receivers came down with a case of the dropsies, letting six catchable passes fall to the ground. Go figure. Basically, I can’t. This is a team that waits to the very end to beat bad teams and has yet to win against a good team. Well, the Eagles; Packers (twice); 49ers; and Lions await. Get back to me at the end of the season. Right now, enjoy.

Like I Said

The Bulls dominated the first half against the Cavaliers last night, and the Cavaliers dominated the second half. Guess who won? The team with the star, as in guard Donovan Mitchell, who scored thirteen of his 29 points in the—wait for it—fourth quarter. Cavs 128 Bulls 122. Matas Buzelis (four points) and Nikola Vucevic (nine points) both had off nights, which can’t happen when you go up against a player like Mitchell. Maybe things will get better when Coby White is cleared to play, but it won’t happen tomorrow. That’s when Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs come to town.

What I Feared

On Tuesday, the Bulls were able to handle Joel Embiid, still recovering from knee surgery. But a healthy Giannis Antetokounmpo? Not when it counted. Last night in Milwaukee, the Bulls made a game of it for three quarters and were only down at the start of the fourth. Enter Antetokounmpo, who scored nineteen of his 41 points in the final frame. If Billy Donovan had a answer to the Bucks’ biggest weapon for 36 minutes, he lost it in the final twelve. Milwaukee 126 Chicago 110. The Bucks may not be a great team, but they have a great player, and in the NBA, great players can elevate the people around them (see Jordan, Michael). The Bulls are a team comprised of good and a few very good players. They’re deep, but they can’t dominate in crunch time the way Antetokounmpo did last night. That, I fear, will be an ongoing problem. Let’s see how Donovan and company respond.

Discussion

How many fathers get a call from their adult daughters to discuss the new White Sox pitching coach? I did, and we talked for a good ten minutes. Neither of us was very excited. Throw in the new hitting coach, and we were even less than that. New pitching coach Zach Bove played first base in college before serving as a hitting coach on the high school and college levels. Oh, let me count the ways this doesn’t impress—no apparent minor-league career even, not a catcher serving as a pitching coach but a former college infielder instructing major-league pitchers how to do their jobs. Somewhere, Johnny Sain spins in his grave. And maybe the late Bill Robinson with the hiring of Derek Shomon as the new Sox hitting coach. According to baseball-reference.com, Shomon had cups of coffee with two independent-league teams. I can just see Shomon telling Sox hitters in spring training, Do as I wish I’d done, guys, not what I did (career .115 BA in 26 at-bats). Bleh. Clare had a nice guy of a hitting coach from eighth grade on and off through college. He wasn’t big on gizmos (though I definitely see the benefit of taping at-bats in order to analyze a hitter’s approach to different types of pitches). Instead, he was big on “envisioning” what a hitter wanted to accomplish in a particular situation. It worked to the extent my daughter still holds a number of hitting records at Elmhurst University. I asked Clare something: “What if Jessica Mendoza had been your hitting coach?” I could practically hear her eyes growing wide at the thought.

Oh, Ye of Little Faith

Usually, I check the score of a Bulls’ game just before the half and again midway through the third quarter. There was nothing I saw last night to suggest the game would go Chicago’s way. A halftime nineteen-point deficit to Joel Embiid and the 76ers usually doesn’t end well, or it hasn’t in recent years. Oh, ye of little faith. Imagine my surprise to find out on the WGN sports’ segment that Nikola Vucevic sank a three-pointer with seventeen seconds left on the clock to give his team its first lead on the night as well as the win, 113-111. Huh? Part of the reason I quit watching was Josh Giddey looked totally out of sync; he kept passing the ball, instead of shooting. Or so it looked during my two peaks. For the game, though, Giddey matched a feat, with back-to-back triple-doubles, last done by a Bull when Michael Jordan managed it back in 1989. On the night, Giddey scored 29 points with fifteen rebounds and twelve assists, the last one setting up Vuvevic for his game winner. Not that I saw it live. The 76ers came in tied with the Bulls for the best record in the Eastern Conference. Sorry, guys, but Philly is now truly second-best. As for the Bulls, they’re 6-1, even though Coby White has yet to take the floor this season and Ayo Dosunmu missed a second straight game with a quad injury. Maybe January won’t be so grim after all.

One and Done

Well, no way were the Bulls going to run the season schedule. Still, it would’ve been nice to beat the Knicks in Manhattan Mecca Sunday night. But with Ayo Dosunmu out nursing a quad injury, Billy Donovan’s crew lost 128-116. Their record now stands at 5-1. This is where it starts to get real. The Bulls’ next three games are with the 76ers, Cavaliers and Bucks. The gauntlet doesn’t end there, not with Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs coming to town next Monday. If they come out of that stretch over .500, we can talk.

Just Beneath the Surface

Caleb Williams hit rookie tight end Colston Loveland for a 58-yard touchdown pass with seventeen seconds left in the game to give the visiting Bears a 47-42 win over the Bengals. In securing their fifth win, the Munsters have many as they managed all of last year, with twelve games to go. Still, I wouldn’t get too excited, not with a pass defense that got riddled by 40-year old QB Joe Flacco, who threw for 470 yards and four touchdowns. Or by a brain trust that thinks Cario Santos can handle kickoffs. Like Charlie Jones running the opening kick back for a touchdown was just luck? If only for a game, decisions by GM Ryan Poles seem to have paid off. Seventh-round draft pick Kyle Monangai rushed for 176 while first rounder Loveland caught six passes—two for touchdowns—for 118 yards. Rumbling down the middle of the field to the end zone with two Bengals bouncing off of him, Loveland looked like the second coming of Mike Ditka. So did head coach Ben Johnson, who used more trick plays in a game than all the coaches between him and Ditka did in their entirety. The best one featured a double reverse with receiver DJ Moore throwing a two-yard touchdown to Williams. Somewhere in St. Adalbert Cemetery, George Halas spun in his grave. Ditka got to be Ditka because he was Halas’ boy, and that only lasted for so long until Michael McCaskey gave him the heave-ho. I can’t help but think Johnson being so outside-the-box rubs has George McCaskey worried. The double reverse is not Chicago Bears’ football; three yards and a cloud of dust is. I’m predicting friction between coach and ownership before long. Until then, enjoy.

World Champions

The Dodgers proved to be the better team by winning games six and seven of the World Series, tying game seven in the ninth with a homerun from number-nine hitter Miguel Rojas and winning it on an eleventh-inning homer by catcher Will Smith. Dodgers 5 Blue Jays 4. The Dodgers survived the vanity project that is Shohei Ohtani the pitcher, who, given the ball to start game seven, left his team in a 3-0 hole after 2.1 innings. But five LA relievers combined for 8.2 innings of one-run ball to set up the Rojas-Smith heroics. A real tip of the cap to Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who pitched 2.2 scoreless innings for his third win of the Series. Not only that, Yamamoto pitched one night after throwing six innings in game six. The Dodgers were also lucky. Ermie Clement hit a ball with two outs and the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth that caused a collision between left fielder Kiké Hernandez and center fielder Andy Pages, who somehow held onto the ball. A foot to the left, and Pages may not have made the play. And if Daulton Varsho had hit a ball like that to the outfield one batter before, the Jays win on a sacrifice fly or hit. Instead, Varsho grounded to second baseman Rojas, who was playing in with the bases loaded and one out. The ball staggered Rojas, who needed a moment to steady himself before throwing to the plate to force Isiah Kiner-Falefa at the plate. To me, it looked like Kiner-Falefa beat the throw, piano on his back and all. That’s the thing. Kiner-Falefa was put into run for Bo Bichette after Bichette had singled with one out. The umps weren’t going to make a call that made up for d Kiner-Falefa failing to get a good lead off of third, and they shouldn’t have. But there was more than luck going on. I’ve never been a particular fan of Dodgers’ manager Dave Roberts. I mean, give me that lineup, and let’s see how I do as skipper. But Roberts definitely brought his A-game last night, e.g., his defensive substitution of Pages, and he definitely took a big risk pitching Yamamoto back-to-back nights. And it worked. In contrast, Toronto’s John Schneider sure looked like an Ontario deer caught in the headlights. It's the World Series, where weird stuff happens (see Rojas and Yamamoto, above). Twice, in the ninth and the eleventh, the Jays had the bases loaded and came away empty. My sixty years of playing Strat-O-Matic Baseball told me the need to roll the dice (pardon the pun or enjoy it) here. And, what would I have done? Suicide squeeze, pure and simple. A bunt in that situation puts all sorts of pressure on the defense. Pitchers typically aren’t great fielders, so, there would’ve been a good chance Yamamoto either would not have fielded the ball cleanly or he would’ve made a bad throw to home. If I kind-of thought Schneider should’ve bunted with Varsho (who went 0-for-5 on the night), I was practically screaming at the TV screen with Alejandro Kirk up in the eleventh. A 5’8” catcher weighing 245 pounds, Kirk could be the poster boy of likely double-play candidates. And what did Kirk do? After fouling off two pitches, he hit into a tailor-made, 6-3 double play. I don’t know for a fact that Kirk has ever bunted in his life; doesn’t matter. It’s the World Series, and you go big or you go home. The only player left on the Toronto bench was backup catcher Tyler Heineman, a switch-hitter, by the way. That would’ve given Heineman an advantage against the righthanded Yamamoto (and put him a step closer out of the box). Nothing ventured, nothing gained. So, the Dodgers in seven. Adieu, Baseball 2025.

Back and Forth, Again

Oh, those Blue Jays, capable of squandering the advantage of a home field filled with over 44,000 screaming fans. The ninth inning looked ever so promising. Runners on second and third, nobody out, two runs down. Then Ernie Clement swings at a pitch high and inside to pop out to first baseman Freddie Freeman. It was the kind of pitch I used to ask Clare, each word dripping with sarcasm, “And where exactly would that pitch go if you’d hit it fair?” Then Andres Gimenez lines out into a double play, from left field to second base. What Toronto baserunner Addison Barger was looking at beats me, and it beat his team. Dodgers 3 Jays 1, seventh game tonight. Whoopee. November baseball. At least flipping over to the Bulls proved more fun. Billy Donovan’s crew beat the visitors from New York—where they perfected the game of roundball, you know—by a score of 135 to 125. Josh Giddey outscored Jalen Brunson 32 to 29, and that’s all you need to know. Plus the fact this is a home-and-away series with the Bulls visiting “The Gah-den” Sunday night. My bad. Did I mention this is the best start by a Bulls’ team since the Michael Jordan era, 1996-97, to be exact?