Tuning Out the Static

We lost power just before 4 o’clock yesterday afternoon; it didn’t come back on for close to ten hours. Did I mention it was a little hot and stuffy in the house? Instead of sweating in the dark, I decided to spend much of the evening on the back porch, windows open radio in lap, trying to get the White Sox game, only it was all static until the bottom of the sixth inning, lightning bugs flashing, Sox ahead of the Braves, 2-0. Len Kasper’s voice faded in and out, loud if I pointed the antenna one way, then a whisper if I repositioned the radio for a second. It was dark by the time Bryan Hudson locked down the save in a 2-1 Sox win. Oh, to beat Chris Sale. I like how winning starter Davis Martin put it. He looked out at the scoreboard, where his and Chris Sale’s career strikeouts marks were posted, “mine at 250 punchouts and he had 3,000 or 2,000 or something like that. Some crazy big number. And I was just like, ‘Man, this is fun.’ This is who you want to play against and this is why you want to be in the big leagues.” [Tribune online story today] Yes, indeed. I’m guessing Braden Montgomery feels pretty much the same. The 23-year old rookie followed his walk-off homerun debut the night before with a 2-for-4 performance, both hits doubles, the first one coming against Sale and leading to a run in the fourth inning. The Sox picked Hagen Smith over Montgomery in the first round of the 2024 draft; now, they have both. Like I said, pinch me. I must be dreaming.