Cinco de Padre

White Sox pitcher Miguel Gonzalez was minding his own business, sitting in the dugout a few hours before Saturday’s game.  When a mariachi band began practicing for a planned Cinco de Mayo celebration, manager Rick Renteria pushed Gonzalez—born in Guadalajara, Mexico—out of the dugout and told him to sing.  Gonzalez was caught on film doing a nice job fronting the band.  And that’s what got me thinking about my father and his polka music.  Given that both genres used the accordion, mariachi and polka are two sides of the same folk-music coin.

On weekends, my father would hole himself up in the basement, working on one project or another; I swear he was working on digging a hole straight to China when he wasn’t rebuilding an old washing machine or something else he found in the alley.  Armed with sledgehammer and/or screwdriver, my dad worked hours on end.  Sometimes, he whistled, other times he talked to himself (“Not too smart there, Eddie”).  Most of the time, he turned the radio to station WOPA and jacked up the volume.  When the mood hit, he’d sing along to the Polish version of Howlin’ Wolf or the people Miguel Gonzalez fronted.

It was Sunday afternoons like that that Ed Bukowski was in his element, working and fixing, singing.  When the neighborhood changed, he saw no reason to move from a house he’d called home and had helped pay for since he was thirteen years old.  I don’t know if he sang to the new neighbors’ music, but I bet he recognized it as a polka by any other name.

Now He Tells Me

On Friday, a Tribune sportswriter called out ex-Cub Sammy Sosa.  Too bad it’s sixteen years late.

Teddy Greenstein, who covered the Cubs for two years starting in 2000, offered a whole list of reasons to dislike Sosa, including being a “lousy teammate” who “would never take the blame for misplaying a fly ball or missing the cutoff man”; a cheater with a corked bat; and “the most egotistical athlete or coach” Greenstein has ever covered.  What, pray tell, set off Greenstein?

Well, Sosa did an interview recently on cable where he put his ugly—and clueless—self on full display.  When he wasn’t busy whining, Sosa came off as some sort of unappreciated martyr.  Here’s the thing, though.  This was all apparent to anyone who wasn’t a zombie Cubs’ fan (as much as it pains me, I will admit to the existence of thinking Cubs’ fans) or a member of the Chicago sports’ media.  When I first saw the “new” Sosa, in the spring of 1998 if I’m not mistaken, he looked like he’d put on thirty pounds or more.  I kept waiting for someone to call him out.  Silly me.

That wasn’t fat on Sosa’s frame, but new-found muscle.  Not once in that period 1998-2003, when Sosa totaled 332 homeruns, did I once read or hear doubts over how Sosa had gotten so strong.  Even now, Greenstein can’t bring himself to charge Sosa with using PEDs.  Instead, he merely offers that Sosa “nearly—but not magically—doubled his homerun rate from 1997 to 1998, quite the accomplishment for” an athlete in mid-career.

Greenstein is right, it wasn’t magic; science is more like it.  But maybe Sosa used magic to cast a spell over the Chicago media.  Or maybe the Chicago media just turned a blind eye to what was obvious from the South Side of town.          

Can We Talk?

After a loss to Atlanta Wednesday, ex-White Sox third baseman Todd Frazier, now of the Mets, has had it with plate umpires and their ever-changing strike zones.  “I’d like to sit down with [Commissioner Rob] Manfred or anybody at MLB and talk to them about it,” Frazier told reporters after the game, “because it’s rubbing everybody the wrong way.  You [and you know who you are, men in blue] have to do better than that.”

Frazier went on to say he’s already had a sit-down with an ump he claims miscalled five pitches on him during a recent game.  “I respect him for doing that.  But at the same time, when you look back and see this kind of stuff where they’re blatantly not strikes, I just can’t sit back and let it go anymore.  Something has to be said.”  Maybe he could say it to Joe West.  Now, I’d like to be a fly on the wall for that conversation.

With that fondness for outside breaking balls in the dirt, Frazier is the wrong guy making the right point.  Major-league strike zones change game to game, and it’s not enough to say pitchers and hitters simply have to adjust.  Ballplayers learn their trade with a uniform knees-to-armpits strike zone as their template.  Umpires can’t all of a sudden say, “Throw it here”; “Don’t throw it here”; “This is a strike today”; “This isn’t a strike today.”  Madness that way lurks.

Just ask Todd Frazier.

Seems Like Old Times

When the White Sox traded for Matt Davidson in 2014, I was ecstatic without knowing a thing about Davidson.  It was enough for me that he wasn’t Addison Reed, the closer we sent to Arizona in exchange for the third-base prospect.  And now that I’ve watched Davidson these past two seasons work at being a major-league hitter, always humble and always trying to explain what exactly he’s up to at the plate, so much the better.  Addison who?

In two seasons as the Sox closer, Reed showed that ability relievers are supposed to have and forget about that bad night the game before, only there were too many nights like that with the young righty.  Do they keep stats for yielding the most walk-off hits in a season or career?  I’d be surprised if Reed wasn’t up there.  Other teams must’ve thought so, given how he’s now more of a setup man than a closer.  That way, the game still goes on in the eighth if Reed should cough up a lead.

Reed came in to pitch last night for the Twins, who in the offseason signed him to a two-year, $16.75 million deal.  Too bad for Minnesota it was a tied game against the Sox and they’d already gone through two relievers.  Reed it was, and he did strike out Matt Davidson.  Then, one batter later, it was bad Addison all over again, behind in the count and coming in with the wrong pitch, which Trayce Thompson proceeded to park in the left-field seats for a White Sox winner.  With that hit, Thompson is now hitting .140 on the season.

The Twins went into the season picked by many to compete for the second wild card spot, only to find themselves a disappointing 10-17; a walk-off loss hardly helps.  Not to pick on Addison Reed, but, my God, he’s doing the same thing today he did in 2011 and ’12.  It’s true—some people just don’t learn.

Still Swingin'

I would never admit to my daughter that I might be the tiniest bit proud of her.  At 26, she’s managed to find a good job at the Kellogg School of Management, and this off of what was supposed to be temp work.  She’s planned her June wedding down to a t (and replanned it several times since).  Yesterday, after splitting her work day between Evanston and the Gold Coast (Kellogg is a part of Northwestern University, and work takes her to both campuses), Clare swung over to the West Loop, picked up Michele and then drove to Berwyn to go hitting.

What’s it been, eight weeks or ten?  To insure against embarrassment, I got an extra token, thirteen instead of the usual twelve.  “Bunt the first five pitches, ‘butcher boy’ the next,” I instructed.  Keeping her swing short to start things off seemed the best way to shake off rust in the form of swings and misses.  I ought to get a job in this line of work, I was so right.  Thirteen tokens, 130 pitches seen, not one swing and a miss.  The girl’s still got it.

The best part of taking Clare hitting—after watching her, that is—comes from seeing how people react to a young woman taking her swings at the highest speeds.  The two boys from St. Laurence, my alma mater, didn’t say anything; after all, teenaged males have fragile egos that might be bruised from admitting a girl can hit.  The two fathers were fun, though.

The first was probably in his mid-thirties, his five-year old girl in tow.  “Where does she play?” he wanted to know.  The answer allowed me to give career highlights.  “See?” the dad asked his girl.  See how hard she hits and how far the ball goes?

The second father was older, and his boy wasn’t nearly as interested in what Clare had to show.  The man went up to Clare as she exited the batting cage and asked her to tell his son it’s OK that your hands hurt sometime from hitting.  We’ve been at the cages in the dead of winter, played games in the cold damp of March.  Oh, yeah, hands and wrists will hurt from making contact with a ball.  Alas, the boy didn’t want to hear any such message.

Clare stayed over for dinner.  How’d hitting go?” Michele asked on her return.  “Terrible,” I said in the way of all fathers slow to compliment their children.  But the truth came out soon enough.  It had to.

Take a Hike

There’s a commercial from a health-insurance company that really bugs me.  It features a couple, obviously on the far side of 65, doing some sort of training regimen heavy on stairs and love.  Up and down, hug.  Up and down, smile.  Then, it’s off to the stadium so they can climb all the way up to what must be their season’s tickets in the upper deck.  Apparently, love and good legs will get you far in life.  If and when they come up short, you can fall back on that insurance policy.

My thing is that nobody should have to hike through the Alps to get to their seats.  I distinctly remember taking my parents to a White Sox game in 1990, which was the last season for Comiskey Park; that summer, Ed and Mary Ann both turned 77.  I parked the car in the lot across the street; we walked over and into the park; climbed something like five—not seven or eight—stairs to get to an aisle in the lower deck; followed the aisle and then walked down maybe fifteen steps to our seats.  Try that in Guaranteed Rate Whatever.

If I were to try the same thing today, we’d have to take escalators to the main concourse and then walk down forever to reach our seats; there are no circulating aisles as in Comiskey.  I couldn’t tell you what it’s like in the upper deck because I refuse to step foot in it.  But I do know this.

When they were building the monstrosity, Tom Paciorek—Hawk Harrelson’s longtime sidekick—did construction updates.  One time, fearless Tom ventured into the stratosphere and joked about how high up he was, only the joke turned out to be on the White Sox.  Fans hate(d) the upper deck to the extent that in 2004 the top eight rows (some 6600 seats) were torn out and a pretend roof added to make the thing at least look a little like a real ballpark.     

In the make-believe world of affordable health insurance, that’s some gift to an elderly couple—eight less rows to climb.  But Guaranteed Rate still sucks.

Fake News?

Fake News?

Here’s a collection of headlines from the Tribune’s sports section heralding some of the Bears’ draft choices: The Top Dawg/Pace upholds Bears’ tradition, picks dynamic LB/ Smith may be perfect fit; Lighting A Fire—Explosive Memphis WR gives Trubisky new target to supercharge offense; Smith on Smith: ‘Relentless …leader’/Bears’ 1^st –round pick brings heart, maturity to defense of future.  Future?  The Bears have generated headlines like this at draft time for as long as I can remember.  Mike Hull or Rufus Mayes, anyone?

I sit here pretty much dumbfounded that people believe the hype teams and media-enablers put out there.  Here’s your conspiracy to bring down America, folks, and it has precious little to do with National Anthem protests.  No, the NFL along with its broadcast partners and dead-tree journalism hangers-on want you to suspend your sense of disbelief to become willing football zombies at the beck and call of the powers that be.

Baseball’s saving grace is I haven’t come across a single word mentioning the upcoming draft, and you would think it’s a pretty big thing for those rebuilding White Sox.  Oh, it is, and draft analysis will be forthcoming, all in the fullness of time, say, those two or three weeks before the draft in mid-June. 

My heart goes out to those zombies shuffling aimlessly one day to the next, until camp opens come July.  But, take heart, zombies, if you can.  In less than ninety days, your lives will have meaning again, provided you believe the headlines you’ve been fed.