Deep in Enemy Territory

Deep in Enemy Territory

I spent much of Saturday driving to and from Wrigley Field, twice no less, but at least it was for a good cause, that being my daughter’s bachelorette party.  Clare decided to hold it in the bleachers during game two of this year’s so-called Crosstown Classic.  Long story short—bad weather  good company.

No, I wasn’t invited, and I didn’t have a ticket to yet another drubbing of the “rebuilding” White Sox.  My job was to deliver my wife to the Friendly Confines to join in the festivities; Clare thought it would be fun to have both her mother and future mother-in-law join the celebrants.  Who could know there’d be a nearly two-hour rain delay?  At least no one with the last name of “Bukowski” made a drunken fool of herself waiting for the game to start.

Professional baseball started off as so many green fields shoehorned into urban neighborhoods, where people walked or took public transit to the game.  Wrigley is that field with a vengeance, so much green surrounded by so much brick and glass (meant to generate a different green altogether).  There isn’t a hint of an adjacent parking lot, just barkers every block or so along Addison Street with signs that say “Parking” for $30 or $40 or more.

You drive to Wrigley Field, you either park miles away and take a shuttle or you give in to those bandits with their signs.  The smart thing to do is take the “L” or, as Michele did, have someone drive you; that’s the straw I drew.  I dropped off my charge at the corner of Clark and Addison, where she could join with others of the few, the proud, the so-far-from-the-South-Side Sox fans.

The comparison between Wrigley and Guaranteed Rate Whatever is painful, a true national landmark vs. an urban mall.  To be fair, Comiskey Park never sat cheek-by-jowl with its neighbors; photos from the 1930s show cars filling up lots on two sides of the park.  For some reason, the surrounding Bridgeport and Armour Square neighborhoods never developed up to the entrances of Comiskey Park.  But it didn’t really matter.

That beautiful, symmetrical brick edifice dominated its site like a temple or church.  Had Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf possessed an ounce of vision, he would have developed the surrounding real estate for a renovated Comiskey Park the way the Cubs have done under the Ricketts’ family.  But No, Reindorf tore down a landmark for a big box and wonders why his team can never draw like they do on the North Side.  Oh, well.

My daughter and her friends all had a good time.  There are some people in this world who can pull off going to a ballgame while wearing a sash that announces her impending nuptials; Clare happens to be one of them.  Despite the score (8-4, bad guys), she was happy, which is all a father can ask for. 

Crumbs

Heading into the Crosstown Classic this weekend at Wrigley Field, White Sox general manager Rick Hahn announced he was staying the course, damn’ the torpedoes and full losing ahead.  As bad as his team might be, Hahn as no intention of rushing the talent he’s squirreled away in the minors.

“As satisfying as it might be to reward the fans who have endured this rough start by dropping a top prospect in there as a bit of a cookie to show progress in this process and to make the games perhaps a little more palatable, that will not be the motivation,” Hahn told the Tribune Friday in that convoluted syntax of his.  “It will be based upon the player having completed every element of his development at the minor-league level.”

So, Hahn is either a prolix jerk or a clueless prolix jerk.  Judging by the stats, I’d say there’s a lot of talent at high-A and Double A for the Sox.  If Hahn doesn’t want to bring it to the parent club, he should at a minimum start reshuffling the rosters at Double-A Birmingham and Triple-A Charlotte.  Wait, maybe that’s what he was saying, only it got lost in all the verbiage.

Playing the Fool

Stop the presses!  Rafael Palmeiro, the non-cheat nonpareil, is coming out of retirement.  For some reason, the 53-year old Palmeiro wants to play at a level not even Julio Franco, who retired at age 49, dared.

Palmeiro told reporters, “I’m doing it because I love the game, first of all.  And because I want to get back to proving to myself that I can do this and maybe for some of those people that [sic] think that I cheated, they might think again and say, ‘Well, wait a minute.  He’s 53, he’s playing at this level, he’s playhng in the big leagues [actually, the Cleburne Railroaders of the independent American Association], he’s producing.’  Maybe some of those [people] will say, ‘OK, he did it legitimately.”

Or they could say that Palmeiro lied in his testimony to a Congressional committee that, “I have never used steroids, period” and now he’s lying to himself.

Mugshots

If only to irritate myself, I leafed through the White Sox magazine/program I had to buy Wednesday in order to keep score.  Ricky’s Boys Don’t Quit, but they sure do lose a lot.  I forget, what’s the difference in the end?

Mixed in with the puff pieces and ads are a series of headshots, 202 in all, of front office personnel; of that number, 73 are of female employees.  On such a slender thread does MLB claim to be making progress on the diversity front. 

Owner Jerry Reinsdorf and Commissioner Rob Manfred would no doubt say the glass is more than a third full, and indeed it is, if you include titles like “coordinator of ticket office services”; “senior coordinator , social content and engagement”; and “director of community and charitable programs.”  But all the senior vice presidents are male, and all the ex-players mentioned, from Ken Williams and Dave Duncan to Frank Thomas and Jim Thome, are guys, too.  Precious few women play baseball into adulthood, but I hear many of them have long careers in something called fast-pitch softball.

Apparently, a 12-inch softball and anyone who’s played with one could ruin a baseball player if they get too close.

Good Company, Nice Weather, Bad Results

 Until yesterday, Clare and I had never been to a Sox game, just the two of us.  Baseball and softball have always been a full family affair for us. 

But yesterday, Clare, well into her 26^th year and a little over a month from her wedding, left work to meet me at Guaranteed Rate Whatever for an afternoon game against the Pirates.  It was great for all the wrong reasons—no waiting to get in, no waiting at the concession stand, out of the parking lot in minutes.  Oh, and no major league baseball team otherwise known as the Chicago White Sox.

“Ricky’s boys,” as the advertising slogan calls this rag-tag collection of maybes and whatnots, did go through the motions for eight innings, building up a 5-2 lead behind homeruns by Tim Anderson and Daniel (he of the barrel chest) Palka.  Reynaldo Lopez looked sharp through 7-1/3 innings, rookie Jace Fry got his two outs, and then Nate Jones laid an egg in the form of four runs and a 6-5 loss.  What’s not to like about a 9-25 team?  Let me tell you.

I don’t like being told that reinforcements are on the way, at some point but don’t ask when.  Yeah, maybe things will be great in 2020, for those fans who don’t die between now and then.  Then again, maybe the survivors won’t be so happy with the state of things two years hence.  Nothing says the reinforcements have to be any good or that they’ll even get here.  Third baseman Jake Burger, last June’s first-round draft pick, ruptured his Achilles for the second time since spring training, this while walking in his backyard last week.  Don’t count on Burger in 2020. 

What you can count on is the mind-numbing “entertainment” between innings, with fans getting to name that tune and pick a favorite in the video-board race of the three Italian beef sandwiches.  Did I mention the pizza race or the match-the-Sox logos contest?  Well, consider it done.

So, I had to put up with that crap and try to keep score as best I could.  The problem here is that the Sox have decided to do away with scorecards; they must’ve been hanging around the plastic straws or some other bad character.  Instead, I got to pay twice as much for a program, which let me keep score as long as I didn’t go looking for names and numbers printed anywhere.  Trust me, said program didn’t fit on my clipboard and didn’t sit well on my lap.  I’ve seen prescriptions more legible than what I did.

All in all, the best part of the game was the company.  Clare and I shared observations borne of two-plus decades of watching games together.  My daughter has even picked up one of my old habits.  I used to go “Ooh!” when Clare swung hard at a pitch and missed.  Now she does it for the likes of Tim Anderson and Daniel Palka.  That means the, the acorn, no matter how comely, didn’t fall far from the tree.   

Pump It Up

Well, the weather yesterday was pretty much perfect, and I was pretty much rested, so a bike ride along Lake Michigan it was.  I’m happy to report that I’m still able to report.

Off the first ride, I couldn’t get a feel if the repacked bearings in both wheels had made a difference; now I know they did.  How else to explain the time it took me to do twenty miles?  Yes, the wind was at my back going north, but that meant it was in my face on the return.  So, that leaves the bearings.

I started out across from the Museum of Science and Industry, where, alas, the U-505 is no longer parked outside; still, the museum with its caryatids makes for a good reference point.  Then it was south for 2-1/2 miles down to 79th Street before turning back.  I passed by Rainbow Beach, where we all went as kids to escape the summer heat (and, in the case of my two sisters, to be seen by the opposite sex) and the old South Shore Country Club, where my sister Betty went to her high school prom.  All memories should be as pleasant.

I no longer get (too) upset by “cyclists” in their fancy outfits so tight it keeps them from talking, as in “Passing on your left”; I just keep an ear out for the approaching whirr and try not to get spooked when I miss it.  The big thing on the lakefront trail this year is separating bikes from pedestrians and joggers.  To do that, the city is making a new, bike-only trail, which sounds a lot nicer than it actually is.  Too often, the trail parallels Lake Shore Drive, with the traffic maybe six feet away.  They’re promising to install extra guardrails soon, which is very nice of them.  Something strong enough to hold off a drunk driver, I would hope.

I started off a little after ten in the morning and figured to get to the north end of the trail by noon.  Imagine my surprise to find out it was only 11:50, so I kept going another four miles or so into Evanston.  There’s a nice park right up against the lake and opposite Calvary Cemetery, final resting place of author James T. Farrell.

How a South Side White Sox fan ended up on the North Shore is beyond me.  Then again, that puts Farrell far away from the misery of his 9-24 Sox.

Time's Up

Time’s Up

Over the last five years, a number of NFL cheerleaders have accused teams of various misdeeds, from sub-minimum-wage pay to near-total control of on- and off-field behavior.  For example, players can be seen with whomever they want, but God help the cheerleader seen with an NFL player.

Right now, two former cheerleaders have offered to drop their EEOC complaints in exchange for a sit-down with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell; the women are hoping to set up a work agreement of some sort.  Good luck with that.  Nobody should get the short end of the stick at work, but cheerleading may be work that’s headed for the ash heap of history.

What exactly is the connection between scantily-clad young women cheering and sports?  None that I can think of, outside of having to do with the testosterone levels of male fans and players.  I know that, in high school and college, cheerleaders do incredible routines that risk injury, but, again, what’s the connection to the game being played?  Or, put another way, can the game be played without the presence of cheerleaders?  Give me one example where the answer is No.

We never entertained the notion of Clare cheering on the sidelines as boys played.  Yes, other parents feel differently.  But I’d argue the times, they are a’changin’.  Pom-poms and human pyramids may be going the way of “Ladies Day” at the ballpark.  I’d say that’s a good thing.