Get-together

We visited my in-laws last night.  The entourage included Clare and her husband, which meant that at some point my father-in-law Bob and son-in-law Chris talked football.  Bob played in high school but not college; instead, the Army had him spend a year on the front line in Korea, lugging a BAR across hilly terrain.  Bob was a lineman and very much wanted to score a touchdown just once in his life.  Chris, a center, could relate.

Father-in-law asked son-in-law if he missed playing; the answer was a simple, heartfelt Yes.  My daughter would say the same thing.  The next best thing, she thinks, is working in an athletic department, better yet if she can run said department.  Time will tell.

Of course, Clare wouldn’t mind working in an MLB front office, either.  It’s just that she can’t shake what she heard recently from those two women who’ve worked for teams.  And now comes news of Dr. Lorena Martin being fired by the Mariners just a year after hiring her and Martin’s allegations that team officials made racist comments about Latin players.  Martin was hired after the 2017 season as “director of high performance,” meaning that she was supposed to make Mariners’ players strong of body and mind.  Fired very quietly last month, Martin has retained a lawyer and is considering legal action for wrongful termination.

Sometimes it looks like the offensive linemen I happen to know will score touchdowns before women make any headway in major league baseball.  But that’s just my imagination, right? 

ROY

So, baseball writers picked the Angels’ Shohei Ohtani (.285 BA, 22 homeruns and 61 RBIs in 326 AB) AL Rookie of the Year, this despite the fact he played for a team that finished 80-82 and two other players—the Yankees’ Miguel Andujar (.297 BA, 27 homers and 92 RBIs in 573 AB) and Gleyber Torres (.271 BA, 24 homers and 77 RBIs in 431 AB)—had what I would consider better offensive years, and for a team that went to the postseason.  So much for  Daniel Palka of the White Sox being a dark horse.

What seems to have clinched it for Ohtani was his pitching, which netted a 4-2 record with a 3.31 ERA and 63 strikeouts in ten starts that totaled 51.2 innings.  Granted, Ohtani was a nice story last year—when he played—but the second coming of Babe Ruth?  I would tend to doubt it.  In fact, I’d go so far as to say Ohtani hasn’t yet stepped out of the shadow cast by Willie Smith.

From 1960-63, Smith won 48 games in the minors for the Tigers.  In early 1964, he was traded to the Angels, where he went 1-4 with a 2.84 ERA in 31.2 innings.  The thing is, Smith hit better than he pitched.  He hit .301 his rookie year for the Angels, with 11 homeruns and 51 RBIs in 359 AB.  Those are numbers that should put Smith in the same ballpark, if you will, with Ohtani.

The next year Smith switched to hitting fulltime in a career that spanned nine seasons, including three with the Cubs.  In case you’re wondering, Tony Oliva won AL Rookie of the Year in ’64.  Oliva was more of an Andujar-Torres kind of player, batting a league-leading .323 with 32 homers and 94 RBIs.  Voters have different standards nowadays, I guess.

Put Up or Shut Up

When exactly did the NFL invent patriotism?  Judging from yesterday’s Bears-Lions’ game, I’d say 1776 or thereabouts.

Flags, jets, Terry Bradshaw and pals surrounded by active-duty personnel—football does love the military, up to a point.  I noticed at least one advertiser who mentioned their veterans-employment policy, but nothing from the NFL in that regard.

Yes, Pat Tillman walked away from an NFL career, never to return.  What about all those veterans who do?  How committed is Commissioner Roger Goodell to hiring them?  What are the job numbers, for the commissioner’s office and the individual teams?  Nobody expects coaching staffs to be filled with former Marines and Rangers, but what about the business departments, the video staffs?

Like the saying goes, don’t tell me, show me.  Numbers don’t lie.

Keep Your Shirt On

This being a Sunday in November with the temperature not expected to crack 40 degrees, you can bet on the clowns coming out in force for the Bears’ game at Soldier Field.  They’ll fall into one of two categories, bare-chested with Bears-colors’ makeup or fully clothed with Bears-colors’ makeup, bears’ head for a cap optional.

What is it about football that makes people want to do this?  Maybe there’s a subconscious need to identify with a (usually stupid) mascot, of which baseball has many, from the White Sox’s Southpaw to the Phillies’ Phanatic.  And let’s not forget the Cubs’ rather sad entry in this category, Clark.  The thing is, outside of those Brewers’ fans who feel the need to put on their Cheeseheads, major-league ballparks are pretty much free of the half-dressed, over-make-upped fans.

Yes, the Indians have that guy who bangs on a kettle drum, but he’s dressed in street clothes, and the Sox from time to time have a guy who shows up as Sox Man, with white socks for ears, but that’s more harmless than anything.  So, I guess it’s a good thing I don’t go to Bears’ games.  I have a very low tolerance for adults playing dress up on a Sunday afternoon.

In Your Dreams

I swear to God this happened.  Thursday night I dreamed the White Sox hired a female scout; what stood out to me is that it wasn’t Clare.  Then, yesterday morning, I read in The Athletic that the Sox have as many as 51 scouts in their employ.  And not one of them is a woman, I’ll bet.

Wait, it gets better.  My daughter has recently become acquainted with two women who’ve worked for MLB teams; according to Clare, both people found it to be a frustrating experience.  It seems that they were relegated to the bread/circus/charity end of the business while they were hoping to be more involved with the baseball playing and talent side.  Oh, well.

When Clare heard about the dream, she asked if she could be the one hired next time.  That’s about the only way women are going to get ahead in baseball.

State of Confusion

My daughter was pretty much in a mood fit to be tied when she called on Wednesday.  “What are the White Sox doing?” Clare asked, as if anyone outside of owner Jerry Reinsdorf’s inner circle could possibly know for sure.

“A month ago, there were rumors that Joe Girardi wanted a managing job in Chicago, so some White Sox fans got all excited, but now they sign Ricky Renteria to an extension.  All we hear about with Renteria is how ‘Ricky’s boys don’t quit,’ only there are stories how the Sox are going after both Bryce Harper and Manny Machado.  It doesn’t make sense,” said my eminently sensible child.

It’s a good thing Clare doesn’t go in for dead-tree journalism the way her old man does; then she’d really be ticked.  Sox general manager Rick Hahn said at the general managers’ meeting this week that Renteria signed the extension “a while back” and that, “We don’t tend to advertise these things.”  Yeah, no kidding.  So what if your fan base is left confused.

On the other side of town, Cubs’ President Theo Epstein sounded as if he and Hahn hale from different planets.  “I believe in being honest and giving you guys information when we can,” he told a Tribune reporter.  Now, why would he do that, you might ask?  Well, Epstein has this crazy notion that journalists “have the right to cover any aspect of the organization any way you want.”  That’s not so much a breath of fresh air as it is a level-five tornado of a difference compared to how the Sox front office handles the media.  Lucky us.

A Different World

Sports are different in Chicago than other places.  Joel Quenneville fired is more popular than whoever coaches the Rangers.  If Matt Nagy guides the Bears to the postseason in his rookie season, he will have more clout than any three Jets’ and Giants’ coaches combined.  If you have to ask what clout is, then you’re not from around these parts.

I get a sense other cities are one- or two-team towns—Cardinals; Yankees and Knicks; Steelers and Penguins; It’s as if fans have only so much room in their hearts for a team or two.  But here it’s as if each franchise helps define a part of the civic fabric.  Our blue-collar identity is reflected in the Bears, Blackhawks and White Sox, our white-curtain sensibilities and insecurities (again, if you have to ask…) in the Cubs.  The Bulls remain however Michael Jordan defined them, and Jordan was a demigod on a par with Ted Williams.

If you have South Side roots like I do, you live and die with the Sox and feel a vague yearning for the Arizona ne St. Louis ne Chicago Cardinals, who once upon a time played at Comiskey Park.  Baseball here does not produce “Chicago fans” but partisans of the North and South Side versions of the game.  The other sports lend themselves more to a citywide following.

Maybe we take sports so seriously because of our “Second City” complex.  Everything, it seems, comes so easily to New York; the only things that come with ease here are the cold and the gray (if you have to wonder…).  Sports, then, are our fire, a way to generate heat and light in an otherwise dark and hostile world.  We don’t expect success so much as we do full-out effort.  When the one leads to the other, we give thanks and elevate all those responsible to hero status: Ditka, Guillen, Maddon, Quenneville and maybe Phil Jackson, if only he bothered to visit.

Maybe I should say we’re a Jack London kind of town, where the striving counts more than the having.  That said, I’m all in favor of having the proverbial cake and eating it, too.