Saturday, September 28, 2013

EXTRA: Sorry Cubs fans, Sox won’t lose 100 games! Only 183 days til ‘14

Will Paulie be back?
There’s only one bit of significance to the Chicago White Sox’ 6-5 victory Saturday night against the Kansas City Royals – they won’t lose 100 games.

There’s only one more ballgame to be played in 2013 – Sunday afternoon at U.S. Cellular Field. The White Sox needed to lose both Saturday AND Sunday to achieve the “century” mark in defeats!

NOT THAT LOSING 98 or 99 games is all that much better. It’s still a pathetic season – and the total Chicago baseball loss tally for 2013 is now 193. The Cubs got beat 6-2 Saturday by the St. Louis Cardinals.

A season's end is noteworthy
And as we approach the final day of the 2013 regular season, I can’t help but wonder how the 1959 observations of St. Louis Cardinals-turned-Cincinnati Reds pitcher Jim Brosnan apply.

Brosnan is the pitcher-turned-author who wrote a diary of that season, and in his own words wrote that, “On the last day of the season baseball is a game that professionals really do play; it no longer seems like work to them. It is virtually impossible for a ballplayer to convince himself that he will never play the game again. On the last day of the season baseball, truly, is in his blood.”

Will Sunday be the day that 38-year-old Paul Konerko (a 15-year White Sox player) thinks in his mind that he can go on forever? And will he still feel the same way a month from now – which is when he says he’ll make up his mind as to whether or not he should keep playing baseball professionally for a living?

Will they really repeat?
AND WHILE SOME of us will move on to Chicago Blackhawks hockey or to following the every hiccup emanating from the Chicago Bears, some of us will snatch little tidbits of beisbol played in the winter leagues of Latin America while counting down the days until the “Next year” that we always wait for.

Come Monday, it will be only 183 more days ‘til Opening Day, at U.S. Cellular Field, versus the Minnesota Twins! With the Cubs starting their home games two days later, against the Ryne Sandberg-led Philadelphia Phillies.

  -30-

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