Beisbol a reminder this week’s weather isn’t permanent, but Sox/Cubs fan distaste for each other not fade away

On this wintry Wednesday when the arctic chill is taking a Midwestern vacation and giving us the potential of wind chills making it feel like it’s 50 degrees below zero, I’m taking my relief from thoughts of how it isn’t that far off before we have the return of springtime and baseball.

Upcoming reminders of baseball … 

Seriously.

I TOOK PLEASURE in the fact that officials were able to reschedule the Caribbean Series, with only a minimal delay. Real live championship-level baseball will be played beginning Monday.

… and the return of springtime

For those of you to whom the thought of championship ballclubs from Latin America is just a little too alien to contemplate, consider that both of our city’s professional ballclubs have held their winter fan conventions – and both managed to spew rhetoric instigating their fan bases into distaste for each other.

From Chicago Cubs infielder Kris Bryant calling St. Louis “boring” (as in the most boring city he visits during the season), to Chicago White Sox outfielder Nicky Delmonico responding to a question about the “most annoying fans” in baseball by saying, “Cubs fans.”

Nicky (left) already knows truth of Cub fandom

These are moments not quite as intense as that 2006 slugfest on the field between catchers A.J. Pierzynski and Mike Barrett. But in terms of getting the fans all worked up, they rank up there somewhere near all the cheap shots one-time White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen took at Wrigley Field (“rat infested museum” may be the nicest thing he ever said).

BRYANT: Thinks St. Louis is boring?

AND THE FACT that Bryant and Delmonico felt compelled to keep the rhetoric flowing is merely evidence that the hostile feelings the teams have toward each other are not only ongoing, but they’re on their way back.

By early April, the two ball clubs will be again playing games that count – with spring training set to begin in just a matter of a couple of weeks down in the deserts of Arizona.

I'd argue Cincinnati choice make it lamer

Literally, right after the Caribbean Series – which is the annual championship played by the top teams of the professional leagues in the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Venezuela, along with Cuba and Panama. Venezuela was supposed to be host, but officials wound up moving it.

TO PANAMA CITY, where games will be played at the Estadio Rod Carew. When combined with long-time New York Yankees pitcher Mariano Rivera (a Panama native) getting inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame this year, it would seem 2019 will be a memorable year for fanaticos de beisbol in Panama.

Yes, I’ll actually be making a point to try to watch the games. The sight of real, live baseball being played during winter is something I get a kick out of. These games beginning Monday and running through the week will be a sporting kick to help tide me over until the resumption of play.

Stadium will host baseball next week

Although for some people, it’s going to be the ongoing verbal sparring between the Chicago fans as they accept the fact that the Bears are through for the year, and both the Bulls and Blackhawks are too pitiful to waste much time on.

So is St. Louis really “boring,” as Bryant puts it? Or are the Cardinals fans (the ones who openly boast they're the 'best fans in baseball,') correct when they say Bryant and other ballplayers who engage in cheap shots are “losers.”

PERSONALLY, I’D THINK Cincinnati would be a more depressing place to have to visit – largely on account of the local fan base wishing to forevermore think Pete Rose is heroic in nature. And not just a guy with a gambling problem who can’t quite acknowledge that reality.

Panama's other reason to celebrate

As for Delmonico’s thoughts, I’m not surprised that Cubs fans would be bothered – largely because they go through life thinking that everybody the world over comprehends their absurd support for a team that for so many years was pathetic on the field.

Which isn’t different than them trying to diminish St. Louis as being “boring,” almost as though they think the world of baseball is all about themselves and no one else.

When it’s really so much bigger than the activity of Clark and Addison. Such as the games running from Monday through Feb. 10 that will produce a Latin American champion – with the first spring training exhibitions scheduled for just two weeks later!

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EXTRA: Beisbol over for season, but returns to all of us next week

Another baseball season has come to an end, with the Caguas Creoles (champions of the Roberto Clemente League in Puerto Rico) bringing some joy to the hurricane-devastated Caribbean island by beating the Dominican League champ Cibao Eagles (of Santiago, D.R.) 8-4 Thursday night in the championship game of this year’s Caribbean Series.

Not that it will be too long before the crack of the bat entertains those fans who yearn for the smell of a leather glove or have been fulfilling their baseball fix with viewings of Ken Burns’ nearly quarter-century-old “Baseball” documentary – spring training camps open next week. Both the Chicago White Sox and Chicago Cubs begin their preparations for the 2018 season Wednesday in Arizona.

SO I GET a weekend to get over the fact that the Culiacan Tomato Growers, the Pacific League of Mexico champs, got their behinds handed to them during the past week and weren’t even close to qualifying for the game determining the unofficial champions of Latin American beisbol.

Before shifting to a mindset of wondering whether the White Sox will continue with their talk of a ball club rebuild that could put dreams of a 2019 or 2020 World Series appearance in our dreams. (A Sox/Cubs World Series for '20, anyone?)

For those who can’t get through this weekend without some baseball-related talk, consider this video snippet of long-time Milwaukee Brewers broadcaster (and Miller Lite pitchman) Bob Uecker on the Tonight Show – telling us of the “wonders” of spring training.

And you’ll definitely have to admire his sports jacket – the notion that anyone could think of wearing such tacky garb on national television astounds the mind.

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Sandy Koufax double-header, of sorts, against Chicago – sted of Super Bowl

For those of you who (like me) can’t even pretend to care about New England vs. Atlanta, or the Super Bowl in general, I’m sharing a couple of bits off a web site I have discovered that puts out old baseball radio broadcasts on YouTube for listening.

A football “championship” that means nothing to our local sports scene (because all it does is reminds us that the Chicago Bears are nowhere near talented enough to be in contention) needs an alternative. Unless you’re really watching just so you can see a Budweiser commercial that some are trying to claim has deep sociological meaning and is a political statement on the issue of immigration.

INSTEAD, HOW ABOUT a White Sox/Los Angeles Dodgers matchup, as in from the year 1959. Specifically, Game 5, where the White Sox facing elimination managed to stay alive in what was one of the strangest games ever – a 1-0 White Sox winner in which the only run was scored on a double play.

For those of you who absolutely can’t handle the thought of watching the Sox, I also dredged up a broadcast of an old Cubs game – one from 1957 in which the North Siders were in the borough of Brooklyn to take on the Dodgers at Ebbets Field.

That was the Dodgers’ last season out east, before they made the cross-country jump that led to them playing the first World Series ever in Los Angeles (and drawing a 92,706 crowd for that Game 5 – which, by the way, is still a record attendance).

For what it’s worth, Sandy Koufax was the starting Dodgers pitcher in both ballgames – going up against Bob Shaw for the White Sox and Dick Drott for the Cubs.

OF COURSE, BACK then, Koufax wasn’t the superstar he became in the mid-1960s. That World Series game was the first such game the Dodgers ever trusted him with, and he wound up on the losing end – although his Dodgers team ultimately won the World Series two days later in a game played at Comiskey Park. In '57, he was just the "bonus baby" everybody thought belonged in the minor leagues rather than Brooklyn.

As for the Cubs, I’m not going to spoil the outcome of the game. You can listen for yourself.

Although anyone with any sense realizes that because it’s the Cubs, of course they’re going to lose. But you will get to hear a moment when future Hall of Famer Ernie Banks manages to get a home run off future Hall of Famer Koufax!

Which I suspect will be sufficient to satisfy the hard-core of Cubbie faithful who decide to tune in.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Personally, I’ll be checking out the Caribbean Series matchup Sunday night between the Granma Alazanes of the Cuban League and Mexicali Aguilas of Mexico’s Pacific League. The Caribbean Series is in its fifth day in Culiacan, Mexico, and will end

Tuesday with the championship game for bragging rights of Latin American baseball, which likely will be a better ballgame than anything the Patriots or Falcons do on the gridiron in Houston.

EXTRA: Only 95 more “shopping days” ‘til baseball’s Opening Day

I sit here in a Midwestern winter chill eagerly counting down the days until baseball’s season for 2017 resumes activity.

And not just because I want to see some live game action – I also want the recurrence of warm weather. One of the reasons that baseball is the best game, it’s played in the best weather conditions – even though I’m old enough to remember the snowfall of ’77 when the Chicago White Sox kicked off the season (and existence of the Blue Jays) in Toronto.

YES, I FIND this countdown to be much more pleasant than the one already existing on the Internet by which you can be informed of just how many more days remain until Election Day 2020 (1,403, to be exact).

The idea of a pitcher’s duel, or even a sloppy slugfest, comes across as much more interesting than anything having to do with feeding into Donald Trump’s ego any more than it already is over-bloated. Particularly if it is accompanied by a Polish sausage and a scorecard -- which I invariably will be the only person in my section of seating who can actually fill it out!

So it is 95 more days until the baseball season begins April 2 with the New York Yankees traveling to Tampa, Fla., to play the Rays, who get to kick off the season because this year is their 20^th season of existence.

Other teams begin play the next day, with the White Sox kicking off the season against the Detroit Tigers, while the Chicago Cubs venture off to St. Louis, where the Cardinals will begin their ’17 quest to prove to the world what all their fans seriously believe – that the Cubs’ World Series title of 2016 was the biggest of baseball flukes!

OF COURSE, SOME of us might find it hard to wait three more months for meaningful baseball.

In which case, keep in mind that we’re only 33 days away from the beginning of the Caribbean Series – the week-long tourney beginning Feb. 1 that will give us a baseball champion from Latin America.

Counting down the days 'til I can sit out here again and watch baseball

Or there’s the 69-day countdown to the beginning of the World Baseball Classic, which pits against each other the national teams of 16 countries with aspirations of wanting to claim to be the best in the world.

But then, if none of this is appealing to you (although I can’t help but wonder why), then there’s always the old standby countdown – only 359 more shopping days ‘til Christmas!

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‘Super’ ball game didn’t take place in California stadium named for Levi’s

I’m enough of a baseball fan that I follow the winter leagues in Latin America – and always manage to find the Caribbean Series to be an event worthy of a level of hype that we waste on that other allegedly major sporting event.

A highlight never achieved in U.S.

The one that many people felt compelled to watch on Sunday so they could see the so-called significant television commercials that air during the broadcast.

YES, I’LL CONFESS to not planning to watch the Super Bowl – because I’m all sported-out from having watched the Caribbean Series’ championship game. The one in which the Mazatlan Deer of Mexico’s Pacific League beat the Aragua Tigers of the Venezuelan League to allow them, and Mexico in general, to have bragging rights for this year as the champions of Latin American baseball.

I must admit to seeing Jorge Vazquez hit that 9^th inning game-winning home run off Renee Cortez to turn a 4-4 tie into a 5-4 Mexico victory was a jolt that now has me all-the-more worked up over the coming of spring training in just under a couple of weeks.

That’s quite a highlight for Vazquez, whose career in U.S. baseball was little more than a couple of seasons playing for New York Yankees minor league affiliates.

It is a shame, however, that Freddy Garcia didn’t wind up getting the victory for his Venezuela team – since he had already said he is now retired following two decades of playing baseball professionally.

INCLUDING THOSE YEARS with the Chicago White Sox when he was one of the top pitchers on teams worthy of respect and national attention.

A decade after World Series highlight, he's retired

For those curious, it was also humorous (as usual) to listen to former White Sox star shortstop and manager Ozzie Guillen do the color commentary on the Spanish-language broadcast – which is all that ESPN gave to the Caribbean Series this year.

Ozzie’s humor, and ego, manage to come across regardless of the language translation. Although I wonder how Venezuela fanaticos de beisbol will react to Guillen -- a Venezuela native -- saying that the best team (Mexico) won the game.

As for Garcia, I’m sure he would have liked to have ended his career with a victory for his national team.

Ozzie's come a long way!

OH WELL. I guess he’ll just have to settle for a career highlight of being the winning pitcher in Game 4 of the 2005 World Series.

That’s the one where the White Sox beat the Houston Astros 1-0 to give Chicago what remains – no matter what the Chicago Cubs might try to claim – the city’s ONLY World Series title in the past 99 years.

And all of this, I’m sure, will wind up being much more spectacular than anything that happens later Sunday in the allegedly ‘Super’ Bowl.

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Spring came Monday in form of beisbol, no matter what groundhog said

The nation’s groundhog saw its shadow Monday in Punxsutawney, Pa., while I saw all the snow and slush piled up outside my front door. It’s obvious that winter isn’t quite over with.

Yet I couldn’t help but feel a bit of springtime joy on Groundhog Day, even though the activity I saw took place in Puerto Rico.

FOR THAT IS where the first games were held Monday for the Caribbean Series – the annual championship tourney of Latin American baseball. For the record, the Culiacan Tomateros of Mexico beat the Pinar de Rio Vegueros of Cuba 2-1 to kick off the baseball tournament.

While many of you were recovering from Super Bowl Party hang-over (I didn’t even bother to watch the game Sunday night), I am bracing for a week of baseball fun. The idea that somewhere on Monday it was 80 degrees and sunny, with a touch of humidity in the air and baseball was being played was enough to brighten my day.

Particularly when I saw that first game (which started at 11 a.m., Chicago time) in which the Tomatogrowers came from behind to win their game, with pitcher Terance Marin getting credit for the win against the team named for a locally-produced brand of cigars.

For those not obsessed with the most intense of minor league minutia, Marin is a California native who has pitched the past several seasons for assorted Chicago White Sox minor league affiliates, and who chose to play ball this past winter in Mexico and wound up playing for the team that won the Pacific League championship.

IT WOULD BE nice to think that if he is able to make the big club in Chicago this year, this bit of championship tourney experience might make him fit to boost the White Sox chances of making it to the playoffs this year and succeeding.

That is part of what makes me get a kick out of the Caribbean Series each year – the ballplayers are amongst the best out of Latin American nations and also some U.S. kids who try to boost their own experience and chances at playing in the U.S. major leagues with a stint in winter ball.

Just like Eric Farris, who made an outfield misplay Monday that cost his Mexico ball club a run, but then helped to set up the run that tied up the game a couple of innings later. Farris, for those who don’t know, once played for the Milwaukee Brewers, but has spent the past few seasons playing for Minnesota Twins minor league affiliates.

It is a chance to get a preview of what could come in future U.S. major league seasons, while also getting a chance to see competitive baseball being played at a time when we otherwise would think we’re in the dreariness of winter.

THE SIGHT OF pitchers trying to overpower and outsmart hitters helped me manage to forget just how ugly a day we experienced on Sunday, and how the residue of that day is piled up nearly two feet deep right outside my front window!

And I also got a kick out of the one Mexico baseball fan sitting behind the dugout who chose to dye his beard in the red, white and green tri-colors of the Mexican flag.

Not as hideous as those White Sox fans who paint their face in blackface (with white “Sox” script logos on their cheeks), but it does show a certain equal sense of sincere support for their favorite team.

So if you want to know what I plan to be doing this week, it will be trying to find spare time to catch as much of the Caribbean Series as I can (two games a day on ESPN Deportes -- channel 609 on my set, I don't know about yours -- with a championship game on Sunday). It will be intriguing to see how teams from the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Puerto Rico (this year’s tournament host) do against the Mexico and Cuba squads.

CONSIDERING THAT FUTURE Cuba participation in this tourney will be impacted by the chance of U.S./Cuba relations restoration, this isn’t just fluff and games. There could be some cultural overtones to all of this.

And at the very least, it will help me cope better from the fact that my feet (as I write this commentary) are still damp from the walk I had to take Monday afternoon out in the slop of winter snowfall!

Just another two months before we can have Opening Day in Chicago proper.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: This year's tourney is being played at the Estadio Hiram Bithorn, the largest baseball stadium in Puerto Rico. It was named for the ball player who was the first Puerto Rican ever to play in the U.S. major leagues -- Bithorn pitched in 1942, 1943 and 1946 for the Chicago Cubs (interrupted by a 1944-45 stint in the U.S. Navy during World War II). In 1943, he pitched seven shut-out games, which remains a record of sorts for Puerto Rican pitchers.

When beisbol becomes baseball, all our snow melts away and joy returns to Chicago (We certainly hope and pray!)

Saturday is special in my mind for one reason – it means it is merely one month until the beginning of spring training for the Chicago White Sox, and roughly one month for other professional baseball teams.

Just 30 more days and we’ll be at the unofficial point where we can start thinking springtime, and not about the dreariness of winter cold and slush laced with filth from passing pedestrians and motorists.

I’LL ADMIT THAT I’m among the people getting a baseball fix these days from the activity in the various professional leagues of Latin America – which will culminate in a couple of weeks with the Caribbean Series.

I’m anxious to see whether the Jalisco Charros (my maternal grandfather was from the Mexican state of Jalisco) can beat the Culican Tomateros this weekend to win the Mexico Pacific League championship, then go on to challenge the champions of the leagues in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Venezuela for the Latin American bragging rights by winning the Caribbean Series!

But as interesting as the sport is in those leagues, it pales to the coming of springtime when the American and National leagues resume their activity with late-February and March training camps, coupled with the beginning of seasons in early April.

I really don’t doubt that there will be many Chicagoans who will be more interested on April 7 (the possible date for a run-off election) in their favorite baseball teams, rather than which clown becomes mayor for the next four years.

ACTUALLY, THE BEGINNING of spring training on Feb. 24 may cause more joy for Chicagoans than the municipal elections scheduled for three days later. Rahm Emanuel himself may be the only one who doesn’t feel that joy!

So what should we really expect for 2015?

I know the one-time “Bible of Baseball” (the Sporting News) has predicted a Chicago Cubs victory in the World Series. Which reminds me of the year that Sports Illustrated made that same prediction a decade ago, only to see the Cubs fail again as usual.

I was more intrigued by the prediction that the White Sox will also qualify for the playoffs – and survive into the second round before getting knocked out of the running!

SO THE SPORTING News is buying into the notion that both Chicago ball clubs are significantly improved and capable of being in the running for a league championship and World Series title.

If it were to happen, it would be only the third time that both teams had successful seasons in the same year. We all remember 2008 when both made it to the playoffs, then got knocked out in the first round.

While White Sox fans are forever bringing up 1906 – the one year of an all-Chicago World Series where the allegedly greatest team ever (they won 116 games that season) lost to the Sox four games to two.

It would be nice if there could be a city series out of Chicago some time in our lifetimes – although I suspect that for Cubs fans such a World Series would be the ultimate nightmare. It would mean their team FINALLY wins a championship (for their league), yet STILL falls short to the one team where defeat would be personal.

HONESTLY, I DON’T think 2015 is that year. I’m not sure any year in the next few seasons is going to be that year.

Because while I think both ball clubs have improved, I think they are merely in the running. Neither Chicago ball club ought to have fans thinking that they are dominant.

The Cubs may have picked up a “big name” pitcher in Jon Lester to go with the minor league prospects who may turn into solid ball players in coming seasons.

But none of those has produced at the major league level as much as someone like Jose Abreu, who is now the undisputed big bat of the White Sox and is on a ball club that picked up its own share of veterans to improve starting and relief pitching.

I THINK IT would be hilarious if Jeff Samardzija, the pitcher from Valparaiso, Ind., and Notre Dame University who was supposed to be the key to future Cubs championships wound up being the piece the ultimately led the White Sox to a title!

Although what I think is most likely to happen in 2015 in Chicago is a pair of third-place ball clubs; which is certainly better than two years ago when both teams flirted with losing 100 games that season.

I don’t care what the gamblers (with their 12-1 odds for the Cubs, compared to 20-1 for the White Sox) think – they’ve probably spent too much time watching the “Back to the Future” sequel (with the Cubs beating Miami in the World Series) while also waiting for the release of the film “Jaws 19.”

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EXTRA: Serie del Caribe to get Chicago Sout' Side baseball viewpoint

The ballplayers taking part in the Caribbean Series beginning Saturday were from places scattered all over Latin America, while the umpires came from Mexico and Cuba.

The advertisements around the ballpark were for Polar-brand beer (get it?), while the fans danced to merengue music (rather than the heavy metal or rap music riffs we hear in U.S. ballparks).

AND THE WEATHER or Margarita Island in Venezuela, where this year’s Caribbean Series baseball tourney is being played, was so un-Chicago – sunny skies and 88-degree temperatures on Saturday afternoon.

Which is why I was amused to learn of the broadcast crews that way too many baseball fans will ignore because they’ve been brainwashed into thinking that the Super Bowl somehow matters – or that they’re supposed to care about overpriced commercial spots that will air during the game.

It was as Chicago as one could get.

I found it amusing to tune in to the pre-game show and see that the usual ESPN Deportes broadcasters were joined by one-time White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen – who didn’t give us any verbal whoppers, but tried to make himself appear to be quite the baseball expert.

THEN AGAIN, THE Caribbean Series runs through next Saturday. There will be plenty of opportunities for Ozzie to say something that will manage to tick off somebody, while amusing, entertaining or informing the rest of us.

Although if by chance you didn’t watch the ballgame on television (I don’t know your access to the ESPN Deportes channel – station number 609 on my television set), keep in mind that the ESPN Spanish-language radio broadcasts are using one-time baseball pitcher Orlando "El Duque” Hernandez to give player insight to the broadcasts.

Hernandez might well be remembered most as a New York Yankees pitcher. But let’s not forget his stint with the White Sox team that won the 2005 World Series. His relief pitching stint in the final playoff game that year against the Boston Red Sox (where he pitched three perfect innings, prevented the White Sox from blowing a one-run lead AND made Red Sox slugger Manny Ramirez in particular look like a total chump) is one of those memorable moments.

And I’m sure that to the mindset of the Red Sox fan, Hernandez’s White Sox road uniform looked remarkably similar to when he wore Yankees road grays and did his part to repeatedly shut them down.


An improvement over Bud?

GUILLEN AND HERNANDEZ – it’s a shame they won’t be a part of the same broadcast at some point. Perhaps we’d get a reminiscence or two of that special season from nine years ago when a Chicago ball club actually wound up being the best.

 

Before they go back to telling us about this year’s versions of the Licey Tigers (the Dominican Republic’s champions) or the Hermosillo Orange Growers (from Mexico), or the fact that Cuba is once again being included in a tourney that purports to give us the championship of all Latin America.

All in all, it has me hoping that there’s some truth to the speculation that Caribbean Series officials are considering a change in the rotation of host nations so that it will come to the United States (most likely at the Miami Marlins’ ballpark near the "Little Havana" neighborhood that has cropped up along Eighth Street) in future years.

Be honest. It will be a more interesting spectacle than anything likely to happen Sunday when football (not futbol) fans freeze their behinds off in the wintry weather of the Jersey-based suburbs of New York City.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: One little tidbit when watching a Spanish-language baseball broadcast. When you hear the announcer say that the batter was "punched out," it means he was struck out by the pitcher. Not that any kind of brawl was about to take place.
 

It’s a beautiful day for a ballgame

No, I won’t be at U.S. Cellular Field on Monday. As much as I wouldn’t mind actually attending a ballgame, I have to work for a living and will be engaging in activities meant to bring in some income.

Starting the season on an upbeat note?

But in spirit, I’ll wish I could see for myself if the Kansas City Royals are really so improved that many of the baseball pundits aren’t being ridiculous for predicting that they will be the Second Place team behind the Detroit Tigers for 2013 – with the Chicago White Sox expected to wither away into irrelevance.

ALL THOSE MONTHS they spent in First Place in 2012? It might as well have not happened. They might well be as bad as the Chicago Cubs will be this season.

The day I have been looking forward to for the past couple of months has finally arrived. It’s Opening Day. Which means the latest version of the 162-game schedule is up and running.

It actually kicked off last night with the likely worst-in-baseball Houston Astros marking their shift to the American League with a season-beginning game against their brand-new arch-rival Texas Rangers.

For everybody else, it begins Monday.

THE ROYALS ARE in Chicago, while the Cubs will be in Pittsburgh to begin the season against the Pirates.

I’m already braced for the concept that there won’t likely be a serious pennant race involving Chicago. ’13 will be an unlucky number for those of us in the Second City.

But when it comes to the beauty of the ballgame itself, it won’t really matter. The so-called “head game” involving a pitcher confronting a hitter – with its constant back-and-forth – is something that only a simpleton could find dull.

Cubs fans hope Monday isn't career highlight

It is what makes watching baseball live a unique, and intriguing experience.

I'LL STILL WANT to get out to a few ballgames this season – and I’ll have my pick of many. Because one of the things that makes baseball so much more intriguing than any other professional sport is its daily nature.

Make a mess of a ballgame? Redemption has the potential to be only one day away!

I should point out one factor. I once wrote a commentary here mocking the Chicago Cubs for rushing along prospect Jeff Samardzija, a pitcher who once played football at Notre Dame. I was convinced that he would turn out to be as mediocre as Joe Borchard, the one-time Stanford football star who may well be one of the greatest players in the history of the Charlotte Knights – but never produced consistently for the White Sox.

I’m sure some will argue the fact that Samardzija will be the Cubs’ starting pitcher Monday against Pittsburgh is a sign that he has succeeded. Yet I can’t help but point out the Yahoo! Sports weblog Big League Stew – which rates Samardzija as the 19^th best pitcher to get an Opening Day start.

THIS START COULD be the highlight of the Samardzija career – just as the 504-foot home run Borchard hit in 2004 remains the longest-hit shot ever at U.S. Cellular Field!

It seems like so long ago!


We’ll have to find the beauty of baseball this year in its small moments – and not in anticipation of any World Series celebration come early November.

Although I have to admit that this season is a little unique, since I made a point of watching much of the Caribbean Series back in February, then the World Baseball Classic in March. Which means I have been watching competitive games (albeit on television) for a couple of months. It makes Opening Day this year feel more like a sensation of, “It’s about time!”

It also makes me wish that we could have broadcaster Ernesto Jerez as a part of the scene for one of our city’s ball clubs. His enthusiasm for the game, along with that home run call, would definitely add some joy!

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From beisbol to baseball: looking forward to another dreadful season

I don’t seriously expect the World Series to be played in Chicago this year. Yet that doesn’t mean I’m not getting all giddy about the fact that baseball is back for 2013.

The Chicago White Sox begin their training camp for the season come Tuesday, while pitchers and catchers for the Chicago Cubs actually reported to their Arizona-based camp on Sunday.

NOT THAT I was waiting for those events to achieve a baseball fix.

Personally, I spent the bulk of the past week watching the Caribbean Series – the week-long tourney between the champions of professional leagues in Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Puerto Rico that gives us the campeone de Latin American beisbol.

No, I didn’t stay up ‘til 3:30 a.m. on Friday to see the Obregon City Yaquis of Mexico’s Pacific League win the tournament (beating the Escogido Lions of the Dominican Republic 4-3 in 18 innings).

But it was intriguing to see competitive baseball played at a quality level, while seeing some of the Latin American peloteros who in coming years will be playing for ball clubs in the U.S. major leagues.

IT WAS EVEN a chance to see former major league ballplayers such as Karim Garcia and Fernando Tatis continuing their careers as professional ballplayers – while also seeing one-time star shortstop Miguel Tejada play at a star level rather than the level of an aging ballplayer hoping to latch on this season with the Kansas City Royals.

And as someone who was rooting for the Mexican champion to win the tourney, it was intriguing to see the Yaquis’ right-fielder – Marlon Byrd, whom Cubs fans will remember for his outfield play at Wrigley Field in recent seasons.

Perhaps it was good that he was the only ex-Cub on the ball club – or else we’d be learning if the ex-Cub Factor has the ability to take down Latin American ball clubs in the Caribbean Series.

Byrd isn’t a Cub anymore (he’s hoping to latch on this spring with the New York Mets), but is hoping that his .318 batting average, 16 home runs and 46 runs batted in in 57 games playing this winter in Mexico will help improve his chances of playing this season in Queens, rather than with the AAA affiliate Las Vegas 51s.

IN SHORT, IT was the perfect set up week to the idea of spring training. We won’t get any of those exhibition games from Florida or Arizona for a few more weeks. But at least we have the promise of another 162-game season; which can be intriguing even if there isn’t a serious hope of a pennant race either in Bridgeport or Lake View.

I’m honest enough to realize that the White Sox will probably have a “winning” season (at least 82 victories), which is what they accomplished last season. Whether that is good enough to win a division title and qualify for playoffs come October is really going to be a question about how mediocre the rest of the American League Central division is.

Having to rely on someone else’s less-than-stellar play is NOT the key to a successful season. When the big off-season move is retaining the “star” pitcher and not acquiring anyone new, it’s not evidence of a re-crafted ball club.

Although it probably will be better than the Cubs; who are on the continuing process of Theo Epstein to turn them from trash to champions in coming seasons. But the shift of the Houston Astros from the Cubs' division to the American League could result in the Cubs being a last-place ball club this season.

IT’S GOING TO be a long and arduous rebuilding process, and one that may wind up in failure. Although I’m sure the Cubbie faithful will continue to show up at Wrigley Field in hopes of catching a glimpse (with apologies to Steve Goodman) of the “ivy-covered burial ground.”

But even when played poorly, there is still an appeal to baseball – the perpetual challenge of the “head game” one-on-one challenge between pitcher and hitter, the hot defensive plays in the field, the base hit that comes at a key moment, and the sight of a knuckleheaded fan who loses track of the on-field activity and snatches a ground ball that was still in play.

It was such that I even felt the need to dig out a copy on DVD this weekend of The Stratton Story – the fictionalized take starring James Stewart as one-time White Sox pitcher Monty Stratton whose potential star career got washed away due to a hunting accident. Seeing the film footage of the old Comiskey Park had its own appeal.

So even if former Cub Byrd’s inclusion in a championship ball club is the on-field highlight of 2013, the return of baseball to our burgh will still be one of the year’s highlights for Chicago. All the more appropriate that this year's season begins on April Fool's Day!

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Peloteros w/ Chicago ties trying to bolster careers in Caribbean Series

We’re in the midst of an intriguing sporting event this weekend – and no, I don’t mean that overbloated excuse for a football game being played on Sunday in Indianapolis.

I’m referring to the Caribbean Series, the baseball tourney involving the champions of the winter leagues in Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela.

THEY BEGAN PLAYING Thursday and will run through Tuesday – with the winner of the six-game tourney getting the bragging rights of beisbol champions of Latin America.

Yet one of the things that intrigues me about the Latin American leagues in general, and this tourney in particular, is the way in which professional baseball people in this country use the leagues as a chance to bolster their on-field experience.

Which means that we even have Chicago-affiliated ballplayers taking part in the tourney – hoping that maybe a particularly outstanding week this week could bolster their chances of making a higher-level minor league ballclub.

If not the major league team itself.

FOR THE RECORD, two ballplayers with Chicago Cubs ties (pitcher Oswaldo Martinez and infielder Alfredo Amezaga) are playing for the Obregon Yaquis – champions of Mexico’s Pacific League for this season.

Meanwhile, catcher Hector Gimenez of the Venezuela ballclub and Ryan Kuusmaal, a pitcher for the Puerto Rico representative, are the members of the Chicago White Sox organization who are playing baseball this week – just a few weeks before they report to Glendale, Ariz., to start the workouts that will determine where they will play baseball this coming summer.

Admittedly, none of these guys is likely to be the star of their respective team this week – unless they pull off an unexpected star play that makes them a hero-for-life in their respective Latin American nation (where this tourney is taken seriously – perhaps moreso than many people here these days take the World Series itself).

Then again, there is the manager of the Aragua Tigers who are representing Venezuela. Buddy Bailey may be a Pennsylvania native whose U.S. baseball career has been in the minor leagues (1,500-plus career victories as a manager).

BUT HE ALSO has included his stints in the winter managing in Venezuela – and he will be the guy trying to win a championship for the fans who will enjoy it as a diversion from the impact of Hugo Chavez on their daily lives.

And when it is over after next week, he will return to prepare for a 2012 season managing the Tennessee Smokies (the Knoxville-based ballclub that provides a AA Southern League affiliate for the Chicago Cubs).

I can only hope for his sake that his Chicago Cubs ties do not overcome his minor league winning ways. Because Chavez strikes me as being goofy enough to behave like one-time Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo used to many decades ago – incarcerating ballplayers who failed on the playing field.

Then again, a part of me wonders if such a tactic would be appropriate on the Chicago playing fields – because there have been times throughout the seasons when I have seen miscues where someone deserves to be locked away for taunting us with their ineptitude.

SO THIS COMING weekend, I’ll be the guy using my laptop computer to see the baseball activity being played in the Dominican Republic (which is hosting the tourney this year).

It just strikes me as being more interesting than anything that could possibly happen on that football gridiron some 185 miles southeast of Chicago.

You know, the so-called sports spectacular where most people will be paying more attention to the television commercials than they will be on the game itself!

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No Game Today

To my mindset, one of the saddest moments I encounter each year is in those couple of hours after the World Series comes to an end.

As the Hawk would say, the 2011 season is "ovah."



For it is then that I realize that the baseball season is “ovah,” and that Saturday is the beginning of a slightly-longer than three-month countdown until spring training starts for 2012, and nearly four months until anything resembling a ballgame is played.

REGARDLESS OF WHO actually wins the World Series title and gets bragging rights for U.S. baseball, there is that moment that makes me feel empty inside. Because there literally is “No Game Today” – the sign that used to hang on stadiums to inform fans passing by that there was no reason to stop off on that day.

We’re just a couple of days away from Halloween, which means the meat of the year is complete. Now, we’re in the home stretch – Frank Sinatra’s record album “September of my Years” comes to mind, even though we’re approaching November.

I am a fan of professional baseball, and the idea that there isn’t a game on that I can watch for an athletic fix is one that can be depressing if I linger on it for too long.

Yes, it is true that the professional leagues in countries such as the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Venezuela, along with the Liga del Pacifico in Mexico are up and running (their seasons began about two weeks ago).

SO I CAN always scour up a box score of a ballgame somewhere. Will Mexicali manage to keep the early lead in the standings they jumped out to in the Mexican Pacific League?

Is there some potential prospect playing this winter who will manage to make an impact on a major league club similar to what White Sox outfielder Alejandro de Aza did this season after playing last winter in the Dominican Republic?

Such speculation is intriguing. And on those rare occasions when a winter league ballgame gets broadcast, I likely will make an effort to try to watch it – regardless of which league it is or which teams are playing.

But it’s not the same. I can’t just jump on a flight to Caracas at a moment’s notice or see a game by the La Guaira Sharks (los Tiburones are Ozzie Guillen’s preferred Venezuelan ballclub).

ALTHOUGH PERHAPS I should point out that one of my ideas of a fantasy vacation would be to visit either Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic or Venezuela during the first week in February when one of those places is hosting the Caribbean Series – which is the championship for, and bragging rights of, Latin American baseball. I’d like to see the spectacle at least once in my lifetime.

But it still falls short of having the option of watching the game on my home turf.

For me, it’s something about the battle of wits that takes place every time a pitcher and batter face off against each other. The “head game,” as it was once referred to by longtime sportswriter Roger Kahn – who used the phrase as the title of a book he wrote about pitchers.

No other sport has anything quite like it, which is why I don’t want to hear from any sports fans who will claim that we can now focus our attention on football or college basketball or hockey or any other game.

TO THE DEGREE that I follow ANY sports during the winter, it will be to check out the standings of my own collegiate alma mater’s athletic teams (I may wind up being one of the visiting team basketball fans in the stands when Illinois Wesleyan University visits Hyde Park and the University of Chicago on Dec. 10), along with the box scores emanating from teams like the Caneros de Los Mochis or the Senadores de San Juan.

Because now that the World Series is over, that’s what I have left.

As for the series itself, I must confess to not watching any one of the games in their entirety. I did catch the moment when Albert Pujols hit the second of his three home runs in Game Three (and share the disgust of the sportswriter who dinged the Texas Rangers fan who showed her Chicago Cubbiness tendencies by throwing back the ball that was Home Run number Three).

The only Chicago World Series in my lifetime

And I was amused by all the rhetoric following Game Five that questioned how incompetent St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa could be. At least until Game Six, where all the chatter now claims the only person more worthless than LaRussa is Texas Rangers manager Ron Washington.

ALTHOUGH I’M NOT sure Game Six is as great a sporting moment as some people want to think. I see it as a blown ballgame by the Rangers. Their incompetence, rather than anything great (despite an extra-inning home run by eventual World Series MVP David Freese) by St. Louis.

I suppose I’ll wish well upon those fans of the World Series champion Cardinals. But my overall emotion right now is closer to a funk over the fact that there’s “No Game Today.”

Only124 more days until the beginning of Cactus League play. I’ll be counting each and every one of them down.

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