‘No ballgame today’ – we’ll have to wait ‘til spring for baseball to return

It looks so simple on paper – 5-3 – marked under a column of the scorecard for the 10^th inning.

There's no lonelier place than an off-season ballfield

I’m sure those who are Chicago Cubs fans will forevermore regard as a happy moment that bit indicating the groundball hit to third baseman Kris Bryant, then thrown to Anthony Rizzo at first base for the final out that ensured the first World Series title ever for a team that plays its home games at Wrigley Field.

YET I HAVE to confess to feeling a twinge of sadness at that sight.

Not because I cared about the Cubs or had a strong rooting interest in either team that was playing. But because I enjoy baseball.

And the final out of the final game of the World Series each year always brings out a feeling in me that the game is gone; for the time being.

Perhaps it’s because professional baseball teams play nearly every day during the season that they become truly wrapped up in the routines of our lives; in a way that the Chicago Bears with their once-a-week loss (or so it seems) just can’t.

THERE IS A beauty to the form of the ballgame as the pitcher vs. hitter challenge takes place; trying to see if one can out-think the other to their success. With other ballplayers hopping into action in those spare moments when contact is made with the ball.

Producing those moments that inspire newspaper photographers into action – freezing forever those bits of action for us to study. The diving catch. The bobbled ball. That moment of agony on an outfielder’s face as he realizes the fly ball is headed over the fence – and there’s not a thing he can do to stop it!

Even non-North Side felt something for Cubs

These moments that can make watching a ballgame a real treasure. Totally lost on those kinds of people who think anything other than a 15-9 ballgame is boring – although I actually think those high-scoring slugfests are dull because it usually means the pitching stinks, errors are being made in the field and everything is out-of-whack.

And now, it’s over. Another season is in the record books. Something that can be studied by those inclined to do so, while many of us will remember the individual moments of the games we actually saw. We’ll likely exaggerate their significance.

Line shot will never depart my mind

JUST AS I will forever recall a line drive double that Reggie Jackson hit off the right field wall at Comiskey Park in a 1979 ballgame – it struck me as being the hardest-hit ball I ever saw.

On the scorecard, it looks like a simple “2B-9” hit off pitcher Ken Kravec. But I remember it as a sizzling shot that never went more than 15 or so feet in the air – and would have been a home run if it had cleared the fence a foot higher instead of smashing into the wall.

Of course, the likely story would have been White Sox fan killed by Yankee home run. Because I doubt any fan in the outfield stands could have reacted quickly enough to avoid being hit in the face by the drive.

It’s these little moments that stick in my mind about baseball. The sight of ballplayers congregated on the pitcher’s mound deep in discussion about the game (and wondering if they’re really checking out the blonde who got herself a box seat right behind the dugout).

THE MANAGER CHARGING out of the dugout to argue with an umpire’s call – and knowing that the choice words he’d like to use to describe the ump’s mother will get him ejected!

Watching the coaches relay all those signals to the batter – and wondering how screwed up things will get if the coach inadvertently scratches his earlobe at the wrong moment?

I’d be willing to bet that similar thoughts are running through the minds of baseball fans everywhere – although for those who are Cubs-obsessed, they were able to delay them a bit, what with the parade that stretched from Wrigley Field through downtown on Friday.

Particularly if you’re inclined to believe Gov. Bruce Rauner, who in issuing the proclamation declaring Friday in Illinois to be World Champion Chicago Cubs Day said, “the Cubs winning the World Series is bigger than baseball.”

Baseball will be back come April

WHETHER YOU AGREE with that statement or not, the season is now over.

Unless you’re inclined to check out the stats in the assorted Latin American winter leagues (where, by the way, the late White Sox star Minnie Miñoso’s old Jalisco Charros team – he both played for, and managed, them – beat the Hermosillo Orange Growers 11-8 Thursday night), you’ll have to endure some five months of inactivity before we again see meaningful games being played.

For some of us, an empty ballpark is an even sadder sight than one when our favorite ball club loses.

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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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