The late, great Red Smith always considered an admonition not to “God up” the athletes, sound advice for a young sportswriter. Still is, even for a sportswriter who stopped being young a long time ago.
That said, I felt something akin to awe talking to Luis Aparicio at U.S. Cellular Field last month as the White Sox celebrated the 50th anniversary of their 1959 American League pennant. I came to baseball through my father, the Sox were his team, and Aparicio, a nimble, 25-year-old shortstop in ’59, was a special player. Few have handled such a demanding position with more skill and elan.
I was no more than 6 when I went to my first ballgame, at the old Comiskey Park, and at that age, the baseball is only part of the show. I remember the hulking light towers coming into view as we traveled east on 35th Street — quite the concept when you’re used to having backyard whiffle ball called on account of darkness. The immaculately groomed playing field, a lush expanse of green that seemed out of place in an urban setting hard by the stockyards. The smells, the sounds … and the sight of Aparicio, No. 11. He caught a little guy’s eye because he was a little guy, but you didn’t need a sophisticated grasp of baseball to sense that Luis was really good at it as he darted around the field, in the middle of everything. He remained a favorite as I got older and my baseball sensibilities drifted toward the National League, where the speed and power of the Willie Mays/Hank Aaron generation offered an appealing alternative to the grimly efficient Yankees.
Still, those White Sox teams and the hold they exerted on my father — and on much of our South Side neighborhood — are an indelible memory, part of the soundtrack of our summers growing up.
I know I’m old and maybe I’m cranky, but that soundtrack is more discordant these days, no longer as harmonious on either side of town. It’s as if we’re watching a different game.
Part of baseball’s charm is its leisurely, game-a-day pace that accompanies us through the summer, until fall, when the air turns crisp and reminds us we’re running out of games. The best teams are going to lose 60 times, OK? Relax. Get ’em tomorrow.
That’s a tough sell in today’s environment, with more fans seeking instant gratification: You’d better win today or you’re going to hear about it.
There’s an economic element to the unrest as well. Ticket prices have never been higher, partly because these ballplayers are millionaires — so they should win every game. Cubs outfielders Milton Bradley and Alfonso Soriano have underperformed this season, and the boos have been persistent and nasty. It’s no coincidence that Soriano and Bradley are among the Cubs’ highest-paid players.
But you’d swear their salaries — a combined $24 million this season — are coming out of Cubs Care, depriving needy children. Give us Jake Fox and Sam Fuld, minor-league imports to whom the crowds have taken as gritty, minimum-wage guys.
Both local teams are coming off playoff appearances, but that’s hardly signaled an era of good feeling. Talk-show callers and other pundits had written off the ’09 White Sox by late April. The Cubs have fired their hitting coach, and if there’s a league in Siberia that will take Soriano, the fans will happily pitch in to find him some fur-lined uniforms.
The 4th of July weekend, baseball season’s traditional midpoint benchmark, found the Cubs and White Sox a combined five games out of first place — 2 1/2 each in their respective divisions.
Hardly cause for alarm, let alone panic. This isn’t football, whose high-stakes, game-a-week pace demands more emotional energy of everyone involved. Especially in Chicago, where it’s always 1985.
No baseball team will ever resonate with Chicagoans the way the ’85 Bears do, but it was nice to revisit ’59 for a few hours on a steamy afternoon at the Cell last month.
I never knew, or cared, how much money Luis Aparicio made, and I never heard him booed. I just know he helped get me hooked on baseball as the ideal summer companion.
Relax. Enjoy it. The Bears will be here soon enough.
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dmcgrath@tribune.com
