D-Train Arrives in Detroit!

Good news from Motown: Dontrelle Willis is back. Off the DL and apparently having licked his anxiety disorder for now, he shut down the Rangers last night. At one point he retired 16 batters in a row. And from what highlights I saw, he looked like the Dontrelle of old: slow windup, lots of power building up in the butt, and then the quick release with good control. If he’s pitching well this year, it will be a good time at Comerica this season.

(It’s interesting that Willis’ anxiety issues put him on the disabled list when I read about the same problem hitting Zach Greinke a couple years back. After taking some time off and clearing his head, Greinke is now arguably the best pitcher in baseball. Good to see jocks admit that once in a while, it DOESN’T do any good to tough it out. If you haven’t read the story by Joe Posnanski in the May 4 Sports Illustrated, you should.)

Bardball has been kind of skint lately with current event verse, so I had to whip up a poem this morning, while I sat in the shade in the backyard, enjoying a freakishly warm summer day. It’s not my best, but it’s as fresh as the morning headlines.

Triumph of the Willis

It brightens baseball’s heart, Dontrelle,
To have you back and pitching well.

Your fastball cutting like a knife,
Endangering the catcher’s life,

Your off-speed floating up and down,
Your hat too big like Charlie Brown’s.

Your rookie year is long behind–
Was that the thing that messed your mind?

We all get old, last time I checked.
That doesn’t mean your life is wrecked.

You’ve got the stuff, now find the guile,
And you’ll be here a good long while.

Appearing at Oak Park Public Library Thursday Night

This Thursday night, I’ll be on a panel at the Oak Park Public Library, along with other contributors to the anthology Cubbie Blues, to talk about 100 years of failure and frustration on the north side of Chicago.

Joining me will be Donald Evans, who edited the book; Don DeGrazia, author of American Skin; Rick Kaempfer, webmaster at Just One Bad Century; Robert Goldsborough, journalist and mystery novelist; and George Rawlinson, who runs Can’t Miss Press which published the book.

We’re there in connection with the library’s presentation of the traveling exhibit, Pride and Passion: The African-American Baseball Experience. “Pride and Passion” was put together by the Baseball Hall of Fame and the American Library Association, and Oak Park is the only place it will be shown in Illinois. I’ve heard very good things about this exhibit, so you could at least come out and enjoy that, if you don’t feel like listening to a bunch of middle-aged white guys talk about Cub bizniz.

But it’s always a good time at these Cubbie Blues events, so come join us at the library, 834 Lake Street,
7 p.m. in the Veteran’s Room on the 2nd Floor.

Instant Replay Creates Perfect World

Posted yesterday on Bardball, in honor of the home runs called back in Wednesday’s games:

Now that cameras can detect and correct
Our errors and human frailty,
I call for a replay of

Fidrych talking to the ball,
Reggie hitting in October,
Bob Gibson staring,
Koufax stretching,
Veeck laughing,

DiMaggio’s war years,
And Hank Greenberg’s,

And 1994, which could have saved the Expos,
And spared us the Nationals,

And Cap Anson shutting his damned mouth
And Buck O’Neil playing for the Cubs,
Satchel Paige for the A’s,
And Cool Papa Bell for the Cardinals.

A Poem for Mark Fidrych

Up today at BARDBALL.COM:

The Wings of the Bird

Every kid thinks that he
Could mow down the heart of the Yankees order
If given the chance,
And someday everybody gets that chance,

And it’s good luck to talk to the ball,
And cheers are love that never dies,
And the world would love you if you showed them who you really are,
And magic can happen at any time.

That kid never dies.
That kid was the Bird.

Mark Fidrych, RIP

There has been too much death to start this baseball season. The superstitious among us (which probably means every baseball fan, at some point in his or her life) might say it’s a bad omen, that we should stop the season now before something else happens. But if baseball is like life, then death certainly is a part of it.

First Nick Adenhart is snatched away by a drunk driver after an exciting start to a promising rookie year. Then, Harry Kalas, the voice of the Phillies, passes out in the broadcast booth and dies after 44 years of broadcasting. And Mark Fidrych, one of the most fabled Tigers of all, dies after an accident at his home in Massachusetts.

Three men, at different stages of life. Accolades won, fame flying by, promise unfulfilled, love and loss. Time, the avenger.

The only one of the three I know anything about is Fidrych. In his rookie year, I was 15, and was slowly abandoning baseball as uncool compared with music and the arts. (It was easy to turn my back on the Tigers, since they were heading straight downhill from the years I really loved them, from 1968 to 1973 and the firing of Billy Martin. My friends weren’t too into the sport, nor was my family. I only learned years later that my father didn’t take me to many games was that he hated baseball. Wish I could say I’m a third-generation fan with an unbroken streak of Opening Day appearances, but this is not my legacy.)

But you didn’t have to be a baseball fan to enjoy Mark Fidrych. He had enough enjoyment bubbling out of him that there was plenty to spare. Talking to the ball, grooming the mound, he seemed like a loon–maybe not the kind of bird he would appreciate being compared to–but he certainly didn’t care. A nonroster invitee, he was living every fan’s fantasy–“Just give me the chance, and I’ll strike out the Yankees. Just give me the chance.” But he was no clown, and he wasn’t a fluke. He had a wonderful delivery, doing things with his curve and slider that players 10 years older couldn’t do. Watching him win was kind of like being in love for the first time. It was a beautiful, perfect thing, and wouldn’t last in this world.

That bicentennial year was pretty crappy in Detroit. All the teams were losing. The auto industry was chugging along making Cougars and Delta 88s, but the factories were old and the unions were bloated and something about it felt corrupt. Disco was on the rise. Nixon had resigned 18 months before, and the hippies were getting fat and/or psychotic, and my 15-year-old mind just kept saying, Something’s not right these days.

But Fidrych was a good thing. There was no whiff of cynicism or greed or entitlement about him. He was a pure soul, and stayed one even after knee and arm injuries took away his control. And in all the years since he retired, by all accounts, he never felt anger or self-pity or regret about how short his career was. He was happy pitching, was grateful for the chance, then was just as happy driving a gravel truck, marrying his love and fathering a child. That is the legacy of the Bird. And he’ll always be that. And while I rarely find that peace of mind, I’ll always be grateful to have seen it in a guy like him.

As I saw in the comments of Cardboard Gods, Rookie of the Year Forever.

Burying the Cubs Curses

“Cremating the Curse”, which happened Sunday out in Schaumburg, was one of the stranger events I’ve ever taken part in. Part fan convention, part book signing, part reading, part funeral/wake. Nearly 1000 people showed up, according to one person, which will be a boost to both book sales of Cubbie Blues and Chicago Baseball Cancer Charities (who received a portion of the door and do get a portion of book proceeds).

The event, which was hosted by Tom Dreesen, was meant to lay to rest all the curses that have plagued the Cubs through the last century. So speakers gave quick eulogies for things like the billy goat and the black cat and Steve Bartman. The speakers were all contributors to the Cubbie Blues book, including Rick Kaempfer, Mary Beth Hoerner, Julia Borcherts, and Bill Hillman. Then the items or totems we brought along for the curses were laid to rest in a Cubs-style coffin, carted off by pall bearers (including a few former major leaguers and Ronnie Woo-Woo (who frankly always unnerves me)) and placed in a hearse. From there, they were taken away to be cremated. Later, they will be placed in a Cubs funeral urn and auctioned off for the Chicago Baseball Cancer Charities.

I’ve posted some pictures to my Facebook page to give you an idea of what was going on. It all took place inside a real funeral home, if that’s not obvious, and the Cubs casket is a real deal. You can buy one for yourself, if you are so inclined. I think the coolest thing of the day was the appearance of “Mr. Ivy,” dressed as a portion of the outfield wall. He stood about 10 feet tall on four-legged stilts, and…..well, just check out the pictures. I think he’ll be in a lot of highlight reels this year.

There are also some pictures at the Facebook page here.

For the record, the following is what I said as I eulogized and laid to rest the curse put on the Cubs by Illinois First Lady (Macbeth):

This curse I am laying to rest has not been retold charmingly in folklore. It will not be repeated on ESPN highlight reels. It will not have cute T-shirts printed up, if only because the language and photo would be so unappealing.

This curse I am laying to rest was hidden in transcripts of federal wiretaps of our former governor, as he walked around in the sunshine and rainbows of his last days in office. We know the corporate Cub apparatchiks were looking for state funding to preserve Wrigley Field. We know that Sam Zell said he was interested in tearing the place down and erecting a stadium along the lines of Coors Field in Denver. We know that the governor offered to get state money to preserve Wrigley Field— if the Tribune leaned on their editorial board not to be so nasty.

All caught on tape. All repugnant. All a violation of governance and public finance and freedom of the press. And who chimes in to make it all worse? Who makes it a real Cubs Curse? Illinois’s own first lady—Lady Macbeth, that is, as written by David Mamet, Dick Mell’s cute and cursin’ daughter, the Rasputin of Ravenswood Manor, Patti “Potty Mouth” Blagojevich.

It wasn’t enough that the Cubs’ playing field was being used in a chess game among soulless power brokers. It wasn’t enough that a worst case scenario of Tribune ownership and government intervention was being discussed. No, Patti had to scream in the background of one of her desperate husband’s phone calls and let loose a vile, “Hold up that fricking Cubs manure…Fudge them!”

She may have been invoking Serbian black magic; sorcery is one explanation for how her husband had until then managed to stay one step ahead of the law. If so, that magic had obviously passed its “sell by” date. So, not only did she curse the Cubs with magic, it was also faulty, expired, curdled magic.

And these people were supposed to be Cubs fans. North-side born and bred. Cub fans from the cradle. Occupying the halls, doorways and phone booths of the highest office in the state. The betrayal was enormous, because it was so close to home. And the curse, uttered after its fresh date, by a hopeless third-rate wheeler-dealer with a bad haircut? Such an unstable abomination can be lifted only by burning. But who to burn? It might be pleasant to think we could resurrect the Spanish Inquisition in Springfield. But since corruption is not a capital crime in Illinois, but only a gentleman’s pastime, in order to lay this curse to rest, we’ll have to burn Patti Blagojevich in effigy.

Begone, thou corrupt crone. Begone, thou house-peddling harridan. Begone, thou greedy gone-to-seed gorgon.

“Fudge the Cubs”? Patti, you’d best hope that your hubby gets sentenced to a prison full of Sox fans. That shouldn’t be too hard.

“Cremating the Curse”

Just a quick note to tell any Cub fans out there that on Sunday afternoon, I’ll be participating in a very strange ceremony at a funeral home in Schaumburg. (Yep, that’s first time I’ve ever typed THAT!) We’ll be having a wake/eulogy/exorcism for all the curses that have afflicted the Cubs over the years: Merkle, Billy goat, black cat, Bartman. Mine is a super-secret new curse, but I’ll give you a hint: It was uttered by the former first lady of a certain corrupt Midwestern state, whose husband was just indicted with a sledgehammer yesterday.

The ceremony will be held with a book signing of Cubbie Blues, the anthology I helped with last year. It looks to be a very good time, and part of the proceeds of the book sales will go to Chicago Baseball Cancer Charities. There will be a whole lot more going on, so check out the details at the publisher’s website, and come on out if you can.

God’s Memo to the Detroit Tigers

For background on this issue, check out the Detroit Free Press:

For all the times you’ve prayed to me,
Beseeching for a victory–
“Let him strike out,” “We need this hit” –
And clogged my in-box with this stuff,

You choose to hold Opening Day—
Praise be to me—on Good Friday?
People, watch you don’t make me mad,
Or I’ll give the Tiges what the Lions had.

R.I.P., George Kell

Growing up in the Detroit area and following Tiger baseball, fans were blessed with the announcing skills of two fine Southern gentlemen, Ernie Harwell and George Kell. And while Ernie might have been the soundtrack of our summers from 1960 to 2002, that shouldn’t take away from the skills of George Kell. Thoughtful, knowledgeable, and of seemingly infinite good humor (especially when the team was losing, as it often was), George Kell never let himself get in the way of the game. Teamed with Al Kaline, their low-key demeanor belied skills learned on ballfields for decades.

It’s a tribute to George (and to Ernie a little) that a vast majority of us Michiganders will put on a southern drawl when we ask, “How ’bout them Tahgers?” This might make the state seem more southern than it really is (and it’s still pretty southern, with all the transplanted Tennesseans and Kentuckians who came to work in the plants after WWII). When games got exciting, his baritone voice got a curl in it that raised the hairs on the back of your neck, seemingly out of nowhere.

You don’t appreciate the great ones until they move on and are replaced. And George Kell was one of the great ones.

The Detroit Free Press tribute to him is here.

Pitchers and Catchers

Okay, I’ll give in. Our coldest snowiest winter in memory is probably over, and birdies and buds will soon appear, which brings warmth to even the iciest soul. And there’s always this….

LIFE IS GOOD

Winter’s been raw as a campout in Banff.
Your new basement walls are moldy and damp.
Your drapes caught fire from a knocked over lamp—

Relax!
Pitchers and catchers are reporting to camp.

Your check-writing hand’s developed a cramp,
Your bills are all due and you ain’t got a stamp,
Creditors cling to your neck like a clamp—

Smile!
Pitchers and catchers are reporting to camp.

Your yard now faces a new freeway ramp.
Your son’s engaged to a gold-digging tramp.
Your “guitar hero” neighbor’s just bought a new amp—

Life is good!
Pitchers and catchers are reporting to camp.

I posted this yesterday on Bardball even though it’s a rerun from 2008, because it’s factually true, because I like it, and because I run the site. When the baseball season really begins, we’ll be posting more poems there. And the big news is, we’re in the works to create a podcast of material, for all you folks too busy to read. So don’t forget us in the coming weeks.

Baseball Prospectus just picked the Cubs to finish first in their division, and the White Sox last, so there should be a lot of emotion running through the Windy City this summer.

On the other hand, what does the Prospectus’ Nate Silver know? Did he predict all 50 states in last year’s election? No? Only 49? Then he better go home and tweak his algorithm, as the girls at U of C probably told him a time or two.

“Cubbie Blues” Book Release Party

A few months ago I participated in a Wrigleyville reading series called the Lovable Losers Literary Review, which attempted to wrest the mantle of literate baseball despair from the shoulders of Red Sox fans and bestow it squarely on Cubbie diehards. Did we succeed? You’ll be able to see for yourself, at the book release party for the anthology compiled from those readings, Cubbie Blues: 100 Years of Waiting Til Next Year.

(As you can see, cover artist Margie Lawrence included pictures of the contributors in the bleacher crowd scene. That’s me in the middle of the front row, with the newsie’s cap and starched collar. It’s my first time ever caricatured in a fake crowd scene, something that’s been my dream since my first glimpse of the “Sgt. Pepper” album. And Margie chose the right era for me as well. There’s always a bottle of cheap bourbon sitting on my spartan desk, and I recently had my laptop altered to look like an old Remington typewriter.)

Sunday night, Dec. 14 from 7-10, come down to Sheffield’s and meet some of the contributors, including myself, Stu Shea, Jonathan Eig, Don DeGrazia, Sara Paretsky, and many others. We’ll be signing books and reveling in holiday spirits besides. A portion of the proceeds of the book are being donated to Chicago Baseball Cancer Charities and their One Step At A Time Camp. It really is a nice anthology–literate, wonderfully written, heartfelt and fun. It’s worth the price just to read Kogan’s toast at the beginning of the book on how baseball gets into a young fan’s blood. For more on the event, check out the article in yesterday’s Sun-Times.

Aside from live events, copies are only available online, so if you can’t make it out in person, click over to Can’t Miss Press to order yours.

The Curse(s) of Patty Blagojevich?

Could Mrs. Blago be yet another in the long line of supernatural reasons the Cubs will never win the World Series?

During the call, Rod Blagojevich’s wife can be heard in the background telling Rod Blagojevich to tell Deputy Governor A ‘to hold up that fucking Cubs shit … fuck them'”

Is this an Evil Eye? A Harridan Hex? A Wifely Whammy?

On the other hand, maybe she and Lee Elia can get together and record some party records.

Ryan Dempster Drinks the Kool-Aid

Ryan Dempster signed a four-year, $52 million contract with the Cubs on Tuesday, even though he probably could’ve gotten a lot more money on the free agent market. His line of thinking, according to the Tribune:

His love of Chicago — and the Cubs chances of winning a world championship [emphasis added] — factored into the decision, and Dempster didn’t want to wait and see if he could make more money elsewhere.

“Given as close as we’ve been the last two years, I thought, ‘This is where I want to be,’ ” he said.

Actually, despite his obvious mental handicap, I think the world of Ryan Dempster. How could you help but love a pitcher who bikes to work, barbecues with his neighbors a half-mile from the stadium, and practices magic tricks for fun? He couldn’t be any more authentic if he moved into the Hotel Carlos.

Page Proofs Are In

Some months ago, a friend told me about a reading series in Wrigleyville called the Lovable Losers Literary Revue. Looking to expand the audience for Bardball, I went to one of the readings and got friendly with the organizer, Don Evans. He asked me to do a reading. Cool, I did one in September. He wanted to include my stuff in an anthology he was putting together with a local publisher. Fine, great. I was just looking for exposure, to be honest, and didn’t know what to expect from the project, if anything.

Last Friday, I got an email from Don, containing the pdf file of the page proofs for that anthology, Cubbie Blues. And I have to say, I got an electric charge of excitement from them. For one thing, the book looks very good, with terrific illustrations, from Tim Souers of Cubby-Blue and Margie Lawrence, among others.

For another, I’m with some very good company. Big name writers like Rick Kogan, Jonathan Eig (perzunalfrenofmine), Stu Shea (alzoperzunalfrenofmine), WXRT’s Lin Brehmer, Don DeGrazia, Scott Simon. Also writers I don’t know yet, but hope to meet in the future. It’s a fun grab bag of people united by an enduring love for the Cubs, and therefore attuned to the futility of hope and human existence.

But mainly, it’s incredibly exhilarating to receive a copy of nice clean pages, all laid out with printers crop marks, and realize that this is the last stage before the book actually making it into people’s hands. Privileged information, “eyes only,” a secret stash between me and the other writers, the editor and the publisher. It’s like having a good poker hand, and the feeling of anticipation before laying the cards down. I get to enjoy it all to myself (sort of) until signing off on it. (That’s another feeling entirely, as it goes to press, mostly a flickering hope with a heaping helping of dread, and the urge to start reading the Jobs section.)

This also gives me the chance to put on my editor’s cap, albeit in a small way. I won’t change any copy, since it’s already gone through other people’s hands. Besides, it’s an anthology, and Don has already done the heavy lifting of soliciting and stroking the writers, and psychological surgery of getting them to agree to changes. I only have to check for style and punctuation. It sounds nerdy, but I like doing it. I like to help make the thing perfect, or as close as we can come. One error I already found in the MS was a little thing, a hyphen inserted where an em-dash was clearly needed. Minor? Not really. With an em-dash, the sentence reads “hard job for which I have no stomach–finding readers.” A hyphen creates the adjective “stomach-finding”, which has a lot of grisly resonance at Halloween time.

My first publishing job was working on journals for a professional association of real estate appraisers. It was less exciting than it sounds, if you can believe that. My boss there was a great editor, though, and his boss was even better. They taught me a lot about clear writing, clear punctuation, clear structure–because when you need to edit an article about how to calculate the market value of an empty slaughterhouse, you need to find some way to make it read well. And that’s the feeling I get when I receive page proofs. I’m just disappointed it’s a pdf file and not paper. I’ve got a lot of big fat blue pencils just dying of loneliness.

Garage Sale

Some few, last, rambling observations on the Cubs and White Sox:

–It remains a mystery to me why the Cubs had a Greek Orthodox priest sprinkle the dugout with holy water before the playoff series. Was it because the Billy Goat curse was laid on the team by a Greek tavern owner, Sam Sianis? Were they chosen in a round robin, like having different clerics open council meetings with prayer? My good friend U-Boat, the West Coast’s go-to atheist, suggested that

Wouldn’t it be funny if, after years of systematically sprinkling holy something-or-others from all the world’s great religions, some really obscure religion turned it around for the Cubs?

Jainists Claim World Series for Cubs!

Or, they could just swing the bats once in a while…

U-Boat doesn’t want to entertain the idea that, if the Cubs do eventually win it, the sprinkling denomination will have bragging rights, if not complete legitimization as the one true voice of the Almighty. Great PR.

–Speaking of things spiritual, it occurred to me that this year’s White Sox team may have gotten where they are by selling their souls to the devil. However, the devil repackaged those deeds and sold them on the secondary market, where they’ve infected the balance sheets of many large lenders. The Sox, meanwhile, are left with no championship and a mighty tenuous story come judgment day.

–I loved the effect of the Sox blackout. Let’s hope the fans aren’t asked to overdo it and wear all black, say, in a Cubs midseason series. Much more effective to keep it in reserve for post-season play. Not that marketing depts. have much use for showing any reserve.

–it was good to see some young kids in attendance at both Comiskey Park and Tropicana Field, because marketers tell us that kids have lots more disposable income these days, so their spending decisions could have importance for the teams’ futures. Quite a different picture than I saw at the closing game at Yankee Stadium. Who’s going to waste their $500 ticket on a kid when they have to bring a client? The television cameras found one or two kids at the end and lingered over them as if they were the witnesses to the end of an era, when really they just wanted to go home and go to bed.

–As far-fetched as it might’ve been, I was really pulling for a Subway Series here in Chicago. The stories of carnage and mayhem, of families and marriages ripped apart, of class warfare and new lifelong hatreds, would’ve made for wonderful reading. New York has had a number of crosstown series, and the Giants and A’s played one back in 1989. Maybe one will happen during my lifetime.

–One trouble with TIVOing the games and zipping through them later is not being able to listen to the regular radio announcers call the game. They are infinitely more knowledgeable than the national broadcasters (well, three out of four are, while Santo grunts like a caveman). One friend of mine will only watch Bears games with the sound off while listening to the play-by-play announcers, which I think is a fine idea.

–One good point about the Cubs losing is that they retain their loveability. That’s one thing the Red Sox lost when they finally won the World Series, as Boston native Pat Borelli explains in today’s Tribune.

And if John Cheever really believed “All men of letters are Red Sox fans,” then it’s one more good reason to stay away from New England in the winter. They drink too much up there, apparently.

–And Alphonso Soriano (zip for bupkus in the last two post-season series) weighs in with an opinion that no one wants to hear, as it comes from him:

“We’re a very good team for [162] games, but we don’t do nothing after that,” he said. “That’s the difference. We’re not put together for [a short series].”

Boy, that must be the secret of baseball, right? Ignore most of the season and build a team that can win in a short series.

That only works for basketball, Fonzie.

Oh, BTW, you suck.