Take me out to the ballgame. On second thought . . .
By the fifth inning, most of the Opening Day pilgrims to Comiskey Park had moved to the sunny, non-Frank Thomas, third-base side of the stadium, clumping up in sufficient numbers to look like an impressive welcome home for, among others, Harold Baines, who last played here when his number was on the wall instead of on his back.
But to believe that 34,750 souls showed up to wish the Sox well on their next adventure, you needed to count as well as to watch the game with one eye closed, the basic wink position.
The announced figure was merely 10,000 or so off capacity, though I counted that many empty seats just in the upper right-field deck.
The message in each empty seat is that the Sox are going to have to win back public affection, a mission generally the same throughout baseball.
To do this, the Sox are relying on things that are wacky. It says so right here in the Opening Day press release.
“Wacky Weeknights Preview,” it says. That would include spaced around the various Comiskey Park gates someone juggling bowling balls, someone who looks like David Letterman, a harp player with several cupids, a stiltwalker and Mike “the Fly” Garcia–the state featherweight boxing champ–as well as various dog acts, none of whom is Danny Tartabull.
And these Sox owners were the guys who scoffed at Bill Veeck.
Veeck knew that sometimes baseball is just not enough. Sometimes you have to get, well, wacky.
You want wacky? Let’s start on the Sox pitchers’ mound, where the heretofore unseen Kevin Tapani was to be making his Sox home debut, still considered an honor, against the unbeaten Texas Rangers. Tapani had not missed a start in 161 turns.
Who shows up but handy stand-in Kirk McCaskill instead, not counting Chicago Bull Scottie Pippen, who threw the honorary first pitch, a medium slowball to the knees of a right-handed power forward.
Tapani had pulled a groin in his last game, no one is sure when–possibly on a pickoff throw to first, something wacky like that.
Said McCaskill, “I pitch when they ask me to.”
Who doesn’t? This included in succession Bill Simas, Larry Thomas, Matt Karchner and Roberto Hernandez, the Sox stopper, whose job it became to save a lost game, not a working statistic.
Well, you do try to introduce everybody on Opening Day.
Here’s wacky. Norberto Martin, the utility infielder, injured himself with his own bunt the other night. Martin will be out a couple months with multiple face fractures.
Maybe that isn’t as wacky as it is sad, but once you start down that wacky road, it is hard to separate the tragic from the trivial.
And what could be wackier than Thomas, making the last out in the last two losses, the one Tuesday a double play off an anemic lunge at a poor pitch?
“I know I should have kept the bat on my shoulder,” Thomas said.
This is never a problem for Thomas, who swings at bad pitches about as often as dogs are allowed in free. Oops. Bad example. That’s an actual Wacky Wednesday in August.
To be 2-5 after the first week of the season and lose all five games by a single run? That’s wacky.
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“If we weren’t playing well, we would be losing by 7-2, 7-3, scores of that nature,” said Terry Bevington, still the manager.
Ah, yes, here is an untapped source of wackiness. Bevington is always ready to loosen his wing nuts and have a laugh.
Question: It must be frustrating to lose each game by one run.
Answer: Is that a question?
Question: Is it accurate?
Answer: You told me I was frustrated.
Question: Are you?
Answer: No. Next question.
Any wackier and we’re looking at Mike Ditka.