Perhaps ignorance is bliss, but I hereby plead disinterest and thus excuse myself from the widespread panic about whether Sammy Sosa reported to spring training in shape only to challenge baseball’s calorie cap.
This is just like the Cubs. They finally find a guy who hits 66 home runs off somebody else’s pitchers and, bingo, he’s too fat.
Actually, it is not so much the Cubs who challenged Sosa’s waistline, but we flaccid media types. I lose my breath after typing three sentences in a row, so until my legs are the size of his arms, I’m not going to worry about Sammy.
Besides, there are too many other Cubs to worry about, which is why the alarm went off in the first place. Everything went so well for our heroes last season that fans are bracing for disappointment this season, and it has little to do with Sammy becoming larger than life.
I doubt whether Babe Ruth, after he hit 60 home runs in 1927, had to hear at the start of spring training in 1928 that he was overweight. Babe’s second-favorite indoor exercise, besides you-know-what, was grazing. That was fine with the public and the press.
Occasionally the Babe was teased about his pearlike frame, but he was as quick with the wit as he was with the fork. Example: Bill Killefer, manager of the St. Louis Browns, ran into Ruth at the batting cage one afternoon.
“Your face keeps getting fatter and fatter,” he said.
“Yeah?” the Babe replied. “I don’t hit with my face.”
Those were the good old days, and exactly when the gravy train ran off the tracks is unclear. But now we are in a bad way during the cosmetically correct ’90s, when players strive for heavenly bodies.
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Maybe it’s those tight-fitting uniforms they all wear now. I hesitate to think what the current fashion trend would have meant during the ’70s, when Rick Reuschel was pitching for the Cubs and Wilbur Wood for the White Sox.
Reuschel was as round as the moon, but a terrific athlete who could field, hit and run. Wood, built like an egg, wouldn’t be caught dead near a salad bar either, but he won 24 games for two consecutive seasons, working 377 and 359 innings, respectively. You can’t get a pitcher to try that now. Not without a note from his nutritionist.
Whitey Herzog, the outstanding former St. Louis Cardinals manager, saw it coming. Players hooked on the fitness fetish become as taut as violin strings. But while training to look good at the beach, they wind up in the whirlpool.
“Guys nowadays sneeze wrong and throw their backs out,” Herzog groused. “What they need is a steak and a few beers.”
Other sports have deteriorated too. The Super Bowl XX Bears never missed tackling the clubhouse buffet, but they didn’t need to be motivated. They just needed to be burped. Then came the forlorn Dave Wannstedt regime, where great physical specimens abounded, as if to audition for “Baywatch.” One problem: They couldn’t play football.
Steve Larmer thought riding the bike meant taking a spin on a Harley. But while other finely tuned teammates pulled hamstrings in the weight room, he settled in with a ham sandwich and never missed a game for the Blackhawks.
Mind you, I respect the fat police questioning Sosa, because of the aforementioned reason. It gives us an excuse for 1999. President Andy MacPhail chimed in, saying the Cubs can’t spend wildly because they ranked only 11th in major-league attendance last year. He neglected to mention that the Cubs just sold some TV games to Fox Sports Chicago for $15 million or so.
But MacPhail, too, has been seen in broad daylight, perspiring senselessly on a treadmill to the point of fiscal exhaustion. So take what he says with a grain of salt, and hold the mayo. No wonder he doesn’t want puffy David Wells.
The Cubs have a nice ballclub, but alas, they are the Cubs. Unsafe even when hungry, especially after 90 wins last season. As for Sammy Sosa, keep your chins up.