Downey’s Eleven:
1. Your first-place Chicago White Sox are back home Tuesday night.
First place. First. Place.
I will keep hammering home this point for a while to everybody here hugging themselves in our 2008 “This Is the Cubs’ Year” Orgy of Love.
Last week I asked why there isn’t a “buzz” about the Sox’s great start the way there has been about the Cubs’.
Reader Chris Lazzerini of Palatine writes: “The Sox are in second place, a .500 team. You tell me which team the city should be focusing on.”
No, you tell me, my little Palatine pal.
I guess you wrote that really clever letter of yours on one of those days last week when the Sox were not in first place and not from May 1-10 when the Cubs were not in first place.
Reader Hank Trenkle of Park Ridge writes that my observation about no Sox “buzz” is misleading because the buzz is “about what really matters in people’s lives: the economy, the price of gas and food, unemployment, the war and the coming national election. Mr. Downey has space to fill in his column, but please, fill it with something that is relevant and not slanted.”
You’re right. Thanks, Hank.
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If I were writing my column for Wednesday’s newspaper, it would begin something like this: “The first-place White Sox defeated the Cleveland Indians 2-1 Tuesday night behind the strong two-hit pitching of Jose Contreras, but with gas at $4 a gallon, men and women out of work, soldiers dying and John McCain vs. Barack Obama, who cares about a stupid baseball game?”
I’ve got a lot of nerve writing about sports in the Sports section.
Winners of five in a row, the White Sox have a hot team.
Of course, I’m slanted.
2. P.S.: Do the first-place Sox have an All-Star?
I guess somebody from the Sox has to be on Terry Francona’s team for the July 15 game at Yankee Stadium, but which one? It won’t be Orlando Cabrera (.225), Nick Swisher (.213), Paul Konerko (.212), Jim Thome (.203) or Juan Uribe (.198), that’s for sure.
A.J. Pierzynski is having a good year. But it won’t be easy for him because Ivan Rodriguez and Jason Varitek will get the fan votes and Joe Mauer and Victor Martinez are with him among the American League’s top 10 hitters.
I wish Carlos Quentin could make it, but with all those big-name AL outfielders to choose from, good luck.
Looks like Bobby Jenks again, I guess. It would be three years in a row for him.
Hey, Francona, put him in the game. Jenks had to go to Pittsburgh in 2006 and to San Francisco in 2007 but didn’t get to throw a pitch.
3. World Series Preview!!! Huge interleague series June 17-19, so get your tickets and make your travel arrangements now!!!
Cubs at Tampa Bay.
4. Adam Greenberg is hitting .343 since joining the Arkansas Travelers, the Double-A club of the Angels.
Remember him? Greenberg is the guy who got beaned by the only pitch he saw in the majors, pinch-hitting for the Cubs in a game at Florida on July 9, 2005.
He is still only 27, but it has been a long grind trying to get back to a big-league team. Hang in there, kid.
5. Thursday’s game will be “Welcome Back Carlton Fisk Night” for the White Sox, who have hired Fisk to be a goodwill ambassador.
Welcome back, Carlton? Wasn’t that a show that starred Gabe Kaplan and John Travolta?
6. Chipper Jones is hitting .410.
If this guy played for the Red Sox or the Yankees instead of the Braves, ESPN would give you hourly Chipper updates and plan a made-for-TV movie of his life.
7. I have a vision of Big Brown at the Belmont in which he runs the race, goes back to the barn, eats some hay, fools around with a filly for a while, then walks back out to the track with a pair of binoculars to see which horse is next to cross the finish line.
8. The Boston Celtics will beat the Detroit Pistons for the NBA Eastern Conference championship because in Game 7 they will bring back Larry Bird to steal the ball.
9. Big Ben Wallace came up huge — not — in Game 7 of Cleveland’s loss to the Celtics: 3 points, 4 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 block and 5 fouls.
Time to hit the gong for Big Ben.
10. I know the Bulls are going to find a coach soon. Larry Brown has had that Charlotte job for 21 days. He must be bored with it by now. Give him a call.
11. A gold, tiger-striped thong? Jason Giambi wears one under his Yankees uniform to end a slump? And he loans it sometimes to Derek Jeter or Johnny Damon to wear? Ewwww.
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If Joe DiMaggio was disgusted with a movie that showed Marilyn Monroe’s undergarments, just imagine how he would feel about this.
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