Those who write about baseball for a living tend to forget that for many fans the sport serves not as a source of inspiration or edification but simply as an escape. They go out to the ballpark not just to enjoy the game and the players and the grandstand camaraderie, but to get away from it all for an afternoon or evening. The game’s leisurely pace lends itself to that purpose. Football and basketball are more urgent altogether, and while hockey does have its two intermissions to recommend it, the play can be intense. (Truly it can, though Blackhawks fans might need to be reminded of that.) Soccer has elements of baseball’s Zen placidity, but as uneventful as it tends to be I always get the anxious feeling I’ll miss something–one of those goals out of nowhere–if I don’t pay close attention every moment.
“May’s going to be a real test for us, more than any other month,” he said. “It’s going to put a real test on our team.” He was looking ahead to a 14-game road trip against National League Central Division rivals, including the completion of May’s home-and-home series with the Saint Louis Cardinals. Having considered the big picture he zoomed in on the afternoon, bemoaning the need to play a day game on returning home from a road trip simply because a city ordinance prohibits Friday-night dates at Wrigley. He said Billy Williams had warned him he’d almost need “a turnaround team” of bench players to let the starters rest on such occasions.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
After a brisk ride south on the Red Line, I was on the field at Sox Park watching batting practice in less than an hour. The Sox had finished and gone back to their locker room, but the visiting Seattle Mariners were still hitting. As the sun went down and the grandstand shadow crawled across the field, each pop fly burst briefly into the sunlight before descending back into shadow, and it took longer and longer shots to reach the sun as the evening began to cool. (Even so the game-time temperature was 49, two degrees higher than Wrigley’s that afternoon.) Like the visiting Rockies before them, the Mariners were outfitted for the weather, with black fleece tunics and woolly winter caps. Mike Cameron, the old Sox prospect dealt away for Paul Konerko a few years ago, wore his cap rolled up like a sailor on watch, and during the game second baseman Brett Boone would wear his turtleneck unrolled to cover his chin and mouth; he looked like a bandit, or like Mort from the Bazooka Joe comics. But these fashion details soon yielded to the details of the Mariners’ play, especially that of Ichiro Suzuki. His trademark sunglasses perched on the visor of his cap, he looked almost foxy, with keen eyes, wide cheeks, and a sharp, pointy nose and chin. What I hadn’t noticed before was the coquettish way he brings his knees together while awaiting the pitch, to trigger the smooth, even swish of his hips as they lead the swing.
The Sox’ early-season woes had become habitual. Their slugging lineup again went silent hitting the heavy, cold rock of April baseball, and manager Jerry Manuel seemed powerless to do anything about it. Where before the weekend was over Baker would put both of his slow first basemen–Big Choi and Eric Karros–in motion on the hit-and-run, Manuel just sat there and waited for the homers to come. “I just have to keep the faith that it’s going to come around,” he said Friday, a sentiment he repeated almost word for word the following night after a 12-2 loss. The Sox went on to be swept 5-1 in a rain-shortened game on Sunday, after the Cubs, who’d blown a lead in a 6-4 loss Saturday, salvaged the rubber game of their series with the Rox with a 5-4 win on a tenth-inning walk-off homer by pinch hitter Gonzalez, fully rested thanks to the day off.
