Former Cubs and White Sox pitcher Jeff Samardzija as soon as insisted “you can always get a good nap in during the Sox game.”
It was meant as a praise to Ken “Hawk” Harrelson, although Samardzija later needed to clarify himself to the Sox broadcaster.
As baseball turns the primary nook in its speeded-up season this Memorial Day weekend, White Sox and Cubs followers flip to their porches and patios to soak in heat summerlike breezes and maybe sneak in a fast nap with the ballgame as mere backdrop.
No apologies mandatory. And to assist get to your REM cycle, listed here are three matters for a lazy Sunday.
South Side Brew Crew?
Commissioner Rob Manfred appeared out of the blue in Milwaukee final week and steered Wisconsin politicians must get their act collectively and pony up for stadium enhancements on the ballpark previously generally known as Miller Park.
The different possibility, naturally left unsaid, was the Brewers pulling up stakes and shifting, because the Oakland A’s at present are doing with their relocation to Las Vegas.
According to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Manfred advised reporters lack of funding to maintain up the A’s ballpark led to “a decline in the attendance which had an impact on the quality of the product that the team could afford to put on the field.”
Bad administration selections additionally contributed to the A’s decline, however that will spoil MLB’s narrative. Anyway, the trace was taken and almost $450 million price of stadium enhancements shall be debated in Milwaukee over the subsequent a number of months, with the specter of relocation within the air.
If the Brewers want an ideal touchdown spot that’s handy for Milwaukee followers and residential to a passionate base clamoring for a staff that competes on an annual foundation, the group can relocate to the South Side of Chicago, the place a state-funded ballpark already exists and is just in use half of the 162-game season.
The Brewers might play at house when the White Sox are on the highway and vice versa, making Chicago a three-team city with two day by day house video games half the 12 months.
Would the Sox outdraw the Brewers in a shared stadium situation? Given a selection between Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf and Brewers proprietor Mark Attanasio, would Reinsdorf get any votes?
Many Brewers house video games additionally would go head-to-head in opposition to Cubs video games, making the division rivals true opponents for followers’ leisure {dollars}, thus forcing the Cubs to cater extra to followers than their company sponsors.
This gained’t occur, after all. The Brewers are going nowhere and can proceed working in Milwaukee, the place they belong, for many years to return. Manfred can’t approve a relocation of a franchise as profitable because the Brewers with out somebody submitting a lawsuit.
As for Milwaukee’s soon-to-be free agent supervisor Craig Counsell … that’s one other story.
Ricketts vs. Roys
When the favored HBO sequence “Succession” ends its run Sunday evening, tens of millions will tune in to seek out out who succeeds the patriarch of the multibillion company.
That features a nice many Cubs followers who watch the present and see a variety of parallels between the principle characters and the 4 siblings of the household that owns their favourite baseball staff.
Kendall Roy, the brooding, introspective middle of the Roy household with a darkish secret, must be the TV model of Tom Ricketts, the Cubs chairman and first decision-maker on all enterprise issues.
Nebraska Sen. Pete Ricketts, the previous Cubs co-owner turned politician, would slip simply into the function of Connor Roy, the half brother who shouldn’t be concerned within the household enterprise and failed miserably in his try to develop into president. Pete has not run for president … but.
Board member Laura Ricketts, the one lady of the 4 siblings and an outspoken progressive in a predominantly conservative household, simply suits the a part of Siobhan “Shiv” Roy, the one lady of the Roy siblings. Laura was instrumental within the Cubs’ White House go to in 2017 within the closing days of the Obama administration. Shiv at present is battling for energy together with her two scheming brothers, whereas Laura is second in command to Tom within the Cubs hierarchy, with no obvious plans of taking up the operation from her brother.
Board member Todd Ricketts, the youngest Ricketts brother who served as chief fundraiser for former President Donald Trump’s reelection marketing campaign, compares with Roman, the youngest Roy sibling. This season Roman cozied as much as the newly elected, proper wing president and complained that his brother, Kendall, all the time received his method as youngsters. Coincidentally, Deadspin as soon as printed an e mail from Todd to his father and brother Pete, complaining about Tom getting an excessive amount of credit score for the Cubs: “The reason I am so sensitive to this is that even today I feel as though my input and ideas are disregarded among our family, just as they were when we were kids.”
It’s not precisely life imitating artwork, however shut sufficient for followers of the Cubs and Roys.
A TV sequence on the goings-on of the Ricketts household may very well be must-see TV in Chicago. The actual query is whether or not it could be thought-about a comedy or a drama.
Sunday morning flashback
Back on May 29, 1987, I used to be despatched by the Tribune to cowl a “Fairness in Sports Leadership” convention at Operation PUSH headquarters, the place Rev. Jesse Jackson threatened a nationwide boycott of baseball beginning on the Fourth of July if house owners didn’t provide you with a plan to extend the numbers of ladies and minorities in administration positions.
The furor over the shortage of minority hiring started that April when former Los Angeles Dodgers Vice President Al Campanis mentioned on ABCs “Nightline” that Black folks didn’t have “the necessities” to develop into managers and normal managers.
Jackson advised the Operation PUSH viewers that baseball house owners had precisely one month to “implement a plan to bring about fairness” or “definitive action will be taken.” MLB later named Black sociologist Dr. Harry Edwards to the employees of Commissioner Peter Ueberroth and employed a consulting agency owned by former Secretary of the Army Cliff Alexander to work with all 26 groups on implementing an affirmative motion plan.
Jackson referred to as off the proposed boycott on June 30, and a serious league govt advised the Tribune negotiations between Jackson and Ueberroth’s workplace led to “more progress in the last four months than in the 40 previous years.”
It’s been 36 years since the specter of a baseball boycott over its hiring practices. MLB at present has just one Black head of baseball operations — White Sox govt vice chairman Ken Williams — and solely two Black managers: Houston Astros’ Dusty Baker and Los Angeles Dodgers’ Dave Roberts. Kim Ng of the Miami Marlins is the primary and solely lady normal supervisor, employed in 2020.
Is that basically progress?
()
Source: www.bostonherald.com