Fear and Baseball in the Midwest

David Marasco

We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like "I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive...."

Wait a minute, that's not me, that's Hunter S. Thompson from his famous screed about the death of the American Dream. I'm nowhere near Las Vegas, in fact, I live in the Midwest. While I sport a serious addiction, it is to baseball, not drugs. Recently I took a savage journey of my own, 8 days, 5 ballgames and no cows. Fear and Baseball in the Midwest.

We open our story on the South Side of Chicago. Comiskey Park to be exact. The White Sox are in the process of rebuilding and it has been ugly. Professional soccer outdraws the Sox when they are head-to-head. Only the hardened and the insane inhabit Comiskey now. I fall into at least one of those categories. The food vendors know my face and start on my order before I get to the front of the line, no big deal as the lines are usually quite short.

Cleveland is in town. The matchup is not one for the marquee: Burba vs. Sirotka. The Sox jump all over Burba in the third, Ray Durham and Mike Caruso scoring on a Frank Thomas blast to deep centerfield. Albert Belle doubles and scores in the inning, and will be arrested on a domestic battery charge later in the day. Sirotka is pitching well. He looks sharp, and when he does falter the White Sox back him up with some dazzling defense. That's something I haven't seen from them all year. It's the end of July and they are finally playing the type of ball they should have had under their belts in May.

The Sox win by a final of 8-1 and show a rare glimmer of promise. They are a young team, and have good talent that is developing in the majors rather than nurtured in the minors. I have the feeling that someday I'll look lovingly back upon the days when 8000 of us watched the likes of Abbott, Caruso, Cameron and Ordonez learn how to play baseball.

There will always be a special place in my heart for Wrigley Field. It is where I fell in love with the game again. After living through the Roseanne/Firesale Era in San Diego and then the strike, I was falling away from the game. On Opening Day of 1995 I talked some friends into going to the game. My friends took a while to get their act together, so we were a bit late. As I stepped through the tunnel to our seats I saw Sammy Sosa hit one of the longest home runs I'd ever seen (and it gets longer every year). I knew then that I'd never be able to leave baseball.

That being said, some of the charm of Wrigley has faded. Between the Cubs being in a pennant race and the rise of Kerry Wood, Wrigley Field has become a popular place to be seen amongst the Yuppie set. I've got nothing against the successful enjoying a ballgame, but a lot of people aren't there for the baseball. Wrigley Field is slowly becoming the world's largest frat-house.

The Montreal Expos were in town and they threw Vasquez against Traschel. It was a see-saw affair in the beginning, with each team doing the little things to get three runs.

While the action on the field was great, the fans didn't deserve it. The people sitting next to me disappeared for five innings. The person two rows in front of me spent most of the time on his cell-phone. The Cubs had to stop the game four times because idiots ran out on the field. I used to go to 20 or so Cub games a year, but recently the stupidity meter has been reading a bit too high at the Friendly Confines.

The Cubs broke the game open in the bottom of the 8th. With two runs already in and a man on, Sammy Sosa thrilled the crowd with a home run. The fans reacted by throwing all sorts of garbage on the field. It's a little confusing that a high class venue that draws a well-to-do clientele can exhibit such boorish behavior, but I guess that's the result of a lot of beer. Sammy's home run was followed three pitches later by a shot by Henry Rodriguez, and more garbage. This time the umpires refused to stop play for the cleaning crews and the balance of the inning was played with trash on the field from the trash in the stands.

With a 9 to 3 bulge things looked safe for the Cubs going into the ninth. A Widger two-run homer closed the gap to 4, and when two more reached base the Cubs made the call Rod Beck. He nailed the door shut for a 9-5 victory.

It was a Friday night and it had been a long week at work. I decided to treat myself to some baseball. I was down at Argonne National Lab, so I pointed my car west to catch some Midwest League action. Kane County is a fairly recent addition to the order of things. They are located practically at the gates of Fermilab, so sometimes I think I work at the wrong particle accelerator. The Cougars make a pretty penny by offering a low cost alternative to Chicago's Major League franchises. I got in for six bucks, and I was spending like a high roller. Kane County draws well for a team in the low minors. They can get about 8 to 10K. They are in the Marlins chain, so on some nights they might even outdraw the parent club. Then again, given the current state of the Marlins, on some nights they might beat the parent club. This was not one of those nights.

The Peoria Chiefs went to work right away on Kane County's Coco Lima (no, I'm not making that name up). A single to right was followed by a walk and a sacrifice. Lima mishandled said sacrifice and in the end a pair of runs scored and a man was on second. Lima stopped the bleeding, but that isn't the best way to start a ballgame. The final would be 5 to 2. Both teams had their chances, but overall the Chiefs looked much better on the day.

The future of Milwaukee reaches towards the sky behind the outfield bleachers. The exposed skeleton of Miller Park looms over County Stadium. Well, I've seen the future and it ain't pretty. Earlier in the year I flew down for a game in Atlanta. Ted Turner Field is a very nice place to watch baseball, but it is also very pricey. A seat beyond the foul pole in the second tier cost $25. The people I talked to in Atlanta remembered fondly the days of low ticket prices. I'm sure that Miller Park will have great sightlines, nice asymmetric angles, and all that, but I also know that a good number of people are going to be priced out of the ballgame.

My strategy is to enjoy cheap baseball while I can. I invade Wisconsin on a regular basis. One thing that helps is that I know that Window F by the press gate is where they hold all of the season ticket returns. If you just buy one ticket you can get a wonderful seat. On this Saturday night I sat right behind the plate, four rows from the field. I could hear the pitchers swear when they gave up hits. In this section ushers bring the food to you, and beer vendors give change for $100 bills without blinking. We're going to be seeing a lot more of this kind of fan when Miller Park opens its doors, they will be the only ones who will be able to afford it. The Brewers had an official from Organized Labor throw out the first pitch. I stood up and cheered, and then realized that I was the only person the area doing so. I forgot I was sitting in prime seats. I was watching baseball with The Man.

The matchup was Perez vs. Karl, and Karl stumbled out of the gate. The Expos strung together hits in the top of the first to jump out to a 2-0 lead. The Brewers got some help from the Expos outfield and got a run back in the home half of the first, and then tied it up on Jeromy Burnitz's solo homer in the second. Each team scrapped up another run, but once the sun went down the pitching was dominant. Karl at one point retired 9 in a row, and Perez would do little spins when he recorded big outs.

It looked like extra innings when Burnitz came to the plate in the bottom of the ninth. Telford and Burnitz battled to a full count, and then Jeromy fouled of a pitch. Telford came back with an offering that was just a little too good. Burnitz sent a shot screaming down the right field line. It was fair and it was gone. The Brewers win it 4-3 on Burnitz's second dinger of the night.

The Cubs have a minor league franchise about an hour outside of Chicago, so the future Dr. Renbarger and I decided to hit the road and see some minor league ball. After a while you start hitting farmland. We didn't spot any cows, but perhaps our bovine friends are adept at hiding from us city-slickers. Cowmouflage? We ended up in Rockford, located amazingly enough at a crossing of the Rock river. While Kane County will draw a good crowd, Rockford fits the picture of minor league baseball in the middle of a farming community. They drew 1800 on a Sunday that God Himself made for baseball. The Burlington Bees, a Cincinnati affiliate, were in town to do battle with the locals.

Rockford has Ruben Amaro and Manny Trillo on its coaching staff, and Nelson Abreu (younger brother of the more famous Abreu) on their roster.

John Whitesides started for the Bees, facing Kyle Loshe of the Cubbies. It was Whitesides who would be nicked first. He fell victim to the double-steal, a play that you’ll see much more often in A ball than you will in the Majors.

Perhaps it is the big-time stadium and the large crowds, but somehow it seems like the Midwest League baseball played at Kane County is at a higher level than the same product in Rockford. At Kane County you can tell it is minor league mainly due to the poor fielding. At Rockford we saw bad hitting. We marveled at one player's Will Clarkesque perfect swing and commented that his sub-par batting average must be due to a poor batting eye. Our suspicions were confirmed when he struck out on a ball at up around his hat. The designated hitter was clocking in at .150, so we suspect that since he isn't a hitter he'll soon be designated. There were some good flashes in the game, but there sure seemed to be a lot of haystack. In the end the Cubbies prevailed for a 3-2 victory. Lots of sloppy play, but entertaining baseball none the less.

So there you have it, a week and a day in the life of a baseball fan in the Land of Lincoln. We started in a ghetto and ended in the middle of nowhere. Along the way we saw double steals, bottom of the ninth homers, too many Yuppies, criminals, players who will go to the Hall of Fame and players who be asking if you want fries with your order next year. That's quite a trip. Do you think they'll get Johnny Depp to play me in the movie?