Last Sunday morning, as I was out for a constitutional (suited to my kind of constitution, complete with cigar), I was met on a shady side street by the scraping, jangly noise of an aluminum baseball bat being dragged on the sidewalk behind a medium-size boy of about ten. The boy came on, shoulders slumped, bat dragging, but as we neared he quickly scooped the bat up and held it in two hands in front of him, so that he could speak without any background noise.
“Got any extra tickets?”
What were we doing there?
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I didn’t think those thoughts at the night game. I hustled out of work to get there on time and spent the evening catching up with my season-tickets seatmate. But on Sunday, with its uniquely slow-paced and contemplative atmosphere, I was alone. The game began early, just after noon, and as the seats slowly filled for the next hour I kept thinking, “Just what am I doing here?”
On the mound for the Astros was rookie Darryl Kile. I confess I was neither uninterested nor disinterested in the day’s events, as Kile is on my (disappointing so far, but not without its chances) Rotisserie League team. He’s a big kid, so big he makes his glove look like a fashion touch Michael Jackson might adopt. He has a short stride, however; he has what’s referred to as a live arm, with the arm doing the throwing and the short stride adding snap to his breaking pitches, and they break a good deal. The Cubs got the run back in the bottom of the first, with utility man deluxe Chico Walker leading off with a single, moving to second an out later on a hit-and-run ground out by Ryne Sandberg, and scoring on a liner Andre Dawson smoked into left field. After that, however, Kile settled down–for a time, anyway–and struck out four straight Cubs, each of them on a curveball.
After Bielecki allowed the Astros to close within 4-3, Chicago manager Jim Essian went to his bull pen–a dubious decision. Yet after a string of strong outings by the team’s starters to end the first half of the season, and with the All- Star break added on, the bull pen–Smith aside–has shown signs of rejuvenation after being overworked by both Essian and the departed Don Zimmer early on. Chuck McElroy came on for Bielecki in the sixth and stranded two runners.
