Already, baseball has reasserted its rhythm and tempo upon those of us who call ourselves baseball fans. Each year, it seems a little more amazing that we have survived for months without something that now seems so essential. The persistent and echoing cracks and pops of batting practice, the slow building of tension between pitcher and hitter when men are on base, the relaxed but involved hum of the grandstand between innings: baseball has returned as it has every spring this century, and it remains, as it has every year, for the most part unchanged in spite of the layoff. In fact, Chicago baseball fans were saying, on both north and south sides last week, that it sometimes seemed that nothing at all had changed, that we were in for the same long summers we spent outdoors last year. The first time I felt baseball reasserting itself upon me was during batting practice at Wrigley Field on opening day a week ago last Tuesday, and the second time came soon after, when, in the Saint Louis Cardinals’ part of the third, Rick Sutcliffe lost all control over his pitches and we began one of those long, frustrating innings so familiar from last year. The White Sox home opener, a week ago, was similarly familiar. Yes, baseball is back, and little seems changed, and in that we partially refer to its traditions — and partially to the teams themselves.
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Baseball fans are, I believe, compulsive by nature. Not only do we remember batting averages and victory totals going back to the dark ages, but we like the game’s constancy, its resistance to change, even though we may gripe about the same quality played out to its illogical extremes by baseball’s ownership. There are some relatively new changes in the game that we have grown used to just as we’ve grown used to seatbelt buzzers in automobiles: I still can’t get over the marching bands the White Sox invite to play on the field before big games, and their two “mascots” continue to annoy even though I expect them and have grown somewhat accustomed to them. Yet, the largest, most traumatic change in the first few days of the season was also perhaps the most minute: the Cubs have changed their scorecards.
Changes on the field this year are less traumatic but certainly will have more effect on the teams. The White Sox have new uniforms, ditching the newfangled threads (in which they won the division in 1983, for those superstitious fans out there) for something more traditional, but not as traditional as Mary Frances Veeck’s black-and-white, shirttail-untucked style of the late 70s. They look fairly elegant, although the consensus seems to be that the cap isn’t up to the class of the rest of the uniform. The Sox began their season on the official opening day of the sport, a week ago last Monday, with Richard Dotson on the mound. The assignment was perfect: Dotson symbolizes the entire White Sox pitching staff in that he is a pitcher full of ability but in some way suspect. An arm operation a couple of years ago turned Dotson from a Cy Young candidate into a 10-17 pitcher with a 5.48 ERA last year. This year, he has put on more weight beneath his waist; he seems, like Tom Seaver, to be moving toward a motion where the legs play the greater part in giving him the oomph that a major leaguer ought to have on his fastball. Against the Kansas City Royals, he gave up a run in the first inning — he allowed 22 in 34 starts over last season — then settled down and threw some of the best smoke I’ve seen him throw since the operation. He looked good and the Sox won going away, with Bobby Thigpen setting up Bob James for the save — a double dose of heat the Sox are banking on.
