The White Sox, in a familiar twist, are very bad. The White Sox, in a familiar twist, should trade every one of their good players at the trade deadline and try to convert them into future value. The White Sox, in a familiar twist, are making this hard on themselves.
There are two explanations for why the White Sox put Joe Kelly on the injured list yesterday. The first is that he’s hurt, that he has elbow inflammation. They didn’t say he does, though. Or rather, they said it isn’t serious. Surely, given they have nothing to play for and little to live for as an organization, they could have kept him active all weekend and just not had him pitch. The second, then, is that they’re trying to tank Joe Kelly’s trade value, keeping him from letting nature improve his ERA (that balk on Saturday was bullshit, as was the White Sox’ infield defense surrounding it; no comment on Tuesday).
Why would the White Sox hurt their own return for their own player? Why would the White Sox do any of the things the White Sox do? These are the guys who hired Tony La Russa in the year 2021. They are not a rational actor.
So, if you’re out in public this weekend and people are speculating about the health of one Joe Kelly, the best player likely to be available at the MLB Trade Deadline later this month, make sure you remind everyone that he should be assumed to be in full health. We’ve gotta get the word up to the other front offices.
How the NASCAR Went
I only know of two times when my mom’s been drunk, and the first was allegedly at a church music department party. (The story goes that my dad showed up after finishing one of our baseball practices and found my mom “three sheets to the wind.”) (The other story is that my sister-in-law forgot to dilute the sangria with sparkling water at Thanksgiving in 2016, instead giving my mom liquor-spiked wine.) I share this to say:
My mom is not NASCAR’s target demographic.
And yet.
My mother was fascinated by the stock cars in Chicago.
I was home in Crystal Lake earlier this week for the Fourth of July, and all weekend my mom was perplexed and intrigued by the NASCAR happening down in Grant Park. She wanted to know why NASCAR was there. She wanted to know how fast NASCARs go. She wanted to know how the cars weren’t spinning out onto the sidewalks and killing people. In terms of drumming up interest, NASCAR pulled it off.
Unfortunately, NASCAR did not pull off generating attendance.
The word around the NASCAR world is that the Chicago Street Race was a huge success, and for NASCAR, it was. Reviews of the race were high from people who attended and people who watched at home, with the stock cars providing an exciting race (not a parade) with a surprising winner (we have to learn about Supercars now) and a great set of visuals in one of the world’s most beautiful cities, one whose Big–Shoulders identity resonates strongly with NASCAR’s ideal culture. Even with the disasters of the frustrating lightning Saturday night and the catastrophic flooding Sunday morning, the weekend went down as a good one for stock cars.
But.
The word from Chicago is that this was an expensive event which didn’t bring the crowds it hoped to bring downtown.
It’s possible Chicago will be convinced by how positive the sporting world’s response was and believe NASCAR when it says next year will only be better. It’s also possible Chicago, like its oft-forgotten White Sox, will just do something dumb and we’ll all be better off for it. It’s worth remembering that the journalist caste pillaging this in the Sun-Times and that economist from Lake Forest University calling out Chicago for poor negotiating are the six people in the Midwest least inclined to like NASCAR, even less inclined than my mother. Journalists and academics, to overgeneralize, have a habit of looking down on people, and NASCAR is first on the list when it comes to things the overeducated scorn.
In another weird decision, NASCAR has allowed Chicago to wait until New Year’s to decide if this happens in 2024, which would push the full schedule announcement four months later than this year’s. Ideally, the answer will come sooner, but it’s Chicago. Who knows. I have no idea how this will or won’t work out.
They Haze at Northwestern?
Keeping with our Illinoisan focus, Pat Fitzgerald has been suspended two weeks because his players were hazing each other.
Not to glorify hazing, but: I thought Northwestern was too apathetic for that kind of thing?
If anything, this shows that Pat Fitzgerald continues to pull off his most stunning success, which is maintaining Football Culture in a program housed in anything but a football school. But at the same time, Northwestern’s a lot worse now than it was when its players were trying to unionize, so maybe Football Culture isn’t working. Maybe they need to get back to Ivory Tower Culture. Northwestern, man. We don’t talk about those nerds enough.
