Kauffman Stadium hasn't been much of a house of horrors for the White Sox of late, but even during the Robin Ventura years, I still always looked forward to the White Sox visiting Kansas City. The chief reason: publicity for the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.
Tim Anderson has taken it up a notch this year, flying in members from the Youth Guidance program in Chicago to take a tour of the museum. Based on a photo from this morning, others from the organization have joined him as well:
The NLBM is a terrific place, and I always recommend visiting should you find yourself in Kansas City. And Arthur Bryant's is right around the corner.
Spare Parts
Danny Farquhar continues to take positive steps -- literal ones, in this case -- during his recovery from a brain aneurysm. Members of the team haven't been able to contact him yet, but they're wearing "PRAY FOR 43" t-shirts and hanging his jersey into the bullpen for the foreseeable future. Also, Don Cooper talked more about Farquhar's collapse:
[Cooper] told the Tribune the plan last Friday had been for Farquhar to pitch the seventh inning after he retired two Astros hitters and gave up a pair of runs in the sixth.
But Cooper said that Sox trainer Herm Schneider told him Farquhar had a bad headache and could not remain in the game.
“I turned to Rick (Renteria) and said, ‘He can’t go. I got (Aaron) Bummer going.’ ” Cooper said. “I went over to Danny, tapped him on the leg and said, ‘Go inside. Take care of yourself. Feel better.’ Then I went back to my seat and heard (bench coach Joe McEwing) say, ‘Whoa, whoa!’
Farquhar's situation isn't the only one the White Sox are negotiating. Rick Renteria will miss Friday and Saturday's games to attend services for his mother, who passed away on Wednesday at the age of 91.
When the topic was brought up, Renteria politely asked to keep the discussion on baseball.
“Man, we’ve got a lot going on,” [Miguel] González said. “Pray for us.”
Tim Anderson says Justin Verlander's criticism of his style of play doesn't bother him. It seems to, but I suppose he means it in the sense that it's not going to alter the way he goes about his business. That's fine by me. Considering he didn't use his legs enough his first 1½ years, I don't mind him erring on the other side of the equation this season, as long as there's a fine-tuning process taking place over the course of the year.
Jeff Sullivan uses the one gap in Jose Abreu's game this year -- cashing in a runner from third with fewer than two outs -- to explore what the leaguewide success rate is in such situations. It's about 50 percent, and getting tougher due to the surge in strikeouts, although hitters strike out less in such situations.
The snowouts of April have teams and players more seriously considering reducing the season to 154 or 158 games, and reducing the season's footprint. The biggest challenge is financial. Jayson Stark says eight teams with massive attendance and TV contracts would lose a lot of money from the gates and broadcast rights to eight games. If those holdouts could be brought on board, then they'd have to figure out how players would feel about making less money because they're working 5 percent less.
I'm OK with a 154-game season in theory, although if the better relievers are available for a higher percentage of games, the balls-in-play problem could accelerate further. There are also some issues with the finer points of Stark's plan. A day without any baseball (Monday) is a bad idea, and it's always troublesome territory when a guy with a BBWAA card says raising ticket prices and concessions by small amounts isn't a big deal.
It's cool when top prospects do cool things right away. It's even cooler when it's in the National League.
