There in broad daylight were two teams and seasons passing in the night.
There in one happy-sad sequence late in Saturday’s game was why the White Sox are winning and the Cubs are losing games and face. The second straight one-run game didn’t begin to illustrate the widening gap between these teams and the level of Cub frustration and humiliation.
They lost Saturday because their most intelligent player, Mark Grace, got caught napping off first base, saving their famed slugger, Sammy Sosa, from striking out for the ninth time in 10 at-bats in the two games.
The embarrassment was intensified because this happened at Comiskey Park. Sox fans shouldn’t bring brooms Sunday. They should bring shovels. The 2000 Cubs are about to be buried.
Sox reliever Keith Foulke delivered this postgame dagger to the pride: “That used to be us the last couple of years. We always found ways to lose games.”
Cubs manager Don Baylor might be more worried about losing his mind. While several of his moves Friday night and Saturday can be second-guessed, Baylor has found himself in an unfair fight. He’s swinging a plastic sword against the one Jerry Manuel finally has pulled from the stone. Scrounging for offense, Baylor went with 7-8-9 hitters Gary Matthews Jr., Chad Meyers and Augie Ojeda, whose 15 minutes of cult-hero fame appear to be up.
Baylor was reduced in the eighth inning to arguing half-heartedly that Sox reliever Sean Lowe had balked before picking off Grace. Grace had just beaten a double-play relay that scored Meyers, cutting the Sox’s lead to 4-3 and moving Eric Young to third. Two down, Sosa up.
The fans would have appreciated Sosa-Foulke II, a rematch of the at-bat won Friday night by Sosa’s game-tying, top-of-the-ninth homer. But Manuel had promised himself Foulke was good for “three outs only.” Foulke had faced six batters in Friday night’s eighth and ninth.
Manuel and his staff again pushed the right button, as they did with Game 1’s bottom-of-the-14th steal by Herbert Perry, who hadn’t tried one all season. That set up Ray Durham’s game-winning hit. Going with pickoff specialist Lowe set up Grace for a moment that will live in Cubs-Sox infamy.
More Top Picks Best Leather Recliners For Big And Tall Men
As Sosa fell behind 0-2, Lowe twice tried the old fake-to-third, throw-to-first ploy. The Sox suspected Baylor might try a delayed steal, in the belief catcher Brook Fordyce wouldn’t throw to second with the speedy Young on third. But Grace is slower than the Dan Ryan. Grace remains concerned about a recently healed hamstring.
Grace wasn’t going anywhere. Even if Lowe did make a balk move toward home before faking to third–it was close–Grace had time to get back to first. But it appeared he and his mind had wandered off the bag. Say goodnight, Gracie.
Poor Grace, who had hit a solo homer, was reduced to being compared with the knuckleheaded Mike Caruso. The demoted Sox shortstop was the only guy the Sox could remember being victimized by the fake-and-throw.
Lowe seemed amused and honored by Grace’s contention that the umps gave Lowe some home cooking. “When,” Lowe asked, “have we ever had [opposing stars] say, `Oh, we’re at Comiskey Park. They’re going to get that [call]’?”
Once upon a time.
But Lowe was not amused by how the Cubs tried to refocus the issue on whether he balked: “I’m not going to rip a guy who has been in the league forever, but I’d be upset that he was over there not paying attention.”
Baylor probably was. That’s probably why he didn’t argue profanely enough to get ejected and try igniting his clubless club. He stood up for his team only to the point of calmly discussing the pickoff move with the plate ump.
At that moment the most relieved man in Chicago had to be Sosa. One more mighty swing and miss and Hall of Fame baseball scribe Jerome Holtzman, who was in the press box, might have penned a tragi-comic poem titled, “Sammy at the Bat.” There was no joy in Wrigleyville…
Maybe Grace did Sosa a favor by getting picked off intentionally.
Clearly discombobulated by Friday night’s booing, Sosa has spent the series trying to hit a ball over Waveland from Comiskey. The dreaded loopy uppercut is back. Now Sosa can’t even catch up to speed-limit fastballs.
For the Cubs it came to this: Manuel, with unintentional condescension, said he hoped his younger players learned from watching Sosa overswing.