White Sox Spring Training, Day 7
Saturday, Feb. 27, 2010
Today
Expected late afternoon rain held off and we enjoyed another beautiful day in Glendale, Ariz. I spent the early afternoon at Goldman’s Deli in Scottsdale (corner of Hayden Road and Indian Bend Road) with the MLB Network crew as Jerry Reinsdorf and Commissioner Bud Selig enjoyed a baseball lunch in front of camera for “The Club.”
It was fun listening in (as I scarfed down a brisket sandwich) as the two recounted favorite baseball stories … they really are both great fans, and historians, of the game.
One of the things I learned: Jerry missed Geoff Blum’s game-winning home run in Game 3 of the 2005 World Series. Upset by a White Sox GIDP earlier in the inning, he has dejectedly walked to the back of the suite where he was watching the game. Hearing a roar, he looked up at a television in time to see a baseball fly over the right-field fence at Minute Maid Field.
Photo Day
Sunday is Photo Day in Sox camp, as our players happily (OK, sometimes not that happily) smile for the cameras at 7 a.m. We’ll try to give you a behind the scenes look at the exercise tomorrow on twitter.
(Note to readers: you may also want to follow our feed @InsideTheSox for up to the minute news, observations, photos and video)
I may have told this story in previous years, but my personal favorite Photo Day story comes from Sarasota, Fla. Obsessed with not being late for the 5:30 a.m. arrival time, I set my alarm at the beautiful Sleep Inn hotel near the airport and laid down for a restless night. I wear glasses and can’t really see well (curse of the job, that and losing a lot of hair way too early). After tossing and turning most of the night, I rolled over to see the clock read 6:20.
“Oh, my God,” I thought, hopping out of bed and into my clothes. I raced down to my car in the pitch black Florida morning and started it up. The radio came on; 2:15 a.m.
What?
I went back up to my hotel room where the digital clock read 2:20 a.m. and the room temperature was 62 degrees.
Ouch.
My second best involved Michael Jordan. Faced with 30-some photo stops for a White Sox Photo Day involving the basketball immortal, he calmly explained to each photographer, “I got two free throws, you get two shots. Make them good.”
Crazy
I sit in Scottsdale, Ariz. on a Saturday afternoon with temperatures in the high 60s/low 70s and a PGA tournament across the street while talking to my kids who are in Michigan skiing down a mountainside (or at least a hillside). I can’t wait to see my wife and kids on March 17. Seems a long way off right now …
Inside the White Sox 