A Time Filled With Changes
October 25, 2017 at 3:58 p.m.
By Roger Grossman-
The Warsaw Tiger football season was still going, but because all Class 6A teams got a bye week last week, the Tigers’ dance card was empty.
Coaches were free to take their wives out to dinner and a movie, or out of town to watch the leaves turn. Players sat around and sent each other text messages or went hunting, and their voice helped people onto and off of a wagon for hayrides at the Lincoln Elementary School Fall Festival.
I can’t speak to what anyone else did or how they spent their bye week, but I spent most of Thursday and all of Friday feeling guilty. I kept thinking that I ought to be doing something broadcast related. I felt like I ought to be setting up equipment and plugging in headphones instead of helping lock the gate on that wagon and giving Scott Sterk thumbs up to let him know he was good to pull out onto Clark Street for a trip around the block.
I spent the evening guessing what grade the riders were in and having them tell me who their teacher was.
I was not where I normally would be, but I was right where I should have been – with my family, at my family’s school, having fun and helping others do the same.
I was in the right place.
With most of our local football squads bowing out in the opening round of those aforementioned football playoffs, and Warsaw in the semifinals already, the team that everyone is now watching is Triton.
The Trojans posted an easy win over Caston, but will have their hands full with a Winamac team they beat 36-19 in Week 9 and is anxious for a second chance. If they get past the Warriors, they will play either Culver or LaVille. They beat the Lancers by eight points early in the season and needed overtime to beat Culver.
Given the way their season has played out – the joy of a seven-win season at a place where that just doesn’t happen and the despair and anguish of losing a teammate – is there anyone who isn’t cheering for the Trojans? Warsaw, Wawasee, Valley … we all ought to be hoping this Triton run goes for a long time. Since the accident, Triton is 3-2, and their two losses are to No. 1 Pioneer and to Knox. Triton was the first, and one of only four teams in ten games this season, to score on Pioneer. Knox is 9-1, and the only team that beat them is Pioneer.
A guy I think a lot of, Dr. Chuck Swindoll, says “I am convinced that life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it.”
I subscribe to that philosophy, too. Triton is a living example of it.
After the Chicago Cubs lost Game 5 of the National League Championship Series, everyone associated with the organization knew that changes would come. But I am not sure anyone saw the first change being the announcement that pitching coach Chris Bosio would not be offered a contract for 2018.
Bosio has been rock-solid in leading the pitching staff since he joined the Cubs back when they were filled with has-beens, nobodies and young kids. He is responsible for taking a struggling Jake Arrieta from the Orioles and making him one of the top five pitchers in baseball over the last three years. Even more odd is that we haven’t heard a lot of Cubs running to Bosio’s defense since the weekend’s announcement.
Bosio won’t be without work long. He did a really good job with the Cubs and there are probably 10 to 15 teams that would love to have a guy of Bosio’s caliber on their staff.
This, obviously, is the first step in building the 2018 Cubs. Notice, I used the word “first.”
It’s no secret that John Lackey is not going to be a Cub next year. He may retire, or he might try to hook on with another team as a fifth starter. He got quite an ovation in his final appearance of the NLCS at Wrigley Field as he left the mound. Cubs fans are often disrespected as drunken and not baseball savvy. Lackey’s sendoff proves differently.
Other questions: Are the Cubs going to pay big bucks to keep Arrieta? I doubt it.
What are the Cubs going to do in left field? Kyle Schwarber looks more and more like a DH for an American League team every time he tries to play left field. They showed almost no confidence in Ian Happ anywhere on the field in the playoffs despite his really solid regular season. Free agency? Possibly. Or maybe a trade of Schwarber and another regular player for a top-line outfielder with an expiring contract could be coming.
We must remember, in all of it, this front office won a World Series last season. They get our benefit of a doubt.
Oh, and girls basketball scrimmages are this week, and real games start next week.
It’s a crazy time of year. It’s a time of year filled with change – in the leaves, in the temperature and in sports.
The Warsaw Tiger football season was still going, but because all Class 6A teams got a bye week last week, the Tigers’ dance card was empty.
Coaches were free to take their wives out to dinner and a movie, or out of town to watch the leaves turn. Players sat around and sent each other text messages or went hunting, and their voice helped people onto and off of a wagon for hayrides at the Lincoln Elementary School Fall Festival.
I can’t speak to what anyone else did or how they spent their bye week, but I spent most of Thursday and all of Friday feeling guilty. I kept thinking that I ought to be doing something broadcast related. I felt like I ought to be setting up equipment and plugging in headphones instead of helping lock the gate on that wagon and giving Scott Sterk thumbs up to let him know he was good to pull out onto Clark Street for a trip around the block.
I spent the evening guessing what grade the riders were in and having them tell me who their teacher was.
I was not where I normally would be, but I was right where I should have been – with my family, at my family’s school, having fun and helping others do the same.
I was in the right place.
With most of our local football squads bowing out in the opening round of those aforementioned football playoffs, and Warsaw in the semifinals already, the team that everyone is now watching is Triton.
The Trojans posted an easy win over Caston, but will have their hands full with a Winamac team they beat 36-19 in Week 9 and is anxious for a second chance. If they get past the Warriors, they will play either Culver or LaVille. They beat the Lancers by eight points early in the season and needed overtime to beat Culver.
Given the way their season has played out – the joy of a seven-win season at a place where that just doesn’t happen and the despair and anguish of losing a teammate – is there anyone who isn’t cheering for the Trojans? Warsaw, Wawasee, Valley … we all ought to be hoping this Triton run goes for a long time. Since the accident, Triton is 3-2, and their two losses are to No. 1 Pioneer and to Knox. Triton was the first, and one of only four teams in ten games this season, to score on Pioneer. Knox is 9-1, and the only team that beat them is Pioneer.
A guy I think a lot of, Dr. Chuck Swindoll, says “I am convinced that life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it.”
I subscribe to that philosophy, too. Triton is a living example of it.
After the Chicago Cubs lost Game 5 of the National League Championship Series, everyone associated with the organization knew that changes would come. But I am not sure anyone saw the first change being the announcement that pitching coach Chris Bosio would not be offered a contract for 2018.
Bosio has been rock-solid in leading the pitching staff since he joined the Cubs back when they were filled with has-beens, nobodies and young kids. He is responsible for taking a struggling Jake Arrieta from the Orioles and making him one of the top five pitchers in baseball over the last three years. Even more odd is that we haven’t heard a lot of Cubs running to Bosio’s defense since the weekend’s announcement.
Bosio won’t be without work long. He did a really good job with the Cubs and there are probably 10 to 15 teams that would love to have a guy of Bosio’s caliber on their staff.
This, obviously, is the first step in building the 2018 Cubs. Notice, I used the word “first.”
It’s no secret that John Lackey is not going to be a Cub next year. He may retire, or he might try to hook on with another team as a fifth starter. He got quite an ovation in his final appearance of the NLCS at Wrigley Field as he left the mound. Cubs fans are often disrespected as drunken and not baseball savvy. Lackey’s sendoff proves differently.
Other questions: Are the Cubs going to pay big bucks to keep Arrieta? I doubt it.
What are the Cubs going to do in left field? Kyle Schwarber looks more and more like a DH for an American League team every time he tries to play left field. They showed almost no confidence in Ian Happ anywhere on the field in the playoffs despite his really solid regular season. Free agency? Possibly. Or maybe a trade of Schwarber and another regular player for a top-line outfielder with an expiring contract could be coming.
We must remember, in all of it, this front office won a World Series last season. They get our benefit of a doubt.
Oh, and girls basketball scrimmages are this week, and real games start next week.
It’s a crazy time of year. It’s a time of year filled with change – in the leaves, in the temperature and in sports.
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