2065.01 - The Return of Fang

[R.Umali]

Fall quickly turned to winter this year. An unseasonal Halloween dump of 10 inches put Chicagoland straight into dibs season: busted chairs, milk crates, brooms and summer lawn chairs doing their winter duty all staking claims to street parking in the gray slush.

Will, and the rest of Chicagoland, had seemingly moved on from the Black Sox. That'll happen when the Chicago Bears, Black Hawks, and Bulls all in full swing.

Will, aside from wearing his retro Black Sox wool cap, put his Black Sox fandom into hibernation. Other processes were foreground: new Scrabble obsession (Decorah is an anagram of "roached" which Decorah thought was both an insult and not a word), an actual friendship with that freshman Yael, and, of course, college applications. Suchi Math & Science was a veritable pipeline to the University of Chicago but Decorah told him to "apply everywhere." Unsaid, "The insurance money should cover it."

But application deadlines were the furthest thing from her mind as they went through their weekday morning routine (sugar cereal for him, hardboiled egg for her, coffee and screens for both). "Fang's back!" she said.

Will cast an eye up from his layered screens (sports highlights, Scrabble stream, anagramming quiz, homework due in 50 minutes).

"Bobby Sherman's back! They called him 'Fang' because he had unusually sharp canines. We drafted him in the first round back in '51 or '52. Pitched for us through some really bad years. Charm City the last couple of years. Bartolo Garcia must've liked what he saw."

"Cool," Will said.

"You pulled his card last year," she said trying to draw him into the hot stove. Technically, Decorah pulled his card. Every wax pack she buys, and she really only buys the cheap ones like the K-Toy Alias set, flimsy cardboard and all, she says it's for Will but Will never really became a collector.

"Is he good?"

"Oh he was great! He, uhh ... . Lemme see." She wanted to cherry pick his stats because Bobby Sherman didn't really pan out. Fang hadn't exactly hit his projected ceiling. Many first rounders don't.

She scanned Sherman's stat page on the BNN. In 7 years with Chicago, he went 13-36 with 7 saves over 201 games and 58 starts with a 5.07 ERA and a 1.50 WHIP. She couldn't remember him being that bad.

"Um ... well, we weren't very good back then." Making a few years ago sound like ancient history.

"Fang, huh? I'll tap Yael about it at Scrabble." He gulped the rest of his coffee and made to go.

Decorah hardly noticed. She was lost in BNN's transaction page. Apparently, the Black Sox signed Steveland Morris. Guy stole 65 bases last year, more than the entire Black Sox team combined. Dude will also be 38 years old when the season starts. She pondered the signing and thought, "Goodness. They're going to stick him at third."
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Yes, Bobby Sherman is back largely for Team News and creating a narrative. But also because there's mild interest in how he'll do for a better Black Sox team than when he had left. And Steveland Morris is indeed going to be spending some time in the hot corner and showing the Black Sox how to steal.