(The camera shows the interior of a room at Louisville’s venerable Seelbach Hotel, where Black Sox GM Vic Caleca is sprawled across the bed looking at the boxscores from his team’s most recent week of games. His new foldable iPhone XXVI, tucked inside his shirt pocket, rings. Caleca sees it’s Sox owner Vinnie Vitale, and answers immediately.)
Vic Caleca: Vinnie! How are ya?
Sox owner Vinnie "The Calculator" Vitale
Caleca: Yeah. I want to see the last games of the season in person. It’s a tradition of mine. And this year, who knows? If we win even one of ‘em we’ll finish at .500.
Vinnie (sounds unimpressed): Uh huh. That’s good.
Caleca (sounds annoyed): So what’s the attitude about, Vinnie? That was your goal for us this year, right? To finish around .500?
Vinnie: Yeah, it was. But I got a question.
Caleca (sighs): OK. Shoot.
Vinnie: This kid, Hao Hang. He’s good, right?
Caleca: Uh … yeah. Did you see the week he had?
Vinnie: Not bad, right?
Caleca: Vinnie, he hit .519 with 7 homers and 18 RBIs. So, yeah, not bad.
Vinnie: Uh huh. So here’s the question: how come he wasn’t up with the Sox all year? How come you kept him in the minors ‘til the middle of June?
Caleca (scoffs): How come? Because he’s still just a kid. And, yeah, he did well in A-level ball in 2040, but I’m not a big believer in going directly from Class A to the majors. And I wanted him to work a little with that coaching staff in Beloit – they’re first class. And you’ll notice, that’s where he took it to a whole other level – in those first weeks in Beloit.
Hao Hang
Caleca (clearly ticked off): Well, there’s another what-if you’re completely missing, Vinnie.
Vinnie: Yeah? What’s that?
Caleca: What if his mother and father had never met? Then he’d have 0 homers.
Vinnie: That’s like a joke, right? Very amusing, Vic. Very amusing. I’m just sayin’, if we’d had him all year, maybe we’d be going to the playoffs instead of hoping we can hang on to .500.
Caleca (sighs): Look, I see what you’re saying, but we played through bad luck all year. Our Pythagorean expected win total …
Vinnie (interrupts): Our what now? Our Philandering win what?
Caleca: Jesus, Vinnie. Pythagorean, not philandering. It’s a formula that Bill James – the sabermatician – talked a lot about. You take the runs scored and runs allowed and project how many wins you should have.
Vinnie: OK. So our Phineas Fogg win total is what?
Caleca: Phineas Fogg? No, its Pythag … never mind. Anyway, given our runs scored and all that, we should have 8 more wins than we’ve got. Pythagoras says we should be 88-71, ahead of Nashville and with a clinched wild card spot instead of scuffling for .500.
Vinnie: So that means we screwed up, right? Should’ve had Hang from the get-go.
Caleca (rolls his eyes): It just means we didn’t get any breaks, Vinnie. That number got bigger after Hang came up.
Vinnie (sounds skeptical): Yeah? Huh. Well, along those lines, what the hell happened to that hot-shot pitcher we had down in Beloit – Andrea Delmonico?
Caleca (startled): Andrea Delmonico? Who the hell are you … oh wait, you mean Andresa Frederico?
Vinnie: Yeah. He’s the same deal. We were talking about bringing him to the Sox outta spring training, and then you shipped him back down to AA and he got hurt … twice! And now he’s gonna suck.
Caleca (shaking his head): Yeah. Well, you’re probably not wrong on that one. We should have kept him. Of course, he could have gotten hurt pitching in the majors, too, but who knows. We’re gonna shut him down completely over the winter, and then we’ll put him on strict pitch counts going forward and hope he bounces back a little … but, no, I don’t think he’ll ever be what we’d hoped now.
Vinnie (sighs): Maybe we’re being too cautious, eh? Should we give these kids a chance sooner?
Caleca: I don’t know about that, Vinnie. You run even more risks bringing them up too early – they struggle, they get discouraged, then they don’t develop like they should. Look, I get you’re impatient to start winning, but we’re making progress every year. Trust in The Blueprint™, Vinnie. Believe it or not, it’s starting to work.
Sox GM Vic Caleca
Caleca: Yeah, they probably would.
Vinnie: OK. Damn. Well, Beloit was good. Glad to see they finally got a championship. That shows progress, right?
Caleca: Damn straight.
Vinnie: Well, good luck. Let’s see if we can at least get to .500.
Caleca: Yep. Plus, we’ve got one thing in our favor …
Vinnie: What’s that?
Caleca: Well, usually, when we get back to .500 or over, we turn around and lose 6 in a row …
Vinnie: And this is good why?
Caleca: ‘Cause there’s only 3 games left in the season. Even if we wanted to, we can’t lose 6 in a row. We’d have to bridge the space-time continuum – and even Hao Hang can’t do that.
Vinnie: No, I s’pose not. Tell you what, though … if he does figure out how to do that, I’ll send him another Tower of Pears!
Caleca: I think that’s what every Nobel-winning physicist is pining for, Vinnie. A Tower of Pears.
Vinnie: Who knows what Einstein coulda done if someone had just sent him some fruit …
Caleca: Uh … right. Good night, Vinnie.
Vinnie: Too deep for ya, huh? See ya!
[The phone call and video end]