Cougars: Ceaseless Intensity and Unbridled Passion

Astounding autumn colors at Howard Park waiting for the return of the Cougars.

The first year I vividly remember loving baseball was 1977. Our family spent many nights at Comiskey Park watching the South Side Hitmen. Steve Stone, Richie Zisk, Oscar Gamble and my favorite White Sox player, Chet Lemon. Harry Caray and Jimmy Piersall were our terrific and candid announcers and our owner, Bill Veeck, was a genius hustler and promoter. A true American legend, he is one of my heroes and I highly recommend the book Veeck as in Wreck.

That was such an incredible summer, and then it fizzled out when the Kansas City Royals won the division.

My favorite non-White Sox players were Reggie Jackson, Pete Rose and George Brett.

Reggie was coined Mr. October in 1977. I could never be like Reggie because I would never have those skills. Nobody could…he was one of a kind. Although I did eat lots of Reggie candy bars.

Charlie Hustle! Even without his skill level, that’s someone I could mimic with grit and utility. On summer afternoons when the Cubbies were playing the Reds, I would tune into WGN, listen to Jack Brickhouse, and watch the Hit King. When our family was in Vegas several years ago, our very first stop was to meet Pete. His loud and clear message was, “winning is everything.”

When our family visited the Baseball Hall of Fame a few years ago, the first plaque I wanted to see was George Brett. While he was on a division rival, I loved the way he played the game. In fact, the first line of his plaque reads:

PLAYED EACH GAME WITH CEASELESS INTENSITY AND UNBRIDLED PASSION.

George HOWARD Brett

Exactly. A perfect description on how to play…and to live.

Ever since I first stepped on the diamond as a young boy, I have played the game with ceaseless intensity and unbridled passion.

Last summer, 45 years after my first opening day, that style of play caught up with me when my hamstring was ripped from my pelvis during a game. The injury, surgery, and recovery have been incredibly rough — and I still have several more months until full recovery.

During the offseason, hooked to an ice machine and hooked on painkillers, I retired several times in my mind. As the season got closer, I told the family, “Maybe I'll play in the second half of the season.” Then, as the grass got greener, I said, “I'll play at the beginning of the season only if needed.” When our opener finally arrived, we would have been a player short without me. I told the family, “I’ll only catch and won’t go full speed.”

Well, that promise lasted about seven minutes. In the bottom of the first inning, I found myself legging out an infield single. Halfway down the first base line, hobbling like Bill Veeck with his wooden leg, I thought, “What am I doing?!?”

Do you know how hard it is to play without ceaseless intensity and unbridled passion? If you love the game and play the right way, it’s impossible. It’s impossible whether you are 54 years old in the first inning of an opener or 18 years old in the late innings of a blowout.

So, while I continue to write like a third grader, I can no longer throw my body around like I have since my debut as a third grader.

Retirement is not for me yet, and I’ll still play every so often. However, I’ll try to just play with intensity and passion. I’ll leave the “ceaseless” and “unbridled” adjectives to healthier Cougars.

In the Cougars 16th season opener, we had plenty of adjectives and a few expletives.

After getting our butts kicked in the final 3 games of last season, we started the 2023 campaign under the brand new Howard Park lights with electricity. A recent Wilmette Park District announcement said, “Howard Park is about to experience some major energy savings! The athletic field has been completely upgraded to LED lighting and is ready for the spring season. LED bulbs can use as much as 80% percent less energy than halogen bulbs. We’re proud to say that Howard Park is even more green than before!”

And just when you thought Howard Park couldn’t get any greener, the original Green team lit it up on Tuesday night. We illuminated the night with some Clincher comets in a 31-5 victory over O.N.G.

What a reversal from our first 16-inch softball game in 2008 when Team Orange never took their foot off the gas and walloped us 35-1!

As you can see from the scorebook, the Cougars continually crushed the Clincher. Hard-to-handle grounders and lasered liners were the keys to victory.

Our man Ev took the season lead for round trippers. He clobbered both a major league homer and a little league homer. Here’s one of them.

One of our other Cougars homered this week, too. On Monday, Sam “Goose” Gossard slammed his first college home run! We sure are looking forward to seeing more of Slammin’ Sam when he returns to the Cougars in June.

After the game, we hustled with ceaseless intensity and unbridled passion to the postgame.

At the postgame, we discussed how the Cougars are the longest tenured team in the league with Chicken Shack retiring and Miller Time leaving. In a future blog, we will recap our long, historic, and fierce relationship with Chicken Shack. There’s not too much to recap with Miller Time other than the two times we beat them in 15 years.

We closed out the postgame with some Mad Dog 20/20.

It was fitting to quaff some tasty ripple in honor of Fred G. Sanford, who shares my rather gimpy gait. However, the tables were turned because Charley called me a “Big Dummy” for running so hard while almost giving Julie a heart attack.