By Roger Wallenstein

Jim Thome, who played parts of four seasons for the White Sox, was rightfully inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame on last week along with his 612 career home runs. You even can get a Jim Thome bobblehead if you show up early enough at The Grate on Saturday.
However, another member of the White Sox organization, one who spent 41 years on the South Side, entered a far more esoteric hallowed hall a week earlier minus the fanfare and publicity that accompanied Thome. That would be Nancy Faust, who entertained fans with her organ playing at Comiskey Park and then across 35th Street from 1970 through the 2010 season.

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Posted on August 6, 2018

By Roger Wallenstein

The suspense, the drama, the anticipation. Heart-pounding tension building day-by-day, hour-by-hour. Each season it’s one of the most ballyhooed highlights of major league baseball.
Of course, we’re talking about the Trade Deadline, and we’re right in the midst of it. The Dodgers landed the biggest prize by prying loose Manny Machado from the Orioles. According to FiveThirtyEight, this singular move enabled the Dodgers to overtake the Cubs as the National League team with the best odds of winning the World Series.

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Posted on July 30, 2018

By Roger Wallenstein

What some people call a gimmick just might work for the White Sox.
After Reynaldo Lopez put his team in a 5-0 hole after one inning in Seattle on Sunday, might manager Ricky Renteria follow the lead of the Tampa Bay Rays and use one of his bullpen guys to pitch the opening inning (or two) before Lopez enters the game?
This is a legitimate question since the promising righthander has been absolutely miserable in the opening frame of his 20 starts this season. After Sunday, Lopez has been tagged for 16 earned runs in those 20 innings for an ERA of 7.20. His season’s ERA climbed to 4.13 Sunday. Toss out the first inning, and that number shrinks to 3.51.

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Posted on July 23, 2018

By Roger Wallenstein

Few days pass when I don’t check the agate type in the sports section under “Deals” in the Sun-Times and “Transactions” in the Tribune. I can’t pinpoint the logic behind this impulse that draws me to investigate the minutiae that no one except the people involved care about, but I rarely miss a day.
Who possibly could be interested other than the athletes themselves in the roster changes in the Frontier League, an independent circuit with no big league affiliation? The new softball coach at Oklahoma Christian? Why is this information in my daily newspaper other than to fill space?
Most days I venture no farther than the comings and goings of major league ballplayers. I never watched the reality TV show made famous by “You’re fired!” but I can understand how that might have been compelling. Perusing the deals in baseball, some perverse instinct leads me to discover who in essence has been axed, terminated, or demoted.

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Posted on July 16, 2018

By Roger Wallenstein

What’s in a name? When it comes to big league ballparks, it could be tradition, beer, insurance, banks, and a sampling of other businesses. With the exception of tradition – more than a notable ingredient of the game – all the others contribute to the teams’ bottom lines.
For a number of reasons, I’ve tried my best not to mention the moniker at 35th and Shields in the past year-and-a-half. For one, I was used to The Cell. In fact, it was kind of apropos the way the White Sox had been playing. Watching a game from the first to ninth inning too often created feelings of being institutionalized as the losses piled up. I knew no one who used U.S. Cellular. The company meant absolutely nothing to me. But The Cell was cool and not inaccurate. I miss it.

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Posted on July 9, 2018

By Roger Wallenstein

Sitting at a Sox game a couple of weeks ago with my friend Dave, he remarked, “Part of this team’s problem is they don’t know how to win.”
This charge often is leveled at losing teams, yet defining its meaning is an abstruse exercise at best. However, in this particular game, a 4-3 loss to Detroit, the first of a three-game weekend sweep against a team that would then embark on an 11-game losing streak that just ended on Sunday, the White Sox managed to provide as good a definition as any.

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Posted on July 2, 2018

By Roger Wallenstein

When the Astros, Red Sox and Yankees each surpassed 50 wins last week, it marked the earliest date ever that three teams from the same league reached that plateau.
So it goes to reason that with all that winning, there’s gotta be a big dose of losing to balance the thriving members of the American League. Lo and behold, the White Sox and Royals stepped up last week to join Baltimore in accommodating those 150-plus triumphs. All three of those teams now have lost at least 50 games.

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Posted on June 25, 2018

By Roger Wallenstein

There’s hype, and then there’s reality. And when it sets in, you start to lose faith in all the ratings of top prospects, exit velocities, 100-mph fastballs, scouting reports, interviews of minor leaguers during major league games, and visions of five-tool players.
The flashes of brilliance kindle hope, but the day-to-day results tend to extinguish the vision of prospects turning into stars who in a couple of years will lead their teammates to greatness.
Nowhere is this more apparent than the curious case of White Sox second baseman Yoan Moncada. A near-perfectly sculpted athlete who looks as though he could play point guard or defensive back in addition to middle infield, the 23-year-old is struggling mightily both at bat and in the field.
Manager Ricky Renteria even benched him (along with young shortstop Tim Anderson) last Thursday for what Renteria called a lack of “focus and concentration.”

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Posted on June 18, 2018

By Roger Wallenstein

Two innings last week provided as good an indication as any why the White Sox have won six of their 10 games in the month of June.
The first came on Wednesday against the Twins in the top of the sixth inning as the Sox turned a 2-1 deficit into a 5-2 advantage in a game they eventually won by the same score. Speed, execution, and a little help from the opposition were the keys.

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Posted on June 11, 2018

By Roger Wallenstein

In the interest of being helpful to fans during this season in which the team has lost 38 of 56 games, perhaps a manual of Tips for Watching the White Sox would come in handy at this juncture. So here goes.
Tip Number One. Don’t go out to the ballpark or tune in on TV or radio to see whether the team will win or lose. The final outcome is of no consequence. Be not disappointed if Ricky’s Boys do, in fact, Quit, or at the very least get outscored by a bunch of runs. When all is decided four months from now, the losses very well may be in triple digits, so what’s another setback? If you have not figured out by now that Rebuilds are not about wins and losses, be hereby informed.

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Posted on June 3, 2018