By Roger Wallenstein

Since Major League Baseball established a drug policy in 2004, 59 major league players, including six who got caught more than once, have been suspended anywhere from 10 days to a lifetime. Hundreds more minor leaguers also have been benched for violating the policy.
But none has hurt the White Sox as much as the 80-game ban handed down last week to catcher Welington Castillo.
Make no mistake. Castillo is not on the level of the game’s elite catchers like Yadier Molina and a few others. However, the lack of his veteran presence behind the plate, guiding young pitchers such as Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez and Carson Fulmer, certainly won’t help their progress especially, since the catching corps now is comprised of the bumbling Omar Narvaez and the unknown Alfredo Gonzalez.

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Posted on May 28, 2018

By Roger Wallenstein

A chilling breeze was whistling through the ballpark last Thursday evening as two last-place teams, the White Sox and Rangers, faced off in the first of a four-game series. The temperature was mired in the mid-50s on this school night. Starting pitchers James Shields for the Sox and Doug Fister for Texas are both in their mid-30s with far more baseball behind rather than in front of them. If ever there was a ho-hum match-up, this was it.
Was there any rational explanation why 17,666 fans showed up as witnesses? Was it the “Ricky’s Boys Don’t Quit” t-shirts? Or the opportunity to see if the Sox could break out of their slump at home where their record was 3-15?

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Posted on May 21, 2018

By Roger Wallenstein

The White Sox made it official on Saturday. When Jose Abreu’s bases-loaded ground ball in the damp, dusky evening at Wrigley squashed any hope of a miraculous comeback, this team became the worst in the 118-year history of the franchise to open the season. The 8-4 loss was the 27th in the ballclub’s first 36 games, surpassing the unspeakable 10-26 mark of the 1948 White Sox.
What would The Old Roman – to say nothing of Shoeless Joe, Zeke Bonura, Teddy Lyons, or Ol’ Aches and Pains – have to say about a team that has a mere five wins (they finally beat the Cubs 5-3 on Sunday) – against teams not named Kansas City here in the middle of May?
We hear how Ricky’s Boys Don’t Quit, but even quitters might have been able to eke a few more wins than these guys have at this juncture.

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Posted on May 14, 2018

By Roger Wallenstein

His photo graced the entire back page of the Sun-Times on Saturday. He’s been interviewed live during at least one game this spring. Every time he pitches, a graphic chronicles his exploits. He was the White Sox Pitcher of the Month in April.
In addition, there are other less-publicized factoids about 22-year-old fireballer Michael Kopech, baseball’s 10th-rated prospect. As a member of the Red Sox organization in 2015 – Kopech came over in the Chris Sale deal prior to last season – the right-hander was benched for 50 games for using one of the 134 banned substances on the MLB list. He missed time also at the start of the next season because of a broken right hand sustained in spring training, the result of an altercation with a teammate.

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Posted on May 7, 2018

By Roger Wallenstein

This is a quiz. Name the statistic where the major league leader can go 0-for-4, striking out each time, and still continue to be the MLB leader?
Here’s a hint. As of Sunday morning, Yoan Moncada, Franchy Cordero, Jorge Alfaro and Teoscar Hernandez all were in the top 10 in the category. We’re familiar with Moncada, but who are these other guys?
I’ll save you the trouble of investigating. Cordero is a rookie outfielder with the Padres; Alfaro, a catcher, has played a total of 53 games for the Phillies; and Hernandez roams the outfield for Toronto.
What we’re talking about here is the stat du jour, otherwise known as exit velocity, just one of the analytic gems produced by cameras and radar that apparently are present in ballparks throughout the country.

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Posted on April 30, 2018

By Roger Wallenstein

It’s Sunday morning, and the sun is making a valiant effort to burn through the cloud cover. The thermometer already is registering in the mid-50s as I gaze from my balcony overlooking Lincoln Avenue. Finally spring is beginning to bloom, and the Sox are home to play the young and talented Houston Astros. Sunday parking is $10. Round-trip on the El is less than half. I possess a voucher that the team passed out at last season’s final home game that gets me an upper deck box seat for free.
I’m feeling good. Most other seasons, I’d be out the door. But I’m not going today. Call me a fair weather fan – which, I suppose, is literally true for this grandfather – or someone who is in need of a reminder of his allegiance to the team which I’ve always revered. But the heart of the matter is that I am wary of watching the opposition score four times in the first inning followed by three walks and a grand slam in the top of the second as the local bunch falls behind 8-0 before the first beer can be consumed. We all have choices. This would not top my list. Not even close.

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Posted on April 23, 2018

By Roger Wallenstein

E-mails came from readers in Phoenix and St. Louis. Both wanted to make sure I was aware that the White Sox-Rays’ game last Monday drew exactly 974 patrons. Thanks, guys. Glad to know you’re not so busy that you might miss something as fascinating as White Sox attendance on a wintry day against an opponent with as many challenges as the local ballclub.
Apparently the Tampa Bay Times broke the story. Quite possibly their beat writer had time to actually count the bodies in the stands as he sat through a 5-4 Rays’ victory, which broke the team’s eight-game losing streak. You can be assured that if Sox management went through the same exercise, the silence would be deafening. As it were, the team announced the paid attendance as 10,842.
If nothing else, we might guesstimate that the club has sold a few more than 10,000 season tickets for this rebuilding season. Hip Hip Hooray!
Even if the game had been played in the evening, as originally scheduled, in 60-degree temperatures, there still would have been enough room for a freight train to chug through the ballpark. Two seasons ago a mid-April Tuesday-through-Thursday home series against the Angels saw an average of a little more than 12,000. Last year’s second game at home against Detroit drew 10,842 when it was 48 degrees with a 23 mph wind. Those were paid admissions.

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Posted on April 16, 2018

By Roger Wallenstein

While Ricky Renteria’s outfit and Sox fans shivered through snowflakes and 30-degree temperatures last week, consider all the thousands of Chicago kids who play baseball and softball on school teams in March and April. You think the Abreus and Moncadas of the world have it tough? None of the local youngsters have the luxury of at least playing away games in Florida, California, Texas, or in heated domed stadiums.
Guys who played baseball in Chicago in the early spring have painful memories of episodes like hitting a fastball off the handle of the bat without the benefit of batting gloves as the wind whistled in their faces while an occasional snow flurry drifted by.
(See The White Sox Report: Cold Predictions.)

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Posted on April 9, 2018

By Roger Wallenstein

The kid needed a ride to the ballpark on a Sunday morning last September, so my brother-in-law, Bill, a weekend Uber driver, picked him up at his downtown high-rise apartment building east of Michigan Avenue.
Later he texted me this photo asking if I knew this guy.
“Sure,” I answered. “That’s Matt Davidson. Plays for the Sox. Why do you ask?”

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Posted on April 2, 2018

By Roger Wallenstein

We interrupt this program – that being the euphoria up on Sheridan Road – to remind our readers that we have a baseball season returning on Thursday when The Rebuild continues for the White Sox, starting in Kansas City.
The past couple of months had been a wasteland as far as local sports were concerned until the unheralded Ramblers – the local papers hardly covered Loyola until it was clear they were going to the Tournament – awakened a city thirsty for something to cheer about.
Hope has turned into reality for the college hoops team in Rogers Park.
As far as the Sox are concerned, there is a tinge of hope, but it has yet to spring eternal. Yet most fans are more than willing to sit back, observe on television rather than at the ballpark, and wait.
We know this is working. At least we think it is.

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Posted on March 26, 2018