By Roger Wallenstein

Let’s get rid of the rote stuff first. You know, where you simply have to tweak the numbers, bring them up-to-date and move on. And so, after losing two of three to the Nationals and Royals each at home last week, the White Sox have now lost nine of their last ten series’, accounting for a record of 8-22.
Forget about the ERAs of the starting pitchers or the bullpen. Not much has changed. Nor has their efficiency with men on base. Outside of a few home runs, there’s no guarantee that this team can score regardless of how many men are on base with less than two outs.
On Sunday, down 2-0 in the bottom of the fifth with runners at first and third and no outs, a strikeout and double play left the Sox scoreless. Trying to break on top against the Royals on Saturday in the bottom of the first, the Sox had runners at second and third with one out and failed to capitalize. These are just two examples. Pathetic is a generous description.
So let’s move ahead to the new kid at shortstop.

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Posted on June 13, 2016

By Roger Wallenstein

He’s tough, durable, consistent, an innings-eater. He’s back in the American League playing for a contender. He’s a presence in the clubhouse.
These labels and descriptions all have been applied to James Shields the past two days since he became the newest member of the White Sox on Saturday. All general manager Rick Hahn had to barter were pitcher Erik Johnson – owner of a 7-6 record and a 4.50 ERA in 18 big league starts – and 17-year-old prospect Fernando Tatis, Jr. Such a deal!
From the early reaction and reviews, it sounds like the second coming of Jack McDowell, not Jeff Samardzija.

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Posted on June 5, 2016

By Roger Wallenstein

Memorial Day Weekend. Honor our veterans. The beginning of summer. A three-day break. The beaches are open. Temperatures in the 80s. Burgers on the grill. Cold beer in the fridge. How could the Sox screw this up?
But they did in a fashion so unexplainable and surreal that the baseball history buffs will have to scour the Internet to discover when it was this alarming in the past.

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Posted on May 30, 2016

By Roger Wallenstein

I’m still not sure about this replay review that’s in its third season of use in MLB. In this Instagram-Twitter world, I don’t ignore that fact that the technology is available to try to make every umpire’s decision accurate. Nor am I opposed to tweaking the game to make it better.
But I have questions, ranging from the mundane to the pertinent.
I continue to be amused every time it takes two – not just one – umpires to apply the earphones for contact with the people in New York who make the ultimate decision. I can only assume that this is perpetuated for security purposes. Like what if an umpire is crooked or his ego won’t permit his decision to be overturned? Is the second ump listening so that no one can disregard instructions from Review Central? Has it never occurred to Commissioner Rob Manfred that the fellows looking at those screens might also keep observing long enough to make certain that their instructions are followed?
That’s the mundane.

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Posted on May 22, 2016

By Roger Wallenstein

If winning the close ones and having a great bullpen are required for a ballclub with post-season aspirations, then should we be concerned about the White Sox’ prospects?
Four losses last week – two against the Rangers and a pair at Yankee Stadium – were decided by a total of six runs.

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Posted on May 15, 2016

By Roger Wallenstein

One of the many stories Bill Veeck would tell about his daddy, who was president of the Cubs in the 1930s, was this one: One afternoon he was in his father’s office where the stacks of cash from that day’s game receipts were resting on the old man’s desk.
“Can you tell where this money came from?” Veeck Sr. asked the puzzled young Bill. The lesson? A dollar has the same value regardless of whence it came – be it from the wealthy or the poor, from white, brown, or black folks, or from immigrants or native-born Americans. All paying patrons were welcome at Veeck’s ballpark.
And yet, baseball still faces great challenges attracting dollars from across the spectrum. I thought about this while reading The South Side, the new book from WBEZ’s Natalie Moore, during the same week as Cinco De Mayo, when the Sox entertained the Red Sox in the finale of a three-game series while the Nationals invaded Wrigley Field for the first of a four-game set.

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Posted on May 9, 2016

By Roger Wallenstein

I’ve always had a soft spot for ballplayers who – I’d like to be kind here – appear to be far from tip-top condition. You wonder how they could possibly show up every day prepared to face the arduous 162-game grind. They’re anywhere from a touch overweight to borderline obese, like, say, Bartolo Colon.
In no other sport would these athletes be able to race up and down the court or field. How many fat hockey players do you see? Rafa Nadal must have negative body fat. Sure, there are some pot-bellied football linemen, but they also have biceps the size of redwoods, and they run 40 yards in well under five seconds.
Baseball is in a class of its own. The man who propelled the sport into the national consciousness was a gluttonous drinker whose idea of a training meal was a couple of steaks, a mountain of fries and a six-pack. Almost 100 years later, the legend of Babe Ruth arguably is even larger than the reality of his 714 home runs and .342 lifetime average, while current players work out relentlessly and eat kale.
So it is that two anti-Adonises have played important roles so far in this surprising season for the White Sox, who are 18-8 after winning five of seven in Toronto and Baltimore over the past week.

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Posted on May 1, 2016

By Roger Wallenstein

The White Sox have outperformed what anyone could have expected this spring with 13 wins in 19 games despite scoring more runs than only one of the other 29 major league teams. We have Sox pitching primarily to thank.
However, we would be remiss if we didn’t point out the generosity of the fellows providing the opposition. No, they are not friends – comrades of the same union to be sure, but in most cases not bosom buddies – but their goofy mistakes and misjudgements have played a notable role as the White Sox have more victories than any other American League contingent.

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Posted on April 24, 2016

By Roger Wallenstein

You can point to any number of factors leading to the early season success of the new, improved Chicago White Sox.
Robin Ventura’s club, as yet, hasn’t shown noticeably more punch than a year ago, scoring three or fewer runs in seven of the team’s first 12 games. What is different is that the Sox have won three of those games because Sox pitchers have a 2.49 ERA, tops in the American League and third in all of baseball.

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Posted on April 18, 2016

By Roger Wallenstein

I picked the right Opening Day.
Was it because I simply couldn’t wait four days to see the retooled White Sox? Did I have a premonition that the Sox and Cleveland would play in near-blizzard conditions at The Cell on Friday? Or as the featured match-up between Chris Sale and the A’s Sonny Gray was too intriguing to pass up. (Gray got the stomach flu, possibly the first sign that luck just might be on the Sox side this season.)
No, I just happened to be a lot closer to Oakland than Chicago last week, and I’d never seen a White Sox road opener. Nor had I ever visited the, ah, Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. I mean, the O.co Coliseum. Correction: the Oakland Coliseum. Possibly Overstock.com didn’t pay its bills. Hence the new moniker for the decrepit stadium, built in 1966 for football.
Whatever they call it – since the A’s moved to Oakland in 1968, the place also has been the Network Associates Coliseum and the McAfee Coliseum, a salute to nearby Silicon Valley – this is not the place where baseball should be played. You might even declare the venue off limits to children 12 and under.

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Posted on April 11, 2016