By Roger Wallenstein

Frank Thomas has always been huge, but the affable Big Hurt more than filled the screen last Thursday morning on the WGN-TV news. He was there to hype Going Yard, The Everything Home Run Book, where the book jacket tells us that Thomas wrote the foreward and provided commentary for veteran sportswriter Lew Freedman. Frank was to appear at a suburban book store that evening to meet fans and sign autographs.
Thomas knows a few things about hitting home runs, having belted 521 over 19 seasons. Not bad for a guy who prided himself on hitting for average while utilizing a working knowledge of the strike zone. Perhaps his finest skill was hitting strikes and being content to draw a walk. For his career, the Big Hurt had a .419 on-base percentage, which ranks him 20th all-time.

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Posted on June 8, 2011

By Roger Wallenstein

Forget what the calendar says; summer begins on Memorial Day. If you had doubts, venturing outdoors yesterday morning was all you needed to do. No fog. No wind off the lake. Welcome back heat and humidity! The chill was gone.
So are Memorial Day doubleheaders, which in the White Sox case is probably a good thing. Losing one game a day is depressing enough. Dropping a twinbill could require medication.
Years ago, doubleheaders usually drew higher-than-average crowds, and that’s why they were scheduled. In fact, the largest crowd ever at Comiskey Park – 55,555 – jammed the place for a Sunday doubleheader against the Twins on May 20, 1973.
MLB hasn’t scheduled a doubleheader since 1996 in Minnesota. The split twinbill or day-night doubleheaders of today are the result of make-up games due to lousy weather.
Looking back, the Sunday and holiday doubleheaders that were regular fare on the schedule consumed six or seven hours and brought out unique behavior both on and off the field.

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Posted on May 31, 2011

By Roger Wallenstein

Step right up, Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls. See ringmaster Ozzie Guillen and drum major Don Cooper present the Greatest Show on the South Side. Oz and Coop have six – you heard me right, not five, but six! – starting pitchers, and this is no freak show. It may be the real thing!
Jake Peavy’s spectacular return has forced Ozzie’s hand. Simply spelling latissimus dorsi is a challenge. Coming back less than a year after detaching the big L.D. is off the charts. Yet there was Jake in total command last Wednesday with a complete-game shutout against the hard-hitting Indians.
The other five – Danks, Buehrle, Floyd, Jackson, and newcomer Phil Humber – all have looked sharp at times this season, so our ringmaster didn’t pull the trigger and send Humber to Charlotte or designate anyone for a relief role.
Assuming this arrangement will be with us for a while, what are the ramifications?

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Posted on May 23, 2011

By Roger Wallenstein

Let’s be clear that the White Sox have more pressing concerns than wondering where to put Paul Konerko’s likeness and his retired No. 14 once his playing days have ended.
Nevertheless, a guy’s mind wanders a bit while sitting through a lackluster performance at The Cell early in this puzzling season.
You look across the faces on the left centerfield fence, and it’s apparent that the two newest honorees – Carlton Fisk and Frank Thomas – share a space, while Fox, Baines, Appling, Miñoso, Aparicio, Lyons and Pierce have larger tracts. But, hey, they got there first.
Space will be designated for Paulie when the time comes, but who knows where it will be?

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Posted on May 16, 2011

By Roger Wallenstein

Yogi Berra allegedly said “Good pitching beats good hitting, and vice versa.” Former Sox third baseman and current Comcast analyst Bill Melton has a less confusing take. “Good pitching beats good hitting, and mediocre pitching beats poor hitting,” he observed last Friday.
Melton might have added, “Horrible pitching beats horrible hitting” after Francisco Lirano – entering last Tuesday’s game with a 9.35 ERA – no-hit our fellows.
This is a team that four innings into the season had a 14-0 lead against the mighty (all right, I said it) Cleveland Indians. And the next day they tagged on eight more runs. What a bright, positive, awe-inspiring beginning: 23 runs, 29 hits, a couple of homers, and five hits by Gordon Beckham all by himself.
Surely, this was a portent of things to follow. But after a 4-18 swoon, we are reminded that 1) only a fool would make any kind of prediction after four innings, and 2) only a slightly lesser fool would draw any conclusions after two games.

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Posted on May 9, 2011

By Roger Wallenstein

What’s the guy doing out there in the first place?!?
That should have been – and probably was – the question that the Yankees were asking after Brent Lillibridge made not one – but two – spectacular, game-saving, once-in-a-lifetime catches to close out the Sox 3-2 win at The Stadium last Tuesday night.
If Lillibridge wasn’t the 25th man on the roster leaving spring training, then he was 24th, a baby step ahead of Lastings Milledge, who was gone a week into the season.

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Posted on May 2, 2011

By Roger Wallenstein

Nothing makes a team look disinterested, dull, and boring as one that isn’t hitting.
I mean, why go to the ball park unless a few guys knock the ball into a gap, off the wall, or up the middle?
You swat the ball around the yard, run the bases, and score some runs.
That description doesn’t come anywhere close to the Sox’ performance last week. Hence, they appear to lack hustle and spirit. Even Ozzie said he was bored.
But it appears that something else might be going on with the team’s manager.

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Posted on April 25, 2011

By Roger Wallenstein

The wearing of Jackie Robinson’s number 42 on Friday night was a nice touch in a week that sorely needed one. Amidst dropped fly balls, Juan Pierre’s five consecutive base-stealing failures, an anemic offense, Gavin Floyd’s wild pitches, lots of errors, and the woeful bullpen travails, MLB honored its 64th anniversary of integration and the legacy of Jackie Robinson as all big-leaguers wore his number in ballparks throughout America.
If you’re interested in reading a definitive account of Jackie Robinson, try Arnold Rampersad’s 1997 biography. It is an honest, detailed, and fascinating account, not only of Robinson’s life but also the times in which he lived.
Dodger general manager Branch Rickey and future Sox owner Bill Veeck saw the value and wisdom of signing African-Americans a number of years before it finally happened. Veeck claimed that his quest to buy the Phillies during World War II was blocked by the owners and commissioner when they suspected (not without a healthy dose of truth) that he wanted to sign black players.

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Posted on April 18, 2011

By Roger Wallenstein

I received some nice feedback and response to the season’s first White Sox Report. It was encouraging to know that other people aside from my immediate family read the report. Apparently I am not the only Sox aficionado with time on my hands.
One such e-mail came from an old friend who has been following the South Siders even longer than I. He asked, “Do the Sox get a fair shake from the media?” and why are the “White Sox continually a second-class citizen in their home town?” I couldn’t suppress a long, anxiety-reducing sigh. However, he redeemed himself with the tag, “Is that even important?”

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Posted on April 11, 2011

By Roger Wallenstein

Hope doesn’t necessarily spring eternal at the start of the baseball season. Curiosity maybe. Can Konerko match last year’s numbers? Can Beckham bounce back? Will Peavy be able to perform? Does Ozzie really have a closer? Can Pierzynski make any friends? Will Adam Dunn strike out 200 times?
And there is surprise. One day the Sox are playing a bunch of minor-leaguers in Arizona, and then, presto, they’re in Cleveland, and the game actually counts. It happens very quickly.
So did my entry into the blogging world. It appears that 60 years of following the White Sox – including seven vending beer at Comiskey when I worked virtually every game – qualifies me to comment on this latest edition of the team along with relating past events. So here goes:

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Posted on April 4, 2011