Friday, August 1, 2008

Seaver or Carlton?

Ken Griffey Jr. is now a member of the Chicago White Sox. But will the eventual member of baseball’s Hall of Fame have a Chicago stint that bears more resemblance to Tom Seaver or Steve Carlton?

Both of those men were among the top pitchers in the National League back in the 1970s, and both finished up their playing careers with stints with the White Sox. Griffey was once arguably the best ballplayer in the game back in the 1990s, and he will now spend a part of the end of his playing career on the South Side.

BOTH SEAVER AND Carlton got into the Hall of Fame, and no one who thinks of those men at their best will give any thought to their time in Chicago.

Yet Seaver was still a competent pitcher for the White Sox, and he actually managed to achieve his statistical goal of a 300th victory on Aug. 4, 1985 while wearing a Chicago uniform (but pitching against the Yankees in New York – the city where he had his greatest days with the cross-town Mets).

Carlton merely pitched for part of one season (1986), the year he bounced from his longtime baseball home in Philadelphia to the San Francisco Giants to Chicago, where he won 4 games, lost 3 and had a 3.69 earned run average for a forgettable fifth place ball club.

I’ll be content if Griffey can provide a little aura to a contending White Sox team whose veteran bat (first baseman Paul Konerko) can’t seem to hit a thing these days. I don’t expect a repeat of anything Griffey was capable of doing back in his days with the Seattle Mariners.

BESIDES, GRIFFEY’S DAYS in Chicago will be limited.

My understanding is he gets bought out of the rest of his contract, so the White Sox are giving up two middling minor league prospects for two months worth of a veteran whose best days are behind him.

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