White Sox to be on visiting end of Oakland Athletics’ 50-year celebration

It will be interesting to see just how many people show up for the Oakland Athletics ballgame April 17 against the Chicago White Sox.

A half-century of Oakland baseball

This season will mark the 50-year anniversary of the date when the one-time Philadelphia Athletics left their later home in Kansas City, Mo., to find a new residence in the less-glamorous part of the San Francisco Bay Area.

THEIR FIRST BALLGAME in California was played April 17, 1968 against the Baltimore Orioles – Baltimore beat Oakland 4-1, with an attendance of just over 50,000 fans to see their new ball club.

To mark that date, the Athletics plan to play their April 17 ballgame this season, against the White Sox, in front of a crowd that doesn’t have to pay its way into the one-time Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum (I can’t keep track of what the corporate identity of the stadium is now).

Seriously, tickets are being given away for free. Athletics season ticket holders will get their seats up front. Anybody else interested in going to the game can get free tickets from the ball club beginning Wednesday at 10 a.m. (Chicago-time, that is).

Can the Athletics mark the beginning of their most recent chapter in team history (the ball club, like the White Sox, date back to the American League’s founding as a second major league for the 1901 season) with a capacity crowd of free-loaders?

WILL THEY LITERALLY find fans wishing to experience a ballgame without having to pay the often-exorbitant prices that tickets now cost these days?

The first major league ball club to consider Oakland home

I actually wonder if any White Sox fans would think of taking a northern California sojourn that day just to catch a ballgame for free. Some might figure if they can get airfare at a dirt-cheap rate, it could be worth the trip to Oakland in order to see the team.

Or just have a California adventure – although I suspect many will prefer to think of it as a San Francisco-area trip rather than a journey to Oakland; a city that has many people speculating whether they will lose their ball club what with the ongoing quarrels over the need for a new stadium and an inability to find a northern California community capable (or even willing) of financing such a deal.

The game nobody saw -- April 29, 2015

I do find one oddity in this situation – that it would manage to include the White Sox in a second fluke ballgame involving odd attendance.

THE WHITE SOX would get to be the visiting team in a game with no cash receipts (although I’m sure Athletics’ concessions will be pushed extra heavy to produce some sort of revenue from that date).

Just like on April 29, 2015. That date was when the White Sox were in Baltimore to play the Orioles and the attendance that date was zero. As in nobody was in the stands. The regulation game was played before nobody.

Now before we get any lame gags about White Sox attendance, keep in mind that game was played at a time when there was racial unrest in Baltimore and officials restricted movement from place to place.

Which caused the Orioles to decide to not even let fans into the ballpark, so that they wouldn’t have to worry about trying to travel there and get back home safely.

IT WOULD PUT the White Sox in a second so-called historic situation while playing games on the road.

I do find a couple of things interesting about that “first ballgame” in Oakland some five decades ago. Although the Athletics had finished in 10^th (and last) place in the American League their last year in Kansas City, Sal Bando, Bert Campaneris and Reggie Jackson (stars of the Fightin’ A’s teams of the early-to-mid 1970s) were already with the team for that first Oakland game.

Future Hall of Fame mgr. was pinch-hitter

Further evidence that a rebuild that develops future stars such as what the White Sox are trying to pull off these days could work? Let’s hope so.

There was even a pinch-hitting appearance in that first game by none other than Tony LaRussa, who was a totally forgettable ballplayer but went on to begin a Hall of Fame managerial career with the White Sox.

  -30-

Maybe Sox been better off if they hadn’t played for a 3rd day straight

(NOT IN) BALTIMORE – We finally got to see Chicago White Sox baseball this week, although the game got so ugly so quickly, I wonder if we’d have been better off getting another day off.

The game played Wednesday (in the afternoon, rather than as originally scheduled in the evening) was the first game of this three-game set that the White Sox were able to get in against the Baltimore Orioles.

ALL OF THE riots had officials convinced they’d rather not risk having angered Baltimore protesters (upset over black abuse by police officers) attack fans trying to get to and from Camden Yards.

Plus, it also reduced the number of police officers who would have to be on detail to maintain order at the ballpark, thereby allowing them to be on patrol in other parts of Baltimore – although there was evidence Tuesday that the worst of the outbursts had passed.

So what we got was a White Sox/Orioles game in which no one was allowed to attend. Attendance was literally zero. People who showed up were locked out.

The teams still got in a ballgame to count toward their 162-game season count. But the other games that were meant for this week will be made up during a special trip to be made to Baltimore in mid-May (when the White Sox will be traveling from Toronto to Houston).

I WASN’T ANYWHERE near Baltimore on Wednesday, although I made a point of watching part of the WPWR-TV broadcast, listening to announcer Ken Harrelson tell us about what turned out to be dreadful activity on the field.

Cameras kept showing us a group of Orioles fans who converged outside a gate that sort of gave them a view of the game. Their “Let’s Go, O’s!” chants could be heard throughout the ballpark – while several panoramic television shots confirmed for us that there truly was no one sitting in the stands.

I’m sure at a time like this in Baltimore, this wasn’t the biggest concern. But it had to be a business blow to the Orioles, since ball clubs usually count on concessions stand sales from the people who attend the game for a significant part of their revenue.

If no one was on hand on Wednesday, they weren’t to buy overpriced beer and hot dogs, nor any barbecue from the stand named for one-time Orioles’ star Boog Powell.

I CAN THINK of one positive aspect of Wednesday’s circumstance – having a game played literally with zero attendance wipes out what I always thought was a stupid statistic cited by the Charleston Riverdogs of the South Atlantic League.

Back in 2002, they claimed to have played a game before zero fans – although it was really a stunt since the roughly 1,800 people who showed up for the game deliberately were locked out of the ball park until after the fifth inning; at which point the game became official.

Now, we have a real zero attendance statistic for a professional ballgame; even lower than the 413 people who attended a White Sox/New York Yankees game at Yankee Stadium in 1966, or the 653 who saw the Oakland A’s play the Seattle Mariners in a game in 1979. For the record, the ’66 Yankees and ’79 A’s (despite the presence of future Hall of Fame ballplayers Mickey Mantle and Rickey Henderson, respectively) were truly awful ball clubs.

The record for lack of fans in the stands now has some legitimacy.

ALTHOUGH ONE CAN argue that all of this is trivia, and that the only thing that matters about a sporting event is the on-field action.

If that is the regard, then “blech!” is the only reaction we should have, particularly since White Sox starting pitcher Jeff Samardzija seemed determined to do his best impersonation of a Chicago Cubs pitcher (which he once was).

Six runs given up in the first inning alone; the final score was 8-2. The White Sox’ incompetence level settled down, but it was also the kind of game one quickly wants to switch the channel on.

Even the WTTW Prime rebroadcast of the PBS “Last Days in Vietnam” documentary seemed more appealing to watch!

  -30-

EDITOR’S NOTE: That “No attendance” minor league ballgame was plotted as a publicity stunt by Mike Veeck, team owner and son of the Hall of Fame baseball owner Bill Veeck. For the record, the younger Veeck’s ball team lost 4-2 to the Columbus (Ga.) Red Stixx in that game.

EXTRA: Will ‘Baltimore’ come to Chi?

A part of me is starting to wonder if the Chicago White Sox are a bad omen.

I still recall the team’s whereabouts on Sept. 11, 2001 – they were the professional baseball team in New York City on that day when two jets crashed into the World Trade Center, triggering many bad memories for our nation.

NOW, IT WAS the White Sox who were in Baltimore this week when rioting motivated by people pissed off by the death of a young black man while in police custody is giving the nation many violent images on our televisions.

The rioting was considered so out-of-control that Monday’s White Sox/Baltimore Orioles game was cancelled. Some of the violent outbursts were a mere three miles from the Orioles’ ballpark, and many of the roads leading to the stadium had restricted access.

The last thing anybody wanted to see happen was some sports fan get yanked out of their car by the violent protesters while trying to get to Camden Yards! As of this writing, it is not clear when, or where, those ballgames will be made up.

Yes, my bringing the White Sox’ presence into this circumstance is an attempt to inject a touch of humor to what is an overly-serious situation. Although the serious part of all this is perhaps how fortunate we in Chicago ought to feel that we haven’t had similar incidents occur here.

BECAUSE THE UNEASY sentiments that exist between law enforcement types and black people are not confined to Baltimore. Nor Ferguson, Mo., or New York or any other one city.

You know it’s just a matter of time before the tensions heat up enough that we get an incident that causes certain people to react in ways similar to what is taking place now in Baltimore.

Let’s be honest! We should feel fortunate that the death of Rekia Boyd did not create such an outburst.

She is the woman who was shot to death by a Chicago police officer – one who recently was acquitted of the criminal charges he faced, and now has police Superintendent Garry McCarthy going about on Monday saying that officer should never have faced a criminal indictment.

EVEN THOUGH SOME people are interpreting the comments made by the judge who tossed out the criminal charges as saying they were the wrong charges and perhaps should have been even harsher.

As though this particular cop got off on a technicality and NOT some claim of innocence, as I’m sure the police would want to believe. Just an officer doing his job – one that is tough enough that I’m sure many in our society would be incapable of handling it.

Just a couple of people handling things a little less rationally in Chicago, and it could be our city with the images of a gas mask-clad man slashing the hose of a firefighting crew that was trying to keep a CVS pharmacy from burning to the ground.

It could be the death of Freddie Gray (who suffered a spinal cord injury while in police custody and whose funeral seems to be the motivation for Monday’s violent outbursts) isn’t all that different in spirit than that of Boyd – or many of the others whose ill treatment at the hands of police has caused public outrage.

AND YES, I realize in writing that sentence there are some people who are determined to believe the police some noble creature who are dealing with people who hardly deserve to be called human.

Although I find their thought process to be as ridiculous as the face-covered boy in Baltimore who told CNN how people aren’t going to calm down until some sort of “justice!!!” is handed down.

We have a serious problem in our society that way too many people don’t want to have to acknowledge. That, ultimately, is the real problem.

  -30-

No first-place battle in Chicago; will Cubs revitalize Ozzie’s Marlins?

My advice to baseball fans is not to even look at standings until the Memorial Day holiday weekend. By then, one-third of the season is complete, which is enough time for things to have settled down to the point where we can accurately assess how good (or bad) things will be.

Anything any earlier than that is purely freakish.

TAKE WHAT COULD have occurred in upcoming days here in Chicago.

If the Baltimore Orioles had managed to win on Sunday against the Toronto Blue Jays, they would have been in first place by themselves in their American League division. Meanwhile, the White Sox (by their loss to the Detroit Tigers) fell one-half of a game out of first place.

Naturally, that means Baltimore is making its only visit to Chicago this season for a four-game series against the White Sox beginning Monday. Whodathunk either of those teams would even sniff “first place” this season? Let alone at the same time!

How much of a conniption would the world of professional baseball be having if this week’s early season series turned out to be a battle between two first place teams?

OF COURSE, IT’S not working out that way, and it would be ridiculous to think of it that way (although I’m sure Ken Harrelson would have had no problem getting all worked up in announcing such a series).

It’s just early-season baseball. It’s nice to see (particularly those who say Adam Dunn’s swing doesn’t seem as mucked up as it was last year – maybe those two doubles Sunday are evidence of good things to come?).

But there’s still just over 150 ballgames to play.

And without the “battle for first place” taking place on the Sout’ Side, we can shift our attention to Miami – where Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen will return Tuesday to his 4-6 ballclub (last place in their National League division) just in time for a three-game series against the equally-awful 3-7 Chicago Cubs (who are battling with the Pittsburgh Pirates for the “honor” of “worst” in their division).

FORMER WHITE SOX ace pitcher Mark Buehrle is tentatively scheduled to start Wednesday’s game against the Cubs.

If Ozzie’s ballclub can’t even beat up on the Cubs these days, THAT is something he should be more ashamed of than anything he said (or meant) about Fidel Castro.

  -30-