Reminiscences of childhood, and how bad Chicago baseball once was

The Baseball Hall of Fame’s veterans committee gave its consideration Sunday to ballplayers from the 1970s-80s who deserve a second glance at membership, and hearing of the nine ballplayers under consideration brought back one depressing memory.

White Sox traded Hall of Fame possibility ...

Chicago baseball was pretty putrid back when I was a kid. I was 14 back in 1979 when the Pittsburgh Pirates won the World Series to the tune of Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family.” It was a wonder I didn’t get turned off on the game by the mediocre-to-lousy teams that existed back in those decades.

... for the decade's best Chicago ballplayer

PARTICULARLY THE 1970s, when the Cubs had sort-of decent teams in 1970-71, while the White Sox had a near championship in 1972. Both teams were respectable enough in 1977 that I still remember the dreams that the year of “Saturday Night Fever” and “Star Wars” would be the year of an all-Chicago World Series.

Of course, it didn’t happen. It was a possibility in 2008 when both ball clubs won division titles, but then both got knocked out in the first round.

Did Garvey cost Cubs '84 championship?

Otherwise, the decade was pretty dreary -- with the year of the Bicentennial possibly being the worst. While the rest of the nation was celebrating 200 years of the United States, and the National League hit its own 100^th anniversary, 1976 was dreadful in Chicago – even though future Hall of Famers Rich Gossage and Bruce Sutter played here that season.

The Cubs had a losing record of 75 wins, 87 losses, with both the St. Louis Cardinals and Montreal Expos worse. While the White Sox were 64 wins, 97 losses. Dead last in their division.

Too good to play in Chicago back then?

LOOKING AT THE ballplayers who were under review Sunday for the Hall of Fame -- with two, Alan Trammell and Jack Morris of the Detroit Tigers -- explains the situation perfectly.

None of the nine had a strong connection to a Chicago ballclub. Only Tommy John pitched for the White Sox back in the 1960s, and by the early 1970s was one of the ballplayers they sent to the Los Angeles Dodgers to get Dick Allen – the American League MVP for 1972 who nearly single-handedly led the White Sox to a championship dream that year.

Thwarted White Sox '84 chances?

If anything, the other Hall of Fame considerees were ballplayers who created local memories of beating up on our ball clubs.

How many Cubs fans are still bitter about how an aging Steve Garvey, later in his ballplaying career in 1984, got some of the big hits that led the San Diego Padres to a National League championship over the Cubs in the playoffs that year.

HE MIGHT NOT be public enemy number One like Tim Flannery (who got that base hit beneath the glove of Cubs first baseman Leon Durham that was a premonition of former Cub Bill Buckner’s game-losing error against the Boston Red Sox two years later in the World Series).

One of baseball's most unique pitchers

Or the Detroit stars like shortstop Trammell and pitcher Morris – who led the 1984 Tigers team to 104 wins and a World Series title. One that squashed all over the White Sox dreams for that year.

After all, the White Sox won a division title and went to the playoffs in 1983, only to fall short to the Baltimore Orioles (remember Jerry Dybzinski?). But they thought the acquisition of future Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Seaver would be the key to put them over the top.

Future Hall of Famers Gossage ...

Instead, they fell short of Detroit, and the South Side had to wait another 21 years before finally getting a World Series victory.

AS FOR THE rest of the considerees, Dale Murphy of the Atlanta Braves, Dave Parker of the Pittsburgh Pirates and Ted Simmons of the St. Louis Cardinals were among those who gave Cubs fans bad on-field memories – although many of those fans learned to take their pleasure from having all-day games and a chance to play hooky from work or school.

... and Sutter didn't rise quality of ball clubs

While Don Mattingly of the New York Yankees and Luis Tiant of the Boston Red Sox did more than their share to tick off the boo-birds throughout the years at Comiskey Park because of the way they beat up on White Sox pitchers like Britt Burns or hitters like Bill Nahorodny.

All of those players give me memories (Tiant’s herky-jerky windup when pitching was unlike any others, while I’ll never forget Parker’s throw from deep right field to home plate during the 1979 All Star Game that nailed former White Sox catcher Brian Downing) not necessarily tied to the Second City.

Which means that those of us who came of age during the 1970s and remember how bad baseball here used to be (along with first-hand memories of Disco Demolition from '79) were probably the ones who most appreciated that 2005 White Sox’ World Series win – or even the 2016 title that the Cubs managed to bring back to Chicago.

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Quinn determined to have one last political power play while in office

There was some intense politicking taking place Monday in San Diego, where Baseball Hall of Fame officials ultimately decided that none of four former Chicago White Sox ballplayers – Dick Allen, Jim Kaat, Minnie Miñoso and Billy Pierce – were worthy of recognition.

Yet that might not have been as intense as the hard-ball that was played Monday at U.S. Cellular Field, where the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority met and decided to hire a new executive director.

WHICH ISN’T A big deal, except for the fact that the authority’s board is controlled now by people chosen by the Illinois governor, which means it is Pat Quinn who got to decide who got the executive director’s post.

Not Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who also has appointees on the authority’s board. And most certainly not Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner, who would have got his chance to get involved with the agency that runs the White Sox’ ballpark and which paid for the renovation of Soldier Field for the Chicago Bears.

It would seem that Quinn, who wasn’t able to get the General Assembly to approve a measure providing for a statewide increase in the minimum wage so he could have a “last hurrah” of sorts signing it into law, will have to claim this appointment as one of his final acts of significance.

As it turns out, he gave the executive director’s post to Lou Bertuca, who was the campaign manager who led Quinn to his 50-46 percent defeat in the November general election for governor.

SO AT LEAST Lou is taken care of, from Quinn’s perspective. He has a job for the next two years, even though Rauner on Monday spewed a bit of cheap rhetoric about how he’d like to undo the appointment.

It’s not going to be a pleasant job, however. For I expect Rauner will replace all of the gubernatorial nominees on the authority’s governing board with people loyal to him.

I also expect that Emanuel’s people on the authority will not look too kindly to their new director. Bertuca could easily wind up having to deal with a governing board openly hostile toward anything he wants to do – along with a pair of chief executives who likely will dig for any dirt they can find for use as grounds to try to remove him!

I don’t know that I’d want to take a job under those circumstances – even if it does pay just over $175,000 per year.

OF COURSE, THIS isn’t the first time Quinn has had controversy related to the executive director’s post of the sports authority.

Bertuca replaces Kelly Kraft, the former television news broadcaster who got Quinn’s appointment in 2012 despite the belief of many authority board members that she wasn’t qualified.

That was when Quinn orchestrated the appointment by removing one of his appointees on the board who was opposed to Kelly, and replaced him with someone who would vote exactly the way the governor wanted.

It had a backlash, of course. For the person who got removed was Manny Sanchez, a high-profile attorney who wound up signing on early to the Rauner gubernatorial campaign and being one of the “prominent” Democrats who did what he could to undermine Quinn’s chances of re-election.

WHICH MAKES ME perceive this move as being more a gesture of hostility toward the political establishment that is preparing to cast him off in coming weeks.

It might not be as hostile as the one when former-Gov. Rod Blagojevich went out of his way to name Roland Burris to the U.S. Senate despite the desires of many others that he butt out of the matter. But it definitely comes across as a final cry for attention.

It’s not like there’s any activity coming before the sports authority in the near future that an executive director appointment couldn’t wait a couple of months. But it does entertain the political geeks amongst us who always enjoy the mechanizations behind political maneuvers.

Just as much as White Sox fans will spend the next few months complaining about how the Hall of Fame could be so stupid as to exclude (once again) such stars as one-time MVP Allen and the “Cuban Comet” himself in Miñoso.

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A second Hall of Famer for 80-80 Sox?

When Ron Santo’s surviving spouse gives the speech Sunday to accept his membership in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., he will become the second member of the 1974 Chicago White Sox to gain such immortality.

The first, of course, came a few years ago when relief pitcher Rich Gossage gained admission to the Hall of Fame. Gossage was in his third year in the major leagues that year, although showing signs already of how overpowering he could be.

WHICH WAS THE exact opposite of the Santo career in baseball – which spent so many years with the Chicago Cubs, then gained one last season playing in Comiskey Park.

Where the White Sox faithful greeted the ol’ heel-clicker with banners reading, “Welcome to the Major Leagues, Ron Santo!”

It was a final year of a career that may or may not have ended prematurely due to what we now know was Santo dealing with the physical effects of diabetes.

It should not be a shock that he was basically a utility infielder for the White Sox – backing up Mexico Baseball Hall of Fame member Jorge Orta and Bill Melton. A .221 batting average, only 5 home runs and 41 runs batted in, and 72 strikeouts in 117 games played.

HIS WHITE SOX stint has nothing to do with him being in the Hall of Fame. Which is a large part of why I personally have problems getting all excited about his candidacy, and will be glad to see the Santo hoopla come to an end.

For what I remember firsthand was that final season, which came at about the time I started following professional baseball on a regular basis. Much of the Cubs time was just before my time, and from what I read it seems that the Boyer brothers (Ken of the St. Louis Cardinals and Clete of the New York Yankees) were regarded as the top third basemen of that era.

I don’t see either of them getting admitted to the Hall of Fame anytime soon.

But Ron’s in. I’m sure it’s the highlight of this year for Chicago Cubs fans, and personally I’m more curious to see if the White Sox can snatch back first place on Sunday with a  win against the Detroit Tigers.

AND PERHAPS I’LL reminisce a bit more about that ’74 ballclub, which was one of the first I remember following. 

For as it turns out, that ballclub had another player whom the new-school stat geeks like to tout as a potential Hall of Fame pitcher. None other than Jim Kaat, who in that season had a 21-win, 13-loss record with a 2.92 earned run average and 142 strikeouts in 277 1/3 innings pitched.

Whodathunk that the 80-win, 80-loss ball club (compared to 66-96 for the Cubs that season) would have the potential for three Hall of Famers – and none of them would be named Dick Allen?

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Jackie Robinson ‘Day’ brought to mind memories of Dick Allen, and how things don’t change as much as we’d like

It was Major League Baseball’s annual Jackie Robinson tribute on Sunday – the one where every single ballplayer wears Robinson’s uniform Number “42” on his uniform as a tribute to the first black ballplayer of the 20^th Century in the “white” major leagues.

Yet since the ballgame I watched on Sunday was the Detroit Tigers at Chicago White Sox, the Robinson tribute got mixed in with another tribute.

FOR THIS IS the season that the White Sox are paying tribute to their 1972 team that came so close to winning a division title (who’s to say how far they would have gone in the playoffs and World Series that year, if they had made it).

All the White Sox ballplayers were wearing the bright-red and white uniforms that the team wore that season, and they’re going to do so for every Sunday home game.

It was like a whole playing field of Dick Allens were out there. Allen, of course, was the first baseman who was traded away by the Dodgers in ’72, only to have him become the American League most valuable player whose big bat nearly put the White Sox in the post-season that year.

Now what’s the point of thinking about Dick Allen on a day when the “story” is supposed to be sepia memories of Jackie Robinson? Actually, I can’t help but think the two, along with many other ballplayers throughout the years, are intertwined.

FOR THE DAY’S proceedings included the telling of stories about the level of racial harassment that Robinson faced during his first two seasons with the Brooklyn Dodgers. The reality is that those were the two seasons that Robinson was under orders not to fight back or retaliate in any way.

Yet the way the stories get told now, it sounds almost like those were the only two years of harassment, with the rest of baseball coming to accept Robinson and his racial ilk. Now, everything is lovely and peaceful and charming and ….

Nonsense!

The real story of racial integration of professional baseball in this country is that for every ballclub that was willing to advance the “cause” (Brooklyn, the New York Giants and Bill Veeck’s ownership of the Cleveland Indians and St. Louis Browns), there were other ballclubs more than willing to “hold out” in hopes that this “fad” would wither away.

THERE ARE MANY one-time minor league cities that no longer have professional baseball because the teams (and in some cases, entire low-level leagues) preferred to cease to exist – rather than let their on-field activity become “mongrelized.”

This carried well into the 1960s, which is when Allen first came up to the major leagues with the Philadelphia Phillies (who were the last National League team to integrate).

A lot of the incidents that gave Allen a reputation as a head case who was totally disagreeable and not worth having on a ballclub no matter how well he hit can be tied back to people who would have preferred to think of their “colored” ballplayer as some sort of role-playing specialist – rather than as the “star” of the team.

Heck, even the case of his name is a controversy – which is so stupid when you think about it. Allen (it’s Richard Anthony Allen on his birth certificate) always went by “Dick.”

YET BASEBALL OFFICIALS preferred calling him “Richie.” Perhaps the Phillies thought it was colorful. Allen thought it made him sound like a little boy. White fans of that era probably thought he was being “uppity” for complaining.

Part of why Allen had his big year with the White Sox in ’72 (and in general, some competent play until he walked out on the team at the end of 1974 following feuding with team-mate Ron Santo) is that they respected his desires. Although there are countless fans to this day who use “Richie” as a way of disrespecting him.

They may not appreciate the racial overtones, or how they’re carrying on an attitude that should have died decades ago. Actually, it should never have been in place, but that is a debate for another days’ commentary.

Anybody who thinks this is an old issue has obviously forgotten the more recent days of Albert Belle – who went through a similar issue.

HIS FULL NAME is Jojuan Albert Belle, and his original ballclub (the Indians) liked calling him “Joey” – even though Belle hated it for the same reason Allen hated “Richie.”

I can remember once sitting in the right-field stands at then-New Comiskey Park and hearing someone sitting to my right taunting Belle with his chants of “Joey, Joey!”

When I asked him what his point was, he told me, “I’ll tell that n----r what his name is.” This was in 1999 – which means it’s not a lesson in “ancient” history by any means. Considering that the only “black” ballplayers some major league teams now have are the dark-skinned Dominicans and Cubans (like White Sox shortstop Alexei Ramirez), it only adds to the image some people have of baseball as a sport that’s not really interested in celebrating its integration.

Which is my larger point. Trying to remember Robinson and the attitudes against him as some sort of aberration that withered away is completely inaccurate.

IT’S JUST ONE one step away from trying to claim that no one was ever hostile toward Robinson, or black ballplayers in general.

Just like Dick Allen, who is supposed to be on hand for the White Sox’ game against the Milwaukee Brewers on June 24. It’s too bad the whole team couldn’t wear the number “15” that day, as a reminder of how long it took to truly integrate – and how some people were determined to hold out for an all-white game.

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We’ll have to root for John, instead of Santo, for local Hall of Fame outcome

The pickings are slim for those of us with an interest in Chicago baseball when it comes to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., which on Monday announces whether or not there will be any new members when induction ceremonies are held next summer.

Under the mechanisms being used by the Hall of Fame these days, this election for veterans who didn’t make the cut by the sportswriters is for considering ballplayers from the 1980s and 1970s. Ballplayers from the 1960s (Ron Santo’s era) will come up next year.

SO FOR THOSE people who are looking to Monday’s results for a Chicago connection; there’s only one. We’re going to have to root, root, root for Tommy John – the pitcher who was a rookie in the final days of the JFK administration, and didn’t hang up his spikes until the era of George Bush, the elder.

Most people remember John from his time pitching in the late 1970s for the Los Angeles Dodgers, although his time with the New York Yankees also caught the public attention.

It’s almost an after-thought that John was once a pitcher for the Chicago White Sox – from 1965 to 1971, to be exact,.

John wasn’t a bad pitcher in Chicago. In terms of winning percentage, his worst record came in 1970. But that was a dreadful White Sox team that managed to lose 100 ballgames. He was a good player on a crummy team.

IN 1967, A year when the White Sox were in the final throes of their winning “Go Go” era, he had a record of 10 wins and 13 losses with an earned run average of 2.47, with 47 walks and 110 strikeouts. He also was the White Sox’ representative to the American League all-star team in 1968.

Not bad, but not spectacular. Certainly nothing that would give us the impression that this was a career destined for baseball’s version of immortality (a bronze plaque hanging in a museum in upstate New York).

If anything, John’s greatest accomplishment for Chicago baseball was his departure. He and infielder Steve Huntz were traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers following the 1971 season for a bad-attitude ballplayer the Dodgers were eager to get rid of.

Dick Allen only went on to have a phenomenal season in 1972, arguably the best (leading the American League in home runs, runs batted in and also managing a .308 batting average of his career, as he nearly led the White Sox to a division title that season. John leaving Chicago gave the White Sox the ’72 American League most valuable player.

IF IT WERE just a matter of the statistics, Allen would be the Hall of Fame candidate, and John would be an afterthought – despite the 288 victories he achieved during his 26 seasons as a major league pitcher.

The key to understanding John’s significance is to realize that through 1974, he only had 125 career wins. That was the season he suffered a tear in a ligament of the elbow of his left arm – the one he pitched with. That kind of injury was a career-killer. By all rights, John should have been washed up at that point.

But John, desperate to stay in baseball as a player, allowed himself to be the “guinea pig,” so to speak, for what was then an untried surgical theory by which the torn ligament was replaced with one from another part of his body (in John’s case, they took it from his right elbow).

It was thought that John had 1-100 odds of ever pitching in a game again. But he came back in 1976, established himself as a reliable pitcher, and was a significant part of those Dodger teams that won National League championships in 1977 and 1978, along with a Yankees pennant winner in 1981.

HE ALSO WAS the evidence that the one-time athletic career killer could be overcome with surgery.

I know some people say the native of Terre Haute, Ind., deserves to be inducted into the Hall of Fame on that ground alone – his career had a significant influence in the expansion of sports medicine. I must admit to being skeptical on that ground.

If baseball wants to honor someone for that, why not honor the surgeon who came up with the theory, then made it work on John’s career. Dr. Frank Jobe for the Hall of Fame is something I could see.

John? Eh. It wouldn’t offend my baseball sensibility if he gets in. But I’m not sure he will. My guess is that New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner is the one guy who gets in, although if I had a say, I could be persuaded to support the managerial career of Billy Martin.

WHICH LIKELY MEANS we’re going to have to accept that the Hall of Fame is considering an era of baseball history when the “significant” Chicago ballplayers were guys like Larry Biittner and Harry Chappas.

Those two give me a headache just thinking about them. We’ll just have to wait until next year when Santo gets his next chance. And maybe, by some chance, they’ll also give some consideration to Minnie Minoso.

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