'80s-Style Chicago baseball celebrated by Hall of Fame this weekend

I’m sure there are some baseball fans who think I’m totally crocked – the induction ceremonies for the Baseball Hall of Fame held Sunday were focused on New York Yankees relief pitcher Mariano Rivera and one-time Toronto Blue Jay turned Philadelphia Phillie Roy Halladay.

1977 No. 1 draft pick now a Hall of Famer

But for those of us who remember back a few decades to the 1980s and were following the Chicago baseball scene back then, the Hall of Fame induction moment was more about recognizing the special moments we saw first-hand for ourselves.

FOR AMONGST THE ballplayers who were inducted (and now will forevermore have their visages immortalized in bronze) are one-time White Sox outfielder Harold Baines AND one-time Cubs relief pitcher Lee Smith.

Both were amongst the players whose memories were celebrated this weekend, and both gave induction speeches heavy on praising the memories of family who supported them.

With Baines literally saying his wife, Marla, deserved the praise more than he.

“You are the true Hall of Famer of our family,” said the man who used to be one of two Chicagoans capable of getting thousands of people to chant “Harold, Harold” in unison (the other was Harold Washington). “The game has given us a lot of shared moments, memories like today. Your presence here today makes my journey complete.”

Once the best relief pitcher ever

NOW I KNOW there are many fans who are getting all bent out of shape over the notion that Harold Baines is now regarded as one of the best ballplayers ever.

But perhaps it’s because I remember back to the ‘80s – before Baines suffered the knee injuries that turned him from a star outfielder into a designated hitter. In short, I remember what he was when he WAS a complete ballplayer.

And I regard the existence of the designated hitter in baseball as the reason why Baines was able to keep playing for so many ball clubs (including three stints each with the White Sox Baltimore Orioles) as the reason why he lasted in baseball into the 21^st Century – instead of being a washout back around 1986.

Perhaps it’s because that 1983 White Sox team (the first Chicago ballclub ever to make it to baseball playoffs) now has three Hall of Famers amongst its ranks – along with catcher Carlton Fisk and manager Tony LaRussa (who admittedly used his baseball clout to get Baines the vote sufficient for Hall of Fame admission).

Superceding his saves total doesn't diminish Lee Smith

OF COURSE, THE ’83 White Sox were followed up in 1984 by the first Chicago Cubs team to ever make it to baseball playoffs – and Lee Smith was a key part of that team in that he provided the relief pitching that helped prevent many Cubs teams that season from blowing late leads.

In fact, even for the many other ball clubs he pitched for through 1997, he racked up 478 saves – which once was the most-ever for a relief pitcher. Rivera now has that record – with 652. A factoid that some have said diminishes Smith’s achievement.

Or maybe it’s like those who don’t want to consider Baines’ 2,866 base hits – and the fact that the labor disputes of that decade very likely cost him the chance to play in a few more games that would have given him the 3,000-hit statistic AND semi-automatic Hall of Fame induction.

Maybe it’s the fact that Smith became the second-consecutive star relief pitcher whom the Cubs gave up on (Bruce Sutter was the first) who has went on to a Hall of Fame career.

"Go stifle" to all of Baines', Smith's critics

THEN AGAIN, BAINES is the guy the White Sox traded away the first time back in 1989 to the Texas Rangers for Sammy Sosa. Meaning then-Rangers owner George W. Bush is going to have to quit calling the trade his biggest screw-up. He’ll have to regard certain acts of his U.S. presidency as superseding it.

Just like I suspect too many people forget how talented a player Baines was for the White Sox back in in the 1980s. Do too many people want to believe that ball clubs that had one remarkable season each during the decade couldn’t possibly be worthy of Hall of Fame status players?

I can’t help but think it’s a good thing that both Baines and Smith managed to overcome their baseball detractors and gain the recognition they deserve for their time in baseball.

And particularly with Baines, a part of me wants to tell every single person who’s going around bad-mouthing Sunday’s induction the same thing that Archie Bunker used to tell wife Edith. As in, “Go stifle yourself!”

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Loyalty? Or selfishness?

Watching the Chicago White Sox these days, a part of me can’t help but wonder who’s smoking what with regards to the ballclub’s best player these days – Jose Abreu.

Potential Sox all-time star?

Yes, I know the team has several youthful ballplayers who have the potential to be stars that lead the White Sox to potential championships in coming seasons.

BUT THE FACT is that Abreu, the Cuban exile who came to Chicago back in 2013, has been THE significant part of the White Sox during this past decade. He’s also achieved enough in recent seasons that his name has to come up in any discussion of White Sox history.

Abreu, at 167 home runs is already amongst the top home run hitters in Sout’ Side baseball history. Wouldn’t it make sense that people would want Abreu to be the BIG BAT at the lead of the potential White Sox championship teams of the 2020s?

Yet the fact is that there is a significant share of White Sox fandom who would just as soon see Abreu depart. It seems the contracts he has had to play in Chicago come to an end after this season.

If the White Sox want to keep him, they’re going to have to come up with some sort of financial bonanza to make it worth his while to want to stay in Chicago.

BUT THERE’S THE fact that Abreu now is 32, which in traditional baseball thought, is the point in time when a ballplayer crosses over from his physical athletic peak and starts to become over-the-hill.

Also an Indian, Cardinal and Senator

Do the White Sox really want to pay big money to keep Abreu for a few more years to see if he can be a part of the White Sox’ next World Series title-winning team?

Would the team be better off letting him go to some other ball club, while relying on the big name peloteros such as Yoan Moncada, Luis Robert and Eloy Jimenez to be the stars of the Sox?

For his part, Abreu says he wants to stay with the White Sox – going so far as to say he will sign himself to stay with the Sox even if the Sox themselves don’t make him a contractual offer beyond this 2019 season.

SO IS ABREU truly loyal to the Sout’ Side baseball scene? Or is he just being selfish in thinking about himself?

An Orioles team Hall of Famer

Actually, it’s the reason why I think old-timer fans who complain about modern ballplayers having no loyalty are full of it. The so-called loyalty of the past was usually one way – players were expected to give all to the teams, who would think nothing of trading away or releasing a player when it was to the team’s self-interest.

Heck, I remember when Frank Thomas (the White Sox’ most recent Hall of Fame player) expressed thoughts of wanting to play in Chicago his whole career. But the White Sox let him go willingly – and he wound up finishing with stints in Oakland and Toronto.

Even such White Sox notables as “Minnie” Miñoso and Harold Baines played for other ball clubs – with Miñoso also playing for Cleveland and Baines playing well-enough for Baltimore that he’s also a member of that team’s personal Hall of Fame. Or even legendary Sox like Luis Aparicio or Nellie Fox, who also played for Baltimore and Boston, along with Philadelphia and Houston respectively.

Sox combo also had their moments with Athletics and Orioles

SO MAYBE IT wouldn’t be the most outrageous deal if Abreu became a Yankee or a Red Sox for a few seasons. Who knows; that might be his best chance to actually be on a championship team.

One of the few life-long Sox

It’s not exactly out-of-line to think that the White Sox of the 2020s could find their championship dreams thwarted by the up-and-coming teams the New York Yankees are putting together these days.

Which actually would be in character with White Sox history, as the “Go Go” teams of the 1950s wound up finishing most seasons in second place behind the Yanks.

And we’ll have to see for ourselves just how much a part of White Sox history Abreu himself (will number 79 be the next uniform digit retired) is destined to become.

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Is Sammy Sosa THAT unforgivable?

The Baseball Hall of Fame will officially announce on Tuesday which former ballplayers will join the ranks of those whose athletic achievements will be immortalized in bronze plaques – and there are many sporting arguments that will be provoked by the results.

Is Sosa really any less of a '90s star … 

For me, a key point I’ll be watching for will be to see exactly how many votes one-time Chicago Cubs slugger Sammy Sosa gets.

SOSA, OF COURSE, is the guy who some two decades ago had all those seasons of 60-plus home runs (more than any other ballplayer ever). But now has given many people reason to suspect he used anabolic steroids or other substances that artificially gave him strength.

Which is the reason that Sosa wasn’t an automatic shoo-in for Hall of Fame induction. He only got 12.5 percent support – far short of the 75 percent required for induction.

Since then, Sosa has managed to get about 6 to 8 percent voter support each year; enough for him to remain in consideration for the following year’s Hall of Fame vote, but also close enough to the 5 percent vote standard that he could fall out of the running altogether.

Personally, if that were to happen, I’d not be upset. But I do have to admit there’s an aspect to all this that bothers me. It’s the fact that two other star players of that era whose names have been tainted by allegations of steroid use seem to be getting the exact opposite treatment.

… and worthy of Hall of Fame induction … 

I’M REFERRING TO one-time slugger Barry Bonds and pitcher Roger Clemens. They came onto the Hall of Fame ballot consideration at the same time as Sosa – and there actually once was the possibility that the 2013 Hall of Fame induction would have gone into the books as the year Bonds, Clemens and Sosa would have their day of Cooperstown glory.

But while Sosa threatens to fall below the 5 percent minimal standard, Bonds and Clemens are creeping their way upward to the 75 percent standard that means induction.

There have been some surveys indicating that the two theoretically could be inducted this year. Or, more likely, will come ever so close that it would seem Bonds and Clemens are likely to get Hall of Fame induction in 2020 or 2021.

… than either Bonds (above) or Clemens?

So just how is it that Bonds and Clemens are forgivable, while Sosa has become the baseball “untouchable” (and I don’t mean the old television show with the Eliot Ness character)? When their so-called "sin" is identical?

I KNOW I’VE heard some offer the theory that they believe Bonds and Clemens were legitimate stars already when they started using illicit substances to enhance their strength and endurance. While Sosa’s 609 home runs are a complete fraud – citing the fact that he became a major leaguer in 1989, but didn’t start his string of star-like seasons until 1998.

That was a long period of mediocrity – one helped by the fact he played for Chicago Cubs teams most of those seasons, and they were awful enough to put up with Sosa’s ability (or lack thereof).

But I can’t help get around the fact that from 1998 (the year he had his nationally-renowned chase with Mark McGwire to set a single-season home run record) to 2002, he had a burst of power that was unheard of.

This may seem sacrilegious to some, but one literally has to go back to Babe Ruth at his 1920s peak to find someone who could match Sammy.

LIKE IT OR not, it happened. All those home runs were hit. Trying to ignore that almost seems like the old Soviet-style of rewriting history to represent what one wishes had happened.

What would Harold have to say (if anything)?

Particularly if we’re going to acknowledge the potentially-tainted accomplishments of Bonds (73 home runs in a season, 762 in a career – both all-time records) and Clemens (354 victories and 4,672 strikeouts – third-best ever). I don’t see how the “steroids” argument can be applied to one, but not the other two.

Of course, this year’s Hall of Fame induction July 20 could be intriguing because of one of the “old-timey” ballplayers already chosen – one-time White Sox outfielder Harold Baines, whom the team traded away in 1989 for the then-youthful Sosa.

Will Harold have anything to say about Sammy, and the fact that he’s now the Hall of Famer while Sosa remains on the outside looking in?

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“Harold, Harold” – Baines will force many to reassess their baseball thoughts

Long-time Chicago White Sox outfielder-turned-designated hitter-turned coach and now team ambassador Harold Baines is now a Hall of Fame member, and that fact is confounding the way many people view the game of baseball.

Which, more than anything, is the reason why so many seem to be so miffed that Baines will get the national pastime’s version of immortality – a bronze plaque at the Hall of Fame museum in Cooperstown, N.Y. that will proclaim him to be a significant figure within baseball history.

WHILE TOO MANY more likely didn’t pay much mind to Baines back in the 1980s – when he was a star outfielder with the White Sox. One who managed to keep playing all the way through 2001 as he bounced around the American League as a designated hitter with the Texas Rangers, Oakland Athletics, Cleveland Indians and two returns to the White Sox, along with three stints with the Baltimore Orioles.

Where his performance was significant enough that the Orioles themselves inducted Baines into their team's personal Hall of Fame back in 2009.

When combined with the fact that Baines had his uniform number “3” retired by the White Sox back in 1989, it seems that Harold played a significant part of baseball history – and that too many of us, for whatever reason, missed it.

But rather than admit that we might have missed out on something special, we’d rather claim it really didn’t mean a thing.

I’LL BE HONEST. I was surprised Sunday night to learn that Baines actually was chosen to be a Hall of Fame member. I knew his name was up for consideration, but I figured the baseball-types who made the decision would overlook him.

I can even comprehend why he was regarded as a long-shot for induction. His most significant statistic was 2,866 – as in the number of base hits he got during his athletic career.

It’s not far from 3,000 – which usually is regarded as an exalted figure whose achievement makes one Hall of Fame-worthy. But it still falls short, so I’m sure there are those who figure Harold Baines came close, but just wasn’t good enough.

Although back in 2014 when manager Tony LaRussa became a Hall of Famer, he actually gave Baines a plug for Cooperstown-induction by saying Harold suffered from extensive knee injuries which were the reason he had quit playing the outfield full-time.

“IF HE HAD kept his knees together, he’d have had his 3,000 hits,” said LaRussa – who apparently meant what he said because he was amongst the people who had a vote on Sunday and not only used it for Baines, he also lobbied his colleagues on Harold’s behalf.

Of course, the news reports from Sunday also indicated Chicago White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf also had a vote – causing some to claim this is merely more Chicago-style politicking and perhaps as outrageous as that 1919 White Sox team that saw eight team members indicted for criminal conspiracy to throw the World Series.

Perhaps it’s because some paid too much attention to those years where he bounced around the American League – rather than the ‘80s when he got Most Valuable Player votes every season from 1982-85 and was a top hitter for the 1983 White Sox team that was the first Chicago ballclub to ever make it to a postseason playoff spot.

Either that, or they were paying way too much attention to the Chicago Cubs – and maybe they’re miffed that Cubs star relief pitcher Lee Smith from that same era will have to share his “big day” of Hall of Fame induction with Baines.

ONE THING WILL be interesting – how much of an induction speech will Baines deliver? Since as a ballplayer, he was so low-key and quiet that part of the reason he isn’t better remembered by fans is that his ego was way under control to the point where he was easily ignored.

Although it should be noted that on Sunday when interviewed, Baines actually became choked up emotionally and had to fight back tears.

There is one thing that baseball fans will have to change – one of the stories commonly told to mock the White Sox of the Bill Veeck era was how back in 1977, they did not use their first pick in the nation for amateur ballplayers to pick a future superstar like Paul Molitor – who went on to have a Hall of Fame career with the Milwaukee Brewers – but instead picked a player whom Veeck had seen play as a local Little League star, which turned out to be Baines himself.

Now, people are going to have to say the White Sox used their rare opportunity to pick a franchise icon and Hall of Famer himself. Which also will explain how come July 21, the streets of Cooperstown will echo with the “Harold, Harold” chant so reminiscent of the old Comiskey Park itself.

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Celebrating Chicago baseball, '80s-style

The Baseball Hall of Fame will take in at least two new members come 2019 -- and it seems the inaugural day in Cooperstown, N.Y., will wind up as a tribute to the baseball played at Comiskey Park and Wrigley Field back in the 1980s.

Harold Baines, the outfielder-turned-designated hitter, and the relief pitcher, Lee Smith, are now amongst the baseball "immortals" whose memories will be preserved in bronze.

BAINES LIKELY WILL have a plaque depicting him as a Chicago White Sox player, for whom he played three stints between 1980 and 2001 while Smith says he wants to be depicted as a Chicago Cub -- for whom he began his career that lasted 18 seasons and saw him pitch for eight different teams.

We'll be able to remember the 1983 White Sox, for whom Baines was a star hitter and right fielder, and the 1984 Cubs, for whom Smith established that he was a top-level relief pitcher.

Those two teams both won division titles and made it to the playoffs. Although the names Jerry Dybzinski and Leon Durham will remind the hard-core of Chicago baseball fandom of why those two teams didn't make World Series appearances -- and why we had to wait until 2005 and 2016 for World Series victories.

I can already hear the complaints of some crackpots who will claim neither Baines nor Smith are worthy of Hall of Fame recognition. But I suspect those people would have been peeved no matter who got chosen. Just think how p-o'ed they'd be if the announcement had been long-time New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner (who also once had a stint as a Chicago Bulls minority owner) been inducted into Cooperstown.

  -30-

Summertime reminiscences appropriate – even if Chicago memories fall short

“Harold. Harold.”
 

A youthful Harold who fell short of Hall

In my mind, it’s the mid-1980s in Chicago. The only question is whether it's a political rally involving the city’s mayor as in Washington. Or the White Sox’ right fielder as in Baines?

I COULDN’T HELP but remember the baseball career of Harold Baines, who on Sunday was formally rejected yet again for a spot within the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.

As it was, the Hall of Fame got two new members – neither of whom have much of anything to do with Chicago.

Unless you want to recall how one-time Milwaukee Brewers owner/baseball commissioner Bud Selig originally tried to get into professional baseball by buying the Chicago White Sox so he could move them to his home Wisconsin city. A move that never occurred – although some people of a certain age can remember 1968-69 when the White Sox played a few ballgames each season at Milwaukee’s County Stadium.

Although my baseball reminisces prefer to remember on-field activity, rather than front office shenanigans. And baseball reminisces were definitely on my mind – my way of downplaying the first significant snowfall Sunday that hit Chicago.

IT’S EITHER REMEMBER Harold Baines, or think about how the snowfall was heavy enough that my father’s car wound up skidding into a ditch, and my 13-year-old niece wound up having to steer the car out while “grandpa” pushed. She’s still excited!

 

Belle set Sox team HR record in 1998

But as for me, I recall how Baines was the true talent of the White Sox of the 1980s – an era that had one division title in ’83 and a whole string of mediocre to crummy ball clubs in other years.

He was big enough to be brought back to the White Sox for two more stints; in the 1990s and the beginning of the 21^st Century – while also bopping about other American League teams as a professional hitting machine. Texas, Cleveland, Oakland and his home city of Baltimore also saw him play – and the Orioles actually include him in the team’s personal Hall of Fame.

 

Sosa topped him that same season w/ Cubs

That, and the statue the White Sox have erected to Baines at the newly-renamed Guaranteed Rate Field are likely to be Harold’s honorifics. He did go through a career as a quiet kind of guy who didn’t try to bring a lot of glory to himself.

MOST DEFINITELY UNLIKE Sammy Sosa later of the Chicago Cubs (for whom he was traded to the Texas Rangers for in 1989), who along with Hall of Fame slugger Reggie Jackson may have been the most over-bloated egos to ever play professional baseball.

'Eck' had a Vet Cmte vote Sunday

Not that Harold was the only former Chicago ballplayer or former ballplayer whose name brings to mind bad memories for our local ballclubs to be on the list of considerees by the hall’s Veterans Committee – which considers baseball executives and gives second-chances to former ballplayers already passed over by the Baseball Writer Association of American membership.

There was Albert Belle, the star 1990s slugger for the Cleveland Indians (who belongs to that team’s personal Hall of Fame) who had a two-year stretch with the White Sox – and in fact in 1998 set the team record for the most home runs in a season.

Had Vet Cmte vote, but not enough to get Harold over top

Belle hit 49. But that was the same year that Sosa had his 66 and Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals hit 70. They “saved” baseball (or so we thought). While Belle was just an afterthought.

McGWIRE WAS ONE of the ballplayers also passed over on Sunday, along with Will Clark of the San Francisco Giants – who in 1989 was the Most Valuable Player of the National League playoffs.

Of course, we in Chicago remember that year as the one in which a Cubs team containing future Hall of Famers Ryne Sandberg and Andre Dawson perhaps should have won – only to get beat by Clark and his big bat.

Came closest to getting elected w/ Chi ties

With the Giants then going on to lose that World Series to the Oakland Athletics – who also were led by McGwire (in his pre-Cardinals days) and Jose Canseco (who finished up with the White Sox in 2001) and Hall of Fame relief pitcher Dennis Eckersley.

I mention Eckersley because it seems that the one-time Cubs pitcher (on that division-winning team of 1984) was among the former ballplayers, along with one-time White Sox star Frank Thomas, to cast ballots on Sunday.

FORMER ATLANTA BRAVES and Kansas City Royals general manager John Schuerholz was picked unanimously, while Selig took 15 of the 16 votes cast.

Lou Piniella, considered for a managerial career that included a stint with the Chicago Cubs, took seven votes, while none of the others under consideration got enough votes for the Hall of Fame to acknowledge their totals.

Not even one-time New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, whose professional life also included a brief 1980s stint as a part-owner of pro basketball’s Chicago Bulls.

Would you really rather think about Sunday's snowfall? Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

Of course, Steinbrenner sold out his share of “da Bulls” in the mid-1980s right BEFORE Michael Jordan was drafted out of the University of North Carolina and began the process that led to that 1990s stretch of championships that is Chicago’s only taste ever of New York Yankees-like athletic success.

  -30-

No sale for Sale, even though many Sox fans liked the jersey giveaway

I find it ironic that the Chicago White Sox got themselves into a funk concerning their promotional giveaway from Saturday night.

 

The 'controversial' jersey

The ballclub had as its ballpark giveaway meant to attract fans to the game replica jerseys such as the team wore in the late 1970s. The ones of dark blue and white with the funky collars that were a ‘70’s take on what the team wore back when they were first created in the early 20^th Century.

I WAS AMONG the people who went to the ballgame (although I didn’t put up with the heavy rain that caused the game to be halted three times before ultimately being postponed until Sunday).

I saw for myself how there were several fans who were there specifically for the jersey giveaway (although to tell you the truth the jerseys being given away were cheap knockoffs of what the team actually wore in those days some four decades ago).

There were many people who, upon being handed the package containing the jersey couldn’t wait to open it and wear it – stripping themselves as quickly as possible of whatever shirt they were really wearing so they could change into their new freebie giveaway jersey.

 

This uniform has some interesting detail,...

For a team that perennially faces attendance issues (although the reality is that no team has a right to think they’re entitled to capacity crowds for every ballgame), the mood was a plus.

DESPITE THE HEAVY rains that came off and on, and the presence of Detroit Tigers fans who made sure to wear their own gear while working their own way around the ballpark.

 

...unlike this garish predecessor...

There just seems to be one person who couldn’t get with the program, so to speak. And that was White Sox starting pitcher Chris Sale – who probably was the other big reason that some fans chose the Saturday night game to show up at U.S. Cellular Field.

For he is arguably the best pitcher in the American League these days, and is one of the few assets the White Sox can claim as their own, and a reason to not totally count out their chances of competing for something resembling a championship this season.

 

...or this truly tacky successor

The plan was that the White Sox were going to wear the late ‘70s uniforms as well during the Saturday game – bringing to memory for those of us old enough to have see it such ballplayers as Francisco Barrios, Bill Nahorodny and Harry Chappas.

BUT DEPENDING ON whose report one reads, Sale either didn’t like the look or the feel of the uniform. He didn’t want to wear it.

And when team officials responded to his tantrum by telling him to just take the ball and pitch, he sliced up the special promotion uniforms with a knife. Meaning nobody was able to wear them.

The White Sox wound up wearing their uniforms they usually use for Sunday ballgames – the ones copied from the 1980s with the big red-white-and-blue stripe across the chest reading “SOX” that some have sarcastically dubbed as the “license plate” uniforms.

 

Maybe he didn't want to pitch in rain?

Now I know some White Sox fans don’t think much of the uniforms from the second coming of Bill Veeck (his wife, Mary Frances, designed them). They may well be willing to brand Sale as a hero for preventing the ball club from making a horrendous fashion statement.

WHILE OTHERS ARE quick to denounce him as a whiny baby – yet another ballplayer who thinks that what he does has some inherent value to society, rather than just serving as entertainment for the masses.

Personally, I always thought the lettering across the jerseys had some interest. The fact that the uniform has the White Sox wearing white socks also is a plus.

It will be interesting to see what kind of fan reaction he gets when he returns to play. Suspended for five days, he won’t be available to pitch again until Thursday which is the final game to be played in this week’s “city series” against the Chicago Cubs.

It could be more intriguing than the actual games – what with the way the Sox are struggling for that .500 winning percentage and would consider it a plus if they could be the team that knocked the Cubs off-stride in their own drive for a first National League pennant in 71 years.

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Saying “yes” to DH an easier decision to make than picking a president

The presidential caucuses in Iowa are fast approaching, as is the New Hampshire primaries. Yet I remain clueless as to who I can seriously say I support for president.

Almost a 3,000-hit player due to DH

I think many of the Republican hopefuls are offensive, while the Democratic dreamers of White House glory are either clueless or ever so mediocre. Although I believe the Des Moines Register’s picks for president (Dem Hillary Clinton and GOPer Marco Rubio) are fairly safe and predictable choices.

SO AT A time when I feel like I ought to be making up my mind about something, I find my mind shifting to baseball.

Not only because spring training is rapidly approaching (Feb. 19 for the Chicago White Sox and Feb. 20 for the Chicago Cubs) and I’m anxious to have springtime-like weather, but also because at least baseball gives us an obvious choice.

Even though I’m sure my pick will wind up upsetting people even more than any political pick I might make – bring the designated hitter to the National League.

It’s about time that move was made and that the National League get off its high horse thinking it somehow is superior because it can’t get with the program that all the rest of professional baseball (except the Pacific League in Japan) follows.

FOR THOSE WHO are clueless as to the joy of baseball, the designated hitter was a measure created back in 1973 by American League teams (including the White Sox) where someone else hits for the pitcher – which throughout the history of baseball has been a spot in the line-up that weakens the offense.

There are those fans of National League teams (including the Chicago Cubs) who think this somehow is an aberration, even though I’d argue the Cubs’ play throughout the decades is the bigger aberration to baseball. It can become a heated argument.


DH extended career to Hall of Fame

One that will become even more intense in coming months because there is speculation that the National League will adopt the DH soon – possibly as soon as the 2017 season.

Baseball Commissioner Fred Manfred said last week the change could be made because there is a new generation of National League team owners – ones who think the designated hitter just makes too much sense to not have. In short, the old-liners who want to think they’re better off without it aren’t strong enough t resist the modern day.

THAT INCLUDES HAVING another big bat in the line-up, often one upon which the entire ball club is based around. As for those who think removing a weak-hitting pitcher in the late innings of a ballgame for a pinch hitter is evidence of great strategy, I’d say those people probably get excited seeing a frustrated ball player smash a water cooler.
 

Cubs better off if he'd been a DH

Will he ruin it beyond repair? Or just put a few dents in it that future generations of ballplayers will marvel over?

To me, at least, watching a National League game always feels like there’s a gap that pops up every few innings when the pitcher has to come up to bat. A gap that just doesn’t occur when watching an American League team play.

In short, all the talk of “strategy” offered up by National League fans is a batch of hooey! Way too overblown to take seriously.

SINCE THE PEOPLE who now lead baseball are determined to erase the differences between American and National league ball clubs to make one overall professional league in the United States, having the designated hitter in one league while denying its existence in the other just seems silly.

Now I don’t know if the designated hitter really is coming to the Chicago Cubs and other National League teams next season. I don’t doubt there will be some fans who won’t stop complaining until they’re planted in the ground with a headstone atop them. Even then, their spirits will probably haunt us to complain.


Even Hillary has a bubble-gum card

But it’s bound to happen. And if it winds up getting approved some time during 2016, it could be the most controversial action of the year.

Because I suspect that some people will find the idea of the Chicago Cubs or Pittsburgh Pirates having a designated hitter even more offensive than the concept of the oath of office being administered early next year to “President Hillary R. Clinton.”

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EXTRA: Couldn’t Harold Baines have accepted the honor for Queen of Soul?

Alright, I get the fact that Aretha Franklin was a Detroit resident back in the 1960s and Willie Horton was a star slugger of that Tigers team that won a World Series amidst the societal unrest of 1968.

But couldn’t a Chicago-oriented ballplayer have been used to accept the Beacon Award that Major League Baseball wanted to present to the Queen of Soul? The ceremony was held, after all, at U.S. Cellular Field!

I’M NOT REALLY being facetious when I suggest that Harold Baines – the White Sox coach who was a star of the 1980s and kept playing through 2000 – could have done the duties just as well.

It’s not like anyone who spoke during the pre-game ceremonies prior to the White Sox taking on the Texas Rangers said anything all that eloquent. I’m sure that if Franklin had showed up herself (health caused her to cancel, and we had to settle for a video presentation about her musical life), she would have been more interesting.

Not that I’m knocking the ceremonies, which I caught off Comcast Sports Net (I wasn’t at the ballpark). Surprisingly enough, the cable sports channel actually showed the ceremonies – rather than just summarizing them with a few seconds of video sometime around the third inning.

I even got a kick out of seeing Minnie Miñoso, identified to the fans as the “first professional athlete of color in Chicago.” He once was just simply called the first black ballplayer with the White Sox, but we now acknowledge him as a Cuban-American who happens to be dark-skinned – and one-time catcher Sam Hairston gets to be the first African-American White Sox ballplayer for his one season back in 1951.

AS FOR THE first black ballplayer in Jackie Robinson and the first black American League ballplayer in Larry Doby, we got to see a pair of their siblings -- with promises that none other than announcer Ken Harrelson himself would get to interview Sharon Robinson. You can make your own insulting comment about such an event!

And we also got to see the seventh tribute by Major League Baseball to the Civil Rights movement. This was the Lucky 7, so to speak, Civil Rights Game – of which the White Sox have participated in three of them.

It might not have been the biggest deal in terms of tributes, although I was amused to learn that even Gov. Pat Quinn showed up Saturday for afternoon ceremonies at the Marriott Hotel on Michigan Avenue and at the ballpark itself in the evening hours.

The closest Aretha Franklin came to the South Side was on the stadium video board out beyond center field. Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

 

It was better than doing nothing, although I realize it pales in comparison to those people in Washington, D.C., who, on Saturday, marched to the Martin Luther King, Jr., memorial to mark the half-century anniversary of the day that the civil rights leader told us of his “dream” – which we still have some ways to go before it is achieved.

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Cora out before he was ever “in”

The back-door dealing and mechanics that take place at City Hall or in other government operations have got nothing on the bizarre handling of things at U.S. Cellular Field these days.

On the surface, the final outcome doesn’t seem too strange. Regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees, the idea that Ozzie Guillen is out as manager of the Chicago White Sox and that his buddy, Joey Cora, is out with him is something that should have been expected.

YET CORA LITERALLY becomes the guy who got fired as a major league manager before he won (or lost) a single game.

Guillen’s final game as field manager for the White Sox was their 4-3 victory Monday night over the Toronto Blue Jays. It was kept low-key, but team officials made it known that the final two games of the season to be played Tuesday night and Wednesday afternoon would see bench coach Cora in charge.

No, that doesn’t mean he was in line to get the job permanently. Only that he’d finish out the season before joining his long-time baseball buddy Guillen in unemployment for a brief period of time.

Yet Tuesday morning, Cora received a text message telling him not to even bother showing up at the ballpark. He was fired. Regardless of what you think of him as a coach (and Guillen confidante), you have to admit that is a cold way to handle the situation.

WHILE IT APPEARS that Guillen quit Monday before anyone could get around to taking his job away from him (forcing the issue to come to a head during a half-hour-long meeting between Ozzie and team Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf), Cora doesn’t get that same privilege.

My guess (and this is only an educated guess) is that someone was disappointed that they couldn’t tell Ozzie to “go away.” So they took it out on interim manager Cora – whose ties to Guillen are so strong that it is likely he would have quit to follow Ozzie to wherever he winds up managing – most likely with the newly-rebranded Miami Marlins (which is what the team SHOULD HAVE BEEN named when they were created nearly 20 seasons ago).

So Cora, who has managed in the U.S. minor leagues and for the La Guaira Tiburones of the Venezuelan League, won’t get his Major League Baseball managerial debut in what is left of the 2011 season.

He’ll have to wait for some future season – while he and Ozzie do what they can to try to revitalize a Marlins franchise whose claim to fame is winning two World Series titles even though they have never been able to finish a regular season in first place.

AS FOR THE White Sox, pitching coach Don Cooper gets to run the ballclub for those final two games – although reports from the ballclub indicate that first base coach (and ‘80s star hitter Harold Baines) will be at his side advising him.

Which seems to mean that they're the two who are still employed in Chicago. Both learned Tuesday that they're not fired. The rest of the coaches are replaceable.

Harold seems to benefit still from those days of the mid-1980s when a chant of "Harold, Harold" on the South Side could mean either Baines or Washington.

He is, after all, one of those great athletic stars who included three stints as a White Sox player during his two-decade-long career, and who has maintained his Chicago ties even though he is a Maryland native.

HOW COULD HAROLD go back to being just a guy whose picture is included on the outfield wall as one of the White Sox franchise immortals (retired Number 3)?

And I also can’t help but wonder about Guillen’s status with the franchise.

The bulk of his career as a ballplayer was with the White Sox and his stints on the American League All-Star team were as a representative of the South Side ballclub. When combined with the fact that he was the manager of the lone Chicago ballclub to win a World Series in nearly nine decades, it makes him one of those names that means much to team history.

I doubt it would happen tomorrow, or anytime in the upcoming year.

BUT PERHAPS WE ought to accept the fact that the day will come when Guillen’s face (and uniform number 13) will also go up on that outfield wall (even though, in team history, he’s only the third-best shortstop to come out of Venezuela).

Maybe he’ll even get one of those statues someday that depict the top White Sox players throughout the years. Although it’s likely that a Guillen statue would depict him in some sort of managerial pose.

Let’s just hope it won’t be that one he assumed on that day in Cleveland at the end of the 2005 season when he started mocking the Indians mascot by choking his own neck.

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