EXTRA: “Historically bonkers?” Playoffs nothin’ compared to ‘67 AL

The American League pennant race this season is getting some people worked up because, besides Boston, Cleveland and Houston leading their respective divisions, the New York Yankees are the best second-place team and eight other teams are within 3 ½ games of a wild card spot.

That makes for 12 of the league’s 15 ball clubs (but NOT the Chicago White Sox) having a shot at a playoff spot. “Historically bonkers” is how The Sporting News (the one-time Bible of Baseball) described the current conditions.

YET I CAN’T help but think that all it means is there are many teams that ought not to think of themselves as pennant contenders are being deluded into thinking they have a chance to achieve something of significance this season.

I’ve been thinking about this because of the fact that it has been 50 years since the American League really DID have a bonkers-type season. 1967, which might be the Summer of Love to some people, was also the year that the American League nearly finished in a four-way tie for first place.

The Boston Red Sox have been having ceremonies this week to mark the fact that they ultimately won the league championship.

Just this Wednesday, many old ballplayers turned out at Fenway Park – including our very own Ken Harrelson – the Hawk took time out from his duties as Chicago White Sox broadcaster to remember that year when he joined the Red Sox in mid-season and became a key part of why the team was able to rise from a Ninth Place finish the year before to a league championship in ’67.

HARRELSON MAY HAVE fond memories of that year. We all know he’s shared many a Red Sox-inspired tale during his broadcasts throughout the decades.

But we in Chicago have less-pleasant memories of that summer when I turned 2 years old – the White Sox wound up being the team that finished in fourth place out of the four teams.

Albeit only 3 games behind the Red Sox (with the Detroit Tigers and Minnesota Twins finishing in a tie for second place 1 game behind Boston).

That was the season where the four teams went into the final weekend with a very-real chance of a four-way tie for first place. Only the White Sox had to pick then to go on a losing streak – including getting beaten in both games of a final-day-of-the-season double-header, losing to the Kansas City Athletics.

WHO IRONICALLY ENOUGH were the worst team in the American League that year. Tenth place, and in fact they moved from Kansas City after the season to their current locale in Oakland, Calif.

The Kansas City Athletics got to end their existence with a bang – being the team that knocked the White Sox out of contention.

Although for what it’s worth, one White Sox ballplayer that year was outfielder Tommie Agee. He being the same guy who two years later got his chance at World Series heroics and made an outfield catch that New York Mets fans still remember to this day.

So for as much as some people like to bash about Harrelson for being too much of a “homer” who favors the White Sox, keep in mind that his glory days may well be those back in Boston.

THE FAILURE OF ’67 may also sting because that year was the end of a 17-season streak of winning seasons the White Sox experienced. For 1968 was the beginning of a losing period that we’re once again recalling now because of how badly the White Sox are playing this season. The Sox may come close to losing 106 games this year like they did in 1970.

As for Detroit and Minnesota, each had their own odd Chicago connections.

For the Twins, it was their top pitcher Jim Kaat, who by the early-to-mid 1970s became a White Sox pitcher of some talent. While the Tigers had as one of their top pitchers Denny McLain – who actually was a native of suburban Markham and the one-time son-in-law of former Cubs broadcaster Lou Boudreau.

And who went on to his own notoriety in baseball when he managed in 1968 to win 31 games – the last pitcher to come close to that level.

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EXTRA: “The Cell,” (2003-16)

The Chicago White Sox have spent the past 14 seasons playing their home games in a building known for short as “the Cell.” But with the name change announced Wednesday to Guaranteed Rate Field, does this now mean the Sox play at “the Rate?”

From "New Comiskey" to "the Cell" to "the Rate?" Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

 Ugh!!!

THEN AGAIN, GUARANTEED Rate Field, named for the Chicago-based national mortgage lender that bought the naming rights to the stadium through the 2029 season, isn’t any more stupid than any other corporate-motivated name for a sports arena.

I question what companies really get out of paying millions of dollars to sports teams to have their brand put on the building.

Particularly in a case like with the White Sox, where the fan base is stubborn enough to resist using the new name. This could well be the inspiration for fans to deliberately go back to using the old “Sox Park” name that was on the ballpark they played in during the 1960s and early 1970s.

Although with a building of the physical scale of the current stadium, I’d argue for calling it “White Sox Stadium,” just like Yankee or Dodger, or perhaps Kansas City’s old Royals Stadium – which was the inspiration for the White Sox’ ballpark when it was built in the early 1990s.

SO FOR WHAT it’s worth, the reign of the building that began its life as “New Comiskey Park” may wind up being able to say its glory days came when it was named for a company that once used actress Joan Cusack as its face (that is, when they weren’t using a pink space alien).

For it was during its time as U.S. Cellular Field that the World Series was played in Chicago – a first in 46 years and the only one in recent years played by a Chicago team.

No matter what the Cubs accomplish this year, history will record it was the White Sox that won an ultimate championship first any time in this century.

It also was the payout from the U.S. Cellular interests that covered the cost of a renovation that enhanced much of the character the building currently has.

BU IT’S NOT like the “U.S. Cellular” name could have continued for much longer. If anything, it’s a wonder it lasted as long as it did.

Considering that U.S. Cellular doesn’t even exist anymore in Chicago or Illinois. The building essentially became advertising for a company that local people couldn’t use – even if they wanted to.

And considering that the company withered away locally, it didn’t likely do much business when it was here. So the days of “the Cell” are no more. Let’s just hope that someone can come up with a new moniker so that we don’t wind up calling the building “the Rate.”

 

One last task before retiring -- name park

Perhaps Sox broadcaster Ken Harrelson can use his skills at brandishing nicknames (he being the guy who came up with, among others, “The Big Hurt” for Hall of Famer Frank Thomas) to come up with an appropo label for the ballpark at Shields Avenue.

  -30-

EDITOR’S NOTE: People were just as upset 14 years ago when the “U.S. Cellular” moniker was applied to the White Sox ballpark.

Staging the end of baseball eras

It was some time about 1:25 p.m. Sunday (Central Time, depending on how accurate my time piece was) when New York Yankees star Derek Jeter came to bat at Boston’s Fenway Park.

While at U.S. Cellular Field, Chicago White Sox star Paul Konerko had his first plate appearance for the season’s final game against the Kansas City Royals.

BOTH THE YANKEES and White Sox are out of the pennant race. Neither is going to the playoffs, or has a chance at a league championship and World Series appearance.

But both Jeter and Konerko are long-time players of some prominence who have said that 2014 will be their last season as professional ballplayers – although Jeter was the one whose farewell made the cover of Sports Illustrated. So Sunday was it.

I wasn’t at a ballpark. I was parked in front of a television set, and was flipping my set back-and-forth between the two games – going from listening to Jerry Remy narrate the Jeter hoo-hah, while Ken Harrelson gave us the accounting of the Konerko finale.

It literally turned out that the two men came up to bat simultaneously – leading to a pitch-by-pitch flip back-and-forth between the Comcast Sports Chicago broadcast and the carrying of a New England Sports Network broadcast of the Yankees/Red Sox affair.

BOTH OF THE announcers played into the storyline that the ballclubs wanted their stars to go out with a bang – both were prepared to immediately remove their player if he managed a base hit of sorts. Let him go out on a high note.

All throughout “the Cell,” the chants of “Paulie, Paulie” could be heard for Konerko, while Jeter got to hear Red Sox fans do their imitation of that “Der-ek Jet-er, clap-clap, clap-clap-clap” chant that Yankee Stadium crowds regularly give him.

Which is quite a concession from the Boston crowd, since I can remember when Red Sox fans used to taunt Jeter with the chant of “No-mar’s Bet-ter,” in reference to their own almost-as-good shortstop Nomar Garciaparra.

Jeter had already managed one at-bat in his game (those East Coast games start earlier than Midwestern ones), and had cracked a hard line drive that the shortstop had to make an amazing leap to catch.

SO COME THE third inning, Jeter tried again, and managed to get a relatively weak single past the Red Sox’ third baseman that drove in a run. It’s not exactly the “Kid Bids Hub Adieu” of Ted Williams’ home run in his final at-bat in 1960, but it sufficed for Yankees fans who got to see Jeter trot all over the field to congratulate everybody in sight  (including Red Sox pitcher Clay Buchholz) before leaving the field.

Somehow, I don’t think any body’s going to lambast Jeter for leaving early the way they still do Sammy Sosa’s Cubs departure of 10 years ago.

Just a few seconds later in Chicago, Konerko’s first at-bat of his final game ended with him suffering the same fate of the Mighty Casey – he struck out to Royals pitcher Yordano Ventura, and wound up striking out a second time, then grounding out to third base before being removed from the game in the sixth inning.


White Sox fans wound up giving him a standing ovation even though he didn't get that final base hit and Jeter-type finale that would have got him a couple of seconds worth of air time on ESPN Sunday night.

ALL BEFORE BASEBALL moves on to its rounds of playoffs that make the season seem endless and always create the potential for an early-season snowfall to knock out a game or two of the World Series.

Which might well be the only reason fans ought to root for an all-Los Angeles (suburban Angels versus city-based Dodgers) matchup come World Series time. Better weather -- even though a Baltimore Orioles/Washington Nationals matchup would give us "true" World Series-type weather.

One plus is that it would make the rest of the baseball world appreciate how superior an all-Chicago World Series would be by comparison if the improving White Sox win a league championship in the next few seasons – and if the Cubs actually do amount to anything close to all the hype their fans are falling for these days.

  -30-

Did 'Tomahawk Chop' overwhelm White Sox, Chicago moments of glory?

(Not in) COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. -- On the day that long-time Chicago White Sox hitter Frank Thomas got inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, one of the sights seen Sunday was that of a lone White Sox jersey-clad fan surrounded by Atlanta Braves fans who persisted in performing their nonsensical Tomahawk Chop.


Then again, maybe it was symbolic of what the White Sox franchise's fan base is like -- a small group of die-hards wondering why all the baseball fans around them get worked up over such nonsense.


BUT SUNDAY WAS the day that Thomas was formally inducted into the Hall of Fame, which is a designation he will continue to have long after he passes on from this particular realm of existence.


All those Atlanta fans (whom I'm sure could care less about how silly they looked or how some will claim their "chop" is racist and offensive) were on hand because of the fact that the manager and two top pitchers from their string of winning ball clubs of the 1990s all got into the Hall of Fame as well.


But those of us focused on the Second City merely viewed that as the prelude to seeing Thomas get his honors, with some even noting the fact that long-time manager Tony LaRussa began his career as a major league skipper on the South Side.


We're the ones who took some pleasure in seeing the tearful (literally, his voice kept choking up, particularly when speaking of his late father) Thomas try to make sure to thank everyone who had an influence on his life. "I'm an emotional guy who wears my heart on my sleeve," he said.


HE SPENT QUITE a bit of time talking of his family. But also worked his way through the nearly 850 ballplayers he was teammates with. Not that he actually named them all. But he rattled through a list of nicknames that included a lot of otherwise long-forgotten White Sox players.


Some of whom I'm sure only the most hard-core of fans remember.


Although he also gave some more detailed credit to long-time hitting coach Walt Hriniak, broadcaster Ken Harrelson (who came up with the "Big Hurt" nickname that may be the "Hawk's" lasting contribution to baseball) and manager Ozzie Guillen.


The latter for, "leading us to my only (championship) ring" in 2005. Of whom fellow teammates Jermaine Dye (the World Series MVP that year) and Aaron Rowand were present in Cooperstown on Sunday.


I'D BE REMISS if I wrote that Thomas was the only Chicago moment.


For Hall of Fame pitcher Greg Maddux acknowledged the fact that half of his major league stint was with the Chicago Cubs, and he gave that 1989 ball club (managed by the late Don Zimmer) that went to the National League playoffs some recognition.


He even downplayed the ineptitude of Cubs management that let Maddux go even though it was apparent he was one of the best baseball pitchers of the era, saying instead on Sunday he left Chicago for Atlanta because he was looking for a nice place to raise a family.


Even LaRussa included the Chicago memories, even though many baseball fans tend to forget the 1983 division title White Sox to focus on the championship ball clubs Tony led in Oakland and with the St. Louis Cardinals.


LaRUSSA DIDN'T. HE mentioned those early-to-mid-1980s White Sox teams that had future Hall of Famers Carlton Fisk and Tom Seaver, along with talented leaders such as Greg Luzinski (he of the multiple rooftop shots, of which we can only dream how many Thomas would have hit if the old Comiskey Park were still standing) and Jerry Koosman.


LaRussa also gave a jolt to many White Sox fans when he recalled fan favorite Harold Baines, who came close to getting 3,000 base hits during his career and has some fans believing he should be a Hall of Famer as well.


"Like Tony Oliva (the Minnesota Twin star of the late 1960s), if (Harold) had kept his knees together (injuries), he'd have had his 3,000 hits," LaRussa said.


Perhaps that train of thought will influence the Veterans Committees the Hall of Fame has that give second chance consideration to ballplayers who fall short of induction like Baines himself has thus far.


  -30-

Who knew back then that early '80s White Sox had pair of Hall of Famers?

I recall the Chicago White Sox of the early 1980s as being some fairly dismal ball clubs – Bill Veeck might have been gone, but the new ownership of the team didn’t do much better on the field.

New White Sox Hall of Famer

One division title in 1983 (the first time a Chicago baseball team ever finished a season in first place in the era of playoffs), along with a lot of losing records.

BUT AFTER MONDAY, those teams area going to be remembered for the pair of people they had who are now members of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Catcher Carlton Fisk, who came to the White Sox in 1981, has been in the Hall of Fame for many years now. But the veterans committee that considers non-players, along with giving ballplayers a second chance, on Monday put in team manager Tony LaRussa.

He’s actually one of three managers picked for the Hall of Fame based off their activities of the 1990s.

But all had been managing since the late 1970s – including LaRussa, who got his first major league managing job with the White Sox in the year that the disco-hating meatheads claimed they were making a political statement, of sorts, by tearing up the turf at Comiskey Park.

CHICAGO WOUND UP being the learning experience for LaRussa, who after leaving the White Sox in 1986 went on to managing jobs in Oakland and St. Louis – both of which resulted in him winning league championships and World Series titles.

Which is why I’m sure many people are going to think of the White Sox as the afterthought of his career. Although back in the early 1980s, it would have been regarded as a better bet that George Steinbrenner and Billy Martin of the New York Yankees would be picked for the Hall of Fame someday -- both were passed over on Monday.

Will he be joined by 'the Big Hurt?'

It could be argued that if not for Veeck and later Jerry Reinsdorf, there never would have been a LaRussa manager. He would have been just a journeyman ballplayer (whose career included one end-of-season stint with a mediocre Chicago Cubs team of the early 1970s) who wound up having to use that law degree he earned while younger in order to earn a living.

Did the White Sox spare us from yet another blowhard attorney? If so, that might well be a significant accomplishment by itself.

Chose Boston recognition for Hall

ALTHOUGH THE IDEA that those White Sox teams had two members who will now be regarded among fans as “baseball immortals” seems like such a stretch. It certainly wasn’t reflected on the playing field.

Especially not in 1984 when Hall of Fame members LaRussa and Fisk were joined by another future Hall of Famer – pitcher Tom Seaver. Big names for a lot of disappointment.

Then again, any fan of the Chicago Bulls of the mid-1980s (when Michael Jordan was surrounded by athletic dreck) ought to realize that a lone ballplayer isn’t enough to make up a team.

Consider that when the White Sox finally went on to win a league championship and World Series title in 2005, they did so with a team that many people think will wind up with NO Hall of Fame members other than Frank Thomas – whom we might learn next month will be elected to the Hall of Fame from the ranks of recently-retired ballplayers.

EVEN THEN, THOMAS was injured most of the season and didn’t play a single inning of playoff or World Series ball – Carl Everett was the “big bat” designated hitter that season.

Will 'Hawk' join the Hall someday?

So come July, White Sox fans will have something to celebrate in that a former manager is being immortalized. Even if it means that broadcaster Ken Harrelson will have to re-tell the stories of his one-year stint as a baseball general manager when he became the only person to ever fire LaRussa from a job.

Then again, it’s also possible some year that Harrelson will get the Ford Frick Award that the Hall of Fame gives out annually to broadcasters of excellence. Yet another White Sox Hall of Famer whose career somehow manages to exceed the overall level of performance on the playing field.

  -30-

EDITOR'S NOTE: For the record, Tony LaRussa got elected to the Hall of Fame on the same date that Gov. Pat Quinn proclaimed to be "Mike Ditka Day" in Illinois -- in honor of the fact that the Chicago Bears retired one-time coach Ditka's old uniform number 89 from his days as a player.

Something new for people to rant about; put “the Hawk” in Hall of Fame?

As if people in Chicago didn’t have enough to rant about these days – not only is the Willis Tower no longer the United States’ tallest building, there are those people who think that Chicago White Sox broadcaster Ken “the Hawk” Harrelson belongs in baseball’s Hall of Fame.

The Hawk will never be a Hall of Fame GM

In fact, I think the latter concept will upset certain people more than the demise of Willis Tower as the officially-recognized tallest building on any level.

HARRELSON FIRST BEGAN his association with the White Sox in 1982. He had a few years away from the team in the late 1980s, but then came back and has been in place in the broadcast booth for the more than two decades since.

Yes, he’s a homer – as in he actually makes it clear he wants the White Sox to win.

Which ticks off that element of Chicagodom that roots for the Cubs and thinks that the White Sox aren’t entitled to have anyone root for them.

He has his share of sayings and clichés that he has developed throughout the years, but it also more than capable of going silent for batters at a time when the White Sox play so badly on the field that he seems to follow the old saying, “If you can’t say something nice, say nothing at all.”

HARRELSON IS NOT someone that people are neutral over. The people who can’t stand him really feel strongly about it.

So the idea that Harrelson is among 10 finalists for the Ford Frick Award – given each year by the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., to honor a baseball broadcaster for the entirety of his (or her) career – is something that will get them all worked up.

Your view if the Hawk is a fashion palate

“How dare anyone say that baseball’s absolute worst broadcaster ever be worthy of being allowed anywhere near the Hall of Fame?!?,” they will scream from the top of their voices.

Some of them are going to make the oft-used argument that getting the Frick Award is NOT the equivalent of being elected to the Hall of Fame. Harrelson isn’t a Hall of Famer, no matter what he claims!

EXCEPT THAT THE Frick Award has become a significant career achievement for those involved in broadcasting baseball. Past recipients include our city’s radio and television legends such as Bob Elson, Jack Brickhouse and Harry Caray.

Does Harrelson deserve to be compared to them?

Personally, I view the fact that Harrelson is up for this honor and has had such a lengthy career as the evidence of how baseball broadcasting has changed.

We don’t have professional broadcasters any longer. Now, the broadcasters are the former ballplayers whom the ball clubs don’t view as worthy of a managerial or coaching post.

HARRELSON IS A 1960’s era ballplayer who will forevermore live off the glory of the 1967 American League champion Boston Red Sox (remember the team that won, in part, because the White Sox totally collapsed against the last-place Kansas City Athletics in the final weekend of the season)?

Just like the Cubs currently are looking at a batch of former ballplayers to replace Keith Moreland in their local broadcasts. Moreland, of course, being of the Cubs team that blew it in the playoffs in 1984.

Personally, my own attitude about Harrelson’s ability is that he may well be one of the best broadcasters in the game today – because the quality is so low. Like Mike Royko used to say that calling him the best newspaper columnist didn’t amount to much because it compared to being the “tallest midget in the circus.”

There are a lot of broadcasters doing baseball today because they were once capable of hitting .260 or fielding ground balls without bobbling too many of them.

IT’S NOT A great field of talent, so naturally Harrelson’s enthusiasm stands out.

And most important, the reality of the Ford Frick Award is that once a broadcaster gets nominated as a finalist, he tends to remain a finalist in future years until the powers-that-be determine that it’s eventually his turn to get the big prize.

It may not happen this year (which is Harrelson’s second time on the ballot), but it is likely to come someday that “Yessssssssssssss!,” the Hawk will be in the Hall. It certainly won’t be for his brief stint as a baseball general manager.

He’ll probably give one heck of an entertaining acceptance speech. And the masses who think everybody ought to be a Cubs fan will gag in disgust – probably even more so than they did eight years ago when the Sox took the World Series, long before they could ever dream of doing so.

  -30-

EDITOR’S NOTE: Ken Harrelson even has his own theme music. The Val Perry Trio gave us “Don’t Walk the Hawk” back at the peak of his ’67 Red Sox popularity. And yes, it definitely is a period piece, as cheesy as anything the 1910 Fruitgum Company ever did.

Sox hit high point when it’s too late

About the only way the Chicago White Sox were going to get any R-E-S-P-E-C-T this season was because of singer Aretha Franklin’s involvement on Saturday in the Civil Rights Game being staged at U.S. Cellular Field.

Only now, in what is probably a typical happening for the White Sox in 2013, “Lady Soul” herself won’t be able to attend.

SHE WAS SUPPOSED TO RECEIVE Major League Baseball’s Beacon Award – which is supposed to honor people who encouraged positive change toward civil rights. She’s citing health reasons for being unable to be in Chicago on Saturday.

Which is kind of a shame. Since Franklin’s appearance at the ballpark prior to the White Sox’ game against the Texas Rangers could have been one of the most interesting happenings to occur at U.S. Cellular Field this season.

Saturday is still the Civil Rights Game, and a luncheon at the Marriott Hotel located near Tribune Tower. Only we’re going to have to settle for honoree Bo Jackson, and memories about how the Negro leagues of old used to play their annual East-West all-star game nearly every season at the old Comiskey Park.

Somehow, the whole “Bo Knows” movement seems a bit old – even if Jackson’s story of refusing to give in to an injury that should have been career-ending is inspiring.

BUT IT WILL be interesting to see how the White Sox manage to stage the event that in the past has been played by major league teams in southern cities as a way of paying tribute to the role that professional baseball played in desegregating the nation.

Although there are times I wonder if baseball fans pay more attention to the annual April tribute to Jackie Robinson (the one where all 750 major league ballplayers wear uniform number “42” – not just Mariano Rivera of the Yankees) than they will to what happens Saturday on the Sout’ Side.

Which would be typical of this season for the White Sox – one in which the ball club went into Friday’s game needing to only lose seven of their 35 remaining games to ensure a losing record for the season.

The fact that the White Sox played outstanding ball this week – in fact, winning eight of their past nine games, and sweeping the Detroit Tigers and Kansas City Royals in three-game series played against each – may give hope to some fans that the team can overcome the Minnesota Twins.

THE WHITE SOX are only four games behind Minnesota. Although when a team looks at fourth place as a goal to be achieved (rather than fifth place), you know things aren’t good.

Only Sox past in '13

Which is what made Thursday’s freaky victory against the Royals all that more bizarre.

Conor Gillaspie broke up a 12^th inning, 3-3 tie with what turned out to be a freaky inside-the-park home run. Gillaspie chugged his way around the bases while the Royals’ players did nothing to chase down the ball and try to throw him out.

Yahoo! Sports’ “Big League Stew” tried to make this interesting by writing about the “Hilarious Hawk Harrelson home run call.” They claimed his broadcast of the moment was truly ridiculous.

ACTUALLY, IT MERELY reflected the confusion on the field, as it appears the Royals’ outfielder, Jason Maxwell, thought that Gillaspie’s fly ball to deep right field went into the stands for a Home Run! It really bounced off the top of the wall and wound up on the field – meaning it was still in play!

Which means that Maxwell is the one at fault for not picking up a ball and trying to throw it in and get Gillaspie out on the base paths. Although it seems that none of the other Royals players had a clue either.

Let’s be honest. When you first heard the White Sox were involved in a fielding misplay that resulted in a home run, didn’t you figure that it was the White Sox defense that screwed up?

It may not rank up there with a ball bouncing off the head of Jose Canseco into the stands for a home run (as did occur in Cleveland many years ago), but it was close.

A FLUKY PLAY working to the advantage of the White Sox? When combined with those six victories in a row this week?

This may well be the baseball highlight of 2013 in Chicago.

Unless you want to take into account that series the White Sox swept from the New York Yankees a few weeks ago – when many fans seemed more intrigued by the idea that long-time (and soon-to-be retired) relief pitcher Mariano Rivera would never pitch again in Chicago.

Even that fits into the late season theory; which is that this White Sox team is only capable of playing up to its talent level when the pressure is off and it no longer matters – just like the Cubs!

  -30-

EXTRA: It’s Ovah!!!

No more Haray Caray tag phrases to describe the status of the labor dispute that shuttered the Chicago Public Schools for seven week days.

Instead, we’ll use the call of the current Chicago White Sox broadcaster – Ken Harrelson’s catch phrase for the end of a ballgame.

HIS SOUTHERN DRAWL might well be the best way to inform people that the Chicago Teachers Union’s House of Delegates managed to get its act together on Tuesday to support having teachers return to classrooms now, with an actual vote by the teachers on the contract to come in the near future.

Kids will be returning to class on Wednesday, unless they’re playing hooky. I’d like to think they’re skipping class so they can follow the White Sox’ bid for a division title (that victory Monday against Detroit was REALLY huge). Are there even truant officers any more to go in pursuit of those errant young people?

Although I can’t help but wonder how Harrelson would have handled himself if, by chance, he had been asked to broadcast a report about the progress of labor negotiations between the teachers union and the Chicago Public Schools.

Would he have become so disgusted by the conduct on both sides that he would have given us the same treatment he does during White Sox games whenever somebody does something bone-headed?

WHICH ANY WHITE Sox fan knows amounts to pure silence, dead air while he seethes in anger!

So to mark the overall lack of intelligence that has been expressed during negotiations of the past two weeks, here’s the weblog equivalent of silence from, “the Hawk.”

And no, I’m not about to venture a guess as to whom Harrelson would have regarded as “the good guys” in this labor dispute.

  -30-

Baseball fantasizing already up and running because of ugliness on the field

There’s just over one more month to go for the regular season of Major League Baseball this year, yet already we’re seeing the off-season speculation.

GUILLEN: Returning to Miami?



Perhaps it’s just because we realize how off-the-wall it would be to expect the Chicago White Sox to actually overcome their obstacles and qualify for a playoff slot. It’s too painful to think about.

SO WE’RE DOWN to trying to figure out who will be running Chicago’s two ballclubs come 2012. It seems at times like everybody wants to fire the field managers.

I would be surprised if Mike Quade, the guy who was supposed to be the logical, professional choice over Ryne Sandberg last year, returns for another season. As unfair as it truly is, he will get the blame for this year’s miserable Cubs ballclub – even though I’d argue they performed at about the level anybody should seriously have expected from them.

It is the White Sox where one will stir up a harsher argument. Should Ozzie Guillen – whose outspoken, colorful image has become that of the White Sox in recent years – be fired?!?

Personally, I don’t think so. But I also realize that sometimes in professional sports, moves are sometimes made just for the sake of making a move.

THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES has gone quite a ways in recent days in terms of stirring up this speculation. Last week, they gave us the computer-altered photographs depicting Guillen in a Chicago Cubs uniform – and writing about how it might be possible he’d wind up there.

It would be a move in baseball history equivalent of when Leo Durocher left the Brooklyn Dodgers to manage the New York Giants – and ultimately won a National League pennant and World Series title there in 1954.

More recently, the Sun-Times on Tuesday gave us an “EXCLUSIVE!!!!!” telling us of “major-league” sources that say Guillen and general manager Ken Williams get along so poorly these days that there’s simply no way the two can work together any longer.

Of course, that could mean Williams is the one who gets bounced (as punishment for subjecting us to Adam Dunn and his .163 batting average, combined with 156 strikeouts). But when a general manager leaves, the replacement usually gets to pick his (or maybe her) own field manager.

SO IT COULD wind up being both departing the South Side.

Now for every person who thinks that Guillen is leaving the White Sox for the Cubs, there are five or six who think he’s going to the Florida Marlins – a ballclub that in the past has expressed some interest in Ozzie.

There’s also the fact that Guillen (who says he wants a long-term guarantee before Opening Day, or else he quits) once worked for the team as a coach, and that he still owns a home in Miami in addition to his Chicago residences.

The kind of people who think that everybody wants to live in Florida because of its weather are convinced Ozzie would jump at the chance to manage a team in his other hometown.

AS THOUGH IT would work out any better than when Lou Piniella several years ago took the manager’s job in his home town of Tampa. The Tampa Bay Rays were dismal under his reign – so much so that he jumped for the chance to get himself involved in the nonsense otherwise known as Chicago Cubbiness.

Ozzie to Miami makes even less sense, and would likely turn out just as badly since Miami likely isn’t going to be a competitive ballclub for some time.

Of course, there’s another element to all this off-season shifting that amuses me. It seems that everybody believes that people want to ditch the St. Louis Cardinals.

Their big star for the past decade has been first baseman Albert Pujols – who supposedly now wants to be paid as though he is the BIG STAR of the game (perhaps he is).

CUBS FANS WHO are delusional to think that their favorite ballclub is some elite franchise that everybody aspires to be a part of are convinced that Pujols will want to come to Chicago. But the part that amuses me is the speculation that the Cardinals’ manager is also leaving, on account that his contract is up after this year.

That has some believing that a large part of the reason why the White Sox would jettison Guillen is because they want Tony LaRussa back. LaRussa won World Series titles with the Cardinals and the Oakland Athletics, and also was the guy at the head of the White Sox when they won their first-ever division title in 1983.

Is LaRussa, who likely will wind up in the Baseball Hall of Fame as a manager, delusional enough to want to come back to Chicago so he can try to win a pennant and World Series here – thereby giving him a perfect streak with all the teams he has run?

Could it be that Jerry Reinsdorf (who reportedly still likes LaRussa and has his personal regrets that Tony ever got away) would rehire him, thinking he can rewrite that portion of team history in which Ken Harrelson was the general manager – rather than the announcer that some baseball fans just love to hate?

GUILLEN ON THE North Side? LaRussa to the South?

Or is it all just a lot of speculation and fantasy, more absurd than the thought that the White Sox could actually overcome the 5-game lead with one month to go that the Detroit Tigers held over them as of Tuesday?

As the Hawk himself would say, "Mercy!"

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