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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Who will pay more for Machado?

Spring training camps for many major league baseball clubs, including Chicago’s own White Sox and Cubs, begin Tuesday for pitchers and catchers, with everyday players expected to show up at training camp by Sunday.

MACHADO: Type of image some want to see

So even though we don’t know yet where potential future Hall of Fame ballplayer Manny Machado (at least some want to fantasize) plans to play in 2019 and for the next several years, there’s still some time for things to settle themselves out.

I COULDN’T HELP but be amused by the weekend’s activity, which mostly centered around the latest rumors about how much money Machado is being offered by certain ball clubs who’d like to have him come play for their team.

All because the speculation is that Machado is a super star and will continue to be a super-duper super star for the next several seasons. Meaning it could be a big deal for whichever team he chooses to play for.

The feeling has been all along that Machado, who has spent the bulk of his time playing in Baltimore for the Orioles but also was a Los Angeles Dodger for part of 2018, wants the bright lights of the Big Apple.

He wants to be a New York Yankee. Which is why the reports on Saturday that the Yankees made him an offer of some $220 million for the next seven or eight years. Which is bigger than the past previous offer made by a ball club – the $175 million over seven years by our very own Chicago White Sox.

OF COURSE, I couldn’t help but notice that just a couple of hours after the report of the Yankees’ offer, there were reports saying the White Sox boosted their offer to $250 million for eight seasons of play.

Could Manny be as important to Sox … 

But I also noticed some news entities went out of their way to ignore the latter report. It’s almost as though some are taking sides as to which ball club they want Machado to wind up with. As though some think the White Sox aren’t worthy of buying a big-name ballplayer.

I don’t know how truthful that sentiment is. Only to say that Machado is going to wind up being paid a disgustingly large sum of money, regardless of which team he ultimately chooses to play for.

There is some thought that Machado’s wife, Yainee, is an influence. As in the Miami-area native likes the idea of life in New York City. As does Manny himself. Which could be a good part of the reason the free agency negotiations have extended from November all the way to the days before the beginning of spring training camp.

… as Luis (above) or Luke?

BUT COULD IT be that the White Sox, who still plan to have Machado’s brother-in-law, Yonder Alonso, and their childhood friend Jon Jay, both of whom are major league ballplayers in their own right, may wind up with the Miami-native star of Dominican ethnicity, could wind up with Manny?

Could it be those family ties will matter one bit? While helping to overcome the sentiment that Yankee pinstripes are more prominent than the White Sox version?

I don’t know what to think about where Machado will wind up, or if this situation will even be resolved by week’s end. My understanding is that Machado is a bit peeved that he’s not being offered something more than the current record-setting contract – the $325 million for 13 seasons that Giancarlo Stanton of the Yankees is receiving.

No matter how much Yanks offer, not likely to top Jeter in team history

He may well believe that the contract offers he has received are a gross insult – particularly since at age 26 he probably has more than a decade of playing time left at a star level.

WILL ANY OF that be played with the old-English script spelling out “S-O-X” on his jersey’s left breast. Will the day come when baseball fans seriously put Machado’s name up there with Luis Aparicio or Luke Appling (both Hall of Fame players in their own right) as the team’s best shortstop ever.

Could Manny become the next Garland?

Then again, could Machado go to the Yankees and find out he’s NOT the team’s best shortstop ever – falling behind such peloteros as Derek Jeter, Phil Rizzuto or Tony Kubek.

It will be interesting to see how the situation plays out, and how quickly? Because this could otherwise become a distraction for so many ball clubs. And a massive problem if Machado turns out to be the 21^st Century baseball equivalent of Wayne Garland – the one-time Baltimore Orioles pitcher who got a 10-year “big money” contract from the Cleveland Indians, only to suffer career-ending injuries after playing only two seasons.

It also will be intriguing to see whether Machado becomes someone who gets the cheers of the Bridgeport faithful in coming seasons, or becomes Enemigo Numero Uno for Sox fans who heckle him mercilessly every time his ballclub makes the trip through Guaranteed Rate Field.

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What should we think of rebuild; does All Star Abreu have future in Chicago?

Chicago White Sox fans are likely to get the highlight of 2018 come next week in Washington, D.C., when first baseman Jose Abreu starts for the American League in the baseball All Star game scheduled for next Tuesday.

Could Jose become a White Sox immortal someday?

Abreu, it seems, got so many fan votes that he is the top player at first base for the league. Which is an accomplishment, since first base is usually a position so overloaded with top hitters that many a talented ballplayer throughout the years has been crowded out of the All Star game because that was their position.

SO IT WOULD have been understandable if the best ballplayer the White Sox employ these days would not have made it onto the league’s All Star team.

But he did. White Sox fans will be able to enjoy that bit of glory that at least one of the players on their dreadfully mediocre team of 2018 is worth having around. He’ll be the bragging rights that Sout’ Side-oriented fans will be able to chat about next week.

And it could wind up being the bit of a boost for the White Sox, who are trying to justify their lack of concern over the 30-win, 60-loss (as of Monday) team the White Sox are putting forth this year.

We’re supposed to be in a rebuilding mode, which means the potential for young talent that will someday surround the veteran Abreu with equal talent – to the point where in just a couple of years, it will seem odd that the White Sox could ever have delved to the lows that we’ve seen last year and this.

Payton played for weak Bears teams before '86

THEN AGAIN, CONSIDER that things can change quickly in baseball.

It was just three years ago that the Kansas City Royals were a World Series-winning ball club. Now, they’re a team with only 25 wins this year – and the reason the White Sox can claim to not even be the worst ball club in their American League division; let alone all of baseball.

Of course, there are some people out there who are convinced that what the White Sox ought to be doing with their best current (and one of their best ever) ball players is – repeat after me – “TRADE HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Could Abreu top Minnie for top Cuban Sox

The theory being that some other team wishing to have Jose’s big bat (12 home runs and 59 runs batted in, as of this week) to help them win THIS YEAR might be capable of giving up some young “kid” who might be capable of being a star come 2020 or 2021.

WHICH, THE WHITE Sox marketing people will claim, is the time about when it might be possible to expect the ball club to “not suck” quite so bad as they do now.

Abreu being the ballplayer who’s already 31 years old (meaning he’s on the tail end of his physical prime as a ballplayer), and it might be helpful long-term to let go of him now, rather than thinking he’d still be of use at ages 33 and 34 (which is what he’d be if still a part of the White Sox) in ’20 and ’21.

Of course, if the Chicago Bears had followed the same line of logic, they would have let their immortal star Walter Payton leave just before that Super Bowl-winning year of 1986 and those contending teams of the late 1980s.

We’d probably have Bears fans now ranting about how the team gave up on “Sweetness” and didn’t include him in the chance for athletic glory at the team’s peak.

SO IS THIS just a matter of sports fans who can feel malcontent regardless of what their favorite team actually does?

Is the "L" flag destined to return to Wrigley?

Keep Abreu, and they’re being shortsighted. Get rid of him, and the White Sox will regret it if he and his big bat are the missing piece of a contending team the White Sox hope/wish/dream they’ll have around 2021.

Because personally, I could see how that future White Sox contending team could be one built around Abreu – who will wind up being the leader of a core of Cuban and other Latino ballplayers who play in the mold of past White Sox stars like Minnie Miñoso and Luis Aparicio.

Besides, it could also be that many of the people who want Abreu dealt away from Chicago are nothing more than Cubs fans realizing that 2016 is history, their own “winning” ways aren’t forever and it’s just a matter of time before the “L” flag becomes the symbol flown atop the Wrigley Field scoreboard on a regular basis.

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It took baseball a while to recognize Aparicio to Fox; will it take just as long to acknowledge Trammell to Whitaker?

Baseball fans of the Detroit Tigers are miffed these days. The Baseball Hall of Fame’s veterans committee acknowledged the list of ballplayers being considered for baseball’s version of immortality, and they see snub!

It took the baseball Hall of Fame some time to acknowledge their greatness

Back in the 1980s into the early 1990s, the strength of the team (including the year they won the World Series in 1984) was their middle infield combo of shortstop Alan Trammell to second baseman Lou Whitaker.

ONLY A COMPLETE fool (and yes, there are baseball fans who are incredibly foolish) doesn’t acknowledge they were stars of that era – and one of the best middle-infield combos to ever exist.

Yet the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., to date, hasn’t thought much of either. The veterans committee this year said it will reconsider the chances of Trammell.

But forget about Whitaker. He’s still out!

There were fans who have long been outraged about what has become of Whitaker – who only got one crack at the Hall of Fame ballot back in 2001, and only got 2.9 percent of the vote. Far less than the 75 percent vote required for enshrinement, and also less than the 5 percent minimum required to be considered again in future years by sportswriters.

Is Lou getting the 'Nellie Fox' treatment?

TIGERS FANS HAVE thought this was a moment of terminal stupidity that would someday be fixed by a veterans’ committee. Except that it’s not so.

There were the people building their hopes on the idea that Whitaker would get consideration, and saw a certain sense of perfection if it were to happen that Whitaker and Trammell (one of the longest-running middle-infield combos ever from 1977 to 1993) would get inducted together.

That could happen in the future, if Trammell gets passed over this year and the two get reconsidered again in the future. Regardless of how long in the future it takes for that to occur.

Could Mickey Klutts share card w/ 2 HoFers? 

I’m wondering if Trammell to Whitaker is destined to become a 21^st Century equivalent of the Chicago White Sox’ great middle infield combo of the 1950s. You know shortstop Luis Aparicio to second baseman Nellie Fox -- the stars at the top of the 1959 American League championship ball club?

NOWADAYS, Aparicio to Fox is a Hall of Fame duo. It seems ridiculous that the two weren’t a shoo-in for induction, and that they didn’t get in as a pair.

But they didn’t.

Aparicio became the first Venezuelan-born ballplayer elected to the Hall of Fame when he was inducted in 1984, which was about a decade after he retired as a ballplayer and after about five years on the ballot.

Is Nellie any less a baseball immortal because of wait?

Yet he was the downright easy choice compared to Fox. Who one year after Aparicio’s induction came up for his final crack at induction on the sportswriters’ ballot – that was the one where he got 74.6 percent support, which rounds off to 75 percent. But Hall of Fame officials claimed he needed a pure 75 percent vote – and was two votes short as a result.

FOX EVENTUALLY FELL to the veterans’ committee to review, and they wound up inducting him in 1997. It took awhile (and Fox was long deceased, having died from skin cancer in 1975, a complication to those tobacco chaws he was oft noted for), but it eventually happened.

Is that what’s likely to occur for the baseball brethren in Detroit?

Sox duo immortalized in bronze at 35th St. Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

Could Whitaker, now 60, wind up having to wait many, many years before he finally gets his image in bronze, hanging from a hall in upstate New York? Could it wind up being his grand-children who wind up speaking on his behalf to his greatness?

And when it winds up happening someday, will it not seem like such a big deal? Because in the end, all of those bronze images freeze over – and these are the kind of details that get lost to future generations. As both Fox and Whitaker will wind up being remembered among the best second basemen ever.

  -30-

Lone Chgo chance at Hall of Fame inductee?

EDITOR’S NOTE: The only Chicago-connections ballplayer being considered by the veterans committee is Tommy John, who pitched for more than two decades – including in the late 1960s for the White Sox. No former Cubs are under consideration, although I suppose Cubs fans could remember that home run Steve Garvey hit in the National League playoffs that helped cost the Cubs the league championship in 1984 – the year that Whitaker/Trammell led their Tigers to the ultimate World Series title.

EXTRA: 66 years since Gaedel had his "moment" in the baseball sun

It was 66 years ago on Saturday that the name Eddie Gaedel became something anyone would bother to remember.

Gaedel was a Chicago native who was a dwarf and would up using his lack of height (3-foot, 7-inches) to make him a performer. On Aug. 19, 1951, he made his grandest performance when Bill Veeck used him to gain national attention for his St. Louis Browns ball club.

GAEDEL PLAYED HIS one-and-only major league game. He was a pinch hitter for the leadoff batter and drew a walk on four straight pitches because the Detroit Tigers hurler couldn't throw strikes to one so short.

It was his only game as a ballplayer. But let's not forget that Gaedel did another stint on a major league playing field. There was that ballgame at Comiskey Park in 1960 where "Martians" landed in a helicopter and used a conveniently-placed microphone placed on the playing field to declare that White Sox stars Luis Aparicio and Nellie Fox were honorary Martians (because of their lack of physical stature).

Gaedel being one of the  men from Mars who supposedly took an interest in baseball.

Sadly enough, that latter stunt was his final baseball-related appearance. He was mugged a year later in Chicago, and suffered injuries that resulted in him suffering a heart attack from which he died in 1961. He remains in his eternal rest, buried at St. Mary's Cemetery.

Gaedel one of 'martians' who took to infield at Comiskey Park in 1960

  -30-

Could Chicago White Sox become beneficiaries of Cuban beisbol legacy?

It has been just over two years since the two living icons of Chicago baseball – Ernie Banks and Minnie Miñoso – passed on. Banks, as many have pointed out, didn’t live long enough to see his Chicago Cubs win a World Series.
 

The grandfather of Cuban baseball in Chicago

While Miñoso was around back in 2005. He even was a participant in that World Series parade wending its way from Armour Square through the Sout’ Side and into “da Loop.”

BUT IT’S ACTUALLY a shame the ballplayer, whose many nicknames included being called “the Cuban Comet,” isn’t still with us. Not that he didn’t live a long-enough life (about 90).

But it would be a sight to see if Miñoso could be present if the modern-day attempt by the Chicago White Sox to rebuild into a winning ball club were to succeed with all the Cuban talent the team has managed to obtain.

That talent appeared to have been bolstered this weekend (it won’t be official for a few more days) with the signing of Luis Robert, a 19-year-old who is among the Cuban national team’s stars and who has decided he wants to have a baseball career in the United States.

That led to a bidding war amongst several ball clubs, although is appears the fact that the White Sox have developed a reputation as being Cuban-friendly led him to want to play in Chicago.

Wore No. 9 in Cuba, but in Chi, that's Minoso

ALTHOUGH LET’S NOT make a mistake; he’s going to be paid well. The still-a-teenager living in Cuban poverty now will be paid some $25 million to play the next couple of seasons for Chicago White Sox minor league affiliates – possibly resulting in him working his way to Guaranteed Rate Field by about 2019 or 2020.

That is about the time the White Sox’ rebuilding effort is supposed to be complete. It is an effort that will include Yoan Moncada, who is the big Cuban star whom the White Sox obtained during the winter and could become a part of the Chicago baseball scene by this season’s end.

Robert and Moncada could join ...

It also may include the star slugger Jose Abreu, who when he broke into U.S. baseball did so with a jolt, winning Rookie of the Year and showing himself to be a consistent slugger in U.S. baseball ever since. And yes, it seems that Abreu was a part of the effort to sway Robert to want to come to Chicago (or at least to the South Side) on the grounds the White Sox "get" Cubans and what they go through to adapt to life in this country.

... w/ existing star Abreu for Cuban trio

With Abreu often saying he’s happy with the White Sox because of the large number of peloteros Cubanos they have employed throughout the years. Including Miñoso, who was around to see Abreu play, and many of the other Cubans such as former shortstop Alexi Ramirez, outfielder Dayan Viciedo and the two pitching stalwarts of that 2005 World Series-winning team, Jose Contreras and Orlando Hernandez.

THE LATTER OF whom gave what I still consider one of the most amazing pitching performances I have ever seen, in the ’05 playoffs against the Boston Red Sox, when the pitcher known as “El Duque” came in relief that one game and pitched three shutout innings right at a point when Boston was threatening to retake the lead, and momentum, in that playoff round.

Yankee had his moment in White Sox 'sun'

I’m still trying to figure out who looked most ridiculous – Johnny Damon swinging at that “Strike Three!!!!!” in the dirt, or Manny Ramirez an inning later looking totally hopeless as he struck out.

This Cuban connection of sorts leading his old ball club to a championship is something I’m sure Miñoso would have liked to have seen. Although to be honest, those of us beisbol fans who enjoy the growing Latin American presence will also get our kicks if this phenomenon becomes a reality.

A tie between Venezuelan and Cuban Sox heritage

Which, I’m sure, means there’s some xenophobic type out there who’s teeth are gnashing and his “I (heart) Trump” pin jiggles on his chest as he rants about the need to tighten the immigration laws AND undo the efforts former President Barack Obama made to improve U.S./Cuba relations.

A recent Cuban Sox star

SO WE’LL HAVE to see how all this plays out, particularly if it turns out to be that a Cuban influence helps rejuvenate the White Sox into a championship ball club.

Who’s to say the Chicago Cubs don’t have another championship run in them as well, and we really could get that all-Chicago World Series our city has dreamed of, yet been denied since 1906.

Will Ernie, Minnie quarrel in heavens?

Those Cubs with a Puerto Rican presence in the form of infielder Javy Baez taking on the Cuban- and Venezuelan (Chico Carrasquel and Luis Aparicio to Ozzie Guillen to Magglio Ordonez to today’s Avisail Garcia)-influenced Sox.

That really would make a Chicago “city series” into a World-Wide spectacle the World Series likes to think it is – something for us to look forward to in coming years. Even if Miñoso won’t be around to see it; he and Banks will have to watch from that realm above.

  -30-

Sox as mediocre, Cubs as dreadful, as we should have expected for ‘14

We’re at Memorial Day. Which in addition to giving us countless excuses for political people to pay tribute to military veterans (in hopes they’ll vote) is the perfect time to look at our city’s baseball clubs to figure out what they’re worth.

The highlight for '14

The White Sox have played 52 games thus far, while the Cubs have taken the field for 48. Finally a large enough sample for us to start talking intelligently about what the teams are worth.

THE WHITE SOX are winning about half their games, while the Cubs have the worst record of any team in the National League (18 wins, or a .375 winning percentage).

Which is what should have been expected – except from those more delusional Cubs fans who desperately wanted to believe the White Sox would be just as bad as they were. In short, that we’d relive 2013 all over again.

As for those Sox, the presence of Jose Abreu has turned out to be as good as anyone had a right to expect. He hasn’t played in a little over a week because of an inflamed left ankle, yet he still is among the American League leaders in both home runs (15) and runs batted in (42). He’s up there with Nelson Cruz of the Baltimore Orioles in both categories.

Abreu, a Cuban defector, likely will be the highlight of the season for Chicago baseball for 2014 once he returns to play some time next week. And that’s taking into account the fact that he’s bound to have a slump at some point this year.

IT IS GOING to hurt that we’re now just approaching the time of year that weather gets better and attendance starts to shoot up.


No longer No. 2 at position No. 6

Yet the White Sox, who are averaging just over 19,000 tickets sold per game (who knows how many are actually showing up?), have the drawback of knowing that the teams whose games usually draw larger crowds (the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox and those cubbie bears) were scheduled for the dreariness of April and May.


W. Bush and Mantle weren't really there

And as for the fact that the Yankees spent all of last week in Chicago (playing both the Cubs and White Sox), the highlight games may well have been the two games where the Yankees came from behind to win in extra innings).

White Sox fans are going to get a lot of second-rate games scheduled for the prime of the season. It may well be that only the hard-core fans show up the rest of 2014. And we’ll get nit-wit Cubs fans who will claim that’s evidence the White Sox have no fans – instead of evidence that the fair-weather fans turn out at Wrigley Field.

Not about to be caught any time soon

IT ALSO TURNED out this past week that Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter played his 2,584^th game at his position, surpassing legendary White Sox shortstop Luis Aparicio. Although with Omar Vizquel still being a couple hundred games ahead of Jeter, the one-time White Sox shortstop (along with Cleveland and Seattle) will keep his mark of 2,709 games played there.

Where the crowds aren’t what they were back in the days of Sammy Sosa and all those home runs. But they’re still averaging just over 32,000 tickets sold per game, and in the Top 10 of Major League Baseball games.

When will he return?

Who’s to say why? All I know is I hear the talk about how the ballplayers in places like Des Moines, Iowa; Knoxville, Tenn.; and suburban Geneva are going to develop and turn the Cubs into legitimate contenders someday.

Yet the decades during which I have followed professional baseball have taught me there are many talented minor league ball players who, for whatever reason, don’t make the major league adjustment.

I ALSO COULDN’T help but be amused by the new hitting coach the Cubs hired for their top minor league affiliate in Des Moines – one-time Cleveland Indians, Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers slugger Manny Ramirez.

Is David Ortiz next for Cubs?

He’s also going to be a ballplayer for the Iowa Cubs, although Cubs executive Theo Epstein says Manny won’t be in Chicago anytime soon.

Epstein was general manager back when Ramirez was part of the Red Sox’ powerhouse that won a couple of World Series titles. Which makes me think Epstein – for all his talk of looking to the Cubs’ future – is firmly planted in the past.

Which means it could be a long, long time before the Cubs amount to anything worth talking about. Maybe around the time that Sosa himself is welcome back in Wrigley Field.

  -30-

Is it a tribute? Or just an excuse to sell more MLB-licensed Vizquel jerseys?

The Caribbean Series is over (the Escogido Lions of the Dominican League now have bragging rights as champions of Latin American baseball), while spring training for the U.S. major leagues is a couple of weeks away (actual games won’t start until March 2).

Yet on this day when Chicago is dominating the national newscasts because we’re getting hit with the heaviest snowstorm of this winter season, I want to forget the wintry weather. So my attention span is moving ahead to the summer months, when for the first time in decades, uniform “Number 11” may be patrolling the infield at shortstop for the Chicago White Sox.

IT DOES NOT mean that a 70-ish Luis Aparicio has decided to pull a Michael Jordan and try an athletic comeback.

But the White Sox haven’t used that uniform number since Aparicio got elected to theHall of Fame in 1984 (although in between Aparicio’s retirement from baseball and that Hall of Fame induction, such unimmortals as Greg Pryor and one-time player/manager Don Kessinger used it on the backs of their uniforms).

Aparicio, aside from being one of the few players associated primarily with the White Sox to make the Hall of Fame (many of the White Sox Hall of Famers also had significant playing time with other ballclubs), brings back the memories of the 1950s when he was paired up with second baseman Nellie Fox (Number 2, also retired) to create a middle-infield combination that is one of the best professional baseball has ever seen. It also brings to mind that White Sox team of 1959, which until five years ago was the only White Sox team to win any kind of championship that living Sox fans had any recollection of. Those teams of 1906, 1917 and 1919 are worth remembering, but how many people still living still do?

THE WHITE SOX , in one of their off-season moves to bolster their club for 2010, picked up the aging one-time star shortstop Omar Vizquel. Back in the 1990s, he was arguably the best shortstop in the game (I don’t want to hear from Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter or Nomar Garciaparra fans).

Now, the White Sox hope his years in professional baseball somehow rub off on his teammates and help the team use its potentially star pitching staff to contend for a championship in ’10.

Vizquel has always taken pride in being a native of Caracas, Venezuela, which also is the native country of Aparicio.

It was with that that when Vizquel could not get the uniform number he has worn throughout his career (number 13, already taken by manager Ozzie Guillen, who is another one-time ballplayer from Venezuela who excelled at shortstop), he asked for, and got, Aparicio’s number.

VARIOUS REPORTS INDICATE Aparicio doesn’t have a problem with it, although some people (most likely the kind who get offended by everything) are throwing hissy fits at the thought of a retired uniform number being recycled.

As much as anyone else, I appreciate the thought of a ballclub paying tribute to its star players of the past. I believe that this past (the American League is the “junior circuit” because it declared itself a major league in 1901) is actually one of professional baseball’s greatest strengths.

But somehow, the idea of feeling the need to wear a number to bring to mind somebody else seems like a lame tribute. While just about every two-digit number has been used by some ballplayer during the 80 or so years that players have worn uniform numbers, I’d like to think Vizquel would be better off creating his own identity in Chicago.

For all this appropriating of Aparicio’s number has done is created many jokes how Aparicio himself could probably play better shortstop these days than the aging Vizquel (who is only old by athletic standards – he turns 43 on April 24).

SEEING “NUMBER 11” on the playing field is going to make me look to the outfield wall at U.S. Cellular Field where star players of the past are honored and remember that the real “Number 11” hasn’t taken the field since I was a young boy.

Now one of the factors that has been brought up is that this is a Venezuela thing. One star ballplayer from the land now taken over by Hugo Chavez honoring another from his homeland. It is a tribute to potentially the best Latin American ballplayer ever to play for the White Sox.

Which makes the team on the South Side more respectful than the other ballclub from Chicago that claims “major league” status. Their greatest ballplayer from a Latin American country is undisputed – it is one-time egotistical outfielder Sammy Sosa, who back in his day wore uniform “Number 21” as a tribute to the one-time Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder from Puerto Rico, Roberto Clemente.

For the first couple of years after he left the Cubs, the team didn’t use that number. But in recent years, it has been used by Jason Marquis and the now-departed Milton Bradley. This year, it is tentatively set for use by Tyler Colvin – a 24-year-old outfielder who made his major league debut back on Sept. 21.

CONSIDERING HOW MUCH Sammy’s colorful image WAS the reason why the Cubs and their fans used to arrogantly position themselves as the only team in Chicago that mattered, it seems like shabby treatment.

No matter how much people want to screech “steroids,” the fact is that era happened and can’t be erased. Considering how big Sosa’s image used to be in Chicago, it just seems all the more odd that the day has arrived when a White Sox star gets more respect than the (in his own mind) all-time greatest Chicago Cub.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: These are the ballplayers who in 2010 could be wearing the uniform numbers made famous (http://mlb.mlb.com/team/player.jsp?player_id=123744) by two of the biggest-name ballplayers (http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/team/player.jsp?player_id=502125) for Chicago ballclubs from Latin American countries.

Omar Vizquel will have spent his ballplaying career honoring the memories of fellow Venezuelans Luis Aparicio (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/sports/baseball/09base.html) and Dave Concepcion through his uniform.

A little more about “Little Luis” and his defensive career in various (http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/a/aparilu01.shtml) American League infields for 18 seasons.