EXTRA: White Sox -- Happy trails to youuuuuuuuuu, until, we meet, again!

Perhaps it was oh so appropriate that the Chicago White Sox finished their 2018 season at home Wednesday in such a godawful way. What with the first pitch of the game being dumped into the left field seats.

As the sun sets on '18, … 

Later on, the Cleveland Indians managed another three runs off a tremendous home run – one that actually motivated some nitwits sitting in the outfield to start chanting that the fan who caught the ball ought to “throw it back.”

… some of us look toward next season

TO THAT WHITE Sox fan’s credit, he didn’t. Because that’s a Chicago Cubbie-type thing to do. Even while rooting for a team that flirted with losing 100 ballgames this year, White Sox fans still have some sense of pride and dignity.

Anyway, the White Sox have now played their share of 81 home games this season. All that’s left is a road trip this weekend to Minneapolis.

While I don’t doubt there are some Sox fans who will take some sort of perverse pleasure out of rooting for the Milwaukee Brewers to win their division in the National League.

A cruel joke prior to Wednesday's final game

Because if that happens, it will mean the best the Cubs can qualify for is a wild-card playoff spot – and the possibility that they’ll get knocked out of the playoff picture early on.

YES, I’M AN American League fan at heart. Personally, I don’t care who wins the National League championship – except to the degree I’m interested in seeing who the AL champ takes on in the World Series.

Decent-sized crowd for meaningless game; the value of $1 hot dogs

And a part of me feels for that Sox fan who showed up for Wednesday’s final home game, flying both a black-and-white “Sox” flag along with the “L” flag that is just as much a part of Cubs tradition as that “W” they like to fly. Instead, the 10-2 defeat to the Indians almost seems like Cleveland handed the White Sox' derriere to them.

A final farewell to 'the Rate.' Photos by Gregory Tejeda

Which would have been depressing to the White Sox faithful – except it was $1 Hot Dog Wednesday. A cheap dinner and a ballgame always goes a long way toward satisfying the mind and the tummy.

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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-

Ventura best ballplayer, Sveum most experienced (sort of) manager. Matheny most likely to succeed during ‘12?

Now that the Chicago Cubs have let it be known that Dale Sveum will become their new field manager, it seems that the ballclubs that people across the state of Illinois root for all have new leadership.

Except for maybe those few far northern Illinois types who curmudgeonly root for the Milwaukee Brewers. Then again, I’m willing to ignore Wisconsin until their residents can come to their senses on Gov. Scott Walker.

BUT FOR NOW, back to baseball.

Where the Cubs announced that Sveum will leave those Brewers to become the manager, running the team on the field for new baseball boss Theo Epstein – who’s going to be able to claim a serious baseball coup.

For it seems that Epstein’s old ballclub, the Boston Red Sox, seriously thought they were getting Sveum to run their ball club.

But the Brewers’ hitting coach decided that trying to break a loser tradition like the Cubs have is preferable to getting involved in that insane asylum of a ballclub that perpetually finishes second to the New York Yankees (2004 was truly an aberration).

SOME WILL SNICKER. Some with pooh pooh the situation. While I can’t help but wonder about the new managers for the Cubs, the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago White Sox.

Which will draw their own comparisons. Because on paper, the Cubs got the most experienced manager – which isn’t saying much.

For Sveum had a brief stint at the end of 2008 as acting manager of the Milwaukee Brewers. That’s it.

But that is more than Cardinals manager Mike Matheny, who was a minor league instructor for the ballclub as his reward for being a part of that Cardinals team of ’04 that got overwhelmed by the Red Sox in the World Series that year.

EVEN THAT IS more than Robin Ventura of the White Sox, who hadn’t been in professional baseball at all since hanging it up as a ballplayer in 2004.

But that is his reward for being the White Sox’ best third baseman ever – which is saying even less than calling Sveum the most-experienced manager of the trio. It is a sign of just how awful the White Sox have been at the “Number 5” position during their century of existence.

There’s a reason why White Sox team historian Rich Lindberg once wrote a team history (just prior to them winning their first division title in 1983 under manager Tony LaRussa) that was entitled “Who’s on Third?”

I kind of find it hilarious that all three of these managerial slots are going to guys who have never managed a major league ballclub before. That’s going to be a lot of rookies in the dugout – although those of you who want to believe the “conspiracy theories” that LaRussa will wind up in some sort of “adviser” position with the White Sox to help guide Ventura may want to think differently.

THAT’S ALSO A lot of white guys getting chances to prove themselves, at a time when the sport faces charges that it doesn’t do enough to advance the opportunities for non-white guys who can no longer get their bats around quickly enough on a 95-mph fastball for base hits.

So what will the cheap rhetoric be like come 2012 as all of our baseball fans try to find new ways to taunt each other?

I can sense that the White Sox will be the ones to boast of how talented their manager used to be on the field (although like many other Chicago ballplayers, he got his only crack at a World Series playing elsewhere – 2000 with the New York Mets, in their losing effort to the Yankees).

Sveum, who played for the Brewers and a few other ball clubs, and Matheny, who was a reserve catcher for the Cardinals, can’t come close.

YET I’M SURE Cubs fans will claim they got the guy who was desired by those carmine-colored sox, as opposed to the pale hose manager who likely wouldn’t have been even considered by any other ballclub.

It will be the source of our bickering for the next year – that and trying to argue which ball club has a better reject that we wish we could get rid of – Alfonso Soriano of the Cubs or Adam Dunn of the White Sox?

Both of them have monster-contracts that make them untradeable unless their Chicago team wants to pay virtually their entire huge salary to play ball elsewhere.

But if Dunn can come even close to matching those stats of yesteryear (which he did as recently as 2010 with the Washington Nationals), things could be very interesting at U.S. Cellular Field in ’12. Much more than at Wrigley Field.

BUT LET’S BE honest. It may well be a long-shot for both teams.

It could turn out that Matheny manages to take the World Series champion Cardinals and keep them in contention to the point where they make a serious challenge to repeating.

Why do I get the feeling Matheny will be the big winner here. Him, and perhaps former Cubs infielder Ryne Sandberg.

Wouldn’t it be funny if the Baseball Hall of Fame member were to somehow get the Milwaukee Brewers managerial post and lead the Cerveceros to their first league pennant in 30 years?

  -30-

CC leaves AL for Brewers pennant race

For observers of Chicago baseball, it has become all too common a sight. Top White Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle goes against the division rival Cleveland Indians, only to have to face the Indians’ top pitcher – C.C. Sabathia.

The end result?

CLEVELAND FINDS A way to knock Buehrle around just a little bit more than the White Sox can hit off of Sabathia. The Indians win.

Think I’m kidding? Buehrle has an 8-11 record during his career (which dates back to 2000) against the Indians and an earned run average of 4.93. No other team in the American League’s central division comes close to being able to beat up on Buehrle like that, and in large part it is because of the pitching of Sabathia (who during his career has won 14 games and lost only 4 against the White Sox).

So it should not be a surprise that I am hoping nothing goes wrong at the last minute and that Sabathia truly is now a member of the Milwaukee Brewers. We’ll find out Tuesday night, as the Brewers are hoping Sabathia can pitch for them against the Colorado Rockies.

They are hoping that his hard fastball (he’s a big boy whose bloated gut should not fool anyone – he can overpower hitters with his athletic skills) can help keep them in a pennant race long enough that they can overcome their division rival, the Chicago Cubs.

AS OF MONDAY, Milwaukee and St. Louis were in a virtual tie for second place in their division, only 3 ½ games behind Chicago’s representative in the National League.

The petty, childish part of me wants to say that I am happy to be able to see Sabathia later this season mess with Cubs hitters the same way he has routinely hampered White Sox batters. It would also enjoy seeing Sabathia be a part of a division winning ball club at the expense of the Cubs.

On a more responsible level, I am glad to be able to say that Sabathia will not pitch anymore against the White Sox this year. With any luck, he will choose to stay in the National League after this season – and the “Curse of C.C.” that has confounded the White Sox will be at an end.

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTES: It was a rare moment in professional sports earlier this season when (http://www.cleveland.com/sports/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/sports/1211358793125410.xml&coll=2) the Chicago White Sox actually managed to find a way to defeat C.C. Sabathia.

Ten years with the Cleveland organization came to an end this week. Carsten Charles Sabathia (http://www.baseball-reference.com/s/sabatc.01.shtml) is now a Milwaukee Brewer.

Milwaukee has delusions this year of its baseball team winning a league championship for the first time (http://blogs.jsonline.com/brewers/archive/2008/07/07/team-s-play-fan-base-made-deal-possible.aspx) since 1982.