EXTRA: The Good, the Sad & the Ugly

For a moment, he had best stats

Baseball is back! The 2018 regular season began Thursday, and what was notable about this date?

THE GOOD: The very first game of the whole season was the Chicago Cubs in Miami taking on the Marlins. And as it turns out, Cubs outfielder Ian Happ was the first batter who managed to hit the first pitch of the season for a home run.

Which got a lot of people all worked up. Not even the sight of that ridiculous light show with swimming dolphin-like creatures that takes place at Marlins Park could bring people down.

15th Sox player ever to hit 3 HRs in game

Even better was the Chicago White Sox' 14-7 victory in Kansas City. Six Sox home runs, including three by infielder Matt Davidson. Only three other ballplayers ever have hit that many in an Opening Day game, including Tuffy Rhodes of the Cubs back in 1994.

THE SAD: Rusty Staub, the one-time player known as Le Grande Orange (he was a red-head who played for the Montreal Expos for a time) died Thursday morning.

R.I.P.

Which means he got a baseball-wide moment of silence prior to every opening game, and fans of the Houston Astros, New York Mets and Detroit Tigers fought it out with Expos fans over which ball club was most significant to his career (he’s the guy who managed 500 or more base hits with each team). While Chicago fans could reminisce about all the big hits he got against our city's ball clubs.

THE UGLY: The Cubs started out their season with that home run and managed to add on two more runs before the Marlins even got to bat.

Yet it only took two more innings before Miami tied the ballgame, meaning the Cubs couldn’t even hold the lead. The Cubs may think they’re of championship quality these days, but it seems certain aspects of Chicago Cubishness will never change.

And yes, I know the old Sergio Leone film was The Good, the BAD and the Ugly. But when it comes to baseball, there is no Bad. Unless you count people who slather ketchup on their ballpark hot dogs – even Clint Eastwood’s later character "Dirty" Harry Callahan (who at least had a name) would agree with that.

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’05 White Sox get their second (sort of) Hall of Famer during Sunday induction

(Not in) COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. – The 2005 Chicago White Sox can now claim to have two of its uniformed members inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, and perhaps it’s all so appropriate.

The newest baseball immortal

One of them was Frank Thomas, the star hitter who got inducted three years ago. While the other is newly-inducted member Tim Raines.

WHO WE MAY have forgotten by now was the first base coach under manager Ozzie Guillen that season whose memories of ultimate victory make the ongoing annoyance of a Chicago Cubs championship from last season just a little bit bearable.

 

Ouch!

During induction ceremonies held at the Baseball Hall of Fame in upstate New York, Raines managed to give a plug to Thomas – although not perhaps one that “the Big Hurt” would have wanted to hear.

For Raines also played for the White Sox the first half of the 1990s, which made him a Thomas teammate. Which also made Raines fully aware of the college football injury that Thomas suffered that made him incapable of throwing a baseball worth squat.

Raines said Thomas taught him of the importance to paying attention to the ballgame at all times because any time the pitcher tried to pick off a base runner at first base and a rundown resulted, there was always the chance that Thomas would throw the ball over the second baseman’s head into left field – which means Raines would have had to chase it down from his outfield position.

NOT THAT IT’S because of Raines’ player and coach stints with the White Sox that he got into the Hall of Fame. He was one of the best base stealers during the 1980s while playing with the Montreal Expos, and it’s because of the 808 bases he stole during his career (among the highest totals ever, except some nitwits want to think he's second-rate because Rickey Henderson stole more) bthat he gained the right to have a bronze plaque bearing his image.

 

From the days of youth

One that will bear the stylized “eMb” logo of the long-defunct Expos, rather than the Old English script spelling out “Sox.”

But Raines helped bring some pleasant baseball memories to Chicago both in 2005 and in 1993, when the team he played for won a division title. That same team nearly had a chance at winning something in 1994 – if not for the labor stoppage that wound up wiping out a season, its playoffs and resulting World Series.

There are those Sox fans who will forevermore believe that World Series would have been one between the White Sox and the Expos – which Raines has said would have been a matchup of great personal interest to himself.

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Could Chicago baseball fans wind up rooting for pair of Expos to make Hall?

It’s not likely there will be many Chicago baseball stories to tell Wednesday night when we learn who, if anyone, will be the newly-elected members of the baseball Hall of Fame.
 

Rest of world will see MB, while we'll see Old English

The officials in Cooperstown, N.Y., are scheduled to announce their new members during an evening ceremony, with the new members being inducted during summertime ceremonies.

NOW I DON’T have a ballot, or any say, in who gets picked. So this isn’t one of those columns written by someone justifying why they picked who they did and informing the world why they’re wrong for disagreeing with them.

I’m just a fan. Someone who has watched countless ballgames throughout the past four decades and has devoted too much of my life to following the activities of the American and National leagues (usually rooting for the former).

I’m realistic enough to know that one-time White Sox Magglio Ordoñez or former Cub Derrek Lee aren’t going to be honored. In fact, if you’re determined to pay attention only to a Chicago angle, then you’ll be obsessed with whether or not one-time Cubbie slugger Sammy Sosa gets enough votes to even remain on the Hall of Fame ballot for future years.

Ramos, Pate will see their baseball card values boost

Or will this be the year he finally fades into anonymity; quite an outcome for the guy who two decades ago was one of baseball’s biggest names. But now has to deal with the “s-word” tagged to his name, even though there is no hard evidence (nothing admissible in court) that would convince people he used steroids.

WE’LL JUST FORGET those three seasons (1998, 1999 and 2001) when he managed 60 or more home runs in a season – a feat NO OTHER ballplayer can come close to matching.

An unsung beisbol star

Personally, I’m intrigued to see what becomes of Tim Raines and Vladimir Guerrero – a pair of outfielders who had their best years playing for the no-longer-existing Montreal Expos.

If I had any say, I’d vote for the two of them, without caring about anyone else on the ballot. Although I’m sure there are those who will disagree about either being included and will be particularly outraged that I don't care about their own 'pet' player (such as Ivan Rodriguez or Larry Walker).

Should he really overshadow Raines?

Raines was a star player of the 1980s who managed to keep playing ball into the 21^st Century. He was a base stealer; he could run and stir up offensive activity.

ALTHOUGH THERE ARE those modern fans who think the stolen base is overrated (foolish them) and don’t care that Raines has more stolen bases than all but three other players. It doesn’t help that one of those three is a Raines contemporary – the famed Rickey Henderson.

While I see Raines as one of the best ever, they merely see the second-best of his own era. Which is nonsensical!

Raines, however, could wind up becoming the closest we get to a legitimate Chicago angle. For he also played for the Chicago White Sox in the early 1990s and was a part of that 1993 ballclub that won a division title (hitting .444 and scoring five runs in the playoffs against the ultimate World Series champion Toronto Blue Jays).

Top base thieves of all-time, not just '81

He also returned to Chicago in the mid-2000s for three seasons – which made him a first base coach for that World Series-winning team the White Sox had in 2005.

AS FOR GUERRERO, there isn’t a hard Chicago connection – he played for the Los Angeles Angels, Baltimore Orioles and Texas Rangers, along with Montreal. But one of the funniest moments I ever saw in a ballpark took place at Wrigley Field and involved Guerrero.

 

Will he get another chance next year?

It was 2003 and the Expos were in town to play the Cubs in what turned out to be one of the last games they played here before relocating to Washington, D.C. Guerrero hit a home run not only over the left field wall, but over the bleachers and out onto Waveland Avenue.

Cubs fans gathered outside the ballpark tried to partake in the tradition of throwing back a home run ball hit by a visiting team player – only the people out there had such weak throwing arms that they couldn’t get the ball back into the ballpark. Their tosses kept hitting the screen that offered protection to nearby homeowners.

Truly worth a chuckle to see the effort by Cubs fans, who showed us firsthand that day why none of them were playing for the Cubs.

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