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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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.

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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

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No chewing tobacco at the ballparks? Or more public attention for the pols?

Endorsements baseball would just as soon see wither away

There’s something about the sight of political people getting involved with sports in any means that always seems to be self-aggrandizing.

It’s almost like they want some public attention, and figure that being seen in the presence of a professional athlete or talking about sports somehow will get them more publicity than they ever could get by addressing an issue such as the zoning laws.

WHICH MAKES ME think that 14^th Ward Alderman Ed Burke feels the need to get himself some newspaper ink – and all the television and Internet attention that naturally follows newspaper coverage. He is doing so with his latest amendment concerning chewing tobacco.

Supposedly next week, the City Council will consider a long-proposed measure by Mayor Rahm Emanuel to raise the smoking age, so to speak, in Chicago to 21.

Burke is playing off this by coming up with an amendment that would add on a provision making it illegal for chewing tobacco to be used at any baseball stadium within the city limits.

Not for any Chicago White Sox or Chicago Cubs ballplayer, or any other major league ballplayer when their teams visit Chicago.

Will baseball fans someday wonder ...

THIS WOULD BE Burke’s contribution to the baseball season, since he admits in news reports that he wants this measure implemented into law in time for the early April opening of the baseball season.

No more sights of ballplayers with a traditional chaw in their cheek, or spitting into a cup when they think no one’s watching. And no more exposure to the tobacco that can cause various forms of oral cancer.

Or more likely, Burke getting his name in news reports that will spread across the country – as he becomes the politico who wants to do away with chewing tobacco at the ballpark.

Now personally, I don’t smoke. I also have thought that chaws and the sight of tobacco “juice” (actually, it's spit) is kind of disgusting. It is a ballplayer habit that they’re better off without.

... why old-time ballplayers all had the bulging cheeks?

ALTHOUGH I SUSPECT Chicago Cubs pitcher Jake Arrieta is correct when he tells the Sun-Times that many ballplayers use chewing tobacco out of habit, and that many ballplayers will take this ban as an interference with their daily ballpark routines that get them through the 162-game season.

But it’s not like this proposed change is something radical for professional baseball. In recent years, baseball officials themselves have been trying to reduce the use of chewing tobacco at the ballpark.

Minor League ballplayers already are prohibited from using the substance and can face fines if they use. Major League Baseball officials likely would have imposed a similar ban already if they could have gotten away with it without facing a  challenge from the ballplayers’ union – which contends it interferes with a ballplayer’s personal choice.

Now, the Chicago City Council is giving the major leagues what they’d like to see in at least two of the 30 stadiums in which ballgames will be staged this season.

YET WHILE I’LL concede there’s a benefit to Burke’s amendment, I also don’t doubt that he’ll enjoy the public attention he’ll get by taking on a “baseball”-related issue. At the very least, it will be a distraction from the many serious problems our politicos face, but have shown an inability to address.

BURKE: Taking on tobacco at the ballpark

Besides, a part of me finds it ironic that a life-long Sout’ Sider and White Sox fan would be eager to take on this issue – since he would have been a teenager back in the days when Nellie Fox was the Sox’ star player.

Who can envision the White Sox’ ol’ Number 2 without that big chaw in his cheek – and the many endorsements he did for chewing tobacco products. And which were also a significant factor in the lymphatic cancer that caused his death at age 47.

Which may, actually, be the best reason for officials to discourage tobacco use anywhere – and not just at the ballpark!

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EXTRA: “Big Hurt” in, Slammin’ Sammy lives to be voted on another day

Frank Thomas of the Chicago White Sox became a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame on Wednesday, while Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs winds up getting another chance (or maybe up to 13 more) to be considered for baseball’s version of immortality.

Craig Biggio's near miss for Hall of Fame ...

The results of the Hall of Fame election for were announced, with ballplayers needing to take 75 percent of the 571 ballots that were cast by sportswriters this year. Thomas took 83.7 percent of the vote.

ONE OF THE rules is that a ballplayer needs to get at least 5 percent of the vote in order to remain on the ballot for future years. Sosa, whom some fans are determined to think of as a steroid-loaded freak, got 7.2 percent of the vote.

The man whose name will forevermore be linked to him because of the 1998 home run race, Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals, got 11 percent.

So Sammy’s home runs (more than 600, with three seasons with more than 60) will continue to be debated.

As will the career of Craig Biggio of the Houston Astros – whose vote tally came to 74.8 percent. Real people would round it off to 75 percent, and he’d be a part of the induction ceremonies to be held July 27 in Cooperstown, N.Y.

BUT BASEBALL PEOPLE live in their own world. And Chicago White Sox fans remember how famed second baseman Nellie Fox got rejected when he received 74.7 percent of the vote in 1985.

He eventually got into the Hall of Fame due to the special committees that give older ballplayers and baseball executive-types some consideration. I’m sure Biggio won’t have to wait anywhere near as long.

... brings back 29-year-old memories of Nellie Fox

Just a couple of other thoughts about the Hall of Fame voting process.

Thomas got in because the first half of his career was so overwhelming that it overcame the average play of the second half. Something similar could be said about Don Mattingly – the New York Yankees star of the 1980s, who barely got enough votes to remain on the ballot for one last try in 2014.

FOR THOSE WHO are viewing Wednesday’s results as some sort of Chicago-based story, keep in mind that Thomas himself told MLB-TV that he likes the idea of being a Georgia native who will be inducted on the same day as Atlanta Braves manager Bobby Cox and pitchers Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine.

Or Maddux – who could have been a Chicago Cubs immortal if not for the ineptitude of then-Tribune Co. management of the ballclub – pointing out that both he and Thomas these days live in Las Vegas.

Withering away from Hall consideration?

Among those ballplayers who didn’t get enough votes to be considered again was Rafael Palmeiro – whose 500-plus home runs and 3,000-plus base hits are considered tainted by many because of steroid speculation.

His departure from the ballot is bound to spark up the snickers from amongst Chicago Cubs fans who will tell the tales of why they believe he really was traded away to the Texas Rangers following the 1988 season.

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Can we now move on with Santo, or will some seek the holdout voter?

For those whose view of Chicago is limited to the North Side, it was a day to rejoice. Ron Santo, the one-time Chicago Cubs third baseman-turned-broadcaster, got into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Ceremonies marking his induction will be held this summer, along with those for the other ballplayers and broadcasters who wind up getting into “the Hall” this year.

NOW I HAVE written before that I do not “get” all the hysteria from people with regards to Santo. Personally, I think he falls short of what ought to be a Hall of Fame ball player. Perhaps all those panels of the past got it right in rejecting him.

But this is not a diatribe against Santo. He’s in, and a part of me is relieved that I no longer have to listen to Chicago Cubs fans with a sense of self-torture rant and rage and whine and wail about the “great injustice” that was being done to the man who once had his own brand of frozen pizzas on the market.

Nor is this going to be a diatribe about an injustice being done on one-time Chicago White Sox outfielder Minnie Miñoso – who also was considered for the Hall of Fame, but fell three votes short.

For the record, there were 16 people who had a vote in Monday’s selection, and they were to pick from a panel of eight former ballplayers and two baseball executives. Anyone who got at least 12 votes (75 percent) was in.

SANTO WAS THE only person to reach that standard. He got 15 people to pick him, while Miñoso only got nine – as did long-time New York baseball favorite Gil Hodges.

I’d like to think that Santo gets in, and we can now “move on” from the constant diatribes about what a catastrophe it is that Santo does not have a bronze plaque honoring him in the Hall of Fame’s museum in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Perhaps it means that Santo’s place in Chicago baseball history is to be the North Side equivalent of Nellie Fox – the one-time White Sox second baseman who had his own struggle to get immortalized in the professional baseball world.

How many remember his 74.7 percent of the Hall of Fame vote in 1985? The same Veterans Committee that made Santo a Hall of Famer on Monday ultimately inducted Fox in 1997.

WHICH MANY OF you have probably forgotten about by now. Because he’s “in,” and nobody really seems to think much about how it happened.

I’d like to think that will be the fate of Ron Santo. He can now be thought of as a Hall of Fame ballplayer somehow superior to his peers in the 1960s – even though his ballclub’s on-field performance sure wouldn’t reflect the fact that they had so many “immortals.”

With the exception of 1969 (which in and of itself is a failure, they lost to the New York Mets – managed by Hodges), the Cubs were a weak team despite having Hall of Fame talents such as Ernie Banks at shortstop (later first base), Billy Williams in the outfield, Fergie Jenkins pitching AND Santo clicking his heels after the occasional Cubs victory.

Then again, he did hit his share of home runs (342 during his career), which seems to influence some people into thinking that Santo was the best third baseman of his era; over Brooks Robinson of the Baltimore Orioles and the Boyer brothers – Ken of the St. Louis Cardinals and Clete of the New York Yankees.

I GOT MY kick out of seeing that while Santo got 15 of the 16 possible votes, Ken Boyer got so few votes that the Hall of Fame wouldn’t even officially confirm a figure.

But my doubts about Santo’s standards (too heavily influenced by the fact that I remember his abhorrent end-of-career stint with the White Sox) seem to be in the minority. He’s in.

So will Cubs fans have the sense to celebrate, relax, and move on? I’m skeptical.

A part of me wonders how many people are going to complain about the fact that this could not have occurred while Santo was still alive. Could that become the new perennial gripe for Chicago Cubs fans (who don’t seem to care at times how dismally their ballclub plays on the field)?

IF THAT WERE a legitimate factor, then perhaps we should be arguing about why Miñoso did not get into the Hall. He’s still alive – albeit aging. Who’s to say he’ll still be around when the Veterans Committee gets around to considering ballplayers from his era (1947-72) in another three years?

Or will their gripe be that one of the 16 people who had a chance to vote “yes” for Santo decided not to.

A Chicago Cubs fan-style lynch mob in search of the infidel who doesn’t respect the memory of Ron “Oh noooooooo” Santo.

If Cubs fans got as concerned about their team’s performance on the field as they have about Santo’s Hall of Fame chances throughout the years, perhaps ballclub management would have felt pressure to bring a championship to the Humble Abode of one Elwood J. Blues.

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Another Sox “great” falls 2 votes short

I’m starting to wonder if this is going to become a trend among White Sox ballplayers when it comes to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. – two votes shy, and, “Yer out!”

Which means while many baseball fans on Wednesday were celebrating (or bemoaning) the elections of infielder Roberto Alomar and pitcher Bert Blyleven to the Hall (induction ceremonies to be held in July), and others were trying concoct a message from the 64 voters who said “yes” to Rafael Palmeiro (only 11 percent), my attention was flipping around those ballplayers who had some stints in Chicago.

THAT INCLUDES ALOMAR, who along with his brother, Sandy, Jr., played for the White Sox near the end of his career, and Palmeiro, whose career began with the Cubs and might have lasted longer in Chicago had it not been for certain personal indiscretions (Cubs fans of a certain era remember who and what I’m referring to).

But it also includes Harold Baines, who was a White Sox star in the 1980s and managed to do three stints with the ballclub before quitting as an active player back in 2001. For the past four years,, Baines’ ballplaying career has managed to gain just enough Hall of Fame support that he gets kept on the ballot for consideration to the next year.

Not this time.

For it seems that only 28 of the 581 ballots cast by Hall of Fame sportswriters included Baines as a selection – which comes to 4.8 percent. A ballplayer needs a clean 5 percent to be reconsidered.

SO BECAUSE HE didn’t get 30 votes, Baines is gone. He’s no longer a possibility to get picked for the Hall of Fame anytime soon. Maybe some year, one of those veterans committees that studies baseball executives and other causes will give Baines’ career a second chance. Then again, maybe not.

All I know is that the scenario reminded me all too much of Nellie Fox. The White Sox great second baseman from the 1950s worked his way through the years continually falling short of the number of votes needed for Hall of Fame induction.

The reason he gets remembered is because of 1985 – his 15^th, and final year of consideration. That year, he got 295 votes out of the 395 ballots cast. As in 74.7 percent, which rounded up is 75 percent – the bare minimum of support needed for actual induction (for what it is worth, Alomar on Wednesday got 90 percent support).

There were those who cited baseball’s traditions in rounding up percentages to allow ballplayers to achieve records or significant accomplishments. Not in this case.

FOX WOUND UP not making it into the Hall of Fame until 12 years later, when the aforementioned veterans committee picked him.

Which makes me wonder – will it be sometime around the year 2025 (he’d be 66 by then) that someone might take seriously the playing career of Harold Baines – which managed to overcome serious injuries that could have ended his playing career to last for two decades in the American League?

Because among White Sox fans, Baines is as beloved by his generation as the older fans were of Nellie. Now before anyone starts throwing lines of statistics at me to show me how inadequate Harold was, I am fully aware that Baines gets some exaggerated credit because he was the best ballplayer on what were some truly cruddy White Sox ball clubs back in the mid- to late-1980s.

He made six American League All-Star teams and twice finished in the Top 10 of the league Most Valuable Player voting, was 29^th all-time in runs batted in with 1,628, and also led the league in slugging percentage back in 1984. The stat that gets him closest to consideration was 2,844 – as in the number of base hits he got in his career, so close to the 3,000-tally that usually gets people all worked up into thinking “Hall of Fame.”

THEN AGAIN, PALMEIRO exceeded that 3,000 figure, and still is likely to never get in.

My point in rattling off those particular statistics is to indicate that Baines would be far from the worst ballplayer to get into the Hall of Fame, should it happen some day.

In fact, a part of me can’t help but think that the description of “good, but not great” that Baines’ detractors will use to describe him is also fitting of Blyleven – the pitcher from my childhood years who managed to hang on in baseball for so long that his overall career totals (at first glance) look impressive – 287 career wins, just short of 300 wins, the pitcher’s equivalent of 3,000 hits.

The same stat geeks who will bemoan Harold Baines are in love with Blyleven’s record, ignoring the fact that among their contemporaries while they played, Harold was thought more highly of than Rik Aalbert.

WHICH IS WHY a part of me wonders if a future generation veterans committee will be willing to give Baines a second glance.

But for the meantime, we get to celebrate the induction of Alomar (even though the peak of his career was playing for those Toronto Blue Jays teams that deprived the White Sox of an American League championship in 1993). Roberto was on the South Side for both 2003 and 2004, and has family ties to the White Sox strengthened by the fact that both his brother, catcher Sandy, Jr., and his father, infielder Sandy, Sr., also called Comiskey Park home for a stint.

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