White Sox being cheap? Or is it just petty people looking for something else baseball-related to gripe about?

The Chicago White Sox this past winter tried to portray themselves as major players to attract the big-star ballplayers who were available on the open market; yet the end result was failure.

Was there ever a chance that Manny Machado or … 

Neither infielder Manny Machado nor outfielder Bryce Harper wound up regarding White Sox offers seriously – which has a certain segment of baseball fans now going out of their way to lambaste the Sox as cheap or amateurish.

… Bryce Harper would have played in Chicago?

SOME EVEN MANAGE to come up with language much more blunt and vulgar – to the point where I wouldn’t feel compelled repeating it here.

Yet I can’t help but think those people are being ridiculous. In part because I suspect many of the same individuals are the same people who spent the winter months when ballplayer negotiations took place lambasting the very idea that these two men were somehow worthy of the big-money, long-term deals they were demanding.

As it turned out, Machado went with the San Diego Padres – which offered him a 10-year, $300 million deal. Harper this week got an even bigger contract; some $330 million over 13 years with the Philadelphia Phillies.

Who, of course, were the baseball franchise whose ownership said they were prepared to spend “stupid” money in order to give themselves an injection of talent that could make them a sudden championship contender.

THE WHITE SOX never made a definitive offer to Harper, while the Machado deal was for some $250 million – with other clauses that could have boosted the overall cost to $350 million.

From journeyman outfielder to nondescript VP?

In theory, Machado could have made more money coming to Chicago, but chose San Diego because he wanted the guaranteed payoff rather than the possibility of more money.

Which has some baseball fans determined to badmouth the South Side ball club by saying the Sox were too amateurish to negotiate firmly – instead acting as though they hoped to get some sort of discount to get Machado in the black-and-white pinstripes of the Sox; rather than wearing the occasional brown-and-yellow throwback uniforms that lead fans to joke about Taco Bell.

I think such criticism is ridiculous – and not just because some of the same fans seem like they’d criticize the Sox for doing a deal AND for not doing a deal.

IT ACTUALLY MAKES me think that White Sox executive vice president Ken Williams had a point when he told the Chicago Sun-Times that, “it’s a shame if it’s being portrayed that we were on the cheap on this thing. That’s really interesting because, holy shit, that’s a quarter of a billion dollars we offered with a chance to be higher than what he’s getting.”

Then again, there probably is an element of a baseball executive trying to downplay the fact that he got beaten out for a ballplayer he wanted to acquire – not only for his on-field talents but also for the large amount of publicity his acquisition would have brought to Chicago.

Which, I suspect, is what has many people eager to bad-mouth them. Or at least those people whose baseball leanings make them delusional enough to root, root, root for the Cubbies.

Perhaps they didn’t like the idea of the White Sox flirting with baseball relevance – and reminding people that Chicago IS a two-team town. No matter how much some Cubs fans are insecure at the thought of anyone paying attention to any team other than themselves.

NOT THAT I’M intending to write an anti-Cubs diatribe here. It’s just that I’m not bothered much by the fact that Machado turned down a White Sox offer and didn’t get serious in trying to win over Harper.

Wasn't good enough to bring championship to Chgo

I still think that if all the rhetoric about the White Sox rebuilding themselves into a serious championship contender has any truth to it, it’s going to be because a significant share of those young minor leaguers already in the Sox system actually turn out to be as good as speculated.

Acquiring either of them would not, by itself, have turned the White Sox into a championship team.

All it would have done was created a deal that would have financially strapped the White Sox for years to come – possibly thwarting any serious efforts to improve the team in the future. As though what the Sox really need is to come up with their own version of Ernie Banks – a star ballplayer whose career was wasted away playing for Cubs teams that never won a thing.

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EXTRA: No ‘Manny’ coming to Chi!

We’re one week into the baseball spring training camps, and the Chicago White Sox can put a rest to all the speculation of big-name, high-priced athletic talent coming to the Sout’ Side.

Not returning to American League anytime soon

Manny Machado, the third baseman who says he wants to be a shortstop along with one of the highest-paid players in baseball, chose on Tuesday to sign with the San Diego Padres.

DEPENDING ON THE reports one trusts, the White Sox had a bid of some $175 million spread out over seven seasons, that might have increased to eight or nine years.

Big money by baseball standards. But in the end, Machado got a late offer from San Diego that is for 10 seasons at a total of $300 million. An offer the White Sox weren’t willing to try to match – which has some fans already up in arms about the Pale Hose being nothing but cheapskates.

Although others are going on rants complaining that Machado used the White Sox during the negotiations process so as to get someone else to cough up the big bucks!

I’m willing to bet that when (because of the concept of inter-league play) the Padres have reason to come to Chicago to play the White Sox in future seasons, Manny is going to find himself the subject of the most intense heckling he could ever imagine. He’ll be amongst the most hated athletes on the South Side of Chicago.

These ballplayers more important … 

ALTHOUGH IT WOULDN’T shock me if Cubs fans wind up rooting for Manny big time out of spite for so publicly spurning the Sox.

Personally, Machado’s not coming to Chicago doesn’t bother me too much. It’s not like he single-handedly would have turned the White Sox into a contending ball club. The chances of a championship at Guaranteed Rate Field any time soon is still based on the rebuilding process and all the minor league talent that likely will make it to Chicago between now and 2021.

… to White Sox future champ chances … 

Eloy Jimenez, the .311 hitter the past few seasons in the minor leagues, could wind up being the big-name ballplayer for the Sox for 2019 – and the team will be able to get away with a major league-minimum salary ($535,000) for him.

In fact, without Machado, the White Sox this year will have a total payroll of some $80 million – which puts them in the bottom fifth of Major League Baseball.

… than Machado would have been

NOW I’M NOT talking cheapskate rhetoric here – I realize that any serious effort to turn the White Sox into contenders is going to result at some point in a serious expenditure of cash to boost the payroll.

I’m just not sure that this particular year was THE YEAR to be doing so. It could wind up that a future year would be the best time to make a serious expenditure.

The reality is that if the White Sox are to become a serious ball club worthy of championship consideration, it’s not going to be because of a free agent purchase. It’s going to be because the young talent matures to its highest potential.

It will be because Jimenez becomes as worthy at the major league level as he has been while playing since 2014 in the minor leagues. It will be because Yoan Moncada will live up to the promise he once had back when he was regarded as the best minor league ballplayer overall.

Will Sox repeat process for Mike Trout?

AND IT WILL be because Michael Kopech recovers from the rotator cuff surgery to his shoulder and shows that the couple of major league starts where he excelled in 2018 just prior to his injury weren’t a pure fluke.

The real question as far as the White Sox short-term is what will become of their newly-acquired ballplayers Yonder Alonso (who is Machado’s brother-in-law) and Jon Jay (a long-time personal friend of the two). The White Sox had acquired both in hopes that it would create an atmosphere that would make Machado think the Sout’ Side was truly place for him to be.

Now, they’re just going to be unpleasant memories about what could have been. I can’t help but wonder how quickly they’ll be thrown into some sort of trade by the ball club to erase the stink of their negotiating failure.

Which could mean many White Sox fans will be rooting for a 2021 World Series against the Padres – perhaps hoping that the Sox ultimately win with Machado hitting into a game-ending double play!

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It’s Cinco de Mayo; What’s your point?

I don’t live these days in a Spanish-speaking enclave of any sort, yet I could – if I wished – take part Saturday in a neighborhood Cinco de Mayo party.

How many people think this is cute?

It was just the other day that one of my neighbors had their young daughter go door-to-door around the neighborhood, handing out invitations to the party they’re planning to have Saturday afternoon into early evening.

THE WHOLE BLOCK, it seems, is invited to share in a joint celebration featuring Mexican-themed food and drink, along with some music.

Did I say this isn’t a Spanish-speaking neighborhood? I may well be the lone Latino living on the block. Do I think this means my neighbors have some particular sensitivity to ethnicity and culture and history?

I sincerely doubt it.

I wouldn’t be the least bit shocked if the fact that Saturday has some sort of holiday attached to it is merely a chance for them to party – and perhaps they think it will be a novelty to offer up margaritas; along with food items that will make the servings at a standard-issue Taco Bell franchise seem to have a touch of authenticity.

WHICH IS WHY I doubt I’ll be out amongst my neighbors – that, and I do have a touch of anti-social behavior in me. If I did go out there, I’d probably be the crackpot who’d want to turn the whole thing into a history lesson.

And I don’t doubt in the least that many of the people who will be doing something to mark Saturday, the Fifth of May, probably have no clue (or any interest in learning) the significance of the date in Mexican history.

What it is is the 156^th anniversary of the date that a Mexican resistance group attacked a military garrison in Pueblo (a city located near the capital of Mexico City) and actually managed to drive the troops from the city.

Maximilian I, the Austrian puppet for France who tried ruling over Mexico

This was during the time when France (which regretted the Louisiana Purchase that sold off its North American colonies to the United States) wanted to re-establish a military presence in the Americas.

WHICH LED THE French to think they could confiscate Mexico (which had declared its independence from Spain in 1810 – Independence Day is Sept. 16) and claim it for themselves.

Cinco de Mayo pays tribute to those Mexicans who were willing to stand up for the idea of their home nation as independent and were able to beat what was back then one of the world’s great military powers.

Those modern-day cynics eager to berate Mexico for any reason they can conjure will point out that the French eventually retook their garrison, and that the conflict between the French-backed Mexican emperor (Maximillian of Austria, a French puppet) and the Mexican people lingered on into a stalemate for several years.

But in the way the United States and Mexico intertwine, the end of the U.S. Civil War in 1865 resulted in military aid to the Mexican resistance – which resulted two years later in France giving up its colonial dreams and pulling out their military. The end result was Maximillian being put before a firing squad on June 19, 1867.

U.S. OFFICIALS felt compelled to back Mexicans because the official Mexico government of Maximillian was a Confederate-supporting one – and one that likely would have sent the French military across the Rio Grande into the so-called Confederacy to fight for the cause of splitting the country they helped create some 80 years earlier.

Mexicans enjoy beisbol too

Not that I expect many people today to have any knowledge, or interest, of these events. All too many think Cinco de Mayo is the equivalent of Fourth of July and are more interested in where they can find the cheapest margarita or burrito deal.

Personally, I’d think more highly of them if they followed my lead – taking time out to watch this weekend’s series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres.

Which is being billed informally as the “Mexico Series” because the regular season games are being played at the home ballpark of the Monterey Sultans of the Mexican League.

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White Sox “shorts” aren’t even ugliest thing worn by team, let alone baseball

The Miami Marlins have a new stadium, a new manager (our very own Ozzie Guilen) and now new uniforms, whose use of teal, orange and black seems to be offending some baseball fans.

New uniforms for Miami. How do they rank on the "tacky" scale? Photograph provided by Miami Marlins.

There are a lot of people who are complaining that these outfits for next year are downright ugly. Personally, they don’t move me one way or another.

BUT THIS HAS caused several sportswriters (most of whom wouldn’t have a clue about fashion) to decide to write about the ugliest uniforms ever worn by ball clubs.

And invariably, everybody is picking  the same getup as THE ugliest outfit ever – those uniforms worn for three games late in the 1976 season by the Chicago White Sox.

You know, when Bill Veeck decided to have his cellar-dwelling ballclub (which struggled to avoid losing 100 games) wear shorts along with their pullover jerseys and the white socks.

U-G-L-Y! Garish! Disrespectful to the game of baseball! And how did those guys manage to slide into second base without scraping up their thighs something fierce?

ALL OF WHICH strikes me as a whole lot of nonsense talk. That particular variation on the team uniform from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s wasn’t the tackiest thing that was worn by a ballclub during that decade (the Cleveland Indians all-red outfit and any of those gold-and-brown combo worn by the San Diego Padres fight it out for my vote).

Are those Hall of Fame knobby knees hiding?

It certainly isn’t the ugliest outfit that the White Sox themselves have ever worn (my nomination goes to the uniforms that replaced them back in the 1980s – the ones with the big stripe across the chest that read “SOX” and uniform numbers on the pants).

Perhaps my real point is that I am weary of pieces that make more of the shorts than they’re personally worth. For they truly were nothing more than a Bill Veeck stunt.

Something that we were supposed to see and get a chuckle from. It was something different from a day at the old ballpark. Which usually was the point of a Bill Veeck stunt – to create an atmosphere where no one really knew what to expect, and where something bizarre could occur on any given day.

Ugh!!!!! (Outfit, not ballplayer)

WHICH WOULD BECOME the motivation to go out to a game.

Personally, the best photograph I ever have seen of the White Sox in those uniforms was one showing outfielder Chet Lemon at first base, with coach Minnie Miñoso standing nearby.

But because of the angle, we only get to see Lemon’s knobby knees – and only a sliver of Minnie’s aging bones. How much you want to bet some clown brings up this moment as “evidence” of why Miñoso doesn’t belong in the Baseball Hall of Fame (he’s up for consideration this year, along with Ron Santo of the Cubs).

But they truly were a stunt. Not a regular uniform. So to claim they were the ugliest uniform? No way.

AND AS FOR those who want to argue that the jerseys worn with the shorts were tacky, I’d disagree.

Preserving the shorts for posterity



I always liked the old-style lettering spelling out “Chicago,” plus the fact that these uniforms had the White Sox wearing white socks (which they haven’t done so in decades). And I always liked the idea that the color scheme (dark blue and white) and general look were meant to copy the original uniforms that the White Sox wore back when they were created in 1901.

A 1970s touch to the turn-of-the-century fashion. It certainly was more intriguing than those efforts to get garish color schemes into the game. The Oakland A’s and Houston Astros succeeded in doing so. But other ball clubs were just downright tacky.

The ugliest Chicago baseball outfit?

I know I’m not the first person to comment on the sight of one-time rotund slugger Boog Powell in the all-red getup of the Indians being a hideous one. But it didn’t do any more for Jackie Brown, or any of his Indians teammates.

IT’S JUST TOO garish, too much of one color – which is also why I am bothered by those multiple shades of brown used by the Padres way back when. Way too overdone. They both make anything the White Sox have ever worn look downright subdued.

Although perhaps it gets topped by those mid-1970s uniforms worn by the Chicago Cubs on the road – the light-blue with white pinstripes. That is the ultimate “ugh” in my mind! Then again, maybe it was just the sight of pitchers Rick and Paul Reuschel wearing them that creeped me out!

Besides, those uniforms with shorts got their own immortalization from Topps Chewing Gum, which when putting out its set of baseball cards for the following season used a White Sox team shot that showed an entire ballclub in short pants. When will you ever see such a sight again?

Which may well mean that Veeck’s stunt must still be considered a success – people are still talking about those otherwise-completely forgettable ballgames from 35 seasons ago?

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