Did 'Tomahawk Chop' overwhelm White Sox, Chicago moments of glory?

(Not in) COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. -- On the day that long-time Chicago White Sox hitter Frank Thomas got inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, one of the sights seen Sunday was that of a lone White Sox jersey-clad fan surrounded by Atlanta Braves fans who persisted in performing their nonsensical Tomahawk Chop.


Then again, maybe it was symbolic of what the White Sox franchise's fan base is like -- a small group of die-hards wondering why all the baseball fans around them get worked up over such nonsense.


BUT SUNDAY WAS the day that Thomas was formally inducted into the Hall of Fame, which is a designation he will continue to have long after he passes on from this particular realm of existence.


All those Atlanta fans (whom I'm sure could care less about how silly they looked or how some will claim their "chop" is racist and offensive) were on hand because of the fact that the manager and two top pitchers from their string of winning ball clubs of the 1990s all got into the Hall of Fame as well.


But those of us focused on the Second City merely viewed that as the prelude to seeing Thomas get his honors, with some even noting the fact that long-time manager Tony LaRussa began his career as a major league skipper on the South Side.


We're the ones who took some pleasure in seeing the tearful (literally, his voice kept choking up, particularly when speaking of his late father) Thomas try to make sure to thank everyone who had an influence on his life. "I'm an emotional guy who wears my heart on my sleeve," he said.


HE SPENT QUITE a bit of time talking of his family. But also worked his way through the nearly 850 ballplayers he was teammates with. Not that he actually named them all. But he rattled through a list of nicknames that included a lot of otherwise long-forgotten White Sox players.


Some of whom I'm sure only the most hard-core of fans remember.


Although he also gave some more detailed credit to long-time hitting coach Walt Hriniak, broadcaster Ken Harrelson (who came up with the "Big Hurt" nickname that may be the "Hawk's" lasting contribution to baseball) and manager Ozzie Guillen.


The latter for, "leading us to my only (championship) ring" in 2005. Of whom fellow teammates Jermaine Dye (the World Series MVP that year) and Aaron Rowand were present in Cooperstown on Sunday.


I'D BE REMISS if I wrote that Thomas was the only Chicago moment.


For Hall of Fame pitcher Greg Maddux acknowledged the fact that half of his major league stint was with the Chicago Cubs, and he gave that 1989 ball club (managed by the late Don Zimmer) that went to the National League playoffs some recognition.


He even downplayed the ineptitude of Cubs management that let Maddux go even though it was apparent he was one of the best baseball pitchers of the era, saying instead on Sunday he left Chicago for Atlanta because he was looking for a nice place to raise a family.


Even LaRussa included the Chicago memories, even though many baseball fans tend to forget the 1983 division title White Sox to focus on the championship ball clubs Tony led in Oakland and with the St. Louis Cardinals.


LaRUSSA DIDN'T. HE mentioned those early-to-mid-1980s White Sox teams that had future Hall of Famers Carlton Fisk and Tom Seaver, along with talented leaders such as Greg Luzinski (he of the multiple rooftop shots, of which we can only dream how many Thomas would have hit if the old Comiskey Park were still standing) and Jerry Koosman.


LaRussa also gave a jolt to many White Sox fans when he recalled fan favorite Harold Baines, who came close to getting 3,000 base hits during his career and has some fans believing he should be a Hall of Famer as well.


"Like Tony Oliva (the Minnesota Twin star of the late 1960s), if (Harold) had kept his knees together (injuries), he'd have had his 3,000 hits," LaRussa said.


Perhaps that train of thought will influence the Veterans Committees the Hall of Fame has that give second chance consideration to ballplayers who fall short of induction like Baines himself has thus far.


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Who knew back then that early '80s White Sox had pair of Hall of Famers?

I recall the Chicago White Sox of the early 1980s as being some fairly dismal ball clubs – Bill Veeck might have been gone, but the new ownership of the team didn’t do much better on the field.

New White Sox Hall of Famer

One division title in 1983 (the first time a Chicago baseball team ever finished a season in first place in the era of playoffs), along with a lot of losing records.

BUT AFTER MONDAY, those teams area going to be remembered for the pair of people they had who are now members of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Catcher Carlton Fisk, who came to the White Sox in 1981, has been in the Hall of Fame for many years now. But the veterans committee that considers non-players, along with giving ballplayers a second chance, on Monday put in team manager Tony LaRussa.

He’s actually one of three managers picked for the Hall of Fame based off their activities of the 1990s.

But all had been managing since the late 1970s – including LaRussa, who got his first major league managing job with the White Sox in the year that the disco-hating meatheads claimed they were making a political statement, of sorts, by tearing up the turf at Comiskey Park.

CHICAGO WOUND UP being the learning experience for LaRussa, who after leaving the White Sox in 1986 went on to managing jobs in Oakland and St. Louis – both of which resulted in him winning league championships and World Series titles.

Which is why I’m sure many people are going to think of the White Sox as the afterthought of his career. Although back in the early 1980s, it would have been regarded as a better bet that George Steinbrenner and Billy Martin of the New York Yankees would be picked for the Hall of Fame someday -- both were passed over on Monday.

Will he be joined by 'the Big Hurt?'

It could be argued that if not for Veeck and later Jerry Reinsdorf, there never would have been a LaRussa manager. He would have been just a journeyman ballplayer (whose career included one end-of-season stint with a mediocre Chicago Cubs team of the early 1970s) who wound up having to use that law degree he earned while younger in order to earn a living.

Did the White Sox spare us from yet another blowhard attorney? If so, that might well be a significant accomplishment by itself.

Chose Boston recognition for Hall

ALTHOUGH THE IDEA that those White Sox teams had two members who will now be regarded among fans as “baseball immortals” seems like such a stretch. It certainly wasn’t reflected on the playing field.

Especially not in 1984 when Hall of Fame members LaRussa and Fisk were joined by another future Hall of Famer – pitcher Tom Seaver. Big names for a lot of disappointment.

Then again, any fan of the Chicago Bulls of the mid-1980s (when Michael Jordan was surrounded by athletic dreck) ought to realize that a lone ballplayer isn’t enough to make up a team.

Consider that when the White Sox finally went on to win a league championship and World Series title in 2005, they did so with a team that many people think will wind up with NO Hall of Fame members other than Frank Thomas – whom we might learn next month will be elected to the Hall of Fame from the ranks of recently-retired ballplayers.

EVEN THEN, THOMAS was injured most of the season and didn’t play a single inning of playoff or World Series ball – Carl Everett was the “big bat” designated hitter that season.

Will 'Hawk' join the Hall someday?

So come July, White Sox fans will have something to celebrate in that a former manager is being immortalized. Even if it means that broadcaster Ken Harrelson will have to re-tell the stories of his one-year stint as a baseball general manager when he became the only person to ever fire LaRussa from a job.

Then again, it’s also possible some year that Harrelson will get the Ford Frick Award that the Hall of Fame gives out annually to broadcasters of excellence. Yet another White Sox Hall of Famer whose career somehow manages to exceed the overall level of performance on the playing field.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: For the record, Tony LaRussa got elected to the Hall of Fame on the same date that Gov. Pat Quinn proclaimed to be "Mike Ditka Day" in Illinois -- in honor of the fact that the Chicago Bears retired one-time coach Ditka's old uniform number 89 from his days as a player.

How far he’s come

I couldn’t get away from the image of Tony LaRussa on Monday. Everywhere I looked, he says he’s retiring from professional baseball.

He doesn’t want to return as manager of the St. Louis Cardinals. He figures that after parts of six decades as a player and manager, being able to say he won a World Series is the perfect way for it all to end.

HE MAY WELL be right. Although I’m convinced his “retirement” is about as legitimate as those of Ryne Sandberg or Michael Jordan – although he may well be telling the truth that he won’t be field manager of the Cardinals any more.

But for those people who engage in conspiracy theories that have LaRussa returning to the Chicago White Sox in some sort of front-office role (possibly as some sort of vague-titled adviser to team chairman Jerry Reinsdorf), I can only think of the words of Chico Escuela whenever sports other than beisbol came up.

“I don’t know.”

But what I do know is that watching LaRussa leave on top – with sports reports citing the fact that all he’d need to do is manage a team to 35 more victories (about half the total the Cubs usually win in a single season) and he’d be able to say that his major league managerial record surpassed that of the great New York Giants manager John McGraw – just makes it all the more humorous to me how far down he once was on the baseball totem pole.

THE ULTIMATE FAILURE. A ballplayer whose skills might have been good enough for occasional stints with the Kansas City Athletics and Chicago Cubs, but whose real level of talent was to be a regular for ball clubs like the Denver Bears, the New Orleans Pelicans or the Iowa Oaks (none of which exist any longer).

A career “minor leaguer” who may well have gotten the White Sox managerial job in 1979 (replacing player/manager Don Kessinger) because then-owner Bill Veeck thought he was someone who would do what he was told and wouldn’t get in the way of Veeck’s promotional schemes.

A man who was so anonymous that he once appeared on a late 1970s attempt to reincarnate the “To Tell the Truth” television game show – and nobody had a clue who he was!

I still remember watching that program when it aired – only by pure chance. I had just finished some high school homework and was flipping around the pre-cable TV dial when I stumbled onto the start of the show.

WATCHING ACTOR NIPSEY Russell’s alleged “gotcha” moment, thinking he had caught one of the people in a lie because “they don’t play night games” in Chicago made me laugh – what a buffoon, getting the city’s two ball clubs confused.

And being able to use the Internet to find a video clip of that show made me laugh when listening to LaRussa explain at the end that his law school degree had nothing to do with baseball, but gave him a “cushion” to fall back on in the event he got fired as manager.

Of course, as we all know now, LaRussa never did fall back on practicing law for a living.

He did eventually get fired by the White Sox in 1986 (as all managers eventually do). There are those who will forevermore condemn Ken Harrelson’s one year as team general manager because he was the one who replaced LaRussa (although there are other White Sox fans who will be forevermore grateful that their favorite team got rid of the arrogant bum).

WHICH SET THE stage for him to lead those Oakland Athletics ballclubs that won three straight American League championships (along with the “Earthquake” World Series of 1989), then go on to the St. Louis Cardinals – when he was in charge when Mark McGwire hit all those home runs, then won three National League championships in the past decade.

Along with two World Series titles in 2006 and 2011 – the latter of which he wants to be his “last hurrah” in baseball.

Quite a ways ahead of that day some three decades ago when LaRussa had to answer with a straight face from actress Kitty Carlisle if he was allowed to “spank” ballplayers as a way of disciplining them.

For the record, the LaRussa method of ballplayer discipline was, “You can talk to them. You can take their money.”

IN SHORT, THIS television appearance was one that has repeatedly popped into my head throughout the years – just about every single time that someone went on a diatribe about what a baseball “genius” this LaRussa guy was.

I remember him when he was a nothing just thankful to be sticking around in baseball – rather than actually having to use the knowledge obtained from that law degree.

Then again, this “nothing” was the manager of the first Chicago ballclub that ever finished a regular season in first place and went on to the playoffs. You have to go back to the pre-playoff old days to find Chicago pennant winners – except for Ozzie Guillen and 2005.

So let’s hear it for LaRussa. Now, we can begin the speculation about what does he really mean by “retire.” And will Chicago have a place in his post-managerial baseball career?

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Baseball fantasizing already up and running because of ugliness on the field

There’s just over one more month to go for the regular season of Major League Baseball this year, yet already we’re seeing the off-season speculation.

GUILLEN: Returning to Miami?



Perhaps it’s just because we realize how off-the-wall it would be to expect the Chicago White Sox to actually overcome their obstacles and qualify for a playoff slot. It’s too painful to think about.

SO WE’RE DOWN to trying to figure out who will be running Chicago’s two ballclubs come 2012. It seems at times like everybody wants to fire the field managers.

I would be surprised if Mike Quade, the guy who was supposed to be the logical, professional choice over Ryne Sandberg last year, returns for another season. As unfair as it truly is, he will get the blame for this year’s miserable Cubs ballclub – even though I’d argue they performed at about the level anybody should seriously have expected from them.

It is the White Sox where one will stir up a harsher argument. Should Ozzie Guillen – whose outspoken, colorful image has become that of the White Sox in recent years – be fired?!?

Personally, I don’t think so. But I also realize that sometimes in professional sports, moves are sometimes made just for the sake of making a move.

THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES has gone quite a ways in recent days in terms of stirring up this speculation. Last week, they gave us the computer-altered photographs depicting Guillen in a Chicago Cubs uniform – and writing about how it might be possible he’d wind up there.

It would be a move in baseball history equivalent of when Leo Durocher left the Brooklyn Dodgers to manage the New York Giants – and ultimately won a National League pennant and World Series title there in 1954.

More recently, the Sun-Times on Tuesday gave us an “EXCLUSIVE!!!!!” telling us of “major-league” sources that say Guillen and general manager Ken Williams get along so poorly these days that there’s simply no way the two can work together any longer.

Of course, that could mean Williams is the one who gets bounced (as punishment for subjecting us to Adam Dunn and his .163 batting average, combined with 156 strikeouts). But when a general manager leaves, the replacement usually gets to pick his (or maybe her) own field manager.

SO IT COULD wind up being both departing the South Side.

Now for every person who thinks that Guillen is leaving the White Sox for the Cubs, there are five or six who think he’s going to the Florida Marlins – a ballclub that in the past has expressed some interest in Ozzie.

There’s also the fact that Guillen (who says he wants a long-term guarantee before Opening Day, or else he quits) once worked for the team as a coach, and that he still owns a home in Miami in addition to his Chicago residences.

The kind of people who think that everybody wants to live in Florida because of its weather are convinced Ozzie would jump at the chance to manage a team in his other hometown.

AS THOUGH IT would work out any better than when Lou Piniella several years ago took the manager’s job in his home town of Tampa. The Tampa Bay Rays were dismal under his reign – so much so that he jumped for the chance to get himself involved in the nonsense otherwise known as Chicago Cubbiness.

Ozzie to Miami makes even less sense, and would likely turn out just as badly since Miami likely isn’t going to be a competitive ballclub for some time.

Of course, there’s another element to all this off-season shifting that amuses me. It seems that everybody believes that people want to ditch the St. Louis Cardinals.

Their big star for the past decade has been first baseman Albert Pujols – who supposedly now wants to be paid as though he is the BIG STAR of the game (perhaps he is).

CUBS FANS WHO are delusional to think that their favorite ballclub is some elite franchise that everybody aspires to be a part of are convinced that Pujols will want to come to Chicago. But the part that amuses me is the speculation that the Cardinals’ manager is also leaving, on account that his contract is up after this year.

That has some believing that a large part of the reason why the White Sox would jettison Guillen is because they want Tony LaRussa back. LaRussa won World Series titles with the Cardinals and the Oakland Athletics, and also was the guy at the head of the White Sox when they won their first-ever division title in 1983.

Is LaRussa, who likely will wind up in the Baseball Hall of Fame as a manager, delusional enough to want to come back to Chicago so he can try to win a pennant and World Series here – thereby giving him a perfect streak with all the teams he has run?

Could it be that Jerry Reinsdorf (who reportedly still likes LaRussa and has his personal regrets that Tony ever got away) would rehire him, thinking he can rewrite that portion of team history in which Ken Harrelson was the general manager – rather than the announcer that some baseball fans just love to hate?

GUILLEN ON THE North Side? LaRussa to the South?

Or is it all just a lot of speculation and fantasy, more absurd than the thought that the White Sox could actually overcome the 5-game lead with one month to go that the Detroit Tigers held over them as of Tuesday?

As the Hawk himself would say, "Mercy!"

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