Dawson to find himself in middle of Hall of Fame '20 fiasco over Jeter?

The world of professional baseball just had its Hall of Fame induction ceremonies for this year, yet it seems that a prominent Chicago ballplayer will find himself in the middle of a stink over next year’s rituals.

Forner MVP in middle of Jeter affair

At stake is that the Hall of Fame usually invites all of its living members to attend the ceremonies each year. That would include Andre Dawson, who was inducted back in 2010 for his seasons of excellence with the Montreal Expos, but whom some fans prefer to remember for his stint with the Chicago Cubs.

WINNING A MOST Valuable Player award while wearing Cubbie blue can have that effect.

But now it seems that Dawson, along with one-time Cincinnati Reds star Tony Perez, are saying they may not bother to show up for the 2020 induction ceremonies.

Although we won’t know until year’s end, there are those who are convinced that next year’s Hall of Fame ritual will wind up being a celebration of New York Yankees star Derek Jeter.

Who as it turns out went from being the toast of Manhattan to being an owner of the Miami Marlins. He’s now baseball management. His own team, and in a city of tropical glory.

IT’S JUST A shame, in a sense, that the Marlins haven’t played worth squat during the years he has been in charge.

Still bitter about losing his job?

But as it turns out, back when Jeter became a part of Marlins’ management, both Dawson and Perez had been working for the Marlins as coaches. Both were amongst the people who lost their jobs because Jeter wanted to dump the ‘old’ way of doing things – and perhaps add an overtone of New York Yankee-style glamour.

For what it’s worth, both were later re-offered their jobs, but at significant pay cuts. Along with demands that the two stay out of the team clubhouses and not show up in uniform during spring training camp.

Which must seem a significant blow to the athletic egos of the two, both of whom seem to still hold a grudge. Dawson says he probably won’t attend because he, “doesn’t have a sense or feeling like I want to sit on that stage to hear what (Jeter) has to say.”

PEREZ IS MORE blunt, saying he doesn’t want to be a part of any day that celebrates the big star of the New York Yankees’ dominance over baseball in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Yankees glamour diminishing

“It wasn’t nice, what happened at the end,” he said.

So will Dawson or Perez be missed if they turn out to be no-shows? Maybe not! Chances are good that the baseball fan-types who will make the trek to Cooperstown, N.Y., because of Jeter aren’t going to notice who doesn’t show!

It will be a celebration of their guy, and nothing else. And as for the out-of-town (as in non-New York) fans, they’ll probably just think of it as another moment of dissing the Yankees – which is something they’re used to doing every moment they get.

IT MEANS WE won’t have to hear again the stories of that 1987 MVP award that Dawson won even though he was playing for a Cubs’ ballclub that won only 76 games and finished dead last in their division.

Will Jeter top Jordan as management failure

It also shows just how much of a blow that the Jeter image has taken with the fact that his Marlins’ teams, which in 2018 finished with a 63-98 won/loss record – which is actually even more pathetic than that Cubs team that had Dawson’s big bat to make things interesting.

It seems that some guys are not going to be interested in leeching off the Jeter persona on his big day. Because Jeter’s persona may have dived down even deeper than that of Michael Jordan.

For the Charlotte Hornets of the National Basketball Association have had way too many pathetic seasons since 2006, when Jordan transitioned from being the Hall of Famer of the Chicago Bulls into management. Almost as though Jordan is determined to take over the athletic losing ways of the Chicago Cubs – unless Jeter can top him in Miami.

  -30-

Who will pay more for Machado?

Spring training camps for many major league baseball clubs, including Chicago’s own White Sox and Cubs, begin Tuesday for pitchers and catchers, with everyday players expected to show up at training camp by Sunday.

MACHADO: Type of image some want to see

So even though we don’t know yet where potential future Hall of Fame ballplayer Manny Machado (at least some want to fantasize) plans to play in 2019 and for the next several years, there’s still some time for things to settle themselves out.

I COULDN’T HELP but be amused by the weekend’s activity, which mostly centered around the latest rumors about how much money Machado is being offered by certain ball clubs who’d like to have him come play for their team.

All because the speculation is that Machado is a super star and will continue to be a super-duper super star for the next several seasons. Meaning it could be a big deal for whichever team he chooses to play for.

The feeling has been all along that Machado, who has spent the bulk of his time playing in Baltimore for the Orioles but also was a Los Angeles Dodger for part of 2018, wants the bright lights of the Big Apple.

He wants to be a New York Yankee. Which is why the reports on Saturday that the Yankees made him an offer of some $220 million for the next seven or eight years. Which is bigger than the past previous offer made by a ball club – the $175 million over seven years by our very own Chicago White Sox.

OF COURSE, I couldn’t help but notice that just a couple of hours after the report of the Yankees’ offer, there were reports saying the White Sox boosted their offer to $250 million for eight seasons of play.

Could Manny be as important to Sox … 

But I also noticed some news entities went out of their way to ignore the latter report. It’s almost as though some are taking sides as to which ball club they want Machado to wind up with. As though some think the White Sox aren’t worthy of buying a big-name ballplayer.

I don’t know how truthful that sentiment is. Only to say that Machado is going to wind up being paid a disgustingly large sum of money, regardless of which team he ultimately chooses to play for.

There is some thought that Machado’s wife, Yainee, is an influence. As in the Miami-area native likes the idea of life in New York City. As does Manny himself. Which could be a good part of the reason the free agency negotiations have extended from November all the way to the days before the beginning of spring training camp.

… as Luis (above) or Luke?

BUT COULD IT be that the White Sox, who still plan to have Machado’s brother-in-law, Yonder Alonso, and their childhood friend Jon Jay, both of whom are major league ballplayers in their own right, may wind up with the Miami-native star of Dominican ethnicity, could wind up with Manny?

Could it be those family ties will matter one bit? While helping to overcome the sentiment that Yankee pinstripes are more prominent than the White Sox version?

I don’t know what to think about where Machado will wind up, or if this situation will even be resolved by week’s end. My understanding is that Machado is a bit peeved that he’s not being offered something more than the current record-setting contract – the $325 million for 13 seasons that Giancarlo Stanton of the Yankees is receiving.

No matter how much Yanks offer, not likely to top Jeter in team history

He may well believe that the contract offers he has received are a gross insult – particularly since at age 26 he probably has more than a decade of playing time left at a star level.

WILL ANY OF that be played with the old-English script spelling out “S-O-X” on his jersey’s left breast. Will the day come when baseball fans seriously put Machado’s name up there with Luis Aparicio or Luke Appling (both Hall of Fame players in their own right) as the team’s best shortstop ever.

Could Manny become the next Garland?

Then again, could Machado go to the Yankees and find out he’s NOT the team’s best shortstop ever – falling behind such peloteros as Derek Jeter, Phil Rizzuto or Tony Kubek.

It will be interesting to see how the situation plays out, and how quickly? Because this could otherwise become a distraction for so many ball clubs. And a massive problem if Machado turns out to be the 21^st Century baseball equivalent of Wayne Garland – the one-time Baltimore Orioles pitcher who got a 10-year “big money” contract from the Cleveland Indians, only to suffer career-ending injuries after playing only two seasons.

It also will be intriguing to see whether Machado becomes someone who gets the cheers of the Bridgeport faithful in coming seasons, or becomes Enemigo Numero Uno for Sox fans who heckle him mercilessly every time his ballclub makes the trip through Guaranteed Rate Field.

  -30-

Staging the end of baseball eras

It was some time about 1:25 p.m. Sunday (Central Time, depending on how accurate my time piece was) when New York Yankees star Derek Jeter came to bat at Boston’s Fenway Park.

While at U.S. Cellular Field, Chicago White Sox star Paul Konerko had his first plate appearance for the season’s final game against the Kansas City Royals.

BOTH THE YANKEES and White Sox are out of the pennant race. Neither is going to the playoffs, or has a chance at a league championship and World Series appearance.

But both Jeter and Konerko are long-time players of some prominence who have said that 2014 will be their last season as professional ballplayers – although Jeter was the one whose farewell made the cover of Sports Illustrated. So Sunday was it.

I wasn’t at a ballpark. I was parked in front of a television set, and was flipping my set back-and-forth between the two games – going from listening to Jerry Remy narrate the Jeter hoo-hah, while Ken Harrelson gave us the accounting of the Konerko finale.

It literally turned out that the two men came up to bat simultaneously – leading to a pitch-by-pitch flip back-and-forth between the Comcast Sports Chicago broadcast and the carrying of a New England Sports Network broadcast of the Yankees/Red Sox affair.

BOTH OF THE announcers played into the storyline that the ballclubs wanted their stars to go out with a bang – both were prepared to immediately remove their player if he managed a base hit of sorts. Let him go out on a high note.

All throughout “the Cell,” the chants of “Paulie, Paulie” could be heard for Konerko, while Jeter got to hear Red Sox fans do their imitation of that “Der-ek Jet-er, clap-clap, clap-clap-clap” chant that Yankee Stadium crowds regularly give him.

Which is quite a concession from the Boston crowd, since I can remember when Red Sox fans used to taunt Jeter with the chant of “No-mar’s Bet-ter,” in reference to their own almost-as-good shortstop Nomar Garciaparra.

Jeter had already managed one at-bat in his game (those East Coast games start earlier than Midwestern ones), and had cracked a hard line drive that the shortstop had to make an amazing leap to catch.

SO COME THE third inning, Jeter tried again, and managed to get a relatively weak single past the Red Sox’ third baseman that drove in a run. It’s not exactly the “Kid Bids Hub Adieu” of Ted Williams’ home run in his final at-bat in 1960, but it sufficed for Yankees fans who got to see Jeter trot all over the field to congratulate everybody in sight  (including Red Sox pitcher Clay Buchholz) before leaving the field.

Somehow, I don’t think any body’s going to lambast Jeter for leaving early the way they still do Sammy Sosa’s Cubs departure of 10 years ago.

Just a few seconds later in Chicago, Konerko’s first at-bat of his final game ended with him suffering the same fate of the Mighty Casey – he struck out to Royals pitcher Yordano Ventura, and wound up striking out a second time, then grounding out to third base before being removed from the game in the sixth inning.


White Sox fans wound up giving him a standing ovation even though he didn't get that final base hit and Jeter-type finale that would have got him a couple of seconds worth of air time on ESPN Sunday night.

ALL BEFORE BASEBALL moves on to its rounds of playoffs that make the season seem endless and always create the potential for an early-season snowfall to knock out a game or two of the World Series.

Which might well be the only reason fans ought to root for an all-Los Angeles (suburban Angels versus city-based Dodgers) matchup come World Series time. Better weather -- even though a Baltimore Orioles/Washington Nationals matchup would give us "true" World Series-type weather.

One plus is that it would make the rest of the baseball world appreciate how superior an all-Chicago World Series would be by comparison if the improving White Sox win a league championship in the next few seasons – and if the Cubs actually do amount to anything close to all the hype their fans are falling for these days.

  -30-

Sox as mediocre, Cubs as dreadful, as we should have expected for ‘14

We’re at Memorial Day. Which in addition to giving us countless excuses for political people to pay tribute to military veterans (in hopes they’ll vote) is the perfect time to look at our city’s baseball clubs to figure out what they’re worth.

The highlight for '14

The White Sox have played 52 games thus far, while the Cubs have taken the field for 48. Finally a large enough sample for us to start talking intelligently about what the teams are worth.

THE WHITE SOX are winning about half their games, while the Cubs have the worst record of any team in the National League (18 wins, or a .375 winning percentage).

Which is what should have been expected – except from those more delusional Cubs fans who desperately wanted to believe the White Sox would be just as bad as they were. In short, that we’d relive 2013 all over again.

As for those Sox, the presence of Jose Abreu has turned out to be as good as anyone had a right to expect. He hasn’t played in a little over a week because of an inflamed left ankle, yet he still is among the American League leaders in both home runs (15) and runs batted in (42). He’s up there with Nelson Cruz of the Baltimore Orioles in both categories.

Abreu, a Cuban defector, likely will be the highlight of the season for Chicago baseball for 2014 once he returns to play some time next week. And that’s taking into account the fact that he’s bound to have a slump at some point this year.

IT IS GOING to hurt that we’re now just approaching the time of year that weather gets better and attendance starts to shoot up.


No longer No. 2 at position No. 6

Yet the White Sox, who are averaging just over 19,000 tickets sold per game (who knows how many are actually showing up?), have the drawback of knowing that the teams whose games usually draw larger crowds (the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox and those cubbie bears) were scheduled for the dreariness of April and May.


W. Bush and Mantle weren't really there

And as for the fact that the Yankees spent all of last week in Chicago (playing both the Cubs and White Sox), the highlight games may well have been the two games where the Yankees came from behind to win in extra innings).

White Sox fans are going to get a lot of second-rate games scheduled for the prime of the season. It may well be that only the hard-core fans show up the rest of 2014. And we’ll get nit-wit Cubs fans who will claim that’s evidence the White Sox have no fans – instead of evidence that the fair-weather fans turn out at Wrigley Field.

Not about to be caught any time soon

IT ALSO TURNED out this past week that Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter played his 2,584^th game at his position, surpassing legendary White Sox shortstop Luis Aparicio. Although with Omar Vizquel still being a couple hundred games ahead of Jeter, the one-time White Sox shortstop (along with Cleveland and Seattle) will keep his mark of 2,709 games played there.

Where the crowds aren’t what they were back in the days of Sammy Sosa and all those home runs. But they’re still averaging just over 32,000 tickets sold per game, and in the Top 10 of Major League Baseball games.

When will he return?

Who’s to say why? All I know is I hear the talk about how the ballplayers in places like Des Moines, Iowa; Knoxville, Tenn.; and suburban Geneva are going to develop and turn the Cubs into legitimate contenders someday.

Yet the decades during which I have followed professional baseball have taught me there are many talented minor league ball players who, for whatever reason, don’t make the major league adjustment.

I ALSO COULDN’T help but be amused by the new hitting coach the Cubs hired for their top minor league affiliate in Des Moines – one-time Cleveland Indians, Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers slugger Manny Ramirez.

Is David Ortiz next for Cubs?

He’s also going to be a ballplayer for the Iowa Cubs, although Cubs executive Theo Epstein says Manny won’t be in Chicago anytime soon.

Epstein was general manager back when Ramirez was part of the Red Sox’ powerhouse that won a couple of World Series titles. Which makes me think Epstein – for all his talk of looking to the Cubs’ future – is firmly planted in the past.

Which means it could be a long, long time before the Cubs amount to anything worth talking about. Maybe around the time that Sosa himself is welcome back in Wrigley Field.

  -30-

You know it’s a dead season when a “No. 14” is the “City Series” highlight

This year doesn't come close to matching '06

It was kind of cutesy to learn that the Chicago Cubs felt compelled to pay tribute to Paul Konerko this week – what with him expected to retire from playing professional baseball after the end of this season.

Honored in home of Cubs' No. 14

It’s nothing on the scale of what New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter is getting from every ball club the Yankees play against this season.

BUT SEEING THE Cubs put aside the natural, century-old rivalry between Sout’ Side and North, Sox and Cubs, to acknowledge that Konerko has been a significant figure in the history of Chicago baseball was nice.

I even got a kick out of the “gift” the Cubs gave Tuesday to Konerko – one of the number cards used in their allegedly-quaint hand-operated scoreboard. Specifically, a number “14” – to match up with the uniform number Konerko wore during his 16 years with the White Sox.

It’s not like this year’s version of the Cubs is ever likely to score 14 runs in any given inning; although I suppose it is possible that Cubs pitching will have several instances in which they will give up that many runs per inning.

Konerko retirement cycle not on same scale

I guess the Cubs will just have to ensure that high-scoring rallies by the opposition go to at least 15 runs at a time.

THAT MOMENT ALSO appears to be the highlight of the “Crosstown Classic” between our city’s two ball clubs; even though I still think that label sounds lame and I prefer to think of it as the “City Series” – which technically hasn’t been played since the Second World War.

Much has been written already about the level of apathy expressed by fans toward this year’s four-game version of the series.

A mediocre White Sox team, combined with a truly dreadful Cubs ball club, doesn’t exactly make for a must-see series – particularly since the current ways in which Major League Baseball operates has turned the series into just another set of games (all won by the White Sox, thus far) over the course of the 162-game season both ball clubs will play.

Dull series another reason to bring back Ozzie?

We’re still early enough in the season that the standings don’t mean much. Memorial Day is the date on which we can start to see how well a team is truly playing – there just haven’t been enough games thus far.

SO I WASN’T at any of the games at Wrigley Field (although it has been a decade since I have set foot in that ball park – which I remember because the Cubs lost to the Montreal Expos; who ceased to exist after ’04).

Nor did I feel the need to show up at U.S. Cellular Field Wednesday (although that was quite a catch by shortstop Alexi Ramirez to create that 9th inning double play). Nor will I likely be there Thursday night for the final game between the two until 2015 (because I really don’t see the scenario in which both Chicago ball clubs manage to make it to the playoffs, win their respective league pennants, and wind up playing in the World Series).

I care enough about what happened that I did take the time to look up the box scores. But I have been doing that all season, and would have done so regardless of whom each team was playing.

This series just isn’t intriguing enough now – this is one of the off-years that are bound to come. The kind that test how committed one is to following a ball club.

Remember '98

WE DON’T HAVE Ozzie Guillen going around talking about how rat-infested Wrigley Field was (one of the drawbacks, that and those troughs, of being 100 years old). Nor do we have A.J. Pierzynski trying to rile up the crowd after getting slugged by Michael Barrett following a home plate collision.

We don’t even have shortstop Mike Caruso achieving the highlight of his miniscule major league career during a city series.

We just get to “Wait ‘til Next Year” in terms of a White Sox/Cubs series that is on-field interesting – a concept that we are way too familiar with in this city.

  -30-

EXTRA: Rodriguez can play (for now); boo-birds to unleash their lung power

It seems that Alex Rodriguez will be available to play the next few games against the Chicago White Sox.

While Major League Baseball announced a series of suspensions against a dozen ballplayers for links to the Biogenesis anti-aging clinic (to try to use performance-enhancing drugs), it seems that Rodriguez of the New York Yankees is determined to fight the allegations.

A DOZEN BALLPLAYERS on Monday were told they were being suspended for the rest of the season, and they all are accepting the penalty without a fight. No one from the White Sox or the Chicago Cubs were on that list.

Not that it matters much, with as bad as both ball clubs are playing this season.

But the belief among many baseball people is that Rodriguez not only used substances to artificially bolster his strength, but also tried to cover up his involvement.

Nothing has definitively been proved, but Rodriguez on Monday was suspended for the rest of this season, the playoffs and all of next season. For a ballplayer on the decline who’s already 38, that could be the equivalent of a lifetime ban.

SINCE IT COULD throw his routine off that he’s never able to play at a competitive level again.

But Rodriguez, who got that major contract (he is the $25-30 million-a-year man) a decade ago, with an extension that should keep him paid for another four seasons, wants his money. That’s why he wants to challenge the penalty – and why he will want to take the playing field at U.S. Cellular Field come Monday.

Which will be interesting because Rodriguez was among the many key players who have suffered injuries this season – derailing the Yankees’ own desires to win a championship this season.

Monday will be Rodriguez’ first major league game of 2013. The national attention circulating around 35^th and Shields will be intense – crews were set up at the ballpark by noon.

EVEN THOUGH BALLPLAYERS themselves hadn’t shown up yet!

So Rodriguez will be on hand, and the White Sox hecklers will vent their rage – which will make the South Side an ugly place to be through Wednesday. Moreso than the usual Yankee-hatred that crops up around the American League's cities.

Particularly since it also seems that Yankees star Derek Jeter won’t be on hand for this week’s series in Chicago. He’s another key player who has been out with injuries, and he was diagnosed this weekend with a Grade 1 strain of his right calf.

So much for seeing Jeter in Chicago. The on-field highlight may well be the return of Alfonso Soriano to the Second City.

  -30-

A view from behind the foul pole. Or, is Jeter the next Paul to invade 35th St.?

Chicago White Sox versus New York Yankees always takes on a certain air. Some fans get a little more hostile, and the hoards of Yankees fans who don’t live in New York turn out and wind up inflating the crowd.

Which is why I couldn’t help but notice the tug-of-war of sorts that occurred Wednesday night, when the White Sox managed to beat the Yankees 2-1 to complete a three-game sweep that enabled them to maintain a 2-game lead in their division (the Detroit Tigers just won’t lose).

THE YANKEES’ MARQUEE ballplayer, shortstop Derek Jeter, got much of the derision that would be expected from fans of the other ballclub.

But as I sat in my second-row seat directly behind the left field foul pole (don’t get started on the age-old debate about why it’s not called the ‘fair’ pole), I couldn’t help but detect that the “boos” were being drowned out by squeals of joy.

There were many Yankees fans in the ballpark. I sat just down the row from one pair with a father wearing a Number 7 jersey for Mickey Mantle, and his grown son wore a number 44 jersey for later era star Reggie Jackson.

But it seems the female contingent among them let out in squeals that likely haven’t been heard around 35^th Street and Shields Avenue since that day some 47 years ago when The Beatles performed a concert at the old Comiskey Park located in what is now the parking lot directly north of the stadium.

A PART OF me wondered if this was sort of what it was like when Paul McCartney took the field to run out to the stage set up behind second base to play a set of music that likely was inaudible due to all the screaming.

Is that what Jeter has become these days? It’s not enough that he’s a likely future member of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. The athlete who has dated so many sexy celebs that I can’t keep track of them all is now the pop idol.

Particularly when he managed to drive a fly ball into the left field seats for the Yankees’ lone run on Wednesday – one that briefly tied up the ballgame.



Paul standing on a stage not far over where shortstop once was



Jeter fans definitely overpowered the Yankee-bashers for that one moment, particularly all the young women I saw at the ballpark wearing their Yankees Number 2 jerseys in ways that no ballplayer ever could get away with.

THOSE MOMENTS ARE now gone, just like the Yankees, who on Thursday are on their way to Cleveland for a three-game series and will not return to Chicago this year unless – by chance – the two teams both wind up qualifying for the American League playoffs and get pitted against each other.

A final round of playoffs between New York and Chicago for the American League championship and chance to go to the World Series sounds intriguing.

But for any White Sox fans licking their lips at the thought of another series, perhaps they ought to gain some perspective. A three-game sweep against the Yankees isn’t something that happens all too often for a Chicago ballclub.

Historically, the arrival of the Bronx Bombers in Chicago is supposed to be the blow that puts to rest any delusions of winning anything resembling a championship.

IT LIKELY MEANS this could be the highlight of the Chicago season for 2012.

After all, I couldn’t help but notice that the operators of the scoreboard at U.S. Cellular Field kept putting up various bits of trivia related to the New York/Chicago connection in baseball.

It’s not a pretty picture. The overall record dating back to 1903 is 806 victories for the White Sox – and 1,043 wins for Noo Yawk!

Even with the Wednesday win boosting the Chicago total to 807, there’s still a long ways to go before the two ball clubs are on equal footing.

AND I’LL HAVE to admit to enjoying being among the people who bought 26,319 tickets to Wednesday’s game – even if my seat gave me a crummy view of the cause célèbre that was Jeter.



That smudge in the mesh is a Hall of Fame celebrity athlete



For every time I looked straight forward, the foul pole was positioned so as to block the part of the infield where the shortstops stand.

For me, Derek Jeter on Wednesday was a blur who kept popping up in the mesh part that extends from the pole.

  -30-