Ban the boorish boob from the ballpark -- or perhaps just his ballpark beer?

I’m not sure how feasible it is for the Chicago Cubs to say they’re banning from the ballpark for life a man who is alleged to have been making racist hand gestures when he was in the presence of Doug Glanville – who once played for the Cubs but has turned to broadcasting for a living.

Outfielder-turned-broadcaster is focus

I could see where someone like Glanville would offend the sensibilities of racists – he’s a black man who also happens to be rather articulate, I’ve read thoughtful pieces about baseball that he’s written for the New York Times. In short, his existence dumps all over every stupid theory that the bigots would spew.

SO TO LEARN that Glanville, working for NBC Sports Chicago in broadcasting a Cubs game earlier this month, had a fan (in reality, just a nitwit who happened to be wearing a sweatshirt being the Cubs’ logo) flashing gestures typically associated by white supremacists? It’s not surprising!

I don’t doubt the man in question thinks he’s a tough guy who was putting Glanville in his place. Or maybe there’s some truth to the fans who are saying this is the kind of stupid stuff that happens when you serve alcohol in public.

It is good to know that Chicago Cubs management is taking this incident seriously, and not just dismissing it as a bit of naughty behavior that happens in public. As though we’re just supposed to accept that this is the way the world works.

But seriously, how do we know that fan won’t be able to slip in with the rest of the crowds that cram their way into Wrigley for Cubbie baseball?

Does Ernie's spirit still attract to Wrigley?

THE HONEST TRUTH is that there are some Chicagoans whose baseball preference for the Cubs over the White Sox is based on the notion that the Wrigley scene is one meant for white people. Some prefer going there because they think the White Sox scene is one where you’d find some black fans whom they'd rather not bother with.

And to be honest, white fans and black fans at the ballpark have the potential to act as poorly as they do in other scenarios.

So the idea that somebody with white supremacist leanings would be part of the crowd at Wrigley Field? It’s very possible, just like bigots exist just about everywhere. The way they ought to be dealt with is to let them know their rancid rhetoric and terrible thoughts will not be tolerated – that they are the outsiders in our society.

Who remembers East-West games at Comiskey?

As for whether I regard the Cubbie crowd as inherently racist? I’d say that’s an extreme. Cubs fans may be an insipid batch (“Cubnoxious,” except that the “feds” recently found that term to be inappropriate), but not all-around evil.

IN FACT, I’M aware there’s a certain generation of black Chicago that, to the degree they pay any attention to baseball, are inclined to follow the Cubs.

Memories of when Ernie Banks, Billie Williams and Fergie Jenkins were the base of the ballclub in the late 1960’s still linger. That and the fact that many of the white Sout’ Siders of old were White Sox fans – which meant rejecting the Sox was an act of protest by those black people, just like wearing a dashiki or having one's hair in an Afro.

But then again, there’s an even older generation who remember the days when there was Negro League baseball in Chicago, and the American Giants of old would use Comiskey Park for their home games – whereas Wrigley Field was a place where black baseball fans were supposed to regard as unwelcoming toward them.

Some may think it’s ridiculous to associate the almost annual presence of the old East-West Game (the Negro League version of an all-star game) with the modern-day White Sox. Although even Ernie Banks is now deceased – and not surely still bringing people into Wrigley Field with his sunshiny (in public) demeanor.

IN SHORT, IT’S probably no wonder that many black sporting fans are inclined to look to athletic endeavors other than baseball when deciding to spend the big bucks on going to a game.

Is Robinson baseball's act of penance?

Baseball, all too often, acts as though the fact that Jackie Robinson was permitted to play for the old Brooklyn Dodgers somehow indemnifies the game from all past, present and future flaws.

Although there may be some truth to the fact that this latest Wrigley Field incident was more a matter of a buffoon drinking himself into a stupor that caused him to act stupid.

But the notion of one getting intoxicated at the ol’ ball game strikes me as an impossibility. I know that when I went to a ballgame just last week, I had one beer – which cost $10.25!!! Who can afford to wind up blowing a 0.08 or higher at that price?

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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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A half-century later, and we still don’t have a clue what Picasso statue is

It’s Oh, So Fitting of Chicago’s character that one of the most prominent landmarks our city has – the statue created by famed artist Pablo Picasso – is something we don’t have a clue what it’s supposed to be.

A daily sight in Daley Plaza

It has been 50 years to the day since the Picasso, as we simply refer to it, since Pablo himself never gave his creation for the city a proper title, was unveiled to the public.

OF COURSE, AS also is so befitting of Chicago’s character, city officials chose to celebrate the half-century mark of the statue last week.

As in the official ceremonies marking 50 years of the statue’s presence in the Daley Plaza were held Aug. 8, rather than on Tuesday.

I’d like to joke that the reason the ceremonies were held a week early was because we wanted to detract from the pair of events that otherwise would have had their anniversaries on Aug. 8.

As in the 29^th anniversary of the Chicago Cubs’ first attempt at playing a night game at Wrigley Field (it was rained out, and the first actual game didn’t occur until the following day), or the 41^st anniversary of the time the Chicago White Sox tried playing an official major league ballgame in shorts.

INSTEAD, WE CHOSE to jump the gun on the Picasso structure, which now is such a part of the city’s composition that we don’t really notice it. We walk through the Daley Plaza in the shadows of the Daley Center courthouse or the County Building/City Hall where the real Richard J. Daley prevailed and we expect to see it.

 

Would something like this really be better?

It’s just there.

Personally, I’m not going to take a crack at guessing at what it was Picasso was trying to portray when he created the statue on commission for the architectural firm that designed the Daley Plaza for Chicago back in the mid-1960s (although I do get a kick out of the White Sox warmup jacket he occasionally was photographed wearing).

Although the artistic experts who say it is a profile of a woman (if viewed from behind at just the right angle) may be on to something. Personally, I think the confused perception it creates amongst so many people may be totally befitting of Chicago.

 

Celebrating the shorts?

A PLACE THAT outsiders may find bewildering, but that we locals accept for all its flaws and complications.

In fact, I wonder if a more conventional attempt at public art would have created something that would be oft-ignored and long-forgotten. Or wind up creating an image that would totally tick off a segment of the city.

Such as the ideas that were tossed about publicly back in 1967 by those who were offended by Picasso’s effort to create an image that would come to personify Chicago. Then-alderman John Hoellen (I knew him later in his professional life as a CTA Board member) was the guy who suggested a statue of Chicago Cubs slugger Ernie Banks.

Which I’m sure would have gone over terribly with the segment of Chicago that has no use for the Cubs, or baseball in general.

Says about Chicago?

ALL I KNOW is that the Picasso (which actor John Belushi’s character made reference to in “The Blues Brothers”) is now a common backdrop – particularly for all the activist-types who choose the Daley Center for their protests against local government.

I suspect Picasso himself would have appreciated that idea, since the artist himself had Communist leanings (but that didn’t stop him from accepting payment from the city for his work).

Besides, perhaps it’s a good thing that Picasso’s work of vague perceptions exists for Chicago.

Picasso used to be part of the holiday festivities when city tree was in Plaza

Otherwise, our city’s most prominent work of public art might very well turn out to be the Bat Column statue by Claes Oldenburg (whom the now-defunct City News Bureau used to like to boast was one of their former reporter-type people) that exists outside of the Social Security Building on Madison Street. Just think of all the confusion that image could cause!

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Could Chicago White Sox become beneficiaries of Cuban beisbol legacy?

It has been just over two years since the two living icons of Chicago baseball – Ernie Banks and Minnie Miñoso – passed on. Banks, as many have pointed out, didn’t live long enough to see his Chicago Cubs win a World Series.
 

The grandfather of Cuban baseball in Chicago

While Miñoso was around back in 2005. He even was a participant in that World Series parade wending its way from Armour Square through the Sout’ Side and into “da Loop.”

BUT IT’S ACTUALLY a shame the ballplayer, whose many nicknames included being called “the Cuban Comet,” isn’t still with us. Not that he didn’t live a long-enough life (about 90).

But it would be a sight to see if Miñoso could be present if the modern-day attempt by the Chicago White Sox to rebuild into a winning ball club were to succeed with all the Cuban talent the team has managed to obtain.

That talent appeared to have been bolstered this weekend (it won’t be official for a few more days) with the signing of Luis Robert, a 19-year-old who is among the Cuban national team’s stars and who has decided he wants to have a baseball career in the United States.

That led to a bidding war amongst several ball clubs, although is appears the fact that the White Sox have developed a reputation as being Cuban-friendly led him to want to play in Chicago.

Wore No. 9 in Cuba, but in Chi, that's Minoso

ALTHOUGH LET’S NOT make a mistake; he’s going to be paid well. The still-a-teenager living in Cuban poverty now will be paid some $25 million to play the next couple of seasons for Chicago White Sox minor league affiliates – possibly resulting in him working his way to Guaranteed Rate Field by about 2019 or 2020.

That is about the time the White Sox’ rebuilding effort is supposed to be complete. It is an effort that will include Yoan Moncada, who is the big Cuban star whom the White Sox obtained during the winter and could become a part of the Chicago baseball scene by this season’s end.

Robert and Moncada could join ...

It also may include the star slugger Jose Abreu, who when he broke into U.S. baseball did so with a jolt, winning Rookie of the Year and showing himself to be a consistent slugger in U.S. baseball ever since. And yes, it seems that Abreu was a part of the effort to sway Robert to want to come to Chicago (or at least to the South Side) on the grounds the White Sox "get" Cubans and what they go through to adapt to life in this country.

... w/ existing star Abreu for Cuban trio

With Abreu often saying he’s happy with the White Sox because of the large number of peloteros Cubanos they have employed throughout the years. Including Miñoso, who was around to see Abreu play, and many of the other Cubans such as former shortstop Alexi Ramirez, outfielder Dayan Viciedo and the two pitching stalwarts of that 2005 World Series-winning team, Jose Contreras and Orlando Hernandez.

THE LATTER OF whom gave what I still consider one of the most amazing pitching performances I have ever seen, in the ’05 playoffs against the Boston Red Sox, when the pitcher known as “El Duque” came in relief that one game and pitched three shutout innings right at a point when Boston was threatening to retake the lead, and momentum, in that playoff round.

Yankee had his moment in White Sox 'sun'

I’m still trying to figure out who looked most ridiculous – Johnny Damon swinging at that “Strike Three!!!!!” in the dirt, or Manny Ramirez an inning later looking totally hopeless as he struck out.

This Cuban connection of sorts leading his old ball club to a championship is something I’m sure Miñoso would have liked to have seen. Although to be honest, those of us beisbol fans who enjoy the growing Latin American presence will also get our kicks if this phenomenon becomes a reality.

A tie between Venezuelan and Cuban Sox heritage

Which, I’m sure, means there’s some xenophobic type out there who’s teeth are gnashing and his “I (heart) Trump” pin jiggles on his chest as he rants about the need to tighten the immigration laws AND undo the efforts former President Barack Obama made to improve U.S./Cuba relations.

A recent Cuban Sox star

SO WE’LL HAVE to see how all this plays out, particularly if it turns out to be that a Cuban influence helps rejuvenate the White Sox into a championship ball club.

Who’s to say the Chicago Cubs don’t have another championship run in them as well, and we really could get that all-Chicago World Series our city has dreamed of, yet been denied since 1906.

Will Ernie, Minnie quarrel in heavens?

Those Cubs with a Puerto Rican presence in the form of infielder Javy Baez taking on the Cuban- and Venezuelan (Chico Carrasquel and Luis Aparicio to Ozzie Guillen to Magglio Ordonez to today’s Avisail Garcia)-influenced Sox.

That really would make a Chicago “city series” into a World-Wide spectacle the World Series likes to think it is – something for us to look forward to in coming years. Even if Miñoso won’t be around to see it; he and Banks will have to watch from that realm above.

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Sandy Koufax double-header, of sorts, against Chicago – sted of Super Bowl

For those of you who (like me) can’t even pretend to care about New England vs. Atlanta, or the Super Bowl in general, I’m sharing a couple of bits off a web site I have discovered that puts out old baseball radio broadcasts on YouTube for listening.

A football “championship” that means nothing to our local sports scene (because all it does is reminds us that the Chicago Bears are nowhere near talented enough to be in contention) needs an alternative. Unless you’re really watching just so you can see a Budweiser commercial that some are trying to claim has deep sociological meaning and is a political statement on the issue of immigration.

INSTEAD, HOW ABOUT a White Sox/Los Angeles Dodgers matchup, as in from the year 1959. Specifically, Game 5, where the White Sox facing elimination managed to stay alive in what was one of the strangest games ever – a 1-0 White Sox winner in which the only run was scored on a double play.

For those of you who absolutely can’t handle the thought of watching the Sox, I also dredged up a broadcast of an old Cubs game – one from 1957 in which the North Siders were in the borough of Brooklyn to take on the Dodgers at Ebbets Field.

That was the Dodgers’ last season out east, before they made the cross-country jump that led to them playing the first World Series ever in Los Angeles (and drawing a 92,706 crowd for that Game 5 – which, by the way, is still a record attendance).

For what it’s worth, Sandy Koufax was the starting Dodgers pitcher in both ballgames – going up against Bob Shaw for the White Sox and Dick Drott for the Cubs.

OF COURSE, BACK then, Koufax wasn’t the superstar he became in the mid-1960s. That World Series game was the first such game the Dodgers ever trusted him with, and he wound up on the losing end – although his Dodgers team ultimately won the World Series two days later in a game played at Comiskey Park. In '57, he was just the "bonus baby" everybody thought belonged in the minor leagues rather than Brooklyn.

As for the Cubs, I’m not going to spoil the outcome of the game. You can listen for yourself.

Although anyone with any sense realizes that because it’s the Cubs, of course they’re going to lose. But you will get to hear a moment when future Hall of Famer Ernie Banks manages to get a home run off future Hall of Famer Koufax!

Which I suspect will be sufficient to satisfy the hard-core of Cubbie faithful who decide to tune in.

  -30-

EDITOR’S NOTE: Personally, I’ll be checking out the Caribbean Series matchup Sunday night between the Granma Alazanes of the Cuban League and Mexicali Aguilas of Mexico’s Pacific League. The Caribbean Series is in its fifth day in Culiacan, Mexico, and will end

Tuesday with the championship game for bragging rights of Latin American baseball, which likely will be a better ballgame than anything the Patriots or Falcons do on the gridiron in Houston.

EXTRA: It’s about time!!!

1945 is now an obsolete year for Chicago sports fans to care about.
 

The Cubs' big star of '45

The Chicago Cubs Saturday night managed to pull off a 5-0 victory against the Los Angeles Dodgers, giving them the win in this round of National League playoffs and also ensuring that 2016 will go into the record books as the first league championship won by a Cubs team since, in the words of singer Steve Goodman, “the year we dropped the bomb on Japan.”

OF COURSE, THE big year that gets the attention is 1908 – as in it has been 108 years since a Cubs team managed to actually win a World Series. The Cubs have actually played in seven World Series since then.

Yet 1910, 1918, 1929, 1932, 1935, 1938 and the aforementioned 1945 were all losses – with ’32 particularly memorable when Babe Ruth did-or-did-not “call” that home run he hit for the New York Yankees in Game Three at Wrigley Field.

That latter season of 1945 is actually regarded as somewhat of a fluke, what with the way baseball was weakened with many of the real ballplayers getting drafted into military service during World War II.

As it turned out, the Cubs’ big name that year was first baseman Phil Cavaretta – who managed to avoid serving in the military due to a hearing problem. With shortstop Lennie Merullo (whose grandson, Matt, later was a catcher for the Chicago White Sox) being the last-surviving member of that team when he passed on a year ago.

BUT CONSIDERING HOW lacking the Cubs’ history has been in terms of ultimate victory, every little bit of praise gets overblown – particularly when one considers just how dreadful the franchise became during the 1950s, ‘60s and 70’s.

 

The Cubs' big star since then

Cubs fans like to forget that, thinking that the presence of shortstop-turned-first baseman Ernie Banks somehow made the team an elite franchise instead of just junk unworthy of his presence.

But all of that sinks into the past, as Chicago will have its second World Series in this century. The Cubs can now hint at some similar level of success with the White Sox. Who, after all, brought the Second City its first World Series win of the 21^st Century 11 years ago.

And also gave Chicago the ultimate comeback that we’ll throw in the faces of Houstonites in a decade-or-so when their city likely surpasses ours in population.

BUT BACK TO the Cubs of ’16 – who had their segment of Chicago all worked up. I was in downtown and the Near North part of Chicago and saw my share of “W” flags hanging from various windows.

A heroic World Series moment against the Cubs

I also couldn’t help but notice Miller’s Pub, that antiquated restaurant on Wabash Street, which had its marquee sign set to read, “Hey Chicago, what do you say?”

Anticipating that the hard-core of Cubbiedom would fill in the next lyric of Goodman’s “Go Cubs Go” team anthem on their own. While White Soxdom would feel a gnarling punch to the gut at the very thought.

Yes, I made a point of digging up a White Sox cap to wear Saturday while wandering around the Cubs-leaning portions of Chicago. I actually got a couple of cheers, while most Cub-types merely gave blank looks.

ALMOST AS THOUGH they were afraid they would somehow jinx a potential victory if they got too cocky with their retorts.

No longer the last Cub to play in a Series

Because, after all, there’s still the World Series to get through. Let’s not forget that the American League champion Cleveland Indians have their own lengthy streak of years without success – nearly seven full decades.

As an American League baseball fan, I actually paid more attention to those rounds of playoffs than any of the NL nonsense of the past couple of weeks. This is a Cleveland team that beat up on Boston, then handily defeated Toronto. It isn’t a ball club that’s going to be intimidated by any Cubbie trash talk, by any means!

Which means that a week or so from now, we could very well have Cubs fans feeling crushed (and a few spiteful Sox fans feeling delirious) and the “Wait ‘til next year” slogan taking on new meaning.

  -30-

EXTRA: Cubs – 4, Pirates – 0

Somewhere, I sense that the spirit of Ernie Banks is happy, while that of Roberto Clemente is appalled (and rattling off a rant in Spanish rivaling anything that ever came from the mouth of Desi Arnaz on "I Love Lucy"), at the Wednesday night playoff game that gave the Chicago Cubs the opportunity to be the team that gets included with the three National League division winners for a chance at the league championship.

Or if you want to take it back a few generations, Mordecai Brown is laughing it up a bit at Honus Wagner’s expense. Gabby Harnett feeling glee over the Waner brothers (both Paul and Lloyd).

MAYBE EVEN 19^th Century star Cap Anson is feeling some joy (although perhaps wondering who let all those “colored boys” out onto the playing field).

In my mind, I can see how all of them have been agitating (playfully, of course) over whose ball club was going to be successful this week.

Now back to the earthly realm of existence that we all occupy; the one where Cubs pitcher Jake Arrieta provoked a bench-clearing brawl Wednesday night after the Pirates hit him with a pitch.

ARNAZ: Hearing his laugh at Cubs win

I don’t know if the Cubs are capable of beating St. Louis, Los Angeles or New York in the rounds of playoffs that will resume for Chicago on Friday against the Cardinals. But I do sense that Wednesday’s victory will be enough for Cubs fans to feel some sort of moral victory that we’ll hear about for years to come!

  -30-

EXTRA: And people wonder why I’m skeptical in thinking the Chicago Cubs are going to win anything anytime soon

From a baseball business perspective, the demotion of Kris Bryant from the Chicago Cubs to a minor league roster isn’t a surprise.

Despite the fact that he’s having a terrific spring (.425 batting average and nine home runs during March), Bryant was reassigned to minor league camp, and likely will play the bulk of this season with the Iowa Cubs.

CUBS MANAGEMENT HAD been forthright in saying that it didn’t matter how good a spring training Bryant had – he wasn’t going to be with the Cubs when they start the season against the St. Louis Cardinals this weekend.

It’s about the fact that major league rules allow ball clubs to have control over players for six full seasons before they can try to become free agents (which gives them the chance at the big-money contracts they dream of).

By not having their top minor league prospect on the major league team at season’s start, it will mean Bryant’s six-year countdown won’t begin until next year. From a business perspective, the ball clubs view it as essential. Heck, the Chicago White Sox routinely pull such moves so as to delay the amount of time that must pass (two seasons) before a ballplayer can be eligible for salary arbitration.

So the fact that the Major League Baseball Player’s Association is upset and is threatening legal action to force Bryant into the major leagues isn’t going to mean much.

IT’S THE CUBS putting business ahead of the on-field product. Which is something they have done for so many decades that it’s no wonder the team hasn’t won a championship of any kind since, in the words of troubadour Steve Goodman, “the year we dropped the bomb on Japan.”

But this is an era in which we have been hearing countless rhetoric about how talented the Cubs franchise is because of all the top baseball prospects the organization has. The most insufferable of Cubs fans would have you think the team is already of championship caliber.

Maybe Bryant is destined to be the star who leads the team to the championship that eluded Ernie Banks, Ryne Sandberg and Sammy Sosa – to name just a few.

Or maybe he’s the guy who will give Des Moines baseball fans a few kicks because the (alleged) major league-level Cubs are more interested in denying Bryant a financial payday that – if he really is as good a ball player as is claimed – he will get someday.

PERHAPS FROM ANOTHER ball club that he chooses to go to after seeing the Cubs organization for the third-rate outfit they historically have been.

Which could make the big baseball story for 2015 whether or not Jose Abreu (the American League rookie of the year) is capable of having another season resembling his star-studded effort of ’14.

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Mexico, Cuba beisbol officials gave Miñoso an honor U.S. officials haven’t

I don’t expect the death Sunday of 1950s-era Chicago White Sox star Minnie Miñoso will get quite the lasting attention that the passing back in January of Cubs star Ernie Banks did.

For one thing, there probably aren’t the extenuating circumstances concerning his estate (only $16,000) and the fight over whether to cremate his remains (and scatter the ashes at Wrigley Field like some fans would want to see happen) that Banks has. Minnie was less controversial in that aspect.

WE’RE NOT LIKELY to see the statue of Miñoso inside of U.S. Cellular Field moved for a week to the Daley plaza near the Picasso. Then again, I don’t think hard-core White Sox fans would care much about such a gesture.

It’s kind of like the whole attitude of White Sox fans toward their team – they know how great Miñoso was, and think it’s the rest of the world’s loss that they couldn’t appreciate it.

Just as the continued failure of officials with the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., to recognize Miñoso’s U.S. major league career with hall of fame induction – most recently for this year.

The committee that was considering ballplayers from the 1950s through the 1970s wound up picking nobody for induction this year, including Miñoso despite his many American League All Star team appearances and the Rookie of the Year honors the Sporting News gave him in 1951. He also was the first black Latin American ballplayer in the U.S. major leagues (although the first African American ballplayer with the White Sox was Sam Hairston, who came along a few months after Miñoso).

THE CONSOLATION, SO to speak, is that with Miñoso passing away now, he would not have been around for the induction ceremonies to take place in July. That will lessen the sting a little bit.

Then again, it doesn’t mean the baseball career of Orestes “Minnie” Miñoso (a.k.a., the Cuban Comet, el Charro Negro and Mr. White Sox – to try to match up with Banks’ Mr. Cub) didn’t get some recognition during his lifetime.

Back in 1996, the Mexican Baseball Hall of Fame in Monterrey inducted Minnie because after retiring from U.S. baseball following 1964, he went to Mexico and served as a ballplayer and, later, a manager in the Mexico Pacific League through 1975 – and excelled there too.

Then last year, baseball officials in Cuba decided to resurrect their long-dormant Hall of Fame in Havana by picking 10 new members (no one had been inducted for more than half a century).

AMONG THE TEN picked was Miñoso, who started out his baseball career playing in Cuba’s professional league – where he kept playing during the winters of the 1950s simultaneous to being with the White Sox. He kept playing there until the Castro “revolution” caused the old professional leagues to be shut down in 1960, and Miñoso decided he’d rather be an exile in the U.S. rather than live in his now-Communist country.

He became a U.S. citizen in 1976 – the same year he returned to the White Sox as a coach and also had the first of several at-bats that allowed him to claim to have been a professional ballplayer in parts of six decades.

Which, sadly enough, may be the only thing a younger generation of baseball fans remember him for; being the oldest ballplayer to actually get a base hit in a ballgame (off Sid Monge of the California Angels – who coincidentally enough is also a Mexico Baseball Hall of Fame member inducted in 2004).

Banks and Miñoso have one thing in common – athletic careers tied so closely to Chicago ball clubs that they never got the chance to play for a championship team. No World Series appearances for either.

BANKS WAS A part of that 1969 Cubs team that collapsed in September to the New York Mets, while Miñoso had just been traded away (to Cleveland) when the White Sox managed to win an American League championship in 1959.

Although Miñoso was a White Sox employee when the team won the World Series in 2005 – and it was a kick to be able to see him in that team parade that wound its way from the ballpark and Chinatown north to the Loop.

Now, both are gone. Although if it turns out in the near future that Miñoso does get U.S. Hall of Fame induction, he’ll be compared to another Chicago Cub – Ron Santo, who got inducted in 2012 right after his death.

And the next time I work my way out to U.S. Cellular Field for a ball game, perhaps I’ll have to go find that little concession stand near third base where they sell Cuban sandwiches (pork and ham, with pickles and Swiss cheese on toasted French bread) in honor of the “Cuban Comet” himself.

  -30-

Banks finally makes it to Daley Plaza

Somewhere in another realm of existence, John Hoellen is either smiling, or laughing his head off.

Hoellen is an alderman from long ago remembered because he was one of the few people who would publicly say when he believed Mayor Daley (as in the old man Daley, not the son of more recent years) was “full of it” on various issues.

OF COURSE, HOELLEN was often the lone Republican serving in the City Council during his time in public service. So being a malcontent to the majority came naturally.

Why am I bringing up Hoellen now?

It is because he came to my mind when I learned Sunday of the intent by city officials to pay tribute to one-time Chicago Cubs ballplayer and Hall of Famer Ernie Banks by putting his statue in Daley Plaza. Literally, the statue that has been outside of Wrigley Field for the past seven years will be moved this week to outside of the county courthouse that has the famed Picasso statue. Banks died Friday night following a heart attack.

Anybody who knows their local history remembers that many local people initially didn’t like that Picasso statue. It looked freakish. What is it? There are still people who can’t tell you what it is supposed to represent.

HOELLEN WAS THE public official who was so critical of Pablo Picasso’s design that he said city officials should have erected a statue of Ernie Banks instead, if they wanted to capture the true Chicago spirit.

Now I don’t know if I agree with that sentiment. In fact, I remember Hoellen from my reporting days with the now-defunct City News Bureau – at one point, I covered the Chicago Transit Authority and Hoellen was the board member who could always be counted on to complain (often for legitimate reasons) about what the majority of the CTA board wanted to do.

Personally, I think the Picasso statue is so unique and gives our city a distinct monument outside the building where so many lawsuits get resolved – and across the street where our city and Cook County politicos continue to concoct so many deals that aren’t necessarily in the public interest.

But for a four-day period, at least, people will be able to show up to pay their tributes to Ernie Banks. Hoellen’s vision, or lack thereof, gets to come true.

THEY’LL BE ABLE to go on and on about how we should all “play two” today and whine about how it’s a shame that Banks never got a chance to show his stuff in a World Series OR be alive to toss out the ceremonial 'first pitch' at their fantasized Cubs World Series in 2015.

While all those pigeons who converge on Daley Plaza regularly will be able to do their business, so to speak, all over Ernie’s image. It’s too bad they couldn’t aim for the political people located across the street.

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EXTRA: Muerte, baseball-style?

Chicago Cubdom will be in mourning mode for some time now, after it became known publicly late Friday that long-time star player Ernie Banks died.


Banks, a two-time Most Valuable Player for some of the worst Chicago Cubs teams ever back in the 1950s, will be forever remembered for his ability to play ball with cheer and fun even if the end result was a collection of losses.

HE REMAINS THE image of “Mr. Cub” forevermore, particularly since the other Cubs stars who might usurp that label – 19^th Century star Cap Anson whose racial hang-ups were the reason baseball went for so long as a segregated sport and Sammy Sosa whose alleged steroid experimentation taints all those home runs – are people that many Cubs fans would rather forget.

Banks was just a week shy of turning 84, and didn’t seem to have regrets about his life – which essentially amounted to living off his reputation as a ballplayer that ended some 44 years ago. Although it was intriguing to see back in 2013 when President Barack Obama presented Banks with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

How many times have we seen rain-delay video of grainy footage of Banks’ 500^th home run back in 1971? How many more times will we see it recycled in coming days?

For the record, Mayor Rahm Emanuel was the first politician to try to gain himself favorable attention by issuing a statement praising Banks’ memory. Although I expect many more statements to come flowing from the egos of political people in coming hours.

WITH REGARDS TO death, I couldn’t also help but notice Chicago White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf, who used the team’s fan convention this weekend to say on Friday that he wishes the Cubs a World Series success, “after I die.”

The Chicago Sun-Times speculated it might have been a pot shot at the Cubs on account of Cubs owner Tom Ricketts using his team’s fan convention last weekend to wisecrack about White Sox attendance.

But it has me wondering how many Cubs fans will now be wishing for the passing of Reinsdorf – who is 78. Or maybe it's a sign that Reinsdorf will live on and on to the point where even White Sox fans will be eager to see him move on?

Meanwhile, the concept of the sunniest disposition former ballplayer in Chicago now passes to “Mr. White Sox” himself, Minnie Minoso – who at age 89 is probably still up in his mind for an at-bat or two! Too bad he won’t be able to contemplate Hall of Fame induction come July.

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