Loyalty? Or selfishness?

Watching the Chicago White Sox these days, a part of me can’t help but wonder who’s smoking what with regards to the ballclub’s best player these days – Jose Abreu.

Potential Sox all-time star?

Yes, I know the team has several youthful ballplayers who have the potential to be stars that lead the White Sox to potential championships in coming seasons.

BUT THE FACT is that Abreu, the Cuban exile who came to Chicago back in 2013, has been THE significant part of the White Sox during this past decade. He’s also achieved enough in recent seasons that his name has to come up in any discussion of White Sox history.

Abreu, at 167 home runs is already amongst the top home run hitters in Sout’ Side baseball history. Wouldn’t it make sense that people would want Abreu to be the BIG BAT at the lead of the potential White Sox championship teams of the 2020s?

Yet the fact is that there is a significant share of White Sox fandom who would just as soon see Abreu depart. It seems the contracts he has had to play in Chicago come to an end after this season.

If the White Sox want to keep him, they’re going to have to come up with some sort of financial bonanza to make it worth his while to want to stay in Chicago.

BUT THERE’S THE fact that Abreu now is 32, which in traditional baseball thought, is the point in time when a ballplayer crosses over from his physical athletic peak and starts to become over-the-hill.

Also an Indian, Cardinal and Senator

Do the White Sox really want to pay big money to keep Abreu for a few more years to see if he can be a part of the White Sox’ next World Series title-winning team?

Would the team be better off letting him go to some other ball club, while relying on the big name peloteros such as Yoan Moncada, Luis Robert and Eloy Jimenez to be the stars of the Sox?

For his part, Abreu says he wants to stay with the White Sox – going so far as to say he will sign himself to stay with the Sox even if the Sox themselves don’t make him a contractual offer beyond this 2019 season.

SO IS ABREU truly loyal to the Sout’ Side baseball scene? Or is he just being selfish in thinking about himself?

An Orioles team Hall of Famer

Actually, it’s the reason why I think old-timer fans who complain about modern ballplayers having no loyalty are full of it. The so-called loyalty of the past was usually one way – players were expected to give all to the teams, who would think nothing of trading away or releasing a player when it was to the team’s self-interest.

Heck, I remember when Frank Thomas (the White Sox’ most recent Hall of Fame player) expressed thoughts of wanting to play in Chicago his whole career. But the White Sox let him go willingly – and he wound up finishing with stints in Oakland and Toronto.

Even such White Sox notables as “Minnie” Miñoso and Harold Baines played for other ball clubs – with Miñoso also playing for Cleveland and Baines playing well-enough for Baltimore that he’s also a member of that team’s personal Hall of Fame. Or even legendary Sox like Luis Aparicio or Nellie Fox, who also played for Baltimore and Boston, along with Philadelphia and Houston respectively.

Sox combo also had their moments with Athletics and Orioles

SO MAYBE IT wouldn’t be the most outrageous deal if Abreu became a Yankee or a Red Sox for a few seasons. Who knows; that might be his best chance to actually be on a championship team.

One of the few life-long Sox

It’s not exactly out-of-line to think that the White Sox of the 2020s could find their championship dreams thwarted by the up-and-coming teams the New York Yankees are putting together these days.

Which actually would be in character with White Sox history, as the “Go Go” teams of the 1950s wound up finishing most seasons in second place behind the Yanks.

And we’ll have to see for ourselves just how much a part of White Sox history Abreu himself (will number 79 be the next uniform digit retired) is destined to become.

  -30-

’05 White Sox get their second (sort of) Hall of Famer during Sunday induction

(Not in) COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. – The 2005 Chicago White Sox can now claim to have two of its uniformed members inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, and perhaps it’s all so appropriate.

The newest baseball immortal

One of them was Frank Thomas, the star hitter who got inducted three years ago. While the other is newly-inducted member Tim Raines.

WHO WE MAY have forgotten by now was the first base coach under manager Ozzie Guillen that season whose memories of ultimate victory make the ongoing annoyance of a Chicago Cubs championship from last season just a little bit bearable.

 

Ouch!

During induction ceremonies held at the Baseball Hall of Fame in upstate New York, Raines managed to give a plug to Thomas – although not perhaps one that “the Big Hurt” would have wanted to hear.

For Raines also played for the White Sox the first half of the 1990s, which made him a Thomas teammate. Which also made Raines fully aware of the college football injury that Thomas suffered that made him incapable of throwing a baseball worth squat.

Raines said Thomas taught him of the importance to paying attention to the ballgame at all times because any time the pitcher tried to pick off a base runner at first base and a rundown resulted, there was always the chance that Thomas would throw the ball over the second baseman’s head into left field – which means Raines would have had to chase it down from his outfield position.

NOT THAT IT’S because of Raines’ player and coach stints with the White Sox that he got into the Hall of Fame. He was one of the best base stealers during the 1980s while playing with the Montreal Expos, and it’s because of the 808 bases he stole during his career (among the highest totals ever, except some nitwits want to think he's second-rate because Rickey Henderson stole more) bthat he gained the right to have a bronze plaque bearing his image.

 

From the days of youth

One that will bear the stylized “eMb” logo of the long-defunct Expos, rather than the Old English script spelling out “Sox.”

But Raines helped bring some pleasant baseball memories to Chicago both in 2005 and in 1993, when the team he played for won a division title. That same team nearly had a chance at winning something in 1994 – if not for the labor stoppage that wound up wiping out a season, its playoffs and resulting World Series.

There are those Sox fans who will forevermore believe that World Series would have been one between the White Sox and the Expos – which Raines has said would have been a matchup of great personal interest to himself.

  -30-

Summertime reminiscences appropriate – even if Chicago memories fall short

“Harold. Harold.”
 

A youthful Harold who fell short of Hall

In my mind, it’s the mid-1980s in Chicago. The only question is whether it's a political rally involving the city’s mayor as in Washington. Or the White Sox’ right fielder as in Baines?

I COULDN’T HELP but remember the baseball career of Harold Baines, who on Sunday was formally rejected yet again for a spot within the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.

As it was, the Hall of Fame got two new members – neither of whom have much of anything to do with Chicago.

Unless you want to recall how one-time Milwaukee Brewers owner/baseball commissioner Bud Selig originally tried to get into professional baseball by buying the Chicago White Sox so he could move them to his home Wisconsin city. A move that never occurred – although some people of a certain age can remember 1968-69 when the White Sox played a few ballgames each season at Milwaukee’s County Stadium.

Although my baseball reminisces prefer to remember on-field activity, rather than front office shenanigans. And baseball reminisces were definitely on my mind – my way of downplaying the first significant snowfall Sunday that hit Chicago.

IT’S EITHER REMEMBER Harold Baines, or think about how the snowfall was heavy enough that my father’s car wound up skidding into a ditch, and my 13-year-old niece wound up having to steer the car out while “grandpa” pushed. She’s still excited!

 

Belle set Sox team HR record in 1998

But as for me, I recall how Baines was the true talent of the White Sox of the 1980s – an era that had one division title in ’83 and a whole string of mediocre to crummy ball clubs in other years.

He was big enough to be brought back to the White Sox for two more stints; in the 1990s and the beginning of the 21^st Century – while also bopping about other American League teams as a professional hitting machine. Texas, Cleveland, Oakland and his home city of Baltimore also saw him play – and the Orioles actually include him in the team’s personal Hall of Fame.

 

Sosa topped him that same season w/ Cubs

That, and the statue the White Sox have erected to Baines at the newly-renamed Guaranteed Rate Field are likely to be Harold’s honorifics. He did go through a career as a quiet kind of guy who didn’t try to bring a lot of glory to himself.

MOST DEFINITELY UNLIKE Sammy Sosa later of the Chicago Cubs (for whom he was traded to the Texas Rangers for in 1989), who along with Hall of Fame slugger Reggie Jackson may have been the most over-bloated egos to ever play professional baseball.

'Eck' had a Vet Cmte vote Sunday

Not that Harold was the only former Chicago ballplayer or former ballplayer whose name brings to mind bad memories for our local ballclubs to be on the list of considerees by the hall’s Veterans Committee – which considers baseball executives and gives second-chances to former ballplayers already passed over by the Baseball Writer Association of American membership.

There was Albert Belle, the star 1990s slugger for the Cleveland Indians (who belongs to that team’s personal Hall of Fame) who had a two-year stretch with the White Sox – and in fact in 1998 set the team record for the most home runs in a season.

Had Vet Cmte vote, but not enough to get Harold over top

Belle hit 49. But that was the same year that Sosa had his 66 and Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals hit 70. They “saved” baseball (or so we thought). While Belle was just an afterthought.

McGWIRE WAS ONE of the ballplayers also passed over on Sunday, along with Will Clark of the San Francisco Giants – who in 1989 was the Most Valuable Player of the National League playoffs.

Of course, we in Chicago remember that year as the one in which a Cubs team containing future Hall of Famers Ryne Sandberg and Andre Dawson perhaps should have won – only to get beat by Clark and his big bat.

Came closest to getting elected w/ Chi ties

With the Giants then going on to lose that World Series to the Oakland Athletics – who also were led by McGwire (in his pre-Cardinals days) and Jose Canseco (who finished up with the White Sox in 2001) and Hall of Fame relief pitcher Dennis Eckersley.

I mention Eckersley because it seems that the one-time Cubs pitcher (on that division-winning team of 1984) was among the former ballplayers, along with one-time White Sox star Frank Thomas, to cast ballots on Sunday.

FORMER ATLANTA BRAVES and Kansas City Royals general manager John Schuerholz was picked unanimously, while Selig took 15 of the 16 votes cast.

Lou Piniella, considered for a managerial career that included a stint with the Chicago Cubs, took seven votes, while none of the others under consideration got enough votes for the Hall of Fame to acknowledge their totals.

Not even one-time New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, whose professional life also included a brief 1980s stint as a part-owner of pro basketball’s Chicago Bulls.

Would you really rather think about Sunday's snowfall? Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

Of course, Steinbrenner sold out his share of “da Bulls” in the mid-1980s right BEFORE Michael Jordan was drafted out of the University of North Carolina and began the process that led to that 1990s stretch of championships that is Chicago’s only taste ever of New York Yankees-like athletic success.

  -30-

End of season really end of Sale?

I recall going to the final home game of the Chicago White Sox’ 2002 season largely because not only did I want to see a final ball game that year, I fell into the hype concerning Frank Thomas.
 

Was it really 'the end' for Sale?

Now, he’s the White Sox’ latest contribution to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. But in 2002, he was in the final year of his contract – and the speculation was that the Sox would let Thomas leave.

ACTUALLY, THAT THEY’D slam the door behind him and be sure to catch his behind on the way out.

That final game against the Boston Red Sox was supposed to be the final chance to see Thomas in a White Sox uniform. Sure enough, his contract did expire and Thomas was briefly a free agent.

Only to see the White Sox make him a contract offer that had him rejoining the team in 2003, and for another two seasons beyond that.

I couldn’t help but think this when Sunday’s 2016 finale came up and was being billed as the final chance to see current ace pitcher Chris Sale start a game for the White Sox.

FOR THE SPECULATION is that the White Sox are fed up with his oft-juvenile behavior. His earned run average (3.21 going into Sunday’s game, 2.97 for the seven seasons he has pitched for the Sox) is no longer good enough to overcome his ego.

 
Or is it?

The end for "the Big Hurt" came 6 years later

I don’t know if Sale is really gone. I suspect it’s really more up to him if he wants to return to Chicago, rather than the team dumping on their top pitcher.

Although I couldn’t help but flinch when Sale let the Minnesota Twins start off Sunday’s ball game with an inside-the-park home run by Byron Buxton, then allowed four more runs to pile on during the five innings he pitched – ensuring that even if the White Sox had been able to win the game, he would not have been the “winning” pitcher.

IT’S THE END of another regular season of baseball, and I know fans of a certain other ball club will act as though “history” is being made. Even though to those of us of the “South Side” mentality (even if we have moved and now live elsewhere), we know all it will mean is that the other team will finally have matched the White Sox in championship achievements this century.

We’ll now enter the winter dormant period (unless we care enough to follow beisbol activity in the winter leagues of assorted Latin American nations), eagerly awaiting both spring training of 2017 AND the coming of the World Baseball Classic.

Will Rick Renteria (right) be the new White Sox manager?

For which Sale could also be a significant story. For Sale has hinted he is interested in being among the pitchers carried by the U.S. national team as they take on national teams of 15 other nations in an effort to show true international baseball superiority.

If Sale does wind up pitching in competitive ballgames come March, the real question will be which ball club will get bragging rights for his international achievements – the White Sox? Or the highest bidder amongst other teams?

WE ALSO GET to see, probably in the near future, whether White Sox bench coach Rick Renteria will be the new White Sox field manager. Intriguing for those of us who remember not only the year he was the Chicago Cubs manager, but also that he managed team Mexico back in the World Baseball Classic held in 2013.

I'm sure Renteria would love the chance to show that his release by the Cubs two years ago wasn't really a sign of managerial incompetence -- particularly if he could achieve it while wearing the Old English script of the "Sox" logo on his chest while doing it.

  -30-

A-Rod won’t don pale hose during his lengthy baseball career; Chicago won’t get a last chance to “boo” him

It’s a trend that our very own Chicago White Sox like to take on – aging star ballplayers who wind up finishing their careers on the South Side of Chicago with such unmemorable stints that most fans quickly forget they ever played here.

 

He'll never wear White Sox pinstripes

To the degree that I often wondered if Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees was destined to become yet another ballplayer in this category – somebody who’d wind up finishing his career getting in a few games playing for the White Sox.

IT MAY BE the big difference in character between the Chicago White Sox and the crosstown competition, the Chicago Cubs.

For the Cubs have a history of letting young ballplayers go who later wind up with other ball clubs having careers making them worthy of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. – pitchers Bruce Sutter and Greg Maddux, just to name a couple.

While the White Sox wind up being the aging dumping ground of guys like Ken Griffey, Jr., who when he was inducted earlier this summer into the Hall of Fame and people were going on-and-on about the highlights of his professional career, no one was thinking about the 41 games he played for the White Sox in 2008.

Then again, with a .260 batting average and only 3 home runs while wearing the black and white with pinstripes of the Sox, there wasn’t much to remember.

 

Just a few ballplayers ...

JUST LIKE STEVE Carlton or Roberto Alomar – who got into the Hall of Fame despite their lack of heroics in Chicago. Or Tom Seaver, who is a Hall of Famer whom many people barely remember as a White Sox.

It would have totally been in the ball club’s character to acquire Rodriguez, whom the Yankees have been eager to dispose of because he’s NOT of the quality any more that will make him a candidate for Hall of Fame induction.

 

... whose athletic demise and  final paycheck ...

He could be just like Jose Canseco, the aging slugger from the 1980s and early 1990s who ended his playing days in the early 21^st Century by hitting the last 16 of his 462 career home runs in Chicago.

He got to end his major league playing days by finally getting to see a Comiskey Park fireworks display in celebration of his own home runs, instead of just hearing the echoing of “boos” from fans p-oed that a Sox pitcher threw another stinker of a pitch that wound up deposited into the outfield seats.

... came while wearing "white" sox

THIS HONESTLY WAS what I always expected the end of baseball would be for Alex Rodriguez – an unceremonious attempt to stretch out his career for a few more ball games. With the confused catter-calls coming from the stands – generations of Sox fans booing and heckling him for playing for the Seattle Mariners, Texas Rangers and Yankees being muted because his hits finally benefitted the White Sox.

Although the reason it won’t happen is because Rodriguez announced Sunday he won’t play anymore following the Yankees’ ballgame Friday against the Tampa Bay Rays. He’ll get to finish out this season and next in some sort of unspecified role as a consultant.

Even Jose Canseco got a final farewell in Chicago

But his horrific play (batting only .204 this season and he didn’t even play back on July 4-6 when the Yankees made their only visit to Chicago this season) meant there weren’t many hits to be had.

As it turns out, Rodriguez’ Chicago finale turned out to be the final weekend of July 2015 when the Yankees played a three-game series at U.S. Cellular Field. The crowd reaction literally was a mess of people wanting to tell dumb steroid jokes and taunts mixed with Yankees fans still wishing to celebrate him – and one girl sitting behind me in the outfield seats making a point of wishing Rodriguez a “Happy Birthday.”

IT WILL BE intriguing how Rodriguez – the guy who lost the 2013 season to a suspension because of steroid-use allegations – gets remembered. Because with 696 home runs (as of Sunday), it makes him one of the all-time greats – ahead of Willie Mays (660) and not far behind Yankees immortal Babe Rush (714).

Not everyone heckled Rodriguez in Chicago

And certainly better than legitimate White Sox Hall of Famer Frank Thomas (521) or “is he, or isn’t he, a fraud” Cubs star Sammy Sosa (609). But some are going to be too eager to taint the Rodriguez memory with steroids, just as they have done with Sosa and many other ballplayers of recent years.

It makes me reminisce of the ballplayers of my childhood era – guys such as one-time Sox slugger Dick Allen.

 

He who took a Most Valuable Player title while representing the South Side and was critical of artificial turf by saying, “If a cow can’t eat it, I won’t play on it.” You just don’t get ballplayers like that these days.

  -30-

EDITOR'S NOTE: Maybe the White Sox will wind up having Ichiro Suzuki on their roster some time in the near future. The Miami Marlins outfielder clinched his position in baseball immortality by getting his 3,000th base hit (a triple Sunday off Colorado Rockies pitcher Chris Rusin) playing in the U.S. major leagues (he has another 1,200 or so hit from playing professionally in Japan). Which means he's now an aging ballplayer whose past his prime and whose best years (with the Seattle Mariners and New York Yankees) are most definitely in the past -- perfect for a stint at 35th and Bill Veeck Drive! For what it's worth, Suzuki made his only visit to Chicago this season last week when the Marlins lost three games to the Chicago Cubs, although the White Sox will be in Miami for a weekend series beginning Friday.

Saying “yes” to DH an easier decision to make than picking a president

The presidential caucuses in Iowa are fast approaching, as is the New Hampshire primaries. Yet I remain clueless as to who I can seriously say I support for president.

Almost a 3,000-hit player due to DH

I think many of the Republican hopefuls are offensive, while the Democratic dreamers of White House glory are either clueless or ever so mediocre. Although I believe the Des Moines Register’s picks for president (Dem Hillary Clinton and GOPer Marco Rubio) are fairly safe and predictable choices.

SO AT A time when I feel like I ought to be making up my mind about something, I find my mind shifting to baseball.

Not only because spring training is rapidly approaching (Feb. 19 for the Chicago White Sox and Feb. 20 for the Chicago Cubs) and I’m anxious to have springtime-like weather, but also because at least baseball gives us an obvious choice.

Even though I’m sure my pick will wind up upsetting people even more than any political pick I might make – bring the designated hitter to the National League.

It’s about time that move was made and that the National League get off its high horse thinking it somehow is superior because it can’t get with the program that all the rest of professional baseball (except the Pacific League in Japan) follows.

FOR THOSE WHO are clueless as to the joy of baseball, the designated hitter was a measure created back in 1973 by American League teams (including the White Sox) where someone else hits for the pitcher – which throughout the history of baseball has been a spot in the line-up that weakens the offense.

There are those fans of National League teams (including the Chicago Cubs) who think this somehow is an aberration, even though I’d argue the Cubs’ play throughout the decades is the bigger aberration to baseball. It can become a heated argument.


DH extended career to Hall of Fame

One that will become even more intense in coming months because there is speculation that the National League will adopt the DH soon – possibly as soon as the 2017 season.

Baseball Commissioner Fred Manfred said last week the change could be made because there is a new generation of National League team owners – ones who think the designated hitter just makes too much sense to not have. In short, the old-liners who want to think they’re better off without it aren’t strong enough t resist the modern day.

THAT INCLUDES HAVING another big bat in the line-up, often one upon which the entire ball club is based around. As for those who think removing a weak-hitting pitcher in the late innings of a ballgame for a pinch hitter is evidence of great strategy, I’d say those people probably get excited seeing a frustrated ball player smash a water cooler.
 

Cubs better off if he'd been a DH

Will he ruin it beyond repair? Or just put a few dents in it that future generations of ballplayers will marvel over?

To me, at least, watching a National League game always feels like there’s a gap that pops up every few innings when the pitcher has to come up to bat. A gap that just doesn’t occur when watching an American League team play.

In short, all the talk of “strategy” offered up by National League fans is a batch of hooey! Way too overblown to take seriously.

SINCE THE PEOPLE who now lead baseball are determined to erase the differences between American and National league ball clubs to make one overall professional league in the United States, having the designated hitter in one league while denying its existence in the other just seems silly.

Now I don’t know if the designated hitter really is coming to the Chicago Cubs and other National League teams next season. I don’t doubt there will be some fans who won’t stop complaining until they’re planted in the ground with a headstone atop them. Even then, their spirits will probably haunt us to complain.


Even Hillary has a bubble-gum card

But it’s bound to happen. And if it winds up getting approved some time during 2016, it could be the most controversial action of the year.

Because I suspect that some people will find the idea of the Chicago Cubs or Pittsburgh Pirates having a designated hitter even more offensive than the concept of the oath of office being administered early next year to “President Hillary R. Clinton.”

  -30-

Would it change a thing if ‘Shoeless Joe’ were reinstated to baseball?

It has been 95 years since Joe Jackson played his last ballgame for the Chicago White Sox, and 63 years since he was even alive.

Still a baseball persona non-grata

Yet some people are determined to try to reinstate the man who got bounced from baseball following the 1919 World Series – which the White Sox lost to the Cincinnati Reds and for which Jackson was one of eight ballplayers later indicted on criminal conspiracy charges claiming he took money to lose ballgames.

OF COURSE, PEOPLE argue that Jackson was acquitted of those charges by a jury in Cook County, while others will claim that jury was so biased that their verdict was arguably more ridiculous than some people believe the “not guilty” verdict was for O.J. Simpson.

The problem becomes that whatever happened with the World Series that year and whether Jackson, or any, of the ballplayers took money from gamblers to lose happened so long ago that just about anybody who knew anything is dead.

This becomes a “paper trail” investigation that already came up with a result.

Which is why it would seem baseball officials aren’t about to do anything. Giving us such non-news headlines on Tuesday as “MLB won’t reinstate Shoeless Joe Jackson.”

THE SHOELESS JOE Jackson Museum that operates out of Jackson’s one-time home in Greenville, S.C., released a letter it received from baseball Commissioner Robert Manfred saying they don’t intend to do anything to change Jackson’s status.

The White Sox' all-time duo ...

“The results of this work demonstrate to me that it is not possible now, over 95 years since those events took place,… to be certain enough of the truth to overturn Commissioner (Kennesaw M.) Landis’ determinations,” which were that Jackson knew of efforts to throw a World Series and didn’t do anything to stop it.

Some claim that Jackson took $5,000 from gambling interests, but somehow managed to play well – coming up with numbers that indicate he didn’t stink (a high batting average, and the only home run of that World Series).

While others say this proves statistics don’t tell the full story, and in fact can be deceptive.

... won't become a trio anytime soon

ADMITTEDLY, THE JACKSON Museum has an interest – they’d like it if the guy they promote were to become an official part of baseball again. Rather than someone whom baseball would prefer to forget. Just like Pete Rose – who also has a lifetime ban from baseball for gambling (and a criminal conviction with six-month prison sentence for tax evasion).

Then again, I’m sure the White Sox would also like it if they could go back to publicly acknowledging that one of the greatest ballplayers ever wore their uniform – and that he could join Luke Appling and Frank Thomas as being among the greatest White Sox ever.

But aside from their marketing efforts, would it really change much. Would Jackson gain any points to his .356 lifetime batting average (second only to Ty Cobb’s .362)?

Would the White Sox gain any more wins to their lifetime career? It’s not like we’d get to change the 1919 World Series result and claim a victory over Cincinnati?

THERE WOULDN’T BE any one less person sneering or snickering at the White Sox for being the only team caught throwing a World Series (even though there have been rumors from other World Series and ballgames in general of that era having suspicious results).

Is Jackson plight more about backing Rose?

Or anyone thinking any less of Jackson from amongst those people who want to believe that Shoeless Joe would have been in the Baseball Hall of Fame decades ago – if only he hadn’t had that World Series stain on his record.

So I’m sure some people are going to be miffed at baseball officials for not being willing to resurrect this issue all these years later.

But barring the discovery of evidence that we can’t even conceive of at this point, it may be that baseball officials have the right idea in mind to just go forward. Rehashing the past never changes anything!

  -30-

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.


  -30-

EXTRA: Barry Bonds w/ White Sox; while Robin Ventura became Cubs star?

Major League Baseball will have its annual summer draft in a few days, by which teams divide up all the college and high school ball players to see who gets to play for which professional team.

You can go ahead and give all the analysis to try to figure out who the best amateur ballplayer is out there – one who could actually be good enough to make the Chicago Cubs worthwhile someday.

BUT THE REALITY of the draft process is that it is a crapshoot. An educated guess. Some ballplayers with all the tools and credentials never make it through the minor leagues.

Would Cubs fans have forgetten Santo?

Which is why I found amusing a recent Sporting News story that gave the biggest draft-day screw-up for each major league team. As in a case where a team picked one player who never amounted to much, while a future star got picked later by somebody else.

Such as 1985 when the Chicago White Sox could have had a chance at Barry Bonds, the son of 1970s-era outfielder Bobby Bonds who went on to hit all those home runs – and tick off so many people with his surly personality.

Instead, the White Sox went with Kurt Brown, a catcher, who never made it beyond the minor leagues.

I FIND THE Cubs’ draft gaffe to be more amusing. It was 1989, and the Cubs actually won a division title that season while picking Ty Griffin, an infielder from Georgia Tech who also had played for the U.S. Olympic Baseball Team just the year before.

Griffin was supposed to be the guy who could have kept the Cubs competitive for years to come. Except that he never made it to the major leagues.

While the White Sox was able to get Robin Ventura, an Oklahoma State University star who became a White Sox star and is now their manager, because the Cubs took a pass on him.

Although the Sporting News’ study found that other teams’ worst picks wound up to the benefit of the Chicago baseball scene.

FOR BOTH THE Philadelphia Phillies and St. Louis Cardinals, their gaffe was in 1989 when they could have had Frank Thomas – but took Jeff Jackson and Paul Coleman respectively.

10-1 w/ Toronto this season

Then, there was 2010 when the Arizona Diamondbacks could have had pitcher Chris Sale, but instead picked pitcher Barret Loux.

Sale, of course, has become the White Sox’ top pitcher, and had quite a game last week in his comeback from injury.

As for Loux? He never signed with Arizona, but has played some minor league ball, and is now on the roster of the Iowa Cubs – albeit on their disabled list.

THEN AGAIN, THE reality of the draft is that some of the most interesting picks can come in the lower rounds from players who are presumed to be roster-filler, but wind up amounting to something significant.

Take the 1998 draft when the White Sox used the 38th round pick to take a pitcher from a junior college in Missouri. A year-and-a-half later, he was in Chicago to stay, and this year has a 10-1 record with a 2.10 earned run average.

Who'd have thought then that Mark Buehrle would amount to anything lasting in baseball?

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