Gritty White Sox Are a Team Worth Rooting For

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

Chicago is a town that deserves to finally have a team in the World Series, and the White Sox are, in all ways, a team that deserves to finally be there.


First, in what is still very much an offensive era, the Sox are the genuine article, a real pitching-and-defense team.


Second, in a time when athletes come in two flavors, bland and blander, the Sox are a team of legitimately eccentric players and coaches. More than any pennant winner I can recall, the White Sox have a chance not just to win a championship, but to change the way the game is played.


On that first point, there shouldn’t be any real dispute after a five-game League Championship Series that saw the Sox’ tremendous quartet of starting pitchers (Mark Buehrle, Jon Garland, Freddy Garcia, and Jose Contreras) pitch all but two-thirds of an inning. But it’s worth pointing out that any claims made about the Sox’ offense being good are absurd. The team ranked ninth in the junior circuit in runs scored despite playing in the league’s second-best hitter’s park and playing a disproportionate number of games against the Kansas City Royals, who had the worst pitching in the game.


It wasn’t situational hitting, smart base running, or efficient fundamentals on offense that led the Sox to 99 wins, although they helped; What made them a dominant force was a pitching staff that matched four excellent starters with a diverse array of effective relievers and an athletic, rangy defense that boasted Gold Glove-caliber defenders in all three outfield positions and both middle infield slots.


That second point is less generally acknowledged – despite playing in the country’s third-largest media market, the Sox may as well be the Royals for all the national press they get – but it is, from the perspective of the fan, equally important. This team features Ozzie Guillen, the most publicly foul-mouthed manager since Earl Weaver; noted villains A.J. Pierzynski and Carl Everett (the former reportedly kneed a trainer in the groin last year; the latter, among more serious issues, doesn’t believe in dinosaurs); and tragic heroes Jose Contreras and Orlando Hernandez, who were forced to choose between their families and freedom. Closer Bobby Jenks, whose fastball has been timed at 102 mph, only came up in late summer, and was released last winter by the Angels after several widely publicized bouts with alcohol.


The colorfulness doesn’t end there. Broadcaster Ken Harrelson is best known for a variety of bizarre catchphrases (hearing “You can put it on the BOARD…..YES!!!” after a Sox home run gets less cute the 187th time you hear it) and slavish homerism; General Manager Ken Williams was before this year best known for having been apparently ripped off by shrewd Oakland GM Billy Beane in a variety of trades (he wasn’t, it turns out) and for the criminal activities of his team.


Bringing it all together, what does this mean for the fan? Given the propensity of major league teams to imitate success, two things.


First, it means teams may start paying a lot less lip service to pitching and defense, and start putting together teams capable of winning with them. That means fewer fat guys hitting home runs, and more guys like Aaron Rowand, the Sox center fielder who plays incredible defense and is good for 15 home runs and 15 steals in a season; fewer pitchers who throw 97 mph and have no idea where the ball is going, and more Buehrle types, who can throw nine different pitches into a teacup. While you may find the odd fan who wouldn’t prefer to see more players like Rowand and Buehrle given a chance to shine, I have yet to meet one.


Second, it may make the better teams less afraid of personality. Teams like the Cardinals and Yankees seem to shy away from the genuinely odd ducks of baseball, guys like Everett and Guillen and even Contreras, who was stripped of his dignity and discarded like trash by the Yankees for having the temerity to pitch badly in a foreign country while his family was being held hostage by a Communist dictator. Given some encouragement, time, and attention by Guillen and the Sox, he’s turned into a dominant ace.


Williams, in this day and age, is another weirdo – no Ivy Leaguer, he was drafted by the Sox in 1982, had a short major league career in which he hit .218, then returned to Chicago and worked his way up through the baseball bureaucracy to become the GM, a role he learned on the job. Could other teams profit from attention to pitchers who are effective without dominant stuff, a willingness to give second chances and loyalty? Probably so, and that’s why, with no slight to the Astros or Cardinals, you should be rooting for the Sox to overcome the curse of the Black Sox and bring one home to Bridgeport.


tmarchman@nysun.com


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