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Today I was watching the Cardinals play the Padres on TV when the ESPN Talking Heads mentioned it was a sad day in baseball with the passing yesterday of Buck O’Neil. Nobody lives forever and at 94 Buck lived a good, long life, but may have died of a broken heart after being denied entry into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. O’Neil was denied twice in his baseball life, once when the color of his skin denied him the opportunity to play MLB and then again when he died before being allowed in to Cooperstown.

Buck O’Neil played briefly with the Memphis Red Sox in 1937 before playing the remainder of his career as a member of the Kansas City Monarchs, except for his two years in the Navy 1944-45. He won batting titles in 1940, batting .345, and in 1945, he batted .350. Buck was an All Star in 1942, 43, & 49. O’Neil guided the Monarchs to titles in 1948, 50, 51, & 53. In 1962 he was named a coach for the Chicago Cubs, first African-American MLB coach, as a scout he discovered Lou Brock & Joe Carter.

Buck was the Chairman of the Negro Baseball Leagues Museum in Kansas City, MO. O’Neil was instrumental in telling the story of the Negro Baseball Leagues to fans of today. NickyV & Teddy Ballgame were fortunate enough to take it all in on our recent baseball trip to Kansas City, we spent over five hours at the Negro Baseball Leagues Museum and encourage all of you to check it out. Below is a letter I just wrote to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, I would encourage you to do the same. Thank you Mr. Buck O’Neil for a life well lived!

National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum
25 Main Street
Cooperstown, NY 13326

Dear Sir/Madam:

I was saddened to learn of the passing of Buck O’Neil. Not that he shouldn’t pass at the age of 94, he lived a good life. I am saddened that he was denied twice, once in not being allowed to play MLB and again in not being allowed into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. I believe he, in part, died of a broken heart. Buck deserved enty, he earned it, not only for his play on the field, but for the way he promoted the game he loved and also for the way he preserved the Negro Leagues with his museum in Kansas City. I truly hope the National Baseball Hall of Fame recognizes its oversite and inducts this great man ASAP.

One is gone, but two remain. Two players who remain on the outside, but deserve to be let in are Minnie Minoso and Ron Santo. Both have the statistics and are great spokesmen for the game, but each has another factor working on his behalf. Minnie was the first negro ballplayer for the Chicago White Sox and was kept out of MLB because of the color of his skin. Santo played defense & batted better than any thirdbaseman of his era, despite having diabetes. Please let justice be served by inducting these two deserving men before they pass.

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim will sit out the post-season, for the first time in three years. After going 95-67 in 2005, the Halo’s ended up 89-73 for 2006.

My view of “The Why,” as Leo Kilfoy says:

1) The absence of Bartolo Colon. In 2005, Bartolo won 21 games and the A.L. Cy Young Award. In 2006, he had 10 semi-injured starts and finished with a 1-5 record.
2) Signing Jeff Weaver to replace Jarrod Washburn, who went to Seattle as a free agent. I wish the Angels had listened to Teddy Ballgame, concerning the probable success of THAT move.
3) Team Defense. The Angels were last in team defense, and first in errors, in the A.L. When you’re trying to win low-scoring games on pitching, defense and speed, that is tough to overcome. Some teams can slug their way past these problems; the Halo’s are not ONE of those teams, IMO.

Dealing with 1) and 2) together.

2005 rotation was 1) a healthy Bartolo, 2) Washburn, 3) Square-Head (Paul Byrd, it’s a term of endearment), 4) John Lackey and 5) Ervin Santana.

2006 rotation was 1) John Lackey, 2) Kelvim Escobar, 3) a non-healthy Bartolo, rescued by Jared Weaver, 4) Jeff Weaver, replaced by Joe Saunders, and 5) Ervin Santana,

By the numbers:

2005: 1) 21-8, 3.48, 2) 8-8, 3.20, 3) 12-11, 3.74, 4) 14-5, 3.44, and 5) 12-8, 4.65.

2006: 1) 13-11, 3.56, 2) 11-14, 3.61, 3) 13-7, 3.36, 4) 10-13, 5.59, and 5) 16-8, 4.28.

The 2005 Rotation was 67-40. The 2006 Rotation was 63-53.

For what it’s worth, Paul Byrd went 10-9, 4.88 for Cleveland, and Washburn was 8-14, 4.67 for the Mariners. Jeff Weaver was 3-10, 6.29 in his 16 Angel starts.

Dealing with the Defense: In 2005, I thought the Angels were above average at every position except third base and “whatever position Figgins was playing.” So if Figgins was playing 3B that day, they were above average at 7 of the 8 positions. In 2006, I worried whenever the ball was hit to anybody except Orlando Cabrera. And even Orlando’s error total went from 7 to 16. Figgins at 3B fielded an unbelievable .878.

Since I don’t think there are any defensive statistics that tell the tale, let’s compare the people at each defensive position, 2005 to 2006.

C: Bengie and Jose Molina – Jose Molina and Mike Napoli.
1B: Darin Erstad – Kendry Morales, Howie Kendrick, Rob Quinlan.
2B: Adam Kennedy – Kennedy and Kendrick,
SS: Orlando Cabrera.
3B: Dallas McPherson and Chone Figgins – Maicer Izturis and Figgins.
OF: Garret Anderson, Steve Finley, Vladimir – Garret, Figgins and Juan Rivera, Vladimir. No comment necessary, right?

Granted, a dip from 95 wins to 89 isn’t exactly “falling off the cliff,” but I think these 3 factors were most indicative of the 2006 failings.

What do others think?

In the 2nd inning of the 1st playoff game between the Mets & the Dodgers, Russell Martin lined a single to right off the wall with runners on 1st & 2nd with nobody out. Dodger 3rd base coach did his best Joey Cora imitation, waving Jeff Kent & J.D. Drew plateward. NY Mets rightfielder Shawn Green fired the ball to secondbaseman Jose Valentin, who relayed it to catcher Paul LoDuca. Kent held up thinking Green might catch the ball and was tagged out at home. LoDuca was showing the umpire he still had the ball when he looked up, surprised to see Drew trying to score, and tagged him out as well. Martin should have been credited with a double, but only got a single when Kent failed to score from 2nd base. John Maine allowed four straight hits, but only one run in the 2nd inning.

ESPN talking heads were saying how they’d never seen such a thing. Well any White Sox fan could tell you about a similar play in which Carlton Fisk tagged out two guys trying to score, the play relives before every Sox home game on the scoreboard.

Congratulations to Freddy Sanchez on winning the NL batting title. He’s the first Bucco since Bill “Mad Dog” Madlock in 1983 to capture the crown. Nobody could have predicted this before the season since the Pirates themselves weren’t even convinced that Sanchez had the tools to be an everyday player. It was by pure luck the he became an everyday player in 2006. Despite the fact that in his first full season he hit .295 and he was the player they wanted badly when trading Jeff Suppan to the Red Sox the Pirates inexplicably went out in the winter of 2005-06 and signed an aging Joe Randa. The ironic thing is that the Pirates traded for Randa in 1996 in the last of the fire sales dumping Jay Bell and Jeff King to KC. All Randa did was hit .302 that season but for some reason the Pirates didn’t re-sign him that winter and he left for Detroit. If Randa didn’t get hurt early this season the NL batting champ would have spent the season on the bench. And for those who think that Freddy’s title was a fluke here’s a look at how he has fared against some of the best in the game in his brief career (the following chart is from the Pirates MLB.com website).

Brandon Webb: 2-for-6
John Smotlz: 3-for-10
Mark Buehrle: 2-for-6
Jose Contreras: 2-for-3
Bronson Arroyo: 2-for-5
Dontrelle Willis: 6-for-10
Roger Clemens: 4-for-10
Roy Oswalt: 6-for-18
Andy Pettitte: 7-for-20
Greg Maddux: 6-for-11
Chris Capuano: 8-for-18
Johan Santana: 2-for-3
Pedro Martinez: 2-for-4
Chris Carpenter: 6-for-17

BIG HURT KISSING IT GOODBYE

The World Champion Chicago White Sox officially kissed the World Series Championship Trophy goodbye last night. With Chicago’s 14-1 loss, coupled with Minnesota’s 8-1 win, the Southsiders were officially eliminated from postseason play. Chicago has never made the playoffs in back to back seasons in the team’s history. Rather than whine about this year’s team, I’ll lift my glass once again to the 2005 Chicago White Sox, how sweet it was! It is kind of ironic that the picture above shows the Big Hurt kissing the trophy. Frank Thomas, arguably the greatest player in White Sox history, was discarded like yesterday’s news. Thomas caught on with the Oakland A’s who are just about to clinch the AL West and a playoff spot, thanks in large part to Frank’s offensive contributions as the team’s DH.

In a Post-Mortem I was asked to identify three things that went wrong this year…
1) Ever playing Rob Mackowiak in centerfield. The White Sox traded last year’s starting centerfielder Aaron Rowand to the Phillies in exchange for DH Jim Thome. Also they traded CF prospect Chris Young, along with El Duque, & Luis Vizcaino to the D*Backs for starting pitcher Javier Vazquez. Then there was the deal with another centerfield hopeful Jerry Owens, he decided he’d had enough of winterball, and went home, leaving Brian Anderson as the only centerfield option on the roster. But GM Kenny Williams went out and solidified the bench by picking up outfielder Rob Mackowiak and infielder Alex Cintron. Mackowiak is a good backup corner outfielder and can play 2B & 3B in a jam, but he cannot play CF! Yet time after time Manager Ozzie Guillen marched Rob out to center, and time after time he cost the team games with his poor play in centerfield. Don’t get me wrong, Brian Anderson is not an All Star, but at least he can catch the ball, he’s a very good outfielder. Anderson got off to a very slow start, but picked it up after the All Star break and shouldn’t have missed a game in the second half. Also to a much lesser degree Alex Cintron shouldn’t have started a game in the 2nd half unless Juan Uribe or Tadahito Iguchi were injured. This was a young ballclub, and you gotta go with the horses who brung you.
2) Not replacing aces of 2005’s bullpen Dustin Hermanson (2.04 ERA with 34 saves), Cliff Politte (2.00 ERA in 68 games), & Luis Vizcaino (3.73 ERA in 70 innings) was a critical error. Damaso Marte was traded to the Bucs for Rob Mackowiak, but he was replaced when the Sox sent outfielder Joe Borchard to the Mariners for a dependable portsider Matt Thornton. Like I said earlier Vizcaino was packaged off to Arizona. Politte had no velocity in spring training and it never returned, making him very hittable. Hermanson had a bad back all season long. Neal Cotts slumped back into 2004 when he had a 5.65 ERA, 5.20 in 2006, a nifty 1.94 ERA in 2005. BIG BAD Bobby Jenks was THE MAN in the bullpen saving 40 of 44 opportunities. In fairness Mike MacDougal was picked up from KC and was lights out, but he might have gotten here a little too late. Also David Riske was acquired from the Red Sox, but wasn’t effective. Another ineffective relief pitcher this year was Brandon McCarthy (4.88 ERA with a 3-7 record), his stuff seems much better suited to starting.
3) Mark Buehrle! What happened to Mark Buehrle? Last year he was one of the most consistent pitchers in baseball, this year he’s one of the biggest question marks. Last season he was 16-8 with a 3.12 ERA in 236 2/3 innings of work, this year he’s got a 4.99 ERA and a record of 12-13 in 204 innings on the bump. Buehrle won his first three decisions of the year and it looked like the same old same old. Then on May 14th it happened, the wheels seemed to fall off, Mark allowed seven first inning runs to the Minnesota Twins, and although he went on to get the win in that ballgame, he was never the same. And then there were some pre-Independence Day fireworks at Wrigley Field against the Cubs, the lefthander allowed 11 runs on 13 hits over five innings. His record before that start was 9-4, but he went on to lose his next five decisions. Before this year he was likened to former Oakland A’s pitcher Catfish Hunter, although Hunter threw with his righthand there were a lot of similarities between the two workhorses. They both took the hill when scheduled and didn’t leave the game till there was a W posted.

Besides these three reasons there is the hunger factor, along with the fact that most of these 2006 White Sox players are really nice guys, not to mention three of the best teams in baseball happen to be in the AL Central (only two can make the playoffs).

HUNGER: Watching the Detroit Tigers & Minnesota Twins play ball this year brought me back to the 2005 Chicago White Sox. Last year there was a different hero everyday, and that’s how it is with this season’s Tigers & Twins. This year’s Sox team sometimes seemed as though they were waiting for Jim Thome, Jermaine Dye, or Paul Konerko to carry the team, rather than doing the little things to win a ballgame. Despite the fact that Chicago’s offense scored a lot of runs, they had slow runners clogging the basepaths, struck out a lot, and didn’t do well with moving runners along or sacrificing, they did hit a lot of home runs.

NICE GUYS DON’T MAKE THE PLAYOFFS: Everyone talked about the White Sox team chemistry, but something was missing, perhaps an element of bad. The only prick on this year’s team was A.J. Pierzynski. There didn’t seem to be anybody to step up and take charge when needed. All season long there didn’t seem to be a sense of urgency. This year’s team didn’t have Frank Thomas, Carl Everett, nor Orlando Hernandez (none of whom would blend into the background).

TIGERS, TWINS, & WHITE SOX IN THE AL CENTRAL: Besides the AL Central having three of the best teams in baseball, it also has one of the worst teams – the KC Royals. So these three top feeders had the benefit of playing more games against the hapless Royals. This is the first time the Wildcard team will come out of the AL Central, we’ll see how the division holds up in post season play. Last year of course the Good Guys won it all. And this year’s team had a pretty good year, with 87 wins so far, the highest attendance total in team history, and 52 home sellouts (topping 2005’s record of 18) by almost triple. So there is a lot to look forward to for my Chicago White Sox.

LET’S GO WHITE SOX!!!

Welcome Back Zack! 22 year old KC Royals righthander Zack Greinke was recalled from the minors. Just before his 3rd big league season Greinke left spring training to get treatment for emotional issues. He is the 31st pitcher used by the Royals this year, a franchise record. Although he has an 8.10 ERA in 3 1/3 innings of work, it’s great to see this phenom back in the majors, where he belongs.

Although Cincinnati Reds starting pitcher Chris Michalak didn’t pitch five innings in his Friday night start against the Chicago Cubs he was the winning pitcher. Michalak was leading 4-2 when he was removed, having pitched only 4 1/3 innings, and then the game was called after five innings. Chris is a lefty Golden Domer, born in Joliet, IL. I’ve included a copy of MLB rule 10.19 (b) below.

10.19 (b)The “must pitch five complete innings” rule in respect to the starting pitcher shall be in effect for all games of six or more innings. In a five-inning game, credit the starting pitcher with a game won if he has pitched at least four complete innings and his team not only is in the lead when he is replaced but remains in the lead the remainder of the game.

Compliments of my cousin Charlie and his wife Chris, my wife and I spent Friday night at Busch Stadium watching the Cardinals play host to the Giants.

The Cards defeated the Giants 14-4. Looking back at the box score, something popped out at me. The Cards had 11 hits, 5 walks, (and one Giants error) and scored 14 runs. Very efficient scoring. Only 3 LOB for the team.

I was looking forward to seeing Albert, of course. His big chance came of course, when the wife and I were the midst of walking around the stadium. We were walking along the outfield plaza when I notice the scoreboard says “Chris Duncan BB RBI”. That can only mean one thing:

Albert Pujols is up with the bases loaded.

…and I know how much he loves that. So I deserted my wife to get a good vantage point knowing that something was going to happen. Sure enough, he slaps a 2-run single to left.

My sojourn to Busch now had meaning.

Other highlights:

-Scott Rolen was the big stick. He hit two homeruns, a double with 7 rbis.

-Chris Duncan also hit 2 homeruns

-University of Illinois alum Scott Speizio went 2 for 4 with 2 runs and an rbi.

-oh, Barry Bonds went 1 for 3… and he was booed. How original.

As a park, I enjoyed Busch II. It kinda reminds me of the Cell in some ways. As I said, Joan and I walked the perimeter and enjoyed the sights along the way. They took down the scoreboard from the old park and have it displayed along the inside perimeter. The scores of the games of the day they took it down are still on there. Cubs lost to Astros 4-0.

My souvenir from the day? An Albert Pujols bobblehead. I think he will come with me on all Illowa APBA functions.

Many thanks to Charlie and Chris (who by the way, keeps a mean scorecard) for hosting us for the weekend.

9/11/06: Jose Contreras outdueled John Lackey to give the White Sox a 1-0 lead in this three game series with the Halos. Although the Angels doubled up on the Pale Hose in hits, 8-4, the Good Guys got this one 3-2 as Contreras struck out eight and walked only one over eight innings, allowing only one run. The 5th inning was Lackey’s undoing as the Sox got three of their four hits and all three runs. BIG BAD Bobby Jenks started the 9th and the Angels almost came back from the dead in the 9th, Vlad Guerrero got a leadoff single, Garret Anderson got a single, making it first & third with Juan Rivera at the plate. Earlier in the game Rivera almost broke his wrist, Hideki Matsui style, so when he stepped to the plate I kept the faith. And my faith was rewarded as Juan swung at the first pitch, grounding into a tailor made DP, making the score 3-2. Howie Kendrick was completely overmatched and Bobby Jenks picked up his 40th save.

9/12/06: This was a tough loss. 9/11’s goat Juan Rivera picked a first inning Mark Buehrle pitch off his shoetops and lined it just fair around the leftfield foul pole to give LAA a quick 2-0 lead. The Sox again scored three in the 5th, but that’s all they got. The Angels tied it when a popfly fell in with a man on third and the infield in. Ervin Santana & Buehrle allowed three runs through seven. Mike Scioscia played little ball off Bobby Jenks in the bottom of the 11th, Garret Anderson got a leadoff single, Tommy Murphy running for Anderson was bunted up by pinch hitter Reggie Willits batting for Robb Quinlan, Adam Kennedy batting for Jose Molina was intentionally walked, Howie Kendrick hit into an FC, his speed saved a DP, Chone Figgins lined an RBI single to end it, 4-3 Halos.

9/13/06: I was wondering how my guys would come out after their tough extra inning loss, but Freddy Garcia was in TOTAL control! The Angels got one more hit than a dead man and they got that with two outs in the bottom of the 8th, when Adam Kennedy lined a single to break up a perfecto. The White Sox offense was really rolling as they scored seven in 3 1/3 innings off Joe Saunders, one more in the 9th, and Scioscia didn’t use a reliever that mattered when it was obvious his team didn’t show up. In fact the score would have been the same as a forfeit, 9-0 Good Guys! No homers for the White Sox. It could have been worse, but Tadahito Iguchi pulled up just shy of home plate on a Paul Konerko double and was tagged out easily. The only explanation I could come up with was he thought the ball was caught for out number three, no harm, no foul.

Now the White Sox are Movin on Up, both up the coast and up in the standings. As the ChiSox are matched up with the Oakland A’s in a three game weekend series. The A’s are in 1st place in the AL West, while Chicago is in 3rd in the AL Central. To say this is a big series would be an understatement. Ozzie Guillen & his boys will have to do it against the Big Hurt. Here’s hoping we can help the Angels playoff hopes, wonder if they’ll thank us after we take three from Oakland? Next week, Detroit is at the Cell. It does appear both the Minnesota Twins and the Detroit Tigers are hungrier than the White Sox, but we are the Champions!

LET’S GO WHITE SOX!!!