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.

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What should we think of rebuild; does All Star Abreu have future in Chicago?

Chicago White Sox fans are likely to get the highlight of 2018 come next week in Washington, D.C., when first baseman Jose Abreu starts for the American League in the baseball All Star game scheduled for next Tuesday.

Could Jose become a White Sox immortal someday?

Abreu, it seems, got so many fan votes that he is the top player at first base for the league. Which is an accomplishment, since first base is usually a position so overloaded with top hitters that many a talented ballplayer throughout the years has been crowded out of the All Star game because that was their position.

SO IT WOULD have been understandable if the best ballplayer the White Sox employ these days would not have made it onto the league’s All Star team.

But he did. White Sox fans will be able to enjoy that bit of glory that at least one of the players on their dreadfully mediocre team of 2018 is worth having around. He’ll be the bragging rights that Sout’ Side-oriented fans will be able to chat about next week.

And it could wind up being the bit of a boost for the White Sox, who are trying to justify their lack of concern over the 30-win, 60-loss (as of Monday) team the White Sox are putting forth this year.

We’re supposed to be in a rebuilding mode, which means the potential for young talent that will someday surround the veteran Abreu with equal talent – to the point where in just a couple of years, it will seem odd that the White Sox could ever have delved to the lows that we’ve seen last year and this.

Payton played for weak Bears teams before '86

THEN AGAIN, CONSIDER that things can change quickly in baseball.

It was just three years ago that the Kansas City Royals were a World Series-winning ball club. Now, they’re a team with only 25 wins this year – and the reason the White Sox can claim to not even be the worst ball club in their American League division; let alone all of baseball.

Of course, there are some people out there who are convinced that what the White Sox ought to be doing with their best current (and one of their best ever) ball players is – repeat after me – “TRADE HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Could Abreu top Minnie for top Cuban Sox

The theory being that some other team wishing to have Jose’s big bat (12 home runs and 59 runs batted in, as of this week) to help them win THIS YEAR might be capable of giving up some young “kid” who might be capable of being a star come 2020 or 2021.

WHICH, THE WHITE Sox marketing people will claim, is the time about when it might be possible to expect the ball club to “not suck” quite so bad as they do now.

Abreu being the ballplayer who’s already 31 years old (meaning he’s on the tail end of his physical prime as a ballplayer), and it might be helpful long-term to let go of him now, rather than thinking he’d still be of use at ages 33 and 34 (which is what he’d be if still a part of the White Sox) in ’20 and ’21.

Of course, if the Chicago Bears had followed the same line of logic, they would have let their immortal star Walter Payton leave just before that Super Bowl-winning year of 1986 and those contending teams of the late 1980s.

We’d probably have Bears fans now ranting about how the team gave up on “Sweetness” and didn’t include him in the chance for athletic glory at the team’s peak.

SO IS THIS just a matter of sports fans who can feel malcontent regardless of what their favorite team actually does?

Is the "L" flag destined to return to Wrigley?

Keep Abreu, and they’re being shortsighted. Get rid of him, and the White Sox will regret it if he and his big bat are the missing piece of a contending team the White Sox hope/wish/dream they’ll have around 2021.

Because personally, I could see how that future White Sox contending team could be one built around Abreu – who will wind up being the leader of a core of Cuban and other Latino ballplayers who play in the mold of past White Sox stars like Minnie Miñoso and Luis Aparicio.

Besides, it could also be that many of the people who want Abreu dealt away from Chicago are nothing more than Cubs fans realizing that 2016 is history, their own “winning” ways aren’t forever and it’s just a matter of time before the “L” flag becomes the symbol flown atop the Wrigley Field scoreboard on a regular basis.

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Will Abreu remain in Chi beyond ’17?

The Chicago White Sox openly talk about how they’re scraping their whole ball club as part of a rebuild – a do-over of sorts that they hope could result in championship-quality teams by 2020.

Could Abreu lead White Sox rebuild?

But there’s a certain sense that the rebuild actually began in 2014 when Cuban star slugger Jose Abreu signed on with the team.

DURING THE PAST four seasons, Abreu has been one of the few attractions worth seeing at Guaranteed Rate Field. Typically, it would make sense that because of his worthwhile statistics (which include a batting average of .301, 124 home runs and 410 runs batted in, and a .359 on base percentage), he’d be trade bait.

For as the legendary baseball executive Branch Rickey once said of his star slugger Ralph Kiner with some lousy Pittsburgh Pirates teams, “We finished last with you, we can finish last without you.”

No ballplayer is ever untouchable. Not even for the White Sox, who last winter traded away their top pitcher, Chris Sale, to the Boston Red Sox.

So it shouldn’t be surprising to learn of the reports that several ball clubs have contacted the White Sox to express interest in acquiring Abreu and his big bat. Even the Red Sox.

WHO EVEN THOUGH they won their division title last year fell short in the playoffs, in part because first base is a weak position for them. Acquiring Jose would be a significant move in their ongoing battle to try to become superior to the New York Yankees (they’re not, but that’s a story for a different day).

Moncada looks to Abreu for leadership

So are the rumor mills onto something? Are the White Sox about to trade away their best ballplayer? For what it’s worth, the SB Nation website grades this particular rumor an “A.”

Yet I can’t help but think that if the White Sox truly are on the verge of making this move, it will be the action that turns out short-sighted. And not just because most of the people who are all excited about such a move are the ones who are interested in how it would help Boston – and don’t seem to care what happens in Chicago.

I wonder how the people who do have an interest in a Chicago White Sox rebuild appreciate how significant the Cuban angle is in all of this. We literally have the potential to have our own Cuban core dominating Sout’ Side baseball.

As likely will Robert

WHAT WITH THE young talent of Yoan Moncada and Luis Robert coming to Chicago. Moncada has already arrived and has shown some signs of the potential star he could become, while Robert is firmly in the White Sox minor league system.

Both were acquired in deals (Moncada was the prize Boston gave up in order to pry Sale loose from Chicago) during 2017. Both were Cuban ballplayers, and both were excited to come to Chicago largely because they knew Abreu when all three were still playing on the Caribbean island.

It certainly was more significant to them that Abreu was here, rather than the fact that Minnie Miñoso played in Chicago a half century ago.

I don’t think you can over-exaggerate the significance of the mentor role that Abreu would play in a rebuilt White Sox ball club. It could literally be the three Cuban stars (playing at first and second base, along with center field) who could be the key to that future championship ball club that White Sox fans are eagerly dreaming of.

Minoso the Cuban past

AND YES, I’M a firm believer in intangibles (unlike those who can’t look past statistics) in determining a ballplayer’s worth to his team.

Some might say that Abreu could bring in a whole slew of talent. However, I doubt that Boston (or any other ball club) would be willing to give up that much in exchange for one slugger – no matter how many dents he could add to the famed left field wall at Boston’s Fenway Park.

Encouraging that Cuban core could be the key to a rebuild that actually works, as opposed to one that merely produces second place teams – rather than the fourth place ball club the White Sox had this year.

Is the pair attending a hockey game in Las Vegas really as interesting as would-be Cuban beisbol revolution?

And it would certainly be more interesting than the dreams of Chicago Cubs fans these days – the ones that say Washington Nationals star Bryce Harper is eager to come to the North Side team to pair up with old high school friend Kris Bryant. Just so they could lose someday to a White Sox-style Cuban beisbol revolution.

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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.

  -30-

Chgo baseball on view for world to see

It will be intriguing to see how Chicago White Sox fans cope with the "big game" their ball club's star pitcher will be starting Friday night.

Who do Sox fans root for?

Jose Quintana will take to the mound at Marlins' Park in Miami, where his "home" Colombia national team will begin to play in the World Baseball Classic, the international tourney that began earlier this week in Asian parts of the world and now comes to the western hemisphere.

YET THE CONFLICT will be for those White Sox fans who just can't get with the baseball program and want to let their nationalistic sentiments prevail.

Because the Colombia national squad plays its first game Friday against team United States of America! Which, by the way, includes amongst its ranks White Sox relief pitchers Nate Jones and Dave Robertson.

Who do you root for? Do you stick by your favorite local team? Or do you root for your home country?

Do White Sox fans want Quintana to go out and get trashed, preferably early, so he doesn't throw too many pitches? Or would they rather see him do well on the grounds that a solid performance in a prominent ballgame will reflect well on Quintana, and boost his trade value?

BECAUSE QUINTANA WAS one of the pitchers whom the White Sox were looking to trade last winter, hoping to get lots of young quality (and cheap) prospects in return that could help bolster the quality of the ball club quickly.

Former White Sox star nicknamed 'el Charro Negro'

But this is just one of the many baseball scenarios that will play out in the next couple of weeks, which is why I feel sorry for those individuals who want to denigrate the World Baseball Classic. It's real-live baseball back (and not just a spring training game like the one played Wednesday in which overhyped former football star Tim Tebow got applause for hitting into a double play that managed to drive in a run for the New York Mets) after the winter chill.

Personally, I'm following the play of Mexico's national team, which began Thursday night with a 10-9 loss against team Italy (following losses this week to the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks at their spring training camps). I find it intriguing that their first round of games is being played in a stadium near Guadalajara, which happens to be where my maternal grandfather came from.

Pitching for Mexico, then White Sox

And also is the home stadium of the Jalisco Charros -- a team that includes amongst its athletic and managerial alumni the late Minnie Minoso of the White Sox.

THE MEXICAN NATIONAL team also happens to include Miguel Gonzalez, who pitched last year for the White Sox following several seasons with the Baltimore Orioles and himself is Guadalajara-born (but a Southern California native). Which means he expects to have family sitting in the stands for the games against Italy, Venezuela and Puerto Rico.

For those of you who feel this commentary is getting too Sox-centric, relax. There are some Chicago Cubs ballplayers who qualify as being amongst the world's elite. Cubs infielder Javy Baez will be playing second base for the Puerto Rico national team, while White Sox pitcher Giovani Soto will be pitching for that Boricuan squad.

Making the most of an Israeli 'first'

Not that there hasn't been local angles to the play thus far. The big story of the World Baseball Classic has been the surprise play of the Israel national team, which was figured to be a token squad that would get its butt kicked out in the first round. Instead, they went undefeated -- including crushing the Taiwan team and beating Korea in a game played in a ballpark in Seoul.

One of the Israeli ballplayers in that game was Alex Katz, a White Sox minor leaguer who pitched an inning in relief. While another White Sox minor leaguer is Brad Goldberg, who is being added to the Israel national squad that resumes play Sunday in Tokyo (Saturday at 9 p.m., Chicago time). Yes, it's one of the tournament's quirks that they can add more ballplayers so as to reduce the chance of anyone suffering a severe injury that hurts the professional team they play for during the summer months.

SO FOR THOSE of you who are letting your nativist thoughts get the best of you and claiming the World Baseball Classic is a sham (because nothing beats the appeal of a late-season Tampa Bay Rays/Minnesota Twins matchup, right!), keep in mind that I'm also aware that the be-all and end-all of baseball will not be the championship game to be played March 22 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

Puerto Rico infielder once defended Des Moines honor

I'm just as intrigued as how all of this impacts the American and National league activity in upcoming summers. So as for that Quintana start Friday night against Team U.S.A., I'll be the first to admit I won't be disappointed if the Colombian kid manages to shut our national team down.

A good game could help boost his trade value, which could result in the White Sox getting some talent back in return that could make the Summer of '17 a little more pleasant while enduring the scene now at Guaranteed Rate Field.

While also putting the White Sox a step closer to fulfilling their end of achieving the ultimate fantasy of true Chicago baseball fans -- an all-Chicago World Series, one in which the White Sox show their superiority over a certain other ball club that wants to believe they're all that matter in the world of baseball.

  -30-

‘No ballgame today’ – we’ll have to wait ‘til spring for baseball to return

It looks so simple on paper – 5-3 – marked under a column of the scorecard for the 10^th inning.

There's no lonelier place than an off-season ballfield

I’m sure those who are Chicago Cubs fans will forevermore regard as a happy moment that bit indicating the groundball hit to third baseman Kris Bryant, then thrown to Anthony Rizzo at first base for the final out that ensured the first World Series title ever for a team that plays its home games at Wrigley Field.

YET I HAVE to confess to feeling a twinge of sadness at that sight.

Not because I cared about the Cubs or had a strong rooting interest in either team that was playing. But because I enjoy baseball.

And the final out of the final game of the World Series each year always brings out a feeling in me that the game is gone; for the time being.

Perhaps it’s because professional baseball teams play nearly every day during the season that they become truly wrapped up in the routines of our lives; in a way that the Chicago Bears with their once-a-week loss (or so it seems) just can’t.

THERE IS A beauty to the form of the ballgame as the pitcher vs. hitter challenge takes place; trying to see if one can out-think the other to their success. With other ballplayers hopping into action in those spare moments when contact is made with the ball.

Producing those moments that inspire newspaper photographers into action – freezing forever those bits of action for us to study. The diving catch. The bobbled ball. That moment of agony on an outfielder’s face as he realizes the fly ball is headed over the fence – and there’s not a thing he can do to stop it!

Even non-North Side felt something for Cubs

These moments that can make watching a ballgame a real treasure. Totally lost on those kinds of people who think anything other than a 15-9 ballgame is boring – although I actually think those high-scoring slugfests are dull because it usually means the pitching stinks, errors are being made in the field and everything is out-of-whack.

And now, it’s over. Another season is in the record books. Something that can be studied by those inclined to do so, while many of us will remember the individual moments of the games we actually saw. We’ll likely exaggerate their significance.

Line shot will never depart my mind

JUST AS I will forever recall a line drive double that Reggie Jackson hit off the right field wall at Comiskey Park in a 1979 ballgame – it struck me as being the hardest-hit ball I ever saw.

On the scorecard, it looks like a simple “2B-9” hit off pitcher Ken Kravec. But I remember it as a sizzling shot that never went more than 15 or so feet in the air – and would have been a home run if it had cleared the fence a foot higher instead of smashing into the wall.

Of course, the likely story would have been White Sox fan killed by Yankee home run. Because I doubt any fan in the outfield stands could have reacted quickly enough to avoid being hit in the face by the drive.

It’s these little moments that stick in my mind about baseball. The sight of ballplayers congregated on the pitcher’s mound deep in discussion about the game (and wondering if they’re really checking out the blonde who got herself a box seat right behind the dugout).

THE MANAGER CHARGING out of the dugout to argue with an umpire’s call – and knowing that the choice words he’d like to use to describe the ump’s mother will get him ejected!

Watching the coaches relay all those signals to the batter – and wondering how screwed up things will get if the coach inadvertently scratches his earlobe at the wrong moment?

I’d be willing to bet that similar thoughts are running through the minds of baseball fans everywhere – although for those who are Cubs-obsessed, they were able to delay them a bit, what with the parade that stretched from Wrigley Field through downtown on Friday.

Particularly if you’re inclined to believe Gov. Bruce Rauner, who in issuing the proclamation declaring Friday in Illinois to be World Champion Chicago Cubs Day said, “the Cubs winning the World Series is bigger than baseball.”

Baseball will be back come April

WHETHER YOU AGREE with that statement or not, the season is now over.

Unless you’re inclined to check out the stats in the assorted Latin American winter leagues (where, by the way, the late White Sox star Minnie Miñoso’s old Jalisco Charros team – he both played for, and managed, them – beat the Hermosillo Orange Growers 11-8 Thursday night), you’ll have to endure some five months of inactivity before we again see meaningful games being played.

For some of us, an empty ballpark is an even sadder sight than one when our favorite ball club loses.

  -30-

EXTRA: Baseball truly a global game, even though some wish it weren’t

So just what should we make of the fact that Ichiro Suzuki, the aging outfielder for the Miami Marlins who was the first big star ballplayer to come to this country out of Japan, has theoretically topped Pete Rose for the number of base hits in his career?

I say theoretically because Suzuki hasn't officially reached the 3,000-hit milestone yet (he needs 21 more base hits to achieve that goal), while Rose over the course of his career playing for the Cincinnati Reds and other National League teams got more than 4,200 hits.

BUT WHEN ONE contemplates the fact that Suzuki got some 1,278 base hits while playing for nine seasons for the Orix Blue Wave in Japan’s professional leagues.

Making him some sort of international hit king at the professional level. While some others are all too eager to denigrate the achievement in various ways. They’re determined to claim it is an irrelevant goal that we shouldn’t pay any attention to. Then again, there also were those who couldn’t stand it when famed Japanese ballplayer Sadaharu Oh hit more home runs in Japan than either Babe Ruth or Hank Aaron managed in the United States.

While I personally admit that I think adding up Suzuki’s 1,278 Japan base hits and his 2,979 (as of Wednesday) hits in this country is an oversimplified stat that means about as much as getting the most pinch hits during the third week of August, I don’t like the hostile tone of those overeager to diminish Ichiro.

Who has a significance both athletic and cultural in the way he became the first non-pitcher of any significance from Japan to achieve success in U.S. baseball.

I'LL BE THE  first to admit the professional leagues in this country do play ball at a higher level than any other place o Planet Earth, but not because of any supposed superiority by naturally-born U.S. citizens when it comes to the game.

If anything, it is because our professional leagues literally attract the best the world has to offer. And that is because of money. All of those Latin American stars on major league teams across the country probably would have stayed back home if they could have made as much money doing so as they get here.

I’ll go so far as to say that the only reason the Central and Pacific leagues in Japan are not considered superior to the U.S. American and National leagues is because of all those “foreigners” whom some baseball fans seem to wish they could do away with.

Heck, just think of how much better the Dominican or Venezuelan leagues would be if they could keep all their home-grown talent in their native countries?

I WONDER IF the people most anxious to denigrate the Suzuki achievement are the ones who wish he’d have somehow stayed home, thereby depriving fans here of the chance to enjoy the skill with which he has played baseball since coming to this country back in 2001.

Or many of the other great stars of recent decades who have made our ball clubs in this country capable of playing at a higher skill level than ever before?

Such as Minnie Miñoso, who played many years in the outfield for the Chicago White Sox of the 1950s, but also has stats from playing professionally in Cuba and Mexico that give him a cumulative total of 4,073 base hits.

It’s a shame that it’s only now after his death that we’re fully appreciating what a talent we had playing in our fair city.

EVEN THOUGH HE has yet to make the Baseball Hall of Fame in this country Miñoso is in the Halls of Fame in both Mexico and Cuba. Which may be the ultimate achievement that Suzuki achieves if he becomes the first inductee of the Halls of Fame both in Japan and Cooperstown, N.Y.

Although that would pale in comparison to the record of Martin Dihigo, a black Cuban native who actually is in the Halls of Fame in Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela and Cooperstown, albeit for his performance in this country back in the Negro leagues of old -- which is why most fans of this country are totally clueless of this international sensation known as El Maestro or El Immortal.

It’s a good thing we can claim to have seen someone such as Ichiro actually having played ball – and only a shame that we never got to see him don a Chicago uniform.

Although knowing the White Sox’ history of acquiring aging stars after they’re washed up (anyone remember Steve Carlton, Jose Canseco or Ken Griffey, Jr., in a Sox uniform?), we may get him on the Sout’ Side come 2018 or so. 

  -30-

EXTRA: Sox v. Cubs take to Havana?

Nothing is definite yet, but there are talks of having Major League Baseball clubs play spring training exhibitions in Cuba.

Do North Siders wish the 'a' were an 's'

Which could result in the possibility of a White Sox vs. Cubs spectacle being played in Havana – where in the Cuban League the city split is between fans of the Industrials and the Metropolitans.

WHAT WOULD FANATICOS of Cuban beisbol think of the South Side/North Side split that is so characteristic of Chicago baseball?

What makes this matchup possible is that the U.S. major leagues would probably want to send ball clubs that have prominent players from Cuba. It’s not like the Cuban fans who’d cram their way into the Estadio Latinoamericano would care all that much about somebody like Jake Arrieta or Jon Lester – even though I know Cubs fans think the whole world revolves around their preferred ball club.

That is something both of our city’s professional ball clubs have – the White Sox have as their star player Jose Abreu, while the Cubs include on their roster Jorge Soler.

There’s also the possibility the White Sox will once again have shortstop Alexi Ramirez back on the roster by spring training. And White Sox legend Minnie Miñoso also could make the Cubano fanaticos honorary Sout’ Side fans – unless there are Cubanos who remember Jose Cardenal, the one-time Cub with the legendary afro!

The Cubs' all-time Cuban great

NOW I KNOW some baseball fans (usually the ones who deep down resent the heavy Latin American influence that exists in U.S. baseball) are already nitpicking about the Cuban laws that prevent those Cuban citizens who defected from their home nation to come to this country from even being able to dream of returning.

Yes, there are laws that would have to be addressed. Although I suspect for the glory and glamour that the Cuban government would get from being able to host some U.S. major league baseball games, they’d figure out a way to overcome the “shame” they feel that someone like Abreu would rather play on the South Side rather than in his home city of Cienfuegos or for Equipo Cuba (as in the national team).

I’m not saying that baseball would “buy off” the Cuban government to get these games played.

The 'Cuban Comet' himself

But whatever deal is ultimately worked out may bear a strong resemblance to those campaign contributions to Chicago politico types that technically aren’t bribes but have the stink of them to the general public!

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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.

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