After the Excitement of the Longball Festival the year before, Oscar Gamble and Richie Zisk were among the missing, having opted for extravagant free-agent deals (As did Infielder Jack Brohamer). Shortly, manager Bob Lemon was also gone. On June 30th Lemon was fired with the club 34 - 40 and 5.5 games out. Larry Doby was named the manager but did no better, the White Sox finished fifth (71-90), 20.5 games behind. One of the name players acquired in the Off-season shuffling was Bobby Bonds but we traded to Texas for Claudell Washington, hitting .167 at Texas, batted .264 in 88 games for the Sox. Chet Lemon hit .300 with 13 homers and 55 RBI's and Wayne Nordhagen batted .301 although both battled injury all season. Jorge Orta (.274) also had 13 homers. Steve Stone (12-12), Ken Kravec (11-16) and Wilbur Wood (10-10) were the top winners and Lerrin Lagrow who had 25 saves in 1976, saved 16.