Lip Man 1

https://chicago.suntimes.com/white-sox/2026/01/15/white-sox-open-international-signing-period-with-18-signings

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/16/arlington-heights-chicago-bears-lawmakers/

Good for the Dodgers, they care about winning unlike a bunch of other teams.

They'll still be the Chicago Bears if they play in Northwest Indiana. It's only a name after all.

Have added another entry to the factoids for today.

January 15, 1964 – Baseball owners voted to begin a free agent draft, beginning in 1965. What the owners approved is what we now regard as the amateur draft, held each summer. That first draft, held on June 8, 1965, saw the White Sox selecting catcher Ken Plesha of the University of Notre Dame at No. 17 overall. Thirteen of the 20 picks in that first round eventually made it to the majors — just not Plesha, who lasted four years and three seasons (he sat out 1967) in the White Sox system, never making it past A-ball. Drafts of the 1960s and 1970s tended to be ridiculous, with no set rounds; teams could just pick as long as they wanted. The inaugural 1965 draft went 72 rounds, with Baltimore and Houston making almost all of the picks of the final 10 rounds or so, and the Astros outlasting everyone, picking into the 70s. The White Sox made 41 picks, with only five players ever seeing the Major Leagues and just one, pitcher Paul Edmondson (21st Round), having a positive impact. Edmondson had that production over just 14 games in 1969. He appeared destined for big things, if not for a car accident on the way to spring training 1970 that took his life. January 15, 2003 – It was another bold stab by G.M. Kenny Williams as he acquired starter Bartolo Colon as part of a three-way deal with Montreal and the Yankees. Colon had a good season for the Sox… 15 wins, 242 innings pitched and 173 strikeouts before inking a large deal with Anaheim where he’d win the Cy Young Award that season. Williams brought him back in 2009 hoping for the same but got little for his troubles. In fact, Colon got hurt, was overweight and when assigned to a minor league rehab stint never reported! It was rumored that Colon was distraught over the death of entertainer Michael Jackson, and when manager Ozzie Guillen heard such, he emptied out Colon’s locker and dumped the possessions in the hallway outside of the White Sox clubhouse! January 15, 2021 – The White Sox continued to make strong moves to get back into serious contention for a championship. On this date they announced the signing to a free agent contract of Liam Hendriks, one of the top relief pitchers in baseball to a multi-year deal. The contract would net the Australian right hander 54 million dollars over three, possibly four years. Since taking over as the A’s closer on June 21, 2019, Hendriks had recorded a 1.99 ERA over 68 innings pitched, with 39 saves, 111 strikeouts in 65 appearances. His contract had an unusual twist, perhaps the first of its kind in baseball. The fourth year of the deal had an option year, worth 15 million but included a 15-million-dollar buyout. If the White Sox declined the option, the buyout would be paid in 10 equal installments between 2024 and 2033. Hendriks wouldn’t disappoint posting 38 saves, a 2.54 ERA and 113 strikeouts against only seven walks in his first year on the South Side winning A.L. Relief Pitcher of the Year honors. He followed it up in 2022 with 37 saves an ERA of 2.81 and 85 strikeouts vs. 18 walks. At the end of that season however it was discovered that he had lymphoma which fortunately he was able to beat after cancer treatments. Then he had Tommy John surgery after making a remarkable comeback. Between the two events he missed most of the 2023 season. The Sox then declined the fourth-year option and Hendriks signed with the Red Sox missing the 2024 campaign, returning in 2025.

He's also owned some very successful restaurants from what I understand. I think in the Phoenix area if I remember right.

While I think there is some truth in his statement, baseball history shows plenty of teams that couldn't stand one another but won because they had great talent. The Oakland A's won three straight World Series titles despite instances like players literally fighting in the clubhouse before a playoff game and then you had the Yankee teams of the late 1970's aka The Bronx Zoo. If I have to choose between character or talent, I'll take talent every time.

January 14, 1963 - It was the move that re-energized the franchise and led directly to back-to-back-to-back 90 or more-win seasons in 1963, 1964 and 1965. Sox G. M. Ed Short traded shortstop Luis Aparicio and outfielder Al Smith to the Orioles for third baseman Pete Ward, outfielder Dave Nicholson, shortstop Ron Hansen and relief pitcher Hoyt Wilhelm. Trading Aparicio was a shock but contractual differences between him and the team and the bad feelings it produced made a deal necessary. Ward would be named Co-Rookie of the Year (with teammate Gary Peters) and would supply power for the next few seasons. In 1963 and 1964 Ward averaged 22 home runs, 89 RBI’s and hit .290 before an accident where he was a passenger in a car leaving Chicago Stadium after a hockey game severely impacted his career. He suffered whiplash and never felt comfortable at the plate ever again. Nicholson, who struck out far too much, still had 22 home runs and 70 RBI’s in 1963. Hansen would be one of the best defensive shortstops in the league and hit as many as 20 home runs in a season, at a time when shortstops simply didn’t do that. Wilhelm became the top relief pitcher of the 1960's. In his six years with the Sox, he’d win 41 games and save 99 others while producing some astonishingly low ERA’s considering he threw the knuckleball. His highest ERA between 1963 and 1968 was 2.64, every other season it was below two. He’d be elected to the Hall of Fame in 1985. January 14, 2001 - The Sox acquired pitcher David Wells from Toronto basically for pitcher Mike Sirotka. Over the coming weeks and months, Sirotka and the Blue Jays claimed the Sox knew that Sirotka had a bad arm and couldn’t pitch. Sox G.M. Ken Williams defended himself by saying that he told the Jays he thought Sirotka might be hurt and offered pitcher Jim Parque instead. Commissioner Allan “Bud” Selig ruled in late March that the trade would stand. The whole episode became known as “Shouldergate.” Wells meanwhile had few good moments with the Sox. He’d beat the Indians opening day in Cleveland after he said fans got him angry by talking about his mother and how he was raised, but after that, because of a bad back he barely pitched, winning only five games in total with only 16 starts on the year. He then caused a major controversy when he went on the radio and said that he didn’t think first baseman Frank Thomas was as badly hurt as he claimed. Thomas would only wind up playing 20 games that year after he tore a triceps muscle diving for a ground ball along the first base line. Sirotka meanwhile, who won 15 games and pitched almost 200 innings, in the 2000 season, never played in a Major League game again because of a partially torn rotator cuff and a torn labrum.

Don't underestimate this, especially with today's chaotic political climate. These people want to get reelected first and foremost and I'm guessing most voters are more concerned with issues impacting them in the here and now as opposed to helping the Bears get a new stadium.

Different set of circumstances with tax payers up in arms, the country in (pick an adjective that applies) and politicians no longer willing to stick their necks out rightly or wrongly to support billionaire owners, at least in Illinois. Just my opinion but the Bears, like JR (with his desire for a new stadium) if they would make an offer to help in this debt they'd probably get political will to start gravitating to their side. One of two things I think will happen. Politicians will cave or politicians and citizens will tell the Bears to in essence 'kiss their ass' and feel free to move to Indiana, Timbuktu, Sydney, Moscow, Greenland or Mars.

As well they should in my opinion until the Bears come up with the money to pay for the first renovation of Soldier Field. To my knowledge they haven't even offered anything to help pay some of the debt down.

January 13, 1995 - Baseball’s executive council voted to allow replacement players in upcoming spring training and regular season games, given the ongoing labor impasse with the MLBPA. The more prominent individuals who briefly would become White Sox were shortstop Kent Anderson, outfielder Shawn Buchanan, starting pitcher Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd, outfielder Al Chambers, reliever John Davis, catcher Bill Lindsey, catcher Adalberto “Junior” Ortiz and third baseman Pete Rose Jr. This is the decision that would eventually drive aspiring Major Leaguer Michael Jordan from his baseball career as he was told he would have to participate in the replacement games. Jordan said he would never, under any circumstances, be known as a strike-breaker.

The Bears may be asking for conditions which haven't been made public yet to which the politicians are refusing to allow.

Gov. JB Pritzker and legislative leaders in Springfield have signaled a willingness to chip in on infrastructure, but they’ve urged the team to identify a mechanism to pay off more than half a billion dollars still owed on Soldier Field’s 2003 renovation as a condition to getting any legislative help. “Building a stadium is, from my perspective, about doing what’s best for the taxpayers,” Pritzker said Tuesday. “This is a private business. We help private businesses all the time in the state, and I want to help if it’s with infrastructure, as we do with other private businesses — that’s absolutely a way we could do that. But as I’ve said, and the Bears have heard this, that we’re not going to build a stadium for the Chicago Bears.” https://chicago.suntimes.com/bears-stadium/2026/01/13/bears-survey-season-ticket-holders-northwest-indiana-stadium-arlington-heights

Latest Manfred comments on upcoming labor negotiations: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6964828/2026/01/13/mlb-union-league-salary-cap/?campaign=16455970&source=athletic_targeted_email&userId=602876

Great. We can stop all the BS and get ready to root for the Hammond Bears! 😆

January 12, 1982 - In the January phase of the amateur draft that no longer exists today, the White Sox unearthed the unlikeliest of success stories. John Cangelosi was selected with the No. 433 overall pick, befitting a 5-8 fireplug of a player. He played at Miami Dade College. Three years later, Cangelosi made his Major League debut in Chicago, and in 1986 he leapfrogged the more highly-touted Daryl Boston to make the Opening Day roster as Chicago’s center fielder and leadoff hitter. He swiped 39 bases by the All-Star break, but then was benched rather curiously by midseason manager replacement Jim Fregosi. His best hitting game with the Sox came early in that same 1986 season when he banged out four hits in a 4-3 loss to Milwaukee at Comiskey Park on April 9. Traded to Pittsburgh after the 1986 season, Cangelosi would play 11 more years in the big leagues, winning a World Series with the 1997 Florida Marlins. January 12, 2000 - Sox G.M. Ron Schueler made amends for some of his worst moves by shipping disgruntled pitcher Jamie Navarro to Milwaukee as part of a four-player deal. In exchange he got long ball hitting shortstop Jose Valentin and pitcher Cal Eldred. Both would play a large part in the unexpected divisional championship in 2000. Eldred went 10-2 in 20 starts for the team that season before an elbow injury basically ended his White Sox career in July. Valentin played five years on the South Side averaging 120 hits, 27 home runs and 76 RBI's in those years and he was a Cub-killer. One of the highlights in Jose's White Sox stint was a very rare accomplishment, a ‘natural’ cycle which took place against the Orioles on April 27, 2000. He singled in the first, doubled in the second, tripled in the third and homered in the eighth inning in a 13-4 win. For the day he went 4 for 5 with five RBI’s and two runs scored.

I just read in the Tribune 70 million of that is deferred. Cubs taking a page out of the Dodgers playbook.

That was some game. Amazing again. Anything over this is gravy.

January 10, 1992 – It was one of the worst deals in Sox G.M. Ron Schueler's career as he traded pitcher Melido Perez and two minor leaguers to the Yankees for Steve Sax. Schueler envisioned a devastating one/two punch at the top of the order in Tim Raines and Sax followed by Frank Thomas and Robin Ventura. It never happened, as Sax suddenly forget how to hit and was gone from the team by late April 1994. Making matters worse is that one of the minor league pitchers dealt was Bob Wickman who’d go on to become a top relief pitcher and two-time All-Star winning 63 games with 267 saves. Sax did have one moment of glory as on May 5, 1993 in Milwaukee he made an incredible catch in left field on a ball hit by Billy Doran with the lead run on base. It happened in the eighth inning. Sax broke back and to his left on the drive and caught the ball with his left arm extended. The angle and momentum caused him to tumble over and he lost the ball out of his glove on the way down. Just before hitting the ground however, he snagged the ball with his bare right hand holding it up to the umpire after he hit the grass. That saved a run and the Sox won the game 3-1 on a Robin Ventura home run in the top of the ninth inning.

You can even debate if they are a big draw anymore even among their fans. Lots of Sox fans I know have basically washed their hands of the team until new ownership steps in.

“When folks say, ‘What’s your priorities going into the legislative session?’ we’re trying to bring down the cost of living,” Welch said at a City Club of Chicago event on Tuesday. “Talking about a brand-new Bears stadium when this one’s not even 25 years old, that’s insensitive to what real people are going through right now.” https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/10/chicago-bears-stadium-kansas-city-cheifs-fans/

The White Sox aren't moving to Nashville. You can rest easy in that regard based by statements by Ishbia himself to the Pope.

We'll see how it all shakes out. Injuries will also play a big part in how the season goes and the Sox track record the last several years hasn't been great in that department. I just hope they don't lose 100+ games again this season.