JoshPR Posted June 14, 2004 Share Posted June 14, 2004 After a Dismal sixth place finish in the West, 42 games behind, nine deals involving 31 players were made by new general manager Stu Holcomb and player personnel chief Roland Hemond with only seven players returning from the previous season. After an Opening day win before a record 43,253 the White Sox lost the next seven and dropped into the cellar. But the team struggled back to finish 3rd (79-83) 22.5 games back. Bill Melton shifted to third base from the outfield and became the first Whitesox homerun champion (33) with 86 RBI's and a .269 average. Carlos May continued his comeback with a .294 season. Wilbur Wood switched to a starting role and worked 334 innings (Most for the Whitesox since 1922) fininshing 22-13 with 22 complete games and was second in the league with a 1.91 ERA. Tom Bradley was 15-15 with a 2.96 ERA and Tommy John 13-16 while new ace reliever Bart Johnson (12-10) had 14 saves Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FUCKREINSDORF Posted June 14, 2004 Share Posted June 14, 2004 After a Dismal sixth place finish in the West, 42 games behind, nine deals involving 31 players were made by new general manager Stu Holcomb and player personnel chief Roland Hemond with only seven players returning from the previous season. After an Opening day win before a record 43,253 the White Sox lost the next seven and dropped into the cellar. But the team struggled back to finish 3rd (79-83) 22.5 games back. Bill Melton shifted to third base from the outfield and became the first Whitesox homerun champion (33) with 86 RBI's and a .269 average. Carlos May continued his comeback with a .294 season. Wilbur Wood switched to a starting role and worked 334 innings (Most for the Whitesox since 1922) fininshing 22-13 with 22 complete games and was second in the league with a 1.91 ERA. Tom Bradley was 15-15 with a 2.96 ERA and Tommy John 13-16 while new ace reliever Bart Johnson (12-10) had 14 saves And when Tommy John was traded to the Dodgers after the '71 season, The Sox acquired Dick Allen and stayed in contention for most of the '72 season before the "straight A's" won the division and WS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cwsox Posted June 14, 2004 Share Posted June 14, 2004 Child, this is not "history." I was in college then and my lifetime is not that old to be "history" yet! Opening Day with that full house after the 56-106 season was a marvel (and says something about Sox fans of my day!) and one of my funniest ever White Sox stories comes from that game but I suspectr no one here would get it because you'd have to know Illinois politics in 1970-1971 for context. It was a great season. I didn't realize that we were 22.5 back. What was important was that we went from 56 wins to 79 wins. No one expected us to contend in 71. Our thinking was with that type of improvement we'd contend in 72 and win it all in 73. We got a new announcer that season, some washed up guy fired by Oakland after being fired by St Louis - Harry Carey. We also got a new organist, Nancy Faust. I will never forget the 1971 season - improving by 23 wins, all the hope we had, Wilbur and Melton winning the home run title and Bart and that whole team with our new manager Chuck Tanner - we had such a future ahead of us! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlaSoxxJim Posted June 15, 2004 Share Posted June 15, 2004 Bill Melton shifted to third base from the outfield and became the first Whitesox homerun champion (33) with 86 RBI's and a .269 average. Carlos May continued his comeback with a .294 season. Wilbur Wood switched to a starting role and worked 334 innings (Most for the Whitesox since 1922) fininshing 22-13 with 22 complete games and was second in the league with a 1.91 ERA. Tom Bradley was 15-15 with a 2.96 ERA and Tommy John 13-16 while new ace reliever Bart Johnson (12-10) had 14 saves Wilbur with 22 (!!) complete games... What a workhorse. How blown away would people be today if a starter came anywhere close to that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Texsox Posted June 15, 2004 Share Posted June 15, 2004 Wilbur with 22 (!!) complete games... What a workhorse. How blown away would people be today if a starter came anywhere close to that? Wilbur, my favorite Sox pitcher from the 70s and AFAIK the only to inspire a poem BTW, he had 20 or more CG 4 years in a row. He also pitched both ends of a double header. WILBUR WOOD I’m like throwin’ f***in’ junk scraping the sides of the plate fluttering across broken winged accumulating insults & lounging in stale air I’m the junkballer & from a few feet away I look easy to hit but, friend, understand that my s*** explodes BOOM! & it sure as hell ain’t where you thought it’d be when you started that swing & yr fury fans the air impotent while my junk falls behind you, immaculate Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JimH Posted June 15, 2004 Share Posted June 15, 2004 CW, tell the politics story. I'm old enough to remember and hopefully "get" it. I don't remember if 1971 was the year they played KC in the home opener, or if it was a year or two later. If it was 1971, I was at that game and there was a politcally incorrect story from that game ... We were sitting in the lower boxes, near the field, on the 1st base side. Royals first baseman was big John Mayberry, a rather large imposing guy from nearby Gary, Indiana (or close to it). Anyway, there was this older African-American guy who apparantly knew Mayberry from the neighborhood or something. Every single inning, he'd walk down to the railing and shout out to Mayberry: "Hey Mayberry, ya big Boo Boo, ya hometown boy!" And then he'd laugh and laugh and laugh, walk back to his seat, and come back down the next inning: "Hey Mayberry, ya big Boo Boo, ya hometown boy!" About the 7th inning, we asked the guy why he was calling Mayberry a "big Boo Boo", and the guy says, "Look'a dat big Boo Boo, he done look like a big Boo Boo!" and he laughed and laughed all the way back to his seat. We never did figure out what a big Boo Boo was, but we sure thought it was funny! Ah, 1971, back when we could tell stories like that, and not worry we'd offend anyone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Texsox Posted June 15, 2004 Share Posted June 15, 2004 That was about my first memories of watching the games on TV. I would read about them but didn't know we could watch the games on TV. I was living in Des Plaines and was at neighbors for dinner. They had a small B&W set with aluminum foil wrapped around the rabbit ears and trying to watch the game between the snow. I thought baseball was only played during the day on WGN. Anyone else here remember the first night game at Wrigley? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JimH Posted June 15, 2004 Share Posted June 15, 2004 Yes, the first attempt at a nite game at Wrigley ('88) got rained out, they had to do it again officially the next day. The Cubs/Bears were about to put lights in at Wrigley for the 1942 season, but WW II broke out, and steel, etc. was being directed toward the war effort. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cwsox Posted June 15, 2004 Share Posted June 15, 2004 71 and 72 were on WTAQ, the Polish langauge station from LaGrange Our home opener was Twins, not KC You'd have to remember Paul Powell, the incredibly sleazy Illinois Secretary of State, from Vy-enna (Viennna) had been sick in his apartment (hotel room) the prior winter. (And he was always called Paul Powell, full name) One day his girlfriend starts loading up her station wagon with shoe boxes, drives away, comes back empty, loads her station wagon up with shoe boxes again, drives off, comes back empty, loads again... you get the idea. After a number of these trips the oficers assigned as body guards for Paul Powell get curious about all these shoeboxes the girl friend is loading and they go knock on Paul Powell's apartment door. Paul Powell doesn't answer. Officers go in. Paul Powell is dead, natural causes. His closet door is open, his closet is half full (half emptied) of shoe boxes. Each shoe box was filled with cash, in bills, mostly hundreds. $800,000 in cash. In shoeboxes. Hmmm... No one every found out where the girlfriend put her shoeboxes and how much she got away with. No one ever found out where the Illinois Secretary of State Paul Powell would get shoeboxes full of cash. Corruption? Payoffs? Bribes? Not in the Illinois Secretary of State office! And there was joking that Paul Powell was so attached to his corruptly gained money that he would come back from the dead to Illinois to find out where his girlfriend took the missing shoeboxes she hauled away. This was all in the news and conversation when opening day came. The Sox had been 56-106 in 1970. My girlfriend and I went because I had never been to a home opener and I figured I could study for early finals. I had studied all 1970 in the left stand grand stand since we hadn't drawn 400,000 that season and there was plenty of room of spead out and study. We got there early, and we got let in many 3 hours before game time. People kept coming and coming and coming - a sellout for a 56-106 team! The Sox had won their 3 opening games on the road so everyone must have fired up to see an undefeated Sox team after being so woeful the year before. Comiskey is jammed and noisy and we are playing the hated Twins, our new (as divisions were new) division rival. Sox fans are so damned hungry for a Sox victory. It goes into the top of the 9th. It is 3-2 Sox. Twins batting. Twins get one on, Twins get two on, maybe one out, runners at 2nd and 3rd and the Twins send in a pinch batter. The game is on the line. This twinkie gets a hit, they tie, take the lead, and we might lose the home opener. The crowd is roaring to stop the Twins. The place is alive as only Old Comiskey could be. We are hating the twins. Stop them. We gotta to get this rookie pinch hitter out to hold on and win the game. The Sox announcer says: "Now pinch hitting for Minnesota: Paul Powell." Comiskey erupted in cheers. Paul Powell got an easy 3-5 minute standing ovation. I can still picture the twins rookie staring at the crowd from home plate: I am a rookie, the enemy batter, if I get a hit my team takes the lead, and they are cheering me for my first ever at bat! Damn, what a friendly town!!!!" We couldn't stop lauging and cheering. The place rocked with laughter and applause. The laughter and clapping kept rolling down on the field. After 5 minutes or so the crowd settles down. Meanwhile the Sox had time to to settle down. Paul Powell went out quickly and so did the Twins and we won. Someday Paul Powell will tell his grandchild, "Yeah, I played for the Twins and the biggest ovation I ever got was for my very first at bat in Chicago by those Sox fans... sure are a friendly crowd!" I never laughed so hard at the ball park. It was just so damned funny. No one could stop laughing. I don't think we ever heard much from either Paul Powell ever again. The Left Stand Grand Stand Fan Club had kind of begun from us faithful ones in 1970- but I think that 1971 opening day game kept it and made it bigger because after the Paul Powell thing we had to start coming prepared for what would happen next. It's not ha ha funny to the kids but damn it was the funniest thing ever, 45,000 people cheering wildly for the enemy rookie batter at crunch time in the game -- and it set the tone for the season as a happy season. After that everything was funny and relaxed which is maybe how we got to have a 23 game increase from the year before. Paul Powell the player Paul Powell, Secretary of State and $800,000 in his hotel room Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoshPR Posted June 15, 2004 Author Share Posted June 15, 2004 That was about my first memories of watching the games on TV. I would read about them but didn't know we could watch the games on TV. I was living in Des Plaines and was at neighbors for dinner. They had a small B&W set with aluminum foil wrapped around the rabbit ears and trying to watch the game between the snow. I thought baseball was only played during the day on WGN. Anyone else here remember the first night game at Wrigley? Des Plains Wow. My Grandfather worked as a Mechanic in Desplains at a Poniac Dealer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoshPR Posted June 15, 2004 Author Share Posted June 15, 2004 And when Tommy John was traded to the Dodgers after the '71 season, The Sox acquired Dick Allen and stayed in contention for most of the '72 season before the "straight A's" won the division and WS. Easy Easy that will be comming up in the Next Issues Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YASNY Posted June 15, 2004 Share Posted June 15, 2004 Easy Easy that will be comming up in the Next Issues It's not like we don't already know how the story of '72 ended, Josh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Critic Posted June 15, 2004 Share Posted June 15, 2004 Child, this is not "history." I was in college then and my lifetime is not that old to be "history" yet! Oh yes, it IS history, old man! I'd be interested to see what percentage of the posters here weren't even born yet in 1971. I was 8 years old in 71 and that was the first Sox team that I really watched closely and became a HUGE fan of. Fond, fond memories of walking to the park with my brother smelling the cigar smoke and hearing the organ music playing in the park.....good times.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cwsox Posted June 15, 2004 Share Posted June 15, 2004 I'd be interested to see what percentage of the posters here weren't even bornb yet in 1971. I'd guess 92%. Walking into Comiskey was always a rush. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JimH Posted June 15, 2004 Share Posted June 15, 2004 Yes, I remember hearing and/or reading about the Paul Powell coming to bat story. Hilarious! Great stuff. My great aunt, who is 91 and still lives in Bridgeport, knew Paul Powell. Actually her husband knew him better, they were connected via politics. She said everybody in city gov't knew Powell was making a fortune running the Secretary of State office. I've got to find out when they played KC in the home opener. Must have been just afterwards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steff Posted June 15, 2004 Share Posted June 15, 2004 I'm old enough to remember and hopefully "get" it. LOL... I wasn't even born yet, you're an old fart. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JimH Posted June 15, 2004 Share Posted June 15, 2004 LOL... I wasn't even born yet, you're an old fart. Ouch babe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YASNY Posted June 15, 2004 Share Posted June 15, 2004 LOL... I wasn't even born yet, you're an old fart. Leave us "old farts" alone! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steff Posted June 15, 2004 Share Posted June 15, 2004 Leave us "old farts" alone! Not a chance! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YASNY Posted June 15, 2004 Share Posted June 15, 2004 Not a chance! I can tell you're from Richards! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.