White Sox honor '59 heroes

[greasywheels121]

http://whitesox.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/ar...t=.jsp&c_id=cws

 

White Sox honor '59 heroes

Eleven members of team join current squad for festivities

By Scott Merkin / MLB.com

CHICAGO -- There's an old adage that warns, "Those who live in the past are doomed to repeat history."

 

The White Sox are quietly hoping that a weekend celebration honoring players from the 1959 World Series squad ensures that prophecy comes to fruition during the 2005 campaign.

 

Eleven players from the last White Sox squad to reach the World Series made the trip to Chicago, culminating with a pregame ceremony honoring the group Saturday night. Both the White Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers, who defeated the White Sox in that particular postseason competition, wore throwback jerseys.

 

Bob Shaw, wearing a very familiar No. 35, threw out the first pitch after each of the players in attendance was announced. It was a nostalgic treat for White Sox fans of all ages. It also was a look at what could be future glory for what is currently one of baseball's best teams.

 

"If the White Sox were to get to the World Series, it would be the [highlight] of my sports career," White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf said. "Not to demean the six Bulls championships, because those are incredible, and the euphoria the Bulls brought to the city of Chicago is hard to measure.

 

"But to me, growing up as I did, the difference between baseball and all the other sports is that all the others are great sports, but baseball is a religion," Reinsdorf added.

 

The religion of one particular season from the White Sox's past also was celebrated Saturday morning, with a high-class alumni reunion brunch at the Empire Room of the Palmer House hotel. All 11 players were in attendance, as were Reinsdorf, Roland Hemond, Brooks Boyer and even Minnie Minoso, who played on the Cleveland team that the White Sox edged out to win the American League in 1959.

 

Each player had a chance to speak during the festivities, in a segment listed on the program as "'59 Team Memories." There were plenty of memories to be shared, even from Reinsdorf, who developed a hatred for the Dodgers because they left Brooklyn.

 

Reinsdorf talked about going to a few White Sox games in 1959 because his father-in-law had season tickets for work. He also mentioned how knowing the White Sox's starting lineup from Game 1 of the World Series helped him win a pair of court cases that were brought about after he took over ownership in 1981 and when the White Sox won the American League West in 1983, respectively, proving to the judge, who also happened to be a lifelong White Sox fan, that he wasn't "just some guy with a lot of money who bought the team."

 

Billy Pierce, a tremendous left-handed pitcher with 211 career victories, talked about shortstop Luis Aparicio turning a game-ending double play in Cleveland to clinch the American League pennant. Outfielder Jim Landis spoke of the thrill of playing before 92,000 at the Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles.

 

It was Shaw, though, who came up with an interesting question Friday night while talking with Hemond, which he repeated to the small gathering Saturday morning. The two spoke about whether it was better to face a team that had won 10 in a row or lost 10 in row.

 

Having played on two 10th-place teams, as well as pitching 7 1/3 shutout innings in a 1-0, Game 5 victory in the 1959 World Series to bring the competition back to Chicago, Shaw picked the losing team as his preference.

 

"For some reason, those teams that keep losing in the eighth and ninth innings, they find a way to lose," explained Shaw, who also was joined by Rudy Arias, Barry Latman, Joe Hicks, Ron Jackson, Jim McAnany, J.C. Martin and Claude Raymond. "The 1959 White Sox found a way to win."

 

Shaw's comments crystallized an underlying message that was derived from this memorable weekend. The 1959 team had great pitching. The 2005 team has great pitching.

 

The 1959 team relied on defense and speed. The 2005 team has switched its focus to defense and speed. The current group has quite a bit more offensive pop then its predecessor, with the 1959 crew finishing last in the Majors in home runs. But it became readily apparent that there are great similarities between these two teams.

 

That comparison was not lost on the White Sox heroes of old or today's current management, for that matter.

 

"This present White Sox team reminds me of us," said "Jungle" Jim Rivera, one of the top defensive outfielders of his time, who started for the 1959 squad. "I think they are going all the way this year."

 

"I see the same camaraderie we had, and it was so important," continued Landis, whose son, Craig, is an agent that represents current White Sox players such as Paul Konerko, Aaron Rowand and Jon Garland. "I had 10 papas, and they were all like my fathers. Those guys were fantastic to us younger players."

 

"This is a better hitting team, and they were better defensively," Reinsdorf added. "But this is a team of good guys. Every year, you can look at a team and say there is one or two jerks. I can't find that guy on this team."

 

Reinsdorf also told a story related to him by Eleanor "Sis" Daley, the late mother of Chicago's current mayor. She was a dyed-in-the-wool White Sox fan, according to Reinsdorf, and went with her husband, Chicago's late mayor Richard J. Daley, and her children to Midway Airport to meet the team when it returned.

 

The elder Daley, who set the sirens off when the White Sox reached the World Series, joked with his wife that it might be another 40 years until the South Side sees another World Series. After all, it was 40 years since the team's last trip to the Fall Classic.

 

It has been a current run of 46 years for the White Sox. But with past postseason memories all around him, Reinsdorf hoped aloud that streak would end in 2005.

 

"I don't want to think about it because I'm so superstitious, and there's a long way to go until October," Reinsdorf said. "It's going to happen sooner or later and it would be tremendous euphoria in this city, as there would be if the National League team [Cubs] won.

 

"When it does happen, I imagine the euphoria within the city for the first of us that does it will be incredible. When the other team wins, it won't be as exciting. The first one will be the biggest surprise, and I hope the first one is us."

[sayitaintso]

I love those jerseys. The looked so great.

[bulokis]

I also love those jerseys. The WGN retro graphics were great also.

[sayitaintso]

I also love those jerseys. The WGN retro graphics were great also.

That was pretty cool, everthing was susposed to be all old timey.