Who is the man: The Chicago White Sox were not only coming off a sixth-place finish in the six-team American League West entering the 1971 season, but they were trying to shake the memory of being the worst team in the majors in 1970, with a .346 winning percentage.
Can ya dig it: After going more than 250 cards between team cards, it has been a mere 21 cards since the last one. The team cards will be a lot more plentiful now.
Right on: Check out all that blue in the picture. I equate the White Sox with black first and red second (my baseball start came in the mid-1970s). Blue just doesn't compute.
You see that cat Gutteridge is a bad mother: I'm not 100 percent certain, but I believe White Sox manager Don Gutteridge is sitting in the first row, just above the middle bat boy. That's interesting because there is no separate manager card of Gutteridge in the set. He was fired late in the 1970 season and Chuck Tanner, who does have a card in this set, eventually took over.
Shut your mouth: I will now make a feeble attempt to identify some of these last place White Sox. The player at the top left is pitcher Joe Horlen. Two guys to his right is catcher Ed Hermann. And I believe next to Hermann is slugging third baseman Bill Melton. In the second row, the second player from the right, is a pitcher by the name of Billy Wynne. And next to him is another pitcher just as nameless, Gene Rounsaville. In the front row, I think Luis Aparacio is the third guy from the left (his last appearance as a White Sox player on a card). On the other side, third from the right, is Walt "No Neck" Williams.
I guess that wasn't too bad -- if they are correct, that is.
No one understands him but his woman: The poor guy in the suit on the right hand side is half cut out of the photo.
(A word about the back): It's cool that the team record for home runs was broken in the previous year.
Not only worst in the majors, but most losses in franchise history to date (although not the worst win loss pct). The 1970 team actually was big improvement offensively from the last few earlier White Sox teams. Giving up runs that season was the problem.
ReplyDeleteChuck Tanner spent most of 1970 managing the AAA Hawaiian Islanders (one of the best AAA teams ever). Oddly they failed misably in the playoffs in early Sept. With the majors having a longer season, Chuck immediately took over the White Sox wreck for their last 16 games. Interesting year.
They were wearing white stirrups then. The Chistirrups.
ReplyDeleteIf you notice the White Sox are wearing black arm bands. I’m guessing that was for Paul Edmondson, a young pitcher who was killed in a car accident right before the start of spring training in 1970. I was. White Sox fan as a kid and really liked the blue uniforms, especially the road uniforms. I think they only wore them for two or three years before they turned to red. I did also like the red ones, but in my mind they’re associated with the ultimate disappointment of those teams because it looked for a while like that team could do something, but they fizzled out badly. White Sox fans get used to that.
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