Column: The season Chicago White Sox fans have been waiting for begins with the Cactus League opener Sunday in Arizona — and fans are thinking big
Chicago White Sox shortstop Ozzie Guillen camped under a popup off the bat of Minnesota Twins catcher Jeff Reed in the bottom of the ninth inning, sealing a 9-8 win at the Metrodome and ending the Sox’s five-game losing streak.
It was an ordinary game in an extraordinary season, notable only for the fact it would be Tony La Russa’s final day managing the Sox.
“Negatives are for losers,” La Russa said on that fateful day of June 19, 1986. “We’ve got some problems. That’s why we had a 2-5 trip. You have to face up to them. You don’t walk around with rose-colored glasses, but you don’t come to the ballpark moping either. If you do, you don’t have a chance.”
After the game, Sox general manager Ken “Hawk” Harrelson fired La Russa, along with pitching coach Dave Duncan, after receiving permission from Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf.
Nearly 35 years later, La Russa will be in the White Sox dugout Sunday afternoon in Glendale, Ariz., when the Sox open their Cactus League schedule against the Milwaukee Brewers.
The game itself might be inconsequential. But the beginning of the La Russa reboot is one of the more intriguing storylines of the 2021 season.
Is La Russa eager to get back in the dugout for the first time in 11 years, ready to get that old feeling back? Or will he save himself for the regular-season opener against the Los Angeles Angels in Anaheim, Calif.?
“No, I get fired up for exhibition games,” La Russa said Friday in a teleconference from Camelback Ranch in Glendale. “I’m much more anxious and interested in watching us play than what I’m going to feel again that dugout.
“Because it’s all about our team, and our coaches all understand what our responsibility is. The most direct honest answer I can give you is I’m excited and anxious to see us take the field and play against Milwaukee.”
The long grind has arrived, and after a brutal February for Chicagoans and a rebuild that seemed to be moving at a snail’s pace until summer 2020, Sox fans are as geeked up as they’ve been in more than a decade.
Sunday’s game begins at 2:10 p.m. Chicago time and will be televised on NBC Sports Chicago. With the thaw of subarctic weather finally in motion and baseball back on the air, it’s as good a time as any for Sox fans to think big.
Sox players aren’t shying from great expectations, knowing it’s time to put up or shut up. And as everyone knows, shutting up is not an option for these guys.
“(Bleep) it,” shortstop Tim Anderson told WSCR-AM 670 on Friday. “We’re the best team in the American League.”
La Russa has been awarded the Anderson seal of approval, a key to being accepted by the rest of this tight-knit bunch. And after a difficult start the 76-year-old Hall of Famer seems more comfortable Zooming with the media with each passing day, even poking fun at himself on occasion.
Asked on Thursday who would be throwing in the Cactus League opener, the man jokingly referred to as “La Genius” by some St. Louis Cardinals fans hedged.
“I have a good idea but I’d be a little embarrassed to be wrong on my first decision, talking to you guys,” he said. “I’d rather be right at least once this year.”
On Friday afternoon, La Russa announced that Alex McRae would start. But the Sox later clarified it would be Mike Wright on Sunday, and McRae would go Monday against the Angels.
Even Hall of Famers get it wrong once in a while, so it’s probably best to get that one out of the way before the first exhibition game. Hopefully he laughed at that one too.
Rest assured all eyes will be on La Russa, who is taking over a team that fired its manager after making the playoffs for the first time in 12 years. Rick Renteria wasn’t the best manager, but he got them from Point A to Point B. Now the Sox are ready to get to Point C, and Reinsdorf felt the only thing missing was having the right man in the manager’s seat.
Reinsdorf always has regretted allowing Harrelson to pull the trigger and fire La Russa that June night in 1986. In a 1993 Chicago Tribune profile of Reinsdorf, he said: “The biggest mistake I ever made was letting the general manager fire Tony La Russa, because he’s the best manager in baseball and one of the best human beings I know. And I just miss not being able to talk to him.”
It took a few decades, but Reinsdorf, who turned 85 on Thursday, finally turned the team over to his longtime friend, knowing there would be an outcry.
But being Jerry Reinsdorf means never having to say you’re sorry. Anyone who knows Reinsdorf is aware he doesn’t make decisions based on public opinion, nor does he care what the media thinks.
He was loyal for years to Chicago Bulls general manager Jerry Krause and kept Terry Bevington as Sox manager when everyone, including the players, knew he was in over his head.
It’s Reinsdorf’s team, and it’s his call, and one he truly believes will add another ring to his collection.
So now the great chemistry experiment begins, and Sox fans who have been stuck in their homes for months because of the COVID-19 pandemic finally have good reason to sit back, relax and strap it down, as Hawk used to say.
It’s a long way till October, and a lot of crazy things might happen along the way.
But this is not the time to worry.
Baseball is back, and right now that’s all that really matters.
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