Meet the Sox

Aaron Rowand

The first game I saw Aaron Rowand play in person, he crashed cup-first into the wall making a catch.  He held onto the ball, and then went to the locker room to tend to his pair.

In the last game I saw Aaron Rowand play with the White Sox, he covered the Yankee Stadium outfield so well that Yankees fans were asking us Sox supporters about him on the subway back to Manhattan.

The saying is, “You can’t judge a book by its cover,” but looking at the dust jacket of this story pretty much sums it all up.  

Rowand played hard.  He trusted his instincts from the crack of the bat, and didn’t stop moving until the ball was in his mitt – even if a fence showed up before he was finished.  Listed at 6’0” but lucky to be 5’10”, Rowand’s somewhat stocky build made him look like he was running even harder.

That Yankee Stadium series gave me a sense of paternal pride with Rowand, a player I backed while the Sox brought in Carl Everett not once, but twice, and whom I also once saw play with the Charlotte Knights while vacationing in beautiful Scranton, Pa.  

He started off the series by making a diving catch with his back to home plate, robbing Derek Jeter of extra bases on the first play of the game.  One batter later, he made an over-the-shoulder catch to steal a gapper from Robinson Cano, also with his back to home plate.

Two games later, he racked up seven putouts, and this time he didn’t need pyrotechnics.  Rowand parked underneath six balls that both sounded and looked good off the Bomber bats.  Only once he needed a dead sprint to track one down, robbing Hideki Matsui of a double. 

Rowand nearly caused a dozen rounds of exasperated sighs over the three-game series, and his defense only looked better in comparison to Bernie Williams, who allowed Juan Uribe’s playable flyball to get by him for a triple in the 10th inning of the final game, setting up the game-winning run.

Sometimes Rowand’s instincts would lead him astray – he didn’t run particularly well in the World Series, whether it was after flyballs or on the basepaths, but his errors didn’t cause any harm.  He certainly seemed to be making up for it in the clubhouse.  As the first player to be mic’ed up during the playoffs, he was a natural, always chattering and supporting his teammates.  Rowand managed to make his best friend, the reticent Joe Crede, come out of his shell to let Sox fans embrace him after they spent the first few years generally ripping him.

Only Rowand’s bat disappointed.  After a breakout year in 2004, Rowand had trouble getting any lift on the ball in 2005, and was a dead duck on low-and-away breaking balls.  At times, his last name may as well have been “Rowand 6-3”, because a groundout to short was almost a predetermined outcome.

Sox fans forgave his struggles at the plate because he gave so much everywhere else, whether it was on the field, in the clubhouse or around the community.  Nobody was prouder to be a White Sox than Rowand, which made telling him he was traded to Philadelphia one of Kenny Williams’ hardest jobs.

Philadelphia is a fickle city, but if anybody can become a fan favorite there, it’s Rowand.  Phillies fans tend to turn on guys they perceive as low-effort, but they’ll find out their new center fielder is anything but.