Last Friday, Kenny Williams tried his hand at improv comedy in a Second City show benefiting Gilda’s Club. Scott Reifert said he was trying to track down the video, but nothing has turned up thus far.
On the surface, Williams and comedy is a fairly unusual combination. However, something hit me after reading this line by Scott Merkin:
But how about Ken Williams, Improv comedian or Improv actor?
Well, I would put that description right up there with the likelihood of ‘Ken Williams, lover of blogs.’
Williams might be the last person you’d associate with light-hearted laughs, but it’s not that foreign a concept when tying it to a number of other events and developments concerning the White Sox organization. Maybe it’s just me, but it seemed like they made a conspicuously strenuous attempt to make customers feel good. If 2005′s Journey song was “Don’t Stop Believin’,” 2009′s song was “Open Arms.”
Actually, you could say Williams started the warm and fuzzies at SoxFest when he invited a 12-year-old on stage after he engaged in an entertaining back-and-forth with Ozzie Guillen, so it’s fitting to see Williams cap off the season by stepping out of character for charity.
The Sox extended fan outreach in a number of other ways thereafter:
*The “White Sox traditions” ad campaign, which began with a caricaturish approach similar to the South Side Tourism Board campaign a few years ago, ended up incorporating average fan stories accompanied by a gentle piano.
*They ramped up their social media efforts. Reifert and Southpaw were all over Twitter. Hawk Harrelson routinely asked Steve Stone about “the Twitter,” although Stone is more for preaching than interacting. Even Joey Cora and Oney Guillen allowed fans to see them spar verbally and criticize members of the team before their toys were taken away.
The Sox PR department went so far as to organize an outing for their Tweeps, one of two group outings dedicated to its online community.
*They invited bloggers to a ballgame. Williams may not care for blogs, but the Sox made their first effort to embrace the independent media in May, inviting about a dozen of us to talk to Rick Hahn, Brooks Boyer and Moose Skowron, then watch a ballgame from a suite.
Hahn also made an appearance for Baseball Prospectus night, another group with which the Sox had a formerly cold relationship.
Throw in a lot of charity work and small gestures, as well as a couple stories I’ve heard about tremendous customer service, and the Sox front office definitely gave off a different vibe this season, compared to previous years.
Of course, it’s not by coincidence that this all took place in the worst economy in decades, and with a baseball team that often left fans wondering why they bothered paying to watch.
