In memoriam: The White Sox’s other losses in 2020

Photo credits: Warren Wimmer/Icon Sportswire

In chronological order:

Don Larsen

Born: Aug. 7, 1929
Died: Jan. 1, 2020
Played for White Sox: 1961
SABR bio

Were it not for the only perfect game in World Series history, Don Larsen would’ve been but a mere journeyman who lost more games than he won over a 14-year MLB career (81-91). But he threw the only perfect game in World Series history, so he’s best known for catching a leaping Yogi Berra after the final out of Game 5.

Larsen pitched for six teams besides the Yankees, including a stop on the South Side in 1961. The White Sox acquired him from the Kansas City A’s as part of an eight-player deal. Ray Herbert and Bob Shaw were the biggest players included and delivered as such, but of the undercards, Larsen was second to Wes Covington in having more baseball left to give.

Larsen vultured his way into a 7-2 record as a White Sox swingman, even though the team went 12-21 in games he appeared. Four of those victories involved carrying a lead across the halfway point as a reliever. After the season, the White Sox traded him to San Francisco in a six-player deal that’s better known for the one that moved Billy Pierce out of Chicago. He picked up another World Series win that year out of San Francisco’s bullpen.

Gil Coan

Born: May 18, 1922
Died: Feb. 4, 2020
Played for White Sox: 1955
SABR bio

Coan’s legendary minor league feats in Chattanooga never quite transferred to the big leagues. With the Lookouts in 1945, he hit .372/.451/.639 with 40 doubles, 28 triples, 16 homers and 37 stolen bases. After returning to the Southern League two years later, he hit .340/.407/.569 with 34 doubles, 17 homers, 22 homers and 42 stolen bases.

He stuck in the majors for good after that, and had a couple decent years with the Senators, but he was mostly a second-division starter in left field. He was winding down his 11-year MLB career when the White Sox claimed him from Baltimore in July of 1955 as they searched for a bench bat. Coan didn’t connect for them, as he went just 3-for-17, and 2-for-11 was a pinch hitter.

Somehow the White Sox were able to flip him to the New York Giants two months later for Ron Northey, who ended up being the guy the Sox needed. Northey went 4-for-11 with a homer, two double and two walks as a pinch hitter the remainder of 1955, then went 15-for-39 with three homers, two doubles and seven walks off the bench the following year. Coan played just 10 more games for the Giants before calling it a career.

Ramón Conde

Born: Dec. 29, 1934
Died: Feb. 23, 2020
Played for White Sox: 1962
SABR bio

Conde, who was inducted into Puerto Rico’s Sports Hall of Fame in 2009, played in nearly 2,000 professional baseball games over a 17-year career. Only 14 of those 1,983 games took place in the majors, all of them with the White Sox in 1962.

Unfortunately, Conde failed to notch a hit, going 0-for-16 with three walks over a little less than a month. Only Cy Wright, who went 0-for-18 for the 1916 White Sox, had a longer hitless career among position players. He remained under White Sox control for five more seasons, but he spent all of them at Triple-A Indianapolis.

George Yankowski

Born: Nov. 19, 1922
Died: Feb. 25, 2020
Played for White Sox: 1949
SABR bio

Yankowski first broke into the big leagues as a 19-year-old for the Philadelphia Athletics. He next and last resurfaced in the majors seven years later, going 3-for-18 for the 1949 White Sox.

In between, Yankowski joined the Army and ended up fighting in Europe as a sniper in the Third Army, winning a Bronze Star, Combat Infantry Badge and the French Legion of Honor award for seeing action in the Battle of the Bulge. His SABR bio includes a detailed first-person account of the battle, and you see more of his story in the video below.

Don Pavletich

Born: July 13, 1938
Died: March 5, 2020
Played for White Sox: 1969
SABR bio

Don Pavletich broke into the big leagues at 18 because he received a $35,000 bonus from the Cincinnati Reds, but he didn’t stick until five years later. He hit well for a catcher, posting a .254/.328/.420 line over a 12-year career. His work behind the plate left a little to be desired, so he spent most of his career as a backup.

In his defense, he backed up some pretty strong catchers. Johnny Edwards, a three-time All_Star and two-time Gold Glover, gave way to Johnny Bench, who might be the best catcher in baseball history. Pavletich spent his last two years in Boston, where Carlton Fisk eventually emerged as the go-to guy.

In between, he spent a year with the White Sox, more or less replicating his career line over 78 games (.245/.338/.404). The White Sox chose to stick with Ed Herrmann, and so they sent him to Boston with Gary Peters before the 1970 season. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel interviewed him back in 2018, and it’s a nice read.

Jim Derrington

Born: Nov. 29, 1939
Died: March 12, 2020
Played for White Sox: 1956-57

Back in 1944, war-ravaged rosters created a situation in which Joe Nuxhall could make Major League Baseball history. He pitched for the Cincinnati Reds at the age of 15 years and 316 days, making him the youngest player to ever appear in a game.

Derrington owns the record on the American League side, and he beats Nuxhall as the youngest pitcher to start a game. He started the final game of the season for the 1956 White Sox at the age of 16 years and 306 days old. All things considered, he pitched pretty well, allowing six runs (five earned) over six innings in a 7-6 loss to Kansas City. He also collected a hit, making him the youngest player in AL history to do so.

Derrington was another bonus baby, and the White Sox had to carry him on the roster for two years after signing him out of California for $78,000. He ended up pitching 20 games for the 1957 White Sox, mostly appearing in low leverage but making a few starts here and there. He talked about his experience as a teenage White Sox with the Los Angeles Times in 1991, offering detailed impressions of a team that challenged the Yankees for the AL pennant but couldn’t quite seal the deal.

Derrington was sent to the minors after the season to actually polish his game, but he never returned to the big leagues. He suffered a severe elbow injury in the days before UCL replacements, and was done as a pitcher at the age of 22.

Ed Farmer

Born: Oct. 18, 1949
Died: April 1, 2020
Played for White Sox: 1979-81
Broadcasted for White Sox: 1991-2019

Ed Farmer, the Evergreen Park native and product of St. Rita’s High School, took his time getting to Chicago during and after his career. He was a 29-year-old journeyman when the White Sox acquired him from the Texas Rangers with Watervliet’s Gary Holle for Eric Soderholm.

With his hometown team, Farmer finally distinguished himself, first as an All-Star closer who racked up 54 saves over three seasons, and then as a mainstay on White Sox radio broadcasts starting with part-time work in 1991, which he adopted after leaving the Baltimore Orioles to join the White Sox in an unspecified role. He worked alongside John Rooney as the analyst through 2005, then took over play-by-play duties after Rooney departed for St. Louis. Farmer intended to call games in 2020, but health problems prevented him from joining the team during spring training. He died of kidney disease on April 1.

Though Farmer was only 70, it was a miracle that he lived that long. He battled polycystic kidney disease for most of his life. He inherited the condition from his mother, who died when she was 38. Farmer’s father died at the age of 41.

Farmer managed the disease throughout his career — he said his famous fight with Al Cowens caused his kidneys to bleed due to pressure from being under the pile. In the early 1990s, he received a kidney transplant from his brother that extended his life decades. Farmer was a vocal advocate for organ donation on the airwaves for his entire career.

Those who knew Farmer marveled at his connections, shrugged off his direct manner, and were devastated by the loss.

From April: Getting Ed Farmer took work, but paid off

John Matias

Born: Aug. 15, 1944
Died: April 7, 2020
Played for White Sox: 1970
SABR bio

The Hawaiian-born Matias was the secondary player in two noteworthy trades. He came to the White Sox in the November 1967 deal that returned Luis Aparicio to the White Sox and sent Don Buford to Baltimore. His minor-league track record was largely nondescript until he posted a .314/.348/.461 line with 16 homers and only 36 strikeouts over 566 plate appearances at Triple-A Tucson in 1969. He opened the following year with a strong spring training, and got the first crack at a starting outfield job for a talent-starved 1970 team.

Matias couldn’t quite crack it, hitting .188/.215/.256 over 58 games before the Sox returned him to Tucson at the end of June. They did bring him back for September, but it was more of the same. After the season, the Sox traded him and Gail Hopkins to the Kansas City Royals for Pat Kelly, who ended up staking an outfield spot for himself over the next several seasons.

Matias never surfaced in the majors again, but the White Sox hadn’t seen the last of his family, which produced a number of local legends in Honolulu. He’s the uncle of Joe DeSa, who appeared in 28 games for the 1985 White Sox.

Bart Johnson

Born: Jan. 3, 1950
Died: April 22, 2020
Played for White Sox: 1969-74; 76-77

For one season, Bart Johnson had the makings of a future fixture. The 6’5″ Californian with a big fastball and two great nicknames (“Mr. Smoke,” “Toys in the Attic”) appeared to be part of an ascendant White Sox team toward the end of the season. He’d saved 14 games as the closer before shifting to the rotation over the final weeks. He won his last four starts, striking out a dozen in each of the last two. The 153 strikeouts over 178 innings played. The 111 walks suggested a need of refinement, but given that he was just 21, he looked like he could play a part in an ascendant White Sox franchise.

But the second-to-last batter he faced that season may have altered the course of his career. With two outs and nobody on in the eighth, he drilled the 6-foot-3-inch, 230-pound Mike Epstein before recording the final out. In the bottom of the eighth, Rollie Fingers fired a fastball at Johnson, who bunted in self defense to Epstein. He had no defense for Epstein’s tag, which took the form of a punch in the jaw. Johnson ended up in the bottom of the pile, tweaking his hip in the process. The hip injury then created an issue with his right knee, which hampered his ability to push off the mound and robbed him of velocity he relied on.

Johnson struggled in nine games the following season before the Sox demoted him to the minors to see if he could become an outfielder. Johnson wasn’t a bad hitter for a pitcher, and he actually hit over .300 with power in A-ball during the audition, but when Double-A proved him less remarkable in that aspect, Johnson ended up resurfacing in the majors on the mound. Although his days as a strikeoutmonger were past him, he gained a second wind with better control, and ended up going 10-4 with a 2.74 ERA over 18 starts in 1974.

Alas, a back injury during spring training in 1975 interrupted that comeback, and although he was able to throw his only 200-inning season the following year thanks to an injection of papaya juice, his effectiveness had diminished. The White Sox shifted him to the bullpen, and Johnson lobbied for a trade afterward.

Whatever hard feelings existed diminished after his playing days, because he scouted for the White Sox from 1980 through 1987. His obituary says he died of complications from Parkinson’s Disease.

Claudell Washington

Born: Aug. 31, 1954
Died: June 10, 2020
Played for White Sox: 1978-80
SABR bio

Claudell Washington’s White Sox career began with a late arrival. In May of 1978, Bill Veeck acquired Washington from Texas for Bobby Bonds, and Washington had 72 hours to report. It took him 112½ hours. Instead of showing up in time as expected for a Friday game against Oakland, he reported after a walk-off loss on Saturday.

That didn’t sit well with his new teammates. A Sporting News story from June 10, 1978, most of whom sounded off anonymously. Ralph Garr, an outfielder who was expected to cede playing time to Washington, put his name on his barbs.

Garr finally unloaded a week later in Anaheim. “What’s going to happen to me when this Washington finally decides he wants to play? I’m out there every day, doing my job and getting my hits, and then I’m supposed to sit down when he shows up? No thanks. I respect Mr. Veeck for giving me such a nice contract, but I can’t help this club any more. I want them to trade me, right now,” he said.

Garr’s worries didn’t end up materializing. For one, Washington arrived late because he was trying to hide a bad ankle, which limited his White Sox debut to one game at DH before a stint on the disabled list. During that time, Veeck lobbied for the league to award him further compensation for the trade to no avail. When Washington finally debuted for the White Sox, he spent most of his time in right field, opposite Garr in left.

Washington never overcame that first impression. While he matched his career OPS (.745) over his three seasons in Chicago (.744), he failed the eye test. His poor defense in right field inspired a White Sox fans to hang a sign at Comiskey Park reading “Washington Slept Here.” The Sox traded him to the Mets in June 1980 for Jesse Anderson, who never surfaced in the majors.

Washington wasn’t the only team he befuddled with his general presence, but he ended up having the talent to last 17 years in the majors, racking up 1,884 hits over 17 seasons for seven teams, including the World Series-winning Oakland A’s in 1974.

Howie Judson

Born: Feb. 16, 1925
Died: Aug. 18, 2020
Played for White Sox: 1948-1952
SABR Bio

Howie Judson owns a piece of White Sox history, although not one that anybody would want. His 1-14 record in 1949 stands as the lowest winning percentage for any White Sox pitcher with 10 decisions in a season (Dutch Henry is second with a 2-17 record in 1930).

That said, Judson’s record reflects the era of White Sox baseball more than his personal failings. He posted a 12-29 record over five seasons as a swingman for the White Sox, but he played for four different managers over that time.

The McHenry County native and University of Illinois standout gained the attention of his first manager, Ted Lyons, during a tryout. Judson had a fastball and only a fastball, and while Judson never quite developed secondary pitches under Lyons’ tutelage, he handled himself respectably, especially considering he was essentially blind in his left eye from a high school injury. His 4.29 career ERA was average for the era, but the White Sox were far from it until Paul Richards arrived in 1951.

Judson finally had the chance to contribute to a first-division club, and he held his own, going 5-6 with a 3.77 ERA over 27 games, 14 of which were starts. The White Sox traded him to Cincinnati after the season as part of Frank Lane’s frantic series of moves, where he spent his last two seasons with losing Reds clubs before he cycled out of the majors. He managed a losing season in every one of his seven years, including two years with an 0-1 record, and one year at 2-3.

Tom Seaver

Born: Nov. 17, 1944
Died: Aug. 31, 2020
Played for White Sox: 1984-86
SABR bio

Tom Seaver is remembered primarily as a Met, but a couple of mistakes by the franchise’s front office allowed Seaver to notch his greatest individual accomplishments in other uniforms. He threw his only no-hitter with the Cincinnati Reds in 1978, and on Aug. 4, 1985, he pitched a complete game in Yankee Stadium to record his 300th win as a member of the White Sox.

Seaver never should have been available to the White Sox, but the Mets left him unprotected during a time when players could be claimed from unrelated rosters after losing a free agent. When the White Sox saw Dennis Lamp sign with the Toronto Blue Jays, they used their pick on Seaver, who was somehow not one of the 26 players protected by the Mets.

Seaver considered retirement rather than reporting, but Jerry Reinsdorf convinced him to join an already deep White Sox rotation. It didn’t pay off in a divisional pennant like everybody hoped, but Seaver gave the White Sox two strong full seasons at the ages of 39 and 40, going 15-11 with a 3.95 ERA over 236⅔ innings in 1984, followed by a 16-11 record with a 3.17 ERA over 238⅔ innings in 1985.

Seaver’s effectiveness finally diminished for good in 1986, and the White Sox gave him one more shot with a contender by trading him to the Red Sox for Steve Lyons that June. Reflecting on his career, Seaver said his 300th win “brought me the most joy.”

Jay Johnstone

Born: Nov. 20, 1945
Died: Sept. 26, 2020
Played for White Sox: 1971-72
SABR bio

An outfielder who carved out a niche in baseball history as one of the game’s most notorious pranksters, Jay Johnstone played for eight different teams over his 20-year career, including two with the White Sox. Roland Hemond, who was the farm director for the California Angels when his scouts signed Johnstone in the 1960s, brought Johnstone to Chicago in November 1970 during his first months as White Sox general manager.

Johnstone was a secondary player in the six-player deal (Ken Berry played the bigger role for the White Sox), but he emerged with his finest season to date in 1971. He hit .260/.329/.425 with newfound power, taking the form of career highs in homers (16) and slugging percentage (.425).

The rest of Johnstone’s stay with the White Sox wasn’t as charmed. He told Baseball Digest that the White Sox wanted more power, so he altered his swing to disastrous results (.188/.259/.268). When the White Sox wanted to cut his pay by the maximum 20 percent the following season, he asked for his release, and it was granted.

It worked out for Johnstone, who went on to play 13 more seasons and win two World Series with the Dodgers. He also got some face time during the baseball scene in “The Naked Gun,” wearing a Seattle Mariners uniform. He died of COVID-19 complications.

Jim Hicks

Born: May 18, 1939
Died: Oct. 29, 2020
Played for White Sox: 1964-66

Hicks, a product of Roosevelt High School in East Chicago, Ind., played two sports at the University of Illinois. Neither of them were baseball. He came to Champaign on a football scholarship and also played basketball, but his request to play baseball was denied, and his scholarship was pulled. He ended up signing with the White Sox in 1959, starting a long, steady climb up the minor league system that was briefly interrupted by a stint in the Army reserves.

That matriculation culminated in a few cups of coffee from 1964 through 1966, where he went 10-for-47 with a double, triple and homer. The last of which came in his final at-bat of the 1965 season.

Hicks ended up getting his longest look in 1969, playing 56 games as a bench outfielder for the Cardinals and Angels.He added two more triples and four more homers to his record, but the hits otherwise were few and far between. After riding out the rest of his stateside career with three seasons in Hawaii, he wrapped up his playing days with two seasons in Japan, where he slugged 33 homers over two seasons. After his career, he worked for Continental Airlines for more than 30 years.

Dick Allen

Born: March 8, 1942
Died: Dec. 7, 2020
Played for White Sox: 1972-74
SABR bio

It’s hard to say that any one player can save any one franchise, but Dick Allen might be the reason why the White Sox are still in Chicago. His stay on the South Side was brief, glorious and doomed, but he pumped enough life into the franchise to redeem its ability to draw.

Perhaps more credit goes to Hemond, who took a chance on acquiring the mercurial Allen. That and a few other moves — the aforementioned Kelly trade — helped build the 1972 White Sox that reinvigorated interest in a team that seemed to be set for Milwaukee, Seattle, St. Petersburg or Denver over the course of the surrounding decade.

But Allen was the center of it. He won the MVP in 1972 with a what might be the most dominant performance by a White Sox hitter, at least over a proper season. He hit .308/.420/.603, leading the league in OBP and slugging, as well as homers (37), RBIs (113) and walks (99). Those numbers are made more impressive by his calling Old Comiskey Park home. He set the franchise record for homers that year, and his 199 OPS+ has only been surpassed by 1994 Frank Thomas, whose season was limited to 113 games due to the strike.

Alas, just like his teammate Bart Johnson, Allen’s career was also limited by a run-in with Mike Epstein. He fractured a bone in his right leg in a collision at first base, which limited him to 72 games. Allen had another typically impressive year, hitting .317/.395/.614 at the time of the injury, and his absence generated some dissatisfaction among teammates and media who thought he might’ve been milking it.

Allen did benefit from special treatment by manager Chuck Tanner, which came to a head in 1974. He once again led the league in homers with 32, which was impressive considering he quit on the team with three weeks to go, announcing his retirement. He cited injuries to the media, and in his autobiography a feud with Ron Santo, who came across town and tried to establish himself as a leader. That was a recipe for disaster with Tanner’s laissez-faire approach to clubhouse management. Allen never officially filed retirement papers, but there wasn’t any coming back to Chicago, so the White Sox traded him to Atlanta, where he refused to report until the Braves dealt him to the Phillies.

While Allen was blamed for inviting the tumult in his career before, during and after his time with the Sox, a reexamination of the racism Allen faced along the way has helped soften the criticism most memorably voiced by Bill James, who wrote in The Politics of Glory that Allen “did more to keep his teams from winning than anyone else who ever played major league baseball.” Joe Posnanski wrote a great post about how Dick Allen’s fight over his first name sums up a lot about the environment he felt compelled to resist.

Allen came up one vote short of the Hall of Fame in his last turn at the committee. Should Allen cross the threshold his next time around, he won’t be around to enjoy it. Also, should Allen break into Cooperstown, White Sox fans can claim to be ahead of the curve. They responded to Allen in a way Philadelphia didn’t, and you only need to see the attendance numbers to believe it.

  • 1968: 803,775 (9th)
  • 1969: 598,546 (Last)
  • 1970: 495,355 (Last)
  • 1971: 833,891 (9th)
    — Dick Allen enters —
  • 1972: 1.18M (3rd)
  • 1973: 1.3M (4th)
  • 1974: 1.15M (6th)
    — Dick Allen leaves —
  • 1975: 750,902 (11th)

Allen recognized and appreciated Chicago. In a conversation with Paul Sullivan a month before his death,

He said he’ll always feel like a part of the Sox and indebted to Sox fans for treating him so well.

“My gosh, yes,” he said. “It’s better than anywhere I’ve been my whole baseball career. I might say my whole baseball life.

“I’ve never been treated any better. You guys are the best for my money.”

* * * * * * * * *

Charlie Haeger also died this year, but the circumstances of his death make it weird to slot him in with the others.

* * * * * * * * *

To Lil Jimmy, for whom the post is offered.

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tommytwonines

I think it’s probably 37 homers in 1972 for Allen.

asinwreck

He would have walked 300 times.

ParisSox

Thanks for the effort on this post Jim. So many links to take my time to go through. And some nice memories. Going to see Dick Allen play, but he was out of the lineup because it was a Sunday and my dad complaining that “he’s probably at the horse track.” Liking Bart Johnson because his baseball card picture was of him in full windup with his knee up around his head. Loving Ralph “Gator” Garr, and leaving the park, sitting in traffic, and Ralph Garr is in his car next to us and waving to us. What more could a 12 yr old ask for?

And indeed, lil Jimmy’s comments are missed.

Last edited 3 years ago by ParisSox
To Err is Herrmann

Great stories, each one a world unto itself. As a kid I was a big Bart Johnson fan in 1971 and after, but my parents moved me to the weird and alien territory of the St Louis Cardinals, for which I never forgave them. I never knew what happened to Bart Johnson. Now I know. Thanks.

GrinnellSteve

I, too, was a big Bart Johnson fan. He was going to be a big part of the Sox dynasty. I remember the next year, 1972, in my junior high science class, I passed a note to a Cubs fan friend of mine that I thought Johnson had cancer. This was in the time of “Brian’s Song,” and it seemed the only plausible reason for him to fall off the edge of the earth like he did.

As a kid, I was intrigued by his name: Clair Barth Johnson. I’d go by Bart, too.

asinwreck

If my memory isn’t faulty, Ron Schueler hired his old teammate Farmer as a major-league scout (coincidentally the role Bart Johnson had under Roland Hemond) when he took over from Larry Himes. Filling in alongside John Rooney revealed him to be a more enjoyable alternative to Wayne Hagin, so the scouting gig was short-lived.

The other 70s Sox pitcher with a notable presence in the scouting department was Larry Monroe, who Schuler hired as VP of scouting in the fall of 1990 and who continued to advise the scouting department through last season.

asinwreck

Washington was an interesting case. He graduated from Berkeley High School, which has produced a lot of major league players (with Billy Martin as the most famous example). He didn’t play baseball there, but was signed by the A’s as an undrafted free agent and made the majors at age 19. Despite his defensive struggles, he was a productive hitter for a long time, with All-Star appearances at 20 and 29 (the latter with the Braves).

The guy who took over as the full-time right fielder when Washington went to the Mets turned out OK, even if knee injuries took him out of the field half a decade later.

tommytwonines

He’s talking about Harold Baines, people. 🙂