One of the main reasons for the White Sox’ improvement this year is an improved defense. One of the great mysteries of the White Sox’ improvement is how they improved that defense. Baltimore’s great manager Earl Weaver used to say that the time to work on defense was spring training; if a team didn’t have the fundamentals down by opening day it wasn’t likely to work out the kinks during the hectic season. The Sox, however, have improved their defense this year after an abbreviated spring training that lasted barely three weeks. White Sox general manager Larry Himes addresses this mystery as no mystery whatsoever. He says, emphatically, “They’re better players. We’ve got a better club. Better speed in the outfield, better range, better arms, better intensity, better urgency, better intelligence, better everything.”
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The Oakland Athletics managed to seize first place both at the Fourth of July and the All-Star break–baseball’s pair of oracular midsummer dates, predicting the eventual winners–but the White Sox held first for much of the time around those dates this month, and even after losing four of five going into the break, they were still only one game behind the reigning world champions. They’ve made the most dramatic turnaround in baseball this year and one of the most dramatic in baseball history. Placed side by side, the Sox’ 1990 record at the All-Star break is 21 games ahead of their 1989 record at the break. The Baltimore Orioles set the record of a 21-game turnaround only a year ago, and they defended it last weekend by dealing the Sox losses on Saturday and Sunday.
We looked for differences and not similarities between the two teams when the Orioles came to town last weekend, and they were there to be found. The Orioles are testimony to Roland Hemond’s baseball acumen, to his recognizing players slighted by other teams who belong in the majors. (They remind me of the misfit toys that eventually find homes in the annual Christmas television special Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer.) Hemond was kicked upstairs by the White Sox when they brought in Ken “Hawk” Harrelson as general manager in 1985, and he then went on to work in baseball’s higher, bureaucratic offices before returning to the actual dirty work of rebuilding the Orioles. With nothing to offer in trade and nothing to draw from the team’s minor-league system, he went after players nobody else wanted, but whom he believed in. Look at the team’s lineup from last Saturday. The first three players were all National League castoffs: Mike Devereaux, Joe Orsulak, and Randy Milligan, a first baseman the New York Mets ranked behind both Keith Hernandez and Dave Magadan. Mickey Tettleton, the cleanup hitter, was released by the A’s. Cal and Billy Ripken are both homegrown mainstays, of course, but then there’s Tim Hulett, dumped by the White Sox, Bob Melvin, a backup catcher with San Francisco, and Brad Komminsk, waived earlier this season by Cleveland. The pitcher was John Mitchell, like Milligan a player with proven credentials in the high minors whom the Mets never gave a chance. That’s a patchwork team, made up of doubtful players who thrived when given the chance to play. That’s also a team that needs practice and a sound base in the fundamentals, which is perhaps why the abbreviated spring training appears to have had more impact on the Orioles than it has on the White Sox.
