A South Side legend

Growing up on the South Side of Chicago in the 1950s, I had only one idol: His full name was Saturnino Orestes Armas Minoso Arrieta. But to legions of Chicago White Sox, fans he was just “Minnie.”

Minnie was the personification of everything I wanted to be as a baseball player. He was fast on the bases, he could hit the long ball and he had a golden glove. Beyond these intrinsic athletic attributes, he was an absolute joy to watch. He seemed to love the game and it showed. And nobody looked better in a Sox uniform than Minnie.

{mosads}In his very first full season in the big leagues (1951), he was voted Rookie of the Year by The Sporting News. The players themselves cast the ballots. He went on to amass 1,963 hits over 17 seasons. He led the American League in triples three times and was picked for the All-Star Game nine times.

Every Friday in the late 1950s, I faithfully put on my Chicago White Sox uniform. The white flannel shirt was heavy and the leggings uncomfortably stuck to my legs on those hot Chicago summer days. But that didn’t matter. Those Friday mornings I had to look right, playing left field at South Shore Day Camp. On the back of the uniform was the number 9. Everybody knew that number; no one ever asked me whom I was trying to copy. My lifelong friend, Tim Stutzman, who was on my team and later went to high school with me, to this day — 55 years later — does not call me Mark, but “Minnie.”

The fabulous and ideal owner Bill Veeck activated Minoso in 1976 and 1980. That way he could say that he was the only major league player to have played in five decades.

And there’s a further story to that. In 1976, I was traveling with Sen. Eugene McCarthy (Minn.) who was running as an independent candidate for president. McCarthy, besides being a poet and a witty and erudite speaker, was a former minor league baseball player and a great student of the game. He played first base in the Great Soo League. I informed McCarthy that Veeck, the legendary and wonderfully imaginative maverick owner of the Chicago White Sox, had just activated Minnie Minoso to play for the Sox. McCarthy immediately said, “What about me?”

Now you must realize that we were at Rollins College in Florida, preparing to make a campaign stop, but McCarthy was much more interested in the prospect of leaving the campaign for a while and being an instant Major League Baseball player. I told McCarthy that I had read in a Sports Illustrated article about Veeck, who was then in his second incarnation as the White Sox owner (they won the pennant in 1959 in his first ownership), that Veeck would talk to any fan. All they had to do was call. So McCarthy said, “Call him.”

I called Veeck and I distinctly remember after asking for him that there was a pause and then a voice came on. I said, “Is this really Bill Veeck?” to which he said, “You got ‘im.” I told Veeck that I was sitting in Florida with Gene McCarthy and since he had activated Minoso, why doesn’t he activate McCarthy and put him on the White Sox team. Veeck said, “Can he hit?” I turned to McCarthy and said, “Can you hit?” McCarthy nodded affirmatively and said, “Yes.” I then told Veeck that McCarthy said he could hit and I said, “Will you bring him up?” There was a long pause and I thought it was gonna happen. But Veeck said, “Nah, [Chicago Mayor Richard J.] Daley would kill me.”

That was the end of Gene McCarthy’s potential major league debut.

What I remember most was this one time meeting and talking to Minnie. I was in Sarasota, Fla. for White Sox spring training in the late 1980s. I went to a restaurant one night and there standing alone was Minnie, in sartorial splendor. I went up to him and introduced myself and told him that I had the privilege of sitting in the backseat with people who were running for president of the United States — I was an advance man — “but they were nothing, Minnie. You are my hero.”

In 2005, the White Sox won the World Series. For any Sox fan, this was a modern-day miracle. In 1959 they had won the American League pennant, but lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers in six games. The greatest tragedy was that Minoso was not on the ’59 pennant winning team. He had been traded in 1958 to the Cleveland Indians. To this day, I mourn that trade. Minnie not being on the ’59 team was so wrong, so unfair. So not right.

As a journalist, I went to the White House ceremony celebrating the Sox World Series victory. After the ceremony, I strode up to the Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf. I had one question for him: “Where was Minnie?” He looked stunned and perplexed. I told him he should have brought him to the White House with the rest of the team. It would have made up for ’59 and more to the point, Minnie at the time was an employee of the Sox as their “ambassador.” Reinsdorf didn’t get it. Shame on him! I’ll never forgive him for not bringing Minnie.

I was not at Comiskey Park on May 1, 1951, when Minoso came to bat for the very first time as a Chicago White Sox player. He stood in the box and promptly hit a home run. How fitting! How perfect! Minnie was never elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. He’s not in Cooperstown, but for me he will always be in the hearts of every Chicago White Sox fan. He’s in my own Hall of Fame.

Minnie, you always hit it out of the park.

Plotkin is a political analyst, a contributor to the BBC on American politics and a columnist for The Georgetowner.