As the Chicago White Sox hover within a few games of .500 and seem to drift further from the division leader Cleveland Indians on a daily basis, I am hearing rumblings from fans expressing the desire to re-acquire former CF and current Phillie Aaron Rowand.  As the rumblings increase in frequency, so does my disgust.

For Rowand, the White Sox acquired Jim Thome, the team’s current leader in batting average, on-base%, slugging%, and walks.  If not for a muscle injury that kept him out of the lineup for more than two weeks, he’d also be leading the team in homers and RBI.  Anybody who points out Rowand’s leadership and overall welcomed presence in the clubhouse should take note of Thome’s longstanding reputation as being the same person.

The Rowand trade has been one of the better trades in the successful career of Sox GM Ken Williams.  But Sox fans want the “grindy” player back in Chicago.  The current CF on Chicago’s southside is Darin Erstad, whose mold was used the form Rowand (or so it would appear if such a thing were actually possible).  Even with two LFs likely out for extended periods of time with injuries (Scott Podsednik and Pablo Ozuna), the Sox are stacked with serviceable options.  Rob Mackowiak has improved his outfield defense tremendously from last year, and up-and-comers Ryan Sweeney and Brian Anderson loom in AAA. 


The Sox already have a couple of players similar to Rowand in their outfield

Despite Rowand’s hot start to 2007—he’s batted .325 through the first 51 games—I just don’t see enough room for him on the team unless Williams is willing to give up so soon on Anderson, a move I strongly oppose.  Besides that, the Phillies just don’t have any interest in dealing Rowand.

In the end, I can only think of one question to ask those Sox fans clamoring for Rowand’s return:  Would you rather have the reckless, fence-crashing, “small baler,” or the soon-to-be member of the 500 home run club and surefire future Hall of Famer?

Teams normally have high expectations after winning a World Championship, but after the 2005 White Sox won 99 games and went 11-1 in the playoffs 2006 wasn’t supposed to turn out this way.  Not after retaining number one slugger Paul Konerko for another 5 years.  Not after trading for a proven left-handed RBI machine like Jim Thome.  Things are supposed to turn out better when you add a 5th starter like Javier Vazquez to a staff that already contained pitchers who hurled back-to-back-to-back-to-back complete games in the ALCS.  This team wasn’t supposed to finish in third place and out of the playoffs.  Not after winning the World Series and undoubtedly becoming a better team (on paper of course) in the offseason.

And, there’s no plausible explanation for why the White Sox did something this year that they have done every other season in their history.  They failed the make the postseason for two consecutive years.

Sox fans knew that defending a title wasn’t going to be easy.  They knew the division and league would be stronger and that everything would have to go right.  For the most part, things didn’t turn out so bad.  The team remained one of the healthiest in the majors all season, with only one starting pitcher landing on the 15-day DL once all season.  Thome and Joe Crede have missed action here and there due to back problems, and there have been scattered other injuries to Scott Podsednik and Tadahito Iguchi.  But Chicago can’t compare its infirmary with Minnesota (Fransisco Liriano, Torri Hunter, Brad Radke), or New York (Gary Sheffield, Hideki Matsui, Chen Ming Wang).   

Serveral players, including Jermaine Dye, had excellent offensive years, yet the White Sox couldn't make the playoffs 

Vazquez turned out to be a superior fifth starter to Orlando Hernandez.  Rob Mackowiak and Alex Cintron lived up to the hype as great bench players.  And other question marks turned out to be afterthoughts.  Could Jon Garland win 17-18 games again?  Check.  Could Bobby Jenks save 40 games?  Check.  Could Thome be an MVP candidate?  Check.  Could this finally be the year Crede hits over .280 with 30 home runs?  Check.  Add to the mix that Jermaine Dye would exceed everybody’s expectations and hit .320+ with 40 home runs, Brian Anderson would play an errorless centerfield while hitting above .290 in the second half, Jose Contreras would start the season 7-0, and AJ Pierzynski would have better offensive numbers than in 2005, and Sox fans everywhere are scratching their heads.

Oh yeah, and the team had seven All-Stars representing the American League.  They led the Major Leagues in home runs and runs scored.  And their .312 batting average with runners in scoring position dominated everybody.  How can a team with so many things going right have so many things go wrong?

The numbers don’t add up.  Third place?  

Some things that did contribute to this underachieving season:  Mark Buehrle.  Whether he was injured, tired, or whatever the excuse, the White Sox couldn’t count on him to be their stopper.  Joey Cora, former second sacker and current third base coach, was responsible for too many runners thrown out at home.  Freddy Garcia only pitched when he felt like it, Juan Uribe seemed to lack concentration on routine defensive plays, Ozzie Guillen shuffled the lineup at inopportune times, and Kenny Williams did not get a good defensive fourth outfielder to platoon for Anderson and Podsednik, leaving infielders Mackowiak and Pablo Ozuna to misplay fly balls on a daily basis.

The good things should have far outweighed the bad, but for some reason they didn’t, and I can’t explain why.  Saying that their extended 2005 season resulted in fatigue for 2006, and their lackluster play is the result is bogus.  The Sox only played 12 extra games last season, remember?  The number of additional starts made by starting pitchers was minimal.  Chalking this failure up to a lack of chemistry resulting from trading Aaron Rowand to Philadelphia is another ignorant mistake.  Thome, the player Chicago got in return for Rowand, is known around the league as one of the most clubhouse-friendly players to have on a team, and his .290/42 hr/106 RBI/107 runs easily dwarf’s Rowand’s .262/12/47/59.  Thome’s stats are better than both players he technically replaced, Carl Everett and Frank Thomas, too.  How the Pale Hose would have fared without Thome’s monstrous bat, I can only fathom, would be at least ten games worse. 

Anybody who would un-do the Thome trade either hates the White Sox or is clueless about baseball

And somehow, this all takes us back to a third-place team with two MVP candidates, seven All-Stars, the saves leader, and reining Manager of the Year.  The team that, despite having so many things work in their favor, somehow managed to have gone 30-38 so far in the second half and become just the second non-Marlins team in the last ten years to win the World Series and miss the playoffs the following season.  I couldn’t tell you how it all happened either.

Here is a list of ridiculous sports motifs I’m sick and tired of hearing about:

1)      1) The health of Barbaro.  Folks, it’s a horse.  It’s not an athlete, and it’s not a sport.  I feel bad for the poor little guy, but I don’t want the story of his impending euthanasia polluting my sports page.  One anchor on an ESPN show quipped recently “When will the day come when every single American has as good of a Healthcare package as this horse is getting?”  Until that happens, I don’t want to hear about Barbaro.

2)      2) Nicknaming every athlete with a first name of Ben “Big Ben.”  I refuse to acknowledge the usage of this nickname, namely Wallace, Roethlisberger, and Gordon.  Could anybody be a little bit more creative?

3)      3) (Speaking of “Big Ben”) Over-hyping Ben Roethlisberger.  I don’t care that he played for the Super Bowl winning team last year.  If Donovan McNabb, Peyton Manning, Jake Delhomme, or Trent Green were quarterbacking the Steelers, they still would have won it all.  Roethlisberger had run of the mill regular season stats in both of his two NFL seasons so far (last year: 2385 yards, 17 TDs, 9 INTs).  If he puts up similar numbers to his 2005 postseason in the 2006 regular season for 16 games, I’ll jump on his bandwagon.  If he does that, I’ll remove him from the group of QBs that contains David Carr and Trent Dilfer and put him in the group containing Manning, Tom Brady, and Carson Palmer.

I readily admit that Roethlisberger is one of my most hated athletes

4)      4) Aaron Boone’s home run in the 2003 ALCS.  I realize that Fox and ESPN are desperate for another ratings-boosting ALCS pitting the Yankees against the Red Sox.  But if I have to suffer through another replay of that homer in Game 7 I’ll never watch another baseball game on whatever network was playing it at the time.  For that matter, if any broadcasters are reading, don’t talk about it either.

5)      5) Jon Papelbon as American League MVP.  I’ll put it as plainly and simply as I possibly can.  No.  I don’t care if Boston wins 100 games and he finishes with 55 saves and a 0.25 ERA.  A closer who pitches 75 innings can NEVER be more valuable than any batter who makes 500 plate appearances, even if the batter was a DH and didn’t play the field.  David Ortiz and Jim Thome are neck-and-neck right now and Papelbon wouldn’t finish in the top 5.

6)     6)  FoxSports bloggers basing their opinion of an athlete or team on results from their fantasy league.  Real life and fantasy sports are different.  Just because you traded Johnny Damon for Carlos Beltran doesn’t mean the Yankees and Mets should swap centerfielders.  Just because you benched Aramis Ramirez because of his low batting average doesn’t mean the Cubs should follow suit. 

7)      7) Calling the White Sox’s offensive approach anything except “Power Ball.”  They don’t play “smart ball,” “small ball,” or “Ozzie ball.”  They lead the major leagues with 136 homers, 511 RBI, and 532 runs.  They have the highest percentage of runs scored via the long ball.  Hence, “Power Ball.”

8)      8) People saying they need to go to Wrigley Field before they die.  It may look pretty on TV, but believe me when I tell you that you ain’t missin’ much.  Parking is horrible, concourses are crowded and dirty, concrete occasionally crumbles from the rafters, the bathrooms are disgusting and small (and you have to wait in line 15 minutes to get in one), and the neighborhood is a frat boy’s party haven, making it unattractive to families.  Besides, Cubs fans don’t want tourists donating dollars to reinforce the Tribune Company’s supplying a garbage baseball team.

Wrigley is nowhere near as nice as this; really, it isn't

9)      9) Anything and everything related to #### Vitale.  For the love of God can somebody please assassinate the most annoying man on television?  10 extra credit points to whoever does.  Well, maybe I shouldn’t be saying that.  How about 10 points to the doctor who can shoot him up with an extra large dosage of the strongest prescription strength depressant currently on the market. 

Did I miss anything?  Post your ideas as comments to my blog.