Baseball, especially at the Major League Baseball level, is for all seasons. We are winding down with college football, set to watch football bowl games, North Central College’s football team will play a Division III playoff semifinal game at perpetual playoff team, Mount Union College, at 11 a.m. Saturday in Alliance, Ohio, and we are moving into full swing in many Winter sports.
Baseball’s hot stove league warmed up Sunday with the announcement of six Baseball Hall of Fame players named by old-timers committees. The late Minnie (Orestes) Minoso of the Chicago White Sox in the 1950s and 1960s was one of the six who will be inducted next year. He played 10 of his 15 years in Major League Baseball (MLB) with the White Sox. He was an up-beat, delightful, person with composure in public, and gratitude to Sox fans for embracing him. Minoso finished second in the 1951 Rookie of Year Award voting at age 25. Unfortunately, he was with Cleveland in 1958 and 1959. The Sox won the American League pennant in 1959. The Sox brought him back in 1960 and 1961 and again in 1964.
Minoso, who died in 2015, worked many seasons in the White Sox Speakers’ Bureau after his playing days and was delighted to mingle with Sox fans. He finished with a fine .299 lifetime batting average, led the American League three times each in triples and stolen bases, and collected 2,110 base hits. Dick Allen, a former Sox player missed the call to Hall by one vote. Other players accepted: Pitcher Jim Kaat, first baseman Gil Hodges, outfielder, Tony Oliva, Buck O’Neil, and Bud Fowler. The dominant left-handed pitcher with 25 years in the MLB, Kaat pitched for five teams, including three years with the White Sox, 1973-1975.