Paul, I was ready to call you out for misattributing the Chicago White Stockings to the White Sox, but, alas, you are correct: they began as the precursor to the Cubs from 1870-1889, and the nascent AL team in Chicago adopted the name from 1900-1903. Kudos!
Nice work. My take as a casual fan whose focus drifted over the last 4 decades of life in LoCali…In retrospect that lineup stacks-up pretty well. Luzinski was a beast. Paciorek had had a good stint with the Dodgers but their infield was loaded and he deserved more playing time. Fisk is in the HOF isn’t he? That he boosted his BA that much is cool, but obviously he just had a cold start. Etc.
It was, at least, a solid team. The pitching was really good, too. I think it just speaks to the spell of forgetting that was cast on the White Sox some time after the late 1950s that I had not heard of many of these guys before a project had me start digging into the Sox of the 1980s. Fisk was definitely a star in 1983; he didn't get a lot of time in this story but his career had another decade in it, including two All-Star appearances.
I didn't really find that La Russa did anything really brilliant, its just that in the second half everything seemed to work for this team, best-case outcomes nearly across the board. It must have been a lot of fun.
It’s always more fun to root for an up-&-coming bunch than the heavyweight champ. I was 13 when I came to LA in 1973 from the boonies. The Dodgers had assembled a talented but very young bunch and made a strong run at The Big Red Machine in Cincinnati. The next year they were in the series against the A’s. And after that I went from hanging on every word Vin Scully spoke to mild indifference. Got a chance to run it back in ‘02 when -back in the boonies with my young family - the lowly Angels, a band of nobodies, went the distance.
Paul, I was ready to call you out for misattributing the Chicago White Stockings to the White Sox, but, alas, you are correct: they began as the precursor to the Cubs from 1870-1889, and the nascent AL team in Chicago adopted the name from 1900-1903. Kudos!
I'll slip up one of these days, and it's good to know there are people waiting to pounce when it happens.
Nice work. My take as a casual fan whose focus drifted over the last 4 decades of life in LoCali…In retrospect that lineup stacks-up pretty well. Luzinski was a beast. Paciorek had had a good stint with the Dodgers but their infield was loaded and he deserved more playing time. Fisk is in the HOF isn’t he? That he boosted his BA that much is cool, but obviously he just had a cold start. Etc.
It was, at least, a solid team. The pitching was really good, too. I think it just speaks to the spell of forgetting that was cast on the White Sox some time after the late 1950s that I had not heard of many of these guys before a project had me start digging into the Sox of the 1980s. Fisk was definitely a star in 1983; he didn't get a lot of time in this story but his career had another decade in it, including two All-Star appearances.
I didn't really find that La Russa did anything really brilliant, its just that in the second half everything seemed to work for this team, best-case outcomes nearly across the board. It must have been a lot of fun.
It’s always more fun to root for an up-&-coming bunch than the heavyweight champ. I was 13 when I came to LA in 1973 from the boonies. The Dodgers had assembled a talented but very young bunch and made a strong run at The Big Red Machine in Cincinnati. The next year they were in the series against the A’s. And after that I went from hanging on every word Vin Scully spoke to mild indifference. Got a chance to run it back in ‘02 when -back in the boonies with my young family - the lowly Angels, a band of nobodies, went the distance.
Anyone remember the words to an old song (not sung until the very end): “She must be ugly but she sure can cook.”
In 1983, the WS sure could cook!
Nope. Sing it🤪
🎼🎶🎵🎤🥁🎸🎵🎼
Well now I can hum it!