Paul M. Banks in italics, Soxman in bold 
 

You listed your all-time favorite Sox players in the last exchange. 

 My all-time favorite player is Ray Durham. He’s about the exact same height and weight as me (or at least back when he was with the Sox he was) He also wore my #5 and played my old position of second base. We also both prefer music that is stereotypically favored by African-American people. so you see why he’s my all time fav. I even bought his game used pants at Soxfest ’01. Even though there was a ton of room in the seat, I wore them to my Chicago Sport and Social Club softball league games that summer. I thought I looked really cool wearing the pants of a MLB All-Star to play in beer league games, I was wrong. These two cougars on my team (before I knew what that word meant) told me that I looked a lot better when I wore shorts because the Durham pants made it look like I had a big booty. One of these women would later date and marry a Bears beat reporter for one of the major Chicago daily newspapers. If you saw how enormous her husband truly is, you’d quickly see that she is definitely not as shallow and superficial as she sounds in this anecdote. 

Many years ago I was shopping for CDs in a SICA area Circuit City (obviously this was many years ago because no one buys CDs or goes to Circuit City anymore) and some high school girls in front of me in line started talking about the White Sox with me. They thought Jon Garland was the hottest, but also called Ray Ray a “cutey patootie with a ghetto booty,” this racist statement was maybe another example of why Mr. Durham choose Juvenile’s “Back Dat Ass Up” as his walk up music.
 

Ray Ray was one of my favorite players as well during that era.  You have to hold a soft spot in your heart for the “little engine that could.”  Durham can still get on-base but his best years are behind him.  Wearing another guy’s pants dude?  I won’t even go there.  Let’s just hope Ray wasn’t one of those guys who went commando when he played. Circuit City used to be the place to shop for CDs, especially when they would have those $9.88 or less sales!  Those were the days.

 
OK, maybe that did sound a little fruity there, point taken. And yes Ray is way past his prime these days. Back to the current White Sox. The Sox are dead last in the American League in hitting at .244, dead last in the majors overall in total hits. Not to mention:

Paul Konerko .226
Jim Thome .218
Orlando Cabrera .228
Nick Swisher .213
Juan Uribe .162 (big surprise there!)
 

They are also in the middle of the pack in on base percentage, this all doesn’t sound like a first place team to me. However, they’re also fourth in the AL in runs scored, how is this possible? I know the Sox are drawing more walks this season, but what’s the missing factor here to complete the equation?
 
 

Just imagine what this team will be like when these guys start hitting.  Since you published this question, Konerko has started to heat things up in a big way, smashing two dingers on Sunday and hitting .350 over his last 6 games.  You also have to remember; he has never been “Mr. April” throughout his career.  Until his two-homer day this past Sunday, fans were writing to my site calling for him to be traded. Without going into a lot of detail, your missing factors regarding the Sox hold of first place are as follows:
 
The Sox are third in the American League in team earned run average at 3.43, meaning they are not giving up a whole lot of runs. 
 
They rank first in the AL, holding opponents to a .243 batting average!
 
They also rank 4th in the AL in runs scored with 127.
 
Those are some pretty good statistics.  The “X” factor is that they are getting timely hits and doing what they need to do to win.
 
 
Again how is this team in first place by 2 1/2 games? Oh by the way, here come the Cleveland Indians, who despite losing their previous three, are the only team in the division (other than our sox of course) with a positive overall run differential. Yes, they started poorly like the Tigers, but they are “right up in our grille” now and appear to be the biggest threat.  By the way, if we stay in first place for one more week, the Sox will have spent more total days in first place in 2008 than all of ’07 and ’06 COMBINED. Sounds crazy doesn’t it? Sounds great too though! 

 
As you remember, I said in my season preview that the Sox needed to come out of the gate strong and they did, but I would have liked to see them come out stronger.  They should easily have 2-3 more wins in their record including opening day, the horrid game in Baltimore where Jenks melted down, and one of the games against the Twins.  I hope that does not come back to bite them. The Tigers were vulnerable as they lost Granderson, have no bullpen, and their starting pitching has been horrible.  The Sox need to continue to play hard to fend the Indians off.  We can win this thing.  Our pitching needs to stay the same and our big hitters have to get going.  Remember, the hitting stats I described above are without Thome and Konerko performing. We have a tough road trip ahead, so let’s hope we keep our winning ways going!
 
 
No, I don’t remember you saying that. I don’t actually read anything that you write. Just kidding of course! What kind of awful site owner would I be if that were really true? I read an interesting piece in the New York Times today about how Jim Thome may not be a hall-of-famer…even though he just passed up both Mr. Cub Ernie Banks and Eddie Mathews on the career home run list last week. Why would Cooperstown leave him out?

 

Statistics have nothing to do with it in the eyes of that reporter.  Every hitter who spends the majority of his career at DH falls under extra scrutiny because baseball writers believe DHs have it easier, not having to play the field.
 
I don’t agree.  When I played baseball I found that my head stayed in the game better when I was on the field.  When I played DH, I obsessed about my horrible Abs more than you obsess about {words omitted}, which we all know is your number one obsession next to this web site. In the end, Thome will be remembered as one of baseball’s all-time good guys, who was actively involved in charity work off the field, never complained, and who compiled Hall of Fame Numbers.  He was also a clean player during the steroid era, which will earn him even more respect when his time comes.
 
A .281 career batting average, 513 HRs (he could easily have 600 before his career is over), and a CAREER .408 on-base percentage!  If that’s not HOF worthy, I don’t know what is.   Remember, just because a writer suggests something, doesn’t mean it’s true. If it was, I promise I would write more about {words omitted}. With your Sox Exchange, I remain your friendly neighborhood Soxman.
 

Oh please, everyone knows my work is my one and only obsession. It’s also my number 2-199 ranked obsessions. And I think you write about {words omitted} plenty enough as it is!

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