What If?

The White Sox are the kind of team that makes a person wonder, what if? What if Chuck Comiskey hadn’t lowballed his sister Dorothy, who out of spite and/or anger then sold her controlling interest in the team to Bill Veeck? What if Veeck had kept youngsters Earl Battey; Johnny Callison; Norm Cash; Don Mincher; and John Romano after the 1959 season instead of trading them for some veteran pop (Gene Freese, Minnie Minoso, Roy Sievers)? All that young hitting with all that pitching, oh, my. What if Veeck had sold to anybody but Jerry Reinsdorf? What if Reinsdorf didn’t hate overpaying for pitchers? Would Jack McDowell have pitched his entire career on the South Side? Or Chris Sale? Or Mark Buehrle? The team is unveiling a statue of Buehrle next week. Fans will be reminded of the two no-hitters (one a perfect game) the lefthander threw for the Sox among his 161 wins for the team that drafted him and should have paid to keep him from ever leaving. What if Reinsdorf used the unveiling ceremony to admit his mistake? That’s when we would know that pigs do indeed fly.