Jim Landis

My first serious season of being a White Sox fan was 1964, which happened to be center fielder Jim Landis’s last year with the Sox.  I was vaguely aware of Landis from before, including the pennant-winning year of 1959, and like most twelve-year olds assumed he would keep his position until death claimed him, as it did a grandparent.  Landis’s trade to Kansas City in the off-season boggled my innocent little mind.

I knew Landis was good, but not five-straight Gold Gloves good (1960-64).  Landis was part of a three-way trade that brought the Sox Tommie Agee from the Indians, and Agee I do remember well.  He won a Gold Glove in center for the Sox in 1966, with Ken Berry flanking him either in left or right.  After the Sox traded Agee to the Mets (and subsequent stardom), Berry took over in center, where he won his Gold Glove in 1970.

You could say I grew up expecting Sox center fielders to come with Gold Gloves, just like I grew up expecting Sox center fielders to play there forever; the trades of Agee and, eventually, Berry bothered me only slightly less than that of Landis.  What really bothers me, though, is the death of old Sox center fielders, Agee in 2001 at the age of 58 and Landis on Saturday at 83.  The little boy in me wants them to play forever.