OK, this was
weird. For absolutely no good reason
yesterday, I got to thinking about long-ago White Sox pitcher Cisco
Carlos. I went on baseball-lreference.com
to find I was visiting on Carlos’ 78th birthday. All I can say to that is, And many more.
The right hander
pitched in four major-league seasons, 1967-1970. I happened to catch his debut on August 25,
1967, the second game of a twilight doubleheader against the Red Sox. We missed the first game, a 7-1 Boston win,
because my dad couldn’t get out of work early.
But we were there at Comiskey Park along with 34, 578 other fans to see
Carlos keep the Red Sox hitless until two out in the fifth inning. Carlos left with
one out in the seventh and the White Sox leading 1-0 on a Ken Berry homerun.
One run really
could have been enough in any given game that season; the White Sox had already
won 1-0 six times in ’67; that’s what an MLB-best team ERA of 2.45 will do for
you. But Bob Locker gave up a run in
relief, setting up Ken Berry to deliver a walk-off single in the bottom of the
ninth. The split left both Sox tied in
the standings, one-half game out of first place.
Cisco would go
2-0 for the rest of the season, with a ridiculous .86 ERA over 41.2 innings; he
never came close duplicating those numbers over the next three years. His big-league career was over by 1971. Oh, but that warm Friday night in August at
the Baseball Palace of the World on the great South Side of Chicago. To a fifteen-year old fan with his father,
Cisco Carlos was as near to perfect as an unheralded rookie could ever be.
And that’s why I’m a
baseball fan, even if the game is clueless on the matter of female on-field
talent.
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