Hansen/Montgomery

How old am I? Old enough to remember the White Sox trading away Luis Aparicio in a deal that brought Ron Hansen to the South Side. It wasn’t a bad trade, thanks to the haul of talent the Sox got—Hansen, Pete Ward, Dave Nicholson and Hoyt Wilhelm—for future HOFer Aparicio and Al Smith. Hansen was four years younger and a whole lot bigger than Aparicio, 6’3” to Aparicio’s 5’9”. Hansen was solid defensively and could hit for power, when he was healthy. But he had a bad back from the time he was nineteen. Hansen played as a regular until age 30 and hung on for another four years as a utility player. Like Hansen, Montgomery stands 6’3”, though he weighs 40 pounds more than Hansen did at 190. The 23-year old rookie also has suffered back issues, including this spring. Montgomery has been doing a lot of diving at shortstop (and looking good in the process) since he was brought up last week, and everything seems to be holding. The good news here is that treatment of the spine has improved a whole lot since the 1960s. Aparicio played until he was 39, outlasting Hansen by a year. It’s unreasonable to expect Montgomery to become another HOFer at short. I’d be happy if he could avoid the back problems and have a Ron Hansen-plus career, as in more than 1007 hits; 106 homeruns; and 501 RBIs. You could do worse.