A new blog: the 1967 Chicago White Sox

[chisox5967]

If you like the '60's era Chisox, you might like my new blog about the 1967 White Sox season and players; as well as sports memorabilia images, stories, player interviews, game used flannel and equipment pics, and more will be added as the months go by.

http://bobmcwhitesox.blogspot.com/

Feel free to add your comments on site. Hope you enjoy.
Happy New Year!
Bob
Go Sox!

[LITTLE NELL]

Was stationed near West Point NY with the USAF in 1967 but followed them closely that year. Was able to pick up WMAQ and listened to a lot of the games.
What great pitching we had with Horlen, Peters and John leading the staff.
Downfall was they could not hit a lick and it all came to a horrible end the last week when we lost the last 5 games to the 2 worst teams in the A L, the A's and the Senators. Was stationed with a lot of BoSox fans and they went nuts when Boston won on the last day of the season. What a race it was as with a week left to play and any one of 4 teams could have won it.

[BainesHOF]

Good luck with the blog, Bob! I'll be checking it.

I was born in 1967.

[mahagga73]

Just got the 67 season for the APBA game ,I'm looking to right the wrong of the Sox not getting it done. It seems like nobody talks about 64 but the Sox were actually only 1 game out from the Yankees that year. A Sox Cardinals series was that close to happening just like in 05.

[mahagga73]

Originally Posted by LITTLE NELL

Was stationed near West Point NY with the USAF in 1967 but followed them very closely that year. Was able to pick up WMAQ and listened to a lot of the games.
What great pitching we had with Horlen, Peters and John leading the staff.
Downfall was they could not hit a lick and it all came to a horrible end the last week when we lost the last 5 games to the 2 worst teams in the A L, the A's and the Senators. Was stationed with a lot of BoSox fans and they went nuts when Boston won on the last day of the season. What a race it was as with a week left to play and any one of 4 teams could have won it.

Nell, you seem to be the old time guru on here so I'll ask you, why was it the Sox could never come up with the hitting they needed? Didn't want to pay for it? bad minor league development?

[Lip Man 1]

Mahagga:

It's not that the Sox didn't care about hitting or didn't try to get it. Some of the players they thought were going to do very well (Ken Berry immediately comes to mind) never became the hitters they thought they were going to be.

They became good players with exceptional defensive skills for the most part, but just never could hit like other players on other teams.

Also factoring in were the fact that Comiskey Park was not a hitters park by any means and the 'frozen baseballs' in the mid 1960's.

As stated the Sox knew what they were lacking and made serious attempts to get players like Frank Robinson, Yaz and Hawk Harrelson on to the team...to no avail.

I'll return in a minute posting a link to the story I posted that has the details of those 'near misses'

And I agree 1967 was a great year, Stanky almost pulled off a miracle but the 1964 season was better with a better club and a better team.

1964 started to slip away when the Sox lost a double header to the lowly washington Senators who started Bennie Daniels and Dave Stenhouse. Two pitchers with bad records (although Daniels wasn't a bad pitcher...)

Lip

[Lip Man 1]

Here's the link to the 'what if' story?

http://www.whitesoxinteractive.com/r...gory=2&id=3435

Lip

[mahagga73]

Originally Posted by Lip Man 1

Mahagga:

It's not that the Sox didn't care about hitting or didn't try to get it. Some of the players they thought were going to do very well (Ken Berry immediately comes to mind) never became the hitters they thought they were going to be.

They became good players with exceptional defensive skills for the most part, but just never could hit like other players on other teams.

Also factoring in were the fact that Comiskey Park was not a hitters park by any means and the 'frozen baseballs' in the mid 1960's.

As stated the Sox knew what they were lacking and made serious attempts to get players like Frank Robinson, Yaz and Hawk Harrelson on to the team...to no avail.

I'll return in a minute posting a link to the story I posted that has the details of those 'near misses'

And I agree 1967 was a great year, Stanky almost pulled off a miracle but the 1964 season was better with a better club and a better team.

1964 started to slip away when the Sox lost a double header to the lowly washington Senators who started Bennie Daniels and Dave Stenhouse. Two pitchers with bad records (although Daniels wasn't a bad pitcher...)

Lip

Thanks for the response, I know free agency wasn't there to help back then. Just curious as to why the 64 season gets so little play as a great baseball season when 67 is talked about at naseum. I have my theory, that if the Red Sux didn't win it and the White Sox or another team did, it wouldn't get near the airplay and love it does now. The race in the NL in 64 had 4 teams within a few game also I believe .

[SI1020]

I actually liked the 64 team more than the 59 pennant winner. What piching depth they had. Unfortunately they lost to the Yankees the first 10 times they played them and that sealed their fate. I hate to say it but the Sox seemed to usually get the lump in the throat when it was time to go up against the Yanks. In a 4 game series in old Comiskey Aug 17-20 the Sox got a measure of revenge and swept the Yanks 4 straight. They were 1/2 game ahead of the Orioles and 4 1/2 in front of the Yanks, who of course righted the ship and went on a September charge. That year was just tough to swallow because the Sox were good enough to make in interesting in the WS. I guess Bob Gibson was fated to begin creating his legendary status against NY.

The 67 team was a mirage to me. I enjoyed the run they had, but never believed they had what it took to go the distance. I thought the Red Sox, Tigers and Twins all had better clubs. It was still a crushing disappointment when they had it in their grasp late but then dropped 5 straight to the 2 AL bottom feeders. I'm looking forward to this blog.

[LITTLE NELL]

Originally Posted by mahagga73

Nell, you seem to be the old time guru on here so I'll ask you, why was it the Sox could never come up with the hitting they needed? Didn't want to pay for it? bad minor league development?

Down through the years the team was built for the vast dimensions of old Comiskey Park, pitching, defense and small ball was the name of the game. Until Bill Melton came along no White Sox player had ever hit more than 29 HRs. The ball was not the lively one that we have now and it's hard to say how much a guy like Mickey Mantle would have fared in Comiskey for 77 games a season. There is no way a guy like Ernie Banks would have hit over 500 homers playing in Comiskey for his whole career.
Management tried some big boppers like trading for Roy Sievers in 1960 but we never could catch the Yankees, they also had pitching and defense but could always beat you with the long ball.
The Sox had a pretty a pretty good farm system in those years, we had rookie of the years with Aparicio, Gary Peters and Tommy Agee. Some other damn good players came up through the system, Landis, Callison, Denny McLain, Horlen, Earl Battey, Don Buford, Carlos May and Melton.
The Comiskey family never had a vast amount of money, if they had, Comiskey Park might still be with us but they were never able to pour money into the park like PK Wrigley did with The Friendly Confines.
Maybe if they had more money they could have had an even better farm system and might have produced a Mantle or Kaline.

[LITTLE NELL]

Originally Posted by SI1020

I actually liked the 64 team more than the 59 pennant winner. What piching depth they had. Unfortunately they lost to the Yankees the first 10 times they played them and that sealed their fate. I hate to say it but the Sox seemed to usually get the lump in the throat when it was time to go up against the Yanks. In a 4 game series in old Comiskey Aug 17-20 the Sox got a measure of revenge and swept the Yanks 4 straight. They were 1/2 game ahead of the Orioles and 4 1/2 in front of the Yanks, who of course righted the ship and went on a September charge. That year was just tough to swallow because the Sox were good enough to make in interesting in the WS. I guess Bob Gibson was fated to begin creating his legendary status against NY.

The 67 team was a mirage to me. I enjoyed the run they had, but never believed they had what it took to go the distance. I thought the Red Sox, Tigers and Twins all had better clubs. It was still a crushing disappointment when they had it in their grasp late but then dropped 5 straight to the 2 AL bottom feeders. I'm looking forward to this blog.

I'll never forget that 4 game sweep in August of 64, they were all weekday games with 3 night games and a matinee on Thursday. In those days only day games were televised and after listening to the first 3 games on the radio I watched the final game on TV with a friend who was a Cub fan and when the final out was made I almost hit the roof of the living room ceiling and my friend was seeing red as the Sox moved into first place.


PS The 59 team was always my favorite until 2005 came along and only by a little bit, something about boyhood heroes.

[BigKlu59]

Boyhood memories branded into my brain. Really a great stretch from 63-67 to be a Sox fan in town. The Northside was in a tailspin and the Sox flying among the elite squads of MLB. Pitching and defence were the orders of the day. Not much heavy artillery, so it all came down to fundamentals and mistakes and figernails chewed down to the quick.

64: came down to those 10 losses to the Yanks early in the year. Take 5 of those and the Sox have Vin Scully waxing about Peters and his drop off curve. Phils take a game down the stretch and we'd get to see this kid called 'Richie" Allen... Not to be

67: Looking at the schedule and seeing the Nats and A's and thinking, "Hey, we got a steak on a silver platter", only to taste the bitter bite of burned beans as each game painfully escaped victory was heartbreaking for a kid to say the least. (I should have been ready for it, primed by the High Flying Hawks unheard of early humiliation by those Leafs in April). Yup, 67 a year of very High "High's" and very Low "Lows" in Chicagoland.

BK59

[LITTLE NELL]

Originally Posted by BigKlu59

Boyhood memories branded into my brain. Really a great stretch from 63-67 to be a Sox fan in town. The Northside was in a tailspin and the Sox flying among the elite squads of MLB. Pitching and defence were the orders of the day. Not much heavy artillery, so it all came down to fundamentals and mistakes and figernails chewed down to the quick.

64: came down to those 10 losses to the Yanks early in the year. Take 5 of those and the Sox have Vin Scully waxing about Peters and his drop off curve. Phils take a game down the stretch and we'd get to see this kid called 'Richie" Allen... Not to be

67: Looking at the schedule and seeing the Nats and A's and thinking, "Hey, we got a steak on a silver platter", only to taste the bitter bite of burned beans as each game painfully escaped victory was heartbreaking for a kid to say the least. (I should have been ready for it, primed by the High Flying Hawks unheard of early humiliation by those Leafs in April). Yup, 67 a year of very High "High's" and very Low "Lows" in Chicagoland.

BK59

Actually that great stretch started in 1951, 17 straight years of winning baseball.
Every year you knew that the Sox would contend. What made it better is that the Cubs had losing records most of those years and it was a Sox town.

[BigKlu59]

Originally Posted by LITTLE NELL

Actually that great stretch started in 1951, 17 straight years of winning baseball.
Every year you knew that the Sox would contend. What made it better is that the Cubs had losing records most of those years and it was a Sox town.

Thank you for that timeline of historical correction, my distinquished colleague..But alas, in 1951 I was but a thought in the mind of my Pop's at Tuley High on the Nort-side. Didnt comprehend the nuance of Sport till about 61 when family members and friends went bonkers about the Hawks that snowy April day...Hell, in 59 I was hearing about the Sox, but Pop's being a Cubbie fan, kept the propaganda from the Dark side to a minimum. Truthfully, he was "closet" happy for the Sox as it didnt matter who you followed , EVERYBODY HATED THE YANKEES outside of the Bronx. Besides, he was still stinging from that 56 championship loss to the Giants, Gifford, Huff et al...

Anyhoo... For a wee kid as me, between the Hawks and Sox and the Hard Luck Bears, pretty much made the decade of the 60's a fun time to follow sports in Chicago..

BK59

[TheVulture]

Originally Posted by mahagga73

Nell, you seem to be the old time guru on here so I'll ask you, why was it the Sox could never come up with the hitting they needed? Didn't want to pay for it? bad minor league development?

I always wondered why they trotted Tommy McCraw out there to first base so much. This guy would have been a below average hitter at second base, surely they could have at least found a half way decent hitting first basemen. Was this guy Keith Hernandez times ten with the glove or what?

Seems like Ward, Agee, and Berry were all guys that were expected to hit, but they just didn't come through in '67 for whatever reasons. Colavito was brought in to help and flopped as well, but McCraw didn't seem like a guy even expected to be a decent hitter based on the fact he had already established that he wasn't much of a hitter by '67.