Minnie Minoso Considered for Hall of Fame

Minnie Minoso, Buck O'Neil on special Baseball Hall of Fame ballot

When I was eight years old we moved to an apartment building on Chicago's South Side at 52nd and Dorchester.  For any kid a move is exciting but I was yet to discover how wonderful my life was to become.

Over the winter I learned that the Chicago White Sox stayed at the Piccadilly Hotel, just two blocks away at 51st and Blackstone.

Once the season started after school we headed to the Piccadilly about 3:30pm . The White Sox would be returning from the day game by 4:00 pm or leaving for the night game.

Every White Sox player stayed at the Piccadilly except for two.  Jack Harshmann had his entire family with him lived in an apartment about a mile away.

Minnie Minoso was black.

Chicago, the South Side, 1954. In the 1950's he was the greatest left fielder in baseball next to Ted Williams, the ninth best left fielder of all time and he was black.

After the day games, Minoso drove up to the hotel in his dark green Cadillac convertible (I think it was a '54 El Dorado). He dropped off the first of the great Venezuelan shortstops, Chico Carrasquel and then headed further south.  Word was that he lived somewhere near 63rd Street.

Nellie Fox and Billy Pierce were great, but  Saturnino Orestes Armas Minoso Arrieta was the best.

Comments

[Tim Morrissey]

Paul - I should broker some sort of lunch assignation or similar rendezvous between you and my child bride, Toni, who grew up in South Holland (IL) and spent the summers of her wasted youth at Comiskey. She got to know a lot of those great Sox players. Her folks owned a restaurant in Thornton, frequented by lots of the Sox stars, judges, mafioso, and assorted south-side flaura and fauna. She (Toni) was born in '54 but knows and loves the lore of the Sox like Senor Minoso. Her parents were guests in the Bard's Club at Comisky a lot, because they were close friends of Gene Bossard, the long-time groundskeeper at the ball park. When Toni and I got to Sox games, Gene's son Roger, the current groundskeeper, always stops by to visit. You two would have a lot to talk about.

/tjm

[Scott Herrick]

You are absolutely right about Minoso. He was one of our sandlot favorites in the 50's out in Markham, 159th St. south, especially during the go-go pennant race. By then as I recall he was especilly valuable in the clutch for an uncanny ability to get hit - - get hit, not get hits - - a nice part of the running style of that team.

-sh