{"id":14465,"date":"2019-03-30T06:21:23","date_gmt":"2019-03-30T12:21:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/?p=14465"},"modified":"2019-03-30T14:35:54","modified_gmt":"2019-03-30T20:35:54","slug":"1-harold-baines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/2019\/03\/1-harold-baines\/","title":{"rendered":"#1 – Harold Baines"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Name:<\/strong>\u00a0Harold Baines<\/p>\n

Rank:<\/strong>\u00a01<\/p>\n

Position:<\/strong>\u00a0RF\/DH<\/p>\n

Years With White Sox:<\/strong>\u00a01980-1989, 1996-1997, 2000-2001<\/p>\n

Harold Baines was the first overall selection in the 1977 draft after White Sox owner Bill Veeck had seen him play little league years before.\u00a0 He made his major league debut less than 3 years later, on Opening Day 1980, going 0-4 against the Orioles at old Comiskey Park.\u00a0 He appeared in 141 games and finished the year hitting .255 with 13 home runs and 49 RBIs.<\/p>\n

Baines started to break out in 1981, where the long player’s strike led him to only appearing in 82 games.\u00a0 He boosted his average to .286 and hit 10 home runs with 41 RBIs in only 280 at bats.<\/p>\n

With labor problems behind them, a full slate of games was played in 1982, with Baines appearing in all but one of them.\u00a0 Hitting .271, Baines smacked 25 home runs with 105 RBIs, while setting a career high with 10 stolen bases.\u00a0 His numbers were good enough to garner 9 votes for AL MVP.<\/p>\n

1983 was a banner year on the south side, as the White Sox captured their first ever division title.\u00a0 Baines was a key contributor, hitting .280 with 20 home runs and 99 RBIs.\u00a0 During the ALCS against the Orioles, Baines struggled, like most of his teammates, getting only 2 hits in the 4 game series.\u00a0 At season’s end, he picked up 49 votes to finish 10th in MVP voting.<\/p>\n

Baines continued to excel in 1984, though the rest of the team did not.\u00a0 On May 8, he ended the longest game in major league history (8 hours and 6 minutes over\u00a025 innings\u00a0on successive evenings) with a\u00a0walk-off home run\u00a0against Chuck Porter\u00a0of the Brewers.\u00a0 He finished the year with a .304 average, a career high 29 home runs, and 94 RBIs, while leading the league in slugging at .541.\u00a0 He once again garnered MVP consideration, finishing the vote tied for 13th place.<\/p>\n

1985 was another strong season for Baines.\u00a0 He earned his first All Star selection, singling off former teammate LaMarr Hoyt in his only at bat at the Metrodome.\u00a0 He finished the year hitting .309 with 22 home runs and a career high 113 RBIs.\u00a0 He earned 49 votes in placing 9th in MVP voting.<\/p>\n

Baines saw his body start to betray him for the first time in 1986.\u00a0 He appeared in his second straight All Star game, going hitless in his one at bat.\u00a0 A late August knee injury caused him to miss time, and a late September collision with Neal Heaton in a loss to the Twins reinjured the knee, leading to\u00a0arthroscopic surgery following the season.\u00a0 He finished the season hitting .296, just missing his 3rd consecutive .300 season, with 21 home runs and 88 RBIs.<\/p>\n

Baines returned for opening day in 1987, getting two hits and knocking in the winning runs on the hard artificial turf of Royals Stadium, but was unable to walk the following day.\u00a0 A second arthroscopic surgery caused him to miss 23 games before he returned, moving from right field to designated hitter.\u00a0 He still was named to his 3rd straight All Star team, going hitless in the 2-0 loss by the AL.\u00a0 Come year end, he had hit .293 with 20 home runs and 93 RBIs.<\/p>\n

1988 was a down year for Baines, though he managed to appear in 158 games.\u00a0 His average dropped to .277, his lowest total since 1982, while hitting only 13 home runs, his lowest total since 1981.\u00a0 He made only 9 appearances in the outfield while becoming accustomed to being a full time designated hitter.<\/p>\n

Baines bounced back in 1989.\u00a0 He was named the starting DH in the All Star game, going 1-3 with an RBI in the AL’s victory at Angel Stadium.\u00a0 On July 29, he was traded to the Rangers, along with Fred Manrique, for Wilson Alvarez, Scott Fletcher, and Sammy Sosa.\u00a0 “It’s an unpopular decision as far as the fans are concerned, but sometimes unpopular means exactly that-unpopular,” GM Larry Himes said at the time.\u00a0 “It doesn`t mean that it isn`t a good decision.\u00a0 This is a decision we made as far as direction of the Chicago White Sox for today and for our future.”\u00a0 Baines was hitting .321 with 13 home runs and 56 RBIs at the time of the trade.\u00a0 Less than a month later, as the Rangers visited Chicago for the first time on August 20, the White Sox retired Baines’ #3, a somewhat awkward attempt to placate the enraged fanbase.<\/p>\n

Baines returned to the White Sox as a free agent in 1996.\u00a0 Appearing in 143 games, Baines hit .311 with 22 home runs and 95 RBIs.\u00a0 He returned in 1997 and was putting together another fine season, putting up a .305 average with 12 home runs and 52 RBIs in 93 games when, on July 29 again, he was traded to the Orioles for a player to be named later.<\/p>\n

Three years later, once again on July 29, the White Sox re-acquired Baines, along with Charles Johnson, from the Orioles for Miguel Felix,\u00a0Juan Figueroa,\u00a0Jason Lakman, and\u00a0Brook Fordyce.\u00a0 Appearing in 24 games down the stretch, Baines hit .213 with a single home run and 9 RBIs as the White Sox took the Central Division crown.\u00a0 Baines went 1-4 in the ALDS as the White Sox were swept by the Mariners.<\/p>\n

Baines returned to the White Sox in 2001 at the age of 42, getting extra playing time once Frank Thomas went down with an injury.\u00a0 In 32 games, he hit .131, failing to homer and driving in only 6.<\/p>\n

Baines returned to the White Sox dugout in 2004, when new manager Ozzie Guillen named him bench coach.\u00a0 He would remain on staff until 2015, when he became an ambassador for the team. \u00a0On July 20, 2008, the White Sox unveiled a bronze statue of Baines at\u00a0U.S. Cellular Field\u00a0prior to their game against the Royals. \u00a0On December 9, 2018, Baines was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame Class of 2019 via the\u00a0Today’s Game Era ballot.<\/p>\n

Baines’\u00a0numbers in a White Sox uniform, both for games I attended and overall, were:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/tfoot>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Name:\u00a0Harold Baines Rank:\u00a01 Position:\u00a0RF\/DH Years With White Sox:\u00a01980-1989, 1996-1997, 2000-2001 Harold Baines was the first overall selection in the 1977 draft after White Sox owner Bill Veeck had seen him play little league years before.\u00a0 He made his major league debut less than 3 years later, on Opening Day 1980, going 0-4 against the Orioles […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[5205,2790,2180,5041,8395,3292,121,5493,5494,8392,597,2501,2680,47,44,8398,8397,3454,2210,124,5040,8396,79,8393,50,893,111,8394,397,1721,118,596,49,1494],"class_list":["post-14465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baseball","tag-1981-strike","tag-alcs","tag-alds","tag-all-star-game","tag-angel-stadium","tag-bill-veeck","tag-brewers","tag-brook-fordyce","tag-charles-johnson","tag-chuck-porter","tag-comiskey-park","tag-draft","tag-fred-manrique","tag-harold-baines","tag-hof","tag-jason-lakman","tag-juan-figueroa","tag-lamarr-hoyt","tag-larry-himes","tag-mariners","tag-metrodome","tag-miguel-felix","tag-mvp","tag-neal-heaton","tag-orioles","tag-ozzie-guillen","tag-rangers","tag-royals-stadium","tag-sammy-sosa","tag-scott-fletcher","tag-twins","tag-us-cellular-field","tag-white-sox","tag-wilson-alvarez"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14465"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14940,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14465\/revisions\/14940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

Career Batting<\/b><\/caption>\n
BA<\/span><\/th>\nAt Bats<\/span><\/th>\nRuns<\/span><\/th>\nHits<\/span><\/th>\nRBI<\/span><\/th>\nWalks<\/span><\/th>\nStrike Outs<\/span><\/th>\nDoubles<\/span><\/th>\nTriples<\/span><\/th>\nHR<\/span><\/th>\nSB<\/span><\/th>\nGIDP<\/span><\/th>\nErrors<\/span><\/th>\nGames<\/span><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
0.241<\/span><\/td>\n54<\/span><\/td>\n8<\/span><\/td>\n13<\/span><\/td>\n6<\/span><\/td>\n2<\/span><\/td>\n9<\/span><\/td>\n3<\/span><\/td>\n1<\/span><\/td>\n2<\/span><\/td>\n0<\/span><\/td>\n3<\/span><\/td>\n0<\/span><\/td>\n17<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
0.288<\/span><\/td>\n6149<\/span><\/td>\n786<\/span><\/td>\n1773<\/span><\/td>\n981<\/span><\/td>\n565<\/span><\/td>\n918<\/span><\/td>\n320<\/span><\/td>\n44<\/span><\/td>\n221<\/span><\/td>\n32<\/span><\/td>\n172<\/span><\/td>\n43<\/span><\/td>\n1670<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n