Paul Konerko retired from the White Sox last year. The class act that he is stayed 1 more year in 2014 and took a drastic cut in pay and reduced playing time and mentored Jose Abreu in his rookie season. If you look up class act . in the dictionary you won't see Konerko's picture because class act is not in the dictionary but if it was, you would. I took this video in 2013 on Paul Konerko Bobblehead day. Please appreciate that I called the play and filmed it.
Go to my sports blog to see about Konerko's HR achievements for the Sox.
I talked earlier about White Sox players who left after the 2004 season and missed the World Championship. Magglio Ordonez was one of those guys. Ordonez played for the Sox from 1997 to 2004 and then played with the Detroit Tigers from 2005 to 2011. While his batting average went up 5 points while with the tiger, his slugging percentage went down 50. He made it the World Series with the Tigers in 2006 but on the losing end and batted a miserable .105 with no extra base hits. With the Sox, Mags hit 187 of his 294 career home runs. 187 puts him 5th all-time for the Sox. Ordonez averaged 26 homers for every 162 games played in the major leagues. His best HR seasons for the Chisox were 2002 when he 38, and 200 when he hit 32.
It has been a while since I participated in Friday Fragments at Half-Past Kissin' Tim. So I thought I'd give it a try. If you are not familiar with Friday Fragments, last week's offering is very typical of the genre: a few short fragments of posts that don't have any cohesiveness or unity. I am also doing A to Z blogging this month, so my first fragment will be a thing that begins with the letter N. This is in keping to my A to Z theme of nouns
Fragment 1: O is for Oreo.
When I was a kid there were sandwich cookies like the kind my parents brought at grocery store and then there were Oreos. Boy were they different! The sandwich cookies didn't look like Oreos, hey didn't separate like Oreos and they sure didn't taste like Oreos. Oreos were reserved for special occasions because the store brand cookies sure didn't cost as much as Oreos.
Boy have things changed! These days store like Target and Aldi have their own brands of sandwich cookies. We call them Fake Oreos. They still don't cost as much as Oreos, but I am happy to report that they look like Oreos, separate like Oreos, and they even taste like Oreos.
Fragment 2 K-Love Pledge drive
Our family really enjoys listening to Christian music and the station K-Love is often on in our car as we drive back and forth through that thing called life. A few times a year they have a pledge drive. I have a strange sense of humor, and like to over analyze things. So I pulled my vlog Dave Out Loud out of mothballs and made this video about K-Love and the pledge drive.
Pledge drive, in all seriousness has been fantastic this year. God is doing so many wonderful things just through people listening and giving to the station. To give K-love a listen click here..
Fragment 3: Age of Ultron
I was looking through some old posts this week and I came across this one (also a Friday Fragment post) from 4 years ago entitled I thought Super Hero Movies wer for kids. Just like the fake Oreos situation, things have got better for kid-friendly super hero . Since I wrote that movies like Thor, Captaian America, and Avengers have produced movies I enjoy and will allow my kids to watch and love. Avengers 2 comes out in 14 days and a majority of our family is psyched. Here's a short featuette that came out on youtube yesterday ...
Fragment 4 Imago Film Festival
I promised before the A to Z challenge started to tell more abot ut my experiences at this year's Imago Film Festival. Here is the trailer for Believe Me, a film I saw at the festival.
That's all the fragmments we have time for today. Go back to whence you came by clicking on A to Z Or Friday Fragments we have time for today.
Wayne Nordhagen and Dave Nicholson aren't exactly household words even around White Sox faithful. They started the season tied for 69th all time on the White Sox HR list with 37 home runs. Their combined 74 long balls Alex Rios would tie them for 36th with Alex Rios. 2 current players Jose Abreu and Tyler Flowers have already surpassed Nicholson and Nordhagen this season putting them down to 71st all-time
Nicholson played in the major leagues in 1960 and from 1962 to 1967, 1963 through 1965 for the White Sox. He added 14 MLB homers outside of a White Sox uniform for a total of 51. He averaged 18homers over a 162 game season or 1 home run every 9 games. He hit 22 in 63 and 13 in 64.
Nordhagen (,282 life timeBA)was a much better hitter than Nicholson (.212. lifetime BA). Nordhagen played for the White Sox from 1977 to 1981 hitting all but 2 of his MLB homers with the Sox. Nordhagen would average 13 homers for every 162 games played in his career. Nordhagen hit 15 homers for the Sox in 1980, 8 more than he hit for them the year before,