Chicago White Sox: Illinois baseball is huge on the map
The Chicago White Sox have players from all over the world. The state that they play in, however, has been doing really well all-time.
The Chicago White Sox have a lot of diversity on their roster. There are players there from all over the world and it is a beautiful sight. The beautiful thing about the game of baseball and sports, in general, is that it brings people together. Well, the White Sox do a pretty good job of including everyone both for players and fans. One thing that is really cool, is how many players from our great state of Illinois have made an impact at the Major League level.
Illinois might not seem like a baseball hotbed but in the history of Major League Baseball, it has been great at birthing great players. If you add up all of the WAR for every player born in Illinois they would rank 6th out of all the states with 4105.9 WAR. That comes from 1061 total players. That only trails California, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Texas who claim the top-five in terms of WAR. This list and data came from MLB dot com.
Some might remember the Little League World Series team from Jackie Robinson West in Chicago. They won the American bracket and made a lot of us proud. Well, the Chicago Cubs just drafted Ed Howard from that team at pick number 16 in the 2020 MLB Draft. Howard played in the Chicago White Sox ACE program and went to Mt. Carmel High School. He is next in the line of Illinois born players to make an impact at the MLB level.
One famous Illinoian athlete to actually play for the White Sox is Jim Thome. Thome was a great player for this team for a while. He went into the Hall of Fame as a Cleveland Indian but there is no doubt that he loved his time with the White Sox and appreciates it. It was cool to see a local kid from Peoria, Illinois make that much of an impact the way Thome did. He was always elite both on and off the field.
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It is cool to know that the state that our favorite team plays for and that so many of us were born in makes a great impact on the game of baseball. It would be really cool to see it continue to grow and the best way for that to happen is for the White Sox and Cubs to continue doing the right thing both on and off the field.