White Sox: The Mount Rushmore of Sox catchers
The history of the Chicago White Sox has been marked by impressive stability behind the plate, with six catchers spending at least a full decade with the club. That makes identifying the four catchers to put on a hypothetical Mount Rushmore for the White Sox at the position more difficult.
What makes a great catcher? There are a number of factors that can make a catcher great — how well he handles a pitching staff, how well he controls baserunners (although if the pitchers don’t do their part, it doesn’t matter how good an arm a catcher has), how he manages the defensive alignments.
It’s a position through the year that has almost been managed as if any offensive contributions are secondary.
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The White Sox have had at least a couple of very good offensive players wear what came to be known as the “tools of ignorance,” a term coined by former catcher Muddy Ruel to capture the irony of a player with the intelligence to play well behind the plate also being foolish enough to play the one position on the diamond that requires so much safety equipment.
To qualify for consideration, a player had to have played at least half his games with the White Sox behind the dish and accumulate at least 1,500 plate appearances. There have been 11 such players in franchise history:
- Brian Downing (1973-77)
- Carlton Fisk (1981-93)
- Ed Herrmann (1967, 1969-74)
- Ron Karkovice (1986-97)
- Sherm Lollar (1952-63)
- J.C. Martin (1959-67)
- A.J. Pierzynski (2005-12)
- Ray Schalk (1912-28)
- Luke Sewell (1935-38)
- Billy Sullivan (1901-12, 1914)
- Mike Tresh (1938-48)
Here are the four chosen for the Mount Rushmore of White Sox catchers.
Mount Rushmore of White Sox catchers: Carlton Fisk
Carlton Fisk became a free agent in an unconventional manner and the Chicago White Sox reaped the rewards of it for more than a decade. Boston Red Sox general manager Haywood Sullivan failed to meet the deadline for mailing Fisk a 1981 contract and he was declared a free agent in February of that year.
About a month later, Fisk signed with the White Sox and would spend the rest of his career with the organization, re-signing with them as a free agent in January 1986, February 1988, December 1991 and February 1993. He retired in June 1993 before he could make a postseason return with the club.
Fisk was a four-time All-Star with the White Sox, finishing third in the MVP voting for the AL West championship Sox club in 1983, and he won three Silver Sluggers as well. Fisk was also something of an ageless wonder, still catching 106 games in 1991, his age-43 season.
It really was a story of two outstanding careers in one for Fisk, who spent 11 seasons in Boston before toiling another 13 in Chicago. With the White Sox, he hit .257 with a .766 OPS in 1,421 games and 5,500 plate appearances, belting 214 home runs with 762 RBI while scoring 649 runs, posting an OPS+ of 109 — the best of any catcher on this consideration list.
He had been taken fourth overall by the Red Sox in the January 1967 draft (there were two drafts a year in those days, January and June) and debuted with Boston in September 1969. He became the regular catcher in 1972, winning Rookie of the Year honors and his lone career Gold Glove that season.
Fisk was elected to the Hall of Fame in his second year of eligibility in 2000. If there was a moment that defined his career and playing style, it was his confrontation with young Deion Sanders of the New York Yankees in 1990 after Sanders failed to run out a popup on the infield. There was a right way to play the game and Carlton Fisk was always an enforcer of that code.
Mount Rushmore of White Sox catchers: Ron Karkovice
Ron Karkovice’s career may not have turned out the way the Chicago White Sox had hoped when they took him 14th overall out of Boone High School in Orlando, Florida, in the 1982 draft, but Karkovice was in turns a solid backup to superstar Carlton Fisk and a solid starter in his own right after Pudge retired.
Karkovice struggled at the plate, often, but his defensive work more than made up for that. He threw out 41% of would-be basestealers in his career, including more than half of those who tried while the White Sox were winning the AL West title in 1993. He earned the nickname “Officer” because of how well he dealt with attempted theft.
He was called up in August 1986 and split the next two seasons between Triple-A and Chicago before earning the backup job on his own in 1989.
By 1992, Karkovice had supplanted Fisk as the No. 1 catcher and in 1993 pulled off a rare feat by hitting 20 home runs while also compiling 11 sacrifice bunts.
Karkovice became a free agent after the 1997 season and signed with the Cleveland Indians in January 1998 on a minor-league deal, but never played for the team. After going on the disabled list in late March of that year, the team and the player agreed on his release in July 1998.
He led the AL in caught stealing percentage three times (1989-90, 1993) and was known for his defensive ability, but never won a Gold Glove — voting for that award in that era seemed to center as much around the bat as the glove.
In 12 seasons with the White Sox, Karkovice hit .221 with a .672 OPS in 939 games and 2,948 plate appearances, at one time holding the franchise record for home runs hit by a player who only played for the White Sox with 96. He also drove in 335 runs and scored 336 while accumulating 65 sacrifices.
He spent the 2000 season as a manager in the Kansas City Royals organization and managed the Camden Riversharks in the independent Atlantic League in 2013.
Mount Rushmore of White Sox catchers: Sherm Lollar
Sherm Lollar signed with the International League’s Baltimore Orioles out of high school in 1943 and by 1945 had his contract purchased by the parent Cleveland Indians. He bounced around a bit from there, traded to the New York Yankees in December 1946 and then to the St. Louis Browns in December 1948.
The move that made Lollar’s career came in November 1951, when he was part of an eight-player trade to the Chicago White Sox. His work with then-manager Paul Richards — a former catcher — turned his career around defensively and he very quietly became the second-best catcher in the American League for much of his stint with Chicago.
He was an eight-time All-Star with the White Sox to go with an appearance with the Browns in 1950 and after having a reputation as a poor defender early in his career won three Gold Gloves while in Chicago.
Lollar provided the punch for the Go-Go Sox pennant-winning club in 1959, leading the team with 22 homers and 84 RBI and hitting a homer with five RBI in the six-game World Series loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
In 1962, he began to share more time behind the plate with J.C. Martin and became a backup in 1963 before he was released at season’s end.
After his playing career, he coached with the Baltimore Orioles and Oakland Athletics and managed in Oakland’s organization for five more seasons. He died in September 1977 at just 53 years old after a long bout with cancer.
In 12 years with the White Sox, Lollar hit .265 with a .759 OPS in 1,358 games and 4,924 plate appearances, with 124 homers, 631 RBI and 485 runs scored. In 1954, he led the majors by throwing out 68% of baserunners attempting to steal and topped 50 percent in four of his 10 seasons as a starter in Chicago.
Mount Rushmore of White Sox catchers: Ray Schalk
Ray Schalk was born in central Illinois in 1892 and it was his play on one of the many town teams in existence in the early 20th century that eventually pushed his career path from printing to baseball. Still a teenager, Schalk signed in 1911 with Taylorville in the Class-D Illinois-Missouri League before getting bumped up to the American Association’s Milwaukee Brewers.
In 1912, the Chicago White Sox noticed Schalk — getting attention for his aggressive approach behind the plate and his on-field leadership — and paid the Brewers $10,000 and sent them two players to get the kid.
The day before his 20th birthday in August 1912, he made his big-league debut and spent the next 17 seasons with the White Sox. He was 5-for-19 in their World Series win over the New York Giants in 1917 and went 7-for-23 with two RBI in the infamous 1919 World Series loss to the Cincinnati Reds.
Schalk finished third in the MVP voting in 1922, hitting a career-high four homers and driving in 60 runs while hitting .281 for a team that finished a surprising 77-77 just a year removed from having seven of its top players banned for life for their alleged roles in the conspiracy to fix the 1919 World Series.
His playing time diminished in 1926 and he was a player-manager for the next two seasons before he was forced to resign in July 1928 because owner Charles Comiskey was not enamored of his lenient managerial style.
Schalk coached with the New York Giants in 1929 and with the Chicago Cubs in 1930-31 before managing at Buffalo in the International League from 1932-37. His professional baseball days ended after a stint managing his old Milwaukee team in 1940.
He spent 18 years as an assistant coach at Purdue University before retiring in 1965 and helped found a group called Baseball Anonymous to assist indigent former players.
In 17 seasons with the White Sox, Schalk hit .254 with a .656 OPS in 1,757 games and 6,242 plate appearances, with 199 doubles, 49 triples, 11 homers and 593 RBI while scoring 579 runs and stealing 177 bases. He threw out 52%of would-be basestealers during his career, three times leading the American League in that category.
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He was named to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 1955. He died in May 1970 from cancer at age 77.