This past Sunday was supposed to be an exciting day for White Sox fans, as Japanese superstar Munetaka Murakami arrived at Camelback Ranch to begin his first Spring Training as a member of the White Sox. Murakami, the most high-profile free agent signing for the team in several years, is getting an early start to his spring before heading out to play for Team Japan in the World Baseball Classic next month. Unfortunately, the White Sox welcomed Murakami to their facility in the most White Sox way possible: by misspelling his name on his locker. Murakami’s instagram story Sunday showed his locker, with his name displayed above it spelled “Munetaki Murakami”. He didn’t comment on the misspelling outside of a couple emojis.
The White Sox have a history of doing things the wrong way
If this happened to any other organization, it would be easy to laugh it off and chalk it up to an easy mistake that anyone could make. But the White Sox have a history of making headlines in the worst way. A 2024 article from The Athletic’s Brittany Ghiroli and Ken Rosenthal described the perceptions around the league of the White Sox as an organization that prefers to save money over servicing their players. Everything from the old team plane the team refuses to upgrade to living behind the times and resisting analytics and modern thinking have led to a leaguewide perspective of the White Sox as a joke. This is the same franchise that sent out a graphic to fans announcing Tony La Russa as the team’s manager and including A.J. Hinch’s signature at the bottom. Mistakes like this have been commonplace.
In Murakami, the White Sox not only landed a young player with superstar potential: they reinserted themselves into a market they’ve largely sat out of for 20 years. The White Sox have seen the massive benefit teams like the Dodgers have received from their heavy involvement in the Japanese free agent market and correctly decided to put themselves on that radar. Murakami has millions of fans in Japan who will be following his career and watching White Sox games this year, and their first impressions of the team were an introductory press conference that couldn’t be streamed outside the Chicago market and a misspelled name plate on his Spring Training locker. Not great.
Just a week ago, the White Sox posted a graphic for Black History Month to honor some of the franchise’s great black players. Noticeably absent from the graphic was anything highlighting Frank Thomas, the greatest player in White Sox history, whose only appearance was a sentence buried in a paragraph about Dick Allen. It didn’t go unnoticed by the fans, or by Thomas himself:
I Guess the black player who made you rich over there and holds all your records is forgettable! Don’t worry I’m taking Receipts!
— Frank Thomas (@TheBigHurt_35) February 1, 2026
While far from perfect, White Sox general manager Chris Getz has done an excellent job at reshaping the organization’s culture and making the White Sox a desired destination. The team has seen restructures to the front office, coveted external hires, and an embrace of analytics that align the organization more closely with modern philosophy. But the team is less than two years removed from the worst season in baseball history, and the reputation, while improving, isn’t fully redeemed. These kinds of mistakes just can’t happen at this stage.
I’m not sure who is responsible for misspelling the name plate on Murakami’s locker or why the mistake happened, but the White Sox organization as a whole needs to do better.