Last year the White Sox put together a highlights reel that played on the stadium scoreboard before games and during breaks in play. The reel expanded as the Sox advanced into the playoffs, but one of my favorite moments remained Aaron Rowand’s great catch at Yankee Stadium during a series in which he pretty much stymied the Yankees at every opportunity. It was a backhanded grab in deep left-center field, Rowand running full out, leaping, catching the ball, and landing flat, and when I watched it I’d shout, “Run it down, Aaron!” as he closed on the ball.
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Rowand is gone this year, traded to the Philadelphia Phillies for Jim Thome in a deal few Sox fans would second-guess at this point, but in the opener of a three-game series against the Cleveland Indians two weeks ago at Sox Park, Rowand’s anemic-hitting replacement, rookie Brian Anderson, made an equally impressive catch. With the Sox trying to stay in a game they trailed 4-3, Brandon McCarthy gave up back-to-back singles to open the eighth inning. He struck out the next man, and then Matt Thornton, a hard-throwing left-hander, was brought in to face the Tribe’s Travis Hafner. Hafner had homered against lefty Neal Cotts his previous time up to put the Indians ahead. Again he hammered the ball, deep to left center, and Anderson took after it in a manner reminiscent of Rowand’s play in Yankee Stadium. I yelled, “Get it, Blondie!” Anderson ran the ball down in a full sprint, made the catch, bounced off the padded fence, spun, and fired a throw on one hop to third base to keep the runners from advancing. It was a great play, and in the bottom half of the inning the Sox rallied to score the game-winning runs: Thome walked, Paul Konerko doubled, and Jermaine Dye drove them both in with a single to center–all with two out.
The Sox are better, more powerful, this season, but at times there’s been something missing. The Detroit Tigers made that clear the night before that game against the Indians. The Tigers salvaged the last of a three-game series with the Sox–thereby remaining first in the AL’s Central Division–by beating the Sox at Ozzie ball. With the game tied at two in the sixth inning, Detroit catcher Ivan Rodriguez went from first to second on a routine fly to Mackowiak in center. That opportunism proved critical: Rodriguez scored on Carlos Guillen’s single to center, and Guillen took second when backup third baseman Alex Cintron, in for the injured Joe Crede, failed to get in position to cut off the throw home. Guillen then came around to score on an infield hit when Konerko brandished the ball on a scoop-up throw from Juan Uribe and forgot about the runner. The ensuing homer by Marcus Thames put the game away.
