Tag: Chicago White Sox

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Chakales, Bob

Primary Position: Relief pitcher
Birthplace: Asheville

First, Middle Names: Robert Edward            Nickname: The Golden Greek
Date of Birth:  Aug. 10, 1927  Date and Place of Death: Feb. 18, 2010, Richmond, VA
Burial: Westhampton Memorial Park, Richmond, VA

High School: Benedictine High School, Richmond, VA
College: Did Not Attend

Bats: R             Throws: R        Height and Weight: 6-1, 185
Debut Year: 1951       Final Year: 1957          Years Played: 7
Teams and Years: Cleveland Indians, 1951-54; Baltimore Orioles, 1954; Chicago White Sox, 1955; Washington Senators, 1956-57; Boston Red Sox, 1957

Career Summary
G         W        L          Sv        ERA     IP         SO       WAR
171     15       25        11        4.54     420.1  187      0.3

Bob Chakales was a serviceable and, at times, effective relief pitcher during his seven years of bouncing around the American League. When he retired, he turned an avocation, golf, into a lucrative second career building courses all over the country.

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Goodman, Billy

Primary Positions: Second base, first base, third base
Birthplace: Concord

First, Middle Names: William Dale
Date of Birth:  March 22, 1926       Date and Place of Death: Oct. 1, 1984, Sarasota, FL
Burial: Mount Olivet Methodist Church Cemetery, Concord

High School: Winecoff High School, Winecoff, NC
College: Did not attend

Bats: L             Throws: R        Height and Weight: 5-11, 165
Debut Year: 1947       Final Year: 1962          Years Played: 16
Teams and Years: Boston Red Sox, 1947-57; Baltimore Orioles, 1957; Chicago White Sox, 1958-1961; Houston Colt 45s, 1962

Career Summary
G               AB          H            R          RBI      HR       BA.       OBP.     SLG.      WAR
1623      5644     1691    807    591      19        .300     .376      .378       26.9

Awards/Honors: NC Sports Hall of Fame, 1969; batting title, 1950; All-Star, 1949, 1952; Boys of Summer Top 100

Billy Goodman played everywhere on the infield and most spots in the outfield during his 16-year career. That he could play so many positions and play them well surprised most veteran baseball people. To many of  them, the guy didn’t even look like a ballplayer, let alone like the most versatile one to ever put on a uniform. At 5-foot, 11 inches and maybe 165 pounds, Goodman was “built like an undernourished ribbon clerk,” noted the Saturday Evening Post.[I] He looked almost frail and certainly out of place.

“I’ve never seen a ballplayer like Goodman. He fools you more than any other player I can remember,” said Jimmy Brown, a fellow North Carolinian and an All-Star second baseman who first saw Goodman when he managed in the minors after his playing days. “The first time I saw him he was playing the outfield. He didn’t look like an outfielder but he could go and get them.  Then I saw him playing shortstop. He didn’t field like a shortstop but he dug them out of the dirt. He didn’t throw like a shortstop but I didn’t see him make a bad throw. And he always got his man.”[II]

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Bradley, Tom

Primary Position: Starting pitcher
Birthplace: Asheville

First, Middle Names: Thomas William
Date of Birth:  March 16, 1947
Current Residence: Barboursville, WV

High School: Falls Church High School, Falls Church, VA
College: University of Maryland, College Park, MD

Bats: R             Throws: R        Height and Weight: 6-2, 180
Debut Year: 1969       Final Year: 1975          Years Played: 7
Teams and Years: California Angels, 1969-70; Chicago White Sox, 1971-72; San Francisco Giants, 1973-75

 Career Summary
G         W        L          Sv        ERA     IP         SO       WAR
183    55      61        2          3.72     1017.2 691      10.1

Awards/Honors: Boys of Summer Top 100

Tom Bradley is almost certainly the only major-league pitcher who could read The Aeneid in its original Latin. He could also speak Greek and was such a nonstop conversationalist in his native English, always buzzing about looking for someone to talk to, that his teammates once playfully waved flyswatters at him in the clubhouse as if warding off a bothersome insect.

In a sport where most players don’t attend or finish college, Bradley was a scholar, but he was also a pretty decent pitcher. The big righthander was a durable workhorse, logging more than a thousand innings from 1970-73, his most-productive seasons. His 3.72 lifetime earned-run average, or ERA, is 19th among North Carolina pitchers with at least 500 innings in the major leagues. Had he played for better teams, Bradley would have likely ended with a winning record. Even so, he’s still 60th on the Tarheel Boys’ of Summer Top 100.

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Hodgin, Ralph

Primary Positions: Left field, third base
Birthplace: Greensboro

First, Middle Names: Elmer Ralph
Date of Birth:  Feb. 10, 1915  Date and Place of Death: Oct. 4, 2011, Burlington, NC
Burial: Guilford Memorial Park, Greensboro

High School: Jamestown High School, Jamestown, NC
College: Did Not Attend

Bats: L             Throws: R        Height and Weight: 5-10, 167
Debut Year: 1939       Final Year: 1948          Years Played: 6
Teams and Years: Boston Bees 1939; Chicago White Sox 1943-44, 1946-48

 Career Summary
G         AB       H         R          RBI      HR       BA.      OBP.    SLG.     WAR
530      1689    481      198      188      4          .285     .330     .367     5.1

Awards/Honors: Boys of Summer Top 100

When he took the mound at Briggs Stadium in Detroit on that cold, windy April day for his second start of the 1947 season, Hal Newhouser could legitimately claim to be the best pitcher in the American League. Playing for his hometown Tigers, the 26-year-old lefty had won 80 games over the past three years and two Most-Valuable Player Awards.

The pitcher who faced the visiting Chicago White Sox on that April day, however, wasn’t that Hal Newhouser. Maybe it was the weather. Maybe the stiff wind blowing off Lake Erie carried with it the raw rookie, the wild Newhouser of 1939 or ’40 who walked six or seven batters a game.

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Gulley, Tom

Primary Positions: Right field, pinch hitter
Birthplace: Garner

First, Middle Names: Thomas Jefferson
Date of Birth:  Dec. 25, 1899  Date and Place of Death: Nov. 24, 1966, St. Charles, AK
Burial: Roselawn Memorial Park, Little Rock, AK

High School: Tallahatchie Agricultural High School, Charleston, MS
College: Mississippi College, Clinton, MS

Bats: L             Throws: R        Height and Weight: 5-11, 178
Debut Year: 1923       Final Year: 1926          Years Played: 3
Teams and Years: Cleveland Indians, 1923-24; Chicago White Sox, 1926

Career Summary
G         AB       H         R          RBI      HR       BA.      OBP.    SLG.     WAR
25      58        12       10        9          0         .207     .303     .345     -0.1

Tom Gulley was born on Christmas Day and drowned in a freak accident on Thanksgiving 66 years later. In between, he had a brief major-league career and a more substantial one in the minors where he often challenged for batting titles. After baseball, he spent two decades in Arkansas politics, winning elections as a sheriff, alderman, tax collector, and judge.

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