Even though I enjoy having Steve Stone on the White Sox TV broadcasts, I do miss Tom Paciorek, aka Wimpy. He and longtime play-by-play announcer Hawk Harrelson were a pretty good team back before Harrelson went senile.
In any case, in the old days Wimpy used to say on the air, "If you feel like you're gonna hit into a double play, just strike out." When you think about it, that's smart baseball. It's always better to make just one out, as opposed to two.
I was reminded of this moments ago when Adam Dunn stepped to the plate with runners on first and second and nobody out in the fourth inning of tonight's Sox-Angels game. You knew Dunn had no chance in hell against Angels' right-hander Ervin Santana, so you just hoped he would strike out and not completely kill the rally.
No dice.
Dunn grounded into a 1-6-3 double play and the Sox failed to score in the inning. For most of the season, Dunn has at least given us the courtesy of only making one out per plate appearance. He's fanned 150 times (and counting) this year.
Whenever Dunn comes up with a man on first base, he should take Wimpy's sage advice: "Adam, if you feel like you're gonna hit into a double play, just strike out."
Paciorek's eyes are a little too bloodshot for my liking! What in the world is going on there?!
I think this photo might have been taken when Paciorek was being interviewed about how he and his brothers were molested by a priest when they were kids.
Unfortunately, we don't have too many file photos of Wimpy around here.