Merry Karkovice!

Today, friends, we celebrate the 60th birthday of one Ronald Joseph Karkovice, he who spent his entire 12 year Major League Baseball career on the South Side of Chicago, amassing either 13.7 or 14.6 Wins Above Replacement more than you and me combined!

Here’s our intrepid hero, probably at age 22, on his 1987 Topps rookie card, complete with the uneven wood paneling, what appears to be street lights in the far distance, and a batting helmet which could not possibly have offered sufficient protection from the likes of Goose Gossage. Take a close look at his eyes and note how most of his face appears to be sunburnt, no doubt the result of the hot Arizona training camp sun:

Ron was drafted by the Pale Hose in the first round of the 1982 amateur draft. At the time, the Sox catcher was of course Carlton Fisk, in his second year with the team after 11 years with those other Sox. Now hmm, how was this going to work, a first round catcher being drafted when the incumbent catcher is a future Hall of Famer?

The answer: Karkovice and Fisk played together on the White Sox for a truly astonishing eight seasons. While Fisk would sometimes DH and I even distinctly remember him being put in left field, this was a scenario where legitimately the Sox carried the same two guys as catchers for eight years. I doubt that will ever happen again anywhere.

FanGraphs says 1992 was ol’ Ron’s best year, with a whopping 2.3 WAR. This was the season where you can see by games played that Fisk had become the backup. But certainly his greatest play ever was this one, from 1990, which I can’t embed since it’s an MLB video. But you should definitely watch it, because when else are you going to see an inside the park grand slam?

Here’s his 1990 Topps card, where he’s, I don’t know, testing the baseball?

Supposedly Karko was excellent at nabbing would-be base thieves, so good that Hawk Harrelson himself dubbed him “Officer Ron Karkovice”. But as we can see from this 1993 Topps Stadium Club, this was a true multi-tool athlete:

All good things run their course, alas, and by 1997 Karko’s legs were probably shot. He tried to get on with Cleveland in 1998 but he never played a game for them.

Sox fans know the importance of celebrating Ron Karkovice today because we sure as hell can’t celebrate the current state of the team, between most of our pitchers getting traded and Tim Anderson having such an unfortunate go of it and our fan favorite Jake Burger somehow being sent off to Miami.

We must assume though that it is not coincidence that Ron Karkovice’s 60th birthday coincides with Yacht Rock Night at The Downs. Tonight the first 10,000 fans receive one of these amazing things:

And as you all know full well, absolutely nothing screams jazz-influenced whitened-up smooth rock and roll like this guy:

Yessir, me and my First Mate will be at The Downs ourselves tonight to see Touki Toussaint pitch to Aaron Judge and the Yankees. It’s my first time ever seeing the Yankees!

Rest assured that if they try playing Jimmy Buffett - and they will - it will be my voice you hear across the stadium shouting out “THAT’S NYACHT!” But hey, you can only do so much with what a fool believes, amiright?

My god is that not an energetic band.

(Deepest apologies to my father for him having to in any way shape or form spend even the merest second of his life having to think about Jeff “Skunk” Baxter.)

Anyway, it’s about time to go. Let’s hope nobody gets knocked down tonight.

MERRY KARKOVICE Y’ALL!