MLB.com is posting every teams' All Time Team, the top 5 at every position. I'm a little late to the game as they have covered over half the positions so far, but today I decided to click the link today and check out the Top 5 White Sox CF'ers according to beat writer Scott Merkin.
I remember having a conversation about Sox centerfielders with my Dad shortly before he died in 1977. I was remarking to him what a good CF Chet Lemon was developing in to, as he was new to the position having come up as a 3B in '75 and moved him to CF in 1976. After Bill Veeck took out the CF fence for the beginning of the 1976 season, the outfield regions got so much more spacious and Chet Lemon would go gap to gap and catch just about every ball he could get to.
My Dad asked me (I was 17 at the time) who the first Sox CF'er I remembered seeing, and I said without hesitation Ken Berry, aka the Bandit. Ken Berry was my gold standard for Sox CF'ers and Chet Lemon was quickly climbing the ladder as one of the top notch CF'ers in my estimation. My Dad said to me in reply, "I wish you could've seen Jim Landis. He was even better than Ken Berry."
Well since that time, I've seen them all and some who stand out in my mind are Rudy Law, Dave Gallagher, Lance Johnson, and Aaron Rowand.
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