Welcome Colson Montgomery; Goodbye Vinny Capra
As our nation celebrates the Fourth of July long weekend, Major League Baseball provides plenty of its own fireworks this time of year as teams jockey for potential playoff runs.
And then there’s the Chicago White Sox, who are trying to make a run of their own – for respectability.
Apologies to the South Side Faithful but you’ll have to wait until at least next season to have any legitimate shot at making it more than a .500 season but that’s quite alright because the White Sox are in the midst of a youth movement and much like the Chicago Blackhawks, the futures of both of these franchises lie in new, fresh talent who may have the potential to restore both of these organizations to a truly competitive level in the coming next few years.
Word to the wise for sports fans in Chicago: Be patient, better days may just be around the bend.
See Ya, Vinny Capra
Sometimes it’s challenging to part ways with players who have a sentimental attachment to a specific franchise. Ultimately, the time comes sooner or later to cut ties with an athlete who cannot fit into the team mold or whose playing greatness is behind them, despite the accolades and heroics attached to their career with the team. None of these are the case with infielder Vinny Capra. Capra was DFA’ed (designated for Assignment), which is a really fancy baseball way of saying here’s the door to players who aren’t cutting the mustard anymore. This isn’t a reassignment down to the minors – this is an outright release from a Major League Baseball team.
Vinny Capra didn’t last long on the South Side after being picked up off waivers from the Milwaukee Brewers on May 15th. Let’s be really real here – Capra batted .074 with a .251 OPS with the Brew Crew in 24 games this season. In layman’s terms, Capra had a pretty tough time hitting a foul tip at the plate, let alone producing any offensive firepower for the Brewers. Coming over to the American League, Capra didn’t improve much more than a .190 batting average in another 23 games with the Sox.
With the White Sox making strides towards developing a bona fide youth movement, Capra’s presence in the nightly lineup made little sense, and the 28-year-old will likely go down in baseball history for one simple achievement: being Clayton Kershaw’s 3,000 strikeout victim. Unless Capra can bounce back and make it back to the Show, he’ll be relegated to the realm of baseball trivia down the road, and his career will only be highlighted with an asterisk after getting fanned by one of the greatest pitchers in recent baseball history.
Welcome to the Show, Colson Montgomery!
If any rookie baseball player learned how to corner the market on a dramatic Major League debut, Colson Montgomery can now write a book on the subject. On the Fourth of July, no less, Montgomery made his debut in the Show to a spectacular catch in the first inning that literally qualifies for an ESPN Web Gem. To add further flair to his dramatic debut, Montgomery reached first base safely his first time at the plate in the Show on a catcher’s interference call, which is literally the first time since the beginning of the Expansion Era (since 1961) that this has happened.
To get on base at your first at-bat in the Majors is vast, but to get on base in such an obscure and rare opportunity literally set the tone for Colson Montgomery’s arrival on the South Side.
Oh, by the way, Colson Montgomery is a 6’3″, 230-pound shortstop who was recruited out of high school by Indiana University for both baseball and basketball, so it sounds reasonable that the Pale Hose have found themselves a true gem in Colson Montgomery.
PHOTO: Matt Marton/Imagn Images
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