Today in White Sox History: March 19
Rich Robertson wears out his stay on the South Side pretty quickly
As it turns out, Rich Robertson had more Topps baseball cards for the White Sox, one, than he had official games pitched with the South Siders. | Topps 1962 A player who would represent GM Ken Harrelson ’s cleverest trade and be a mainstay for some poor late-1980s White Sox teams, Iván Calderón , was born in Fajardo, Puerto Rico. Signed by Seattle at age 17 and in the majors by 22, Calderón’s push for Rookie of the Year (STATS) was derailed by a broken hand.
Benched (? ) by the Mariners, Hawk swooped in and stole away Iván the Terrible for the low, low price of catcher Scott Bradley in the middle of the next season, 1986. Calderón responded to the show of confidence by having what would stand as his finest season in the majors in 1987, when he put up 4.
2 WAR along with 28 homers and 83 RBIs for the White Sox. He never again approached those numbers in Chicago, but over four-plus seasons (and not counting a career swan song of nine games in 1993), Calderón had 9. 0 WAR and 70 homers, hitting .
273. After a bounce-back 1990 (2. 6 WAR as a “veteran” on the upstart White Sox), Calderón was swapped to Montreal in a brilliant trade for Tim Raines .