ANAHEIM, Calif. — Luis Robert Jr. has a chance to join the club.
It’s not a big one, the club of White Sox All-Star center fielders, that is.
Robert, named American League Player of the Week Monday, has been the Sox’ best player all season with superb defense, a .269/.326/.559 hitting line and 21 home runs entering the Sox’ game against the Angels in Anaheim, Calif., Monday, stands an excellent chance of making his first Mid-Summer Classic game in his fourth season at age 25.
The last Sox center fielder with All-Star chops was Carl Everett in 2003, and that comes with an asterisk. Everett earned it playing the corner outfield spots for the Rangers, who dealt him to the Sox on July 1. He would play 66 games for the Sox in center field during the second half that season.
Before that, it was Chet Lemon from the South Side Hit Men era. Lemon was an All-Star in 1978 and ’79.
In the 1960s, Jim Landis in 1962 and Tommie Agee in 1966 and ’67 were honored. Ken Berry, a two-time Gold Glove winner, also made it in 1967 but played just 38 games in center field with Agee taking most of the reps in center while Berry patrolled right.
The only All-Star center field starters in a White Sox uniform were Mike Kreevich in 1938 and Thurman Tucker in 1944. Robert won’t have the votes in all likelihood, but if he stays healthy, puts up the numbers he’s posting now and keeps on covering the outfield from gap to gap and short center to the wall, his vote appeal will increase.
When you’re five-tools good, comparisons are inevitable. When Eloy Jimenez boldly said Robert would be the next Mike Trout, Robert told Jimenez he was honored.
“But he’s on a different level,” Robert said Monday through translator Billy Russo. “If I can play for a very long time and sustain the level of success I’m having now, then maybe we can talk about that comparison.”
With Robert’s age and talent, it’s not difficult to see him becoming the most decorated Sox All-star center fielder ever, though.
“I don’t think about that,” Robert said. “Every ballplayer wants to be the best he can be and that’s my case every time I take the field. If at the end of my career the numbers say I was the best then that’s who I was going to be.”
Any conversation of all-time best Sox center fielders must include old-timers Johnny Mostil, and Fielder Jones, who played before the All-Star Game existed. Mostil, who played for the Sox in 1918 and from 1921-29, finished second to George Burns in the 1926 AL Most Valuable Player voting. Jones’ 32.0 WAR per Baseball Reference is 18th on the Sox’ all-time list, one spot ahead of Jose Abreu.
And current Sox fans will toss the names of Lance Johnson and Aaron Rowand into a discussion of center fielders because Johnson batted .286 with 226 stolen bases in a Sox uniform from 1988-95 and led the AL in triples from 1991-94. Johnson’s 25-game hitting streak in ‘92 is fifth longest in franchise history.
Rowand, an All-Star with the Phillies in 2007, played center field on the 2005 World Series champs, crashed into some walls and batted .270/.329/.407 with 13 homers and 69 RBI in 157 games that season. It’s also worth noting nine-time All-Star Minnie Minoso, aka “Mr. White Sox” and a Hall of Famer who made his mark at third base and left field, played 70 games in center in 1952.
Robert, who carries on the deep tradition of Cuban stars after Minoso on the South Side, merely said being an All-Star would be “a good accomplishment.”
“If I’m there, it will be something very special because I think I have been doing a very good job,” Robert said. “If I’m not there, it won’t matter — I’ll just keep doing what I’ve been doing since Day One.”
