Number 2 Gets His Due

COLLECTIBLES / Norm Cohen



I can't recall the date, but I vividly remember waking up one day in 1958 with the mumps. So I put on my black White Sox cap, ran into the kitchen and proudly announced, "Look, Dad, Nellie Fox!"

He wore No.2, batted second and played second base for the No.2 team in the Second City. Which probably explains why Jacob Nelson Fox, the White Sox' sparkplug with the perpetual chaw in his left cheek, was forced to take the longest side road to Cooperstown.

Maybe it was because he "only" had a .288 lifetime batting average with 35 home runs and 790 RBI in 19 major-league seasons that kept him out of the Hall of Fame so long. Heck, Frank Thomas averages more home runs per season than Fox hit in 2,367 games and will have driven in more runs by the middle of this, his ninth season.

But you know what? Foxy struck out only 216 times in his entire career and only 192 times in 14 years with the White Sox. Heck, Dave Nicholson, one of his1963teammates,hadalmostas many

(175) in one season.

Hall of Fame numbers? The hobby seems to think so. A single-signed baseball with Fox' autograph would set you back $1,500. For comparison, a ball signed by fellow inductee Phil Niekro sells for $35.

Fox was the AL's MVP in 1959, the first Sox player to win that award. He batted .375 in the World Series that year and was named to the All-Star team 12 times.

Don't let that .288 lifetime average fool you, either. He dipped below .300 only four times in the '50s. Two of those were .296s and another .285. How many other second basemen hit .313 .319, .311, .317, .300 and .306 in that decade?

And, boy, could he field. Little Nel led AL second basemen in putouts 10 times and led in assists and fielding percentage six times. With Fox at second and Looie Aparicio at short, every grounder was at least an out, and sometimes two.

I can't recall the date, but I remember vividly a Sunday in June of 1964. Still bitteroverthe factthatthe Soxhad "given"

Nellie to the Houston Colt .45s, I listened in horror as Al Weis bobbled Bill Stafford's bases-loaded grounder in the 17th inning. Hector Lopez scored, Elston Howard slid into third, Phil Linz was safe at second, Stafford made it to first and the Yankees led, 2-1. "Foxy would have had it," I screamed. The Yankees won the pennant by one game that year, and in my mind, that was the one game.

Got so mad that I tore up my 1963 Al Weis rookie card - you know, the one he shared with Pedro Gonzalez, Ken McMullen and Pete Rose. Yes, that Pete Rose card; the one worth $1,000 today.

It was many years later that I learned that Weis had moved from second base to shortstop shortly before he made the error, a fact that the radio team failed to emphasize ("Ground ball to Weis . . . he bobbles it . . . everybody's safe") and one that I was too disgusted to read about in the next day's paper.

The White Sox always got the double play when Fox was on the field. TheyledtheALin that categoryfive

times in his 14 years there. I guess Little Looie and his predecessor, Chico Carrasquel, might have had something to do with that, too.

I can't recall the date, but I remember vividly when the White Sox fired manager Don Gutteridge in the dog days of a dismal 1970 season. One of the leading candidates was Nelson Fox, then a Washington Senators coach. All true White Sox fans crossed their fingers and waited with anticipation for confirmation.

But our world came crashing down when the announcement came that Chuck Tanner, a former Cub no less, had gotten the job. No.2 was again number two.

I can't recall the date, but I remember vividly when the Chicago papers began reporting Fox' valiant fight against skin cancer. I don't want to recall Dec. 1, 1975, the day he lost the battle.

I also can't recall the date, but I remember vividly when Fox failed to get the 75 percent vote needed to get him into the Hall of Fame in his last year ofeligibility.Thefigure74.6,however,

the percentage he did get, is burned into memory. The Internal Revenue Service allows you to round up, but the Hall of Fame doesn't.

Didn't matter to collectors. Before long, a Nellie Fox autographed baseball passed the $1,000 mark.

Then it was up to the Veterans Committee, but they had their priorities. Phil Rizzuto had to get in, so did Jim Bunning. And some guy who played during the Crusades, too.

Insiders say that Fox had enough votes to make it last year, but No.2 finished number two in the voting to Bunning, and the Veterans Committee was limited to one enshrinee.

On March 5, 1997, they took another vote. Probably won't remember that date either. But the image of committee chairman Joe L. Brown making the announcement, a blow-up of a 1956 Nellie Fox Topps card in the background? That's something I'll always remember.

03/09