Trade really hits home

[greasywheels121]

http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sp...tesox-headlines

 

Trade really hits home

Sox utility player Rob Mackowiak could not be more thrilled with his new address

By David Haugh

 

The Mackowiak men sat next to each other inside U.S. Cellular Field for Game 1 of the World Series like so many other fathers and sons who bonded over baseball.

 

Just two lifelong Sox fans who had waited their lifetimes to share the joy and savor the moment for generations.

 

Bob Mackowiak turned to his son, Rob, the former Pirates utilityman just traded to the White Sox, and asked, "'Can you imagine being out there one day playing in the World Series?"' the elder Mackowiak recalled on the phone.

 

"And Bobby said, 'I hope I get the chance."'

 

Thanks to Sox general manager Ken Williams, Mackowiak is even closer to the World Series than his seats along the third-base line were that night.

 

Joining the same Sox team he grew up rooting for in Oak Lawn and later across the border in Schererville, Ind., Mackowiak fills a utility void created when Geoff Blum returned to the San Diego Padres. His addition to a solid Sox roster, coupled with the acquisition of Jim Thome, makes it plausible to suggest the next time Mackowiak attends a World Series game, he will not need a ticket.

 

"When he called to say he had been traded, he was so excited about not only coming home to the Sox, but coming to a winner and a team that wanted him," said Bob Mackowiak, a mechanic who lives in Lowell, Ind. "I don't know if I can put into words how great this is."

 

His wife Stephanie did not even try when she got the good news. She was working for her brother-in-law's trucking company in Alsip when one of the drivers called to report what he had heard about the trade on the radio.

 

"I could not even talk, so I started screaming at the top of my lungs," Stephanie said. "Now we'll be able to spend a lot more time with Bobby and his family."

 

For the record, to the Mackowiak family, he always will be Bobby Mackowiak. Not Rob, Robert, Robby or Junior. Just Bobby, the same name they called him when he was a Little Leaguer in Oak Lawn emulating the sweet left-handed swing of his favorite player on his favorite team, Harold Baines.

 

"He loved to watch him hit," Bob Mackowiak said.

 

Now Baines, the Sox's bench coach, can help teach him how.

 

Bob Mackowiak's family, Sox fans for generations, would attend as many as five or six games at Comiskey Park a season when Bobby was a child. Mackowiak attended Oak Lawn High School before the family moved to Indiana at the beginning of his senior year to be closer to his dad's job in Hammond.

 

After graduating from Lake Central High School, Mackowiak chased his dream at South Suburban College, where cold, hard reality beckoned. Not many 53rd-round draft picks, which the Pirates made the second baseman in 1996, wind up wearing major-league uniforms. But Mackowiak, who lived by the grinder rules before the White Sox marketing team numbered them, proved almost everybody wrong but himself.

 

Relying mostly on moxie and versatility, Mackowiak moved up the Pirates' system and made his major-league debut in 2001. It was July 6 of that year when he started for the Pirates in right field at U.S. Cellular in an interleague matchup that made the Mackowiaks thank the baseball gods.

 

About 150 extended family members and friends showed up on the South Side.

 

"You wouldn't believe what a thrill that was," Bob Mackowiak said.

 

A mad scramble already has begun for tickets for April 2 at U.S. Cellular Field for opening night against the Cleveland Indians, a good excuse for a Mackowiak family reunion.

 

"That might be the best part about this, being able to bring everybody together," Stephanie Mackowiak said. "Of course, I'll get to see my grandson more."

 

That would be Garrett, whose birth was announced all over Chicago. He entered the world May 28, 2004, a bouncing 8-pound-5-ounce boy at 11:15 a.m. About eight hours later, his proud papa would hit a walk-off grand slam to beat the Cubs before following that up with a ninth-inning, game-tying two-run home run in the nightcap of the doubleheader.

 

The Cub-killer reputation alone makes Mackowiak a favorite of Sox fans before his first at-bat on the South Side. And if he struggles in subsequent at-bats and loses a few fans along the way, Bob Mackowiak says his son can handle hometown criticism if it comes.

 

Even if it could sting the rest of the family.

 

"That's the only part of it that might give you mixed emotions," Bob Mackowiak said. "In baseball, good hitters hit three out of 10 times but fail seven. Good players have to learn from that failure and have thick skin. We do too as his family. He's going to strike out with the bases loaded. But you have to take the bad with the good, and deal with it. … I'm just glad he'll be dealing with it here."

[THEWOOD]

Nice read

[Texsox]

 

What makes this so cool, is it was more of the on field fit than the marketing dream that made this trade.