A near-South Side lifer, overlooked brother, longtime minors manager, consummate prankster and cover-boy novelty are among the many we say goodbye to
It’s the time of year where, as we grimace ahead into 2025 and what awaits us with the Chicago White Sox, we look back at those South Siders we lost in 2024. Included among them are two legendary sluggers, a young superstar who “got away” and a rare Sports Illustrated cover subject from the second Bill Veeck era.
Among our tributes below, it was second byline Leigh Allan who paid tribute to Joe Shipley and Gordy Lund.
Please, feel free to use the comments to honor any White Sox close to you who we lost in 2024.
Johnny Jeter
Outfielder
White Sox career 1973
Died January 16
Age 79
Johnny Jeter did not have a major impact on the Chicago White Sox, acquired for the 1973 season in exchange for solid veteran reliever Vicente Romo, the swapped to Cleveland early in 1974 for inconsequential reliever Steve Blateric. In-between those transactions, Jeter played all three outfield positions for Chicago and logged the worst season (-1.1 WAR) of his career. (A small piece of trivia: Jeter had seven starts at DH in the first year the rule was used in the majors, playing there the sixth-most times on the team as one of 16 White Sox to DH in 1973).
But even after Jeter was long gone from the White Sox and long gone from baseball, he left one more gift for the White Sox organization: Son Shawn Jeter, acquired by the club in 1991 and playing the only MLB season of his career on the South Side — 19 years after his father, in 1992.
Tom Qualters
Right-Handed Relief Pitcher
White Sox career 1958
Died February 15
Age 88
Signed for $40,000 out of high school (thus earning the nickname “Money Bags”), Tom Qualters had a notable career, but only in a trivial sense. He pitched in just one game, just weeks after signing in 1953, and the 18-year-old gave up six earned runs while recording just one out; when he saw no more action in 1953, it left him with a season ERA of 162.00.
Qualters would see just seven more games with the Phillies, laboring in the minors and never breaking back through to The Show. He ended his career with the White Sox in 1958, with Chicago purchasing him at the end of April. Getting his first, and is it stands only, chance in the majors, the righthander made the most of it, finishing 10 of his 26 games and putting up a 4.19 ERA and 0.1 WAR. After spending the pennant-winning season of 1959 as a starter for Indianapolis in the minor leagues, the White Sox sold Qualters to Houston — then the top minor league franchise for the Cubs. He never made it back to the majors, hanging his spikes up for good after the 1962 season.
Qualters’ unique career has two interesting footnotes. Over 34 career games, he never earned a win, loss or save. He remains the only player ever to appear over different four seasons on a Topps baseball card having never earned a decision of any sort.
José DeLeón
Right-Handed Pitcher
White Sox career 1986-87, 1993-95
Died February 25
Age 63
Lamented as the player who the White Sox traded Bobby Bonilla to acquire, it’s oft-forgotten that DeLeón’s significant value netted the South Siders Lance Johnson in trade just two years later. The righthander put up 17.5 WAR in value over his career, and was an attractive enough arm that the White Sox brought him back for a key bullpen role during their competitive seasons in the early 1990s. It was in 1993 that DeLeón had the only postseason experience of his career, throwing 4 2⁄3 innings in the ALCS for the White Sox, yielding just one earned run. The 13-year veteran passed away in his home country of the Dominican Republic, after battling cancer.
Gordy Lund
Minor League Manager
White Sox career 1974-82
Died April 10
Age 83
Utility infielder Gordon “Gordy” Lund never played for the White Sox during his two sips of coffee in the major leagues, but he made a big impression on the team’s fate afterward. Born in Michigan but growing up in Chicago, Lund was signed by Cleveland out of Taft High.
Lund hit .261 with a .616 OPS in 51 trips to the plate for Cleveland in 1967 and the Seattle Pilots in 1969. That would have been fine for a reputed glove-first infielder, but the glove let him down, with seven errors in 64 chances. The White Sox then found out Lund was more capable in the dugout than on the field, making him a coach and then manager in their minor league system.
Lund managed Sox farm teams at various levels from 1974 to 1982. His record was a so-so 608-615, but he had several successful years with the Appleton Foxes, including a Midwest League championship with an amazing 97-40 regular season record and an 11-10 win in the playoff finale in 1978. That team had 11 players who eventually made the majors, including LaMarr Hoyt, who went 18-4 that year and won the Cy Young Award with the White Sox in 1983.
As much as a baseball lifer can be, Lund was a lifelong Chicagoland resident. He passed away in Arlington Heights, with his wife of 57 years, Roberta, alongside him.
Fritz Peterson
Left-Handed Starting Pitcher
White Sox career 1977
Died October 19, 2023 (death was not made public until April 12, 2024)
Age 81
Fritz Peterson was a Mt. Prospect native and attended Arlington Heights High School and Northern Illinois University, from there going on to a storied and eventful 11-year career in the majors. The lefty’s greatest fame came with the Yankees, putting up 19.6 WAR over nine seasons and owning the lowest ERA in original Yankee Stadium history (2.52). However, it was with the Yankees that Peterson’s greatest infamy, of sorts, occurred in 1973 when Peterson and Yankees teammate Mike Kekich traded families; the deal worked out fine for Fritz, who married Susan Kekich and remained with her until his death.
Peterson’s White Sox connection was brief, attempting to extend his career by signing with the club during Bill Veeck and Roland Hemond’s Rent-a-Player offseason, gobbling up players with something to prove. The 35-year-old Peterson ultimately couldn’t cut it for the Sox, and was cut before the 1977 season began.
Peterson was a notorious prankster, having picked up the art from onetime roommate Jim Bouton. And with the odd timing of the announcement of his death, it’s tempting to wonder if there is a final trick being played from beyond. However, the story is somewhat straightforward: Peterson passed away last fall, but his death wasn’t made public until April. He was a fighter, defeating prostrate cancer and suffering from Alzheimer’s before succumbing to lung cancer last October.
Joe Shipley
Right-Handed Relief Pitcher
White Sox career 1963
Died May 1
Age 88
Right-handed sidewinder Joe Shipley, who died May 1, never had much success out of the pen, but he was terrific with a pen … and with other artist’s tools, too. As a pitcher, Shipley was regarded to have great stuff, but he couldn’t get that stuff over the plate. His -0.8 WAR, 5.93 ERA career covered appearances in three seasons with the Giants and 1963 with the White Sox, totaling 44 innings in which he walked 25 batters and hit another six.
While Shipley’s pitching was sketchy, his sketches of other players were terrific, including one of a slightly more famous Giant teammate.
It would have been more cool had he become a professional artist, but Shipley spent his post-baseball career in more mundane jobs, mostly as a security guard.
Hank Allen
Third Baseman
White Sox career 1972-73
Died May 29
Age 83
Although he was the elder of three brothers who would ascend to the major leagues, Hank Allen would never be able to outshine the middle man of the trio, Dick. In fact, while perhaps a cynical take, Hank’s own passing ended up overshadowed by his now eternal brother, who was finally enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame just seven months after Hank’s death. Still, Dick was the reason we ever had Hank on the South Side, as the brothers sat side-by-side in the team picture for two of Dick’s three seasons with the White Sox.
Hank was a tremendous hitter in his own right, crushing 37 home runs all the way back in 1963 for Philadelphia affiliate the Magic City Cowboys — before Dick ever started seriously slugging in his own right.
In retirement, Hank was a successful horse trainer, winning countless races and in 1989 becoming the first African-American trainer in 79 years to saddle a horse in the Kentucky Derby. He also was a respected baseball scout for the Brewers and Astros (contributing to their 2017 World Series title).
Mike Brumley
Bunting Instructor
White Sox career 2000
Died June 15
Age 62
The son of a former major league catcher (also a Mike), Mike Brumley was a journeyman infielder who played for six teams from 1987-95, most notably the Detroit Tigers. It was after his playing career where he made more of a mark on baseball, managing in the Arizona Diamondbacks, Angels and Los Angeles Dodgers systems. He eventually made it back to the majors in two roles, as third base coach for the Seattle Marines and hitting coach for the Chicago Cubs.
In-between those two stints, Brumley spent a year (2000) as a bunting instructor in the White Sox system.
The baseball lifer was working as a minor league hitting instructor for the Atlanta Braves when he was killed in a multi-car crash on I-20 in Mississippi.
Orlando Cepeda
Batting Coach
White Sox career 1980
Died June 28
Age 86
Hall-of-Famer Orlando Cepeda spent just one season as a member of the White Sox, working as the club’s hitting instructor in 1980, at the end of the Bill Veeck era. But Veeck had long wanted to have Cepeda on his team: During Veeck’s first stint as White Sox owner he had a deal in place with the Giants to bring Cepeda to Chicago, but it fell through.
In 1980, Cepeda had just finished serving 10 months of a five-year sentence for smuggling pot and Veeck wanted to bring him back into baseball. Thus began Cepeda’s climb back into the game, eventually evolving into a mentor and elder statesman — and in 1999, the Hall of Fame. By JAWS measure, Cepeda is the 35th-best first baseman of all time.
Jim Umbarger
Left-Handed Pitcher
White Sox career 1983
Died July 5
Age 71
Jim Umbarger was a journeyman southpaw who ended his career in the White Sox minors after an unsuccessful attempt to extend his MLB career. That career lasted just four years (1975-78), but to his credit the former phenom (just one season in the minors before breaking in with the Texas Rangers) would not give up, laboring in the Texas system and moving on to the minors for Baltimore and Pittsburgh before finishing up in Double- and Triple-A for the Sox in 1983. Perhaps playing for the White Sox in some capacity was Umbarger’s destiny, as he was a teammate of both South Side Bannisters while in college at Arizona State, Alan and Floyd.
Jimmy Hurst
Right Fielder
White Sox career 1991-96
Died July 6
Age 52
Jimmy Hurst saw just 13 games in the major leagues, but played in almost 1,500 games total across the minor leagues, independent ball, Japan and Mexico. Hurst’s journey began as a 12th round White Sox draft choice in 1990, where after a stellar campaign in High-A at age 22 (25 homers, 91 RBIs, .913 OPS) Hurst was deemed the No. 75 prospect in all of baseball by Baseball America. Detroit snagged the outfielder from the White Sox off of waivers at the end of Spring Training 1997, giving him his only taste of The Show that summer. In fact, the only home run of Hurst’s career came in what would be his last-ever start, against the New York Yankees.
After failing to return to the majors in both the Boston and Toronto systems, Hurst took a year off and then started the second phase of his career with eight seasons of play in Japan, Mexico and independent leagues. The second-to-last stop of Hurst’s career came in 2007, where he crushed it at age 35 with the Schaumburg Flyers: seven homers and 31 RBIs in 41 games, with a .374/.454/.558 slash.
Doug Creek
Left-Handed Relief Pitcher
White Sox career 1997
Died July 28
Age 55
The White Sox claimed Creek off of waivers from San Francisco after the 1997 season. But having found little success in the majors (-1.5 WAR over three seasons, including a terrible -1.5 in 1996 with the Giants), Creek came to an agreement with the Hanshin Tigers in Japan, and the White Sox agreed to release him.
After a poor year in Japan, Creek returned Stateside and pitched for another seven years in the majors with five teams, beginning in 1999 with the Cubs. In retirement, Creek operated a fishing charter business and had a fishing show on the Versus Network before succumbing in a battle with pancreatic cancer.
Harry Chappas
Shortstop
White Sox career 1978-80
Died September 15
Age 66
Treated as a diminutive gimmick by owner Bill Veeck, who listed his height falsely at 5´3´´ (the truth was two to four inches taller) and most certainly played a massive role in his Sports Illustrated cover in a dead spring week of coverage (“The Littlest Rookie”), Harry Chappas had a brief and star-crossed baseball career. The White Sox drafted him twice, the second time after he’d spurned the club for junior college. His rise through the club’s minors was meteoric, skipping Triple-A completely and jumping directly to the majors from A-ball on the strength of a .302/.391/.412 season with the Appleton Foxes. At the end of that season, at age 20, Chappas got a September call-up with the White Sox.
In the majors, Chappas was faced with two big obstacles. One was bad luck: In what would have been his first full season in the bigs (1979), Veeck named Don Kessigner player-manager ... and what manager is going to bench himself for a cup of coffee rookie? Second, Chappas’ skills, somewhat thin even in the minors, did not translate to the majors; the flashes of power (.357 career SLG) and barely-efficient base-stealing (rounding up to 70% success) at lower levels did not show up on the biggest stage. Chappas was, however, a modestly-productive player who would end his brief, three-season career as a 0.6 WAR player over just 72 games — over 162 starts, that would have worked out, thanks to his defense, as just about an average major league regular.
Rudy May
Left-Handed Starting Pitcher
White Sox career 1964
Died October 19
Age 80
Rudy May is the first of two successive arms that got away in this year’s In Memoriam, both products of the 1960s White Sox who never ended up seeing action in a single game on the South Side.
In May’s case, the southpaw had been shrewdly stolen from the Minnesota Twins in 1962’s first-year player draft, and May responded with a 17-8 campaign with a 2.61 ERA pitching for Chicago’s Single-A and Triple-A affiliates. May was a bit wild, but struck out 235 batters in 207 innings, an amazing rate for the era. Still, May was swapped to Philadelphia in a steal for the Phillies.
“The Dude” (so nicknamed for his fashion sense) was a late bloomer, seeing 30 games with California (after another trade) in 1965 but not reaching the majors again until 1969. He piled up 20.6 pitching WAR in his career, with better-than-average seasons in 1971, 1974-75 and 1982 and an All-Star level WAR (4.9) with the Yankees in 1981, at age 35.
Al Fitzmorris
Right-Handed Pitcher
White Sox career 1966-68
Died December 4
Age 78
Al Fitzmorris didn’t have quite the length or quality of career that Rudy May did, but after being plucked away from the White Sox by Kansas City in the 1969 expansion draft to stock the Royals and Seattle Pilots, he built a successful stretch for a team that quickly contended. Fitzmorris had been signed by the White Sox in the predraft era before the 1965 season, but was left unprotected after three years of strong starting in the minors.
Fitzmorris spent four years in the Royals pen before moving into the starting rotation and putting up 11.8 WAR from 1973 to 1975. His prowess diminished pretty quickly from there, and he missed Kansas City’s playoff action in the later 1970s.
Al met his wife, Jan, on The Plaza in Kansas City in 1970, was wed during the All-Star break in 1971, and remained married for 53 years until his passing.
Bill Melton
Third Baseman/Broadcaster
White Sox career 1968-75, 1998-2020
Died December 5
Age 79
Bill Melton, essentially a White Sox lifer given his decade as a player and nearly three as a broadcaster and team ambassador, was given a fond tribute from Mark Liptak on the day of his passing.
Rocky Colavito
Right Fielder
White Sox career 1967
Died December 10
Age 91
Rocky Colavito had a borderline Hall of Fame career that was pretty well over by the time he came to the South Side in trade to help the 1967 club’s pennant push. The slugger hit just three homers over 60 games for the White Sox, completing a 0.3 WAR season that started in Cleveland and was by far the worst of his career.
However, the more important role “The Rock” played for the White Sox did not involve suiting up for them at all. In 1965, he was sent from Kansas City to Cleveland as part of a three-team trade that netted the South Siders both Tommy John and Tommie Agee at a cost of, essentially, nothing.
Rocky was a devastating force at bat and sported a rocket arm in right field, with outstanding seasons in 1958, 1959 and 1962 and an immaculate 7.6 WAR in 1961. He finished in the Top 5 of MVP voting on three occasions and was a nine-time All-Star over six seasons.
After the 1967 failure, the White Sox sensed the way the wind was blowing and sold Colavito off to the Dodgers, and the 1968 season would be the extremely popular player’s last.
