Imrem: Sox' Pierce was a special person and player
Too little attention has been paid to the passing of Billy Pierce.
Ernie Banks and Minnie Minoso received considerable when they died earlier this year and Pierce belongs in their category.
When there's a race between which was better, the player or the person, you know you have something special in a man.
Leave it to Minoso to best characterize Pierce, his teammate on the 1950s Go-Go Sox.
"When I came to Chicago, I was the first black player, and he always treated me with respect," Minoso had said.
The quote was included in the Sox' news release last week announcing that Pierce had died at age 88.
Others my age will remember what an outstanding left-handed pitcher Pierce was. Younger fans, take our word for it, he was Mark Buehrle … only better.
Pierce was so good that many believe he belongs in baseball's Hall of Fame as one of the dominant pitchers of his time.
Before we address the Cooperstown issue, let's go back to those words from Minoso.
Racial integration led to turbulent times in society and baseball during the 1950s. A photo of Dodgers' shortstop Pee Wee Reese putting his arm around pioneer Jackie Robinson's shoulders is iconic to this day.
There's no such photo of Pierce and Minoso, but Minoso's word is worth a thousand pictures.
I can't say that I knew Pierce the man. He wasn't around the ballpark for most games like the great Minoso was on the South Side and the great Billy Williams is on the North Side.
But I heard many people talk about Pierce and never, ever heard anything bad said about him.
The times that I was blessed to spend a few minutes around Pierce, he was everything he was reputed to be: humble, pleasant, kind, courteous and cooperative.
That doesn't even get into how much money Billy Pierce helped raise as a longtime committee member with Chicago Baseball Cancer Charities.
In other words, Billy Pierce was everything that a kid growing up in Chicago could hope his hometown athletes would be.
As for Pierce the player, obituaries mentioned his matchups against Whitey Ford, the Yankees' lefty who wound up in Cooperstown.
I remember those games like they were yesterday. But I also remember Pierce matching up against all the other No. 1 starters in the American League.
Whomever the opposing pitcher was, the Sox never were at a disadvantage with Billy Pierce on the mound.
So when I think of Pierce dying, and Minoso not long before him, and Nellie Fox and Sherm Lollar before them, it's easy to recall that those teams comprised the best White Sox era of my lifetime.
Despite being over .500 every year and winning more than 90 games several times, those Sox banged their heads against the Yankees of Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra and the Indians with one of the best pitching staffs of all-time.
But the Go-Go Sox competed and contended every season and finally made it to the World Series in 1959.
Pierce was one of the primary reasons for the Sox' sustained success because as a pitcher, he passed both the eye and stats tests for the Hall of Fame.
Pierce has fallen short of Cooperstown so far but that doesn't matter as much as Minnie Minoso and countless others saying how well he treated them.
That should be the measure of any man anyway, shouldn't it be?