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Friday December 13, 2024

Bill Melton (1945-2024)

I recently came across the unbelievably sad stat that the Chicago White Sox, established in 1900, never had a 40-homerun guy until Frank Thomas did it in the 1990s. That seems so White Sox. And for all of the Big Hurt's homers—and he hit 521 of them—he never led the league. But the ChiSox did kinda own the homerun title in the early 1970s: Dick Allen won it twice, and before him, Beltin' Bill Melton topped the charts in 1971.

It was a bit of a fluke. In Melton's second season, 1969, he hit 23 homers. The following year he upped it to 33, which was good enough for fifth in the American League and 15th-best in the Majors. And the very next season, he won the homerun title.

With 33.

What happened in the American League between 1970 and '71? Mostly, the big AL boppers from the previous 10 years, Harmon Killebrew and Frank Howard, aged out. Ditto Carl Yastrzemski, who went from 40 to 15. Ditto his BoSox teammate Tony Conigliaro, who is his own sad story. He went deep 36 times in 1970, including 10 times in September, was traded a month later, and played only 95 more games, hitting a total of six more homers. There was a void, in other words, and Melton stepped into it. As a result, he loomed kinda large in my youth—even over in Minnesota.

His career was surprisingly short, and always with moribund teams. He never sniffed the postseason. Here's how his teams, mostly the ChiSox, finished:

  • 1968: 8th of 10
  • 1969: 5th of 6
  • 1970: 6th of 6
  • 1971: 3rd of 6
  • 1972: 2nd of 6 (!)
  • 1973: 5th of 6
  • 1974: 4th of 6
  • 1975: 5th of 6
  • 1976: 4th of 6 (California)
  • 1977: 5th of 7 (Cleveland)

Yes, for a brief shining moment, in August 1972 (when Melton was injured), the White Sox were actually in the lead in the AL West. On August 26, they were up by 1.5 games. By Sept. 1, they were down 2.5 games to the resurgent Oakland A's, who not only won the division (by 5.5 games), and the pennant, and the World Series, but the next three World Series—the only non-Yankees team to do that. So the ChiSox were attempting to buck history. Didn't happen.

Melton never hit more than 33 homers, and only hit 154 with the team overall, but that was a club record until Harold Baines (and then Frank Thomas, and then...) overtook it. He never hit .280, never slugged .500, never hit 30 doubles or drove in 100, and never won a Gold Glove, but he was always solid. Apparently Melton feuded with Chicago announcer Harry Caray, which led to the trade to the Angels. But per The New York Post, Melton returned to the team in the early 1990s as a scout/ambassador, became one of Michael Jordan's hitting instructors, and then joined the broadcast booth in 1998. He stayed there for more than 20 years. He died last week, aged 79, following a brief illness. 

Posted at 12:47 PM on Friday December 13, 2024 in category Baseball