Chicagoist Weekend Theater: Inside Spring Training

By Chuck Sudo in Arts & Entertainment on Mar 17, 2013 7:00PM

Baseball season, to paraphrase Steve Goodman, is about to be underway. I have tickets to the White Sox' April 1 season opener against Kansas City on my refrigerator at home that have been increasingly teasing me the closer that date approaches.

Spring training is the theme of this weekend's video, courtesy of the Media Burn Archive: A look at White Sox spring training in 1978. Bill Veeck was the owner then, the Sox trained in Sarasota, Florida, and the ballclub was still wearing those goddamn awful v-neck jerseys. Larry Doby, who was the first black baseball player in the American League, was manager and had the task of putting together a squad that would compete in the AL West. (The Sox would finish 71-90 that year.)