CHICAGO – The special moment provided by the White Sox Lucas Giolito and the Cardinals' Jack Flaherty starting Tuesday night at Guaranteed Rate Field is not lost on White Sox pitching coach Ethan Katz.
In fact, Katz is just to the left of center stage for this contest. Giolito and Flaherty have been friends since they pitched together at Harvard-Westlake High School in Los Angeles, Calif., a rotation that also included Atlanta’s Max Fried and featured Katz as their pitching coach.
“It's really special,” said Katz via Zoom prior to Tuesday’s contest. “I don't know if this will ever happen again, where a high school coach is in a dugout coaching two guys he had at the age of 14.
“We're all still very close and it will be a special night. But I'm not going to be able to watch Jack like I normally would if I was watching a game on TV. I've got to prepare for Lucas' inning and everything like that.”
Katz mentioned Flaherty’s mother being in attendance Tuesday, along with Matt LaCour, who was the pitchers’ head coach at Harvard-Westlake. Katz’s wife, Stephanie, also will be at the game.
“Everybody who's in Chicago is here. Might be some other people, not sure,” Katz said. “They're very close, they all want to one-up each other.
“They might not talk about it, but one's going to want to do better than the other. They're very competitive. They want to be the best pitchers in baseball, each one of them. They work extremely hard to prepare to be that.”
Katz’s trip from Harvard-Westlake to Chicago deserves its fair share of attention as well.
“It's been a long, I won't say long journey, but it's been an interesting journey,” Katz said. “I'm blessed where I am today, to be able to say I'm a big-league coach and I'm able to watch guys that I coached in high school when I didn't even know I was going to be a pitching coach in a big league game.
“It's special. It's something where I don't take any days for granted.”
Saluting Joe West
Joe West set a new Major League record Tuesday by umpiring his 5,376th career game, passing Bill Klem, an umpire from 1905 to 1941. West, who worked behind home plate, drew praise from Ken "Hawk" Harrelson, the iconic White Sox broadcaster who went to battle with West at times but ended up becoming friends with the umpire.
Harrelson and his wife, Aris, were scheduled to make the trip from Orlando, Fla., to Chicago to watch West break the record. But Harrelson had a flu-like reaction to his COVID-19 vaccine and didn’t make the trip.
“There are two umpires, in all of my parts of eight decades in this game, the two umpires I have respected the most have been Joe West and Nestor Chylak,” said Harrelson via conference call. “They control a game and that’s what a good umpire does.
“Are they going to miss calls? Sure. Just like hitters miss hanging sliders and curveballs. Joe controlled the game. You’ve heard me say it many times over the years. My two rules on how to win in the Major Leagues when Joe is there is you have to catch the ball and the second rule is don’t mess with Joe West.”
White Sox manager Tony La Russa also had words of congratulations for West. “Very consistent. He took control of the game, and that’s what an umpire is supposed to do,” La Russa said. “He really got his crew together, they’re very consistent. They understand that there is emotion, you want players to play with emotion.
“If you had an outburst, he’d let you have a bit of it, he just wouldn’t let you go too far. But you couldn’t disrespect the game. Joe was going to make sure the game was played correctly. And he had a flair and I think he’s the perfect guy to set the record because he represents a lot of what an umpire should be.”
They Said It
“I don’t know half the guys there, but I’ve had a lot of fun watching them.” – Harrelson, on the 2021 White Sox.