This story was excerpted from Scott Merkin's White Sox Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
CHICAGO -- The White Sox celebration of their 1983 team this Saturday at Rate Field, prior to the 3:10 p.m. CT first pitch against the Royals, will honor more than just a division winner.
It’s an American League West championship from 43 years ago changing the landscape of Chicago sports. It’s a group standing just as much as a family, which sounds similar to the 2026 squad on the South Side.
“This is a close group,” Greg Walker, who hit 10 home runs over 118 games as a first baseman on that 1983 team, told MLB.com during a recent interview. “Bull [Greg Luzinski] was like my big brother. He’s been coming to my farm [in South Georgia] for 40-something years now. Comes up there every year. Kitty [Ron Kittle] is like my brother. He called today.
“Richard [Dotson] is like my brother. We have a reunion every year at the farm. They hunt and do all kinds of stuff. They know our farm better than we do. It’s still a close-knit group, and it’s going to be really good to see everybody.”
That close-knit group turned a 16-24 start to the 1983 season into 99 wins and a division title over the Royals by 20 games. They were famously known for their “Winning Ugly” style of play, as coined by Texas manager Doug Rader during that campaign, but in catcher Carlton Fisk, right fielder Harold Baines, manager Tony La Russa and third-base coach Jim Leyland, there were four Hall of Famers as part of that crew.
Let’s also not forget hitting coach Charley Lau, pitching coach Dave Duncan, bullpen coach Art Kusnyer, infield coach Ed Brinkman and first-base/baserunning coach Dave Nelson. They made up one of the best staffs in baseball history.
“One of the reasons I’m still in the game was Tony and the coaching staff and the players,” Walker said. “It kind of forged my career. What they did for me, they led me into coaching.”
Even people who aren’t as familiar with Walker and his 113 career homers certainly remember him as a top-notch hitting coach for the White Sox. He was an integral part of manager Ozzie Guillen’s staff on the 2005 squad, which won 99 games and posted an 11-1 playoff record on the way to a World Series title.
Walker was in Chicago last year to celebrate the 20th anniversary of that championship. The 1983 team was recognized before a Sunday game in 2023, but with the team currently playing an exciting brand of baseball, the reunion featuring at least 20 members from '83 seems to be a perfect fit.
“From being a player and a coach, I had more impact on the coaching end than I did on the playing end. I was just a piece on that team,” Walker said. “I’m really looking forward to it. It was great to see everybody last year, but they are younger people and going to be around and see each other for a long time.
“You get older, like this group, and you don’t know how many more years you are going to get together. So it’s going to be special. Me and [my wife] Carmen are both extremely excited about it.”
Saturday’s game will feature an 80s throwback theme on the broadcast side, much as the team did with Bob Costas and Steve Stone on June 9. Of course, that highly entertaining broadcast, filled with stories from two of the best in the history of the business, also saw a Braden Montgomery walk-off home run that beat the Braves in Montgomery’s first career game.
Costas called the 1983 American League Championship Series, which the Orioles won in four over the White Sox. He remembers how the White Sox had 1983 Cy Young winner LaMarr Hoyt lined up for Game 5 at home if not for Tito Landrum’s long ball on Britt Burns’ 150th pitch in the 10th, leading to the heartbreaking 3-0 loss.
How did that 1983 team change Chicago sports history? The Blackhawks won a Stanley Cup title in 1961, the Bears won the NFL Western Conference in 1963 and the Chicago Sting captured the 1981 NASL Soccer Bowl. But it was really the ’83 White Sox getting baseball and winning back in Chicago.
“I think that’s what made it special,” Walker said. “They hadn’t won in Chicago in so long. I don’t think we were picked to win. We felt like we had a great team. We did have a great team.”