While writing about Zeke Bonura last week, I had to do a little bit of research on early White Sox sluggers, since he was among the select few who could regularly reach the faraway fences of Comiskey Park.

That required stringing together some milestones in order to give him some context. Which then led me to piece together the rest of the home-run record's timeline out of curiosity.

As you'll see, the White Sox were skeptical of the baseballing craze known as the "four-bagged hit." They stopped writing it off as a fad after a few decades.

1901: 5, Sam Mertes

Let's start at the beginning. Mertes changed leagues without changing towns, jumping from the Chicago Orphans (now known as the Cubs) to the White Stockings of the newly formed American League. He led the inaugural edition of the team we root for with five homers. That's fitting, since he was given the nickname of "Sandow," a popular circus strongman at the time. "Popular circus strongman" is an awesome phrase that doesn't come up enough.

Anyway, his Baseball-Reference.com Bullpen page has a little more on him:

Prior to the 1901 season, he jumped across town to the Chicago White Sox of the new American League, and he started in the circuit's first game on April 24th. On May 9th of that year, he broke up a no-hitter by Cleveland Blues pitcher Earl Moore in the 10th inning. The next year, he played every position for the Sox, including pitcher (he was 1-0 and only allowed 1 earned run in 8 innings on the mound).

1903: 6, Danny Green

Green, like Mertes, starred for both Chicago teams, and he's got to have an interesting story. He had an OPS+ above 110 every year, but his major-league career was over after 1905 at 28. Total White Sox says he retired, but his Bullpen page says he went to the minors. While playing for Minneapolis, he was drilled in the head, and he never recovered. He died at age 39 in "an institution."

At any rate, Green hit more homers in 1903 than some later White Sox teams, including 1908 (three!) and 1909 (four!).

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In a profile of Jeff Manto, Mark Gonzales outlined the numerous tasks that lie ahead of the new White Sox hitting coach:

• Fix Adam Dunn
• Fix Alex Rios
• Fix Gordon Beckham
• Make sure Brent Morel doesn't take a step back.
• Don't disrupt Paul Konerko's delicate balance.

These are all very real issues, but there's one task that Gonzales didn't mention that should take precedent. He'll have to keep close watch on Dayan Viciedo, and the adjustments he has to make when pitchers find new ways to exploit his aggressiveness. In fact, I might rate Viciedo's progress as the most crucial development of 2012. Viciedo offers the prospect of above-average production for the league minimum his salary, and that's something the Sox have sorely lacked. If he can't deliver, it clouds the future of any next White Sox core.

So there's Viciedo. Let's assign Morel, too, since Manto oversaw Morel's brisk, steady climb through the minors. Otherwise, Manto arrives on the scene rather foreign to the current state of affairs.

He isn't daunted by the to-do list, at least outwardly:

"It's a great challenge," Manto said. "Sometimes you walk into a team where everything's fine, everybody's in good spirits and having good careers. But here, there is something to do."

There's a lot to do, and Manto should get ample time to show whether he's up for the task. He basically gets the benefit of the doubt thanks to the scientific method. Ozzie Guillen had a steadfast belief in his coaching staff and veteran players -- or a sheer reluctance to make anything that qualified as a difficult decision. Either way, what resulted was a formula with all constants and no variables.

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On the tails of some (mildly) expressed lurker interest in learning more about sabermetrics during the South Side Sox open house, I've decided to compile some of my personal bookmarks and other useful resources to help simplify things. I share some links ‘round these parts, so naturally I am expert. Perhaps this can be a database. Or just a one-off. Either way, maybe a few more people will ask more questions and really get the sabermetric ball rolling. If you're only vaguely familiar with some of the more obscure terms and acronyms thrown around on here, well, it can be overwhelming. There is a lot to learn, of course, but there are also a host of White Sox fans willing to help with that process. Just read up a bit first, eh? The links below provide a ton of material, but it's all good stuff, I promise. For the sake of brevity, I'll try to keep my comments clipped.

So, new jack, what is sabermetrics? Where to start? What a coincidence. Fangraphs, perhaps the most-cited outside resource on SSS, recently asked themselves that exact question. The rest of the links are focused on the numbers, but it's a larger field than that to be sure. As you'll find, many of the sites mentioned below are extremely interesting; I highly encourage new users to simply dive in. Select a couple favorite players, use the search functions and click away in any and all directions. Reading stat descriptions is fine, but you'll learn a lot more by putting them to work for you.

Next, to start the technical descriptions, this is an excellent primer. Yep, it has 24 articles on 24 subjects, but it's concise (if you can believe that) and very easy to understand. The listed subjects are largely concerned with player value, which is good since that's probably where most discussions and arguments originate. Those articles give us the meat and potatoes background behind concepts such as Wins Above Replacement. For some quick references, use the Fangraphs library. I've linked to a few of more frequently used stats and concepts below.

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Over the last 25 years, I have had the opportunity to meet plenty of White Sox players. I have met these guys at fan club luncheons, SoxFest, out and about in the city or on White Sox road trips. I've met Matt Thornton and Sergio Santos at Miller's Pub, A.J. Pierzynski and Brian Anderson at Angels and Kings, Tim Raines and Craig Grebeck at The Old Barn but none of the stories compare to when my friends and I took a road trip to Milwaukee in 2001 to see the White Sox face the Brewers.

There was some funky scheduling that led up to that series. The first game took place on a Sunday. My friends and I took the 90 mile drive up on Saturday evening to party and hit up the Sunday day game. We bounced around a few bars on Water Street finally settling on one that had an outside beer garden and two levels with pool tables upstairs.

My guys and I settled in nicely, drinking a lot and shooting pool when to our surprise a large contingent of White Sox players made their way up the stairs. I was 21 at the time. This was pretty much the greatest thing to happen to me up to that point. Jon Garland, Alan Embree, Keith Foulke, James Baldwin, Coach Gary Pettis and Royce Clayton were now in the house.

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When Jake Peavy kinda-sorta suggested that Ozzie Guillen quit on the team during an appearance on Chris Rongey's show, Guillen, who wasn't in the States, promised to respond to Peavy with guns blazing upon his return. It took Jerry Reinsdorf's mediation to keep a pointless controversy from spiraling out of control.

Today, though, another member of the team jumped on another radio show and detailed further mismanagement by Guillen. This time, it concerned Adam Dunn. The source said Guillen knew something was wrong with Dunn's swing as early as spring training, and still, Guillen ran Dunn out there often enough to come within six plate appearances of qualifying for the batting title.

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Since the White Sox sent Sergio Santos to Toronto, they didn't just lose a closer -- they also lost an unlikely, made-for-TV salvation story.

Enter Mitch Mustain, who told a Northwest Arkansas TV station that he signed a minor-league contract with the Sox.

Who is Mitch Mustain? A former five-star quarterback from Arkansas who was supposed to be the next great Razorback quarterback. This story from NWAhomepage.com sums it up: He went 8-0 at Arkansas before getting benched after a bad throw. He clashed with coaches, transferred to USC, where he backed up Mark Sanchez and Matt Barkley and only started one game. In February of 2011, he was arrested and accused of selling a prescription ADHD drug, although felony charges were dropped because it wasn't actually a controlled substance (it was originally thought to be Adderall, which would have been trouble).

He was going to try his luck in the Arena Football League, but now he's apparently going to try a baseball career. The 23-year-old hasn't pitched since high school, but he says he threw 90 mph for a White Sox scout.

It's an unorthodox way to make the minors more interesting, but given the White Sox's occupation of the cellar in all major farm system rankings, we'll have the resources to keep track of him. The Sox signing a former college quarterback automatically brings to mind Joe Borchard and Josh Fields, but hey, Clayton Richard turned out OK.

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The new and possibly improved PECOTA projections from Baseball Prospectus came out Wednesday, and if you want to know how it works, Colin Wyers will explain to you using Adam Dunn as an example. If you're interested in the numbers, you can just look at Kyle's FanPost.

But if you're like me when you look at the spreadsheet, your eyes soon drift towards the comparable players column. Or, if you're Grant Brisbee, you seek it out immediately. They're fun to mull over no matter how fast you get there, because in many cases, it would be better for PECOTA if they were left unsaid.

Sometimes the comps are ridiculous on the surface, but you can at least draw a Hawk Harrelson STRETCH! connection, because, hey, Eduardo Escobar and Luis Aparicio are both diminutive Venezuelan shortstops. But then you get ones like ...

• Brent Morel: Andy Marte, Aramis Ramirez, Adrian Beltre
• Dallas McPherson: Harmon Killebrew, Mike Schmidt, Mike Hessman
  

And you get the idea that PECOTA isn't an intricate baseball projection system, but a high school student with senioritis mailing in a project ("Here are three third baseman. Can I graduate now?").

But amid the carnage, I did find four that ended up being somewhat profound upon some reflection.

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So I was supposed to write an article this morning, but couldn't log in. Oops.

Yesterday I was watching Baseball IQ on MLB network and the MLB.com fantasy expert couldn't name 1 guy out of the top 20 active stolen base leaders. Really? Your job is fantasy baseball expert for MLB, and after the guy who worked for the Hall of Fame said Juan Pierre you had nothing? Really? That's terrible.

Especially considering they exclusively talk about the 5x5 format, which grossly inflates the real life value of stolen bases. Carl Crawford? Ichiro Suzuki? I made a mental note to ignore everything that guy says ever from here on out.

I have a little bit of down time so I thought I'd run through a quick list of strategies and observations on this upcoming season of fantasy baseball.

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