Two decades before he was coaching in the White Sox farm system, Tim Laker was a well-regarded catching prospect for the Montreal Expos, working to take the reins from the outgoing (in more ways than one) Gary Carter.

You can watch the transfer below. On Sept. 27, 1992, Laker took Carter's place as a pinch runner after Carter delivered a game-winning double in the last at-bat of his Hall of Fame career, which nearly blew the roof off Olympic Stadium in the process.

"Going into it, it was the last home game of the season, and everybody knew it was his last game," Laker said over the phone from Hawaii, where he's watching his stepson play for the University of Oregon in the Ducks' season-opening series.

"He had a lot of ties in Montreal," he said. "There was a ceremony after the game, and he had learned enough French to do part of it in French. He embraced the city, and they embraced him."

That's evident in the three-minute standing ovation Carter received after his line drive carried over the outstretched glove of his former teammate Andre Dawson. Laker jogged onto the field to pinch-run for him, and they hugged near second base before Carter returned to the dugout. Simply put, Laker said the same thing we did: "It was really cool that he could get that moment."

After a pause: "It was a really cool moment."

The substitution was symbolic of their positions at the time, as their paths converged at their opposite ends. Carter had logged nearly 2,300 major-league games at the time, whereas Laker received his first big-league promotion a month earlier. Felipe Alou mainly used him as a late-inning defensive replacement to get his feet wet, and Carter offered help along the way.

"What really struck me was that he’d taken the time to talk to me about catching – just little things in passing, going out of his way to say, 'Nice job.' Knowing that he was done, to take the time to give to a younger guy meant a lot to me. I think it spoke volumes about the type of person he was."

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The White Sox kick off the September leg of their "Contending By Accident" tour tonight, and we follow them in a state of bafflement. Stumped by strategy. Counfounded by choice of cleanup hitter. Perplexed by a lack of promotion. Troubled by tumult between Ozzie Guillen and Kenny Williams.

Given that we've tried to piece it together with little success, I'm going to yield the floor to CSNChicago.com beat writer Brett Ballantini (or @CSNChi_Beatnik on Twitter) to see if he can add any further insight to the ignonimy.

Ballantini, going by the cryptic handle of "Brett," has volunteered to drop by throughout the day to talk about the White Sox on our turf. So drop your questions/comments/bones to pick about the White Sox, covering the White Sox, the media itself, Presidential Royal Rumbles or anything else (within reason) into the comments, and he'll do his best to answer them during his downtime in Detroit today.

Thursday turned out to be a great day to learn about the White Sox farm system. In the afternoon, several White Sox bloggers and I got a chance to throw questions at scouting director Doug Laumann, who gave very thorough answers to our philosophical questions about scouting and drafting.

And if you missed it in the minor-league thread, Larry got Kevin Goldstein's thoughts on numerous prospects.

Here's what Laumann had to say to our questions:

On high-upside players with contact issues

"If [a player] is somebody that's a polished player, as well as having those types of tools, they're not going to get that far down in the draft to you. So basically, what we have to do is we have to make an evaluation on their athleticism, and possibly because of the amount of baseball they played -- or perhaps even, you could say, the lack of baseball that maybe some of them played -- that with particular instruction and repetition and the chance to play the game, that eventually they catch up to that level."

"We just take the athlete, and the athlete that has the tools to be able to play the game, and hopefully it all comes together."

"As scouts, the only thing we can look at is tools, and it's hard for us to predict that consistency. It's pretty much in their hands, and how hard they're going to work. As long as we continue to see those tools, we think that there's enough progress that they're eventually going to get it."

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On Tuesday, I posted the first part of my conversation with Tommy John, dealing with some of the issues that current White Sox pitchers have to deal with. Today, I'll share the parts that deal with his experiences during his White Sox career.

For a quick review, John's South Side stay started in 1965, when the White Sox cleared 90 wins for the third straight year. That's a feat unmatched in franchise history, before or since.

His career ended during the darkest days of the organization's history (at least ones that didn't involve throwing games). Sox fans were treated to an artificial-turf infield, a 106-loss season, league-worst attendance and rumors of relocation to Seattle. John went 82-80 with a 2.95 ERA, the win-loss record dragged down by anemic offenses, before he was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers for Dick Allen.

On the Allyns

John and Arthur Allyn owned the White Sox from 1961 to 1975

"John you didn't see very much. Arthur was the one -- we had a party down at Arthur's home in Siesta Key, Fla. And we went to his house, and he was a gracious host and did everthing he could to make the evening nice for us, and he took us into his room ... and showed us his bug collection. He was an entymologist. And you kinda go, 'Huh? Oh ... OK.'

"But he was a nice man. You never saw John much. The thing about John that I liked, and I never took it upon myself -- and had I been in this era, I would have -- John Allyn was a member at Augusta National. And I would've made that son-of-a-gun take me down there and play the course with me."

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The peculiarity of Tommy John's White Sox career, which spanned from 1965 to 1971, caught my attention when working on John Danks' player review for White Sox Outsider 2009. Danks made 33 starts in 2008, posted a 3.32 ERA, and yet he only had 12 wins to show for it.

To get an idea of how bad Danks' luck was, I did a search on Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index to see which players had the fewest wins for making at least 30 starts with an ERA below 3.40. Danks was tied for second, in between two seasons by another White Sox lefty.

1. Tommy John, 1969: 9-11, 3.25 ERA, 33 GS
2. John Danks, 2008: 12-9, 3.32 ERA, 33 GS
3. Tommy John, 1970: 12-17, 3.27 ERA, 37 GS

A lack of support plagued Tommy John throughout his entire career on the South Side. He went 82-80 with a 2.95 ERA in his White Sox career, and that's actually a front-loaded record:

• 1965-66: 28-18, 2.83 ERA
  
• 1967-71: 54-62, 3.00 ERA
  

Roland Hemond traded John after the 1971 season to the Los Angeles Dodgers for Dick Allen, in what has to be one of the fairest trades in baseball history. John finally picked up his wins, going 87-42 over six seasons with the Dodgers, with a one-year interruption for the surgery that now bears his name. Meanwhile Allen provided the draw the White Sox desperately needed to keep the franchise in Chicago.

Nowadays, John blogs about baseball and other timely sports subjects for VarsityScoreboards.com, and he also does some scouting. He also talked to another blogger last week. John indulged me in a wide-ranging conversation, so wide-ranging in fact that I have to break this into two parts.

Today, I'll share his thoughts on situations that a couple of current White Sox starters are dealing with -- a lack of support, and an unprecedented surgery. Thursday's segment will look back on his time with the White Sox.

On pitching without support

"The way I figured it out -- and it took me a while -- all you can do is what you can do. You pitch, and you do the very best you can, and if they don't score you any runs, you can't win. If you can hold the other team down to two or three runs, and you come out with a no-decision or a loss, I just said, 'I did what I was supposed to do. I couldn't do any more.'"

"Danks, if you look at his numbers over the years, God, he's one of the better pitchers in the league."

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In the comments of the "Converting to Konerkoism" post on Tuesday, there was a sidebar led by TasteeFreeze regarding the odd and unintentionally antagonistic decisions made by the White Sox front office as the 1990s went on.

The rough handling of the fan favorites stood out. Carlton Fisk was given a motorcycle, not knowing he was supposed to ride off into the sunset with it the next day. Ozzie Guillen had harsh words for the White Sox when they let him go. Robin Ventura was only given a token offer when he left, and the guy who stayed, Frank Thomas, somehow allowed the Sox to give him the infamous diminishing skills clause.

Making matters more confusing, it was hard to pin down the motives behind the moves. It's one thing to make unpopular decisions when money is tight, but when Jerry Reinsdorf OK'd the Albert Belle signing and the White Flag Trade within a year of each other, it left everybody baffled at best, and angry at worst.

This was on my mind when I got the opportunity to talk to Ventura on Thursday morning, as he was making the media rounds as a member of the board of the Capital One Cup, the award for the top collegiate athletic program. The College World Series is the last championship that factors into it, and Ventura is in Omaha for the proceedings.

He was one of the players caught completely off-guard by the White Flag Trade, since he had just returned to the lineup from his horrific ankle injury a week before Reinsdorf pulled the plug. But here he is, back with the White Sox, and he'll serve as a special adviser to Buddy Bell after he fulfills his obligations with the College World Series, among other things. Ventura's return means that the four biggest figures from the 1990 White Sox are back in the fold.

I try to use these opportunities to talk to these guys about what we're talking about (see my conversation with Carlton Fisk about hitting coaches). In this case, I asked Ventura (in a few different ways) about if and how the White Sox have changed the way they do business. Each time, he came to the same conclusion - no hard feelings, and it's a business.

On his return

"It was a few months ago, Buddy Bell called me into his office to just talk things over. In the past, we talked about different things, getting me to coach -- and it's kinda like I always wanted to coach, but never could find that time to commit six months to it. ... We came up with something that they'd allow me to do, and it's fun to be able to have the opportunity to be in the organization, pop in and see those minor-league affiliates. I'm excited about it."

"Everybody within that organization I've been around and comfortable with, and that definitely played a big part of it."

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With their eighth-round pick in last week's draft, the White Sox selected Ian Gardeck, a hard-throwing JuCo right-hander out of Angelina College in Texas. Angelina can claim Clay Buchholz, Andrew Cashner and Josh Tomlin as recent success stories.

Gardeck has strong ties to Chicago. For one, he went to Crystal Lake South High School (Cubs territory, but Gardeck said he followed both teams). He also has a connection to Brent Morel through their respective fathers, so he might have the opportunity to get some good guidance from a recent draft pick as he waits to work out a deal with the White Sox.

If the Sox plan on taking care of business from the top down, draft picks like Gardeck might have to wait for the University of California baseball team to finish its run in the College World Series. The Sox drafted three Cal Bears, including two ahead of Gardeck -- Erik Johnson (second round) and Marcus Semien (sixth).

Gardeck has a commitment with the University of Alabama, but he told me during a phone interview on Monday that he expects to sign and is ready to make the jump into the system.

Here's what else he told me:

Pre-draft expectations

"I heard anywhere from second round to fourth round, slid a little bit, but boy, I'm very thankful to get picked up by the White Sox. I couldn't have asked for much more than being drafted by a hometown team and the Sox being a great fit. I know a couple guys in the organization, and I know their reputation, and I was absolutely thrilled to be drafted by them."

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Our old friend Marty contacted us last week about the chance to interview former MLB manager and current Director of Operations for the White Sox Minor Leagues Buddy Bell.  There was literally no way in hell we were going to pass up such an opportunity.  Before delving into the transcript, I would like to thank Marty for setting this up and Buddy for taking the time to answer whatever questions we threw at him.  I'd have to put this interview right up there with the Kirk Champion one on my list of favorites.  Since we can't post audio, his passion might not come off as easily noticeable as it was for us on the phone.  This is a man who loves his job and cares deeply about what he gets to do.  Non-SSSers J.J. Stankevitz of Beer Leaguer and Chris Cavoto of Chicago Sports Addict also asked questions.

Jim Margalus: I'll start with Jared Mitchell.  He's had some problems since coming back from his injury.  He's had a rough start in Winston-Salem and it doesn't seem like his struggles are easing any and it actually seems like he's striking out more.  Is there a demotion to Kannapolis on the horizon or are you seeing something encouraging that's not showing up in the numbers yet?

Buddy Bell: No, there's no demotion, we haven't talked about that at all.  As a matter of fact, when we sent him to Winston-Salem we were assuming that he was going to have some struggles based on him not playing last year.  He's made some progress and Marty and I were actually talking about him earlier and the difficulty that guys like him have.  He's such a raw kind of a player, an athletic guy.  I was talking to someone the other night, he reminds me a little bit of Adam Dunn when Adam was at this stage.  He came out of Texas as a football player and didn't play a lot of baseball, so when Adam came to us when I was the farm director of the Reds he had no idea of balance and things like that and it just kind of came all of a sudden to Adam.  I wasn't there when he was in AA or AAA, but it just kind of happened over night and you pretty much expect that out of Jared.  There is progress and a lot of balance issues with him are getting better.  The one thing about him that I didn't know of was just because we haven't been around him because of his injuries is that he's so competitive.  And the problem with that is he becomes impatient with his numbers and that's gotten in the way a bit, but he plays a great center field so there's a lot of really positive stuff.  I'd tell you if i didn't think there was, but we're excited about him obviously.  We've just got to be patient with him, probably more than anyone else due to his lack of baseball experience.

JM: Is the ankle 100%?

BB: Yeah, he's starting to run good.  That was another issue because he started really tentative on it at the start of the year, which kind of affected his balance at the plate a little bit.  He's a tough, tough kid that really competes and doesn't really complain a whole lot so we don't ever really know if the ankle's bothering him a lot.  What we see is coordination and he's 100% healthy.

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