Jimmy Piersall

A wonderful player who was decades in advance when it came to talking about mental illness, Jimmy Piersall has passed away:

http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/91fce86d

We definitely need a better Piersall card.

He certainly brought some color to the White Sox broadcast booth paired up with Harry Caray in the late 70s. Those 2 would speak their minds about anyone and anything, no holds barred. RIP Jimmy.

He is missed. A fine, under-rated ballplayer.

As a lifelong Chicago White Sox fan, Jimmy and Harry are the only two sportscasters who I would hang on and listen to during rain delayed games. These two were both insightful about the game and its history and often hilarious at times. Hopefully they are paired up again in the afterlife entertaining fans of all ages. (and probably ticking off a few folks as well)

Great article, Bill! Piersall's playing days ended just as I was becoming a baseball fan, so I was unaware of all of his antics as a player, except for, of course, the major events, such as his nervous breakdown and running the bases backwards for his 100th career home run.

I'm also a life long White Sox fan, and by the time Piersall was paired with Harry Caray in the Sox broadcast booth, I was a college student attending about a dozen games a year. They were entertaining, insightful and brutally honest, often incurring the wrath of players, management and ownership for their blunt commentary and harsh criticism. Piersall, who needed little encouragement, was often egged on by Caray to criticize players. The fans loved them. Even then, they were true throwbacks, the pairing of such will likely never again be seen in a big league baseball broadcast booth.

George Castle, with the help of sports journalist Tom Shaer, did the last in-depth interview with Chicago baseball icon Jimmy Piersall in 2013. "I always enjoyed my time with Jimmy. He was completely unfiltered. I went to his house in Scottsdale and he showed me all of his personal baseball mementos, including a copy of the script to Fear Strikes Out, the movie where Anthony Perkins played him." Piersall said "I never climbed up the screen behind home plate!" Castle added "He provided a lot of entertainment for Chicago White Sox fans with his colorful broadcasts paired with Harry Caray. RIP #37."

Here's a link to Castle's article written the day after Piersall's death:

http://chicagobaseballmuseum.org/files/ ... 170604.pdf

Below are links to the articles Castle wrote for the Chicago Baseball Museum stemming from his 2013 interview with Piersall:

http://www.chicagobaseballmuseum.org/fi ... 130423.pdf

http://www.chicagobaseballmuseum.org/fi ... 130426.pdf

Here's a sampling of Piersall and Caray in the broadcast booth at Comiskey Park in 1979, where they promote the infamous "Disco Demolition Night" and Harry catches a foul ball in his famous butterfly net!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWkh2AfYc7s

And here's Piersall's commentary as Disco Demolition Night went awry, with long time Chicago sportswriter Bill Gleason:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o98PcPvS-54

Below are links to several Piersall articles in Chicago newspapers written shortly after his death, with links to more Piersall stories within the articles. Most of the articles are written about Piersall's time in Chicago as a broadcaster and coach:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/co ... olumn.html

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/co ... olumn.html

http://www.dailyherald.com/sports/20170 ... -all-timer

http://chicago.suntimes.com/sports/timi ... -of-truth/

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2017/06/04/ ... 5be5KAHTTg

Thanks, Bernie, for all those links! Some great stuff in there (gotta love the Sox uniforms from the late 70s).

All those stories got me thinking about Piersall's illness and his connection with baseball. Wondering if the fact that baseball having long celebrated its "colorful" characters helped Piersall. It might have provided an "excuse" for Piersall to be a bit "goofy" and for his "antics" to be smiled at. Imagine Piersall in a more traditional setting (an office or assembly line) with bipolar disorder in the 1950s -- I can't think that it would have been quite as tolerated as it was in baseball. I suppose even in baseball it didn't hurt that Piersall was a very good player; what might it have been like if he were a marginal major-leaguer or minor-leaguer. Piersall's whole life story raises some important issues for us today: access to treatment (and first, diagnosis), the place in society of those afflicted, the price that so many servicemen/women pay (and probably always have, but just never properly named or diagnosed) with PTSD, the role of families, how we in society view mental illness.

Bill