Reports began to surface regarding a freakish incident where Sale apparently took a knife and cut up the throwback jerseys the team was scheduled to don Saturday night, rendering them un-wearable.
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The lanky left-hander apologized to fans and teammates, insisting he wants to remain with the White Sox and bring a World Series title back to the South Side.
“Chris has been suspended for violating team rules, for insubordination and for destroying team equipment”, said Rick Hahn, White Sox senior vice president/general manager.
“Robin is the one who has to fight for us in that department”, Sale told the website. “If the players don’t feel comfortable 100 percent about what we are doing to win the game, and we have an easy fix – it was as easy as hanging up another jersey and everyone was fine”.
Sale then cut up an unknown number of jerseys before the game and was told to leave the stadium.
Sale, 14-3 with a 3.18 ERA, never wore the replacement 1983 throwback jersey.
But the manager also said he had no idea whether the incident will affect their working relationship.
“We’ll deal with that when he gets here”, Ventura said.
That being said, Sale wasn’t ready to back down from his anti-throwback stance.
Since the White Sox wanted to wear the uniforms anyway, Sale took that as a sign that the team cared more about marketing than winning games.
The problem in Sale’s eyes stem from the fact that the throwbacks were too large – they were meant to be worn untucked – and thus uncomfortable to pitch in.
With first reports indicating Sale was scratched due to “illness”, the baseball world assumed Sale had been, or was close to, being traded because a scratch that close to a start of a game is not a normal for one of baseball’s premier pitchers, especially at this time of year.
Obviously, the White Sox management found out quickly about the jerseys Sale had destroyed and were not at all happy about it, and Ventura says he was informed about Sale’s destroyed jerseys incident about two hours before the game was scheduled to start.
“I love the guys in our clubhouse”, Eaton said. Upon arrival at the clubhouse, Sale saw the jerseys laid out and voiced his concerns to Robin Ventura.
“When I first heard what Chris Sale had done, I didn”t know whether to slap him or shake his hand. After being ejected after a 2015 brawl against the Royals, Sale went to Kansas City clubhouse looking to continue the fisticuffs – resulting in a five-game suspension from Major League Baseball.
“I’ve seen a lot of insane things happen in the game, but sometimes emotions get the best of us”, he said. “If it’s going to affect the style of play or the outcome of the game, I just thought that would be a no-brainer”.
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4th-6th Innings: The Tigers continued to struggle against Quintana in the middle frames, as the only base runner they were able to get was a two out double from Jose Iglesias.
