Winning Ugly
Posted: February 13th, 2019, 2:27 pm
Don't mean to go totally off-topic here, but I'm snowed in and Saturday seems like a long way away. So here goes.
Learnin' and I had a little back and forth in the wee hours about the phrase Winning Ugly, which I view as highest praise a team can receive. And the phrase in my mind will ever be linked with Kansas.
In 1977 Bill Veeck owned the White Sox. A truly wonderful man, breaker of the color barrier in the AL, etc. However, as always, he was trying to run the Sox on a shoestring because, as always, he had no money. But he traded for some good hitters over the winter,
The Royals of George Brett and Hal McRae were easily the class of the division. Sox got off to a fast start, fueled by lots of home runs from guys like Oscar Gamble, Jim Spencer and Eric Soderholm. The hall-of-fame organist at Comiskey Park, Nancy Faust, started playing the refrain from "Na na na na, na na na, kiss him goodbye" at every home run as the guy circled the bases, and at the final out of a Sox win.
Well this was viewed, probably correctly, as completely bush league by some of the lords of baseball, including I'm sad to report your Kansas City Royals. It culminated in a series in Chicago in early July when McRae and others popped off about how bush league all the singing and especially the pop-out-of-the-dugout curtain calls were. I think there were 3 or 4 fights in that series and lots of finger-pointing and yelling back and forth between the dugouts. Nonetheless, Sox took 3 out of 4. Euphoria! It was about this time that the phrase winning ugly was coined to describe the Sox. They were fat and slow, but they were strong and vigilant. Like na na na na, it stuck. As happens in the hidebound traditions of the great game, baseball on the south side still treasures and honors the trait of winning ugly, and breaks into a chorus of na na na na even when the Sox are 30 games below .500 but finish off a victory over the Miami Marlins or whoever they can manage to beat. (NOTE: better days lie ahead).
Alas it was the high water mark of that '77 team and the last hurrah for Mr. Veeck. The Royals went about 27 for August and left the Sox and everybody else in their wake. I hold no grudges and was thrilled when KC won it all a couple years ago
But one should never never view "winning ugly" as anything but the highest praise. The Yankees don't win ugly. Kansas does not win ugly. Duke does not win ugly. MAYBE the Zags win ugly. Purdue wins ugly. And yes, K-State wins ugly. Embrace it! Maybe the pep band can work on "Kiss Him Goodbye" for incorporation into their repertoire? Imagine 14,000 K-Staters standing at the end of the Kansas game and singing at the top of their voices "na na na na, na na na na, hey hey, GOOD BYE."
Learnin' and I had a little back and forth in the wee hours about the phrase Winning Ugly, which I view as highest praise a team can receive. And the phrase in my mind will ever be linked with Kansas.
In 1977 Bill Veeck owned the White Sox. A truly wonderful man, breaker of the color barrier in the AL, etc. However, as always, he was trying to run the Sox on a shoestring because, as always, he had no money. But he traded for some good hitters over the winter,
The Royals of George Brett and Hal McRae were easily the class of the division. Sox got off to a fast start, fueled by lots of home runs from guys like Oscar Gamble, Jim Spencer and Eric Soderholm. The hall-of-fame organist at Comiskey Park, Nancy Faust, started playing the refrain from "Na na na na, na na na, kiss him goodbye" at every home run as the guy circled the bases, and at the final out of a Sox win.
Well this was viewed, probably correctly, as completely bush league by some of the lords of baseball, including I'm sad to report your Kansas City Royals. It culminated in a series in Chicago in early July when McRae and others popped off about how bush league all the singing and especially the pop-out-of-the-dugout curtain calls were. I think there were 3 or 4 fights in that series and lots of finger-pointing and yelling back and forth between the dugouts. Nonetheless, Sox took 3 out of 4. Euphoria! It was about this time that the phrase winning ugly was coined to describe the Sox. They were fat and slow, but they were strong and vigilant. Like na na na na, it stuck. As happens in the hidebound traditions of the great game, baseball on the south side still treasures and honors the trait of winning ugly, and breaks into a chorus of na na na na even when the Sox are 30 games below .500 but finish off a victory over the Miami Marlins or whoever they can manage to beat. (NOTE: better days lie ahead).
Alas it was the high water mark of that '77 team and the last hurrah for Mr. Veeck. The Royals went about 27 for August and left the Sox and everybody else in their wake. I hold no grudges and was thrilled when KC won it all a couple years ago
But one should never never view "winning ugly" as anything but the highest praise. The Yankees don't win ugly. Kansas does not win ugly. Duke does not win ugly. MAYBE the Zags win ugly. Purdue wins ugly. And yes, K-State wins ugly. Embrace it! Maybe the pep band can work on "Kiss Him Goodbye" for incorporation into their repertoire? Imagine 14,000 K-Staters standing at the end of the Kansas game and singing at the top of their voices "na na na na, na na na na, hey hey, GOOD BYE."
