“I went through the system and came up with a lot of kids. Tony La Russa was the manager at Knoxville in 1978. We had Harold Baines and Dick Dotson and Britt Burns and I was kind of the Crash Davis person.”

Last year, I tracked down a former Chicago White Sox prospect named Donn Seidholz on LinkedIn. Donn wasn’t the first ex-ballplayer I’ve interviewed to lean on Kevin Costner’s Crash Davis character from Bull Durham as a form of short-code to contextualize their career. But he certainly earned the comparison better than most.

Originally, I just wanted to pull a quote or two about a Central American club Donn played for that went belly-up halfway through the 1979 season, leaving him broke and stranded in a Panamanian hotel.

What quickly became clear during our interview was that the more conventional part of Donn’s minor league career – six summers spent at Chicago’s double-A affiliate in Knoxville, Tennessee – was a remarkable tale in its own right. Partly because Donn is a great storyteller. And partly because he saved everything. Polaroids, contracts, news clippings, correspondence with White Sox officials, letters home to his family.

Donn was kind enough to loan a thick folder of his mementos to me.  I’m going to try to illustrate Donn’s 1970’s journey from prospect to utility man to mercenary ex-pat abroad using the mixed media of Donn’s personal archive. I hope you enjoy it…

1974

The Chicago White Sox draft 21-year old third baseman Donn Seidholz out of the University of Indiana in June. Donn signs a $500/month contract with a $6,000 signing bonus. The White Sox accelerate a number of their draftees, including Donn, past the lower two rungs of their farm system and straight to their Class AA farm club at Knoxville in the Southern League.

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“I’ll never forget. I got drafted and I’m driving down to Peoria to play in some summer league. I’m listening to the freaking broadcast of the Sox game. And Harry Caray goes:

‘Holy cow! What the fuck is going on here? We just drafted a North Side kid’ – ’cause I was from Wilmette, Illinois on the North Side and I was a Cubs fan – ‘to play for the South Siders and the world is turning upside down!’

– Donn Seidholz 2019 Interview

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“I’m just now learning how to hit [100 m.p.h.] fastballs. The coach noticed right away that I couldn’t and we went out at 2:00 and took an hour of batting practice. He said I ought to hit 20 or 30 HRs in this league…

The competition is really good.  If I can stay here and have a decent year, I’ve almost got it made.”

– Donn Seidholz June 1974 Letter to Parents

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1975

After training in Chicago’s winter instructional program, Donn begins his first full summer of pro ball back in Double-A at Knoxville. But he ends up splitting the season between the KnoxSox and Chicago’s Class A farm team in Appleton, Wisconsin.

19-year old Kevin Bell, a rival third base prospect from Chicago’s 1974 draft class, also splits the year between Knoxville and Appleton.

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SEIDHOLZ … 3RD BASEMAN WITH FUTURE

Sox Manager Jim Napier was lavish in his praise of Seidholz’s improved play.

“Donn worked exceptionally hard in the [winter] instructional league and in spring training,” Napier said. “He has improved tremendously on ground balls and he always had the good arm. When he really gets going with the bat he’s going to be a Major League third baseman…

Most Sox spent Monday’s “off” day looking for rooms or apartments. Seidholz and catcher Bob Palmer (bachelors) rented a mobile home near West Town and others are thinking along those lines.

Knoxville News-Sentinel 4/22/1975

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When I signed I was supposed to be the heir apparent to Bill Melton. In fact, they gave me his uniform when I got to Knoxville and said ‘if you mind your P’s and Q’s, you’re going to be the next third baseman for the White Sox’. Well, I quickly demonstrated that I didn’t have the talent that was required.

I did well enough. I probably could have played Triple A for, you know, 30 years.

– Donn Seidholz 2019 Interview

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1976

Donn goes to spring training with the White Sox. A training camp encounter with veteran Bob Oliver casts doubt on Donn’s trajectory. Kevin Bell passes Donn on the White Sox depth chart at third base, earning a Major League call-up in June 1976 at age 20.

Donn spends the entire summer in double-A ball, where he leads all Knoxville players in games (131), plate appearances (502), hits (119) and RBI (65).

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In 1976 I went to training camp with the White Sox. There was a gentleman named Bob Oliver. Bob used to play for the Kansas City Royals and he had a fairly illustrious career. Bob Oliver pulled me aside one day and he said:

“Donn, I don’t want to piss you off. You have some holes in your swing and I don’t think you’re going to be making it to the Major Leagues. And here’s what I think you ought to do. Go play in South America, Mexico, whatever. Make a lot of money and enjoy yourself and tour the countries.”

– Donn Seidholz 2019 Interview

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1977

Donn starts the year in triple-A with the Iowa Oaks, but soons finds himself back in the familiar confines of Knoxville’s Bill Meyer Stadium. Now 24 years old, Donn spends much of the season rooming with 38-year old Ball Four author Jim Bouton, who is attempting a comeback as a knuckle baller at age 38.

In Chicago, 28-year old Eric Soderholm belts 25 home runs and wins American League Comeback Player-of-the-Year honors playing third base for the White Sox. Kevin Bell splits time between the Chicago bench and the triple-A Iowa Oaks.

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After three roller coaster seasons with the Knoxville Sox – up in 1974, down in ’75, up and down in ’76 – Donn Seidholz has burst out in full bloom in ’77. With the season about 40% along the way, the lanky K-Sox third baseman is pelting the baseball at a .390 clip, some 45 points ahead of the next man in line in the Class AA Southern League.

Donn started the season out with the Iowa club this year, played only four games and found himself benched. When the call came to come back to Knoxville he was happy to answer it. He’d like to go back up to AAA ball en route to the big leagues, but not this year. When he goes, he wants it to be as the 1977 Southern League batting champion.

Knoxville News-Sentinel, Spring 1977

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1978

Donn is not invited to White Sox spring training in Florida. Instead, Chicago sends him to Puebla, Mexico to play winter ball in February, playing triple-A calibre competition in front of huge crowds. In the spring, Donn returns to Knoxville for an unheard of 5th straight summer. The KnoxSox, playing for a rookie manager named Tony La Russa, win the Southern League championship.

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Que paso?

Things have been going really well here … it is about 105 and really humid.  In Puebla we get about 9,000 – 10,000/nite. Not bad compared to K-ville. It’s really bad when the home team is losing because the fans are all so drunk they do all sorts of crazy things. Our right fielder was being pelted with rocks and beer bottles. All in all, it isn’t so bad though except for the bus rides.

– Donn Seidholz Spring 1978 Letter To Family

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SEIDHOLZ: OLD FACE AMONG NEW FACES

Knoxville is getting to be Donn Seidholz’s home away from home.

The 25-year old utility man is beginning his fifth consecutive season with the K-Sox. Bill Reep, longtime official with the Knoxville club, says he can’t remember another player ever being with Knoxville as long as Seidholz.

Knoxville News-Sentinel, April 1978

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When Knoxville Sox Manager Tony LaRussa picked veteran Donn Seidholz for the season ahead, he frankly told the Indiana University grad that he would not be playing regularly.

Seidholz, a rookie third baseman when the 1974 Sox won the SL pennant, made up his mind this spring “to be the best darned utility player in the Southern League.”

“It takes a special breed to be a utility player,” said LaRussa … “Every successful team must have a man like Seidholz. He’s been a big part of our success.”

Knoxville News-Sentinel. 6/7/1978

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[Tony La Russa] was one of the best managers in any field that I’ve ever run into … I’ve worked for a lot of people. I worked for Warren Buffett for years. Tony was one of those few people that you’d walk across hot coals for anything he wanted you to do.

He would find something good that every guy on the team did regardless of whether we won or lost. So you walked out of that ballpark – and you could have lost 15 to nothing – thinking: ‘OK, I did some good things, I did a bad thing but, like, there’s a future.’

– Donn Seidholz 2019 Interview

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Runs were scored in each of the first five innings, which still did not quite compensate for the cancellation of Donn Seidholz’s “nine-position show”. Seidholz, Knoxville’s super utility man was scheduled to play all nine positions … one each inning.

But Saturday at his apartment, he stepped on a piece of glass and needed 15 stitches to close a cut on the instep of his left foot.

“I’ve played eight this season,” he said. “And it would have been nice to play all nine. But I feel like I’ve helped the team and I’ve had a good time.”

That good time includes riding an elephant before one Sox game and taking care of the infield for a month.

“I bought some fertilizer with my own money and came out every day to work on the infield” he said. “I watered it and it started to look really good. It was something to keep me occupied.”

His nickname – Sideshow – was given to him last year.

“It fits my image,” he explained. “You know, happy go lucky. I’m just having a good time.”

Knoxville News-Sentinel, 9/4/1978

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1979

Author Skip Rozin interviews Donn for his book One Step From Glory: On the Fringe of Professional Sports, a series of profiles of role players, bench warmers and minor leaguers.

In Donn’s final season, he appears in just four games for Knoxville in 1979 as his time with the White Sox organization comes to an end.

He spends most of the spring playing for the Panama Banqueros of the newly formed Inter-American League. The governing body of Minor League Baseball grants a triple-A classification to the pan-Caribbean circuit. Ex-Major Leaguers flock to the IAL but the season soon descends into chaos and the league folds.

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“Well, we had a great time for about two weeks. All the travel was just incredible. We had to fly into Maracaibo and into Caracas. We were staying in the most unbelievable hotels.

One of my friends from the White Sox was a guy named Pat Kelly who used to play for Chicago. He had a bar in Caracas. He said ‘You have to be very careful. It’s a really great city and it’s a lot of fun, but there’s a lot of interesting elements there.

We were sitting outside the Hilton in Caracas having dinner one night and there was a car full of people. I don’t know what they were doing, but there was gunfire and people chasing down the streets … Same thing with Maracaibo. We got there for batting practice and they had military in both ends of the dugout and they’re all armed with assault weapons.

And then the rain. The rain started. It rained every freakin’ day that we were down there. And when I say rain, it wasn’t just like sprinkles. It was two or three inches in an hour. I don’t know how we ended up playing.

The bottom line is one of the reasons a lot of the teams went out of business was because of the rain. We got rained out more than… it was unbelievable. And then you figure we were flying and staying in these magnificent hotels. The place we stayed in Panama was just unbelievable.”

– Donn Seidholz 2019 Interview

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“Well, we were trapped in the hotel. And it’s funny because they just left us there. We were supposed to have all our expenses taken care of. And this is really terrible, but they actually paid for all of our gambling and all of our alcohol…

And then the whole Inter-American League went bankrupt and we were left there. And there were a bunch of us. We were trying to get out and the hotel was saying ‘Well … you owe all this money.’ We were trying to negotiate and that didn’t go very well.

This was a very scary time in Panama. There were military on every corner. It was just before we gave the Canal Zone back to the Panamanians.

We got to the airport and none of us had any money. The only way we got out of town was there was this guy from AT&T and he was a scuba diver that was laying some under-sea Trans-Atlantic lines … and he goes ‘I’ll loan you some money’ and I think it was only ten bucks each and we managed to get out of the country. But if we hadn’t had that money, we would have been stuck there.”

– Donn Seidholz 2019 Interview

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“Do you realize how many guys throughout America dream the dream, and end up selling it for a $10,000-a-year job at Procter & Gamble? They regret it for the rest of their lives. I know this [locker room] looks like a hole to you. But this is it. This is the ultimate.”

– Donn Seidholz to author Skip Rozin
One Step From Glory: On the Fringe of Professional Sports – Simon & Schuster, 1979

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Further Downloads

June 2019 FWiL Complete Interview with Donn Seidholz

Donn’s first pro contract, 1974:

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