White Sox<\/a>\u2019 dugout Monday, Pham left his batting-practice session to ask Manfred an important question:<\/p>\n\u2018\u2018Rob, what\u2019s going on with the balls?\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018What balls?\u2019\u2019 Manfred replied.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018I can\u2019t be hitting no-doubters, man, and not helping them in getting out,\u2019\u2019 Pham said, probably half-joking and half-serious. \u2018\u2018How am I supposed to get a job next year if that ball don\u2019t go out?\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
The question drew laughter from Manfred and other onlookers, but it was clear what Pham still had on his mind.<\/p>\n
In the sixth inning Saturday, Pham hit a ball 366 feet to the left-field wall with an expected batting average of .860, according to Statcast. But the wind knocked it down, Angel Martinez leaped to catch it and then doubled off Miguel Vargas, who \u2014 like seemingly everyone else \u2014 thought the ball was gone.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018You\u2019re on your own with the hitting out thing,\u2019\u2019 Manfred told Pham.<\/p>\n
Pham had been crushing the ball in batting practice, sending some into the left-field stands. He told BP pitcher Justin Jirschele about one blast, in particular.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018I said I hit that one less than the other one, and it went out,\u2019\u2019 Pham said.<\/p>\n
He had another question for the commissioner.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018Have you seen \u2018Major League\u2019?\u2019\u2019 Pham asked. \u2018\u2018When Willie Mays Hayes hit the ball and he pimped it and it didn\u2019t go out? [Someone] made a clip of me doing it. They put them together. It was funny.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018I need a good ball.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018It\u2019s good to see you,\u2019\u2019 Manfred said.<\/p>\n
The conversation ended cordially, and the interview resumed.<\/p>\n
What does having the White Sox in the postseason mean for baseball?<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018Chicago\u2019s one of our oldest franchises, big market,\u2019\u2019 Manfred said. \u2018\u2018They\u2019ve struggled in recent years, and it\u2019s a great turnaround story. It\u2019s something that we love. It\u2019s really good for baseball.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Manfred was visiting the Sox for the second time this postseason as he makes his way to every major-league ballpark still hosting games.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018We started [last] Tuesday; we went to Houston,\u201d he said. \u2018\u2018Then we went on to San Diego, saw them that night. Came back the next morning to Atlanta and then got to New York in time for the Yankee game. We went to Milwaukee yesterday, and we\u2019re here today.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Perhaps he\u2019ll see the Sox again \u2014 in the AL Championship Series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND \u2014 Tommy Pham still can\u2019t believe the ball he hit Saturday in Game 1 of the American…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":872698,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,99],"class_list":["post-872697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=872697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/872698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=872697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=872697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=872697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}