As Zach LaVine makes an All-Star push with the Bulls, he’s got his eye on another potential All Star playing on the South Side.
LaVine spoke with our K.C. Johnson on the Bulls Talk Podcast and explained his love of baseball, as well as his thoughts on the face of another Chicago franchise, White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson.
“He’s great. He’s bringing swag back to baseball,” LaVine said. “Especially with the old-school rules and how everything is with the bat-flipping, pimping the home runs or having your own type of energy. But he’s a batting champ, man.”
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Anderson has been among baseball’s best hitters the past two seasons — he won the batting title in 2019 and finished seventh in the American League MVP vote last year — but he hasn’t added an All-Star appearance to his resume yet. That figures to change if he keeps doing what he’s been doing, not only becoming one of the game’s more productive batters but one of its faces, as well, as he continues his crusade to bring more fun to modern baseball.
A baseball player through high school, LaVine told Johnson that he still takes batting practice during the offseason and plays with his parents during the summer. The Bulls star said he’s stepped to the plate at Wrigley Field but is still waiting to take some cuts at Guaranteed Rate Field.
“I took BP with Kris Bryant a couple times. Hopefully when the White Sox open back up, I can go there with Tim Anderson or someone like that,” he said. “I hit a couple out in BP when I was with the Cubs. I hit a couple out to right field, and I hit two off the center-field wall. So I’ve got some power still.”
MLB
Something for Rick Hahn’s front office to keep in mind, perhaps?
While LaVine wants the chance to hit some home runs with the White Sox, bringing him in for a game against the Los Angeles Angels might not be the best idea. They’re LaVine’s team, despite his Seattle roots, the guard claiming the Halos as his favorite squad dating back to their trip to the World Series in 2002.
But Anderson and the White Sox are winning over plenty of fans across baseball right now. So why can’t another Chicago sports star be among them?
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