A nice home, Ron: Former Sox slugger still working with wood, creating impressive pieces

In his modest but charming home near the end of a cul-de-sac in southwest suburban Mokena, former White Sox slugger Ron Kittle is surrounded by his own creations.

There’s a massive, handcrafted 80-by-80-inch dining table that weighs 440 pounds on display as soon as you walk through the front door. In the kitchen, there’s an impressive 3-inch-thick maple island that Kittle said was once a Dunkin’ Donuts counter.

The wooden trees that are neatly aligned along the windowsill are also some of Kittle’s masterpieces. He’s especially fond of the ones made out of black walnut.

Kittle is proud to say he has single-handedly built most of the furniture in his home.

“I tell everybody that there’s nothing I can’t make, except a motor,” Kittle said. “I don’t mess with motors because these hands are just too big for motors.”

He plans to design and craft a wine rack using treated rebar to go around his humidor filled with exquisite cigars.

Alas, another project added to his never-ending to-do list. Kittle’s better half, Barb Fernandez, tells him nearly every day to slow down.

“She says, ‘You’re going to kill yourself. You’re not 30 anymore; you’re 61 years old,’ ” Kittle said. “And I say, ‘But I feel good when I’m doing stuff.’ ”

Madeline Kenney/Chicago Sun-Times

Kittle has never learned how to sit still even after 10 grueling and injury-riddled seasons in the majors. He said he’d “rather die of a heart attack than let someone outwork me.”

It’s a mindset he adopted from his father, Jim, who worked in a steel mill.

In fact, Kittle planned to follow in his father’s footsteps. He played high school ball but was overlooked by scouts because he wore glasses.

“That was a detriment — ‘You’ll never get there because you have glasses,’ ” said Kittle, who’s from Gary, Indiana. “And it ticked me off, and I had to prove somebody wrong. And that became my mantra to get to the next level and do well.”

But after going undrafted, Kittle gave up his baseball dream and started working as an apprentice steelworker. The days were long, but the money was good.

One day, Kittle was cleaning off his boots when Jim encouraged him to attend the Dodgers’ open tryout in La Porte, Indiana.

Kittle’s power at the plate impressed the Dodgers’ scouts, and he signed his first professional contract July 4, 1976. The next spring, he was sent to Clinton, Iowa, to play for the Class A Dodgers.

Excited would be an understatement.

In his first game and first pro at-bat in 1977, Kittle hit a double. Then Mike Scioscia singled. Kittle rounded third, and as he slid across the plate, the catcher landed on him and broke his neck.

“It paralyzed me,” said Kittle, who was carried off on a stretcher, then put in a medically induced coma after the collision.

Kittle was out for a while, then tried to play through the injury for the rest of the season. After returning home for the offseason, he was in severe pain. Everything ached. His gums were bleeding.

He finally went to Northwestern Hospital to figure out what was wrong.He had three crushed vertebrae and a cracked spinal cord.

“The doctors said to me, ‘What are you doing playing?’ ’’ Kittle recalled.

That was the end, Kittle thought.

“Here’s an 18-year-old boy getting to play baseball, and my career is over at 19,” Kittle said. “I had surgery. I wasn’t doing anything and hated a lot of people. And there was no particular reason. I was wondering why it happened to me.

“I was told I would never play any kind of sports activity again with the severity of this.”

His dad didn’t have much sympathy for him. A few days after Ron had a spinal fusion, Jim said: “Are you going to get out of bed or are you going to hang on your mom’s boob for the rest of your life?”

He was released by the Dodgers’ organization in 1978. So back to the steel mill he went. Kittle had come to terms with the end of his baseball career, and he enjoyed working in the mill. But as fate would have it, he would get another shot at pro ball.

Kittle was given a private tryout in ’78 by the Sox after Bill Veeck and Billy Pierce allegedly saw a home-run ball he hit onto a highway during a semi-pro game. The Sox signed Kittle, and in 1982, he made his major-league debut at 24.

“My first year [as a steelworker], I made $72,400 in 1977,” he said. “In 1982, when I get to the big leagues, I’m making $30,000. I took a cut in pay in pro ball. . . . I don’t think too many can say that.”

Kittle was a fan favorite on the 1983 “Winning Ugly” Sox team that won 99 games and made the franchise’s first postseason appearance since the 1959 World Series. That season, Kittle was an All-Star and won American League Rookie of the Year honors after hitting 35 home runs(a club record for a rookie at the time) and driving in 100 runs.

He played for four teams over those 10 big-league seasons before finishing his career with the Sox in 1991.

Though Kittle retired from playing baseball nearly three decades ago, he hasn’t stopped working. He’s known around the baseball world for his wood artistry — especially for his unique benches that consist of 18 bats, nine baseballs and three bases. Kittle has made benches for Yankees legend Derek Jeter and Indians manager Terry Francona.

In his shop, Kittle has parts of a pink bench signed by talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres. He also has the patriotic bench he made for former President George W. Bush.

Along with benches, Kittle makes cigar ashtrays out of granite, humidors, ball displays and shadow boxes. Like he said before, you name it, and he’ll build it.

“It keeps me in spirit,” said Kittle, who also works as a Sox ambassador. “I’ll probably die working. I ain’t going to be sitting in a chair. I travel a lot, all over the world.”

With his playing days long gone, Kittle is content with where his life has taken him.

“Do I miss playing baseball? Not in the current market,” Kittle said. “I’d like to make the money they’re making, don’t get me wrong. I mean, I’d wear an ugly dress and 16-inch heels for the rest of my life to make the money they’re getting now.

“The game has changed. They’re doing their job out there, but they have iPads, they’re studying everything. I was brought up paying attention to myself. I didn’t have to have someone tell me what to do or how to do it. I knew what to do. So I think a lot of these guys rely on a computer program to tell them what’s going on in the game. Does it make them better? I don’t know.”