White Sox’ Tim Anderson tours Negro Leagues museum with teammates, Chicago kids

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Tim Anderson at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. | Courtesy of White Sox photographer Sam Lutz

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson is well aware that he’s something of a rarity in a league that had only 68 African-American players as of Opening Day, per a USA Today study. He had two African-American teammates in high school in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He doesn’t have that many now.

“You’ve just got to be open-minded,” he said. “I’ve always had great teammates and great coaches, and it’s the same thing here. I learn a little bit from everybody. I learn from the Latin [players]. I learn from the white guys. It’s all just about how you see it, and I see it in such a positive way because we are a family here.

“But I listen to Latin music. I listen to country music. I’m open, man. I love to learn and I love to step into a bunch of different people’s lives and see how they go about it.”

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Anderson stepped back in time Friday morning with a visit to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, which he toured with a group of young men from Schurz and Austin high schools who are part of a program run by the Youth Guidance nonprofit agency. It was his “fourth or fifth” time there, he said, since his call-up to the Sox in 2016.

“I’m a big Jackie Robinson fan,” he said. “I like to just learn as much about him as I can. The things he went through were just amazing.”

Joining Anderson on the tour were teammates Trayce Thompson and Lucas Giolito and Sox coaches Daryl Boston and Greg Sparks. Broadcasters Steve Stone and Jason Benetti also were there, as were Anderson’s wife and daughter.

The 55-year-old Boston, who visits the museum every year and has introduced dozens of players and coaches to it, was a Sox outfielder in 1986, when 19 percent of major-leaguers were African-American, an all-time high.

“I get disappointed in the amount that are playing and the interest level that’s out there right now,” he said. “But baseball is a game of different ethnic backgrounds and guys from different situations — some rich, some poor, some older, some younger, some from the Dominican, some Japanese. This game is for everybody.”

Got well soon

First baseman Jose Abreu was back in the lineup for the Sox on Friday after missing about a game and a half with flulike symptoms.

Abreu watched Thursday’s game from the dugout after telling manager Rick Renteria that he was available to pinch hit, but it probably was for the best that the Sox, who belted five homers, didn’t need him.

“When I say I’m feeling bad, it’s bad,” he said through an interpreter. “When I tell that to my family, they know it’s really bad. But you know what? Thank God I’m back, I’m feeling better and I’m alive.’’

Pitching in

The Sox and Royals play a split doubleheader Saturday. Acting manager Joe McEwing, in charge while Renteria is in Texas after the death of his mother, confirmed that Carson Fulmer will start the opener. An announcement about the Game 2 starter — it’ll be someone from the minors — might not come until Saturday morning.

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