Former White Sox pitcher and current star realtor Scott Carroll joins the Sox Machine Podcast to discuss what it was like being a 29-year-old rookie, his recent appearance on HGTV's "House Hunters," and his experiences being in a clubhouse that's making headlines for the wrong reasons.
A little background for this interview:
Scott's career crossed my mind at a few points this season. For those of you who didn’t follow the White Sox at that time, Scott joined the White Sox as a 29-year-old rookie from way off the radar. They’d signed him to a minor-league contract in the middle of the 2012 season after he was released from the Reds, he was injured for the first half of 2013, and he wasn’t even a non-roster invitee to spring training to start the 2014 season. There wasn’t really a reason to think of him as anything but an organizational player.
But then the White Sox suffered three setbacks to their original five-man rotation in the first month of the season, so here comes Scott Carroll from out of nowhere as the eighth different pitcher to make a start for the White Sox in April. He makes his MLB debut against the Tampa Bay Rays – and all he does is outduel David Price over 7⅓ innings for his first big-league victory. He then sticks the rest of the season and throws nearly 130 decent innings for a team that sorely needed innings wherever they could find them.
So when Zach Remillard, a 29-year-old rookie, gets rewarded for grinding in the minors for seven years and delivers the game-tying and game-winning hits in his first major-league game, I’m reminded of Scott Carroll’s debut. And when I watch 29-year-old rookie Jesse Scholtens pitching whenever the White Sox need him and posting a 3.06 ERA over his first 50 MLB innings, I’m reminded of Scott Carroll. So there’s that.
Then, I’m watching "House Hunters" on HGTV a few weeks ago. I’m not what you would call a "House Hunters" fanatic, but I’ll watch the episodes that are based in places I have lived, or where family and friends live. Flipping through the guide, there’s a recent episode located in Kansas City, my wife has relatives there, so sure, we’ll sit down and watch a family search for a new house in the KC area.
And who is the realtor for that family but one Scott Carroll.
So, at that point, I figure, I need to talk to this guy. After all, Josh is going on vacation, the White Sox aren’t playing for anything. This is the time to go out on a limb, pursue some whims and see if our wonderful audience will follow us along. I reach out to Scott, tell him I want to talk about the 29-year-old rookie experience and "House Hunters," Scott is down, and we schedule a call within the week of Josh leaving town.
That left just enough time for the White Sox clubhouse to turn into a Lord of the Flies situation. It’d be weird not to talk about it with Scott Carroll, because he’s been in some White Sox clubhouses that had similar issues settling on leaders, and the same people were in charge of the team back then, so of course I want to ask him about that stuff. But it’d also be weird to say, “The White Sox are in meltdown mode. Here’s Scott Carroll to weigh in...” without any context.
So that’s the context. Even though the White Sox ruined my plans to present a pleasant diversion from current events, I still really enjoyed my conversation with Scott, and I hope you will, too.
References:
House Hunters: Family Grillin' in Kansas City -- HGTV
Scott Carroll will endorse ANYTHING! -- YouTube
Scott Carroll the fall guy for Chris Sale call prank -- Chicago Tribune
