Helping White Sox next on Vizquel list
Omar Vizquel's wish list is impressive: he's already held an anaconda by the tail and donned a matador's outfit in a first step toward bullfighting. Flying in an F-16 and sky diving are also on his radar.
First, though, there's more baseball ahead for the 42-year-old infielder — this time with the Chicago White Sox, who are managed by his fellow Venezuelan Ozzie Guillen.
Vizquel can't wear his familiar No. 13 because Guillen has it and won't give it up. So he went to yet another countryman who played shortstop in Chicago, Hall of Famer Luis Aparicio, and got his blessing and his permission to unretire No. 11 and wear it this season.
"I was intimidated a little bit to ask him," Vizquel said Thursday as he reported to spring training.
Aparicio was named American League Rookie of the Year as a member of the White Sox in 1956 and the 10-time All-Star played 10 seasons with Chicago. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1984, the same year the team retired his uniform number. "It's not easy just to ask a legend like him to wear that number," Vizquel said. "But I think the good relationship I have with him made me pop the question. … He hesitated a little bit, he thought about it and he gave me a little smile and said, `Well, if there is somebody that I want to wear my number, I think that person can be you.' It was like a shock and it made me feel good.
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