On Friday, the baseball family lost two-time All-Star relief pitcher Bobby Jenks after a bout with adenocarcinoma, a form of stomach cancer. And while many in the baseball media space have since spoken to the kind of player Jenks was, former Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen and former White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski took the time to discuss the kind of person Jenks was during Saturday’s edition of the White Sox Countdown Live pregame show on CHSN.
Ahead of Saturday’s game between the White Sox and the Colorado Rockies, the White Sox Countdown Live studio team of Chuck Garfien and Guillen took over 20 minutes to discuss the legacy that Jenks leaves behind.
Jenks was most famously known for being the pitcher who recorded the final out in Game 4 of the 2005 World Series en route to the White Sox sweeping the Houston Astros as a rookie reliever. But to Ozzie Guillen, Jenks’ manager from 2005-2010, his former player was perhaps a better person than pitcher.
“Everyone was crushed knowing this was going to happen,” said Guillen, speaking to Jenks’ lengthy battle with adenocarcinoma. “We didn’t know how soon it was going to be. But he was in very, very bad shape. When I heard the news this morning, everything went through my mind. From the first day I met him to the last time I played golf with him last year. I can still picture his truck leaving the golf course. Most of the players I talk to right now are crushed.
“Besides him being a great pitcher like everybody has said, he has an unbelievable heart. To me, he was like a big baby boy. Everybody was always smiling around him. He never had the closing attitude, the mean guy (attitude). He had a great, great heart. But the way he was the last couple of months… You don’t want him to feel that way.”
Pierzynski, who caught for Jenks throughout the entirety of Jenks’ career in Chicago, then joined the pregame show to share his own thoughts of who Jenks was as a person, explaining how he was a “mythical figure” on and off the field.
“It’s hard to fathom that we aren’t going to see him next week,” said Pierzynski. “First of all, prayers to his family, his friends, his kids, his wife. Just everything Bobby has been through, I can’t imagine it. Like Ozzie said, it is a sad day for the White Sox family, more importantly for his family. Ozzie summed it up nicely. Everybody knew this was kind of coming from the updates we had received. I had talked to him through texts. Ugh, when it hits you it is just awful. There is really no words to describe how sad and destroyed you are when you think of Bobby being gone.
“We say him first in spring training. He was a gigantic man that threw even harder. When he first came up, we didn’t know what to expect. Everyone had heard… He was like a mythical figure, this Bobby Jenks guy that threw 100 out of the woods of Eastern Washington, Idaho, up there. It was like, what is this guy all about?
“Then, you get to know Bobby. He had a great heart, he meant well. And I tell people, he threw 100 before throwing 100 was cool. Before everyone threw 100, he was a legit 100 with cut. You know what the thing about Bobby was… He was like a 12-year-old. A 12-year-old kid away from the field. And he grew up a lot in that time. He was a prankster, he made bad decisions. But we all made bad decisions. But he meant well and he will be sorely, sorely missed.”
Clearly, Jenks will be sorely missed not only by those who grew up seeing him solidify himself as one of the most important figures in Chicago sports with his World Series performance in 2005, but also by those who spent numerous years alongside him closely in the White Sox locker room.