Hey, everyone, I'm Chuck Arfine, and this is the White Sox Talk podcast, brought to you by WinTrust Community Bank,

home of White Sox checking with free ATMs nationwide. You can find out more by going to wintrust.com

slash socks. That is wintrust.com slash socks. So there are very few people alive today who can walk the streets and say that they are a

home run champion. Our guest on the White Sox Talk podcast is one of them. A man whose nickname is not

only one of the greatest in baseball history, but it really fits his legacy to a T. I'm talking about Belton Bill

Melton. Being a baseball player and especially a home run champion in 1971 was a whole

lot different back then than it is today in so many ways. I mean, looking back, these guys were renegades.

They were living hard, fast lives off the field. On the field, they were playing very fast

baseball games, an hour 45, two hours, tops, the envy of a lot of us today. But for some perspective, the White Sox

never really had a home run hitter until Bill Melton arrived in September of 1968. This might

be hard to believe, but this is really true. And it's also why he was considered to be a god by so

many White Sox fans.

In 1968, the White Sox as a team, as a team, hit 71 home runs.

Barry Bonds hit 73 by himself in 2001.

But Melton came along, and he was actually playing minor league baseball in Hawaii, of all places.

That's where the White Sox had their AAA team back then, Hawaii.

So he comes in from Hawaii as a 22-year-old, and he was the start of a rebuild.

Although they probably didn't call it a rebuild.

Actually, I know they did not call it a rebuild back then.

It was probably something like, We Stink.

It's not working. Let's try something else.

Three years later, Melton would become the first home run champion in White Sox history.

...