CHICAGO | The ultimate in even temperment and quiet candor, White Sox team captain Paul Konerko is not going to cancel his life because he can't crack the Mendoza line going into the last half of May.
Batting just .194 going into Tuesday's rain-delayed game here against the New York Yankees, Konerko did not feel so depressed that he could not help others. Along with teammate Jim Thome, he plowed ahead with a program to help raise money and promote understanding for foster families.
He has helped form "Team Thome-Konerko" to help Children's Home-Plus-Aid, an organization that has helped troubled children since 1883. Konerko and Thome each donated $10,000 to Children's Home-Plus Aid to kick off the program. Both sluggers presented checks before Saturday's game against the Kansas City Royals at the Cell.
"If they hear of fostering kids or fostering a child, they associate it with a problem, that it's going to cause problems in own household," Konerko said. "The child is in a tough situation and I think if they were fostering the parents of this child, that might bring problems to the house. But when you're talking about a child, in my mind there's no such thing as a bad kid."
Konerko has seen first-hand that fostering a child does not throw a household into an uproar through the experiences of wife Jennifer's family.
"Her family has taken in 40-50 kids and they've adopted three to four," he said. "One's going through adoption now. You want to help them out, it's not their parents' choice they don't either want to have them or they're not equipped to do it. You can change a kid's life by doing it."
Konerko even suggested he would become a foster parent when he retires from baseball and his schedule normalizes. So present-day slumps would hardly rank with the challenge of saving an unwanted child.
The centerpiece of the Sox lineup's spring slumber, Konerko is hitting just .169 (10-for-59) in his last 15 games. Amazingly, he still leads the Sox with 19 RBIs.
After presenting the check Saturday, Thome left the club for Triple-A Charlotte on a rehab assignment as he recovers from a strained rib-cage muscle.
In a game Tuesday night at Columbus, Thome went 0-for-3 with a walk as the designated hitter. Catcher Toby Hall, also rehabbing a dislocated right shoulder, was behind the plate and went 3-for-3 with three RBIs for Charlotte.
