Bill Melton became a Chicago White Sox legend for his home run hitting in the early 1970s, but his most famous pose wasn’t done at home plate.
It was in the studio of famed Chicago photographer Victor Skrebneski, who was hired by the Chicago Tribune’s Sunday magazine for a photo shoot of Comiskey Park organist Nancy Faust.
Melton, who died Thursday in Phoenix at age 79 after a brief illness, was the Sox’s biggest star in an era when the crosstown Cubs took over the town on the heels of their fateful 1969 season. Or maybe it’s more appropriate to say he was their only star, at least until Dick Allen arrived on the scene in 1972.
“Bill was the shining star of my first season in 1970,” Faust recalled Thursday. “That was probably the second worst season the Sox have ever experienced.”
The 106-loss season was indeed the worst until this year, when the Sox set a modern-day record with 121 losses.
But nothing stays down forever, even the White Sox. The trade of Tommy John to the Los Angeles Dodgers for Allen in winter 1971 paved the way for a culture shift unlike any in Sox history.
It was during that ’72 season that the Sox started to make some headwinds, and the Tribune decided to do a story on Faust, then in her third year as the team’s organist. Skrebneski was hired for the photo shoot.
“I actually showed up for a photo shoot that I understood was for the fashion section of the Tribune,” Faust said. “And lo and behold, two ballplayers showed up. I had no idea.”
Melton and knuckleball pitcher Wilbur Wood were the two players who joined Faust in Skrebneski’s Old Town studio. They were wearing their home uniforms, which at the time were white with red pinstripes and red belts.
The story appeared on June 4, 1972, the same day Allen would hit his famous “chili dog home run,” a pinch-hit, walk-off blast off the New York Yankees’ Sparky Lyle that became one of the biggest moments in Sox history and the centerpiece of a book “Chili Dog MVP” by John Owens and David J. Fletcher.
The photo the Tribune magazine editors chose for the cover was of Faust in the middle of Melton and Wood, wearing what was described as a “slinky,” backless, black mat jersey gown with a cummerbund sash from Saks Fifth Avenue. She stood alongside a hatless Melton with Wood positioned below with his head next to Faust’s hip. Both were wearing their Sox uniforms.
Skrebneski, who later became a famous photographer of celebrities from Cindy Crawford to Barack Obama, had Faust’s right hand playfully messing with Melton’s hair, while Wood’s arms were wrapped around her black dress at her legs.
The Tribune article said the players were “impressed, or should we say dazzled,” with Faust’s dress.
No one would bat an eye if an athlete and a model created a similar pose today on their Instagram page, but the cover photo was a little risqué at the time, not only for the staid Tribune but for baseball players of that era.
In his statement on Melton’s death, Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf said “photos of Bill wearing his home run crowd and others of him posing with ballpark organist Nancy Faust still generate smiles to this day.”
Faust said Melton had a “movie-star quality” to him that drew many young women to Sox games. Skrebneski was looking to do something different than the typical fashion shoot, and his photo was definitely outside the box.
When it appeared on the Tribune’s Sunday magazine cover, there was some discussion of the suggestive nature of the pose of a well-dressed woman and two players. Faust recalled that Wood told Sox vice president Stu Holcomb the photo was “not appropriate for a baseball image,” though she said he was not upset with her and that Holcomb came to her defense.
“Stu was just happy to have publicity in any form,” she said.
The Sox were on their way to a magical season, but Melton suffered a herniated disc later that month and underwent a rare treatment for his back to avoid surgery. He was lost for the rest of the season, and the Sox couldn’t overtake the Oakland A’s despite Allen’s MVP season, finishing 5½ games out in the American League West.
Melton’s Sox career would end after the 1975 season when he was dealt to the California Angels in a four-player trade that brought back first baseman Jim Spencer. The back injury robbed him of most of his power, but his home run title in 1971, when he won on the final day of the season after a night out on Rush Street, was what probably Sox fans will remember most when they look back on his career.
“Nobody really acknowledged who was leading the league,” Melton told me on the 50th anniversary of the title in 2021. “You’d know it in your own clubhouse. The Sox got behind me, but mostly they were bragging about me in the South Side bars because I was beating (Ron) Santo in home runs. That’s the way it was back them. It was Chicago baseball. The home run race was not a big deal.”
Melton had a second act in baseball years later as a White Sox analyst on the pre- and postgame shows, on which he had a difficult time hiding his disgust after Sox losses. Every time I saw Melton at a Sox game during the down years, I’d ask if he was going to be fired for telling the truth.
He’d just laugh. He didn’t really care what management thought of his commentary. If he couldn’t say what he believed, Melton didn’t want the job anyway.
That was Bill Melton, who wore his heart on his sleeve and kept the South Side in his heart.
