One of the biggest trades of the White Sox rebuild came about 15 years ago at a Dominican Republic pawn shop when Reynaldo Lopez’s grandfather exchanged cattle for the boy’s first bat, ball and glove.
“Thanks to him is why I am here,” Lopez said last week at Guaranteed Rate Field through Sox interpreter Billy Russo.
Growing up in San Pedro de Macoris, Dominican Republic, Lopez played baseball every day with a mitt constructed from cardboard and a ball made of socks and string because that’s all his family could afford.