He ‘Getz’ it: White Sox’s GM has memorable visit to Cooperstown
The smile on Chris Getz’s face could be expected. He was not only visiting the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, but his Chicago White Sox were in first place.
On July 2, Getz, the executive vice president/general manager of the Chicago White Sox and a former big league second baseman, was sitting, along with his son’s youth baseball teammates and their families, in the Hall of Fame’s Bullpen Theater. In front of them were artifacts from the Museum’s collection, among them a number of White Sox treasures such as Hall of Famer Nellie Fox’s infield glove, Mark Buehrle’s cap from his 2007 no-hitter and the bat Frank Thomas used to club his 300th career homer.
“My son Luke is playing in a Cooperstown tournament out here this week. The kids have been talking about this for years, getting to this age and coming to this tournament,” Getz said after the presentation. “So, thankfully, the people that run our organization asked which dates would fit best for my wife and I based on our kind of crazy major league schedule, and the White Sox were in Baltimore and Cleveland this week, so we snuck away just before the draft prep really picks up next week.”
Not that he was scouting the next generation of ball players. Or was he?
“It’s funny how early you can sometimes tell on some of these kids,” he said with a laugh. “We all know that there’s a long road ahead, but you know, with so many kids out here, it’s a chance to see some of the young up and coming players.”
Originally drafted by the White Sox in the fourth round in 2005, Getz played seven MLB seasons with the Sox (2008-09), Royals (2010-13) and Toronto (2014), batting .250 (352-for-1,409) in 459 games. A whiz on the basepaths, his 83.2 percent (89-107) stolen-base success rate ranks 37th in MLB history (min. 100 attempts).
The only other visit Getz, 43, made to Cooperstown came in 2018 when his former White Sox teammate, Jim Thome, invited him to attend his Hall of Fame induction.
“Baseball means different things to different people, but when I think of baseball, I think of my family. I grew up in a family that Little League was a big part of our lives. My grandfather oversaw the district in the metro of Detroit, and then my dad took over. It was just a big part of our community and big part of our lives growing up in the Detroit area,” Getz said. “I was a big Tigers fan, and I remember going to old Tiger Stadium. Baseball was always my love, my favorite sport, and probably my best sport.”
In 2026, Getz began his third full season as executive vice president/general manager of the White Sox, looking to build on the club’s second half momentum from 2025. Getz, who oversaw the Sox minor league operations and player development system from 2017-23, was named general manager on Aug. 31, 2023. After finishing 2024 with a 41-121 record – surpassing the 1962 Mets for the most losses in modern Major League Baseball history – the White Sox, as of the day Getz visited the Hall of Fame, were in first place in the American League Central.
“When we were going through that 2024 season, and I can say that I would never wish that on anyone, just because you think about your fans. The Chicago White Sox fans are deep rooted and they’re passionate, and when you’re coming up short that often throughout a season, and you feel like you don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, you feel like you’re not doing your job, you feel like you’re not delivering on what you were hired to do,” Getz said. “But I do recall when our front office staff, and owner Jerry Reinsdorf, talked about the potential of us breaking this record, and it got to a point where it’s probably going to happen, you come to grips with the reality of what’s in front of you. But then thinking about the future and what an opportunity to turn things around and us being able to point back to this 2024 season.
“Now did I expect us to in 2026 be in first place come July and approaching the draft where we have the first pick, the trade deadline, the potential to add talent to this team, didn’t expect that, but we believed we were heading in the right direction. Now that it’s unfolding the way that it is, it just makes it even more special.”
Getz retired from the diamond at the age of 30 in May 2014 when the Blue Jays wanted to send him to Triple-A Buffalo. One of the reasons given in the press was his wife was expecting their first child – Luke.
“It’s so difficult to get to the big leagues, and obviously a lot of luck, and I was very fortunate to get there,” he recalled. “I had just finally finished my degree at the University of Michigan and truthfully knew that I was going to have to do something after playing. I didn’t know if I was going to stay in the game, but I figured it’s probably a good time to get that next chapter started versus playing for a couple more years, maybe get some more major league time, and all of that. Candidly, just thinking ahead, did I think I was going to be a GM? I didn’t. I know that when I was presented with some opportunities and made that commitment to join the Royals front office, I recall talking to my wife: ‘Well, let’s see where this leads us.’
“I remember the day that Jerry Reinsdorf told me that he wanted me to be his general manager. My birthday was Aug. 30, and we were deciding on which day to do my press conference. At that point it was probably Aug. 27. We were having this sit-down discussion. I said, ‘Jerry, I would really like to be a GM in my 30s.’
“He looked at me and said, ‘No GM of mine is going to be younger than 40 years old.’ So, we waited until Aug. 30 when I turned 40.”
Bill Francis is the senior research and writing specialist at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum
