Everything about Bobby Jenks seemed larger than life: his 6-3, 275-pound frame, his outgoing personality, his place in Chicago baseball history as the closer for the 2005 World Series champion White Sox.
Little wonder that Jenks’ death — on July 4 at 44 after a battle with stomach cancer — left such a hole in the hearts of those who knew him. Few knew him better than Toby Hall. his battery mate with the White Sox and his successor as manager of the Windy City ThunderBolts.
Jenks and Hall coached together in the Pioneer League in 2022, and Jenks recruited Hall to join his staff for his second season at Windy City. But they never coached together this time around; Jenks took a leave of absence in February to focus on his health and less than five months later he was gone.
Hall reflected on his friend on July 19, when the ThunderBolts — playing their first home game since Jenks’ death — retired Jenks’ No. 45 and hosted Fight Cancer Night at Ozinga Field. Gold Glove Charities coordinated the event, which brought kids battling cancer to the park to play wiffle ball and run the bases before a game against the Joliet Slammers.
Hall and Jenks, who had been living in Portugal, had a long phone call on July 1. Jenks told Hall he wouldn’t be able to make the 20th anniversary celebration for the 2005 White Sox and asked him to stand with his wife and children at the ceremony.
“I said, ‘Of course,'” said Hall, who left the ThunderBolts during their 13-game road trip and flew back home from Boston to prepare for the reunion over the July 11-13 weekend.
“The biggest thing out of that whole thing was, as good as he sounded, he said, ‘Toby, I’m not scared anymore,'” Hall said. “And that’s when I was like, ‘Uh oh.’ But at least my last conversation with him was an awesome one like we used to (have).”
After Jenks’ death, other Frontier League teams honored his memory.
“It’s tough, every night we go into stadiums and (there’s) the moment of silence and it’s just …” Hall said, his voice trailing off. “But then again on the flip side, what an accomplishment to be able to get a moment of silence and get that praise.”
While the moments of silence may end at some point, the memories will never go away.
One in particular stuck with Hall:
“I will never forget, this was like ’07 or ’08, whatever it was. We would carpool. … It was his day to drive and he picked me up a little late and we got on (Interstate) 55 and it was bumper-to-bumper from Burr Ridge. So he went down the emergency lane like 40 miles an hour and I was on cop duty. We got a good 10 miles and I go, ‘Uh, we just passed one.’ And sure enough, he’s going down the emergency lane, lights and siren (on). Pulls us over and he’s like, ‘What are you guys doing?’
“And we didn’t have a word. Bobby goes, ‘Well, we’re late. We’re late to the field.’ And he goes, ‘Where’s (your) license, registration?’ All that stuff. And two minutes later, he said, ‘Follow me.’ We went down the emergency lane because it was, like, a 1 o’clock game. And he pulled us into the players’ lot (just in time). … We left him tickets for, like, five years. It was great, But we got there, like, five minutes before (pregame) stretch. … That was the most surreal thing … I mean, those people were waiting three hours to get downtown.”
But it was just another day in the life of Bobby Jenks, whose legacy is so much larger than most.