Will Venable is trending as the White Sox manager's basketball past goes viral

Why people are searching his name

Will Venable is trending because the baseball world is watching a team nobody expected to be here, and the manager running it turns out to have a basketball career worth a second look. As the Chicago White Sox have gone on a surprising playoff run, video of Venable slashing to the basket, hitting floaters and driving through traffic during his Princeton days has been making the rounds online. That clip surge is what is pushing the search traffic now.

What is known: Venable played shooting guard at Princeton from 2001 to 2005, made First Team All-Ivy League, helped get Princeton to the NCAA Tournament, and once scored 21 points against Duke. He also played baseball at Princeton and made All-Ivy there too, becoming only the second Princeton athlete to earn All-Ivy honors in both baseball and basketball. What is not spelled out anywhere in the current reporting is any new comment from Venable about the clips going around now. What happens next is straightforward and already scheduled: the White Sox can clinch a spot in the American League Championship Series on Wednesday in Chicago if they beat the Guardians again, after winning Monday night at Progressive Field. That Wednesday game has not been played yet.

Basketball came first

Venable's path to Princeton was built on basketball. He was recruited to the school strictly as a basketball player, and when he showed up in 2001 he focused only on hoops, averaging 16 minutes per game as a freshman. His father, Max Venable, who played 12 seasons in the majors, told then-Princeton baseball coach Scott Bradley that he thought his son would eventually want to play baseball too. Bradley said Max sat in his office and predicted it outright.

That prediction held up. After his freshman basketball season, Venable walked into Bradley's office and asked to give baseball a shot. Bradley took him to the batting cage, where Venable swung through five pitches, popped up five more, and then started driving line drives. Bradley said he called his assistant right away and told him Venable had a chance to be really good. Mike Chernoff, a former Princeton baseball teammate who is now the Guardians' general manager, described Venable as a smooth basketball player who could dribble, shoot, move around the court and do it all.

One system, two sports

Venable went on to play eight years in the majors, mostly with the San Diego Padres, before eventually becoming a manager. He has said his time in the Princeton basketball offense, which relies on constant movement, precise passing, back-door cuts and read-and-react decisions instead of fixed plays, shaped how he later saw baseball. He said the spacing and timing required in that offense helped him understand the importance of every small detail as a baseball player.

That same even-keeled approach is what teammates point to now. White Sox designated hitter Andrew Benintendi called Venable the same guy every single day, saying he shows up even keel and steady no matter what is happening around him. For a team that lost 121 games two seasons ago and is now five wins from the World Series, that steadiness gets credited as part of why the turnaround has held up through a long season and into October.

What is still ahead

The baseball part of the story is still being written. The White Sox beat the Guardians at Progressive Field on Monday night to take control of the series. They can close it out and move on to the American League Championship Series with a win Wednesday in Chicago, but that game has not happened yet. Nothing in the record says what happens if that game goes the other way, so there is nothing to add there beyond what is already set: a win Wednesday sends Chicago to the ALCS, and the search interest in Venable's basketball tape is riding alongside that result either way.

Facts per MLB.com, The Guardian. Opinion is the taproom's.