PHILADELPHIA — White Sox center fielder Tristan Peters couldn’t sleep the night before his first All-Star Game.
Nervously tossing and turning and staring at the ceiling? No.
Peters was at the hospital with his wife, Erin, whose back gave out from so much carrying around of their 4-month-old daughter. Erin called him from their hotel room Monday night while he was watching the Home Run Derby. Peters got to his family and they left for the hospital at around 1 a.m. and weren’t back in their hotel beds until 6.
She got a little shuteye and was able to walk the All-Star red carpet, daughter in her arms. He got a little, too, enough to show up in the American League clubhouse Tuesday with a smile on his face — but only after walking the red carpet in a jacket with a Savannah Bananas logo sewn on the inside.
Tristan Peters rocked a special @TheSavBananas addition on the Red Carpet 🍌 pic.twitter.com/A4amQUz0pr
— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) July 14, 2026
What a whirlwind the season has been for Peters, 26, an ex-Banana who is on his fourth major league organization and played in a total of four big-league games — going 0-for-12 — before the Sox took a flier on him during the offseason.
“The road has been tough,” he said. “I’ve had times when I thought, ‘Can I really do this?’ Or, ‘Am I really doing this for nothing?’ But I’ve also always said that if I can just get a long enough leash, I believe I can adjust to this. I think I’ve proven that now, obviously, but the game doesn’t stop coming so I’ve got to keep playing.”
One reporter asked Peters what it’s like to go from unknown to known, which was a tiny bit funny given Peters might have been the lowest-profile player on either All-Star roster.
There’s zero question which of the Sox’ three All-Stars was the biggest deal around here, and, no, it wasn’t infielder Miguel Vargas. It was Japanese rookie slugger Munetaka Murakami, of course, the meaty lefty who crushed 20 home runs before June.
Baseball might not have a raging case of Mune fever, but everybody has seen his power up close or at least gotten wind of it. Nobody more so than those on the three teams — the Brewers, A’s and Twins — against which Murakami homered in back-to-back games.
“He got pop,” Brewers catcher William Contreras said. “That guy can hit it a long way.”
“The thing that amazed me was I think it was three different pitches in three days,” Twins manager Derek Shelton said. “And he just has this ability to get to the fastball, which, for most players who come over from Japan, it normally takes a bit of a transition. We saw that with [the Cubs’] Seiya [Suzuki]. Mune is just a different animal.”
Phillies bomber Kyle Schwarber shares an agent with Murakami, Casey Close.
“He’s been doing a fantastic job,” Schwarber said, “and the best part about it is there were doubts about him when he came over and he’s been proving people wrong, which is awesome. I can’t wait to see how his career plays out.”
How does Murakami feel about his decision to sign with the Sox for two years and $34 million?
“It was the best decision I ever made,” he said via a translator. “We’re a winning squad, so we’re just going to keep continuing.”
Once again, he said he hopes to be with the Sox more than two years, which won’t make potential negotiations any easier.
Peters — and Vargas — are on one-year, pre-arbitration deals, and the Sox’ future depends at least a decent amount on them, too. To be sure, this surprisingly successful Sox season is defined much more by pluggers and grinders than it is by one breakout star.
Many hard decisions eventually will have to be made as the front office tries to build a lasting winner.
“I’m honestly not sure what’s going to happen with my situation,” Peters said. “I kind of just try to live in the moment, because I’ve been traded — this is my fourth team now — and I’ve learned that anything can happen, and happen fast.”
Vargas, 26, has pulled himself all the way out of the mental struggle he experienced after being booted from the top of the world — the Dodgers — to the 121-loss bottom — the Sox — in the 2024 trade-deadline deal for Michael Kopech. For a while, baseball simply wasn’t any fun.
“I don’t know, I was young and I guess I was immature at the moment,” Vargas said. “But I think I understand now the purpose I have in this organization.”
Looking in the directions of Peters and Murakami, he said, “When I have this group of guys around me, it makes it easy.”
Vargas isn’t sure, either, how intent the Sox will be on staying in business with him, but he’s hopeful.
“I love the White Sox and I love what we’re doing right now,” he said. “I think for me right now, I just want to focus on the season, see what the team has for the second half and go to the playoffs. Then we see.”