CHICAGO — Juan Pierre’s game-ending single in the 14th inning capped a wild, five-hour marathon as the Chicago White Sox beat the Cleveland Indians 8-7 on Tuesday night.

Indians manager Manny Acta pleads his case to umpire John Hirschbeck during the fourth inning of Tuesday’s game against the White Sox in Chicago. The Indians had multiple calls they disagreed with throughout the game. (AP photo.)

Gordon Beckham doubled off Chad Durbin (2-2) with one out in the final inning, advancing to third on Brent Morel’s infield single.

David Huff relieved Durbin to face Pierre, who singled to left to win it.

Jason Frasor (3-2) worked the top of the inning to earn the victory.

The White Sox have won nine of 11 and remain 3½ games behind the American League Central-leading Detroit Tigers. The loss drops the second-place Indians to three games back.

Cleveland rallied to tie the game in the ninth on a pair of defensive miscues by the White Sox. After Sergio Santos issued a one-out walk, Michael Brantley popped a single in front of center fielder Alex Rios, who had just come in as a defensive replacement.

Alejandro De Aza moved over to right field to take over for Carlos Quentin, who replaced Rios.
With runners on first and third, Shin-soo Choo tapped a slow roller to second base. Beckham thought about throwing home but hesitated and dropped the ball. He was only able to get a force out at second, allowing the tying run to score.

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De Aza tripled in runs in the second and sixth. He became the first White Sox player to triple twice in a game since Alex Cintron on April 13, 2006.

Paul Konerko extended his hit streak to 12 games with four hits. After doubling in the fifth, Konerko tagged up at second and slid into third on Carlos Quentin’s fly out to center, later scoring on Alexei Ramirez’s triple.

The White Sox captain has been hobbled by his left knee since being hit by a pitch on July 31 against Boston. He has been unable to play in the field but has hit in every game since returning to action on Aug. 4.

Tyler Flowers and Rios also tripled for the White Sox, who tallied five triples in one game for the first time since Sept. 17, 1920, against the New York Yankees. The club record is six triples, a feat achieved three times. The White Sox had just eight triples on the year coming into the game.

Rios tripled to lead off the 11th, but the White Sox left him stranded.

Pierre hit a solo home run off Cleveland starter Ubaldo Jimenez in the fourth. It was his second homer of the season and 16th in his 12-year career.

Gavin Floyd struck out nine over 5 2/3 innings. He allowed five runs on five hits in the no-decision. He retired the first nine batters he faced, including seven strikeouts. He struck out the side in the second.

Jiminez allowed five runs, four earned, on nine hits over 4 2/3 innings, throwing 105 pitches. He struck out five and walked one.

Talkin’ Thome

Tribe manager Acta is not personally acquainted with Jim Thome, who spent more time with the Indians (12 years) than his other employers (Philadelphia Phillies, Los Angeles Dodgers, Chicago White Sox, Minnesota Twins). But Acta knows a class act when he sees one.

Thome became the eighth player in history to hit 600 career home runs Monday night, when he went deep twice for the Twins in a win over the Detroit Tigers. He is one of only five players in the 600 club not tainted by the steroid scandals.

“Let’s put it this way,” Acta said. “How many people have been in the big leagues in more than 100 years? Only eight have done this. That’s greatness.

“And from everything I hear, Thome is a better person that he is a player. And that’s tough to beat.”

Thome also has a career .403 on-base percentage, a consequence of his willingness to take a walk.

“A lot of people miss the fact that he’s eighth all time in walks,” Acta said. “That’s another really good accomplishment.”

No complaints

Acta will have some serious juggling with his rotation when three makeup games clutter the September schedule. However, he has no intention of complaining.

“I’m just grateful that we can play meaningful games in September,” he said. “I’d rather worry about the other stuff than have things the way they were last year.”

September call-ups will provide Acta with enough players from Triple-A Columbus to increase the Tribe’s depth, but it’s open to question whether the players summoned from Triple-A will provide quality.

“It’s not my call,” Acta said. “If they all fit in the dugout, I don’t care.”

Farm facts

Joe Martinez (8-6, 4.01 ERA) pitched six scoreless innings, allowing seven hits and no walks, as Columbus blanked Rochester 2-0 in the first game of a doubleheader. In the second game, Jared Head hit his 23rd homer of the year, singled and drove in two runs, but the Clippers lost 4-3.

Notable

• Indians LHP Tony Sipp was ejected in the 10th for arguing a controversial call after being removed from the game.
• Indians OF Grady Sizemore (knee/sports hernia) ran on a treadmill Tuesday and is scheduled to do so again Thursday.
• Indians INF Jason Kipnis (side) was out of the lineup for the second straight game but was available to pinch-hit.

It came down to the final minutes before midnight’s deadline, but the Indians were able to sign their first-round draft pick Monday — Francisco Lindor, a 17-year-old shortstop out of Montverde Academy (Orlando, Fla.).

According to a number of reports, Lindor, whom the Indians chose with the eighth overall pick, received a $2.9 million signing bonus. It is the second-largest in club history behind Jeremy Guthrie’s $3 million bonus in 2002.

Lindor was ranked as the seventh-best player in the draft by Baseball America.

The Indians signed a number of their selections prior to the deadline, agreeing to terms with second-rounder Dillon Howard and 18th-rounder Shawn Armstrong, both right-handed pitchers.

Howard, the 67th overall pick out of Searcy High School (Ark.), reportedly received a $1.85 million signing bonus.

Cleveland was able to sign 29 of its 50 draft picks, including 17 of their top 19 selections.

AMHERST — Two Amherst artists say the U.S. flag-raising on the Pacific island of Iwo Jima is an event that continues to be worthy of our attention and respect 66 years later.

Mike Sekletar, left, and Ryan Shannon, both of Amherst, work on the Park Avenue Mural Project, a re-creation of the flag-raising at Iwo Jima, on Monday. (CT photo by Steve Manheim.)

“It’s the most reproduced photo in history,” Mike Sekletar said. “It’s such an iconic image and has different meanings to people, but we feel it speaks to freedom and victory.”

Sekletar and fellow Amherst artist Ryan Shannon began their 20-foot by 35-foot artwork a few days ago on the side of a Park Avenue brick building owned by attorney and Councilman Frank Janik, D-at large.

After repainting the side of the building in light gray, the artists roughed in an outline of the six men crouching, standing and raising the American flag over Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima. The two men are now starting to fill in the figures from the top down in grays, black and white.

“Adding color would just detract from it,” Sekletar said. “The shadows and grays to be found in black and white are just more meaningful.”

“It’s really hard to judge detail when you’re right up there next to it (the wall),” Shannon said. “It’s tough to keep everything in the proper perspective, especially hands. Hands are the hardest thing to paint.”

They figure they will spend a few weeks completing the mural, but they will need hours of time to accurately recreate the hands that were laid over each other on the flag.

“Capturing the shadows there will be really tough,” Shannon said.

Photographer Joe Rosenthal’s Feb. 23, 1945, photo came during the brutal five-week struggle between American and Japanese forces over the small island and its three airstrips. The flag was erected by five Marines and John Bradley, a Navy corpsman who was awarded the Navy Cross for earlier heroism when he tended to a wounded soldier under heavy enemy fire. Three of the men who took part in the famous flag-raising died, along with some 6,800 Americans and nearly 22,000 Japanese.

The idea for the mural first came to Sekletar a year ago. He got the approval of the city’s design review board and Janik, and then went to the city’s veterans organizations, which have readily supported the effort.

“It’s a tribute to all service people past and present, but we feel this era is especially meaningful to the community,” said Sekletar, whose father, John, was a machinist aboard the USS Saratoga aircraft carrier during the Vietnam War.

Officials from the Amherst American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars posts were not available for comment Monday.

Sekletar’s previous local work includes an 8-foot painting of Elvis Presley inside Ziggy’s Sports Bar & Grille farther down Park Avenue.

The painted flagpole will extend above the roofline of the two-story building with a real 14-foot aluminum flagpole and a 5-foot by 8-foot American flag that will be continuously illuminated by a spotlight and old-fashioned triple-globed street light in an adjacent parking lot.

A local Sherwin-Williams store donated paint and brushes to help the pair get started. The artists have a goal of raising $6,500, which they say would cover costs of paint and materials, as well as provide a small commission for themselves for the work.

“We’ve had a few private donations so far,” Sekletar said. “We’re basically getting started.”

A plastic tip jar is strategically attached by a rope to the scaffolding the two men work from.

A bank account also has been set up for the “Park Avenue Mural” at the Amherst FirstMerit branch on Cleveland Avenue for anyone who wants to make a donation, Sekletar said.

Anyone who contributes $500 or more will receive a framed 12-by-16 print of the mural. There also will be a plaque near the mural recognizing major donors.

Contact Steve Fogarty at 329-7146 or sfogarty@chroniclet.com.

ELYRIA — Steadily changing technology and greater specialization in the welding industry is fueling the need for an estimated 30,000 trained welding technicians each year, according to an industry report.

A $2.9 million grant from the National Science Foundation will help Lorain County Community College expand the National Center for Welding Education and Training.

A $2.9 million grant from the National Science Foundation will help Lorain County Community College’s National Center for Welding Education and Training continue and expand its goals of educating thousands of welding technicians each year.

Known more commonly as Weld-Ed, the LCCC-based center began in 2007 with a $5 million, four-year National Science Foundation grant.

“This grant allows us to take the work we did from the first grant and expand and continue it over the next three years,” Duncan Estep, the center’s director, said Monday.

While the grant was announced Monday, LCCC officials first learned of it two weeks ago at a high-tech conference in San Francisco.

“Every year we are in competition with a large number of community colleges doing similar programs,” Estep said.

The grant will aid the college in its development of a national welding educators’ certificate program to expanded training for welding instructors in new technologies.

“The whole goal is to increase the numbers of welding technicians,” Estep said. “We’ve developed a core training program here and at 10 training regional center partners across the country.”

Future developments could include putting training programs and instruction online “to reach a broader audience,” Estep said.

Reaching a wider audience will help the Weld-Ed center to meet the escalating need for professional welders. The “National State of the Welding Industry Report,” which is published by Weld-Ed, projects a need for 238,000 new and replacement workers through 2019.

In the 2009-10 school year, Weld-Ed’s 80-plus community and technical college and university partners educated more than 4,000 welding technicians and graduated more than 1,700 students, nearly all of whom found immediate employment in welding-related positions in the automotive, shipbuilding, aerospace and mining industries, as well as the defense and energy sectors, according to the Weld-Ed center.

“Our partners tailor welding education for specific needs in different regions,” Estep said. “At the College of the Canyons in Los Angeles, there’s a big electronics base, and a big need for laser welding. Regional needs differ because they try to be suited to local industries.”

Contact Steve Fogarty at 329-7146 or sfogarty@chroniclet.com.