If there are baseball gods, then the justice they mete out is both severe and long lasting — eighty eight years to be exact. Just ask the Chicago White Sox. Having fielded competitive teams in the first two decades of the 20th Century, the 1919 team intentionally lost the World Series in the infamous "Black Sox" scandal.
Charles Comiskey was both father and midwife to the White Sox franchise. A former player and manager, Comiskey purchased the minor league team in Sioux City, Iowa which he moved to St. Paul, Minnesota in 1895. When the National League (the only major league at the time) contracted by four teams in 1899, Comiskey moved the Saints to the South Side in 1900 where they played a final Minor League season in the Western League. An agreement with the Chicago National League franchise forbids his team the use of the name "Chicago", so the "White Stockings", a nickname used previously by the team that would become the Cubs, were born. Working actively with Ban Johnson, they successfully established the rival American League in 1901 and the moniker "White Stockings" would evolve into the condensed version "White Sox" a few years later.
The White Stockings first game was an 8-2 win over Cleveland on April 24, 1901. They wound up with the junior circuit's best record that first year at 83-53 but with the World Series not yet conceived, there was no post-season play.
The White Sox next reached the top in 1906, with a team dubbed the "Hitless Wonders" for their paltry batting average of .230. No regular hit higher than .279 and no one came close to shortstop George Davis' team-leading eighty runs batted in. What carried the day for this team was a wondrous pitching staff whose names may be forgotten by modern day fans, but were very familiar to hitters of their era. Frank Owen (22-13, 2.33), Nick Altrock (20-13, 2.06), Doc White (18-6, 1.52 to lead the league) and Ed Walsh (17-13, 1.88) combined for a team ERA of 2.13, led the Sox on a nineteen game win streak in August (eight of the wins by shutout), and overall, won twenty-nine one-run games.
The Sox won the pennant by three games and then upset their cross-town rival Cubs in the only all-Chicago World Series ever played. The Cubs had pillaged their way to one-hundred sixteen wins that year (a record that still stands) but averaged only 1.5 runs per game against Sox pitching.
Chicago White Sox History
