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The History of the Chicago White Sox - Part 13

  The Sox’s trip to the postseason in 1993 did not go very well.  Jack McDowell went cold, losing both of his starts against the defending World Series champion Toronto Blue Jays. The rest of the pitching staff didn’t fare much better, allowing 6 or more runs in a game three times. The bats were extremely cold, only hitting .237 as a team. The Sox went down in six.  All things considered, it wasn’t the worst. The Sox were still young. They’d have more chances. They took the defending champions to six games in this core’s first taste of postseason baseball. They’ll be back. And when they are, they’ll be more experienced and stronger because of it.  Things weren’t good in the early nineties in baseball. Really, they hadn’t been good in a while.  All the way back in the Veeck era, we talked about free agency becoming a thing, but only as it related to the White Sox and the “rent-a-player” model of team building. We didn’t talk about what free agency meant for baseball as a whole.  The own
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The History of the Chicago White Sox - Part 12

  Baseball’s unique from other sports in a lot of ways, but one of them has to do with the draft. In football, basketball, and hockey, players who get drafted are expected to make the team in the upcoming season and contribute right away. Not in baseball. In baseball, players who get drafted go to the minor leagues. There’s no rule saying that they have to, but players who get drafted are nearly always not ready for the major leagues yet and have to spend a few years improving their game against lesser competition. There’s four main levels to the minors: low-A, high-A, double A, and triple A.  The MLB draft is also unique because it happens midseason. This is because college and high school baseball happens in the spring and ends during the summer. Drafted players go to the “rookie league”, a level of the minors that only has players who were in the most recent draft and only plays half of a season every year in order to make up for this shift. There’s a lot of excitement about a team’
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The History of the Chicago White Sox - Part 11

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  Everything that could change about the Chicago White Sox did change in the early nineties. Everything except the team’s name and location. Then-Speaker of the Illinois House Mike Madigan made sure of that. He couldn’t get the votes for the stadium deal until 12:03 am on June 2nd, but the bill was declared passed at 11:59 pm on June 1st. Reporters asked him about the discrepancy, and he responded by saying “When the speaker says what time it is, that’s what time it is.”  From The Spongebob Squarepants Movie (2004): Perch Perkins: First of all, congratulations, Mr. Krabs. Mr. Krabs: Hello, I like money.  Perkins: What inspired you to build a second Krusty Krab right next door to the original? Mr. Krabs: Money.  Comiskey Park II, later renamed U.S. Cellular Field, and re-renamed to Guaranteed Rate Field, cost the taxpayers 200 million dollars. These things always feel like shakedowns. Like Jerry Reinsdorf bought the White Sox and then left a message on every Chicago resident’s answerin
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The History of the Chicago White Sox - Part 10

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  The White Sox of the eighties saw two major developments. The first, and the more complex one, is the team’s play on the field.  Back in 1976, the year before the South Side Hitmen, the Sox were baseball’s second worst team, finishing with a record of 64-97. Because of a rule that, in retrospect, is completely ridiculous, the first overall pick in the MLB draft had to go to an American League team and a National League team in alternating years. In odd numbered drafts, the worst AL team got the first pick. In even numbered drafts, the worst NL team got the first pick. This system ensured that the White Sox, who finished with a .398 win percentage, got the first pick in the 1977 MLB draft over the NL’s Montreal Expos, who had a win rate of .340.  With the first pick in the 1977 MLB Draft, the Chicago White Sox selected Harold Baines.   Baines wasn’t an all-time great like Minoso, Appling, Lyons, or even older players like Doc White and Ed Walsh, but he was an incredible player. He was
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The History of the Chicago White Sox - Part 9

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            We kind of got ahead of ourselves in the last part. I was so determined to highlight how absolutely ridiculous Bill Veeck’s life was, I skipped about 20 years of history without talking about baseball. Let’s back things up to right after the 1959 World Series and see what the most entertaining owner in team history put on the field.  The White Sox finished second in the AL five times in nine years from 1957 to 1965, and they were rewarded with absolutely nothing. The Sox were by no means the only team to suffer a fate like this, but they were one of the more notable examples. Eventually, by 1969, MLB had decided that the postseason would expand past the World Series. Each league would be split into two divisions, and the winner of each division would play each other for the right to represent their league in the World Series. The White Sox would now be fighting in the A.L. West, far away from the Yankees. Or at least, they would be if the go-go era hadn’t collapsed by then.
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The History of the Chicago White Sox - Part 8

               Bill Veeck was the owner of the White Sox from 1959 to 1961, and again from 1975 to 1980. Veeck was one of the most insane people I have ever heard of. He was an absolute madman. Try as I might, I can’t talk about Bill Veeck just as it pertains to the White Sox. He’s just too interesting.  Veeck was someone who truly understood that baseball was, at its core, an entertainment product. He had a lot of ideas and absolutely no filter. Anything that popped into his mind was going to happen, no matter what. Sometimes this led to truly innovative ideas that impact how baseball is played and watched to this day. Other times it led to baseball-themed riots.  The Veeck era is best told as a series of short stories. If I gave the proper background for each story, we’d be here all day long. I’m sorry for how different this part is from the rest, I just couldn’t help myself. Please enjoy this series of out of context stories.  In 1949, as owner of the Cleveland Indians, Bill Veeck t
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