The History of the Chicago White Sox - Part 4

          In the wake of the Black Sox Scandal, the White Sox roster was completely devastated. The team that the sox put on the field in 1921 was closer to an expansion team’s first season than the perennial contender that they had been. In a way, that makes sense. In my eyes, the story of the White Sox begins here. Everything that we have seen to this point has been prologue. The story of the Chicago White Sox is a story of a team that fell from grace, committed one of the worst scandals in sports history, and the long, long road to redemption. 

The Wikipedia page for the history of the Chicago White Sox refers to this era as “the lean years”, and that’s pretty accurate. From 1921 to 1957, the White Sox would never finish a season better than third in the American League. The 1921 team finished the year with the worst record in team history. That record was broken by the 1929 team. And broken again by the 1931 team. And again by the 1932 team. 

However, this wasn’t the nearly 40 years of free fall that it appears to be on the surface. The sox built a couple of pretty good teams during this time, just never a true World Series contender. The saddest part of this is that the White Sox had some legitimately great players on their roster during this time, but because the team was never truly elite, their accomplishments were mostly forgotten.  Red Faber, despite being 32 in 1921, would pitch for the sox for another decade-plus on his way to a Hall of Fame plaque. Eddie Collins, also on the wrong side of 30 in 1921, would place top 5 in MVP voting in all of the next three years as he too made the Hall of Fame. The White Sox had no shortage of stars, they just became a one man show on each side of the ball in the immediate fallout of the scandal. 

It was tough sledding for the White Sox in the 20s and 30s. From 1921 to 1936, the team finished in the bottom half of the American League every year. Faber and Collins were getting older, and nobody came to replace them. The teams of the late 1920s and early 1930s are some of the worst teams to ever take the field. Eventually, the White Sox would be led back to relevance by Ted Lyons and Luke Appling. The sox had a winning record in six out of eight seasons from 1936 to 1943, but they never finished higher than third in the AL. These teams were good, but not good enough to fight for a World Series title. They fell back to earth soon after, and the 1940s were another decade of mostly losing for the team. 

Lost in all of this are the accomplishments of Lyons and Appling. By WAR, these are the top two players in White Sox history. Appling played his whole career for the sox, ranging from 1930 to 1950, only interrupted in 1944 when he served in World War 2. The 7-time all-star infielder only played for four winning teams in his 20 year career during that stretch in the late thirties. Ted Lyons also played his whole career for the White Sox, lasting from 1923 to 1946. He served in World War 2 for three years from 1943 to 1945. Lyons and Appling have numbers 16 and 4, respectively, retired in their honors, and both are members of the Baseball Hall of Fame, but their accomplishments are largely forgotten among modern fans. A lot of this is because of their lack of team accomplishments throughout their careers. This kind of thing is unheard of. A baseball team having both of its top two players in franchise history on the team and in their primes at the same time and having nothing to show for it. More than anything, it’s a testament to the franchise’s inability to surround them with a proper supporting cast. 

In 1920, the Boston Red Sox moved on from their franchise player due to a contract dispute combined with the team’s struggling finances. That was also the last season that the Black Sox players would play before being banned for life. The destruction of two of the league’s best teams left a massive power vacuum in the American League. It was filled by the team that Boston’s franchise player was traded to. The player in question was Babe Ruth, and the team was the New York Yankees. 

The Yankees made their first World Series appearance in 1921, and never looked back. Over the same period from 1921 to 1936, where the White Sox never finished in the top half of the AL, the Yankees won five World Series championships. Earlier in this part, I mentioned how the greatest team success the White Sox saw from 1920 to 1950 was six seasons with a winning record in eight years from 1936 to 1943. During that same stretch, the Yankees never had a record worse than 88-66 and won six championships. By the time the fifties came around the Yankees were everything the White Sox had been and more. They were baseball royalty. They were the country’s biggest celebrities. Children of the forties grew up wanting to be Yankees. Hall of Fame talent came and went and was replaced with more Hall of Fame talent. They won championship after championship. They were better than the White Sox ever were.

By the fifties, the Yankees had completely replaced the White Sox as baseball’s best team, but the Sox never challenged them directly. They were never good enough to. That, however, wouldn't last very long.