The History of the Chicago White Sox

            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 ...

               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....

            The go-go sox of the fifties was a team built on defense, pitching, and speed. They were built to win close games and hold leads. Which is why it’s so surprising that they won game 1 of the 1959 World Series 11 to 0. Dodgers starting pitcher Roger Craig didn’t make it out of the third inning, and the guy who came in for him, Chick Churn, didn’t do much better. First baseman Ted Kluszewski was the best player in this one, supplying 3 hits in 4 at bats with a home run and 5 RBIs.  Game 2 started out the same as game 1, with the White Sox scoring two runs in the first. It was Kluszewski again who provided the RBI groundout to score Aparicio. That score held for a long time as the game became a true pitchers’ duel. The Sox were no stranger to these, and it seemed to be their favorite kind of game to play. The Sox’ Bob Shaw and the Dodgers’ Johnny Podres would combine to give up only one run in the next five innings. Eventually, though, s...

  The New York Yankees are called the “Evil Empire” for a reason. In their 121 seasons of existence, they have won 27 championships, the most out of any team in MLB, the NHL, the NFL, and the NBA. Their 40 World Series appearances are the most in MLB history. Their 241 postseason wins are the most in MLB history by nearly a hundred. They have made the postseason over 50 times. No other team has more than 40. They are the greatest franchise in baseball history by a significant margin. Every team in MLB, no matter how young or old, has a reason to hate the Yankees. In the early 1950s, the White Sox got theirs.  The White Sox of the fifties were relevant again. For the first time since the Black Sox Scandal, they had a consistently contending roster, but seven straight years finishing behind the Yankees told them that they needed more. In 1959, they got more.  It all started with second baseman Nellie Fox. In 1959, Fox combined incredible defense with a .306 batting aver...