1905
Frank Smith tossed a one-hitter, the first of his career and fifth in White Sox history.
The proceedings didn’t begin as a Smith masterpiece, as the righty actually trailed in the game after walking Senators leadoff man Charlie Jones, Jones sacrificed to second by Hunter Hill, then driven home on a Jake Stahl (with throngs … OK, 117 fans … from his hometown of Champaign, Ill. present) single. But that was the first and only Washington hit for the game, and later on Smith helped his own cause
with a double (the only extra-base hit in the contest) in the fifth inning, sacrificed to third by Fielder Jones, and scoring on a bobbled ground ball at shortstop — the second and decisive Sox run of the game.
Smith would throw two more one-hitters in his White Sox career, and only Doc White, Ed Walsh and Billy Pierce have more all-time South Side one-hitters than him.
1915
Red Faber won his seventh straight game in a 17-inning win over the Red Sox at Comiskey Park, 3-2. Both Faber and Boston loser Carl Mays, rotation members, came on in relief and essentially pitched a second complete game on the day.
Faber went 10 scoreless innings on six hits, giving up one walk and whiffing eight to improve to 9-2. The White Sox as a team stood at 20-12, alone in first place in the American League.
The 17 innings were played in three hours, 25 minutes!
1943
The White Sox won the fastest nine-inning game they’ve ever played, 1-0 over the Senators at Comiskey Park. Johnny Humphries threw a three-hitter in a game that took just one hour, 29 minutes. Humphries in fact scored the game’s only run, doubling to lead off the fifth and getting singled home by Thurman Tucker.
1956
The White Sox made a six-player blockbuster trade with Baltimore, sending George Kell, Mike Fornieles, Connie Johnson and Bob Nieman to the Orioles for Dave Philley and Jim Wilson.
Philley, an outfielder and first baseman who’d spent his first seven season in the majors with the White Sox, part of seven seasons, had a poor finish to 1956 (-0.4 WAR, .701 OPS) and was swapped to Detroit in June 1957. Right-handed starter Wilson, presumably the headliner of the deal for the White Sox, was coming off of a stellar 1955 season with the Orioles but was mediocre in Chicago (0.8 WAR, 9-12, 4.06 ERA); he pitched for the ascendant White Sox in 1957 and 1958 as well, but saw his MLB career end after 1958.
Kell, a (very dubious) future Hall-of-Famer, was at the very end of his career yet still produced at a better-than-average clip for the remainder of 1956 and 1957. Fornieles was a swingman who could both start and close games, an average pitcher who nonetheless extended his career until 1963, mostly with Boston.
But the gems of this trade were Nieman and Johnson. Nieman was seeing no playing time in Chicago but broke out into stardom with the Orioles in 1956, putting up 4.0 WAR in just 114 games (.322/.442/.497); the left fielder would go on to a solid 17.4, WAR career over 12 seasons, 14.4 WAR coming with Baltimore. Johnson was a late bloomer who was very strong as a right-handed starter for the White Sox in 1955 and outright blooming in Baltimore, putting up 6.4 WAR and a 3.42 ERA in 87 games for the Orioles through 1958 to end his MLB career.
Although GM Frank Lane made his share of trade steals, but this one was a clear loss on his ledger, getting the two worst players of the trade for his trouble.
1980
Despite a 3-2 loss to Minnesota, the White Sox remained in first place in the AL West, at 22-16. Nearly 34,000 fans showed up at Comiskey Park on a 65° Wednesday night, excited over the prospect of fielding a competitive squad once again. Down 3-1 in the ninth, the White Sox put runners on the corners with one out but could only muster an RBI ground out and strikeout to end the game.
It was the start of a four-game losing streak that bounced the White Sox from first the next day. The White Sox would bid goodbye to a winning record a month later, but in a weak AL West stuck in and out of second place past the All-Star break, with a record as poor as 39-44.
The second half was a full free-fall, with a 32-49 record, as the White Sox finished the year in fifth place, at 70-90-2. Britt Burns, at 21, was brilliant for the club (15-13, 2.84 ERA, 11 complete games, and a 7.0 WAR that remains tied for 25th among all franchise seasons) and Chet Lemon had another solid year (4.2 WAR), but that was about it for a floundering franchise.
2009
The White Sox tied their team record for worst defeat when they were annihilated, 20-1, by the Twins at U.S. Cellular Field. The 19-run margin was first set on May 10, 2002 in Anaheim.
Bartolo Colón, Lance Broadway and Jimmy Gobble gave up all the runs. Colón at least had something of an excuse — of the eight runs he allowed, seven were unearned!
