1928
Hall-of-Famer Red Faber could do it all — and on occasion, he could hit.
Up to bat in the top of the eighth at Yankee Stadium, with two outs and runners at second and third and the game tied, 4-4, Faber was down two strikes. The righty Faber then jumped across the plate to finish the at-bat left-handed — and knocked in the eventual game-winning runs with a single!
The hit raised Faber’s average to .088 on the season, and pushed home his first two runs of the year. Oh, and Faber went the distance
for the win.
1954
The only home run Mickey Mantle ever hit as a shortstop in the major leagues was a back-breaker, coming with two outs in the bottom of the 10th off of Don Johnson to beat the White Sox, 4-3.
It was a long shot, down 3-1 in the eighth, when Casey Stengel pinch-hit Enos Slaughter for shortstop Willy Miranda. But Eddie Robinson homered and later in the inning Mantle singled in the tying run. Shortstop Phil Rizzuto then entered the game — to play second base, while Mantle moved in from center field to man shortstop (Mantle came up through the Yankees farm as a shortstop, but had played just one career inning in the majors there.
With Rizzuto and Mantle back at the normal positions, the second-place Yankees won the nightcap, 11-1, to complete the sweep and move six games ahead of the third-place Sox.
1962
White Sox outfielder Floyd Robinson got six singles in six at-bats, with one RBI and one run, in a 7-3 win over the Red Sox at Fenway Park. He was the third player in franchise history to get six hits in a game.
The game raised Robinson’s average 12 points, to .319. Robinson would end the season at .312, with 11 homers and an impressive 109 RBIs.
1987
After the Baltimore Orioles struck for three runs in the third inning at Comiskey Park, the White Sox punched back with five. The burst began with a leadoff homer from Ken Williams and continued later on with a two-run shot from Harold Baines and a back-to-back jack from Iván Calderón.
The clout from Baines was his 155th career long ball, moving him past Bill Melton for the all-time franchise lead.
As for the game, Baltimore struck right back with five runs of its own in the top of the third, sending José DeLeón to the showers in an eventual 10-5 loss.
As for the home-run record, Baines would end up as a brief caretaker of the title between longtime holders Melton and Frank Thomas, who passed Baines in 1996 and with 448 in his career remains the all-time round-tripper leader on the South Side. Baines remains fourth all-time (221), also later passed by Paul Konerko (432) and José Abreu (243).
1991
Former White Sox owner Bill Veeck was enshrined into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Veeck also owned Cleveland and St. Louis Browns. He revolutionized the way baseball marketed its product, and he was decades ahead of his time in his thinking on revenue sharing and baseball’s option clause — which caused other owners, in some cases, to despise him. But he was beloved by fans, especially in Chicago, where he’d often walk around the stands during games interacting with the patrons.
1994
Did you know that three-time Manager of the Year Bob Melvin ended his playing career with the White Sox? On this day, the Angels swapped him to the Sox for pitcher Jeff Schwarz. Melvin got into just 11 games and had three hits, none for extra bases, giving him a -0.3 White Sox WAR. He was granted free agency after the season, and never played in the majors again.
Nine years later, he assumed the stewardship of the Seattle Mariners and guided them to 93 wins. He’s managed in the majors in every year since, taking 2010 off. He’s currently the skipper of the San Francisco Giants.
1995
In a game in Chicago, Brewers manager Phil Garner and White Sox manager Terry Bevington got into a fist-swinging brawl near the third-base bag. The brawl was touched off when Ozzie Guillén shoved Jeff Cirillo on a play at third base.
Garner, who managed Milwaukee from 1992-99, had incidents with the Sox before. Many of those were prompted by some of his acerbic comments, including refusing to refer to the Sox by name, using the moniker “big city.”
The Sox won the game, 4-2.
