José Valentín sinks the Cubs
1910
The White Sox lost the final game played at their original ballpark, South Side Park III (39th Street Grounds). Cleveland knocked them off, 7-2, in front of just 4,300 fans.
Just four days later, the White Sox returned home to unveil The Baseball Palace of the World, Comiskey Park. They lost that game as well, 2-0, to the St. Louis Browns, in front of 24,900 fans.
1922
Catcher and future Hall-of-Famer Ray Schalk became the first White Sox player to hit for the cycle, against the Tigers in Detroit. The Sox won, 9-5, with Ray going 4-for-4 with two runs and two RBIs. The hits were a home run, triple, single and double, in that order.
Schalk’s accomplishment marked just the second time in MLB history a catcher had hit for the cycle.
1953
With a single in his last at-bat, in the eighth inning of a 6-5 win at Fenway Park, White Sox right fielder Sam Mele started a 22-game hit streak that stretched to July 19. And it was a slugging streak, as more than a third of Mele’s hits over the 22 games were for extra bases (two doubles, three triples, five homers). All in all, Mele slashed .345/.415/.631 during his streak, leading the White Sox to wins in 17 of 22 games.
At the time, Mele’s streak stood as the fourth-longest in White Sox history, and to this day it remains in a tie (Eddie Collins, 1920, and José Abreu, 2020) for the team’s eighth-longest all-time.
1958
He came so close to perfection. White Sox lefthander Billy Pierce fired four one-hitters in his brilliant career, but he never came closer to baseball immortality than he did on this night.
With two out in the ninth inning, Pierce lost a perfect game as Washington’s Ed Fitz Gerald, a pinch-hitter, doubled down the first-base line on the first pitch he saw. The hit was fair by a foot, off of a low-outside breaking ball. The crowd at Comiskey Park stared in disbelief.
The Sox won, 3-0, but Pierce never came closer to pitching the ultimate masterpiece. On the night, the Senators only hit six balls out of the infield. Pierce struck out nine and only went to a three-ball count on two hitters. The game took 1:46 to play. It was Pierce’s third straight shutout.
Another historical oddity: Fitz Gerald’s grandfather was an important businessman in Milwaukee, active in the shipping industry. Years later, a ship would be named after him. The name of the ship? The Edmund Fitz Gerald. (Cue the song from Gordon Lightfoot!)
1967
It was one of the most bizarre plays in White Sox history.
The Sox were at Baltimore, and in the last of the fourth inning of a scoreless game Frank Robinson slid hard into second baseman Al Weis, trying to break up a potential double play on a ball hit by Brooks Robinson. Frank Robinson’s head slammed into Weis’ knee, knocking the runner out. The next day, Frank Robinson woke up with double vision, and would end up missing 28 games. Weis, meanwhile, had his knee torn up, his season ended.
While both players were lying on the ground, Sox right fielder Ken Berry noticed that time had never been called and Frank wasn’t on the base! He ran in, picked up the baseball and tagged him with it. Second base umpire Nestor Chylak called Robinson out.
Officially, it went into the books as a force out: third to second to first to right field.
The Sox, behind Joe Horlen, won the game, 5-0.
2003
With both teams hovering around .500, it was a crazy ending to another intense Crosstown game. The Cubs notched a tally in the top of the first and carried that advantage through the sixth, when the White Sox began a series of one-run innings. By the top of the ninth, the South Siders were up, 3-1, and three outs away from another Crosstown win. Tom Gordon remained in the game for a two-inning save, and that decision backfired as two singles and a walk loaded the bases for Billy Koch in full fire gear. Sammy Sosa had a sacrifice fly and Moises Alou a single to tie the game before the blaze was extinguished.
After a Carlos Lee K to start the bottom of the ninth, José Valentín blasted a ball out deep to center for a sayonara home run.
2004
The first steps that would eventually lead to a World Series title in 2005 took place on this day, as the White Sox acquired starting pitcher Freddy García from the Mariners for catcher Miguel Olivo and outfielder Jeremy Reed. Some fans anguished over the loss of five-tool prospect Reed, but no one was complaining after García helped close out the Astros the following October to clinch the first White Sox championship in 88 seasons.
Freddy would go on to win 55 games for the White Sox, in two different stints.
2009
Just six years after José Valentín clubbed a sayonara home run to beat the Cubs at Sox Park, Gordon Beckham stuck another dagger into the Ivy Bumblers. Again with both teams hovering at .500, it was a back-and-forth affair, as the White Sox stormed ahead with three runs in the fifth to go up, 5-3, and the Cubs coming right back in the sixth with three and a 6-5 lead.
But the White Sox tied the score again, 7-7, in the bottom of the eighth when Alexei Ramírez plated Beckham with a single. In the ninth, a single and walk around two outs put runners on first and second for the White Sox before Beckham launched a first-pitch fly ball over right fielder Milton Bradley for the win.