A monumental comeback — and Paul Konerko’s clubbing — crushes the Cubs
1941
White Sox infielder Don Kolloway became the second White Sox player to steal second, third and home in the same inning. Kolloway pulled this off in Cleveland as part of a 6-4 Sox win. His base-stealing feat took place in the ninth inning.
He also homered twice — his first two career major league home runs — and is the only major-leaguer in history to have two homers and four steals in a game. He also added a single and scored four times in the afternoon contest.
No White Sox player has ever stolen five bases in a game. Four swipes in one contest has been accomplished nine other times.
1973
The ill fortunes of the 1973 White Sox really came into focus, as by the time the summer ended, a team that was in first place for two months wound up placing 38 names on the injured list. Among the key injuries were Ken Henderson tearing up his knee sliding into home plate, Bill Melton suffering a groin injury, Carlos May with a bad hamstring, Brian Downing wrenching his knee on his first major league play, and Pat Kelly having a bad back.
But the most damming injury occurred in Anaheim on this day: Dick Allen suffered a broken leg when Mike Epstein crashed into him on a play at first. Allen was stretching to grab a wild throw from third baseman Melton in the sixth inning of a game the Sox won, 2-0. He would come to the plate only five more times in 1973. The White Sox, in first at the time of the injury, would fall to fifth by the end of the year.
Here’s where it really gets strange … the injury took place just a little more than 10 years after White Sox first baseman Joe Cunningham suffered a broken collarbone against the same team on the same type of play (a wild throw) — with the Sox in first place!
Also on this day, outfielder Rick Reichardt was released. He was a fairly mediocre addition to the early-1970s squad, amassing 1.6 WAR and a .745 OPS (111 OPS+) over 285 career White Sox games. He would catch on with Kansas City, to little fanfare, then end his career with the Royals in 1974, with a single in his only and final major-league at-bat.
1993
In the first of what would become a series of major public relations disasters, the White Sox released Carlton Fisk, on the road, in Cleveland. Fisk accompanied the team to Ohio, only to be told of his release before the game.
No question, Fisk was finished as a player, but the fans and media were outraged at the way the Sox handled the situation. In fact, the White Sox sent faxes to the media announcing the move, not even having the courtesy to hold a press conference. Fisk, the future Hall-of-Famer, had to say his goodbyes to his former teammates from the stands at Municipal Stadium during that evening’s game, before returning to Chicago.
2003
In front of the biggest regular season crowd (46,027) ever to see a game at new Comiskey Park (and thus the biggest regular season crowd in Chicago in the 21st Century), the White Sox exacted some revenge. The South Siders had dropped two of three games a couple of weeks earlier at Wrigley Field, and turned it around for a 12-9 win to open the second Crosstown series at Sox Park. The game was marked by the fifth-biggest comeback in White Sox history, having fallen behind, 8-0, before mounting a comeback.
The Cubs mauled starter Dan Wright for eight runs (seven earned), bouncing the righthander from the game with two outs in the third. From there, however, the White Sox bullpen locked the Cubs down while the offense went to work on Cubs hurler Kerry Wood. A two-run homer by Paul Konerko with two outs in the fifth had halved the lead to 8-4 — and it got even worse for the Cubs in the sixth. With Wood bumped from the game, Ray Durham had a run-scoring single and Frank Thomas a sac fly, with Magglio Ordoñez tying the game at 8-8 with a two-run single. The capper? Konerko drove home Ordoñez with a second two-run homer, putting the White Sox up for good, 10-8.
Konerko’s performance was an all-time best in Crosstown play, getting on base five times (two homers, double, single, hit-by-pitch) and never being retired.
2018
Cal sophomore first baseman Andrew Vaughn won the Golden Spikes Award as the best college baseball player in the country. Vaughn hit .402, with 23 home runs and 63 RBIs. Nearly one year later, the White Sox drafted him with the No. 3 overall pick.
Vaughn’s White Sox career turned into a monumental failure, however. He jumped from High-A to the majors in 2021, after missing all of 2020 due to the pandemic … and then was placed in the outfield, where he hadn’t played in the pros or college. At the plate, Vaughn was overmatched, accumulating -0.4 WAR over four-plus seasons with the White Sox with a .248/.303/.407 slash and 97 OPS+.
In June 2025, Vaughn was dumped on Milwaukee for journeyman pitcher Aaron Civale, who recently had been dumped out of the Brewers rotation.