1913
Future White Sox owner Arthur Allyn was born in Chicago. By purchasing Bill Veeck‘s stake in the team in 1961, combined with buying out the founder Charles Comiskeyhis grandson, ChuckAllyn was the end point of all Comiskey involvement with the White Sox franchise.
Allyn didn’t care much for baseball and bought the club mainly because of the tax benefits. His innovative idea to replace Comiskey Park with a new, privately financed ballpark (for the White Sox only, located south of the city) was opposed by Mayor Richard J. Daley – and Allyn in turn opposed Daley’s efforts to build a multi-purpose stadium in Chicago that would house the White Sox. CubsBears and Blackhawks.
Allyn was also about to sell the White Sox to Bud Selig for $13 million in 1969 when the prospect of the Milwaukee White Sox was turned away – by Allyn’s brother, John.
Art wasn’t just a disinterested, mean character in White Sox lore. He rented Ed Short to rebuild the White Sox on the fly in the early 1960s, becoming one of the first owners to provide players with a private plane for game travel, and also circumvented Florida’s barbaric segregation by purchasing a hotel where black players on the White Sox could stay during spring training.
But if Allyn was remembered at all when he died in 1985, it was for nearly running the White Sox out of town.
1950
The White Sox purchased the former Negro League first baseman’s contract Bob Boyd from their Single-A Colorado Springs club.
Boyd had made his MiLB debut with the Sky Sox for 42 games in 1950 and easily paced the Western League, slashing .373/.450/.646 with nine home runs and nearly an RBI per game (39). However, the 31-year-old played all but a dozen games at Triple-A Sacramento in 1951, where he once again killed the league. By making his debut on September 8, Boyd became the third black player in White Sox history Minnie Minoso And Sam Haarstonboth of whom first saw action in 1951.
The White Sox never used Boyd as a weapon. He left the White Sox as a Rule 5 draft pick and got his only full season in the majors, at age 37, compiling 3.5 WAR for Baltimore in 1957.
As Boyd himself said, “The early black players had to do much better than the white players to make it to the majors.”
1969
Fourteen-year MLB veteran and twelve-year St. Louis Cardinal Curt Flood writes to Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, expressing his reluctance to report to the Philadelphia Phillies following his October 7 trade:
Naturally, MLB refused to grant Flood’s request, resulting in a lawsuit that was appealed to the Supreme Court. Flood lost his case, but in the meantime, baseball instituted the “10 and 5” policy that grants no trade rights to any 10-year MLB veteran who has five consecutive seasons with one team. And it was Flood’s willingness to sit out a season and become a free agent (he signed with the Washington Senators in 1971, but was released after just thirteen games) that paved the way for free agency as we know it today – not just in baseball, but in all major sports.
Flood died young, at the age of 59, from throat cancer. He is worthy of induction into the Hall of Fame, especially when you consider both his prodigious career as an outfielder and his pioneering role in labor relations.
Interestingly enough, that October trade that Flood declined was an absolute blockbuster, including the future White Sox slugger and eventual Hall-of-Famer. Dick Allen.
2002
Although the deal won’t be made official until February, the future White Sox pitcher is a star Jose Contreras agrees to the terms of the New York Yankees after defecting from Cuba and settling in Nicaragua.
In just the second year of the four-year contract Contreras would sign with the Yankees, New York traded him to the White Sox as a starting pitcher Esteban Loaiza. While Loaiza floundered in Gotham, Contreras would leave a 7.4 WAR over 62 starts in 2005-06 as perhaps a major asset of the White Sox staff.
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