1934
Urban “Red” Faber retired after twenty seasons with the White Sox.
Somewhat overlooked in the annals of the White Sox, as he pitched in the immediate aftermath of the legendary Ed WalshFaber claims to be the greatest pitcher in White Sox history, with 67.7 WAR. That makes him their third best player ever Lucas Appling And Frank Thomas.
But don’t feel guilty about underestimating Faber, as it took him 17 tries to reach the Hall of Fame, despite ranking 11th all-time in pitching WAR at the time of his retirement (and still ranking 38th all-time 90 seasons later). Faber never received more than 30.9% BBWAA voting support across 16 (!) different votes – and failed to reach as much as 5% 10 times.
Faber’s 254 wins (254-212) fell just six short Ted Lyons‘All-time White Sox brand.
Faber also authored the second-best two-season stretch in White Sox pitching history, with 21.0 WAR (11.4 in 1921, still tied for third in team history, and 9.6 in 1922, tied for eighth). Exactly 50 seasons later, Wilbur Wood surpassed Faber’s performance, with a two-season stretch of 22.5 WAR in 1971-72.
For more information about Faber, read KP’s great piece from 2018.
1959
Bill Veeck exercised its option to purchase the White Sox from the majority shareholder Dorothy Comiskey. However, because of her brother ChuckIn the lawsuit claiming ownership of the club, the official sale date would ultimately be March 5, while the club transfer would not take place until March 10.
1964
Lucas Appling was remarkably elected to the Hall of Fame.
Sixty years ago, the BBWAA held run-off elections in years when no candidate crossed the 75% threshold on the first ballot. Appling only received 70.6% of the regular votes, and while that put all the players on the list, it was still nine votes short of the election.
Given a second chance, the writers woke from their decade-long sleepwalk on Appling’s legitimacy and swept him in, with 90.4% support.
It was Appling’s eighth attempt to be voted into the Hall, and he had not received more than 30% support until 1964! In his first year of eligibility (1953), Appling received…TWO VOTES from the BBWAA.
While this statistic obviously didn’t exist at the time, Appling’s 77.5 career WAR at the time ranked 18th all-time among position players and fourth among shortstops (even today, Appling ranks 45th in position player WAR and 77th overall). And to this day, no shortstop has achieved a higher batting average than Appling’s .388 in 1936 – something you would think would have had a major impact in an era of counting statistics.
But one aspect of the delay was sweet, at least for White Sox fans, as Appling’s four-year teammate Red Faber (elected through the Veterans Committee) also joined the Class of 1964.
2006
In one of many before and afters, White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen apologized for an off-the-cuff comment. This time the time had come Yankees third baseman Álex Rodríguez, due to his indecision about which country to represent in the World baseball classic. Born in the United States with Dominican descent, A-Rod first chose to play for the Dominican Republic. Then he decided not to play in the WBC at all. Ultimately, Rodríguez decided to suit up for Team USA.
Guillén had been quoted by Sports Illustrated as being critical of Rodríguez’s “wavering” on his decision, making him a “hypocrite.”
Defending champion White Sox would dominate the first half of the 2006 season, but faltered and failed to qualify for the playoffs despite finishing with 90 wins.
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