Over the years, several White Sox teams have been given nicknames. The Hitless Wonders were the American League's worst batting club in 1906, with a batting average of 230. After eight players were banned from baseball for manipulating the 1919 World Series, the 1919 White Sox became known as the Black Sox. In 1992, another group of players was accused of fixing games, this time during the 1990 season. The name Black Sox has since become associated with any series of ballgames that have been fixed.
The original Black Sox were a group of eight Chicago White Sox players who were involved in the throwing of the 1919 World Series. After their involvement in the scandal was revealed, many of them moved to other teams. Only two of the original Black Sox players currently play in the major leagues: Oscar Fuhrmann and Rick Ferrell.
The term "Black Sox" first appeared in print in a November 19, 1920 issue of the New York Evening Mail. The article described how the players had used "blackmail" to force out the manager and owner of the team, Charles "Pete" Ward (who is listed as white on some rosters), and replace him with Joe McCarthy. The term came from the idea that the players had acted like "black slaves" in order to achieve success on the field.
In 1992, seven members of the current Black Sox roster were implicated in the use of steroids during the 1990 season.
The White Sox, dubbed the "Hitless Wonders" because they had the poorest team batting average (.230) in the American League, defeated the Cubs in six games in one of the biggest Series upsets in history. This was the first World Series in which two teams from the same city competed. The White Sox were managed by Charles Comiskey and played in their third World Series in four years. They lost to the Louisville Colonels (now the Chicago Bears) in seven games in 1893 and then defeated them in seven games in 1895.
The first game was played on October 2, 1906, at Chicago's new ballpark, West Side Park. The White Sox won that opening game, 3-0, with two shutouts by Joe Jackson and one by Eddie Collins. The best record in Major League Baseball that year was held by the 1906 Chicago White Sox, who finished with a 92-61 mark. Their only loss came when they fell to the Atlanta Braves in the first round of the playoffs.
The White Sox returned to the World Series in 1987, but this time they went all the way - winning the series 4-3 over John McGraw's New York Giants. The last game was played on October 17, at Chicago's Wrigley Field. The White Sox scored three runs in the ninth inning to win the game.
Nicknames The White Sox were previously known as the White Stockings, a throwback to the Chicago Cubs' original moniker. Local publications such as the Chicago Tribune truncated the moniker Stox and Sox to fit it into headlines. The term "sox" comes from the old English word for white ball games played in winter months when there was no baseball else to play. These sox games were attended by all classes of society because they were free to the public.
The first recorded use of the term "Sox" in reference to the Chicago White Stockings was in 1875. Before that time, they were usually referred to as the Chi-Corsers or the Chi-Wis. In 1953, after many years of confusion caused by the use of the term "sox" with respect to any kind of sport, the club officially changed its nickname to the Chicago White Sox.
In 1876, after winning their first championship title, the team's owner, William Harleston, wanted to give his team an identity beyond just being "the best team in Chicago". So, he decided to change the team's name to the Chicago Cardinals in honor of Charles Albert Ballingrin, the first player signed by the franchise.
After the scandal was discovered, the Chicago White Sox players, including stars Shoeless Joe Jackson, Buck Weaver, and Eddie Cicotte, were dubbed the "Black Sox." The White Sox, who were strongly predicted to win the World Series at the start, had been severely underpaid and abused by owner Charles Comiskey. When the scandal came to light in November 1919, the White Sox were undefeated and heading for their first World Series title.
The Black Sox Scandal is one of baseball's most infamous cases of corruption. In October 1919, after the season had ended, it was revealed that the White Sox players had conspired with their manager, Charlie Tate, and a hired gun, Bugs Raymond, to lose games during the last half of the season so that they would not have to pay their players. The team was awarded the championship by default because no games were lost. Eight members of the Black Sox (Jackson, Cicotte, Weaver, Fred McMullin, Chick Gandil, Oscar Fuhrmann, Joe Quinn, and George Kelly) were eventually banned from baseball for life after being found guilty of conspiracy to defraud the American League of its property. Another player, Rollie Mitchell, died before he could be tried for his role in the scheme.
The American Base-Ball League was created as a rival professional league after the 1900 season, and the club's previous White Stockings moniker (later abbreviated to White Sox) would be inherited by a new American League neighbor to the south. The Cubs won 116 of 154 games in 1906. But due to financial problems within the league, only six teams survived into 1907, and the Cubs were one of them.
The team moved to Chicago's South Side in 1910 and was renamed the Black Sox. A group of eight players, including three from each side's World Series win four years earlier, were accused of throwing the game. Though seven of the eight were found not guilty by an arbitrator on charges of bribery, conspiracy, and fraud, the legacy of that dark day in baseball history has prevented any sort of redemption for these great players or their families.
The last surviving member of the Black Sox, Roy Cullenbine, died in 2003 at the age of 95.
After several seasons as the Black Sox, the team name was changed back to the Cubs in 1913. But unlike its National League counterpart, which had been thriving since the death of William Wrigley Jr. in 1971, the South Side Cubbingo franchise was not as successful and went bankrupt after two more seasons. In 1919, it was replaced by a new team in the American League named the Chicago White Sox.
The Chicago White Sox, commonly known as the South Siders, are a Chicago-based American professional baseball team that competes in the American League (AL). The White Sox have won three World Series championships, two in the early 1900s (1906, 1917), and the third in 2005, 88 years later. The team plays its home games at Guaranteed Rate Field in Downtown Chicago.
The White Sox have had only two managers stay with the team for their entire career: Joe McCarthy from 1906 to 1910 and Eddie Collins from 1951 to 1973. Both men have been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Third baseman Eddie Edwards is the only player who has appeared in every game for the White Sox since they moved to Chicago in 1895. He died in 1943 at the age of 36. First baseman Frank Chance was killed in a car crash in 1959 at the age of 44.
The White Sox have played most of their home games at Comiskey Park since their opening day in 1890. The last few seasons have seen them play part of their schedule at another Chicago ballpark, Guaranteed Rate Field, which opened in 2014. Comiskey Park is a classic example of a ball park designed by William Frederick "Fritz" Liebmann, one of the founders of modern-day architecture. The White Sox still play some home games elsewhere while building their new stadium in suburban Rosemont.
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